Team and Leadership Recommendations - Research Paper Example

Recommendations Based on Team and Leadership Introduction Nando’s Chicken Restaurant originated in South Africa and it entered into United Kingdom in 1992. It has expanded rapidly and it has 122 restaurants with 3000 employees. This report is focusing on how Nando’s is designing a strategy, which will improve the services offered by the employees to the customers (Liden & Henderson 2008, p. 121). The improvement on the quality of services will attract more customers to the restaurants. The current customers will keep on coming to the restaurants because of the quality services that they feel comfortable and satisfied. The strategy to accomplish this activity is through staff motivation. When the staffs members are motivated they will feel comfortable and deliver their duties to the highest-level possible (Uhl-Bien & Marion 2008, p. 263). The employees can be motivated through rewards for better performances, better remuneration, seminars and training to improve the careers, reasonable payments when working overtime. For the success of Nando’s Restaurants, the employees should be advised to work as a team. This can be achieved by forming employee teams who will work closely together in their respective departments. The team should evaluate their performances after some time and rewards given to the best performers (Rowold & Heinitz 2007, p. 53). Teamwork is very important in that the different employees will contribute various ideas to the teams. In addition, the team will solve their conflicts together without causing major problems in the Restaurants. When the teams work closely, they will learn from their successes and weaknesses. This will enable them to correct their mistakes and improve on the better performances. When all these are observed in the restaurants, both the employees and restaurant shareholders will benefit. The employees will acquire better knowledge and experience in various fields as teamwork that they can apply for the rest of their life (Komives, Lucas & McMahon 2009, p. 83). On the other hand, the restaurant shareholders will earn more profit, which will assist in the expansion of the restaurants. They will open more restaurants in other cities and courtiers using the profits they are getting from the current restaurants as a result of improved performances and quality services to the customers. Nando’s Restaurant has devised the method of improving its leadership and performance as the staff motivation (Hambley & Kline 2007, p. 142). The first team to be considered in the strategy is HR team. This is because they are the immediate people who will influence and change the attitude of the entire employees, as they are the immediate people dealing with other employees direct. HR team should be motivated in various ways. They should be given time to attend frequent leadership seminars and trainings (Harris, Hopkins & Chapman 2013, p. 63). This will enable them to acquire more skills, which will enable them to lead by example and motivate the other employees. The HR team should be given chance to give their new ideas on how the services can be improved or solve certain problems. This will make the HR team feel comfortable when delivering their duties as they feel they are part of the organization. The shareholders should consult the team before taking any step or making any decision concerning employees’ performances. (Lumby & Coleman 2007, p. 61). This is a kind of motivation on the HR team, as they feel recognized before any decision is made in the company. HR team should employ the theory of team formation when trying to meet the targets of the organization. HR team together with other managers and supervisors should convince the other employees to form teams. When the employees work in teams it will be easy as they will work together aiming the same target. HR team and managers should be recognized as the representatives of the other employees in the management level. The team should organize all the activities concerning the motivation of the employees under them. The HR team and the other managers should be holding frequent meetings to discuss the state of day-today activities in the organization (Marion & Gonzales 2013, p.194). As they are in the management positions, the HR team and any other manager should be remunerated well. This will satisfy the managers and they will not be tempted to misappropriate the funds. Trips should be organized annually for the HR team. This will motivate them as an organization has recognized the entire work they have done in the whole year. For example, Nando’s Restaurant took it all managers to a famous Rio de Janiero Carnival (Mayrowetz 2008, p. 41). The management of Nando’s Restaurants should set the remuneration for each employee at a certain level that the employees are satisfied. This will make the employee serve the customers to his/her best level. In addition, the management should consider the level of education, skills, knowledge, and experience of each employee. This will assist in determining the remuneration for different employees (Plowman & Travis 2007, p. 185). For example, someone possessing a degree or masters should not be offered the same remuneration with that of one possessing a diploma. The employee possesses higher qualifications will be demoralized when he/she realize that he is paid the same amount as that of diploma holder. The employee will fill undermined and he/she will not deliver the duties as required. This might lead to the failure on the side of the organization. This is because the employee will not be willing to serve the customers whereby the customers will not be satisfied. The customers might move to a competitor company leading to loss in the organization. The supervisors in various departments should employ team cohesion in the workplace. This is whereby many efforts are put in place to make sure that employees stay in the teams formed. This is done by encouraging friendly competition in the organization. This will make the employees compete internally in the organization (Gooty & Gupta 2010, p. 101). As a result, the company will offer the best service to the customers as every employee is competing to offer the best services. This will make the customers comfortable and satisfied by the services offered in the restaurant. The rewards will be of any kind, for example, presents and appreciation. All the employees should be recognized for what they are achieving or doing to the organization (Fry & Kriger 2009, p. 273). Employees should be paid for extra hours they work in the organization. Sometimes there are many people in the restaurants, whereby the employees will work for extra hours than their normal hours. The employees should be paid for this because they understand and accept to serve the customers after their normal working hours (Spendlove 2007, p. 169). Some employers force their employees to work over time without paying for the extra time. This makes the employees be uncomfortable during the overtime period and they will not serve the customers as required. This will discourage the customers because the employees might be harsh when communicating with them. The customers might not complain, but they will not come back to the restaurant in the future (Gill, 2011, p. 241). The management of the Nando’s restaurant should organize frequent meetings for all employees. The theory of team performance will be employed in these meetings. The theory will be employed by evaluating the team performance within the teams formed by employees. This will assist the company to identify the challenges the employees are undergoing as they try to meet the targets of the organization. After identifying the challenges, the organization will work to correct and improve services rendered to the customers. In the meeting, each employee will give his/her view on how the organization is operating. The employee will be free to raise any issue that they are not happy with in the course of delivering their duties. The management will give the views and even appreciate the employees for their handwork. The employees will be motivated even if they are not given any physical reward as they will have received appreciation from the management. The management will act on the grievances of the employees (Dubrin 2012, p. 88). Employees can be motivated when organization participates in the celebration of personal milestones. This is whereby the management will participate in the celebration of the individual birthday parties or any other celebration. The organization can take the responsibility and fund such celebrations such that all the employees will enjoy it. The employees will be motivated because they can celebrate their personal milestones generally as the organization at the expense of the organization. This is an opportunity because all the employees and the management can meet, celebrate, and have fun together (Eagly & Chin 2010, p. 94). The management should not let the employees be bored. In the case of any situation where the employees are bored, the management should intervene and talk to the employees to understand the situation for the case. This will make the employees adjust and continue serving the customer without showing them any negativity or being unfriendly. The management should take time later discuss the issue with employees and solve it. This will make the employees be free and report any negative activity to the management as they know that it will be solved as soon as possible (DeRue & Humphrey 2011, p. 87). The management should consider such issues because when the employees are bored, they will handle the customers in an unfriendly manner. The customers will be discouraged and might decide not to come to the restaurant again, which will be a greater loss to the company. Nando's Restaurant should encourage the use of digital technology (Shondrick, Dinh & Lord 2010, p. 47). This is because everywhere today in the world has gone to the digital era. They should use machines and softwares like the point on sale and online booking. This will enable the employees to be comfortable working in the digital world. This will enable the employees to compete with the competitor restaurants because they are using the same type of equipments. If the company does not have the digital equipments, the employees will not be comfortable serving customers as they will compare the equipments to those of competitors (Day & Harrison 2007, p. 352). It might reach a point that the employees will move to seek for employment in companies having the current digital equipments. This will be a challenge to the company as it will have lost the employees and it’s hard to employ new employees. Managers and supervisors of Nando’s restaurant should employ the theory of emotional intelligence of teams (Storey 2011, p. 59). This is whereby the members in at team work together by contributing ideas especially when a new employee is recruited. The other employees should be encouraged to work with the new employee as per his/her pace. The other employees should encourage questions from the new employee. This will help the employee to understand more things as he/she try to cope up with the team. This will help the company to meet the target and goals by making sure that the new employee do not lack behind and offer poor services to the customers (Cunliffe & Eriksen 2011, p. 75). The management should encourage the employees to form teams where they work together by encouraging each other. The teams can be formed as per the departments or any other group in the organization (Eisenbeiss & Boerner 2008, p. 39). The employees in various teams will set the goals and targets, which they will struggle to achieve them. For example in Nando’s Restaurant, the employees in a team can set a target of food that they want to sell certain day. The employees will work hard as they want to meet the set target. When the employees in a team achieve their targets or even exceed the target, it will be a benefit to the organization (Daft 2007, p. 66). This is because the restaurant will have sold more goods, which will enable them to make more profit. Different teams will compare their performance and this will make them have friendly competition enabling the company to offer quality services to the customers. Different employees in the teams formed will have various skills and knowledge (Schyns & Schilling 2011, p. 81). The employees will share the skills with the team members by contributing ideas, which will enable them to deliver their services to the customers as required. The management of Nando’s restaurant should employ the theory of team conflicts. This is important, as conflicts do not miss in any organization where different people meet there are some conflicts. When conflicts are experienced in the team, the leaders I the team should take a step and solve the differences (Crevani & Lindgren 2010, p. 297). After the conflicts have been solved, the employees should be encouraged to employ the theory of team learning. This will help them to learn from the mistakes and differences such that they will not repeat such mistakes. In addition, the theory of team learning can be practiced by encouraging the employees to learn from their colleagues in the team. This will enable the employees to acquire some skills from their colleagues. This will assist in achieving the goals and targets set by the organization to improve the services offered to the customers. Nando’s Restaurant fears that when they expand to a large company, it will lose its values. What they will do is to expand one company in a city or country and keep the other family restaurants operating. This will enable the company to monitor how the larger restaurant is operating after expansion (Chance 2009, p. 109). If the larger restaurant picks up to normal operation, it will also expand another in a different city until it is stable. The company will expand the restaurants slowly until all the branches have been expanded without losing its values of pride, integrity, courage, and passion. Nando’s restaurant should organize for further training for the managers to acquire betters skills and knowledge required to manage the larger companies, which are expanded. For early preparation of the managers for future expansions, companies should organize frequent seminars and workshops. This will enable the managers to acquire more knowledge for them to fit better positions in larger companies (Finkelstein & Cannella 2009, p. 192). Conclusion For an organization to succeed in expansion and satisfaction of customers, it should consider ways of influencing employees to work extra hard. The employee is a very important person in an organization (Theoharis 207, p. 132). An employee cannot be compared with even the directors or shareholders of the organization. This is because they are the immediate people who interact directly with the customers. Their interaction with the customers can either make the customers keep on coming go the competitor. Nando’s Restaurant decided to use staff or employee motivation as a strategy to improve their services to the customers and expansion of the business. Every organization should boost the morale of its employees by motivating them by recognizing their efforts towards the organization (Wright & Pandey 2010, p. 96). Motivation can be done in the form of presents where the employees are rewarded for what they have done or achieved on behalf of the organization. The organization can motivate the employees through the organization of seminars and workshops for the employees. Trip is another motivation to the employees. This is done especially at the year-end when the organization has accumulated what has been achieved for the whole year. After which they will decide to appreciate what the employees have done in the organization. The employees can feel motivated when the organization considers their advice or contribution of new ideas in the organization (Allen 2007, p. 53). The organization should prepare as early as possible for the expansion of its services or the whole company. This is through offering better training and skills to the managers such that they can be able to manage the larger organizations without having problems. For example, Nando’s Restaurants want to expand but the managers are not well equipped to manage the larger company to be expanded. References Allen, S. J. (2007). Adult learning theory and leadership development. Leadership Review, 7, 26-37. Chance, P. L. (2009). Introduction to educational leadership and organizational behavior: Theory into practice. Eye on Education. Crevani, L. & Lindgren, M., (2010). Leadership, not leaders: On the study of leadership as practices and interactions. 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