The Service Quality in Bunzl Limited from the Customers' Perspective - Essay Example

?Word Count: 2,802 Introduction Contemporary human resource management theories focus on how HRM addresses both the needs of the people and the organisation. HRM primarily deals with how companies interact with their employees by offering them opportunities for development, seeking to know their needs in respect to training and personal improvement. Training involves taking employees through courses that end up instilling in them relevant skills that enable a firm to meet its set goals. Development on the other hand entails equipping employees with skills that enable them to meet personal goals. Effective HRM therefore entails analysing training and development needs. This analysis allows the organisation to address experiences and opportunities necessary for employees to realise their personal targets as well as for the organisation to achieve its objectives. Practicality of this is well addressed when training and development programs are in place. The above may seem easy and to a certain extent common knowledge but it is rarely followed in many organisations globally. This paper takes a comparative analysis of two companies: Watsons Engine Components and H&M Consulting in respect to their organisational design and structure, team work, leadership and management and organisational culture. Organisation Design and Structure Human resource departments in companies need to take critical roles in organisational design and structure. These two aspects organise how employees cooperate with one another as they perform their duties and the general ranking in respect to responsibilities (Triplett 2007). It is however sad that in many companies HR departments are left to execute the laid out plans by top management in respect to design and structure. Consultations rarely take place in these organisations which leads to poor cooperation among workers and uncoordinated working schedules. Looking into Watsons Engine Components’ structure it is depicted as very old fashioned and hierarchical. This is one of the most attributable reasons to the mistrust between the workforce and the management. It is also the basic reason behind the highly unionised environment. When a hierarchical kind of structure is implemented especially in the domineering old-fashioned manner, the management pushes away workers rather than pulling them closer (Aswathappa & Dash 2007). It opens up a battle of supremacy between the workers’ union and the management. Watsons also has unnecessarily huge number of managers (actually 40) when the total workforce is just 200. It is impractical to have such a small company having 20 percent of the workforce at the management level. This means there is too much control and pressure towards the ordinary workers. As suggested, Managing Director Gordon Watson operates in a hands-off style where he rarely ventures in the shop-floor. It seems he has added many boxes in the chart so as to be left with little work to do. Organisational design is almost synonymous to organisational architecture. This architecture is designed to enable the company to realise its objectives as outlined in both its mission and vision. It acts as the basic infrastructure that supports all business processes and it should enable the company to take advantage of its core qualities (Triplett 2007). Watsons fails hugely also in this respect owing to the fact that it operates without a concrete mission or vision. H&M Consulting is depicted as a successful company that has changed with the changing business environment by adopting better organisational structure and design. Considering its large global presence in 120 countries, the company has to have a reliable and practical organisation design and structure. Unlike Watsons, H&M Consulting has more than 13,000 workers meaning that handling all of them is a daunting and tricky task. For this company to be as successful as it is today, it has employed a networked structure with project teams. Most of its operations revolve around managing projects by their engineering experts or offering consultancy on such. In dividing employees into teams it becomes easy to manage their efforts than they would have been as one collective group (Wood 2009). It is clearly stipulated that managers act as coaches and morale boosters by sharing their experiences in the frontline with ordinary workers. This constant interaction between the management and workers creates an environment of general harmony and respect between the two parties. Watsons experiences many industrial actions and high unionisation due to low interaction between the two. Where managers work together with the rest of the staff, hierarchical management approaches are minimised. This structure that allows for interaction offers all workers open chances to air their views in respect to progress or complaints in respectable manner. As such, managers in H&M Consulting are able to tap good ideas and implement them for the benefit of the organisation while taking into consideration all the complaints for future correction. Watson fails in this respect based on one case from their Production Manager, Ahmed Khan. Khan has good ideas of transforming Watsons that are based on his ample prior experience but he rarely wins audience with the general manager who makes himself scarce on the shop floor. As analysed, the above scenarios depict what impacts an organisational design or structure can have towards a business’ success or otherwise. Team and Team Working Managing people requires good interpersonal and general management skills. It also requires the manager to understand the nature of the company’s work and the trends in relevant fields. Watson being a mass producer of car engines falls in the category of engineering centred firms. The same case applies to H&M Consulting but the major distinction between the two is based on their people management skills and understanding of motivational theories and their application. As stated by Maslow, there are many facets that collectively result in a motivated individual. The hierarchies of needs offer a good insight to firms in respect to choosing ways of motivating their workforce. The hierarchy of needs has five needs through which an individual fulfils in the order of priority. First are the physiological needs that include food, breathing and sex among others. Second level comprises of safety needs that include security of resources, employment and health among others. Third is the need for belonging and of being loved by family and friends. Forth is the esteem needs which include the need for achievement, respect by others among others. According to Griffin (2007), the last level is that of self actualisation needs that are more prestigious and they include acceptance of facts, spontaneity and morality among others. When a company analyses the above stages in a human life and his needs, it is possible to develop better motivators that will result to higher productivity and cooperation from workers. This is an art that H&M Consulting has mastered by establishing team work as a channel of relaying appreciation and instilling a sense of self worth in workers. H&M Consulting has incorporated even the top managers into teams to interact with workers. When each worker’s input is listened to one feels a sense of relief and that they are contributing to company’s success. This results in employees trying to outdo themselves in every project (Barrile & Cameron 2007). H&M Consulting realises that since its employees are able to cater for their physiological needs, it is only good and beneficial for the company to motivate them through offering some sense of job security, friendly working environment and room for creation of confidence and self worth. In offering the middle needs i.e. safety, belonging and esteem needs, each employee’s effort can lead them to the actualisation stage or the ultimate stage. The above seems to be an alien analysis in Watsons Engine Component where employees are treated with disrespect and the management has detached itself from the rest of the workforce. Lack of teamwork in Watsons is the most likely reason behind ineffective communication, struggle to meet current orders and overworking of some staff while others do little work. This also indicates lack of general coordination of task from various departments meaning that interdepartmental liaison is quite weak. The case stipulates that there is little staff involvement in decision making due to the centralised nature of the company structure at Watsons. This is another indicator that employees are lowly regarded and formation from teams is not taken as a credible option in enhancing operations efficiency. It is clear that Watsons employs Taylor’s conservative management methods that perceive employees to be machines that need to work as told without sense of afterthought or possibility of protest or detest. When employees and the management pull away in different directions, the value of teamwork is lost. Teamwork comes with benefits accruing from people’s diversity, background, skills, ability and knowledge (Smith & Imbrie 2007). Lack of teamwork on the other hand robs a company of the same. This then explains why H&M Consulting is excelling and expanding its operations while Watson is failing with shrinking number of orders. Approach to Leadership and Management Leadership and management require that best practices are followed so as to bear any success. Management practices such as good relations with the customers, good people management skills, passion for quality and results oriented controls among others are quite crucial for business success. With leadership there is need for one to be change oriented and be ready to absorb the consequences of change. The major difference between a leader and a manager is that the former is a position earned while the latter is a title offered by the top management. As such a leader earns their respect while a manager demands it from their juniors. A leader improves on performance while a manager meets set requirements. Managers are also good in protecting their own interests unlike leaders who put other people’s interest before theirs (Hellriegel & Slocum 2007). The other key difference is that a leader comes forward to help individual employees to achieve their goals or targets while managers stipulate targets and sit back expecting them to be met. When considering Watsons it is clear that the managing director is merely a manager but not close to being a leader. This is illustrated by his motto that reads: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”. Such an attitude coming from a managing director has a great deal to explain the current bad situation the company is in. As much as junior employees are seeing problematic areas and even proposing ways of enforcing change, their efforts cannot go far. Although Watson has remained afloat for decades and with minimum direct competition, customers are demanding better quality goods within shorter timeframes. The company would be having little or no problems at all if only the proposed change initiatives had been put in place as time progressed. It has unfortunately dawned on them that the demand from customers is becoming unbearable. If Watson was a leader, he would have put Ahmed Khan closer so as to tap the knowledge that he has and build it for the better. Khan has been proposing measures like the introduction of a new computerised production technology. This type of technology would have made it easier to cope with the high frequency of orders with short deadlines. H&M Consultancy on the other hand has mastered the art of leadership and management. First is the important leadership role that the CEO Theo Wolf has taken in the company. He is a role model to both the senior and junior staff. He is led by values that are shared by all and has a clear mission on the direction to take. This has earned him respect from all with some calling him inspirational. He does this by simply instilling a sense of self worth into each employee. He is known to motivate them and peg high expectations on them. This motivation and high expectations coupled with respect for the CEO make employees to work hard not to fail him and themselves. It also pushes employees to the edge which results in them becoming highly innovative in dealing with each project. Managers on the other hand hold official titles but they try to avoid being disconnected from the rest of the workforce. As mentioned earlier, managers act as coaches and advisers to the workers on various projects. In doing this they reduce the gap that exists in many organisations between the workforce and managers. They also earn respect from their juniors rather than demanding it through their positions. There is therefore an environment created both through management and leadership approaches that fosters cohesion for the sake of common purpose in everyone (Kumar 2007). It is also important to note that in H&M Consulting mission, employee fulfilment counts as an aspect on its own. This means that in developing company strategies and policies the state of the employees is considered. Few companies have set their employees in their mission statements thereby ignoring their value as the most valuable assets. Organisational Culture There is a huge relationship that exists between organisational culture and HRM. In layman’s language organisational culture stipulates how things need to be done in a particular organisation. Researches have shown that when there is harmony between human resource practices and national culture, an organisation is highly likely to be successful (Hierling, Yeh, Chloe & Yu 2008). Culture depicts all the values that are shared and portrayed by all employees regardless of their rank. A culture will therefore dictate to a large extent the performance of a firm more so in the long term. Managers should appreciate these facts since unsuitable practices usually lead to employee dissatisfaction and subsequent low productivity and creativity. Managers who tend to instil a culture that is unpopular face rejection and risk making employees feel alienated. This leads to low morale and low job satisfaction. Trust is also a central element in developing and sustaining organisational culture. When employees feel trusted by their seniors, they are more likely to uphold organisational values. Those in leadership have the responsibility of creating a culture that integrates employee’s attitudes, beliefs and emotions among other aspects so as to make it compatible with them. An organisational culture needs to unite all stakeholders in a firm. Watson for example has a weak culture that separates the management and the ordinary staff members. This is evidenced by the fact that employees’ proposals are usually disregarded irrespective of their positive consequences. Employees as a result of neglect have ended up losing their morale which is indicated by the 9 percent level of absenteeism. Expanded micromanagement of departments by managers limits the chances of creativity and innovation within the workforce (Weihrich & Cannice 2010). Staff involvement is also negligible which indicates a divided workforce where the management is on one side while the rest on the other. With such a divided workforce an organisation is hardly able to meet its goals thereby dropping on productivity. H&M Consulting on the other hand seems to have a culture that unites all employees. This is mainly through constant interaction in attending to projects. It is indicated that after projects are completed teams are disbanded and members join new people in subsequent projects. Managers are also hugely involved in ensuring that team members cooperate in completing projects. They also offer crucial input in form of ideas and guidance as projects progress. It is also important to appreciate that H&M Consulting is a global firm that operates in different countries and regions that practice various cultures. Working in a global environment requires that a firm understands the culture of the people and act within its confines. Global environment exposes a firm to a multicultural environment which ends up contributing to part of the workforce (Ashkanasy, Wilderom & Peterson 2010). Without adequate cultural awareness the company may lose grip on many employees as the workforce is multicultural. Due to high employee motivation, overall organisational success across the globe and the planned expansions, it can be deduced that H&M Consulting has concurred with the increasingly diversified workforce unlike Watsons which has highly unionised workforce with numerous trust problems with the management. Conclusion Managing an organisation is not easy especially when operating in an international platform. Nevertheless, this needs not be an excuse for firms’ failure to persistently produce impressive results. There are many international firms that are doing well. However, looking deeply into reasons behind either performance or lack of it, it is clear to see that a great deal lies in the way a firm is managed. Contrary to the popular believe that employees can determine failure or success of a firm, they only do so as secondary participants as they simply act as agents of the management. Therefore, when employees constantly fail to deliver the responsibility should first fall on the management. Issues like organisational design and structure, extent and nature of teamwork, approaches to leadership and management and organisational culture need to be considered and formulated carefully for an organisation to achieve meaningful positive performance on a sustainable basis. 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Weihrich, H & Cannice, MV 2010, Management, 13th edn, Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Wood, G 2009, Human resource management: A critical approach, Taylor & Francis. Read More