Organization Behaviour - Telstra Company, Australia - Case Study Example

Organization Behaviour: Telstra Company, Australia Customer Inserts His/her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name 02/08/ 2011 How to develop and implement self-awareness at Telstra Self-awareness is one of the principles of Organizational Development, a value-based approach to systems change in organizations. Self-awareness commits to developing self-awareness and interpersonal skills. Therefore, through Organizational Development, it practitioners engage in personal and professional development through lifelong learning. Self-awareness relates to an individual’s believe in his or her capabilities to excel in work and other spheres of life that need to be advanced. Self-awareness, as a principle of Organizational Development, is said to be supported by theory, since Organizational Development draws from multiples disciplines that inform an understanding of the human systems, including applied behavioral and physical sciences. Through this, understanding how human beings operate will help in drawing a line on how to develop self-awareness within each individual, so as every person knows his or her self-awareness level is related to performance. One way to develop self-awareness at Telstra is through continued training and lifelong learning of ways of advancing personal and professional areas of an individual. The managers of Telstra must have awareness of their self since they serve as role-model in the Telstra. When managers are role modeling self-awareness, the whole of Telstra takes on a similar behavior and therefore the employees of Telstra will invest more time in order to have knowledge of about their self. In order to develop self-awareness, Telstra should encourage personal development by providing time for its employees to advance their career through education, reward for achievements and job promotion. On the other hand, since self-awareness is more of a personal role, developing greater self-awareness is complete when Telstra conducts an assessment of individual strengths and weaknesses (Gargiulo, 2005). Understanding individual as well as organization’s strengths and weakness is one step in achieving self-awareness. Telstra can implement self-awareness by organizing interactive workshop designed to provide the management team with a solid understanding of developing self-awareness and broad range of self-awareness strategies and tactics. Through these sessions, Telstra will be able to identify the essential areas of self-awareness and understand and appreciate the differences among individuals. Implementing self-awareness requires Telstra to make the employee attain a clear perception of their personality in addition to their strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivations and emotions. If Telstra has attained self-awareness, the employees will be more confident of the services they offer to their customers. Analyzing customer’s perception of the services they are been offered is another way of implementing self-awareness. Hill and Jones (2007, p34) add that managers self-awareness increases subordinates trust and confidence in them hence very important for managers to have self-awareness for effective implementation. How to manage the workplace environment at Telstra The conditions surrounding the working place determine the level at which the employees are able to attain self-awareness. Favourable working place conditions will in return make employees attain self-awareness. Some of the favourable conditions include: supportive leaders and managers, teamwork and opportunities for promotion or career development among others which an employees is conscious about. Managers and leaders who possess self-awareness will act as models these employees. Therefore, if they are supportive, they will direct employees on how to build their own self-awareness. In addition, if workplace conditions favors employees for personal growth and development, this will as well boost their confidence which is one aspect that shows being self-aware. When employees are given a chance to work in groups, they are able to show their skills and apply them so as to accomplish the group project. With this, they attain self-awareness since they know particular skills they should improve on. The workplace environment is full of diverse areas that require different approaches. The first concern in the workplace environment is employee management. This is because effective management of employees is the first thing in enabling Telstra to attain its objectives not forgetting that employees are the most important assets of an organization. Managing Telstra workplace environment requires focus on leadership, compensation, staffing, motivation, training and development, change management rewards and recognition among others. Telstra should ensure that the working environment is conducive for every employee. The most important thing in managing the workplace is to attain effective communication. Through effective communication, the management of Telstra will have an understanding of employees’ areas of concern and address them appropriately. Change and stress are the most critical areas that require management. When thinking about change, the management should also prepare the employees on the same. Change management requires making the employees understand why Telstra needs change, the effect of change, the role of employees as well as assuring the employees that their position are secured. Change can be conducted from top-bottom or from bottom to top, but the latter is more effective (Lister 2003). On the other hand, stress among employees can be from the work and or other areas of life, for instance in the family. The best way of managing stress in workplace is for Telstra to have a guidance and counseling facilities where employees can share out their difficult experiences and get good advice on how to deal with such. Motivation, rewards and compensation are other ways of managing the workplace. Telstra should make sure that its employees feel motivated to continue providing quality services to the customers. Rewards can be one way of motivating employees based on individual or group performance over a period of time. Compensation relates to salary and wages. Daft and Marcic (2010, p403) claim that money is the most important motivator for employees. Another way that Telstra can manage the workplace environment is through intervention in team and group activities. This is because employee involvement, teams and employee empowerment enable people to make rational decisions about their work. On the other hand, the most effective way of managing workplace environment is developing Telstra corporate culture. How to build effective communication and management communication skills in Telstra Communication is vital in building relationships, whether work relationship or other kind of relationships. An organization can only achieve its objectives through communication. The management is given the role of establishing the right channels of communication in Telstra. Effective communication ensures that the employees and other stakeholders of Telstra understand its mission and vision which are foundations for objectives. Skills in effective communication show that an employee or leader has attained self-awareness since one knows what to say and how to say it right and at the right moment. The most important aspects in attaining effective communication are listening and feedback. This is because to check the effectiveness of communication, a person must have a feedback. Communication involves coding, transmitting, decoding and obtaining feedback. For an organization like Telstra, there are different flows of communication such as upwards to downwards communication and downwards to upwards communication. In order to achieve effective communication, Telstra has to obtain an understanding of the barriers of communication. In Telstra the mostly used forms of communication are written and oral communication. Literacy levels of the employees of Telstra may create a barrier for effective communication through writing, hence the need to understand the recipients of information. Therefore, effective communication can be attained when the barriers of communication are eliminated. Specific barriers to effective communication include: lack of planning, unclarified assumptions, semantic distortion and poorly expressed messages. It is advisable for Telstra to use written and oral communication together so that the favourable qualities of each form can complement the other (Koontz and Weihrich 2006). Selection of the right medium of communication is another means of achieving effective communication in Telstra. Building effective communication requires possession of communication skills such as listening. Communications skills can be acquired through education or organizing interactive sessions such as debates. Delegation of some roles to junior staff members provides them with an opportunity to be leaders and hence has to build the right communication skills. In addition, in order to build effective communication, the media used by Telstra should be suitable for it based on geographical location and development. For instance, if Telstra considers the use of information technology as mode of communication, then the necessary infrastructure must be in place as well as training the employees on how to use them (Butterfield 2009). Motivation in Telstra Managers of Telstra can only motivate their employees only if they have self-awareness in them. A manager is involved in areas that need changes and rational decision making. These changes as well as decisions must be those that motivate employees of Telstra to perform their excellently and be productive to the organization. In addition, many of these changes and decisions involve people, the employees. Therefore, the behaviour of a manager has a great impact on other people. Hence, employees who work for or with a self-aware manager have more joy in the work they do, thus feel motivated to do it. \\ There are many views related to motivation of employees. Telstra would consider motivation for purposes of increased performance leading to high levels of production. Scholars and philosophers who seeked to address issues surrounding the human resource aspect of an organization, developed certain theories that an organization can utilize in order to achieve motivation. These include: cognitive theory, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs theory, the Two-factor theory and Theory Y and X among others. The main idea presented by these theories is to ensure that employees feel satisfied in the organization they work for. In considering how to make their employees feel motivated, Telstra should ensure that the employees achieve a balance between their work and life where they can meet their personal goals in line with Telstra goals. Motivation is the basis of employees’ performance. According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory, Telstra can achieve motivation by fulfilling the needs of the employees as presented in a pyramid. Following this, the first needs that Telstra should fulfill are the physiological needs which relate to the basic needs such as food and clothes. Secondly, Telstra should fulfill safety needs through such things as insurance covers and health care provisions. In addition, employees are social hence the need to fulfill their social needs such as love. Moreover, the fourth need to be fulfilled in order to motivate employees is the senses of esteem where Telstra help employees recognize their achievements. Finally, Jex and Britt (2008, p36) self-actualization is the highest level of need that Telstra can reach. Nevertheless, Telstra can utilize the two factor theory where motivation is achieved when hygiene and satisfaction needs of employees are achieved. The workplace should be conducive in terms cleanliness in order for employees to feel motivated. Therefore, in order to achieve employees’ motivation, Telstra has to fulfill the needs of employees and make them satisfied. Managing Conflict (Diversity and Culture) in Telstra The first step in managing conflict in a diverse work environment such as that in Telstra is to understand the root cause of the problem or conflict. Conflict management will usually require making changes in the structure and processes within an organization. Different ways of managing conflict depend on the nature of the conflict and whether it is internal or external. The best way of managing conflict in Telstra is to make negotiation or mediations between the conflicting parties. The most important role that the management of Telstra can play is that of a neutral, where it has no interest on one party at the detriment of the other party. However, strategies of conflict resolution that are in existence in Telstra do not necessarily involve changing the structure and process within Telstra (Rahim 2010). The corporate culture is one tool that Telstra can utilize to solve and manage conflict especially where diversity is concerned. Telstra corporate culture defines the guiding values, principles and believes for employees and the management. Therefore, when managing a conflict the culture that brings together the conflicting parties as well as help them associate with Telstra will guide them in solving their conflict. Another way to manage conflict, is to provide role specifications, where each employee and manager of Telstra is aware of the role he or she is supposed hence eliminated role conflict. In addition, Telstra could establish the right channels of communication where employees can acquire clarity regarding conflicting areas or issues. References Butterfield, J 2009, Verbal communication: soft skills for a digital workplace, Cengage Learning, Stamford. Daft, RL & Marcic, D 2010, Understanding management, 7th edn, Cengage Learning, Stamford. Gargiulo, TL 2005, The strategic use of stories in organizational communication and learning, M.E Sharpe, Armonk, New York. Hill, CWL & Jones, GR 2007, Strategic management: an integrated approach, 8th edn, Cengage Learning, Stamford. Jex, SM & Britt, TW 2008, Organizational psychology: a scientific- practitioner approach, 2nd edn, John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey. Koontz, H & Weihrich, H 2006, Essentials of management, 7th edn, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, New York. Lister, EJ Successful change management, Lister Management Inc. Chemainus, Canada. Rahim, AM 2010, Managing conflict in organizations, 4th edn, Transaction Publishers, New Jersey. Read More