Workings and Essentials of Sustenance for the Organization and Its Employees - Assignment Example

Name of the Student: Professor: Course: Date: Organizational Analysis Report Introduction: The aim of the paper is present a complete organizational analysis on a chosen corporation. This is an attempt to study an organization from the point of view of a professional entity and not as a profit entity or as a viable business. For this purpose we have structured the study under the following headings where each heading will contain essential parameters that relate and validate the purpose of the study. The paper will contain a total of six headings which are: 1. Overview of the Organization, 2. Structural frame analysis. 3. Human Resources Frame Analysis. 4. Political Frame analysis. 5. Symbolic Frame Analysis and 6.Conclusion. It is to be noted that the paper will be written for a real organization with a pseudo name. The organization so chosen for the study is a leading super market chain in Australia – ‘Warmers’. As an ex- employee of the store and as someone who has spent the initial years of my career in the organization I believe that the organization has given me rich insights on the workings and essentials of sustenance for the organization as well as its employees. 1. Overview of the Organization: Warmers a leading supermarket chain in Australia was founded nearly eighty years ago, in Sydney. In the 1930’s it grew rapidly and acquired a chain of stores 31 in Australia and 9 in New Zealand. Today Warmers has a shopping centre in almost every metro city in Australia. With over seven hundred supermarkets serving 13 million Australians Warmers has more than 320,000 shareholders. Although Warmers opened as a bargain store, it diversified into the fresh food business in the 1960’s and 1970’s and soon became the largest fresh food supermarket chain in Australia. The acquiring of Safeway- another supermarket chain in the 1990’s led to the further expansion of the organization and in the year 1993 has the biggest share float. 2. Structural Frame: This growth and development of the organization comes from years of meticulous governance and focus on offering value to the customers and shareholders. It is important that the Structure of the Organization is analyzed in order to enhance the comprehensiveness of the study. Below is the Organization chart of the Board and the immediate Management personnel. CEO Chairman of the Board Director 1 Director 2 Director 3 Director 4 Director 5 Director 6 The Stores have Managers who have both vertical and a lateral line of reporting. Store Managers ultimately report to the Territory or regional head, and they in turn with a few layers of managers in the middle report to the Head- Food, Liquor and Petrol. The Store Manager has a lateral line of reporting to the Logistics and Information department for the maintenance and supply of Stock. Each Store Manager has two or sometimes three layers of employees who report to him/her depending on the size of the store. The store has supervisors and store assistants who report to the supervisors. A simple store structure with the lateral and vertical line of reporting and co-ordination are depicted in the diagram below. The above is a simple management and coordination at the store level for the day to day activities of the store. The Store Manager reports to the reportee of the Head – Food Liquor and Petrol, who has a two to three layers of managers under him and before the Store Manager. Similarly, The Logistics Manager of the said Geography to the Logistics reportee of the Head - Information and Logistics. The ordinary lines are the lines of lateral co- ordination or reporting between the store and the Logistics department. These are the reports and MIS that is sent between the store and the department on a daily basis. The reports are the ways or the mechanism in which the coordination takes place. The above chart speaks for itself regarding the layering and hierarchy in the organization. It is evident that a huge network such as the Warmers has complex layering and Reporting structure. Each employee is answerable to the immediate next level and thus the Organization keeps the reporting structure in a line command. It simply means ‘you have a problem report to the line’ meaning talk to your manager. It is the immediate reporting manager of an employee who is responsible for the Performance appraisal of an employee subject to the parameters of the Human Resources Department. 3. Human Resource Frame Analysis. The organization has largely managed its Human Resources through a decentralized set up, being a retail chain each store is managed by a store manager and the staffs are centrally trained in their roles before being assigned their job roles. It is important that an organization as large as this has a strategic Human Resource Management team with emphasis on High Performance Work systems. The Warmers groups is one of the largest employers in Australia employing more than 180000 team members working in stores and support all across Australia and New Zealand. Warmers have the lowest Executive turnover at 8.6 % and 8.9% (Woolworth.com) turnover in the Super market manager’s category. Over 32% of the executives have commenced work with the company at 25 years or younger.(Woolworths. com) Analyzing Warmers under the HPWS and the seven key dimensions (Tomer 1999) listed by Jefferey Pfeffer, which are 1. Employment Security – The 80 year old company with the largest network and high brand value is a security by itself to every employee 2. Selective hiring of new personnel – Selection of candidates plays a prominent role and Warmer’s believes in internal promotion which boosts loyalty. 3. Self Managed teams and Decentralization of decision making as the basic principles of the organization – We cannot say that Warmers follows a decentralized system. The Centralized management system is transcended effectively to deliver results. 4. Comparatively high compensation contingent on organizational performance – The provision of compensation are definitely on par with its competitors like Coles. Warmers realize the importance of the other benefits with employment such as Career breaks, Job sharing, Parental leave options and Wellbeing programs. 5. Extensive training – As the large number of store assistants are freshers or teenagers in their first jobs. There is a mandatory training module and session they undergo. Periodic training given to employees at all levels. 6. Reduced Status distinction and barriers: The organization works with a diverse workforce right from teenager to employees who have been with the organization of 30 years. Driving this large and complex workforce can be possible only with the reduction in barriers. 7. Extensive sharing of financial and Performance information: As a company listed in the Australian Stock Exchange the financial performance and the growth of the company is shared to employees and shareholders. The organization also inducts it middle and senior management to share information of the company on a periodic basis. Being a retail industry with a large number of employees at the start of their working lives the organization focuses a lot on extrinsic motivation (Beswick 2005) based on the performance of the employee. The intrinsic motivation (Beswick 2005) is also at a high level in the organization due to the subsequent promotions for an employee who has served over a period of as he/she will start enjoying the work and the environment. According to the Maslow’s (Mathes. 1981) motivation pyramid which has the aspect of Self actualization at the top of the pyramid the organization also follows the bottom –up approach in satisfying the needs of the employees. It believes that basic needs are satisfied through salaries, benefits, wellness programs and performance incentives and the policy it follows in the promotion or filling vacancies with internal candidates satisfies the employees self – esteem and self – actualization needs. The organization also conducts periodical employee engagement surveys to check the levels of job satisfaction and engagement. In the year 2007-2008 a total of 39545 (Woolworths. com) employees were surveyed. Employees in this organization do feel elated about their job roles as the organization provides a whole range of Human Resource Incentives to manage the diverse workforce. As stated earlier the Human resource management team takes fresh efforts in improving the work life and the overall quality of life of an employee Political Frame Analysis: A large corporation like this has a strong board with the Chairman and CEO at the epicenter of it. It also calls for the Board of directors to be highly influential with the government and the political frame of the country. It must be observed that the Board reserves the right to hire or fire employees in Key positions if they are convinced that the acts or the continuation of an employee’s service will prove detrimental to the interests of the company. This is an apt situation for the resignation, change of key Senior Management Personnel in the organization. The nine members of the Board including the CEO – Mark Gerald Leicester are the most important people of power. A large percentage of them relatively new members in the board. The principle duty of the board as stated in the official Website is “is accountable to shareholders for performance and is responsible for Woolworths’ corporate governance practices. The board’s principal objective is to maintain and increase shareholder value while ensuring that Woolworths’ overall activities are properly managed. In doing so the board supports the highest standards of corporate governance, which it sees as fundamental to its commitment to business integrity and professionalism in all its activities.(Woolworths. com) As part of its commitment to good corporate governance, the board regularly reviews the practices and standards governing the board’s composition, independence and effectiveness and the accountability and compensation of directors and senior executives.” Warmers have been in the business for long and it is the successful direction of power and authority combined with leadership at every level that has led them to spread their wings far and wide. The organization has faced major shortfalls late in the 1980’s and after the acquisition of Safeway chain it was the under the dynamic leadership of the Board in choosing the right people for the organization and vesting power and authority in them to change business and take it to leaps and bounds that has led to this progress and success. Power and Authority are relative terms in an organization. However both with power and Authority comes responsibility and commitment to shareholders, stakeholders, employees, customers, government and the society at large. Due to the complexity of the organizational structure at the Store level there is an eruption of conflict between the retail outlet and the Information and logistics department. The primary reason is the lateral line of coordination where the information is passed between employees of the same rank in two different departments. The analyze regarding an informal hierarchy of power is very subjective. A large organization like this can have various levels of informal hierarchy none of which can be proved. However, and informal hierarchy must also serve only the best interest of the organization, employees and customers. Informal hierarchy if present will definitely collide with the formal authority producing negative effects on the organizational structure. It also means surpassing authority. For example: The appointment of a new store supervisor for a store that was run without a supervisor for along time will present new challenges for the store assistants who were used to reporting to the Store Manager. It can create the surpassing of authority in case of issues related to the employee. However, these issues become management issues which have addressed by the Store Manager and the Supervisor. The same can happen when a new board is selected or a new CEO is selected. Symbolic Frame: Across Australia Warmers are known as the ‘fresh food people’ they have become a household name. They are not just the store that caters to the daily needs of people but also one that has stood with the country for over the years. The organization has made itself a visible and prominent brand over the years serving every small town and territory in Australia. It policy to buy and sell everything Australian has truly made it the people’s brand. Over 97 % (Woolworths.com) of all the goods sold at the Warmers are produced in Australia. The organization’s corporate social responsibility initiatives speak volumes about its symbolic frame. As mentioned in the official site. “We can make our contribution to the community as meaningful and transparent as possible, Warmers has become a member of the London Benchmarking Group (LBG). LBG provides a process for measuring, benchmarking and reporting on community contributions and achievements. We use the LBG reporting model to calculate the total contribution we make to the community through cash, fundraising, time, in kind donations and management costs and convert it to a dollar value. LBG is a group of over 100 companies worldwide, including multinationals such as HSBC, Vodafone and Unilever, as well as major UK Companies such as Marks and Spencer and BSkyB. This is an ongoing process and will enable us to continue to assess the real value of the Company’s community partnerships and help identify new ways in which we can develop and extend our commitments. In the 2007–08 financial year our community contributions in Australia and New Zealand were calculated to be: Charitable donations $5,486,270 Community investments $11,391,369 Commercial initiatives $556,354 Total investments (including management costs) $17,514,928 Source: Woolworths CSR Conclusion: The organization on has on all aspects scored well. It effort in striving to offer shareholders profitable returns keeping in mind the best interests of the customers. Employees and the community at large have enabled the organization to achieve this feat. The organization’s approach towards the market and its brand are unique and has been created over the years keeping pace with time and technology. It has truly exhibited itself as a learning organization scoring well on all parameters related to its progress. Most importantly the idea of buying almost everything within Australia is huge opportunity to the farmers and livestock traders. The organization continues to expand and break new barriers with respect to operation and new markets. Works Cited Tomer John. Understanding High Performance Work Systems: A joint contribution of economics and Human Resource Management. 1999. Web. 11 October 2009. http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~frantz/docs/Tomer.pdf Woolworths Limited. Our company governance Web 11 October 2009 .Web. http://www.woolworthslimited.com.au/phoenix.zhtml?c=144044&p=irol-govhighlights Bored of Studies Student Community Woolworths Food retail Case study 2005. Web. 10 October 2009. http://community.boredofstudies.org/59/food-technology/93228/free-woolworths-case-study-afi.html Woolworths Limited. Corporate Social responsibility report. Web. 10 October 2009. http://crreport08.woolworthslimited.com.au/recruitment.php Beswick David. Management Implications of the interaction between Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation. 2007 Web . 9 October 2009 http://www.beswick.info/psychres/management.htm Mathes, E. (1981, fall). Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a guide for living. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 21, 69-72. Maslow, A., & Lowery, R. (Ed.). (1998). Toward a psychology of being (3rd ed.). New York: Wiley & Sons Read More