Cultural Changes for Performance-Based Incentives and Fair Management - Essay Example

The implied core values of Olive Garden are: 1) To provide a working environment where employees are treated as family and developed through continuous training; 2) To have delighted guests who feel the uniqueness of Italian hospitality and warmth; and 3) To contribute to community development through expanding the business and providing employment.

Olive Garden has an organizational culture that emphasizes family values and continuous employee growth. Martin (2002) defined organizational culture as composed of different manifestations, including stories, rituals, practices, language, and physical arrangements (as cited in Keyton, 2011, p.20). As an employee of Olive Garden, the student has firsthand experience of what it is. In terms of stories, employees talk about their family at work and their work with their families because that is what Olive Garden wants to achieve- a sense of family bonding within the company. The organization’s rituals are composed of daily operations, including keeping the place clean and homey and the guests delighted with the service, ambiance, and food. Olive Garden wants to make guests feel that they are just dining at home, so the atmosphere is quite casual, although it has employees that serve food and take care of customers. As for the company’s formal practices, employees are well-trained to provide excellent customer service. All of them are hired because of their smile and ability to be patient and friendly toward customers. Olive Garden restaurants usually have good locations and tend to be jam-packed. Servers are trained to remain patient and accommodating even during these times. Informal practices include managers who check on the quality of service of employees and customers’ satisfaction levels and servers who go the extra mile to please clients. The jargon of the company is a mix of Italian and American words that employees use with one another. These words emphasize working together, especially during peak times. The physical arrangement of the restaurants is arranged to accommodate small and large groups, including families. The layout is spacious, so it is normal to see young kids running around.

Olive Garden is not perfect though, and it has some management problems. First, because of the “family” culture, some managers tend to have favorites. These favorites are given more flexible (or the most sought-after) schedules and busy stations where tips are most likely to be received. Second, the pay is good but not competitive, and opportunities for promotion are limited. Some of those who have been loyal to Olive Garden have left because they want career advancement, but not all are allowed to move up. Several think that Olive Garden is not as “family-like” as it wants to be. Some employees are not supporting each other too, so a few servers end up doing more work than others.

To resolve these problems, four recommendations are offered. First, the management must lead by ensuring that the vision is alive in the company by providing fair treatment to all employees. The vision of the company emphasizes the improvement of the quality of lives of internal and external customers and this cannot be achieved when favoritism is present. Zacarro and Banks asserted that leaders must be able to use the organizational mission and vision for setting collection action (Gill, 2011, p.104). To influence collective action, motivation must be present, and this can be attained by enabling people to actively pursue the vision and mission of the company in an environment where social justice is perceived (Gill, 2011, p.104). Second, to remove the culture of favoritism, workforce management must be objective and rely on existing rules and regulations. Schedules must be rotated according to fair rules, and not through favoritism. The human intervention element of making these decisions must be reduced, so that biases can be removed. Third, the core values of hospitality and warmth must be fully extended to employees too through career progress goals. Human resource managers must design career management programs that will assist employees in their track to management and other higher positions. Fourth, the management must constantly remind everyone of the vision, mission, and core values of the company through regular meetings and open communication with employees. Leaders are in charge of forging the kind of culture that supports organizational vision, mission, and core values, and they can do so by sharing them in different ways and encouraging their materialization in everyday operations (Johnson, 2009, p.28). Servers who work harder should be compensated more or provided better benefits or bonuses. This way, performance is related to incentives, and employees realize their role in attaining the mission of the company through applying core values to their customer service and workplace interactions.

Olive Garden’s organizational culture is based on its vision, mission, and core values of providing distinct Italian service and family-based hospitality. However, there is a gap between what it wants its culture to be and what it is in some respects. Managers must act as leaders who can align the culture with their vision, mission, and goals. Human resource management must design career management programs for deserving employees, while managers should connect performance to incentives and apply fair scheduling rules to all. Thus, organizational culture must be dynamic in its pursuit of the company’s vision, mission, and core values through fair management practices and performance-based workplace programs, rules, and behaviors.