Comparison of Work-Culture of Laura & Luke Who Work at Austbank Call Centre - Case Study Example

Abstract The present work culture in Austbank shows demarcating contrasting culture due to different personality traits demonstrated by the leaders. Laura looks to be an outgoing personality, enthusiastic, and eager to work in new ways and looks to develop a process to solve problems so that brand is developed and also ensures to motivate the employees. Luke on the other hand like to stay alone, looks towards minimal employee involvement and motivation, looks only at monetary incentives, wants to accomplish the task at all cost and is hot tempered. The different personalities are contradicting in the work environment and have made it difficult for the employees to work together. Also the lack of non monetary incentives like a pat on the back or feedback process is demotivating the workforce and Laura and is affecting the working style. This has resulted in increased customer dissatisfaction and over a period of time will translate into decreased customer base and have an impact on the brand image. Table of Contents Introduction 3 Work culture at Austbank 4 Behavioral Description of Laura 4 Behavioral Description of Luke 5 Comparison of work culture of Laura & Luke 6 Person suited for the job 6 Working conditions at Austbank Call Centre 7 Work Culture look at Job Satisfaction or Performance or Motivation 8 Conclusion 9 References 11 Introduction Success of a business depends upon several factors and being able to mold the factors together helps to ensure best possible use of the resources and ensure long term success for the organization. This leads to the importance of determining job satisfaction, performance and satisfaction for employees. To ensure maximum growth for an organization it imperative that the work culture is developed which looks towards diversity and also having proper cordial relations between the employees ensures that the resources are used effectively and helps to solve the issues quickly. This report presents the manner in which the work culture in Austbank was affected due to different personality traits being demonstrated by the leaders. The inability and capability of the leaders to make the required changes in their behavior created differences between the work cultures. This affected the working style for the employees and also resulted in increased dissatisfaction within the employees. This affected the performance to such an extent that the performance dipped and the employees were unable to carry out the work entrusted to them. It created differences and also resulted in a clash of different personality traits which affected the business and decreased the morale of the employees and affected the manner in which services were rendered to the customers leading to increased customer dissatisfaction. Thus, the paper presents the different areas which made it difficult for Austbank to perform and affected their overall performances. Work culture at Austbank The work culture at Austbank shows that the business instead of looking towards developing a series of steps which will help to multiply the satisfaction level of both employees and customers’ looks towards accomplishing the task at all cost. The organization has people with different personality traits and the incompatibility that exists between these leaders i.e. Laura and Luke has made it difficult for the organization to achieve the task in hand. Instead of looking towards mutual cooperation the organization is driven by the whims and wishes of individual leaders and no consideration is given to ensure that the work carried out is genuine. The work culture has become so complicated that the business looks towards achieving the task and customer satisfaction is given no relevance. Also, the management hasn’t been sure regarding the manner in which the responsibilities will be distributed. The organization at this point is driven by leaders’ decisions and the long term perspective of building a brand image is not given any consideration which is a valuable asset especially in a service sector like a banking industry. The entire culture is shocking and displays no rules ir strategies to govern the business properly. Behavioral Description of Laura Laura’s personality traits highlights that she loves to work on different roles and is ready to change and experience new things. This shows positivity in her behavior and being open to new ideas and changes has ensured deep understanding of different subjects. Further, she is hard working and has the required knowledge to handle responsibilities which requires motivating the employees so that the work can be done through them (Jay, 2010). Another quality which differentiates her from others is the ability to listen to people and solve the differences which exist which will help the organization to build cordial relations among themselves and will also act as a tool to identify future talents thereby preparing the bank for succession planning (Yamamura, Birk & Cossitt, 2010). Good communication skills and solving the matter by reaching to the main point ensures better customer satisfaction and long term brand building. Laura also looks towards continuous feedback which acts as a motivating tool for her (Porfeli & Mortimer, 2010). Apart from the monetary benefits Laura looks towards non monetary benefits like a praise or pat on her back which motivates her and helps to perform better. The overall quality traits of Laura shows that she works in team and is willing to motivate the work force and work in a systematic manner so that all sections of the society is benefitted and helps in building a long term relationship. Behavioral Description of Luke Luke demonstrates traits where she looks towards accomplishing the task at all cost. She looks towards individual behavior and doesn’t believe in motivating or talking with the employees. She is of the view that the employees will have to work as it is their duty as a result of which she doesn’t speak with the employees nor motivates them. Luke shows characteristics where she looks to achieve the final goal and doesn’t any importance to the process. This has also led towards ignoring the process through which it is achieved and looks to compensate the employees without finding out the actual people contributing to it. Luke personality also demonstrate short temperament where she looses her temper easily and even shouts on employees and gets irritated easily. Luke just looks at the work in hand and believes at a short term vision and doesn’t believe in developing long term image so that brand can be built (Worral & Cooper, 2001). She has a different vision and is not an outgoing personality as looks only at the monetary incentives and looks to accomplish all task at all cost irrespective of customer satisfaction and the style of work. Comparison of work culture of Laura & Luke Laura and Luke demonstrate both contrasting personality traits as there are complete differences in the characteristics shown by them. It is seen that Laura is more of an outgoing personality and looks towards mixing with people and adopting new ways to do the task whereas Luke follows the same traditional ways and lacks flexibility (Jay, 2010). The personality traits also shows that Laura looks towards both monetary and non monetary benefits where Luke has only money in mind due to which she is unable to develop proper strategies that help to build long term relationship. This difference in their personalities also shows in their work as Laura looks towards motivating the employees and developing a process through which the task needs to be achieved. Luke only looks at the final result and doesn’t give importance to employees or the process which has affected the brand image of the company and made more and more customers to be dissatisfied with the services of the company (Ralston, Hallinger, Egri & Naothinsuhk, 2005). Person suited for the job This brings forward the fact that Laura is fit for the job as the job requirements are to develop process which helps to ensure customer satisfaction and helps to solve their problems(Franco, 2009). It is also required that during the process the employees remain motivated and have their focus on the job so that long term relationship can be developed which is entirely lacking in case Luke. The only area that the company needs to look into ins regular feedback which will further help to improve the entire process and help to remove the differences that exist and provide a guideline regarding the past performance and the expected future performance (Porfeli & Mortimer, 2010). Also, the fact that Laura looks towards long term development and ensures that problems both at the level of the employees and customers are solved helps to ensure that her outgoing personality provides the required advantage to Austbank and helps them in improving the services which is not present in case of Luke. Working conditions at Austbank Call Centre The work condition at Austbank is in a very bad shape. The bank works in the service sector and instead of looking towards having a mechanism through which the service quality will be improved the focus is on just providing solutions and achieving only numbers. The call centre which has Luke as there leader has changed the mindset of the employees as they look towards providing the employees with just solutions instead of looking into the entire process and the mechanism in which the image of the company is being affected over a long period (McGraw, 2004). In addition to it the morale of the employees is very low in the call centers as no batch of employees are allowed to communicate with the other batch and even the leader doesn’t look towards incorporating ways to improve communication. Instead the leader also invokes no communication and looks towards providing incentives to employees based on her whims instead of actually evaluating the work. Further, the team looks towards short term objective of providing solutions to customers irrespective of the fact whether they are satisfied or not. The lack of interest on the part of the leader to motivate the employees has further complicated the matter as it has made the call centre work in a manner where customers are not treated properly (McGraw, 2004). This has been added by the short temper which the leader has and has made it difficult for the management to execute the different functions in a proper manner (Clunies, 2007). Thus, the overall condition and the style of working for Austbank call centre is very bad and will have an impact on the brand image over a period of time. Work Culture looks at Job Satisfaction or Performance or Motivation The present work culture present at Austbank Call Centre shows that the organization is looking towards decreasing job satisfaction, performance and motivation. This is primarily on the premise that the present work culture looks towards achieving the final goal through any method. Further, little or no emphasis is given on feedback and improving the morale of the employees. Instead the management looks towards compensating employees based on their whims. The incompatibility that exists within the workforce is quite evident from the fact that the individual groups are not allowed to communicate with each other and the leader also looks towards minimum involvement of the employees and only looks towards ensuring that they work (Ross & Eeden, 2008). Further, the lack of leadership skills in solving the problems of the employees and remaining within oneself shows that the employees are dissatisfied with their performance. Even loosing temper and being able to control the emotions has further made the employees loose focus and has diverted their attention towards less important things. The lack of complete procedure and benchmark for the employees has affected the manner in which the performances are delivered and has increased the number of clients who are not happy (Tymon, Stumpf & Doh, 2010). Thus, the overall business model presently adopted by Austbank shows that the business is looking towards a lack of motivation, satisfaction and performance which will have an effect on the brand image of the company over a long period of time. Conclusion This report thereby presents the manner in which the difference in culture results in creating problems in the manner in which the work is carried out. Lack of integration of personality traits of both Luke and Laura has resulted in both looking at different ways to achieve the goals. The fact that Laura who is more outgoing looks towards using a series of steps and ensures that the employees are motivated to accomplish the task in hand and is also willing to take risk and solve the main problems. Luke on the other hand looks at the ultimate goal and doesn’t like to mix with people. Also the lack of initiative and following a similar set of rules and only looking towards achieving the target has diluted the team spirits and has affected the morale of the employees. This in addition to lack of non monetary rewards like a pat or appraisal has affected Laura and has made her loose interest from the job. The overall situation for Austbank seems quite dull and it is imperative that urgent steps are taken to improve the present condition so that employees are motivated and look towards using all their efforts to enhance customer satisfaction and ultimately ensuring maximum customer satisfaction. References Clunies, J. (2007). Benchmarking succession planning and executive development. Academic & Leadership Journal, 2 (4), pp. 23-27 Franco, G. (2009). Training and development in an era of downsizing. Journal of Management Research, 9 (1), pp. 13-19 Jay, J. (2010). Lead & Motivate: not just your team but yourself too. Super Vision, 71 (6), pp. 11 McGraw, P. (2004). Influences of HRM practices in MNC’s. International Journal of Manpower, 25 (6), pp. 535-546 Porfeli, E. & Mortimer, J. (2010). Intrinsic work value reward dissonance and work satisfaction during young adulthood Journal of Vocational Behaviour, 76 (3), pp. 507 Ross, W. & Eeden, R. 2008. Relationship between motivation, job satisfaction and corporate culture. Journal of Industrial Psychology, 34 (1), pp. 86-98 Ralston, D., Hallinger, P., Egri, C. & Naothinsuhk, S. (2005). The effects of culture on work place strategy of upward influence. University of Bangkok, Elsevier Inc Tymon, W., Stumpf, S. & Doh, J. (2010). Exploring talent management: The neglected role of intrinsic reward. Journal of World Business, 45 (2), pp 109 Worral, L. & Cooper, C. (2001). Management Skills Development: A perspective on current issues. Leadership & Organisational Development, 22 (1), pp. 34, 2001 Yamamura, J., Birk, C. & Cossitt, B. (2010). Attracting & Retaining Talent: The importance of first impression. The CPA Journal, 80 (4), pp. 58 Read More