Working together as a team, building on the efficiencies that you created as a team from week 5. Imagine you are writing a proposal/report/summary for the client-
What assumptions and decisions can you make, what information would they need to make a decision to proceed on consulting with your group? How can you explain what is going on and make sense to move forward? Submit only ONE paper per team. The assignment needs to be written in Microsoft WORD, double-spaced, Times New Roman, 12 font. Graduate writing standards require all papers to be proofread for grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Organizational Culture and its Interdependence on Leadership
Introduction
Organizational culture can be termed as a system of shared values, assumptions, and beliefs that aids in understanding which actions and behaviors are and are not beneficial for a business enterprise. The garnishing of a good organizational culture is effective in providing a competitive advantage to the organization. The following study would be focusing on providing some effective recommendations in regard to the issues that have been depicted in the provided case study. The following study would portray justifications for incorporating the stated recommendations in a precise and informative manner.
Thesis statement
The department’s work culture and ambiance have been tarnished due to some reasons that have been portrayed. The following recommendations would be highly effective to foster a healthy, yet competitive work environment and mitigate the issues being encountered.
Discussion
Improving the work ambiance
An organization’s ambiance or its atmosphere is termed the climate of the firm. The climate of a department of the enterprise is reflected in its practices, policies, structures, and many more quotients. The values and attitudes of the members of the department along with the quality of interactions between the staff of the department play a vital role in shaping the climate of the department. Workplace or departmental climate is highly significant for an organization and it has the potential of upgrading and deteriorating the output of the business enterprise.
Some principles or measures ought to be incorporated and abided by to materialize a positive departmental climate in the organization. The first element in this context is transparency. All forms of information should be made easily accessible to the employees and should also be easy to find. Uniformity is the second quotient in this respect. All the staff of the department and the organization must be dealt with equitably and no form of biased actions should be encouraged by the upper management. The third element is assistance and this implies that the needs of the staff should be catered to and aid and mentorship should be provided to them (Martínez-Caro, Cegarra-Navarro & Alfonso-Ruiz 2020, p.16). The last quotient to uplift the department’s climate is to acknowledge and value the contributions of the employees towards the department. All the staff of the department must be welcomed to come up with innovative ideas and take an active or passive parts in decision-making. The value of effective communication cannot be ignored while boosting the credentials of the departmental climate, as it would aid in information channelization and mitigating departmental conflicts.
MVP
The employees must be provided with the right informational message and a high degree of transparency should be present within the message or instructions that are to be communicated from the upper management to the utmost subordinate levels. The initiation of an “employee recognition scheme” or MVP would be beneficial in reducing the degree of paranoia within the employees. The employees must be encouraged to voice their concerns to the management. A “well-being” team could be established with the department. It would consist of staff members who have been provided with training for listening to the employees’ concerns and providing effective solutions in regards to the concerns of the staff. The employees such as Sharon can be appointed to be a part of the well-being team. Since Sharon has a good amount of experience as a senior corporate lawyer and staff attorney, she can be provided with this privilege by the appointing authority of the organization.
Leadership quotients and styles that can be incorporated
The leaders of the department can incorporate the charismatic leadership style in their operational attributes. The first quotient of a charismatic leader is that a leader should be capable of demonstrating a high degree of confidence (Maduka et al. 2018, p.28). This would aid the leaders in making the staff of the department follow him or her with a low level of resistance from the employees’ end. The leaders should have a deep level of belief in their knowledge and the actions that they would be undertaking to improve the department’s overall productivity and to instill a healthy work ambiance. The application of this form of leadership would aid in embedding an incredibly strong sense of purpose within the employees. This would boost the charismatic credentials of the leaders and hence would be beneficial for the department and also for the enterprise, both in the short and long span. The leaders should not be reluctant in making prompt decisions and should take on added responsibility for the betterment of the department. The leaders could be provided with training to uplift their analytical and problem-solving attributes. The leaders would thus be able to resolve or mitigate any form of internal conflicts within the organization.
Reducing office politics
The extensive level of office politics is also a prime cause for the department’s deterioration. This can be mitigated by instilling a sense of empathy within the employees. A positive work culture can be an effective solution in this regard. It can be established by the establishment of clear departmental objectives. The management should also introduce inclusion policies within the department and also within the enterprise. Regular monitoring should be conducted to take note of whether the policies are being abided by the employees at all levels of the organization and the department. Collaboration must be promoted among the various members of the department and a high degree of employee engagement should be initiated. Some measures such as offering opportunities for professional development, buttoning up the onboarding procedure, and providing work flexibility could be incorporated by the management to enhance employee engagement. The establishment of an open-door policy would also be highly effective in this respect (Peretz, Fried & Levi, 2018, p.189).
Human relations theory
Sharon should be encouraged to share her concerns with the senior management and she should be made aware of the professional conduct guidelines within the enterprise. The employees should try to collaborate with Sharon and on the other hand, Sharon should also be encouraged to build strong personal bonds with the employees. This would aid in boosting a sense of inclusion within the department and tension between the entities would be reduced. The human relations theory can be implemented in this context. This theory would be highly efficient in improving the quotient of productivity among the dissatisfied staff of the department. The environmental attributes of the organization would also be improved by applying this theory to the operational and functional credentials of the department. This theory concentrates on the concept that social factors have a high degree of influence on the productivity of the employees and also in regard to the work environment in which they work. The environmental factors in this context are termed working conditions and money (Choudhary et al. 2019, p.357).
Contingency management theory
Another theory that can be implemented in this regard is termed “contingency management theory”. This theory is backed up by the concept that a contingency management approach is contingent or dependent on specific situations and the management behaviors’ incorporation. This theory would strengthen the relationship between the leaders and the staff of the department along with aiding in the task structures’ simplification. The managers can apply both the quotients of punishment and reward for the employees to direct them in accomplishing the department’s objectives.
Other effective recommendations
Mike and the HR unit of the organization should incorporate the following measures within their operations and functions, which are:
- Career progression and performance evaluation can be effective in boosting the morale of the employees, which would result in higher levels of organizational productivity. The reward system should be designed by taking note of the motivational quotient of the employees. The already existing reward system must be amended and improvised to get better outcomes.
- A participative management style along with a feedback mechanism must be incorporated by Mike. The reason behind it is that employees need to be provided with regular feedback about their performance and also regarding expected performance. Bonus schemes must be implemented for the better-performing employees and the employees who would be working overtime. Paying a bonus is considered a form of feedback with respect to the staff performance.
- A democratic management style can also be incorporated by Mike to involve the staff in brainstorming and decision-making actions. This style of management would be effective in extracting more output from the staff and the department would be able to accomplish its goals with high-quality output in a shorter span.
- Mike must provide the employees with a better understanding of their metrics. The management should be capable of designing some effective internal control policies for increasing the work efficiency of the employees and maintaining a healthy work environment. This would also eliminate roadblocks in the path of the department’s and the organization’s success.
Conclusion
The recommendations that have been stated within the above study have been proven to be highly effective in similar situations when they had been incorporated by other enterprises. Hence, to wrap up the above piece of literature, it can be stated that a department’s performance and environment play a prime role in the success of a business institution.
References
Choudhary, S., Nayak, R., Dora, M., Mishra, N., & Ghadge, A. (2019). An integrated lean and green approach for improving sustainability performance: a case study of a packaging manufacturing SME in the UK. Production planning & control, 30(5-6), 353-368.
Maduka, N. S., Edwards, H., Greenwood, D., Osborne, A., & Babatunde, S. O. (2018). Analysis of competencies for effective virtual team leadership in building successful organisations. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
Martínez-Caro, E., Cegarra-Navarro, J. G., & Alfonso-Ruiz, F. J. (2020). Digital technologies and firm performance: The role of digital organisational culture. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 154, 119962.
Peretz, H., Fried, Y., & Levi, A. (2018). Flexible work arrangements, national culture, organisational characteristics, and organisational outcomes: A study across 21 countries. Human Resource Management Journal, 28(1), 182-200.
