Understanding the Weaknesses through Organisational Behaviour - Report Example

Organisational Behaviour Introduction The report is based on the study of the potential drawbacks of a company that is leading to its poor financial performance for a number of years. The company has strength of 2000 culturally diversified employees. It has three major locations in total which includes one headquarter and two branch location. The employee strength in headquarter is almost 1500 and other 500 employees are working in the two branches of the company. The organisation’s leadership is distributed in five levels of management. The organisation is showing a sharp decline in its performance over a period of time. Since last few years the sales and profit of the company are facing a downfall. The employee attrition level has also increased in this period. These problems of the organisation has been analysed from the top management perspective. The long-term goal of the top management is to enhance the financial performance of the organisation by increasing the sales and profit and to reduce the employee turnover. They need to identify the possible causes of these problems and then set few steps of attainable actions for the implementation of the necessary changes. The analysis of these problems has been done through the understanding of the theories of organisational behaviour. This study helps in understanding the effect of employee behaviour in the organisational settings and interface between organisation and employees (McKenna, 2000). Analysis of organisational behaviour helps in understanding the behaviour of individual in their organisational roles. The main objective of the analysis is to develop a better concept of the organisational life (Smircich, 1983). This study is mainly divided into three main sections such as individual behavioural study in the organisational role, analysis of the work groups and macro level analysis of the organisational behaviour. Implication of this analysis in this study will help the top management to find out the factors which are influencing the organisational performance at every level (Gist, 1987). It will also be beneficial to critically examine the reasons of organisational drawbacks. Therefore, it can lead the top management to design short term goals to eliminate those problems. Understanding the weaknesses through organisational behaviour The study of organisational behaviour involves prediction and understanding of employee’s behaviour in an organisation. Its purpose is to improve the performance of the organisation at all levels and showing effectiveness in the business management. The study involves integration of various contributing fields for the analysis such as psychology which helps in explaining employee behaviour in particular situation and sociology which explains the social impact on group behaviour (McKenna, 2000). It also involves political science, anthropology, management science and communication. To apply the organisational behaviour theory the top management of the company need to conduct three levels of analysis. These levels are individual employee or micro level analysis, Group or meso analysis and macro level or organisational analysis (Brief and Motowidlo, 1986). Micro analysis of the organisational behaviour In the micro level analysis, the management needs to analyse the behaviour of individuals in the organisation such as their value, attitude, attribution, motivation, creativity, personality, learning, task performance, cooperative behaviour and ethics (Robbins and Judge, 2012). At this level, psychological study is very important to identify these factors among employees. It also helps in searching those important factors which is not available in the current employees. To successfully analyse the micro level of the organisation, top management needs to closely study the diversified work force. Employees of any organisation can be diversified by age, gender, religion, race and ethnicity. Researchers have shown that diversity does contribute in many opportunities in the organisation but it also provokes various discriminations in the workplace (Cox and Blake, 1991). Gender discrimination can adversely affect the productivity of an organisation. Victims of gender discrimination in any organisation generally lose their motivation towards work. This discrimination activity involves offensive and inferiority jokes and sexual comments. Stereotypical views about gender influences superiors in an organisation to involve in an unethical practice of pass over women for promotion due to preconceived belief about their capabilities. For an example, chief in any fire department may pass over the female worker over promotion due to the belief that men inherently performs well in these kinds of job roles. This kind of discrimination may cause loss of self worth of the employee in the workplace. Therefore, it can cause loss of talented workforce (Igbaria and Baroudi, 1995). The primary study has disclosed that most of the managerial level of the organisation is male dominated. The organisation also possesses female employees in various levels but the number is surprisingly low. The attitude to look at any problem and processes to solve them differ in case of men and women employees. Both have different sets of skills to fulfil their targets. All these skills are very important to achieve organisational goals. The lesser number of female employees in managerial level is certainly indicating the drawback in the employee management process of the organisation. Cultural diversity among employees helps an organisation to set a global standard. On the other hand there are some negative effects of diversity in the workplace. Increased communicational barrier and cultural resistance are the main adverse effect of diversification of workforce. Various organisations generally hire interpreters or trainers to minimize the communicational distance between employees (Austin, 2008). The organisation in this discussion has employees from different cultural background but their work strategies are same for all the employees. They do not follow any separate training procedure which can neutralize the difference of the employees from different cultural background. This leads to communication gap within the employees and senior managements. This can further generate cultural discrimination among the employees. This discrimination in the workplace can be one of the reasons for the employee attrition in the company. Any organisation which has diversified workforce needs to study the basic needs of all those different sections (Deitch, et al., 2003). Various organisational researches have shown that aging of the workforce is generating the concern of the HR managers. Aging of the workforce results in loss of skilled employees and increase in medicinal cost of the company (DeLong, 2004). The rapid attrition of newly joined employees and the retirement of skilled old employees are causing a huge scarcity in the workforce of the organisation. Proper training procedure is very essential for the efficiency of the workforce. Proper training program also gives employees knowledge and work satisfaction. The training procedure of a culturally diversified workforce should be designed in such a way that it can satisfy all the query of the employees (Zakaria, 2000). Though the organisation has a diversified workforce, it follows a uniform method of training for them. This training procedure is unable to impart required knowledge to the employees. Difference in individual personalities of the employees determines various aspects of behaviour in organisation such as the communication style, negotiation style and reactions to the leaders. Group activities can enhance the positive traits of the personalities (Hersey, Blanchard and Johnson, 1988). The organisation focuses on the individual activity than any team work which is affecting the development of their personalities. Group analysis of the organisational behaviour Meso level or the group level analysis of the organisational behaviour generally involves the study of leadership, interpersonal communication, networks, power and politics and group communication (Johns, 2006). Sociological and socio-psychological study is important to understand the factors impacting the organisational behaviour at this level. The study of sociology is essential to understand the effect of diversified cultures in the group behaviour. This study also contributes to the field of group-dynamics, norms and communication within group and group decision making power. On the other hand the study of social psychology gives a mixed view about the employee and organisational behaviour. This field contributes to study of group decision making ability, maintenance of social norms and group communication ability (Renuka and Frederick, 2014). Effective group communication is another key feature for organisational betterment. It ensures efficient action of all the teams in the organisation and encourages employees to provide their valuable inputs. Effective team communication is very important with the ever changing business world. It allows employees to keep up with the changes of work place and responsibilities Effective communication within business teams invites employees from various backgrounds to share their knowledge (Renuka and Frederick, 2014). The study of the organisation conveys the top management that the organisation has a very poor structure of communication across the teams. Most of the employees are assigned with individual responsibilities and they are not exposed to any team activities. This can hamper their team efficiency and therefore demoralize the employees in the workplace. Absence of proper group or team performance in the organisation is one of the drawbacks of its management. The senior managements have provided the employees with individual assignments rather than forming any efficient team. Team’s efforts provide satisfaction, shared interest, power, security and self-esteem to its members (Johns, 2006). Absence of team work and proper team management in the organisation caused decrease in employee efficiency and employee motivation towards work. Various organisations promote team efforts through a number of activities and rewards. The strong communication network within various branches of organisation is one of the important parts of the organisational success. Strong communication network helps organisation to easily convey their messages across all the branches. It is also useful to collect necessary information regarding the work progress and work obstacles from the different location of organisation. Understanding of group dynamics is very useful in any organisation for proper decision-making process, tracking the problems within the individuals and groups in the organisation and creating effective solutions for those problems (Hersey, Blanchard and Johnson, 1988). The Tuckman’s theory has described five basic stages of developments for newly created groups, such as forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. Forming is the primary stage of a group which involves the target and goal setting of the group members and leaders. Storming involves the conflict and disagreement management of the group regarding the goals. The third stage involves understanding of individual differences and sharing the expectation. At the performing stage all the group member should be adjusted with the group structures and goals. This stage ensures proper execution of group objectives. The adjourning stage will start when a group fulfils the required target. At this stage the group should reach to a positive closure so that group members do not feel demotivated (Maples, 1988). The socio-psychological analysis of the organisation confirms that the understanding and proper management of group dynamics is very poor within the management. The organisation already has limited team work and they do not properly follow the stages of group development (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1977). Leadership style that displays initiatives, positive communication traits, analytical and conceptual skills generally contributes to the achievement of organisational goals. Leadership style, which is not involved in any monopoly of authority, can improve the interpersonal relationship between employees (Chiok Foong Loke, 2001). The organisation has five layers of management but the leadership style majorly follows the monopoly of authority. This is hampering the positive communication between top management and employees. Absence of effective leadership is also weakening the interpersonal relationship within the workforce of the organisation. Macro analysis of the organisational behaviour Macro analysis of an organisation involves the study of intra and inter-group conflict management, organisational structure and organisational politics. Anthropology and political science study is important to understand the factors affecting the macro analysis of any organisation. Anthropology study involves the understanding of organisational work culture and its influence on employee’s perception about the roles and responsibilities. This study is more useful to organisations due to the globalisation as well as mergers and acquisition of industries (Bowditch, Buono and Stewart 1997). Political science helps to understand the individual behaviour under the political environment of an organisation (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1974). Good conflict management skills within the group leaders are very necessary for the success of business operations. Conflicts within the workforce in an organisation can increase violence and employee turnover and it can also decrease the productivity level. The ability to efficiently manage conflict helps the organisation to utilize the different opinions of employees for the growth and learning of the company (Thomas, 1992). Conflict in an organisation can be classified into 3 major categories such as conflict within individuals, interpersonal conflict and conflict between individual and group. Conflict within individual occurs when the organisational expectation from an employee does not match the beliefs held by that individual. Interpersonal conflict involves two or more individual of an organisation who has a conflict of interests (Rahim, 1983). Conflict between individuals and group may refer to the disagreement of individuals with the norms and goals of the group (Rahim and Bonoma, 1979). The primary view of the work process in the organisation ensures that the employees are facing interpersonal conflict and conflict within individuals. Senior management lacks good conflict management skills which prohibits the organisation to properly handle their workforce and proper distribution of knowledge. Organisational politics refers to the irrational behaviour of authorities and individuals to obtain the unethical advantages and control. Organisational politics adversely affect the overall productivity of employees. Various researchers have proven that management or employees, who provide undue attention towards the politics in the organisation, always lose their attention from the successful execution of the target (Salin, 2003). Organisational politics spoils the work ambiance, increase stress and demotivate the employees (Miller, Rutherford and Kolodinsky, 2008). The study of the organisational operations confirms that the work politics is a very common practice in the day to day work life. The practice of work politics within the senior management and employees causes dissatisfaction among the workforce. This also can result in increased attrition rate. Proper organisational structure promotes work environment and establishes a healthy relationship between managers and workers. Grouping people as per their knowledge and skills enhance the performance of the workforces. Understanding of different organisational group structures is very essential to shape employee behaviour (Dandridge, Mitroff and Joyce, 1980). This study helps the newly appointed top manager to understand the drawbacks of the current organisational structure. Challenges and opportunities The top management needs to undergo various challenges to conduct these studies to understand the major drawbacks of the organisation. The primary challenge for the top management is the scarcity of knowledge about the organisational structure. As a new employee of the organisation the top level manager is not very well-versed with all the levels of employees and operations of the organisation. It is a large company with almost 2000 employees that will make it quite difficult to effectively communicate with all the employees of all the three branches. On the other hand the top management positions possess the power to easily access all the data of the organisation. It will also help the top management to effectively communicate with all the other managerial levels. The majority of the employees including the manager and senior managers are based in headquarter. It will help the top management to arrange necessary meeting and training effectively. Conclusion and recommendation The in-depth study of the organisational behaviour helps the top management to understand the present structure of the company. Proper execution of all those steps helps them to find out the weaknesses and drawbacks of the organisation. This study conveys that the organisation has several loopholes in their operations which includes cultural and gender discrimination, improper training procedures and absence of personality development training and group activities. It also suggests that the organisation has not maintained any proper communication with the branches and the group dynamics are poor. It is also can be deduced that the work politics is quite high in the organisation. These obstacles are hampering the productivity of the organisation. Improper training and communication procedures are demoralizing employees. Therefore, the attrition rate is increasing. Loss of the skilled employees is prohibiting the growth of the company. Therefore, it is causing loss in the profit of the organisation. The organisational behaviour study will help the top management to come up with some valuable recommendations. These will help the organisation to improve the current work pattern and motivate the employees. Proper guideline needs to be applied to eliminate the stereotypical views of the superiors in the organisation. The behaviour of senior managements should be closely monitored by the top management so that they cannot encourage the discrimination within the work force. The top management needs to create a panel which will conduct monthly one to one communication session. This communication session will help the management to gather all the feedbacks from the workforce. This neutral panel will help the employees to openly discuss their problems. Monthly review of the employee feedback will be examined by the top management. This will be beneficial to create a healthy work environment. The recruitment team needs to be directed to hire more female employees in the managerial levels to balance the workforce. The top management also needs to focus on the performance evaluation of the female employees of the organisation. Those employees need to be appraised and promoted as per their performances. The top management needs to encourage and closely monitor the unbiased performance evaluation procedure. This will motivate the female employees of the organisation and will enhance their contribution in the growth of the organisation. The employee performance evaluation team also needs to understand the leadership qualities in the employees. These leadership qualities need to be influenced with proper training, responsibilities and challenges. The organisation is already having a culturally diversified workforce. Their training system is not so focused on the proper improvement of the skills of employees from different cultural backgrounds. Multilingual training procedure needs to be applied for the ease of understanding. These training procedures will help the employees from different language background to clearly understand the role, regulation and work process of the organisation. Time to time cultural training programs need to be organised to impart the knowledge of diversified culture among the team. For this training program they need to hire trainers who will help the employees to understand different norms of different cultures. This training program not only minimizes the cultural biasness in the organisation, it will also help the management to understand the usage of attributes of these cultures in the growth of the business. The company needs to provide mental and physical health check up facilities to the old and skilled employees. This check up facilities will focus on their satisfaction level with the job roles and responsibilities. It will also measure their physical ability to execute those responsibilities on time. This check up procedure will help the top management to understand the level of work satisfaction and physical ability of the skilled employees. Therefore, they can assign suitable profiles to those employees. This procedure will help the company to retain their old employees and increase their productivity. The organisation hardly follows any group activities. Most of the work is done on individual basis. This work procedure is hampering the scope of knowledge sharing and development of the employees. Top management need to promote group activities across the organisation. Team of minimum three or four members needs to be created for the execution of every task in the organisation. Each of the group needs a manager as a group leader to monitor every work progress. The employees of each group can share the knowledge of other employees. It will help them to utilize new and innovative methodologies for timely and successfully execution of any process. The groups will be assigned with short and attainable goals and time to time reporting about the progress will be done by the group leaders. The top management needs to focus on the development of the intra and inter-group conflict management. It is very obvious to have conflicts within the groups of employees. These conflicts can hamper the performance of the group. The leaders need to be efficient in the effective conflict management. Management needs to design the team programs in such a way that it will allow proper sharing of opinions within the employees. They need to neutralize the conflict within the group by proper recognition and utilization of the efficiency of each group members. Time to time fun activities within group members will also help them to strengthen the bond of the employees. Another important issue that needs top management supervision is the practice of politics in the organisation. Top management needs to restructure the guidelines of organisational ethical behaviours. Some strict regulation need to be added which will discourage the practices of politics in the organisation. Top management need to take a strong step against all the ongoing negative practices in the organisation. An internal panel will be created to closely monitor these practices. This panel will interact with the employees who are dissatisfied with the work environment and properly collect the complaints. Timely responses to the complaints should be encouraged by the top management. Near about 500 employees are working in the two different branches of the organisation. Most of the managers and senior managers are situated in headquarter of the organisation. The communication procedure of headquarter with these branches is very poor. The organisation does not follow any proper communication network. The employees of these branches are not getting proper and timely updates. Therefore, their performance is getting affected. This is also resulting into the dissatisfaction among employees. The top management needs to design a uniform communication network across the organisation. This communication network will follow a patter to monitor and evaluate the performances of the employees from different branches. It will help the employees from different branches to get updated with the current rules and regulations of the organisation. The employees of the organisation can easily access the senior management through this network. The organisation lacks reward and recognition programs to motivate the employees. They need to organise few reward programs as per the performance monitoring of each team. These will help them to keep up with healthy competition within the teams. It will also encourage employees to enhance their performance. Finally, the top management needs to improve the group dynamics for all the teams of the organisation. The group dynamics of each team will be different according to their responsibilities. The top management needs to closely focus on the different attributes of the teams. These will help them to analyse the group capabilities and assign attainable tasks to the groups. Proper group dynamics will help them to motivate the employees for the successful execution of the organisational targets. The timely and proper execution of the recommendations and suggestions by the top management will help the organisation to motivate the employees to increase their productivity. Therefore, it will directly influence in the profit generation of the organisation. Implementation of the plan and conflict resolution The recommendations have suggested various reward and recognition and training programs to the organisation. Proper execution of these plans will certainly increase the short term expenditure of the organisation. It is very obvious to face some challenges from the board members and the invertors as the organisation is already going through loss. It is very essential to assess and communicate the long term advantages and monetary gain of these investments to resolve the conflict of decisions with the board members and investors. Short term investment plans provide fast tangible result to the organisation. Most of the investors want to see some tangible results to their investing (Renuka and Frederick, 2014). These short time investments will improve the teamwork and increase the competitiveness of the employees in a short span of time. This will provide a positive impact on the financial structure of the organisation in a very short interval of time. The management must commit a substantial result in a short span of time to their stakeholders. They need to organise frequent board meetings to discuss the time to time improvement of the organisational performance due to the implementation of the plans. They need to create a transparent dialogue process to convey immediate financial gain of the implementation of these strategies. The management also need to issue quarterly press releases to impart the information of their activities, financial goals and achievements. These activities will help to motivate their stakeholders for further investment plans of the organisation. Reference List Ajzen, I. and Fishbein, M. 1977. Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and review of empirical research. Psychological bulletin, 84(5), pp. 888. Austin, S., 2008. Safer Demands Smarter: The evolution of workplace training. Occupational Hazards, 70(9), pp. 51-58. Bowditch, J. L., Buono, A. F. and Stewart, M. M., 1997. A primer on organizational behavior. [pdf] John Wiley and sons Inc. Available at [Accessed 30 December 2014]. 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