Organizations Today - Case Study Example

Introduction Many organisations today fail or run into problems especially when employees feel neglected or not simply well treated. In most cases employers and managers do not really think much about what their employees really feel about the whole organisation, but are contented by the fact that their employees are meeting their objectives and getting their jobs done.  It is therefore essential for any organisation (employers and managers) that thinks production should increase and hence profits should simply identify employees motivational needs and acting upon them. In the case of East Neasden, this was hardly the case. Corporate office was looking mostly at what can be done as to reduce costs within the hospital, forgetting to know that with the National Health Service completely revolutionised, this means increase competition from other hospitals. Management and Motivation The job of the manager in any work place is to get things done through people in this case employees. To be able to do this job, employees need to be motivated. Motivational needs can be defined as what employees in any organisational setting need to help them do their work so as to achieve the results required. The results here refer to the organisation’s goals set forth by management. Employees on their part have many motivational needs with all varying in importance for example; an employee might feel that they need a lot of recognition from their employer or manager to boost their ego to work towards meeting the set goals.  Once this ego is boosted this motivational need is fulfilled.  It can be argued that the behaviour of an individual at a particular moment is usually determined by his or her strongest need. It would seem significant, therefore, for managers (and subordinates?) to have some understanding about the needs that are commonly most important to people. Abraham Maslow identified 5 basic needs for any individual; physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self fulfilment. He argued that no particular need can turn on except the other need has been satisfied. In this case therefore, until physiological needs that include, hunger, thirst, sleep, etc are satisfied, can the safety needs be turned on. This goes on and on until at the level of self fulfilment, which is that need for creativity, self development and job satisfaction. However, Elton Mayo in his Hawthorne experiment discovered that people are not only motivated by the satisfaction of their needs, but also by their workplace environment since this workplaces are places where they interact and operate on a daily basis. Therefore, with a conducive work environment, people are more motivated to produce results than just economic motivation. The new work and organisational structure at East Neasden was not well received by all staff. The new stricture had made it in such a way that clinical staff did not more see themselves participating in the decision making process as it was before. Medical staff could no longer report directly to the General Manager as was the case before, but could only report to the unit managers only, who now carry their reports to the general manager. Professional officers who at first could take part in board meetings were now relegated to the back seat as advisers when it comes to medical issues. This leads to de-motivating workers in any workplace. Power and politics Making organizations more innovative, responsive and responsible requires focusing on a number of leadership, power and influence issues that are critical in coping with the strategic environment and strategic leader performance requirements in that environment. The issues influence developing teams at the strategic level, as well as managing organizational processes are all issues linked to values and ethics, organizational culture, visioning and the management of change. The situation at East Neasden can be said to have some kind of Elitists powerful group. According to the theory of power, an Elite theory is when they are competing groups in the society that are willing to impose their will on the others. But with man thinking that he is born free, is always ready to resist the elitist from usurping their powers. In this case, there is always bound to conflicts. At East Neasden, the elitist group here can be said to be the corporate offices who saw their holdings at stake and came up with the new organisational structure that aimed at limiting the powers that clinical staff could wheel in the organisation. This led to the situation whereby nurses were no longer happy with their jobs and some started absenting from work. Things were not more working in the hospital as it was before. The hospital doctor was given more powers and the increase role to play that concentrated on her saw the hospital unable to meet deadlines for submitting budgets and in the case where they were submitted, these records were not complete. There was now increase resistance from the receptionist who with the appalling work conditions saw the new office uniforms to make them look like someone from “holiday camp”. They even saw the renovation works to be done at the reception not be of any use. The challenges faced by strategic leaders in implementing complex and long-range consequential decisions demand that the leaders be sophisticated with respect to issues of leadership, power and influence. The changes that are shaping the nature of work in todays complex organizations require that a political will be developed, expertise and personal skills be made more flexible, innovative and adaptive. Without political awareness and skill, there is that inevitable prospect that the company will be immersed in bureaucratic infighting, parochial politics and destructive power struggles, which will greatly retard organizational initiative, innovation, morale and performance.1 Organisation structure The structure of an organisation can be said to the pattern of relationships between roles in an organisation and its different parts that should serve to allocate roles and responsibilities in order to direct activities and help achieve organisation’s goals. Henri Fayol (who has been accredited as the father of modern day (20th century) management) during a period where management was viewed as all being about planning, organising, forecasting, co-ordinating, and controlling, advocated for a management structure that was centralised, functionally specialised and hierarchical, and where everything had its specific place. On the other hand, Frederick Taylor drawing on his understanding of traditional science and scientific method developed the scientific management theory in which he advocates that management should be something that scientific methods of measurement and analysis should be used to broke down all tasks into small repetitive components in any operating production process. His theory was tested at Ford motors and received standing ovation for the results achieved.2 In East Neasden, the organisational structure was not that easy, but rather made things even more complex. Reporting to management was not longer easy as it was in the past. This is the case with the workers memo that had to take time to receive consideration due in part that their first attempts to send the memo failed since the general manager was never on sit either due to meetings or carrying out other responsibilities. The organisation had to accumulate functions to one person, who hardly could meet these tasks. This led to the hiring of Michael to take charge of putting in place the budget figures. Hiring of workers was but further reduced as two nurses left the hospital. Instead of reducing the work load for the workers, the management instead preferred a system of rotation but this time with limited staff. Unlike before where decisions were taken in consultation with all medical staff, the new system made it in such a way that only the manager had that decision concerning refurbishments. New management policies had made the whole work environment not best for workers as they were no more allowed to place personal items and paintings on their walls of their offices. Flower bowls that staff used to have dotted around their offices had all disappeared due to new management rules. Organisational Culture The concept of organisational culture is widely perceived as a way to understanding human systems. From an “open-systems” perspective, each aspect of organizational culture can be seen as an important environmental condition affecting the system and its subsystems. According to Edgar Schein, one of the most prominent theorists of organizational culture, organisational culture can be defined as “A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems”.3 This therefore means, as the groups evolve with time, they are faced with two basic challenges: integrating individuals into an effective whole, and adapting effectively to the external environment in order to survive. As groups find solutions to these problems over time, they engage in a kind of collective learning process that creates the set of shared assumptions and beliefs referred to as “culture”. Elements of organisational culture that are viewed as contributing positively to the development of the group include; stated and unstated values of the group, overt and implicit expectations of the members of the group, customs and rituals, stories and myths about the history of the group, the typical kind of language used in and between the group (Shop talk), the feelings evoked by the way members of the group interact with each other, with outsiders, and with their work environment, including the physical space they occupy (climate), and metaphors and symbols of the group. According to Edgar Schein, cultural analysis is especially valuable for dealing with aspects of organizations that seem irrational, frustrating, and intractable and he believes that, for leaders of any organisational setting, “…. if they do not become conscious of the cultures in which they are embedded, those cultures will manage them” (Schien, 1993). At East Neasden, organisational culture had fast been degrading especially when management decided to close down the “snack box” in favour of staff using but the canteen outside and operated by a catering firm, Highways Vending. The closure of the snack box meant limiting ways which staff could have a relaxation area as this place served the staff during quiet periods, a place to relax and talk over a cup of tea. There was a general lack of enthusiasm from the staff as time spent on patients had increased, weekly meetings between personnel now turned into a one man show as staff during meetings did not contribute ideas again as before. Organisational culture had completely broken down in East Neasden due to new management principles. Organisational change Almost everybody becomes nervous when told about changes at the work place. At that moment, almost every person has a perception as to what has to be changed and some will try resisting it – either consciously or subconsciously. Most organisations fail to recognise those differences that may make change worthless to her employees. For any organisation to effectively institute change, the organisation must be able to develop strategies that are based on the individual characteristics of the specific organisation such as mandate, structure, staff, etc, clearly put forth strong arguments as to why and how such a change is relevant to the work of the organisation is doing, set clear organisational targets and goals, with timelines, that has to hold the organisation accountable for progress; develop strategies to deal with resistance, mobilize resources to deal with such a change, and identified key persons in the company who can better implement such changes. In East Neasden, such strategies were never developed. Instead, staff came to learn of changes from the new recruited general manager and when Michael was brought in, they only saw him. The nurses who were already disgruntled had started staying away from work, no serious action was never taken to protect the clients as one of the nurse had to vet her anger on a patient, the decision to install new laptops at every office for the nurses and doctors was never done in consultation with the nurses, but they just came and saw the changes. In conclusion therefore, East Neasden had not implemented their decisions regarding change and staff relationship. The staff lacked motivation, not involved in the decision process of the hospital and were not even listened to. References Edgar Schein. 1993. Organizational Culture and Leadership. In Classics of Organization Theory. Jay Shafritz and J. Steven Ott, eds. 2001. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers. Elizabeth McMillan: Considering Organisation Structure and design for a complexity paradigm perspective. Available online at http://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/mcn/pdf_files/part5_5.pdf, viewed on 12-05-2008 at 01,10am http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/strat-ldr-dm/pt4ch17.html, viewed on 12-05-2008 at 00.26am Retrieved online at http://www.soi.org/reading/change/culture.shtml, on 12-05-2008 at 01,21am Read More