Aqua Company - Small Business Design Portfolio - Example

Small Business Design Portfolio: Aqua Company Name Course Name and Code Instructor’s Name Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive 3 Mission statement 3 The Goals and Objectives 3 Leadership Job Performance 4 Job Design Groups or Teams 6 Decision Making Organizational Culture 8 Motivation Organizational Structure and Design 10 Empowerment Goal Setting 12 Reference 14 Executive Aqua is a company that is involved in the distribution of the most high quality mineral water to the traders like wholesalers, catering outlets and other industries. It has a total of eighteen employees in its outlets one being in Scotland and it is the headquarters as well as the location where the company obtains its water from a spring over there while the other one in Southern part of England. Aqua is a company that is very keen as far as the issue of competition is concerned. It cannot be second to any other company. Recently, the company has discussed plans to buy Easy Bottler which is a new company based in Midlands which was also processing mineral water but of very low quality. Mission statement The mission is to ensure maintenance of excellence in terms of customer service, to be the most innovative water producer and distributor and to offer to customers a variety of very high water packaging, which is very safe for consumption and at a friendly cost. The Goals and Objectives The business, aims at Maintaining a lead in production To fully satisfy all customers need To offer products at an affordable price To be of great help to the community To ensure all the waste products (packaging bottles) are environmental friendly Leadership Job Performance There are a number of different forms of management like the management science, scientific management, behavioural management, administrative management and organizational management eras as discussed by many researchers (Hannagan, 2005). The following is the differences between them. According to the classical approach, the issues of productivity and efficiency were of great concerned as far as the managers were concerned in the early years of 20th century. It is the scientific form of management that concentrated on the managers of the lower level who usually deals with the daily activities of an organization management. The classical theory of organization was very much concerned with the issue of the top most level of managers who manages the all activities of the organization in their daily basis activities of the company. There was an explanation that during that century, the labour was very little and so there was need for the substitution of labour with capital and efficiency use of labour (Becker& Huselid, 2006). It is the scientific theory of organization that greatly concentrated on the use of labour efficiently. For any organization once any kind of employee joins he or she is trained on the structures that are used in the management of that particular organization. He or she is meant to understand working relationships with the managers, the co-workers and any other subordinate staff. In Aqua, this is a culture. Any new worker is taken through a training of two weeks to get to learn all the management structures of the company. The company has also chosen the best structure of management to ensure there is continuous growth of the organization in terms of employee’s satisfaction, profitability, market share and the customer relations (Salder & Craig, 2003). On the other hand, the choice of a wrong management structure will cause the organization to have problems on daily basis between the employees and the management at large, causes in efficiency in the organization’s output and greatly reduces the profitability of the organization. Many are the times hat the wrong management has been the cause of the organization’s closure. Aqua is one of the companies whose management doe not take it for granted that the structure of management is very correct and static in that it does not really need to be changed. This is because it has an evaluation carried out to determine the suitability of its management structures once in while (Becker & Huselid, 2006). Job Design Groups or Teams The structure and the operation with reference to the employment systems relation of an organization differs depending on the type of organization. So many factors influence the attitudes of the managers in dealing with the employees. The perception of the managers towards the workforce is the factor that greatly influences managerial behaviours in terms of the styles of management and their attitudes in dealing with the employees (Barney, 2006). The manner in which the manager in an organization treats the employees will influence their productivity towards the organization. This is because they are likely going to react according to the way the managers react towards them. On the other hand, the managerial styles used by the managers will also greatly affect their behaviour (Salder & Craig, 2003) There are a number of issues that arise in any company like Aqua due to the employee management relationship. The perception could be positive or negative. This means that the attitude that the management as well as the styles of management that the managers uses will greatly contribute to the output of the different teams of employees in the company. There are three ways in which this will affect. It is very important for the management to recognize the human resource in the company, the importance of knowledge management and the importance of motivation and reward systems in the company (Barney, 2006). Human resource management is one of the most important activities as far as the success of Aqua Company is concerned. This is because it entails the management of the employees in the form of recruitment and management. It also deals with all the other issue that involves the employees in the company. Some of these issues are like the hiring, compensation, management of the employee’s performances, development of the company, wellness of the employees, motivation of the employees, training, administration communication and the employees’ benefits among others. Since the above factors are well taken care of, this explains why the company’s performance is improving. Company’s performance refers to the status of the company measured in terms of its output. It should be noted that this output is because of the employees work. The more the employees work the better their work performance while the lesser they work the less the performance in the company. Decision Making Organizational Culture Aqua has the following key components in its management structure in any of the structure it intents to implement with reference to decision making (Becker & Huselid, 2006). Definition of the task. This defines al the tasks for each member of the company’s employees. It allocates the tasks, show the hierarchy of leadership in terms of who should report or answer to whom, mechanisms of coordination and finally the patterns of interaction that have to be followed in the organization. Styles of communication. There is good means of structure through which the messages are communicated in the company. The company has two ways in which it allows the messages and information to flow through pout the organization. The first way is from the top management to the lower level employees. The second form is the one in which the information flows from the lower level to the top management and it is allowed for the employees or the mangers to share information among themselves through the means of communication called the horizontal method (Hannagan, 2005). Formalization. There is a high degree of job standardization in the company whereby the rules and regulations are used in the decision-making process, management control and communication within the company. The rules are very subjective because they allow the use of informal control. Influence type in the company. This is the influence, which is used by the management to be able to motivate and direct the employees to be able to achieve all of their goals and objectives. Centralization. The degree of the concentration of the decision-making in the company is very fair for everyone in the company. This is because the employees are also allowed to participate in the process of decision-making and they have actually been empowered very well through training and enlighten to be able take part in the decision-making. Complexity. The jobs in the company have been clearly defined with some specification. They have been well defined such that they fit the horizontal differentiation whereby all the members of the employees circle are classified into units with each of them oriented very well with the kind of responsibility they are expected to take. Coordination. This is whereby the organization has taken an initiative of integrating all of its objectives in every unit or departments like the production, marketing and manufacturing in the organization for the purposes of achieving the objectives, and goals of the organizations as well as to achieve efficiency in the production process. Motivation Organizational Structure and Design One of the ways of human resource management is through motivation. Through motivation, there can be a great deal of improvement in performance (Hannagan, 2005). Motivation has been defined as the combination of one’s desires as well as energy, which are all directed in achieving a certain goal. In other words, it is what causes a certain action to be taken. In order to influence people’s motivation then it means to get them to do what you actually want them to do. It should be noted that not all people are motivated by the same things to perform. This is whereby the issue of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation comes in. some people are motivated from within themselves while other have to be externally motivated through rewards and other things. In most cases an employee knows perfectly well what it takes to gave an excellent performance but still chooses not to give the best for reasons known best to him However, it has been discovered that it is the personal inherent problems rather than the challenges in the work place that interferes with ones ability to work and give better results. These motivational personal problems ranges from the pressure in the family, lack of the understanding of the effects of behaviour to other people and personal conflicts (Salder & Craig, 2003). This means that if there is a problem existing between the employer and the employees then thee employer must seek the problem and then come up with a solution for the same. By doing this, the leader is trying to get facts right. However, it should be noted that if he gets the facts wrong, then there should never be a lasting solution. Therefore, the leader should start by finding out what the employees should be doing and is not doing, then to go ahead and record. This means that the employer can be forced even to watch the employees as they work and try to range their standards. If we have to consider the Maslow’s hierarchy of need, then money is one of the motivating factors. Other motivating factors include praises, recognition, respect and sense of belonging (Hill & Jones, 2007). There is also need to check the past records and procedure and see if there has been some appraisals going on. Once the problem has been discovered, then the employer must work with the employees to make things better. Motivation, in this case comes in where, the employer or the manager gives a feedback to the employees. This is whereby he or she lets them know where they are doing right and where they are doing wrong. Feedback in this case should not be an occasional thing but must be done very often. In addition, another way of motivating the employees especially them that are required to do many things includes helping them to set priorities. Empowerment Goal Setting Empowerment of employees to set goals through motivation is vital in any company because it helps the employees to work harder and better, to get to be more productive and to produce a more quality work. Other importance of motivation in any company includes: putting the human resources available into action by ensuring that all the employees have had willingness built up, it also leads to efficiency improvement of employees hence increased productivity, cost of operation reduction and overall improvement in efficiency, it also enable an company to achieve all of it organized goals (Olson et el, 2005). This is because there is better resource utilization, better working environment, and all employees are goal oriented. Another importance of motivation is that it helps build friendly relationships due to reduction of industrial conflicts by the employees, effective co-operation and prevention of employee resistance to changes in the company. Finally, motivations cause workforce stability. This is whereby, employees tend to remain in the same company simply because the fell appreciated and part of the company’s management. To the individuals, motivation is important in helping one achieve goals, individual’s self-development, working in dynamic team and finally helps one be satisfied in their jobs (Harris, 2004) The following are some of the practices of Aqua Company with reference to empowerment goal setting: Emergency meeting are called for the employees as well as the supervisors and the other managers to have a talk on the issues affecting both the management as well as the employees. Better strategies for sharing knowledge and communication in the organization have been implemented to ensure that all information is shared openly in the organization. Employees as well as management emotional training course have been launched so that all of them can learn better ways of dealing with their personal shortcoming. Reference Barney, J. (2006). Organizational Culture: Can It Be a Source of Sustained Competitive Advantage? Academy of Management Review, 11(3), 656-665. Becker, B. & Huselid, M. (2006). Strategic Human Resource Management: Where do we go from here? Journal of Management, 32(6), 898-926. Hannagan, M. (2005). Management concepts and practice. England: Prentice hall. Harris, S. (2004). Organizational Culture and Individual Sensemaking: A Schema-Based Perspective. Organization Science, 5(3), 309–321. Hill, C. & Jones, G. (2007). Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach (8th Ed.). California: Cengage Learning. Olson, E., Slater, S. & Hult, G. (2005). The Performance Implications of Fit Among Business Strategy, Marketing Organization Structure, and Strategic Behavior. Journal of Marketing, 69(3), 49-65 Salder, P. & Craig, J. 2003. Strategic management, 2nd Ed. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Read More