Organizational Development - Research Paper Example

Organizational Development Table of Contents a. Overview 3 b.i. The Current Situation of C&S Wholesale Grocers 4 b.ii. Operations of C&S and the Implication of Socio-Technical System (STS) 5 b.iii. The Reaction of Supervisors to the Announcement 7 b.iv. Action Play to Go Forward 7 References 8 Bibliography 9 a. Overview C&S Wholesale Grocers is a company that operates in warehousing and in the distribution of the goods in the retail market. With due course of time, the company gained a substantial growth with an increase in the number of major customers which in turn increased its profit margin as well.

Along with the growth, the company needed to ensure that the organisational operations and its working culture are sufficient to deal with the increasing task pressure. With this purpose the CEO of the company decided to introduce few changes in the Human Resource Management (HRM) approach. He introduced the socio-technical approach with self-managing teams. With this concern, the discussion of the paper will focus on the appropriateness of the HRM approach analyzing the situation and the pros and cons of the entire process.

Thereby, the paper shall intend to identify the shortcomings of the approach if any and also suggest a few strategic measures in order to eradicate negative consequences. b.i. The Current Situation of C&S Wholesale Grocers C&S Wholesale Grocers was established in 1918, and presently is one of the leading wholesalers in the American region. It is entitled to provide warehousing and distribution facilities to its customers scattered all around the country. It currently operates through 3,900 stores located all around the nation comprising over 50 different markets in more than 11 states.

Few of its major customers are Stop & Shop, Giant of Landover, Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. (A&P), Shaw’s and Ralphs. The total number of employees in the company is over 15,000 (C&S Wholesale Grocers, 2010). Forecasting the growth prospects of the company the then CEO, Mr. Rick Cohen implemented the Self-Managed Team approach in the HRM policies. For years the approach has been followed in the company and continues till date hand to hand with its growth. According to the approach, every worker was provided with the opportunity to earn extra incentive as “piece-rate incentive”.

Subsequently, when one team member performed shipment successfully, others were also rewarded with extra incentives. Moreover, the employees were also rewarded through special incentive schemes, such as “quality bonus” (C&S Wholesale Grocers, 2010). b.ii. Operations of C&S and the Implication of Socio-Technical System (STS) The organisational framework of the C&S Wholesale Grocers is highly depended on the skills of its employees. Although the company includes itself in the market supply chain, it is based on the services that it provides to its valuable customers.

The employees are not only responsible to acquire contracts from the customers and purchase goods from them but are also liable to warehouse and distribute the products to the retail market. Moreover, as the company operates in the food supply chain it needs to maintain a standard to preserve the products which largely depends on technology. With an increasing market share as a consequence of increasing customers and broadening organisational structure, the company also needs to consider the technological interventions which can make the operations smoother and better.

Thus, the organisational operations of C&S largely tend to be a combination of both technological and social aspects with equal consideration to manpower and technology (C&S Wholesale Grocers, 2010). On the similar context, the STS theory is developed depending on two conditions with due consideration to the modern scenario, i.e. the organisational operations should be of a missed nature with significant inclusion of both technology and manpower and the operations should consider the organisational objectives and the social aspects of the economy as well.

This evidently supports the operations of C&S. However, one of the major limitations of the approach is that employees are only conscientious with the features which are required to maintain the work design efficiently while other features depend on the conscience of the employees and the technological and organisational need. Due to this there exists a major chance of confusion in the organisational operations with the given aspect of 21st century (Eason, 2008). Therefore, it can be stated that although the implication of STS theory has supported the organisational operations immensely during the late 20th century, it can give rise to few challenges in the present context. b.iii.

The Reaction of Supervisors to the Announcement With the increasing amount of work-pressure, the then leader of C&S, Mr. Rick Cohen decided to announce the decision to implement the STS theory in the organisational operations in 1988. Although this announcement had the potential to reduce the work load on the supervisors, it would also create a certain amount of confusion among the supervisors regarding their job responsibilities. However, the newly structured pay would provide them with greater satisfaction in the holiday season. b.iv.

Action Play to Go Forward Any kind of change in the organisational structure, especially comprising the HR issues, carries a lot of risk to affect the overall organisational performance as it creates confusion regarding the job responsibilities among the employees. Therefore, before announcing the plan I would prefer to determine the specific job responsibilities for every participant in the organisational hierarchy, from supervisors to the labourers. The consent and the view point of the supervisors are also significant in this case and therefore, the announcement shall only be made after gaining the consent of the supervisors in this regard.

References C&S Wholesale Grocers, 2010. About C&S Wholesale Grocers. About C&S. [Online] Available at: http://www.cswg.com/company/about.htm [Accessed March 28, 2011]. C&S Wholesale Grocers, 2010. Self-Managed Teams. History. [Online] Available at: http://www.cswg.com/company/history/self-managed-teams.htm [Accessed March 28, 2011]. Eason, K., 2008. Sociotechnical Systems Theory in the 21st Century: Another Half-Filled Glass? Sense in Social Science. [Online] Available at: http://www.bayswaterinst.

org/storage/Sociotechnical%20systems%20theory%20in%20the%2021st%20Century.pdf [Accessed March 28, 2011]. Bibliography Appelbaum, S. H., 1998. Socio-Technical Systems Theory: An Intervention Strategy for Organizational Development. MCB University Press. [Online] Available at: http://www.appelbaumconsultants.com/articles/1997-98/SocioTechnicalSystemsOD1.pdf [Accessed March 28, 2011]. DeLong, T. J. & Et. Al., 2003. C&S Wholesale Grocers: Self Managed Teams. President and Fellows of Harvard College.