Organizational Development: The Issues at Peppercorn - Case Study Example

Organizational Development The issues at Peppercorn Major challenges facing the productivity of Peppercorn Dinning can be seen viewed from the perception of the manager’s goals for the dinning. In this case, some of the objectives of the manager were to increase the productivity and boost the morale of the workers. The morale of the employees at the Peppercorn Dinning is though to be low. Creativity is missing in the production. Though the employees like it when they sell out of stuff, the few time that such happen are the time when the focus was incorrect rather than due to improvement in the products. There are well laid down strategies for motivating or rewarding the employees so as to elevate their level of performance. The skilled workers like Doug feel like the workers union is partly to blame for the lack of morale among the employees. He states that there is no distinction between the skilled labour and the unskilled workers. This makes the skilled employees underrated while the unskilled workforce elevated. There are issues related with role conflict and role ambiguity. The relationship between the workers also stands out to be one of the key aspects of the productivity of the workers. The student workers feel that they are treated right by temps and full time employees. According to the student employee who was conversing with Roger, one of the consultants, tensions have always existed between the three categories of workers. The student have been feeling stereotyped as they are basically referred to as students rather than being called supervisors which is their primary job. In addition the student continues to point out that there are discrepancies among the worker. Some of the fractures exist along the lines of age difference, economic status and work experience. In this case, the students cannot fulfil their mandates with a lot of ease. They find it difficult to supervise older people who in turn also find it difficult to take orders from students who they consider smaller than their younger children. There is communication gap among the different groups of workers at Peppercorn. Though the students tried to raise some of their concerns, the same were not addressed by the management. The structure of addressing some of the challenges is also ambiguous. For instance, Molly, the student coordinator, point out that the channels that were being followed in order to address some of the issues were many. The end result in most cases was that the issues raised by the student took longer time to resolve than necessary. It is also alleged that the system a lot of paper work which made the entire communication structure more difficult. Job satisfaction is also another big issue. For instance, Sara points out that she is not happy about working at the dinning. The cashier also has her share of dislike towards her job. In fact, she admitted to Roger that she plans to change her line of work in the future. Staffing s also another issue of concern, Drew, the manager, claims that it is very difficult to get the right people for the job. For this reason he relies on the older employees some have stayed on the job for almost thirty years like Bob. This has lead to failure to higher employees to fill certain key positions such as shop steward position. Some of the facilities are also contributing to the poor performance of the dinning. Doug notes that the computer system used for menu print out was not working properly at times. In some cases, menus have to be changed due to lack of stock. This is because the computer fails to perform some of its vital functions which include printing menus, compiling order list and checking the inventory Analysis of the Peppercorn’s case Considering the high degrees of autonomy, it is easy to observe that the management style being employed at Peppercorn Dinning is benevolent authoritative system. According to Cummings and Christopher (9), this system of management has elements of autocracy. However, the employees are given room for interaction. They communicate among themselves and can make their own decisions on how to discharge their duties but within confined organizational boundaries. This explains the reason as to why Doug was feeling uneasy when Larry came around when he was talking to Lyn. Similarly, Drew is feared and considered unapproachable by the both the student workers and other categories of employees. As it turns out, the humanistic approach employed by the managers and allowing the worker plenty of room to make their own decisions on how to deliberate their duties is not effective. The performance is still very poor and the employees still complaining about the system of leadership. The situation propels the need for effective evaluation of the operations, the organizational structure and culture so as to come up with an effective intervention measure and such changes should be institutionalized. Designing good measures are basically associated with the extent to which a measurement is operationally defined, reliable and valid. The assessment characteristics of designing good measures include operational definition. In this case, a good measure is operationally defined. It specifies the empirical data that is needed, how they should be collected and above all how they will be converted from data to information. Operation definition is important in measurement since they provide practice guidelines concerning characteristics of the situation are to be observed and how they are to be utilized. They guide the OD practitioners and the client system m on how diagnostic, interventions and outcome variable are measured. Other characteristics include reliability which refers top the extent to which a measure represents the true value of a variable and validity which is associated with the measure reflects the variables (Cummings and Christopher 193). Personal Opinion Evidently, the issues that have been raised have a negative impact on the performance of the organization. For instance, in my opinion, the subject of role confusion arises due to lack of proper analysis of the structure of the employee base. The structure of employees in the dinning consists of both the generation X and the generation Y employees. The generation Y employees refer to the young workers who are below thirty five years of age while the generation X employees is above that age bracket. Shaver (1) observes that the age difference between the two categories of employees results in different interests as well. For example, as the older generation is concerned with their job security, the generation Y employees are concerned with opportunities. On that note, giving the students the supervisory role to monitor the older people, some of whom are as old as their parents is a certain mismatch of responsibilities. The choice of the intervention provides overall guidelines for organizational change. This leaves the managers and the workers to perform the task of translating such guidelines and integrating them into specific procedures and behaviors. The implementation feedback supplies data associated with different features of the intervention, perception of the people involved as well as the data of the immediate outcomes of the intervention procedures thereby informing this processes. These data which in most cases are often collected repeatedly over short intervals provide constant series of how the intervention strategy is progressing. In turn, organizational members can utilize such information to enhance clear understanding of the types of procedures and the behavior that are vital to fulfillment of the intervention measure (Cummings and Christopher 190). Similarly, such data can also be helpful in planning for the next steps to be followed in the implementation of the intervention procedure (Alzahmi, William and Kim 55) The questions How effective was the OD Consultant’s Data gathering? The content of the data? The process of how the data was collected? The data collection model employed by the OD consultants was very effective. This is because they engaged the employees in interviews so as to determine the aspects of their works that they feel needs to be changed. Much to their advantage, most of the employees and the student supervisors were willing to open up to them. They also employed observations which were very effective in data gathering. From strategic positions they could observe the operations and work coordination. The content of the data was valid and unbiased. It is noteworthy to observe that Erick was bared from participating in any constructive data collection procedures since she had connection with the dinning during her college years when she was a student worker. It was argued among the consultants that this past connection with the place would bias her view of the dining unit. It was also feared that Erica’s views would influence the perception of the other consultants. However, due to time constraint she was permitted to participate in the interview process but only with employees who were more candid to interact with old friend than with strangers. The consultants collected the data through strategic mechanisms. Foremost, they conducted a preliminary assessment of the unit. The second step was to develop a feedback session with the management. Finally, the management then expected to conduct an in-depth audit based on the outcome and initiate the plans of implementing the changes so as to achieve the desired outcome. What concept of model might help to analyze the data? What conclusion would you draw from the analysis? Summarization is the appropriate model design that ca be used to analyze the data collected. Summarization entails computing various summers and values derived given collected data (Mirkin 2). The summarized data can thereafter be used to develop new concepts of management that are effective in transforming the organizational performance of the dinning In conclusion organizational development constitutes very vital component of organization success. Therefore, the management of every organization should channel the resources of their organizational towards evaluating the organizational processes that require intention and initiating such changes (Cummings and Christopher 2006). The processes of institutionalizing changes and making them part of the normal organizational procedures should also be enhanced properly. In this case, organization should lay down proper procedure that will enhance effective integration of the changes into the organizational system. One of these processes may include socialization which is basically concerned with the transmission of the information of the beliefs, preferences, norms and values with regard to the intervention processes. How should the feedback decision be designed? The significance of improved evaluation feedback is extensively recognized among the development agencies, both on the principles of learning and accountability. Greater accountability is very important prerequisite in determining whether the intervention procedure is producing the desired results (OECD 17). For instance, if it has been established that a job enrichment programme would elevate organizational performance by enhancing higher employee satisfaction, it is vital to evaluate whether implementing the same would enhance realization of the desired outcome. This may also provide a platform for determining whether the intervention measure should be modified or be dropped for something else. In other words, the evaluation feedbacks are learning avenues that are characterized by trial and errors. Consequently, understanding what needs to be considered when evaluating the implementation initiative is very vital. In this case, assessing the position of the organization before and after the implementation of the intervention process is very much necessary. Some of the things that need to be put in consideration in this case are to determine if and whether the necessary changes are being implemented and if they are generating the desired results. Works Cited Alzahmi Rashed, William Rothwell and Woocheol Kim. “A practical Evaluation Approach for OD Interventions.” IJRMEC 3.3(2013): pp 43-65. Web. 4 March. 2015. Cummings, Thomas and Christopher Worley. Organization development and Change. Cengage Learning: USA, 2009. OECD. “Evaluation Feedback for Effective Learning and Accountability.” 2001. Web. 4 March. 2015. http://www.oecd.org/dac/evaluation/2667326.pdf Mirkin, Boris. “Core Concepts in Data Analysis: Summarization, Correlation, Visualization” September 30, 2010. Web. 4 March. 2015. http://www.hse.ru/data/2010/10/14/1223126254/Mirkin_All.pdf Shave, Vistage. “Understanding Generation X and Y Employees.” 2013. Web. 4 March. 2015. http://casagrandepress.com/sample/understanding-generation-x-and-y-employees.pdf Read More