Communication Mechanisms to Develop Understanding - Essay Example

?Organisational Behaviour Assignment Based On Case Study Table of Contents Introduction 3 Implementation of Psychological Contract in the Company Dueto Negative Responses of the Staff 4 Existence of Motivational Gap among the Employees 6 Communication Mechanisms to Develop Understanding 9 Conclusions and Recommendations 13 References 14 Introduction Understanding organisational behaviour has become quite a crucial prospect to ensure overall business efficiency. Conceptually, organisation behaviour is the study of analysing the impacts of groups and structures based on the behaviour of people within the workplace. This analysis might include tasks to be undertaken, evaluating the impacts of the external environment on the business, the management process of the organisation and methods used in implementing the planned strategies among others. Through this approach, organisations are expected to be able to understand the flaws and strengths of its operations in a more efficient manner, which can further be considered in the process of enhancing organisational operations (Cole, 2000). From a generalised perspective, the study of organisational behaviour might also be crucial in the case of A & S Fashion Limited. Started in the year 1993, the company has developed from a small business to adding a large customer base. However, since the year 2011, the company has been continuously failing to reach its targeted sales, which further impacted its reputation in the targeted market. Different reasons have been stated in this concern, addressing the probable drivers that led to business deficiencies in A & S. In order to deal with this situation, the company will essentially need to understand the organisational behaviour by comprehending its workplace environment. Contextually, the aim of the paper will be to analyse the current operational situation of A & S and identify the major flaws that could have lead to such a vulnerable performance of the company. In this context, concepts of psychological contract, motivational gap and communication mechanisms will be taken into account in the discussion henceforth. Implementation of Psychological Contract in the Company Due to Negative Responses of the Staff For the poor performance of the company in the last couple of years, several potential reasons can be identified to have emerged in the scene. In this regard, the negative responses of the staff of the organisation might be a potential reason for the decline in the performance level of the business operations. Arguably, a generalised perspective to this context affirms that employees are the most vital assets in any organisation and constitute the vital elements of contribution in raising the performance of the business (King & Grace, n.d.). In fact, studies have revealed that the performance of businesses is directly dependent on the approach and the conduct of the employees (Vance, 2006). Hence, their satisfaction, which further impacts their working behaviour, is quite vital to be monitored continuously and managed efficiently for the welfare of the organisation. It is in this context that applying measures to understand the psychological contract in A & S shall be essential to identify the rudimental causes of the negative responses obtained from the staff. As can be observed from the case scenario, the employees of A & S have been deciphering a degree of negative response, which has in turn affected the coordination and cooperation between groups and departments as well. Such non-cooperative behaviour has altogether affected the productivity and efficiency of the organisation as every department of the business has been reported to be falling to perform at the expected level, increasing instances of inter-group conflicts. To be precise, the marketing department in A & S has been accusing the HR department for their deficiency to recruit professionals as per the need of the specific department. The finance department of the business has also been accused for being incapable to provide enough funds required for carrying-out the marketing activities with efficiency. Furthermore, owing to the perplexities persisting in these back-stage departments, the operations department in A & S has also been reported to fail in delivering the customers as per their needs and specifications, inhibiting their satisfaction level to a large extent. Apparently, such failure in A & S directly indicates to the strengths of the psychological contract existing within the workforce, resulting in mass deficiency. The concept of psychological contract was developed by Denise Rousseau (Brown, 2005). Theoretically, the concept of psychological contract depicts that there should be mutual belief, understanding and similarity between the perceptions of the employees and their respective employer within any sort of organisational setting, irrespective of the industry they are operating in. It enhances the relationship between the management of the organisation and the staff members, which further deciphers practical results in the work that is being conducted in the workplace. The psychological contract can also be regarded as an unwritten contract of employment where duties and responsibilities of both the employee and employer are dedicated and defined on the basis of mutual understanding and trust (Brown, 2005). Considering its effectiveness in revitalising a working culture and developing a cooperative attitude among the employees (or staff members) and the management team, the concept of psychological contract can be applied in the case scenario of A & S. Based on the implications of this concept, it can be argued that it is highly essential for the employees in A & S to get into a psychological contract with the management of the business in order to deliver their services in a more cohesive, unified and cooperative manner. Owing to this contract, both the employer and the employees will be bound to perform certain responsibilities that will further make both the parties morally accountable to each other. This psychological contract, A & S will also be able to get into a mutual understanding with the staff members of the business and be able to identify their strengths and weaknesses as well as motivational needs in a more accurate way. This shall in turn facilitate in enhancing the efficiency of the departmental management teams, especially the HR department of the company to keep their staff motivated and accordingly, train them for better productivity. To be precise, the management team in A & S shall be able to develop its leadership qualities on the whole and contribute to the generation of a more succinct working culture in the company (Rousseau, 1995). Hence, this approach might ensure positive results for both the employees and the employer, which in turn will be valuable for ensuring the overall welfare of A & S. Existence of Motivational Gap among the Employees Apparently, according to the case scenario of A & S, the staff members of the organisation have been reported to be ineffective in delivering the desired level of performance of the organisation. The data further reveals that the performance of the business is showing a continuous decline in the recent years, for which, lack of employee performance can be depicted as a significant reason. Employee performance directly aligns with the dedication and effectiveness of the employees towards the organisational goals and its objectives. In-fact, in accordance to the earlier discussions, employees are among the most vital resources of the business, steering the performance of the organisation in the desired direction that can also be argued with reference to the challenges currently witnessed in A & S. However, in this regard, it would be worth mentioning that employee dedication and effectiveness is directly proportional to the level of satisfaction and motivation they receive from the organisation. Contextually, employee motivation plays a key role in assuring satisfaction and dedication of the employees’ in the workplace (Lauby, 2005). From a critical point of view, it has been observed that poor performance of the employees and their respective departments, in A & S have been lacking motivation, which further fails to steer them towards efficiency. As the current business scenario reveals, the employees of the organisation are observed to be blaming each other for their poor performances deciphering a negligible or no coordination at the intergroup or even at the inter-departmental levels. Evidently, a considerable lack of communication and coordination can be identified as persisting between them, which further act as a hindrance towards a unified team work. Observably, every department of the organisation is failing to deliver the expected degree of productivity, thereby affecting the overall performance. There is also a disagreement identifiable between the employees and the management team in A & S, which can also be justified from the employees’ opposition to the total business restructuring decisions. In this regard, the organisation will need to undergo several changes, at-least in its approach of motivating employees. Absence of proper appreciation of the employees might also be a contributory factor to the motivational gap persisting in the company that hinders effective performance of the organisation’s employees. The organisation will therefore need to assure a pleasant atmosphere (stable) in the workplace. Observably, the workplace is currently jeopardised with misunderstandings and lack of coordination and team work among the employees. This can be done through frequent meetings among the management and employees, where all the misconceptions related to the organisation’s HR policies, functions as well as strategic goals could be clarified. Creating a motivating workplace is quite important in order to steer the employees towards greater productivity (Abonam, 2011). In this context, the management of A & S will need to assist the employees in accordance to their skills, whereby employees should also be given the opportunity to learn both on-the-job and off-the-job, in order to enhance their personal growth prospects to a substantial extent. Additionally, rewarding the employees for their good work in an unbiased manner will also help A & S to create a motivating workplace and augment its productivity on the whole. Furthermore, the management of the organisation will also need to implement proper communication strategies that would eliminate even the slight possible degree of misconception and lack of coordination in the working operations of the employees currently persisting in its various departments. This would mean that the organisation will need to make it clear to each and every department of the business concerning its strategic target, dignifying the employees as significant participants of the organisation’s internal stakeholders group (Lauby, 2005). Hence, this would eliminate confusions and motivate employees to work in a unified manner. The motivational gap of disagreement among the management and the employees can further be tackled with the implementation of a psychological contract as mentioned in the earlier section of the paper (Brown, 2005). This agreement between the employer and employees will ensure that both the parties are mutually benefitted from each other’s approach and thus, can be considered as an important element to motivate the employees in raising their productivity level (National Food Service Management Institute, 2001). Communication Mechanisms to Develop Understanding Effective communication is quite vital in any domain of the society. It is one of the most widely implemented tools that are used for interaction purposes among people in a particular societal context, which is also often expanded in organisational context to raise business efficiency. In every sphere of the society, communication plays a vital role in ensuring coordination and effective relation building among the engaged participants. Observably, effective communication helps to eliminate misunderstandings among people upto a large extent and allow them to live in a unified manner. In-fact, in context of today’s world, communication is often argued as the sole tool for socialising oneself. Correspondingly, effective communication is also one of the most vital aspects in the modern day organisation and its operational process. In modern day business context, ineffective communication leads to misconceptions and misunderstandings among the workforce that in turn causes serious impacts on the overall functioning of the business. Communication is also considered as highly important in marketing, management of human resources and management of customer relationship, advertising along with other operational processes of the business (King Fahd University, 2008). In the case of A & S, lack of proper communication between the top level management and various departments of the business proved to be quite impactful in hindering the overall performance of the organisation. Observably, various departments of the organisation were observed to lack sufficient and transparent communication, which led to misunderstandings among them and further resulted in their lack of coordination. Their coordination with each other can consequently be observed as quite weak, which has resulted in the overall poor performance of the business. In order to deal with such a scenario, the management of the organisation needs to come up with proper strategies regarding the aspect of communication and make sure that a better understanding between the various operational departments of the business is developed, which in turn will encourage them to work with proper coordination based on common values of mutual interests (Gopal, 2009). In this regard, several types of communication mechanisms can prove to be effective in attaining the aforementioned goals of the organisation. Among the various communication mechanisms, the business can implement internal communication and external communication strategies to mitigate the currently observed HR challenges in terms of lack of coordination and cooperation at the departmental levels. Internal communication mechanism is used to enhance communication within the business. This mechanism of communication can be used by A & S to enhance productive interaction within the staff during their regular working hours. This type of communication can be executed via speeches, meetings and through e-mails and print outs among others. As per the internal communication mechanism, there exist three kinds of approaches, which include upward, downward and horizontal communication. In upward communication mechanism, information is conveyed from lower level employees to the top level management. In downward communication, the flow of information is reversed from the higher level management to the lower employees. Unlike upward and downward communication mechanisms, the horizontal communication approach involves personnel from the same ranking in an organisational setting, such as the middle level management teams of various departments. This type of communication is effective in building or maintaining efficiency in team work and thereby, enhancing efficiency in the accomplishment of the assigned tasks (Gopal, 2009). To be noted, in the operations of A & S, there is lack of team work, which further affects the process of accomplishment of the set organisational targets (Smith, 2008; Anbazhagan, n.d.). Therefore, the organisation can adopt horizontal communication approach of internal communication in order to strengthen communication within its operational departments and enable them to work in a unified manner towards the accomplishment of the organisational goals Through internal communication, A & S will be able to convey the goals and expectations of the organisation to all its departments and the respective staff members, aiding to the development of a productive and mutually beneficial psychological contract. This will enable all the employees to be informed and will further allow them to work together towards the accomplishment of the organisational goals. Furthermore, it has also been noted that with the help of internal communication mechanisms as suggested above, workplace conflicts can be reduced upto larger extent as all the departments of the business are quite likely to enhance their awareness concerning the strategic vision of the organisation and thereby, ensure better linkage between their personal goals and organisational goals. Moreover, it has also been noted that with the help of internal communication, the management of the organisation will be able to strengthen the understanding of various departments of the business and make them responsive towards each other’s needs. Internal communication mechanism will also enable a knowledge sharing network in the organisation, which further shall prove to be effective in raising the quality of performance in the workplace (SCORE Association, 2013). Hence, it can be depicted that with internal communication mechanism, A & S will be able to tackle the communication problem existing among the various operational departments of the business. Another type of communication mechanism that can be adopted by the company is the external communication approach. It is a type of communication mechanism that is implemented by organisations with regard to communicate with the external members of the organisation (Holm, 2012). It has been observed in this regard that the HR department of A & S is alleged by other departments to be failing to hire productive employees as per the departmental needs in the recent years. Suggestively, this particular issue can be tackled with the help of external communication. The HR department of the business can therefore enhance their hiring process with the help of external communication (Holm, 2012). Dealing with the customers has also been observed as a problem for A & S that affects the performance of the business to a substantial extent. In this regard, they can develop effective communication with the buyers and ensure that they are satisfied with their association in the company. This can result in ensuring loyalty of the customers. Furthermore, it has been noted from the case that the organisation is facing a lack of coordination with the suppliers, which further impacts the level of productivity as well as sales of the organisation altogether. In this regard, with the help of external communication mechanism, A & S could be able to tackle similar kinds of problems currently identified in the organisation. External communication is mainly executed via company websites, advertisings, campaigning initiatives, customer care services and forums among others (Matthews, 2013). Hence, to be summed up, with the implementation of external and internal communication mechanisms, A & S might be able to enhance the coordination level amid its staff members along with building proper communication with the external stakeholders of the business in an effective manner, thereby enhancing the overall operational efficiency of the business altogether. Conclusions and Recommendations From the overall analysis of the paper it can be comprehended that A & S is running through a bad patch in terms of its operational performances in the recent times. The sales of the company have been further observed as in the declining spree currently in A & S. In this regard, lack of proper agreement among the management and the employees of the business are considered to be among the prime causes for the poor performance of the business. Apart from that, there has also been certain lacuna persisting in the leadership practices of the company in terms of identifying the motivational needs of the employees and thereafter, confirming employee satisfaction at the utmost level, which is also identified to be a vital reason for the ineffective performance of the employees. Additionally, lack of communication among the operational departments in the workplace should not be ignored as a potential reason for the lack of performance of the company. Contextually, certain recommendations can be made with regard to deal with this situation of the business. The company can undergo a psychological contract with the employees agreeing on certain grounds that both the parties will benefit each other through their approach that might enhance employee performances upto a certain extent. As far as the lack of communication is concerned, the company can implement the internal communication and external communication mechanisms in its operational processes, which will allow A & S to enhance the level of departmental coordination and maintain proper communication with the external stakeholders as well. This aspect will ensure that the employees and other operational department of the organisation to be aware of the needs and expectations of the company and will further allow them to work in a unified manner towards the accomplishment of the set goals in A & S. References Anbazhagan, K., No Date. Forms of Business Communication. 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