BHP Billitons Office Desk Rules - Case Study Example

BHP Billiton’s office desk rules are unreasonable and cannot be justified in the modern workplace” ‘BHP’s office desk rules are unreasonable and cannot be justified in the modern workplace. They reflect a lack of understanding of the needs of knowledge workers and stifle performance and creativity’. Introduction To a large extent, I agree with the statement above because in the modern organisation, knowledge workers should be allowed to do what motivates them to achieve more in the workplace. However, along the same line, it is important to note that different organisations have different leaders who use different leadership styles. Thus, even though knowledge workers are free to do what they deem fit, there is no single universal rule for all organisations, and hence knowledge workers must to a large extent abide by the rules set by their organisation. Essentially, I suggest in this paper that organisations should have mechanisms to incorporate their knowledge workers’ views on what is appropriate for the workplace to avoid collisions between the management and workers. Concept of knowledge workers in the modern workplace Knowledge workers are defined as employees having high levels of education, know-how as well as organisational status. To these workers, information is the currency of exchange (Asaari & Karia, 2001, p. 2). Armstrong (2007, p. 435) adopts Peter Drucker’s definition of knowledge workers as people who know more about their work more than anyone else in the organisation. Such workers include academics, HR professionals, accountants, IT specialists, researchers and lawyers among others (Armstrong, 2007, p. 435). The importance of the input made by knowledge workers implies that attention has to be given to how policies that govern them, including reward policies and practices can be developed to attract, retain, and motivate them having taken account of their specific needs (Armstrong, 2007, p. 435). For instance, the different knowledge workers at BHP Billiton could be involved in the design of the company’s HR policies, managing the company’s financial accounts, maintaining the computer systems, carrying out research on new mining technologies and new energy and so on. According to Brocke and Rosemann (2010, p. 18), knowledge workers tend to be intimately associated with the organisation’s development prospects. Those in management functions devise new strategies; those in the research and development and engineering departments develop new products; and those in marketing come with new strategies to make the products presentable and appealing to clients. In essence, without these knowledge workers, there would be no new services and products, and virtually no development (Brocke & Rosemann, 2010, p. 18). In spite of the significance of knowledge workers to the survival of companies, they have not got adequate consideration as pointed out by Brocke and Rosemann (2010, p. 18). A case in point is the leadership style adopted by BHP Billiton CEO Marius Kloppers. Why Marius Kloppers’ office desk rules are unreasonable I refer to the new rules at BHP Billiton as Marius Kloppers’ rules because they started at his time at the helm of the company’s leadership (Pascoe, 2011). Under these rules, workers face disciplinary action from the company if they consistently carry smelly food on their desks or if they leave their personal belongings on their desks. In addition, such personal belongings left on the desks will be confiscated (Pascoe, 2011). What these rules mean is that Marius Kloppers is introducing the old order of management in the workplace. It means that the workers have no freedom to reason on their own and to determine what is good for them. Rather, they have to reason in line with the CEO; but this is deleterious to the company as it will stifle performance and creativity among the workers as discussed below. According to Donnelly (2006, p. 81), knowledge workers are supposed to be “free workers” as they become less reliant on their immediate employer for work. This is because the need for their services also increases from their clients, which is depicted by the growing bargaining power as well as pay rates of the knowledge workers. As the skills, expertise and knowledge possessed by knowledge workers seem to be greatly treasured in the marketplace, knowledge-intensive firms (such as BHP Billiton) are extremely reliant on these workers to offer client services. Therefore, the expertise and knowledge of such workers should be continually improved so as to maintain the organisation’s competitive advantage and offer innovative services to clients (Donnelly, 2006, p. 81; p. Khosla et al, 2010, p. 105). This is true of the situation at BHP Billiton because the new rules were introduced without the workers’ input, and seem to go against what the employees probably perceived as the “norm” in the workplace. Marius Kloppers’ rules seem to go against the characteristics of today’s workplace design, which according to Khanna and New (2008, p. 795-796), is aimed to promoting teamwork and offering flexibility to enable people perform their jobs efficiently. According to the same writers, the walls that separate workers are declining, and firms are adopting new openness in their designs. Further, Khanna and New (2008, p. 796) argue that firms now need to create suitable work atmospheres to attract knowledge workers and sustain them contented in their jobs. As such, places of work must now sustain meticulous thinking while enabling collaboration. In fact, Khanna and New (2008, p. 796) also cite a survey that indicated that some workers would prefer to work in their home offices and other places like coffee shops or book stores. Along the same line, Venezia, Allee and Schwabe (2008, p. 2) note that the number of employees who spend a considerable part of their work time away from the conventional allocated office space has risen noticeably. Consequently, many employees today do their work away from the office in places such as hotel rooms and customer offices an many other places other than the desks they are allocated in their places of work. What this means is that such workers are delighted when they work in environments that best suit their preferences. Looking at BHP Billiton’s rules from this point of view, it is evident that Marius Kloppers did not respect the employees’ viewpoint and neither did he invite their input while making the rules. This is likely to lead to discontent even though apparently none of the employees is complaining about the rules - what Pascoe (2011) refers to as the “personality-less work environment”. Perhaps BHP Billiton could learn something from a US-based organisation called Capital One on how to enhance flexibility in the workplace for the benefit of knowledge workers [see case study in Khanna and New (2008, p. 795-808)]. In an effort to be in touch with how today’s workplace plans are being revolutionised as a result of the evolving features of work and employee profile, the corollary of technology, and the desire for organisational flexibility and competence, Capital One designed a Future of Work (FoW) programme. This programme involved differentiation of work styles, creation of an effective HR policy, promotion of customised workplace plan, and best possible use of technology to augment knowledge work (Khanna & New (2008, p. 795). The hall mark of FoW is that the programme was designed with focus on how best the employees perform, not the conservative theories of furniture or buildings. Another key benefit of the programme is flexibility in that it offers the technological tools as well as environment required to work beyond the usual office setting (Khanna & New, 2008, p. 799). If FoW was indeed a success, then it points out the weakness in BHP Billiton’s rules: these rules seem to be authoritarian and are therefore likely to hinder employee innovations since the employees have to abide by what Marius Kloppers desires rather than their own preferences. According to the Information Resources Management Association, IRMA (2011, p. 229), management should express their wishes to apply innovative thinking at work to try processes that have never been tried before so as to improve performance and unleash the inventive potential of knowledge workers. It should provide a creative working environment with characteristics like enhanced flexibility and support of teamwork (Nor & Rosline, 2005, p. 19). Management can also learn established imaginative thinking techniques to develop new ideas and derive a plan for establishing a climate of innovation in their organisation. Clearly, by adopting Marius Kloppers’ rules, BHP Billiton has not created such an environment. If untidy desks and the smell of food in the workplace are some of the factors that motivate employees to perform at BHP Billiton, the situation should have been left as it was. The other side of BHP Billiton’s office desk rules Although I agree that Marius Kloppers’ rules are unreasonable, I do not imply that they should be done away with completely. This is because from the look of things, Marius Kloppers must have observed the situation at the company before he came up with the rules. Specifically, the issues of clean office desks and avoiding clutter in the workplace are of significant importance. Allowing flexibility to exist in the workplace does not imply that everyone can do whatever they want to do – they need to have some limits. In addition, it is obvious that BHP Billiton has different departments, and the workers in each department are doing different tasks – which need different levels of thinking and concentration. By reasoning this way, I note that Marius Kloppers was not wrong on ensuring that the workplace is orderly to facilitate smooth operations for every employee. Even in the flexible work programmes that have been discussed in literature such as FoW (as discussed by Khanna and New, 2008, p. 795-808 above) and Flexible Office (discussed by Maier, Thalmann and Sandow, 2010, p. 494-495), there are elements reflected in Marius Kloppers’ rules. In the FoW case, quiet zone workstations were created to provide space for silent, concentrative people doing demanding tasks (Khanna & New, 2008, p. 802). Similarly, in the Flexible Office concept, Maier, Thalmann and Sandow (2010, p. 494-495) discuss a number of rules in the workplace including a clean desk policy that demands that no personal belongings are left on workplaces even though the people involved are working in a flexible environment. These two cases point to the fact that even though knowledge workers should be allowed to be creative, the innovation should not go to the extent of distracting others as it this can affect performance. In the BHP Billiton case, the fact that no employees is complaining about the rules may be a pointer that the rules are not harmful after all. Along the same line, it is not possible to classify all knowledge workers as “free” given that some of them have to work within the rules set by the organisations that they work for. A case in point is Donnelly’s (2006, p. 81) observation that many knowledge workers are not likely to be in a position to influence their working environment, and they may also have little voice in their organisation due to an array of factors such as the level of employer dependence, professional pressures and job commitments. Additionally, not all workers are in a position to set their own strategy, and so they have to accept the prioritisation strategy of another person, in this case their manager (Elliman, Eatock & Spencer, 2005, p. 88). In the same way, as mentioned in the BHP Billiton case, those employees who are not content with the rules are free to leave as the company can easily hire others. Conclusion In conclusion, although the office desk rules at BHP Billiton can be regarded largely unreasonable and unjustifiable in the workplace, they have some importance in some aspects. While the rules appear to disregard the needs of knowledge workers in the modern workplace, they also introduce some aspects such as the need to maintain cleanliness in the office and to avoid clutter. It is true that knowledge workers need more flexibility, and this can be achieved if rules concerning them are formulated with consideration of their input. Therefore, the major weakness of Marius Kloppers’ rules is that they tend to be authoritarian and ignoring employees’ preferences. On the other hand, the need to keep workplaces clean and conducive for others is a matter that is embedded in different work environments and cannot be underestimated given that different workers do different tasks that require different levels of concentration. I therefore suggest that Marius Kloppers would have enforced the rules after consulting with the employees to avoid the impression that the rules are inappropriate and emanating from the top as some contents of the rules are actually beneficial to the organisation. References Armstrong, M 2007, A Handbook of Employee Reward Management and Practice, 2nd edn, Kogan Page Publishers, London. Asaari, M H AH & Karia, N 2001, “Disastrous Impact: Shortage of Knowledge Workers in Organization,” Paper presented at The 2nd International Conference on Disaster Management: Preparing and planning for the Future, Suraaya, Indonesia, 3-5 May 2001, viewed 24 May 2012 Brocke, J V & Rosemann, M 2010, Handbook on Business Process Management 1: Introduction, Methods, and Information Systems, Springer, New York. Donnelly, R 2006, “How ‘free’ is the free worker? An investigation into the working arrangements available to knowledge workers”, Personnel Review, Vol. 35, Issue 1, pp. 78 – 97. Elliman, T, Eatock, J & Spencer, N 2005, “Modelling knowledge worker behaviour in business process studies”, Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 18, Issue 1, pp. 79 – 94. IRMA 2011, Organizational Learning and Knowledge: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications, IGI Global, New York. Khanna, S & New, J R 2008, “Revolutionizing the workplace: A case study of the future of work program at capital one”, Human Resource Management, Vol. 17, No. 4, pp. 795-808, viewed 24 May 2012 Khosla, R, Hedjvani, M, Yamada, KG, Kuneida, K & Oga, S 2010, “Emotionally intelligent knowledge sharing behaviour model for constructing psychologically and emotionally fit research teams” in Chu, S, Ritter, W & Hawamdeh, S (eds) Managing Knowledge for Global and Collaborative Innovations, World Scientific, New York. Maier, R, Thalmann, S & Sandow, A 2010, “Flexible Workplaces Fostering Knowledge Workers Informal Learning: The flexible office Case”, World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology, Vol. 70, pp. 493-499, viewed 25 May 2012 Nor, N M & Rosline, A K 2005, “Managing knowledge workers in a knowledge-based economy: the changing role of human resource management in the MSC status companies, Malaysia”, viewed 24 May 2012 Pascoe, M 2011, “BHP's desk rules: Kloppers hates clutter”, The Sydney Morning Herald, August 23, 2011, viewed 25 May 2012 Venezia, C, Allee, V & Schwabe, O 2008, “Designing productive spaces for mobile workers: Role insights from network analysis”, Online version of the final draft to be published in Information-Knowledge-Systems Management: Special Issue: Enterprise Mobility: Applications, Technologies and Strategies, April/May, 2008, viewed 25 May 2012 Read More