Teamwork and Employee Stress in Deloitte Bank in Australia - Case Study Example

REPORT ON TEAM WORK AND EMPLOYEES’ STRESS-CASE STUDY OF DELOITTE BANK By (……..) The name of the Class (Course) Professor The Name of the University City/ state Date Introduction Deloitte Bank is an Australian leading bank with numerous branches throughout the globe. The bank focuses on various services such as financial advisory and auditing. This report provides a guideline on how effective team work and employees’ stress plays essential role in the operation of the bank by giving an ideal and actual analysis. EFFECTIVE TEAM WORK Expected: Actual: Difference: Recommendations: The composition of a team in a banking organization may vary. According to Clegg (2000) a team comprises of two or more individuals working collectively towards a shared goal. In banking sector, this may constitute of people working in parallel-where the team benefits are mostly about minimizing costs by sharing information and resources. Deloitte bank is one of the leading financial industries in Australia and globally. With over 180,000 employees, the composition of this team is wide since it includes professionals such as; business risk managers, auditors, financial consulters, tax and legal experts who assume specific roles within the broader team. These teams can generally be termed as official since they are established by management. The organization is complex and divided into various departments which are managed by the team members. This division of labor keeps each team member engaged with various duties hence they feel that they belong to the team. The sense of ownership is created through a framework of team unity and team leadership. A good team ought to engage all the members effectively devoid any aspect of biasness. Division of teams according to their respective department is also an efficient strategy that should be put in place. This ensures that no member of the team is overworked or ignored (West, M. A., 2012). Teams’ productivity and achievements greatly depend on the concept of co-operation despite the value of superior competition. Weiss, M & Hoegl, M (2015) recognizes that the key aspect that contributes to corporation in a team constitutes the rewards that accompany the team individual achievements. In banking sector, the teams that are rewarded are often more pronounced and highly productive. Deloitte has business-led and IT-enabled approach to their clients. This complex system is eventually simplified through their network of teams and more than 24,000 individuals who work with Deloitte. With established presence in over 150 countries, the company largely depends on the concept of co-operation with its employees to increase productivity. The sense of dominance exhibited by the organization’s brand largely stem from a set of highly motivated tem members and personnel. This individual acknowledgment of the team dominance creates a sense of ownership within the team members thus creating a competitive advantage to the bank. The growing competition from other external bankers creates a shaky fate for the bank’s prosperity. It is essential to invest on a people- based system that gives dominance and delegation of power to their various divisions and teams within the organization. Anton and Opath (2012) assert that team orientation is generally a disposition inclining some employees towards working in groups or teams. It is ideally the state of getting directions from their subsequent team leadership. Although the team direction originate from the management, the independent and freedom of the team is highly limited. The organization has a functional team which ought to operate within the same department or a cross-functional team which operate across the department. This is relevant and applicable since the Deloitte organizational structure is complex. The complexity of the organization is the ultimate determinant of divisions of teams. This corresponds to the various departments of Deloitte banking such as the consultancy team. However, the complexity of this organization is deemed as the key determinant of the establishments of departments. The management has the ultimate authority on key decisions making regarding the modus operandi of the various teams. In the case of financial and banking company like the one under study, problem solving team is essential to address the issues that may affect the operation of the company. According to Al-Awwad, (2005) administrative innovation consist of a set of procedures, processes and behaviors that lead to improvement of the general atmosphere in the organization while activating the creative performance through motivating employees to solve problems and make decisions in a more creative and unusual way of thinking. A current initiative aims to develop a more flexible work-pool focusing in the highly structured work environment of Customer Service. There is strong commitment across the organization to improve their strong brand presence in consultancy domain. The bank has specialized department which focus on specific tasks and goals. These goals are often delegated by their respective authorities in the various departments. This form of specialization helps the teams to deliver while limiting room for innovation and creativity. In most cases, innovation and creativity often stem from external partners and stakeholders. Creativity in banking sector can be effectively promoted by the management through a comprehensive follow-up of the team dynamism. A rigid team is inherently entitled to a focused goal hence limiting their ability to come up with innovative aspects. Flexibility should be encouraged to promote high level of productivity and innovation. Team disputes often affect the image and productivity of any banking sector. According to Chin, (2015) team disputes may incorporate factors like; poor managerial strategy, hostile working environment, poor staffing of teams, varying opinions amongst team members, poor interpersonal skills and chemistry amongst the members. In the SWOT analysis carried out by the bank, team disputes and legal disputes have consequently affected the Detoille brand. There are numerous team disputes that wind up being resolved at the courts instead of containing and managing them internally (Van, H., et al, 2004). This is because the team disputes on public domain presents a bad image to the current and potential clients of the company. The brand of Detoille is universally recognized and cherished by numerous clients and stakeholders. Nevertheless, the team disputes that stem from the organization might gradually affect the influence and expansion of the company. These amicable solutions cannot be attained when employee and team disputes are channeled through the courts. The most important focus of the company is finding a solution from the bedrock in prior. Organizational conflicts often stem from communication discord amongst the team members. According to the organization conflict theory, the major attributes that destroys team unity are varying interests, values, and needs (Clegg, B., 2000). The organization eventually should inculcate group code of conduct to ensure that all the members adhere to it. Constructive feedback is essential element of effective teamwork in the banking sector. This constructive feedback should always be presented to the management of the bank in order to facilitate in making key decision that are essentially helpful for the progress of the banking sector. Constructive feedbacks can be presented through individual and group reports. According to the performance review that was conducted in 2015, 58% of the company’s mangers were not satisfied with the old forms of evaluation and constructive feedbacks. The missing link on the performance evaluation was growth and learning amongst the employees. This was subsequently implemented to suit the needs of the team members. The process of review cycle however consumes company’s time. In the case of Deloite and other complex companies, the average amount of time consumption is close to two million hours annually (Van, H., et al, 2004). This can be devastating if it is not well structured. The approach towards evaluation can be outsourced or present in a manner that does not hamper with the major objectives of banking industries. Constructive feedback is essentially important since it unearths the impending concerns of the team members. It is vital that this process is conducted in an effective manner to incorporate the need of the company. If the banking take up this responsibility it will require a creation of separate and independent department that is solely mandated with evaluation and reporting the areas of improvement within the teams in the company. Accomplishment of tasks can be the ultimate measure of a productive teamwork. The organizations can often delegate individual or specific roles and duties. In this regard, a timely evaluation can be done in order to identify the point of weakness within the team or individuals. Duties are assigned to every individual and teams. This is then monitored and evaluated by the respective supervisors of the teams. Team evaluation is a complex process that can be unrealistic for bigger organizations especially banking industry. The level of commitment and specialization is often the subtle means of evaluation employed by the managers. This implies that the task and duties are the ultimate determinants of team performance. In evaluating the task in a team, the supervisor should incorporate and highlight the individual contributions of each team members. Individual tasks are easy to evaluate unlike the team responsibilities that involve numerous team members. EMPLOYEE STRESS The most common stimulants of stress amongst the banking employees stems from environment factors and work burden. This consequently lead to negative reactions from the employees that include; anxiety, headache or stomach distress (Clegg, B., 2000). Deloitte has a five guiding principles that incorporates the guidelines for its operations. The core mission is to appropriately and effectively engage with their employees by providing a conducive working atmosphere for them. This comfortable working condition incorporates working hours and ideal workloads. Stressful working environment can stem from internal or external factors. For instance social and family life of the employee can affect the performance if the situations are not dealt with (Clegg, B., 2000). The conducive working condition ought to be created to deal with these root causes of stress. Banking sector is filled with a wide array of activities hence it is not always easy to spot the daily impact of the affected employees. The focus should be creating an appropriate environment and working plan in order to curb greater effects to the bank. In this regard, the general principles and objectives of the employees ought to be simplified to enable a conducive working atmosphere to the members. The problem of job stress arise because of the differences between employee jobs demand and inability to control these demands. The inability to control these demands destructively affect employee physical and emotional responses (Anton and Opath., 2012). The Deloitte Bank has embraced specialization and division of labor as a strategy to improve productivity and lower the level of stress amongst employees. Employees have specific working plan that allows them to fulfill specific working goals at a given time. This timeline is flexible and specific in nature. The demand of job against the number of employees in most cases is not rational (Anton and Opath., 2012). The banking sector for instance would employ fewer employees with the ultimate goal of maximizing profit through reduction of wages. This consequently creates a pile of workload that may hamper the effectiveness and emotional stability of the workers. There are no standards for measuring the ability of employees in regard to delivering specific tasks. This might create discrepancies amongst the employees and their mangers if the job demands are not met. Job satisfaction and self-perceived work stress show the extent to which employees meet their daily work routine (Clegg, B., 2000). This occurs especially when the job allocation is done without thorough analysis of the employee. The employee could be over-performing or underperforming and this may consequently lead to stress at workplace. Analysis is usually conducted to examine the general feeling of the Deloitte company’s employees. This feedback is thus analyzed to understand areas of improvement and subsequently help to curb stress in the organization. The banking industry is often complex hence it is quite a challenge to notice the individual emotional instability of the employees. The management therefore value and comprehensively utilize the evaluation process in order to get a clear understanding of the general feelings of the employees in the organization. Managers can evaluate the stress level of employees by considering their job satisfaction and their perception about daily job tasks. However, this evaluation process can be quite a challenge since it shifts the company’s attention from its main objectives. There is a need to outsource specialized stress management organization to help the banking industry. This will be both time efficient and cost effective. REFERENCES Anton Arulrajah, A., and Opatha, H., 2012, An Exploratory Study on the Personal Qua Lankan Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol.3 (1), pp. 32-48. Clegg, B., 2000, Team spirit: Instant Motivation, India: Vinod Vasishtha. Chin, R., 2015, “Examining teamwork and leadership in the fields of public administration, leadership and management. Naji, A., 2003, Marketing banking services: foundations and practical application in banks. Van, H., Carl, F., and Manchanda, P., 2004, The dynamic effect of innovation on market structure, Journal of Marketing Research. West, M. A 2012, Effective Teamwork: Practical Lessons from Organizational Research. Third Edition. Weiss, M & Hoegl, M 2015, "The History of Teamwork's Societal Diffusion: A Multi-Method Review". Small Group Research. Read More