Working Conditions of Yahoo and Its Employees - Essay Example

? Yahoo Case Study Contents Introduction 3 Analysis of the case 3 Identification of major issues 4 Possible solutions 5 Cultural & Political 5 Culture excellence approach 6 Organizational Learning 7 Human resource & Leadership 8 Organizational culture & resistance to Change 9 Conclusion 10 Reference 12 Bibliography 12 Introduction Yahoo was set up way back in the year 1994 by David Filo and Jerry Yang as a guide towards the World Wide Web. The company had grown to a billion dollar business before the turn of the century. The founders of Yahoo recognized the need to organize the web into a navigable format and set up a directory and search engine which had proved to be a massive hit with the consumers and the advertisers. But yahoo was not able to carry on the fame it had created for long time. In February 2008, yahoo share price fell from $31 a share to less than half of it. In the year 2011, the CEO of Yahoo Carol Bartz was sacked by the chairman of the company. However the share price of Yahoo had plummeted during the tenure of Carol Bartz. Analysis of the case The case study takes into consideration the problems and issues which Yahoo has been facing over the years. Initially the company was able to attract customers but with new competition from other online sites, yahoo started to losing its customers. According to the case study Yahoo lacked the hype and buzz in the technology market. The case study has also introduced many issues and problems that the company was facing along with its employees such as the corporate culture and political conflicts which highlighted the problem that the employees were dissatisfied with the mid level management; the organization was involved in silo thinking and bureaucracy, issue with respect to human resource, leadership changes and restructuring. In addition to the problems faced by Yahoo, the case study also talks about change in leadership. Marissa Mayer who was the head of the Google search group was appointed as the new CEO of Yahoo. Under the leadership of Marissa Mayer, change management has been implemented to get back Yahoo on the right track and Marissa Mayer aims to “focus on the users” as yahoo in recent years have been known for its distraction than delight. The case study shows how Marissa Mayer implemented the strategy of change management in yahoo and also follows the changes and step that she brought in Google. The case highlights the good and potential qualities of Marissa Mayer to bring about a change in Yahoo but at the same time it also highlights the resistance to change that the employees of Yahoo might face while dealing with the change. Identification of major issues Yahoo major problem was it never been best at anything and instead of defining itself the company has fitted from one new web portal to another. Yahoo has 44 different business units and with just 3200 employees it had become unmanageable for the company. Despite having about 44 different business units it do not have sales unit leading to much more confused and chaotic situations. During the golden days of Yahoo, customers were getting involved with the company by themselves and the advertisement company was ready to spent dollars on it and as a result Yahoo did not established relationship with its customers as the customers walked it by themselves which led to arrogance (Willians 2008, 209)1 Corporate culture and political conflicts are said to be high in the organization and this can be seen another big issue for Yahoo and the new CEO Marissa Mayer. As per a review it was revealed that in comparisons to 98% of Google employees who thought the outlook of the company will be better in the future only 48% of employees of Yahoo felt the same. The employees were not satisfied with the mid level management as the mid level management was control freaks who pressurized the people without making any improvement. In addition with the existence of frequent re-orgs, this resulted in firing of employees and also scrapping of projects along with frequent turmoil at the executive level, high attrition rate of the company due to lack of vision and strategy. The Human resource department was also regarded as problem faced by Yahoo such as lack of effective training, rewards system, wrong selection of talent resulting in drainage of talent at Yahoo. Also with change in leadership people may be resistance to change and adopt the new rules and policies implemented by Marissa Mayer. Possible solutions Cultural & Political According to Drennan (1992, 3) culture can be defined as “how things are done around here”. It consists of the organization; the attitudes, habits and the pattern of accept behavior. Organization do not works in vacuum and thus the way one works as well as behaves is shaped, tempered and directed to a great extent by the organizational culture (Burnes 2009)2. The culture at Yahoo need to be changed and focus primarily on the issues on the mid level management should become active and work without pressurizing the other workers. Marissa Mayer should try to convince the group to act according to her belief and undergo transformation. In order to tackle the cultural problem the CEO, Marissa Mayer needs to bring about change in the deeply embedded core values and assumptions. At Yahoo the employees had complains regarding the mid level management who did not perform work after getting promoted and were dishonest at the same time. Therefore it was necessary for Marissa Mayer, the new CEO of Yahoo to change the culture and implement friendly, proactive, concerned, team worker culture. To bring about change the core values, norms and assumption of the organizations needs to be changed along with the underlying assumptions, taken for granted values and beliefs at Yahoo. Thus it is necessary to formulate a clear strategic vision for the organization and implement the new change, model the change in culture at the highest level and modify it accordingly. The mid level management should be given training session on how to deal with work and employees and to perform working on timely basis. The environment needs to be stick with regards to work so that the mid level management also gets to work and put less pressure on the junior members of the organization. Politically Yahoo has issues of bureaucracy and silo thinking. The company had spent more time in conducting meetings than actually doing effective work. The company had not build any partnership except playing politics and silo wars between the business units. Politics is defines as the acquisition and exercise of power. Yahoo made use of legitimate politics, the exercise to use power only by those who were entitled to in the interest of the organization (Fairholm 2009, 49)3. The political behavior of Yahoo is said to be maximum due to uncertainty, secrecy, conflicts over goals and to overcome it Marissa Mayer can implement strategies of friendliness which is used to influence the co workers and reason for influencing the managers and the subordinates Culture excellence approach The “culture excellence approach” for organizations was promoted by Peters and Waterman (1982) and Kanter (1989). According to Waterman and Peters the western organization were almost loosing the competitive edge due to their bureaucratic, inflexible nature and slow adaptation towards change. In order to survive organization need to re configure and build the internal and external synergies and the managers of the organization should encourage experimentation, innovation along with entrepreneurship by creating a strong as well as appropriate organizational culture (Burnes 2004)4. Therefore Yahoo should incorporate the “Cultural Excellence Approach” not through strict rules and supervision instead the objectives should be promoted through lose control, based upon culture and shared values and empower the employees through their own initiative. The business model of Yahoo should be enhanced in a way so that it is easily adapted to innovation in the process of formulating strategies and plans. This will help the company to adapt to the change required to improve the business strategy and with the adaptation of long marches which means taking into consideration smaller initiatives in order to create a long term change. This helps to change culture but involvement as well as support is required from the employees to make it a success. Organizational Learning Organizational learning is another tool which the company Yahoo can make effective use of in order to improve the cultural and other issues prevailing in the organization. It is through learning that organizations can improve the working culture and productivity in the organization. According to Argyris and Schon, organization learning is important and can be characterized based on three levels of learning model which constitute of single loop learning, double loop and triple loop. The most effective out of the three models is the triple loop learning model as it tends to represent the highest form of self examination for the organization. It changes the overall organizational structure, practice and culture and also external factors. The CEO thus need to adapt to the triple loop learning model and in addition to it, Yahoo needs to apply the five disciplines which are also equally important to deal with changes in the organization which includes focus on collectivity of individual learning; process and system; culture or metaphor; knowledge management; and continuous improvement (Wang and Ahmed 2003).5 Apart from the above the organizational learning should comprise of features like learning strategy as it forms conscious part of the ongoing strategy, build in a flexible structure to help learning in the company, a culture which is free from blame and is encouraged to work freely in such culture. The organization needs to create a clear vision which would encourage all the members to work in the same direction. With an improved understanding of the internal factors the organization is allowed to anticipate change and prepare for the future. Team working is also important as it combines the existing knowledge of a group and also enhances and encourages the ability of the members to build new knowledge. Human resource & Leadership Human resources play an important role in the development of the organization and to make the employees work for a common goal and objectives. Human resource function has th ability to develop a sustainable competitive advantage for the organization. From the case study it has been made clear that the prevailing HR conditions in Yahoo are not effective and the employees are not satisfied with the HP policies and do not follow them. However under the leadership of Marissa, the new CEO of Yahoo the HR policies needs to be revised as per the curret organizations situations and needs. It is important to follow the rules and policies prescribe by the HR department for the effective working of the organization. Therefore the HR should act as a leader and not merely a manager. The HR should incorporate the transformational leadership keeping in mind the changing market environment, the dynamics of change in respect to culture of the organization, structure along with the individuals which makes up the organization. Yahoo needs to hire or provide effective training to the HR department regarding the prevailing issues o\in the organization and both external and internal factors is that they are able to deal with it a and when required. The CEO relies on the HR mangers for normal and effective working conditions and thus it becomes increasingly necessary for the HR to map out the organizational strategy with that of business strategy. Proper training is required to provide the employees who get promoted along with effective reward system to enhance motivation among the employees and retention of the right talent is essential for the HR department to work as per the needs and requirements of the employees. Along with HR skills leadership skills are equally important for a manager as with growing demands; HR needs to look after a majority of the work in the organization and in order to implement certain rules and policies leadership qualities is essential. The growing need for leadership which are available, ready to act should be recognized widely by the CEO and regards HR as an important team which plays an essential role in indentifying as well as developing the talent. Thus effective HR with HR leadership skills is required in Yahoo to handle the employees and other related matters. Organizational culture & resistance to Change The most important solution to the problems faced by Yahoo id change in the organizational culture. With a change in the culture the organization along with the members are likely to react in a different and in an acceptable manner. It is the primary duty of the CEO to incorporate cultural changes in Yahoo and then implement further changes. Yahoo had issue with the organizational culture to a great extent as discussed in the case study. The CEO has implemented change in Yahoo by prepping major changes in the layout of the work space and to make it more cool and collaborative. The focus on building comfortable environment is an initial move taken by the CEO. Ina addition to it symbolic gesture of free grub will help Yahoo to bring in the corporate culture. The main idea for Mayer is to use the same strategy and idea which she has used for Google and made shaped the culture of Google for 13 years which is much more effective and startling than Yahoo. Hence the issue of resistance to change occur as both the organization are totally different and adopting the culture might experience issues for the employees. The employees are not accustomed to the work environment as that of Google making it difficult to accept it. Conclusion Based on the above discussion, it can be concluded that yahoo needs to apply all the possible solutions for effective working conditions of Yahoo and its employees. Marissa Mayer who aims to bring about change at Yahoo plans to by adopt and apply the eight step of change model, coined by Kotter, to help in the planning, implementing and sustaining the change in the organization. It is important to implement change in the organization to be able to survive and sustain in the competitive market environment. The concept of change management is widely accepted by organizations and Yahoo under the guidance of an effective leader, Marissa Mayer. Therefore taking into consideration the issues and identifying the possible solutions which are discussed in the above section. However it can be concluded that change management is an important and vital strategy which are adopted by most of the leaders to bring about effective change in the organization. But changes are not accepted easily and so the leader needs to communicate effectively to its employees and other members of the organization about the need for change and what benefits it holds for the organization and employees in the future. Therefore by customizing the change plan to fit about in Yahoo along with its stakeholder’s interest. If change in Yahoo are planned properly than implementation of the plan and sustaining the change becomes much easier for the organization and its employees. Reference Burnes, B. 2004. Kurt Lewin and the Planned Approach to Change: A Re-appraisal. Journal of Management Studies 41 (6): 977-1002. Informit online. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2004.00463.x/full (accessed September 7, 2012). Burnes, B. 2009. Managing change, 5/E. South Asia: Pearson Education India. Fairholm, G. W. 2009. Organizational Power Politics: Tactics in Organizational Leadership. ABC-CLIO. Wang, C. L., and P. K. Ahmed. 2003. Organisational learning: a critical review. Learning Organization 10 (1): 8-17. Informit online http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=882645&show=abstract (accessed September 10, 2012). Wiilaims, C. 2008. Effective Management. USA: Cengage Learning Bibliography Blatstein, I. M. 2012. Strategic Planning: Predicting or Shaping the Future? Organization Development Journal 30(2): 31-38. Blomme, R. J. 2012. Leadership, Complex Adaptive Systems, and Equivocality: The Role of Managers in Emergent Change. Organization Management Journal 9(1): 4. Kudonoo, E. Schroeder, K., and S. B. Rotelli. 2012. An Olympic Transformation: Creating an Organizational Culture that Promotes Healthy Conflict. Organization Development Journal 30(2): 51-66. Lord, R. G., and R. J. Foti. 1984. A Test of Leadership Categorization Theory: Internal Structure, Information Processing, and Leadership Perceptions. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 34: 343-378. Martensen, A., and Jens. J. Dahlgaard. 1999. Strategy and planning for innovation management – a business excellence approach. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management 16 (8): 734 – 755. Read More

 

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