Organizational Behaviour Case Analysis - Essay Example

Organizational Behavior Case Analysis (Motivation in the Boiler Room) For any organization to work, a number of stakeholders have to pool their efforts. For the effective and efficient functioning these stakeholders are supposed to come out with their best efforts. In this case, the functioning of the 'Boiler Room' basically indicates the bold efforts of an entrepreneur. As has been pointed out in the case study, telemarketing has become an inevitable evil practice. Howsoever hard one tries to avoid, such calls simply keep tracing the individual. In today's context all of us have more or less accepted this inevitability as well. Realizing this very acceptance of society, Tom put in practice the idea of starting a 'call centre' from his own premises. Well, without going into the ethical aspects of the manner in which Tom collects the information, it needs to be pointed out that the task of collecting the details of prospective clients for companies requires assistance from the people who can devote couple of hours at the premises of Tom and make calls to the prospective clients. Motivation Motivation in simplest terms can be defined as a means of providing motives. Motives can act towards making the work, towards doing a job more efficiently or for distorting the work environment. The lack of any positive motivation by the managers often results in an automatic provisioning of negative motivation. Motivation may be defined as the state of an individual's perspective which represents the strength of his/ her natural inclination to exert efforts towards some particular behavior. How somebody makes use of his/ her efforts towards a goal is determined by the motivating/ de-motivating factors. It is through their behavior that employees give expression to their commitment to work, level of motivation and their attitudes. Maslow has detailed five hierarchies of needs for someone to put in their best foot forward. But in this scenario, the only need that seems to matter the most is the 'physiological need'. The freelancers are getting paid for the efforts being made at the call centre. As for the other needs, Tom can certainly not promise the part-time workers job for a fixed period or good perks, better working conditions etc. This rules out the safety needs. The Belonging needs play a role when the freelancers are not supposed to develop a sense a belonging with the organization. At best some of the freelancers can work for the sake of friendly relations with Tom. Esteem needs and self-actualization needs come into picture only when the individual foresees a future for himself in the organization or develops a deep rooted affinity for the organization and sets a goal for himself or herself in the organization or amongst the society. At the most the freelancers can set for themselves the goal of spending some quality time with the call-centre, remaining in the good books of Tom and continuing some extra bucks in the evening hours. Therefore Tom basically needs to motivate the freelancers to put their best foot forward. It has been observed that while some of the part-timers are indeed quite effective in collecting the information, there are some others who have not been performing well. The payments are being handed out to all the workers at the end of the week. This being a 'off the book' operation, no systematic performance appraisal is done by the man in charge. But, it needs to be emphasized here that if such practice is allowed to continue for long, it will have an adverse impact even on those who seemed to enjoy their evening talking with people and recording their details. Therefore, Tom needs to put in place some mechanism which takes care of such aberrations and improves the efficiency levels as well. Here all the employees basically belong to the same hierarchy and there are no means to differentiate between their levels. Therefore, Tom will have to come out with ideas rewarding good performances while discouraging reluctant performers. This will certainly help in motivating the good tele-callers while increasing the overall efficiency of the call-centre. Alderfer's ERG Theory (Existence, relatedness, growth needs) This theory divides the needs in three levels namely, existence needs, relatedness needs and growth needs. The ERG theory can be seen as an extension of the Maslow's hierarchy of needs. But this theory differs from the Maslow's pyramid in the sense that Alderfer finds that two different types of needs can be pursued simultaneously by the individual. This theory also acknowledges that even if the individual finds that higher level need remains unfulfilled, the individual may regress to lower level needs which appear easier to satisfy. The 'boiler room' seems to a perfect place for satisfying the lower level needs like earning some easy money for as long as the venture keeps working or as long as the individual can spare some time for the cause, in the evening hours. The relatedness needs will come into picture when there's a criteria to assess the levels of satisfaction or some means to figure out the communication gaps. Whatever routine briefing the freelancers are provided by Tom almost on a daily basis, that becomes the policy. Similarly, the growth needs cannot be fulfilled in the 'boiler room' for the simple reason that there are no opportunities for growth. Nobody can aspire to become a manager with added powers and responsibilities. Only responsibility one can have is to meet his or her quota of calls each day. Process Theories These theories explain the motive found out by the individual in carrying out the task more diligently. The expectancy theory explains how an individual's motivation is determined by the outcomes that people expect as a result of effort and actions on the job. While Tom's finding as many qualified prospects as possible certainly happens to be the top priority for the venture, getting the due payment at the end of the week happens to be the next level for the freelancers. Though, it is not a precondition, yet it can be safely assumed that if the first priority is able to attain reasonable success, the second priority is bound to follow. But, as Tom himself admits in the case study that the levels of expecting a success on each phone call is quite low because quite often the caller had to talk with people who do not want to talk to you. It is up to the ability of the caller how long can he or she engage the prospect and try to mold the prospect towards sharing more information. The job is quite challenging in the sense that it is very difficult to predict the success rate or efficiency levels. The key force which brings the freelancers to this place is the urge for some easy money, which in turn help in running the call centre. The goal setting theory specifies that in order to have a successful business venture the management must be able to set goals in such a manner that the goals are found to be specific and challenging. Well, in this case the goals are indeed very much specific i.e. finding out a list of qualified prospective clients. The task is indeed quite challenging as well. But to make this challenging task acceptable to all the freelancers in the boiler room, Tom needs to devise ways and means to encourage hard-working freelancers while pointing out the inefficiencies and substandard performances. Tom employs some people on daily basis to make calls to people and then collect information about their qualification for certain types of products or services. These people happen to be non-regulars, on the lookout for some extra income opportunity. Therefore, the kind of devotion and commitment, which one can see in regular employees, will certainly not be there. It is worthwhile here to mention that some of the people are quite regular on the job and come out with decent performances, while some others are there to spend time and take home some money. It is therefore necessary that while the decent performances require encouragements, the non-performers need to be shown their place by pointing out their wrongdoings. Restructuring Goal Setting for Job Design Jobs in any organization are relatively static and often it is possible to identify and predict critical job-related behaviors which in turn lead to effective and efficient performance. Job analysis therefore takes into account the dynamic behavior of job holders. One of the major purposes of carrying out job analysis exercise is to develop an appropriate design of job for improved efficiency and productivity. Job in simple can be defined as 'a grouping of tasks, responsibilities and duties'. In this case, the basic job profile of tele-callers includes; i. Making at least the minimum number of calls while on duty ii. Recording the details in an accurate manner iii. Talking with the people in such a manner that they do not get offended iv. Trying their best to increase the rates of success v. Discipline in coming to office, i.e. spending the requisite amount of time on the work table vi. Retaining a workplace environment which encourages good work and not disturbing other colleagues who too are doing their best to perform well Job analysis provides details of the tasks and activities to be carried out on a particular job together with required human skills and motivations to the human resource. Adequate working ambience and other motivators then act towards maximizing the productivity and satisfaction. 'Job design' and 'work organization' function towards complementing each other's roles. In this case the information is gathered in the garb of conducting marketing research. This way, the credit worthiness of the client is assessed and the information is thus passed on to the companies dealing in products like vacuum clears or service like mortgage, insurance etc. When some workers turn up for the job in drunken state and spend couple of hours at the call-centre doing little for the sake of the enterprise, there's a strong possibility that other around too start taking a cue. Similarly, it has also been observed that tele-callers sometimes calls up at the very last moment informing that he or she will not be able to make it to the call centre on that particular day, citing some reasons. But at the end of the week, when cash payments are being disbursed, and it is found that no penal action has been taken against such people, others too start taking such behavior as normal and might resort to similar actions in due course. Therefore, such behavior if go unnoticed and unpunished act as de-motivators for the performers. Therefore, Tom can devise a strategy which helps in motivating good workers while discouraging careless attitude. Some such actions might include; i. A reward scheme can be introduced to the effect that if a person makes above a minimum number of calls for a day to continuously for two-three days, then he/she will be rewarded with a cash amount. ii. Such a reward scheme can be announced for truthfully recording the details of prospective customers as well. Suppose the details jotted by a tele-caller often turn out to be illegible or wrong, but there are others who record the details in legible handwriting and correctly, therefore some measures can be initiated by Tom to reward correctness of details. iii. Similarly, there are situations when somebody calls up at the very last moment to inform about his/her inability to turn up on that day. Well, at times, certainly there could be emergency-like situations resulting in this type of situations. Tom needs to consider the humanity aspect as well. But if someone makes it a regular practice rather than an exception, then it calls for requisite action. Therefore, Tom must keep a record of such people shelling out stray reasons for not turning up or turning up late and this record must reflect in the payout at the end of the week. To make such an arrangement, Tom can talk with all his tele-callers and prepare an acceptable policy to handle such circumstances. iv. Since the 'Boiler Room' call centre doesn't have a systematic or pre-defined set of communication techniques. It all depends upon the individual's ability to make calls and convince prospective clients in agreeing to shell out the details. While some tele-callers are quite effective in convincing the people, there are some others who might not be as effective. By regularly monitoring the performances and calls of good communicators, Tom can present such performances as an example for others to follow. Help of such communicators can be taken during the brief training sessions for new part-timers as well. Leadership Role Another aspect of the venture is the style of leadership that Tom is able to display. Though the 'Boiler Room' is more like an office, but being a limited number of persons in the venture, it resembles more like a small team. Therefore it basically becomes a team effort with Tom being the leader of the team. The team structure determines how to maximize the common efforts. If anyone members of the team works in a manner adversely affecting the final outcome, then it acts as a de-motivating factor for other members in the team, which in turn affects the quality of the final product. Therefore an efficient team structure also takes care of such eventualities. A team leader therefore plays the central role in making or breaking the team. It is the team leader who can synergize the efforts or just wither away the advantage, with his actions. Even if policies and strategies are devised for performance and behavior at the call centre, but Tom is not able to effectively put into practice those policies, then it is of no use. Instead, it will further hamper the motivation of others and overall efficiency levels. Values, Attitudes and Work Behaviors The value proposition being practiced in the organization together with the attitudes of the workforce helps in shaping the overall personality of the organization and the work behavior. Two schools of thought in psychology define the human behavior like; The psychic inner causes of behavior which states that the actions or behavior of a person emanate from the internal psychological structure often called personality. As employees differ in their personality so do they differ in their behavior. It further states that a change in behavior can only be brought about by changing the personality of individuals. The second school of thought states that the behavior of a person is primarily determined by the external situational factors, called the stimuli and the reward's associated with one's response. By bringing about a change in these factors the behavior can be redirected and molded accordingly. In practice however, it is observed that the human behavior is a proportionate mix of these two theories i.e. human behavior is a function of a person in relation to the situation, having 'personality' and 'situation' as the two variables. Motivational factors arouse a need, propelling a person to channelize his/her efforts and energies in the direction of fulfilling those needs. If Tom can put in place policies motivating good performances, it will certainly help in making the efforts more effective. This being a small scale enterprise, Tom can synergize the efforts of all concerned by; Eliciting the contribution from all concerned Organizing the part-times members in such a manner that the boiler room is able to take maximum benefit of the constructive efforts and by assigning them the responsibilities. Developing an effective information system for monitoring and coordination activities. Conclusion Though, it's purely a private affair of Tom and it may not be a perfectly fit case for applying the professional approaches and systematic functional behavior at display in full-fledged organizations, but a job well done certainly helps the motive with which it is being undertaken. If Tom is able to enrich the job in such a manner that he is able to attract better workers for the call-centre, it will imply sustenance of his efforts for longer durations and a profitable venture. Read More