Reference no: EM132355318 , Length: word count:2500
Organisational Behaviour Report Assignment -
Learning Outcomes -
a) Explain how theories of organisational behaviour may be applied in an organisational setting.
b) Evaluate potential organisational problem situations and formulate proactive managerial interventions, with special sensitivity to cultural, ethical and social concerns.
c) Locate relevant research and compare and critique the findings on current developments in organisational behavior.
d) Communicate effectively in oral and/or written forms about organisational behaviour theories and their application with appropriate concepts and logical arguments.
e) Apply knowledge of leadership principles and processes to explain and exact effective leader and follower behaviours.
Group Report Assessment -
Purpose: Students are expected to analyse the provided case and present recommended improvements. This assessment relates to learning outcomes a, b, c and d.
Topic: The high turnover of consultants.
Task details: The task requires completing a group report. Students must start the work by reading the following case:
Fiona was sitting in her office reflecting on her day. How did I not see this coming-three tenured training consultants resigning in the past month? How do I explain this to my dad, who successfully built this company?
Fiona took charge of the family business, XYZ Training Consultants, two years ago. XYZ is a medium-sized organisation offering management training and leadership development services in Malaysia. The company was founded by Tim Redkin, Fiona's father, in the mid-1990s and employs 80 full-time staff. Tim spent a number of years as a training consultant in Africa and returned to Malaysia to start up his own company.
When Tim first started the company he adopted an open management style. Staff were encouraged to walk into his office at any time to discuss issues. This habit was reinforced by the office structure-Tim's office and the consultants' working space were located on the same floor. Tim and the training consultants shared a common dining area and washroom facilities. This encouraged informal interactions between Tim and the consultants.
Issues were resolved as they happened. Friday mornings were sacred at XYZ. Tim would chair a meeting with all of the training consultants and support staff to discuss clients and progress on training, and the meeting would conclude with a brief on the 'week ahead'. Consultants were given clear guidelines on Tim's expectations and the clients for whom they were designing and delivering training. Tim encouraged open communication and staff felt they could discuss anything with him.
Tim, Fiona and the training consultants were highly involved in all aspects of the business. They would meet with clients to discuss training content and delivery schedules, market and promote XYZ and its training packages and service and maintain clients' portfolios. Staff participated in determining their work schedules and were always consulted before work was distributed. The personal and family commitments of employees were respected and considered before any work schedules were finalised. Full-time training consultants were provided with competitive salaries when they joined the organisation, granted additional holiday leave, and received above-average merit increases and performance bonuses. Tim even held weekly yoga sessions for staff, to improve their wellbeing.
Tim made all of the decisions concerning recruitment, dismissals and allocation of workload. He did not believe in structured policies and procedures. He felt that written policies and procedures hampered his decision-making power and reduced autonomy. Decisions were based on Tim's personal relationship with each staff member. XYZ had a performance appraisal system in place. Each staff member was appraised by either Tim or Fiona. However, Tim alone made the decisions on who received merit increases and performance bonuses. If you did good work, you were rewarded.
XYZ was doing very well and over the past five years the number of training contracts had significantly increased and profits were steadily rising. The training consultants were happy, treated fairly, received manageable workloads and were involved and kept informed on key happenings at XYZ through the Friday-morning meetings.
Unfortunately, Tim was diagnosed with a serious heart condition and decided to hand over his role as managing director to Fiona.
Fiona believed that with increased competition and the recent legislative changes, XYZ needed some restructuring. A few months after taking over, she created three departments based on the type of training provided. Each department would have a head of department (HoD) and directly under each HoD would be the training consultants. Each HoD would report directly to Fiona. All training consultants would now meet with their respective HoDs every Friday morning. Fiona did not attend these meetings. Instead, she held weekly meeting with all HoDs. If a consultant wanted to discuss something with Fiona, he or she had to make an appointment and very often Fiona would refer the consultant to one of the HoDs.
Furthermore, a new grading system for training consultants based on their tenure was introduced. No staff member was consulted during this process. This resulted in a hierarchy as follows:
Senior training consultant
- + 5 years experience at XYZ
- Masters degree + professional membership
- Above average performance ratings
Training consultant
- 3-5 years training experience
- Masters qualification or enrolled in a professional qualification/masters program
Junior training consultant
- 0-2 years work experience
- Degree from a recognised institution
- Intention to pursue further academic qualifications
Fiona also unilaterally decided to remove the performance bonus and merit pay increase incentives. She replaced these with annual across-the-board increases.
Fiona and the HoDs paid less attention to the performance appraisal results. All three HoDs spent a lot of effort in pleasing Fiona, even if this meant negatively commenting on a consultant. If you were in Fiona's 'good books' and your HoD spoke 'highly' of you, you received better clients to work with, better work schedules and promotions and were consulted before work was allocated. If a staff member challenged Fiona's decision or action, he or she received less-than-appealing work schedules. These included evening classes and full-day Saturday training. This led to situations where some staff members had huge training loads while others were allocated a low training schedule and enjoyed higher levels of work-life balance and could complete their compulsory continuous development courses. Those staff with heavy workloads had little time for professional development. 'How are we expected to learn and publish if we are training non-stop' was a common complaint among consultants?
After some time, staff realised that the performance appraisals were a 'waste of time'. Being in Fiona's good books earned better work schedules and opportunities for training and promotion. Those training consultants with heavy workloads had little time to impress Fiona and were often heard complaining in the staff canteen. These 'overworked' consultants were angry and many started calling in sick; they also began using older training packages and/or spent less time in preparing training packages that met the client's needs.
In addition, Fiona decided to refurbish and rearrange the office. This resulted in a new office layout. Fiona and the HoDs now all had private offices on the ground floor, while all training consultants, irrespective of their grade, were located in an open-plan office on the third floor. Canteen facilities, washroom facilities and coffee machines were separated-one for 'management level' and one for 'consultants'.
Staff were often heard complaining that they were sick and tired of Fiona and her new rules: 'We work hard, and we need some recognition around here.' The weekly yoga sessions ceased, as Fiona felt that it was a waste of time and several consultants were so overworked they no longer had time for yoga.
Moreover, many consultants felt that the new grading system differentiating consultants on work experience was very unfair. Many junior training consultants entered XYZ with high academic and professional qualifications, worked as many hours as tenured consultants but were paid far less. Also, 'selected staff' who had family commitments, young children or ageing parents were not given evening or Saturday training.
At the same time, tenured consultants were unhappy because although they earned higher salaries, they no longer had time for professional development. This led to resentment between employees. For the first time at XYZ, client feedback on training was negative, customer complaints increased and consultants called in sick on scheduled training days. Furthermore, arguments and back-biting among staff became a common practice.
Within the first two years of Fiona taking over, 50% of tenured consultants had resigned; in addition, 60% of new recruits resigned within the first year of working at the organisation. XYZ was no longer an attractive place to work.
When done, students must write a report that addresses the following questions
1. Apply employee engagement theory to identify and discuss the motivational elements that existed in the old organisational environment and which elements were removed in the new environment under Fiona's leadership.
2. Using organisational justice and equity theory of motivation, explain and analyse the training consultants' behaviours.
3. Reflect on instances where Fiona's leadership may not be suitable by considering findings from contemporary research and by looking at cultural, ethical and/or social concerns that may limit the effectiveness of this leadership style.
4. Discuss numerous immediate changes that Fiona should make to improve staff engagement and motivation at XYZ? Responses must be supported by relevant organisational behaviour theories. The work should be in the format of a business report as you would submit to the CEO or management of any business, in a professional style. The report must contain: Cover Page, Executive Summary and Table Of Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Sections and Sub Sections Covering Question 1 (You Must Choose Suitable Headings)
3. Sections and Sub Sections Covering Question 2 (You Must Choose Suitable Headings)
4. Sections and Sub Sections Covering Question 3 (You Must Choose Suitable Headings)
5. Sections and Sub Sections Covering Question 4 (You Must Choose Suitable Headings)
6. Conclusion
7. List of References That Align With Approved Referencing Format
8. Appendices as required.
Attachment:- ORGANISATIONABEHAVIOUR Assignment File.rar