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Welcome the the MGMT 9340 blog!
In 2006, news about the abuses at the prison facility in Abu Ghraib triggered news that all 150,000 American and allied troops in Iraq were to receive mandatory training on legal, moral, and ethical standards on the battlefield.
At the time, this reminded me that in the corporate world, “mandatory training” is the surest sign of deeper, embedded cultural issues.
In fact, this fig leaf is a flimsy band-aid. The oil executives who speak in racial epithets will mandate diversity training for its employees (Texaco). The audit firm that ignores (or rewards) conflicts of interest will mandate “independence training” for its employees (Big Four). Executives who cook the books will mandate “ethics training” for its employees (too many to list), and so on.
Are these transgressions truly the result of a few isolated rogue employees, or does tacit “permission” come from higher up?
For management, training solutions to perceived problems are tangible, feel-good actions. However, they address the symptom, not the cause. Instead, warning signs like Haditha and Abu Ghraib should trigger a cultural audit and management review at every level; very often, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Blog on this:
How does your organization’s culture impact the place where you work? Which aspects, in your view, enable success, and which aspects pose risks? Has your management addressed these issues, or will they be?
Since I work in pharmaceutical sales and not in an office setting, company culture is a little bit hard to pin point. I do not have regular daily contact with my teammates or management and I work independently in my territory. Although there is culture of corporate compliance, personal accountability and overall “above board” behavior that is messaged from upper management to all employees, I wonder about the differences between the regions. There are 5 regional managers within the company and each supervises 11 or 12 sales representatives.
My current manager is excellent at communicating a culture within the region that is consistent with the overall company culture. Yet, I have worked at other pharma companies where certain managers would ask/tell their reps to take part in activities that were clearly non-compliant if not blatantly illegal. …Hmm, that could be one of the reasons for the recent $600 million dollar fine. My point is that I wonder if the culture of the various regions override that of the organization as a whole.
My experience with my company and its’ culture has been very positive. Unlike my previous company, I have never experienced or heard about any mixed messages regarding sales practices or compliance issues. While this might seem trivial to some, in pharma sales this is nothing short of a miracle! In certain companies, managers will often expect their reps to do what it takes to make the sale…they may even instruct or okay actions that are clearly unethical, but then claim ignorance when the actions are discovered. Essentially, management will hang the representative out to dry. This is not the case at my current company (or in my region). This aspect of company culture effectively protects the company as well as the representative, and ensures ethical behavior is a CLEAR expectation for all employees. It also fosters a feeling of trust between management and the sales teams.
In any organization the culture will impact not only the people who work there, but the people who apply. Take Google, for instance, people apply there largely for the culture which places emphasis on projects that enhance the user experience, but also has generous work-benefits such as on site meals, allows engineers to devote 20% of their work time to personal projects, and fosters a sense of community among peers.
Ricardo Lange of the Great Place to Work Institute says “Having a culture of trust benefits the organization on every level; employees are more innovative, creative, loyal, demonstrate respect, and genuinely care about each other and about the company. What is good for the workplace is also good for the business and many of these companies also enjoy better client retention and customer satisfaction. Being a great workplace is good for everyone.”
At my last workplace our culture was defined by the idea that we were unique, the organization, which was the only jazz and blues FM station left operating in its area, was unique, and we, the employees were unique. But this acceptance of “uniqueness” also left an uneasy feeling in many new employees, who were put off by the excited screams of an afternoon DJ, or the dancing through the halls of our Music Director.
While this does not stop people from applying, or wanting to be part of the unique atmosphere, it does take some new employees a while to get their “land legs.”
Some, especially the student employees who are hired for low-level administrative tasks, never find a balance and are subject to high turnover rates.
Management seems happy with the way the station runs, or if they are unhappy they seem to have no idea how to change the game at this point. The stable of DJs is fairly well developed and most have been with the station for decades or more. The problem comes down to the administrative sector, which seems to be less important in the eyes of management, and so nothing is done about the high student-worker turnover.
References:
Great Place to Work Institute; Announcing the 2010 Great Place to Work(R) Rankings: The Best Small & Medium Workplaces Presented by Entrepreneur(R)
Anonymous. Marketing Business Weekly. Atlanta: Sep 26, 2010. pg. 124
Culture is difficult to define, but one can generally be able to determine if someone is culturally fit for the organization. People in every workplace talk about organizational culture, which characterizes a work environment. However, at my workplace (utility company) it’s something we don’t usually talk about, but we feel everyday. It is defined by what is expected of people and what is valued. Culture is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes and behaviors shared by a group of people. Please note that different organizations has different cultures but we all have one common goal which is to provide efficient service to our customers. While there are cultural norms that spread across the entire organization, there often are differences within a department, a workgroup or a geographical region.
There are many answers to what make someone successful in our organization. A person has to have a clear picture of what the organization desire, understand the benefits of change; you need to see the benefits clearly so that you will stay motivated to change, communicate effectively with others; others may be able to see your worldview and then you can begin to expect it from others.
The organization culture at my company has help foster a family oriented environment whereby trust among employees are at a high level which may not be a norm in the corporate world.There is an opendoor policy whereby every employee at any level may be able to make suggestion on a particular business process, hence, this creates an amicable team environment. The negative part is that if a new employee or job candidate does not possess the qualities that fits culturally at our workplace, there might be a great probability that there tenure at our company will be shortlived.
Management perception of the organization culture is of a stable environment for a group of people through their observation of data provided to them from the Human Resource Department which shows obvious differences among employees but their cultural norms are within a range that can categorized employees into a common cultural style.
Finally, the central concepts that one has to be aware of about cultures are culture equals behavior, culture is learned, culture is learned through interaction and subcultures form through rewards.
My company is only 12 years old, so still has a bit of an entrepreneurial feel. Though the firm attempts to retain that start-up spirit, with 650 employees in 19 offices, it can be a challenge. Built into every role is the struggle between ownership & bureaucracy. As the firm grows, there are only more policies, procedures, and levels of management to work within.
Because the firm operates in a large number of small sized offices, we’ve managed to promote a culture of relationships. Senior management is accessible. Most of the employees know each other.
Luckily, we also still have the adaptability of a small firm. As the market changes & the business evolves, we constantly change our structure and roll out new products. As the leader in our industry, having that adaptability is crucial. That same adaptability poses challenges for the employee population. Frequent management changes leave employees uneasy. They can feel like there isn’t enough time to truly finish projects before the goal changes.
The firm also promotes the idea that our employees are extremely intelligent, hardworking professionals. That said, each employee feels the pressure to constantly exceed expectations. It has led to serious issues in the past with employee burn-out and heavy turnover.
Management realizes that continuous communication helps and as made progress in this respect. Communication has its limits though. If employees aren’t confident in what they are working towards, the results may suffer. By bringing in charismatic new leaders and lots of new, smart people, senior management is trying to revitalize the culture.
My company started as an entrepreneurial venture. Although we are much bigger today, the company tries to keep these entrepreneurial spirit and small-company-feel alive. Due to the nature of recruiting efforts, employees are incredibly intelligent and have unique outside hobbies and impressive academic achievements. While it may not seem like a big factor, I also think that our casual dress is a strong influence on the culture. Combine these items with communal spaces and free food, the environment becomes not just a workplace but also a lifestyle.
The result is a culture of mutual respect, positive energy, and a commitment to hard work. Additionally, employees are generally nice and helpful. People want to work hard and be successful, but without the sense of competitiveness I have found in other organizations. To keep the culture alive, there are organized social events on a weekly to monthly basis. Often, these events are geared to the interests of our staff such as speakers on global issues, Wii tournaments, and off site trips.
Employees expect to be treated well, and have high expectations of the company to hold up their end of the bargain. Therefore, one risk could be the development of a sense of entitlement. Another risk is if management is so convinced of its positive culture that they miss opportunities to improve. That said, management works really hard to keep the culture alive. I am not concerned that these risks have not been specifically addressed. The culture is great for people who fit into it. Compared to the vast majority of companies, these risks are minimal.
My company is family owned and run. For over 100 years, it has maintained the same mission. The only thing that has changed is the way in which the mission is achieved. The founder and the leaders ever since, have strongly valued entrepreneurial spirit. An employee that demonstrates the potential of a good idea that helps implements the company mission and can gain the appropriate backing is encouraged to develop their idea.
This has lead to several divisions that might at times overlap on their initiatives as they attempt to grow and develop their view of the company mission. The different divisions act as their own small entities and do not share ideas across the board as effectively as they should. There are very intelligent employees who are able to use their ideas and see them through but there are also alliance barriers that prevent them from getting further. This can cause frustration instead of progress.
The company has tried to bring together the units to share ideas. Their most recent attempt was earlier this year. The session was on one topic that the units where all tackling. The session was designed to be a brainstorming session. The session included senior executives and top leaders of the individual units. Instead of an interactive dialog, the session consisted of individual presentations of what that unit has accomplished and no further discussion.
Although this session was not as successful as it could have been, it was the first time in a very long time that this type of collaboration had been attempted. There are several aspects that could have made this session go smoother but in essence at least having this session is the first step. If cooperation is not enforced from the senior executives in order to pacify the competitive nature within the organization and encourage partnership, this might not happen from the bottom up because of the lack of power to make it happen.
Two years ago, I made an internship in one of the biggest telecommunication company. This firm has been privatized in 2000, but the employees were still attached to their corporate culture. As a previous public organization, the values defended by the upper management emphasized the quality of the customer’s services, teams work and spirit. At that time, the employees were proud of their enterprise. The company is now becoming a competitive firm where the culture points out the self- performance, the profit, the individualism. The management is results-oriented and the enterprise has frequently dealing with reorganization and restructuring which have forced the employees to move for others locations.
This change has affected the salaries, who didn’t understand why they have to change: being more efficient in a shorter time without paying attention to their customers and their co-workers.
The top management has measured its culture’s change as a success; the company is now competitive, responding to the market‘s demand. On the other hand, symptom like stress, musculoskeletal injury appeared among the employees underlying their anxiety. In that particular case, the company copes now with a new wave of salaries suicides .
As the time I was working there, the HR department has to find a way between the CEO policy, the respect of each salaries’ career and health safety and their own convictions.
For the past few years, I have worked for two different law firms. Law firms are generally limited liability partnerships and there are strict bar rules that limit ownership in a law firm to attorneys. Therefore, since I am not an attorney I will never be rewarded with the prize of an ownership stake in the firm I work for.
I reference the structure of the firm because I believe it has a tremendous impact on the culture of the place. On the one hand, professional staff members, such as myself as head of the firm’s PR function, will never be considered peers by the partners. However, in my experience one can earn the role of trusted counselor to the partnership after proving one’s value.
Lawyers are trained to be risk averse. That said, the two firms I have worked for are very different in scope and somewhat different in culture. As I contemplated a move from my former firm to a new one, one key that I was considering was the firm’s culture. Part of it had to do with how lawyers interact with professional staff members. In talks with the nation’s most profitable law firm, I learned that the partners only speak with the head of marketing, so as head of PR I would be receiving triangulated information. Another law firm I spoke with is the epitome of the traditional “white shoe” firm, so getting the attorneys onboard with an aggressive media relations program would have been a challenge. Ultimately, I chose to join the firm where I currently work, which with 3,500 lawyers globally is either the largest or second largest business law firm in the world, depending on the day one measures.
One aspect of the firm’s culture that lured me here was the entrpreneurial nature of the place. The firm was created five years ago by an unprecented merger of three firms, two in the U.S. and one from the U.K. that had offices across Europe and into Asia. The leaders took a risk in bringing together three different firms with three different cultures to creat one firm. That risk has resulted in a diversified law firm with superior reach for the legal industry. I think their risk, though, is tempered by the risk aversion that is drilled into lawyers during law school. To my mind, the firm has fostered a healthy balance of calculated risk taking with prudent business sense.
Group Dynamics blog
Since I do not work in an office, interactions with other members of my company are limited to conference calls and occasional sales or training meeting. While my main position is that of a sale representative, I also hold 1 of the 4 field trainer positions in my company. As a field trainer, I am occasionally asked to attend planning meetings to help evaluate/improve/re-vamp aspects of our current training program.
Recently, the four field trainers, as well as our two training managers were brought in to improve our new-hire teleconference series. One aspect of this meeting stuck out to me in relation to group dynamics. This was the influence that status (or perceived status) had on the group. In this particular meeting we had one individual who had been a field trainer longer than the rest of the group. While we all have the goal of eventually moving into a management position, my perception was that this individual feels that he is due the next promotion since he has been around the longest. As a result, he tended to dominate the group. His communication style reflected both his status as well as this sense of entitlement. While working on this particular teleconference project, it was clear that he had a very specific idea about how things should be done. Any idea that was brought up by other trainers, such as simplifying certain handouts was discarded if it did not fit into his plan. Due to his status and forcefulness, other trainers, including myself were hesitant to share our ideas or disagree with his proposed changes.
Unfortunately, this dynamic led several negative consequences for the teleconference project. The most obvious consequence is that the program has yet to run optimally. Although it is better, it is still not as good as it should be. I believe this is because all suggestions were not heard and taken into consideration. In addition, this dominant individual went on to take full credit for the changes that were made instead of sharing credit with the group, further increasing tension. Finally, I noticed that by the end of this day-long meeting more than one individual had stopped participating. Not only had everyone conformed to the desires of the most dominant individual in an attempt to defuse tension, but the rest of the group eventually disengaged and gave up responsibility for the project. What will be interesting is to see how these group dynamics will play out in future meetings.
At work I am currently participating in a group of employees that is responsible for making decisions about new workspace design and use. The initial decision to create the new office was made by 6 or so senior staff members. My group of 20 employees is tasked with bringing employee opinions to the senior staff, and to disseminate information about the project to employees. I have noticed various group dynamics during our meetings.
First, while most people entered the group with no particular affiliations to other group members, there are two people from the same department in the group. These two are both outspoken and largely negative. It is almost as though they have formed a coalition, or a side group, to bring about their points. They are also fueled by each other’s negativity.
On the positive side, the group is collaborative, and the leaders (by authority) make a solid attempt to hear opinions from all group members. People are respectful of others opinions. Additionally, even though the group is a cross-section of employees at all levels, all members appear to be comfortable enough to share their honest opinions.
That said, while it is good to get opinions from everyone, the productivity is lacking. Because the senior staff wants to give credit to every thought of the junior staff, meetings have gone on longer than needed while we discuss inconsequential items. Although these discussions have brought about some good points, the time spent on some of these items is unnecessary. It seems to me that in large groups, some people just like to hear themselves talk.
Overall, I am unclear as to how much this group is impacting the organization. The outcomes of each meeting differ from the goals that were set forth at the beginning of each meeting. The overall goal of the group was to bring positive excitement to staff and to get ideas as to how to make things better. While communication is free flowing, the meetings have instead become a breeding ground for complaints and frustration.
Group dynamics affect everything. The team someone works with can make or break their job. When employees are spending more time with their co-workers than their families, it’s important to recognize the impact of the group.
Currently, I’m working in a team of 7, consisting of 4 managers and 3 non-managers. We have a very interesting group dynamic. The dept head is not well-respected throughout the firm, or even amongst his team. The 6 people reporting to him have essentially bonded over their frustration with him.
At a lower level, the three non-managers sit together. The rest of the team sits in offices on the other side of the floor. Because of the proximity to each other, we’ve grown to work well. For a number of months, there were only two of us. One member of this group was really struggling and due to the volume, I did not have the capacity to provide the help & guidance she needed. (Nor did I have the patience) Introducing a third member that I wanted to develop and help actually ended up helping both of them. Adding the third member that I was friendly with, forced a relationship between the original two of us.
Separately, I have a new boss. The dept head believes that he can let her figure out her role on her own. He gave her minimal guidance on my role & how the two of us should function. This has caused significant amounts of stress, as she misinterprets my role & capacity regularly. Reporting to her, with a minimal relationship, puts me in a very difficult position.
A work group that I am a part of consists of one person in senior management, three other members and me. For the most part all the members get along exceptionally well, despite the fact that the members are very diverse in terms of ages and backgrounds. A little over a year ago, all of the members felt a strong connection with the organization. Each member enthusiastically expressed their viewpoints. Decisions were ultimately made by the top management but members were optimistic that they could make an impact on the decisions. Since that time, a series of events have occurred, that have changed the dynamic within the group. The events include difficult decisions made by senior management despite the advice from the group, contradictory actions by the senior management, which led to a decrease in the esteem in the organization. Some of the members have become emotionally withdrawn from the overall organization whereby causing those members to easily agree with the decisions presented by the senior management member. The members still voice their opinions but are more passive in their debate and at the end do not seem to care what happens one way or another. This sentiment is apparent in other groups within the organization. In another committee that I am a part of in the organization, some members, specifically senior members, are very intense and passionate but others, specifically non-senior management, do what is necessary to maintain their jobs but are hesitant to become more involved or to put in emotional energy into the corporation. This appears to be due to a number of decisions executed by senior management that contradict what the senior members themselves are doing. What is most interesting about this dynamic is that it appears that regardless of the level of apathy in the group, the senior members seem to not sense the change in attitudes.
The nature of the influence exerted by group dynamics varies based on the subject matter and the department at my organization. Group dynamics describes the way groups and individual reacts to changing circumstances. It refers to the attitudinal and behavioral characteristics of a group and it concerns how groups form, their structure, process and how they function. Group dynamics suggests that the groups are powerful and influential and they change their members and society at large. A multilevel perspective makes it clear that many of the most important aspects of human existence including individuals, organizations, communities, and cultures cannot be fully understood without an understanding of groups.
According to Social exchange theory; individuals form relationships based on the implicit expectation of mutually beneficial exchanges based on trust and felt obligation. At my organization, this is quite evident with the union workers forming their own group and management workers forming their own group. There is a perception that exchange relationships will be positive is essential if individuals are to be attracted to and affiliated with a group. The nature of the group may be demographically based, culturally based, or organizationally based. Individuals are motivated to belong to and contribute to identity groups because of the sense of belongingness and self-worth membership in the group imparts especially the union workers who have a strong support from their union leaders.
Groups typically outperform individuals at the workplace when the tasks involved require a variety of skills, experience, and decision making based upon the department of our organization. In the operations sections of the company, it is quite obvious that a group effort is essential in getting the job done. In this case, groups complete most of the work in that organization; thus, the effectiveness of the organization is limited by the effectiveness of its groups. For the back office departments such as the finance, sales and accounting areas, having groups can be beneficial but it does not mean a worker cannot perform his or her job without being affiliate to a group.
Groups are often more flexible and can quickly assemble, achieve goals, and disband or move on to another set of objectives as operational projects changes. Many organizations have found that groups have many motivational aspects as well. Group members are more likely to participate in decision-making and problem-solving activities leading to empowerment and increased productivity.
Cohesiveness in work groups has many positive effects, including worker satisfaction, low turnover and absenteeism, and higher productivity. However, highly cohesive groups may be detrimental to organizational performance if their goals are misaligned with organizational goals. Highly cohesive groups may also be more vulnerable to groupthink. Groupthink occurs when members of a group exert pressure on each other to come to a consensus in decision making which is common among our field supervisors. Groupthink results in careless judgments, unrealistic appraisals of alternative courses of action, and a lack of reality testing. It can lead to a number of decision-making issues such as incomplete assessments of the problem, incomplete information search, bias in processing information, inadequate development of alternatives and failure to examine the risks of the preferred choice.
I can conclude that groups are very beneficial, if not essential, to organizations, that it seems ignorant to search for alternatives to human groups; however, groups may generate negative outcome
When looking at group dynamics, there are plenty of frameworks that tell us how change should or should not happen: We’re told we should be forming, storming and norming, or working our way through pre-forming, unity, disunity, conflict/confrontation, disharmony, harmony, and performing. While that may be the theory behind how groups work, in practice things are not so neatly packaged. Yes, we may go through these stages, but we may revisit some, we may get stuck on one and be unable to move past, or we may throw some out the window all together.
In a group where there is no clear leader defined, such as in a classroom, among colleagues at work, or even in a social setting these stages can be even harder to work through. I am currently a member of a social organization that is going through a major change, leadership has stepped down, new leadership was appointed, but people are angry that the decision was not a democratic one. This affects so much of the group dynamics as there was never a challenge toward leadership before, and everyone has started breaking off in to cliques. People are not willing to collaborate and so the club is slowly losing members, some who are looking to start similar clubs of their own.
It is common for there to be a feeling that you need to protect your ground when there is change within a group, but if all sides were willing to work together and hear each other out, there may not be so much of a problem. Collaboration has to come from all sides, if one side is not willing to work with the other, there’s very little that can be done. The group dynamics created by this shift of power have frozen some of the group, and unfrozen others, but in order for change to be accepted the system must be on the same page. That being said, knowing what is going on, and knowing the models of change, does very little when you cannot compel people to use them, and if leadership does not see the use of them.
Collaboration or integrative situation often occurs when there is a positive correlation between the goals attainments of both parties. In negotiation, it is a synonym of problem solving strategy as both parties have to work together to maximize their joint outcomes.
During my last internship, I have observed both situations: competition and collaboration. I was working with different public organizations providing different business operation for helping small-and-medium sized companies established on defined territories.
In order to be efficient and to respond to the firms ‘needs, a collaborative action was choosing in one territory. Each party has clearly identified the issues and agreed about a commitment in order to fulfill a successful implementation. On this area, the structures have designed a common project involving 7 small-and-medium sized companies. The final objective was to help chairmen to improve their management practices, to settle some rules and policies and design a strategy.
For the public institutions, this project has enhanced their image; the territory’ s network and has increased their allocating budget for the upcoming year. As a direct consequence, they would be able to develop more projects and to make their region more dynamic.
On the other hand, I was also used to negotiate with organizations preferring a competing strategy. According to their purposes, a collaboration with others institutions could have a negative effect on their own capability to fulfill projects with “their companies”. It also often involves political games, especially before an election campaign as the executive are not willing to take any risks to preserve their position. In addition, some project managers (just rewarding for their work quality as they are employed by a non-profit organization) attached a huge importance to their own performance in terms of companies involving in their program. However, these attitudes have often conducted to a decrease in services’ quality as they were focused on one area they are used to.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize the added-value of a collaborative strategy as it allows each party to attain their outcomes. Though, this approach requires time, commitment from both parties.
As I grow in my profession and advance in my career, I come to understand more and more how much I value collaboration. Around this time last year, my former boss was “separated” from the law firm where we worked together, she as the Chief Marketing Officer and I as the head of the firm’s public relations function where I reported to her. Once my supervisor was no longer with the firm, I lost my chief creative partner with whom I could collaborate on strategies to help elevate the profile of the firm in support of strategic business initiatives.
Although I no longer had a supervisor with whom I could collaborate, I had peers and my own direct reports to whom I turned. I worked with colleagues on ways to leverage our external communications to help meet various business goals. For example, I worked with a marketing manager and our Web mistress to highlight testimony on Capitol Hill by one of our lawyers. I also turned to my direct reports to help think of ways we could use social media to reach prospective clients of our law firm. While we achieved good results, I ultimately thirsted for the creative juices that flowed as my supervisor and I bounced ideas off of one another and collectively came to something greater than either of us arrived at from our individual ideas.
That thirst was slaked once I arrived to my new firm. For the first two months of my tenure at my new job, I had an opportunity to collaborate with arguably the most knowledgeable chief marketing officer in the legal industry. Two months to the day after I started working with her, though, she announced that she was leaving to head the marketing department of a competing firm. So, once again, I am turning sideways to find collaborators. Here, I don’t have the same degree of internal direct reports that I had at my previous firm, but I do have an army of account executives from the PR agencies that work for me. With them, I am able to keep ideas flowing, which helps me to be innovative in my approach to media relations in the legal industry. I still lack, however, a superior to whom I can turn with how ideas and knowledge gained from the PR function can help broader marketing and business development objectives. The circuit is closed, in other words, as an echo chamber among PR professionals without the collaborative input from someone with the eagle’s nest perspective from above, offering insights that help the whole become greater than the sum of its parts.
Perhaps my passion for collaboration stems from the nature of the work I do in public relations. Everyday, I collaborate with journalists to help them tell the stories my firm wants to share, while at the same time I find myself collaborating with my clients to determine ways that we can keep journalists from telling tales we’d prefer to be left untold. At the end of the day, I’m a service professional in a professional services industry. The meat of what I do is information sharing, which requires collaboration in order to effect communication.
Collaboration is highly essential at my job and in my industry overall. Managing program implementation across various school districts requires both internal and external support. Me and my staff not only collaborate with the various departments within my organization, but we also collaborate with individual schools, districts and even states to ensure that our business remains one of the fundamental providers of supplemental educational services to public, private and charter schools.
One of the most important collaborations is between my field staff and Operations. At my company the primary responsibility of the operations department is to provide the field staff with all of the internal support necessary to perform their tasks out in the field. They help to manage personnel issues, legal matters and day to day operations of the company. Most importantly, I work directly with Operations to ensure that the business operations in my region are efficient in terms of using as little resource as needed, and effective in terms of meeting customer requirements. I have found that the field staff generally requires both assistance and oversight in this area, as they have a limited view into how overall resources affect the bottom line of the company. My collaboration with Operations in this area allows me to both effectively communicate resource and budget issues with the field staff and also provide them with alternative methods to meeting goals.
Another key collaboration within my working environment is my collaboration with the Marketing department. This collaboration is very important due to the high competition in my industry. I work directly with marketing to select the best yet appropriate marketing materials for my region. Given the many areas I operate, I find myself meeting with Marketing on a regular basis to create and design products and materials that will give us that initial advantage over our competition.
The pharmaceutical industry has gone through some significant changes over recent years having to do with increase regulation, changes in Medicare coverage, increased scrutiny by the FDA, as well as poor public relations. As a result, many companies have been forced to lay off large percentages of their sales forces. It is not uncommon in such an environment for companies to find that the employees have lost some of their motivation or positive attitude in the face of what they may believe are potential layoffs (regardless of whether or not layoffs will actually occur). For this reason, it is important for companies to work to engage their employees and keep moral from falling.
Our company has taken several steps to ensure that employees remain engaged and feel they are an important part of the organization and have a voice in how the company is run. This has helped to keep employees motivated as well as helped to increase sales revenues each year despite an increasingly difficult economic and industry environment. One of the successful means of engaging employees has included the formation of a Field Sales Advisory Board. This board meets monthly and gives feedback regarding competitors, which research studies are most impactful with clients, and which marketing messages most effective. On several occasions they have also posed organizational issues to this board and asked us to bring it back to the rest of our teams for discussion and potential suggestions. This board has been involved in helping to successfully restructure the incentive compensation plan, as well as making changes to marketing messages. Through this program each sales representative has a voice and can give feedback through their regional representative.
In addition to the formation of the Field Sales Advisory Board, the company has done a very good job in training managers to share the success stories of their reps with the region, the rest of the country, and the leadership (CEO, President, V.P.’s). It is not at all uncommon to get emails or voicemails from the leadership of the company congratulating you on a recent success. They also often go a step further and ask for further feedback in how to share these knowledge or skill with the rest of the sales force.
Finally, Our company has involved the sales force in the formation of a leadership training program. They have asked reps individually what they would aspects they would like to see in such a program, what additional training they would like to take part in, and how they would like it to be structured.
By taking these steps to engage they sales force, Impax has helped to increase profit by keeping moral and motivation up at a time when it is falling throughout the industry as a whole. They have successfully kept employees committed by helping them to align their beliefs with behaviors and technical knowledge.
The lecture on employee engagement was of special interest to me as it relates to what is going on at my company now. With the economy on the rise, (and the panic that went with it), the senior management team went on their annual brainstorming session to see what can be done to improve the status the company is in. This team consists of members that on average have each been with the company for 35 years. After long consideration it occurred to them that perhaps the employees themselves might have some ideas for new products, services, or customer types that have not been tapped into yet. For the last 6 months, a small committee has been trying to come up with a way to have employees come forth with these ideas and even reward them for it. Before the program was even launched, an employee who writes for one of our blog websites wrote an article and this is the introduction:
“Employees are the ones whose innovative ideas will lift us out of this down economy. That means letting today’s workforce turn into a pack of corporate zombies is a costly mistake. Employers face a daunting task: focusing their limited resources toward re-engaging key talent in ways that will drive performance and value. Until then, employers will continue to create corporate zombies by failing to hear, involve and empower their workers.”
The article described how companies have incredible talent in their organizations but don’t tap into them for more than what is required of their immediate job. He even described what companies need to do to tap into these resources. This includes listening, involving and empowering them.
It is obvious that the talent and will is there. Now let’s hope that this clear message will enable the appropriate connections to happen!
Employee engagement is critical for an enduring, successful enterprise. Although I was sick and therefore unable to attend the lecture on employee engagement, this is an area of particular interest to me and I have indeed read the slides and outside materials related to the topic.
In his book, Drive, Dan Pink argues that money is not what actually motivates employees. Both in his book and in lectures on the topic, he argues that what drives employees is intrinsic motivation, and employees who are intrinsically motivated and thereby engaged with their work regularly outperform those whose satisfaction is derived from external rewards, such as money. In fact, the research shows that the more money people are paid to reward them for their work, the less the poorer their work performance becomes.
Similarly, in his article, “The What Brain Science Tells Us About How to Excel: A doctor’s prescription for achieving peak performance,” (Harvard Business Review, pp123¬¬¬ 129, December, 2010) Dr. Edward M. “Ned” Hallowell details his “Cycle of Excellence” that allows people to excel in their work. According to Dr. Hallowell, recognition completes the cycle of excellence, as it is “fundamental to optimal human performance.” He further states that “On a social level, [recognition] fills the uniquely human need to serve, to be of value, to matter…. [I]f you are grappling and growing but not receiving acknowledgment from your organization, speak up…. Recognition completes the Cycle of Excellence, encouraging you to work even harder to achieve your best.”
Indeed, all of the elements of the Cycle of Excellence appear to be at work in the slides from the case study of IBM. First, employees select the right job. Then, they connect with colleagues, making them feel connected to the organization. Once employees are connected and have selected the right work, they “play,” or imaginatively engage with their work. Once an employee is imaginatively engaging with her work, she will likely want to work even harder at it, thus the fourth step of the cycle, “grapple and grow,” occurs when the employee conquers difficult challenges. Like muscle cells after a vigorous yoga practice, grappling and growing with one’s work stresses the brain and strengthens the neural pathways through repeated firing of neurons, which leads to improved performance. Afterwards, one feels a sense of accomplishment and a social need for that accomplishment to be acknowledged.
Tech companies, like Google, appear to be good at stressing the neural pathways and allowing for play. Many, like Google, even allow for 20% time where employees are free to work on whatever they want. Ideas that are generated during the free time, are then evaluated and judged, much like those in IBM’s jam model. These are ultimately the ideas that generate revenue—both from the new products they create and from the hard work of the engaged, retained employees that generate them.
Employee engagement is often listed as one of the top “evergreen” issues identified by chief HR officers. They express concern that the number of employees putting for the highest effort had fallen by more than half during the current economic downturn. The article “Human Resources from an Organizational Behavior Perspective: Some Paradoxes Explained,” by Jeffrey Pfeffer, describes workplaces in America rife with job dissatisfaction, distrust, and disengagement, and getting worse. At the same time, comprehensive evidence exists that identifies high-performance management practices, yet organizations commonly fail to take advantage of it (Pfeffer, 2007).
Valuable description of the extent of employee engagement as a serious problem was found in the results of a 2009 Gallop poll on the subject (Fox, 2010). A large majority of employees are not engaged in their work, or worse, actively disengaged. Responding to the annual survey of 42,000 randomly selected adults, only 33% reported being engaged in their jobs, 49% said they were not engaged, and 18% said they were actively disengaged and acting out on their unhappiness. Estimates are that these levels of disengagement cost businesses as much as $350 billion annually.
However, the lack of employee engagement can potentially be seen by employers as an opportunity to realize financial benefits. Organizations looking for a competitive advantage might consider focusing on the needs of their own people, as converting workers from disengaged to engaged can increase performance. Another Gallop study revealed that the top ten organizations in terms of employee engagement outperformed their competition by 72% in earnings per share in 2007-2008 (Fox, 2010). In a 2009 study of 50 multinational companies, the London office of Towers Perrin, now Towers Watson, found that those with the highest levels of employee engagement outperformed their less-engaged competitors in terms of operating income, net income growth rate and earnings per share growth rate (Fox, 2010).
Pfeffer, Jeffrey (2007). Human Resources from an Organizational Behavior Perspective: Some Paradoxes Explained. Journal of Economic Perspectives. 4, 115-134.
Fox, A. (2010). Raising Engagement. HRMagazine, 55(5), 34-40.
Employees commitment is currently becoming a hot topic as it directly impacts the company’s performance. By engaging themselves, people employ and express themselves in every aspect during role performances and strongly contribute to the external image of the firm. In addition, engaged employees are more willing to get involved in innovative projects as they care about the future of the organization. They are able to make efforts developing consequently the company’s competitive advantages.
During my last internship, I was working for a governmental non-profit organization. After a few weeks, I had observed that besides of low wages, project managers were still involved in their mission trying to get further opportunities for the structure. They were really enthusiastic about their work and it was reflected by the relationship they had with the working environment, the job itself or their co-workers. They did not hesitate to work overtime in order to help unemployed people or to get special founds for companies in difficulty.
Regarding to the study conducting by Sharma Baldev R. and Raina Anupama, it seems that the employees engagement is linked to their personal attributes as well as situational factors. The IBM workforce commitment model underlined some elements affecting people’s motivation such as rewards and recognition, enablement, clarity of the setting goals, challenge and opportunity related to the position, relationships in the workplace as well as the work- life balance. The study brings out further components like the job content, the training possibilities and the employees participation in management. One key element connecting all these variables is the managerial leadership as it is able to enhance each individual motivation. The factors listed previously depend on work situations. However, personal attributes could also strongly influence an individual behavior. The locus of control and work ethics are personal characteristics which emphasize our willingness to well perform a job.
In conclusion, I would like to underline the importance of the employees’ commitment for a company. As a consequence, it is essential for an organization to develop an internal policy offering the coworkers an opportunity to develop their potential and therefore the future of the firm.
Determinants of Employee Engagement in a Private Sector Organization: An Exploratory Study.
Authors: Sharma, Baldev R., Anupama Raina
Advances in Management; Oct2010, Vol. 3 Issue 10, p52-59, 8p
Throughout my managerial experience, I can certainly say that employee engagement is a key driver of organizational performance. Engagement needs to start at the top. A manager or even CEO determined to foster an engaging culture asks direct reports to brainstorm solutions with their teams, not simply fire off their own answers.
Employee management plays a key role in employee engagement. Employee satisfaction begins with a good relationship with his/her manager. Communication, job stimulation, career options, company pride, interaction with co-workers, new challenges, self-esteem and a clear understanding of how the employee fits into the overall scheme of things are all good indicators of effective employee engagement. In order to care, employees must be validated for their contributions. They must know that what they do is critical to the success of the company.
Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin, put it very well. “We embarked on consciously building Virgin into a brand which stood for quality, value, fun and a sense of challenge. We also developed these ideas in the belief that our first priority should be the people who work for the companies, then the customers, then the shareholders. Because if the staff are motivated then the customers will be happy, and the shareholders will then benefit through the company’s success.”
To be more engaging, managers should see that their role is to get the best out of employees – delegation. Delegation is a great way to show employees that you trust their business decisions and ultimately that you are confident of their performance.
In my professional experience working with both large and small businesses, I find it that smaller businesses or start-ups are better at engaging employees than their larger counterparts because they offer incentives other than big pay packets and bonuses. Working for a global company, it was difficult for me to align my professional goals to company objectives, hone professional skills and connect with each or a large majority of relevant resources. When I found that my manager wasn’t taking active steps to make me feel engaged, I then found myself communicating with senior level managers to decipher how my piece fit into such a large jigsaw puzzle. I found myself putting more energy into looking for ways to stay engaged than actually performing my daily responsibilities.
When there is going to be changes in an organization, employee engagement is critical for this change to be successful. Change is good, but it is not always embraced by the recipients of change the right way. Many people are resistant and reluctant to implement change in an organization. This is the current situation that my company is experiencing as we are rolling out a new Finance and Supply Chain system. This is a massive project that the company is undertaking and leaderships are fully aware of the benefits that will be derived after the new systems become operational.
In my opinion, the current resistance is due to the company failing to be fully transparent and employee engagement in this new venture was relegated to mostly management workers. After cost-benefit analysis was performed before the project was approved, it was determined that the new system will be capable of handling redundant functions that are performed by many union workers. Furthermore, there is a probability that many jobs that belong to the union workers will be eliminated and the company can be able to recover from their investments over a given period of time by the savings that they will incur with these job eliminations. These details were not disclosed to all of the employees; hence, it had adversely affected employee engagements from union workers in the earlier stages of the implementation phase. There is a need for input from all employees because they are fully aware of the current business processes and they can provide innovative ideas for future business processes with the new systems.
While the company was setting the general parameters of the change, management employees was given some input into how the change can best be implemented in their particular area of the company during the pre-launching of the project. I think this was important because you want people to feel they are part of the process and part of the solution. Some employees did not feel that way and they had became silent resisters and unwilling to cooperate with the employees who are on the team for the systems implementations. Many of the employees that will be affected by the new systems are employees who have long tenures in the company and they are not open to change their skill sets with a new system. Also, approximately 60 percent of the affected employees are union workers and there is a lot of fear that a potential conflict will be created between the union and management workers.
According to Business week reader Derek Irvine on the importance of engaging employees strategically and authentically, “Highly engaged employees are twice as likely to be top performers and miss 20% fewer days of work.” He also stated, “Engaged employees exceed expectations in performance review and are more supportive of organizational change initiatives.” I agree with Derek Irvine analysis because productivity from the union workers would have been better if they were fully engage in the initial change strategy.
Senior management feared that they might lose credibility for the implementation of the new systems and they had needed to provide convincing reasons for their employee engagement approach. The Project team decided to draw a timeline that indicates the gaps between the launch and the expected first actual achievement of a project milestone as a strategic approach to employee engagement. Employees began to recognize the importance of this project and we began to obtain positive feedbacks and ideas from management and union employees.
These recent happenings at my organization made me realize how important it is to have all employees fully engaged. By implementing employee engagement strategies early on, rather than what most change strategies focus on which is information, employees will feel some ownership and connection to the new business strategy from the beginning. This will definitely augment the organization performance/productivity and employees will be connected to the organization change initiative and they will be aligned with the values and purpose of the organization.
Irvine, D. (2009, May 8). Employee Engagement: What It Is and Why You Need It. Retrieved from: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/may2009/db2009058_952910.htm
The engagement posts and preceding series are impressive. I was impressed, in particular, with the variety of outside sources referenced in the engagement posts.
If it is easy, can people who referred to journal articles send me links, soft copy, or bring hard copy to the next class?
Final blog assignment: comment on an aspect of tonight’s class presentation through the lens of any of the theories and/or concepts covered in class this semester.
Dr. B.
For me, I think employee engagement comes from the individual. Employees come in to the organization with the drive, the excitement, the ability, or they don’t. For the employees that do, the employer then has the opportunity to build it or break it. Employees need to feel like they are making an impact. If the work matters, employees put more effort in. If they feel its busy work or don’t understand the reasoning behind it, the results could suffer. Communication is key. Having a manager that works with you helps significantly and even more important, having a manager that you respect.
At my firm, we’re starting to promote a culture of more collaboration. They’re taking down the cube walls, encouraging more discussions around ideas, putting people in pairs and teams, and the result has been very positive. Employees feel they are more a part of something. With that, the products they’ve been working on are better designed & implemented.
Separately, a number of our better performers had been weak performers in the past, but with concrete goals and the commitment from their managers, they’ve been able to overcome obstacles. I think feedback is really important when trying to engage people. They need to understand their goals, the expectations, and where they stand. Giving them the opportunity to correct their shortcomings or build on their strenths is empowering. This should take place both at the individual level and across the firm. One company I’m familiar with does a very robust employee survey each year and caters their new initiatives based on the feedback. (it also helps them to understand where they are falling short) They’ve done this for the past 7+ years and have seen turnover decrease ever since. Interesting.
Many years ago when I was at my first post-college job, a new senior manager (herein referred to as “New Boss”) joined our division and was assigned to be my manager. After several weeks, New Boss called me into his office and asked, “What motivates you?” I looked at him with a puzzled expression on my face. Sensing my confusion, he again asked, “What motivates you? When you are on, there is no stopping you. But at other times, its like you are not there.” I was incredibly offended by his comment. From my perspective, I was always on. As I thought about it more, I realized he was right. 50% of my job for my first year at Mercer was to work on a massive data entry project. It made me miserable, and made me resent the organization. When working on that project, I was completely disengaged. New Boss was a good manager and discovered that the reason for my extreme disparity in performance was due to a lack of engagement. He proceeded to give me projects that were challenging and allowed me to grow, and as a result my “on” days went from 50% to 100%.
Now it is many years later and I find myself in the HR field. Although I am concerned with my own performance, I find that I also spend time with employees and managers discussing issues related to what is going on in their departments. A good work friend of mine (herein referred to as “Mail Man”) manages the mailroom. For better or worse, our mailroom staff consists primarily of highly educated writers and artists. To keep them engaged, Mail Man makes a conscious effort to get their input on all decisions. He also gives them side projects that let them make use of their other agenda skills. Since his time managing the department, voluntary departures have decreased dramatically.
At the end of the day, work is work and it needs to get done, but managers have an ability to directly impact the productivity of their department by engaging their employees. I would say that the next step for managers like New Boss and Mail Man is to further build employee commitment by getting their employees goal’s consistent with the goals of the organization. As discussed in the Spector text, organizations with high employee commitment have performance advantages.
The aspect I would like to emphasize is the individual’s needs. Google has announced a couple weeks ago a 10% salary increase for all its employees in order to retain them and to adjust the wages levels to the market’s one. It could be interesting to link this salary issue with the individual’s needs and motivation.
We can evaluate the employees’ needs through different theories. For instance, the Maslow’s hierarchy is focused on individual motivation and discusses the fact that the primary issues for an individual is to answer his/her physiological needs such as salary, then his/her safety. As a second step, the motivation will be led by the desire of being part of an organization, the recognition, the autonomy as well as job enrichment and career development. Therefore this motivation leverage will be not efficient if the individual is not in capacity to satisfy his/her primary needs. Different points underlined the Google employees’ lack of motivation: first, they were frustrated to perceive a lower pay than their competitors, secondly the lack of recognition especially for the new Ivy League collaborators brings out some system deficiency. In addition, all the benefits providing by the company such as laundry services, fitness centers, or cafeteria could respond to the physiological needs of the coworkers and as a result retaining them for the life comfort and not for their job involvement. As a long-term consequence, this strategy could strongly affect the innovation capacity of a company and reduce its competitive advantage.
In addition to the Maslow’s theory, I found interesting to describe another perspective given by the approach of Vroom and Layer regarding the individual expectations. This Expectancy theory is based on three assumptions focusing on the performance outcome expectancy, the rewards ‘values and a behavior related to a certain probability of success. In reference to these three points, receiving a low pay could demotivate people who link their performance to their reward. Similarly, money doesn’t have the same value for each person. In reference to the last topic spotlighting the employees ‘commitment, the interest and the recognition providing by the job could play a high leverage in terms of motivation.
In conclusion, Google has made a first step by increasing the employees’ salary but in order to motivate them, the company should implement some changes.
The Google team did a fantastic job at dissecting the legendary company and exposing what really goes on in Google. As the company grew, the entrepreneurial spirit diminished as the company grew too large to allow everyone to work on any project of their choosing. Even with company perks that are out of this world, and a company doing so well financially, I found it especially interesting that the senior middle management had such high turnover. It would be interesting to know what exactly could be done to retain this type of position as it has such high appeal to external recruiters. In one session we discussed employee engagement which could be a way to retain employees but I am curious if this works the same for high middle management as well. I think this also has to do with finding the right talent to begin with to fill the position. In my company throughout the past year high middle management has turnover had a higher pace than it had ever before. Usually once the person is in place, they stay for a very long time. At Google, could it be the personality type that is needed for that position is not on target with what the recruiters are looking for? The Google group mentioned how most people hired by Google fit one personality type. It could be that an organization can benefit from having diversity in opinions to find the missing link to their problem. Perhaps the companies that Google is acquiring can help them learn about other ideas to challenge the predominant opinions.
The Delta team did an excellent job tonight. I think they hit the nail on the head with their recommendation. I lived through the Lehman bankruptcy/Barclays transition and can say it was handled extremely poorly. Communication was terrible. They quickly rebranded everything with no consideration for the feelings of the legacy Lehman employees. The result was that everyone left, and with a bad impression of Barclay’s. I would never consider doing business with them in the future.
Communication and transition is the key. Employees need to feel like they are part of something, not like Delta would be taking over and just absorbing Northwest. By engaging them and making them feel involved in the “new” Delta, the company will have much more success. Its important that change takes time and culture can not shift overnight.
My current manager repeatedly tells us that employees measure satisfaction across three factors: role, company & rewards. Someone has to like their job and be interested in their role. They have to be able to get behind the vision of the company and get excited about firm goals. Then, if once both of those align, they need to be rewarded fairly. The first two are most important, as long as someone is making enough to live, money comes after role and company. (Though I’m not sure where the people fit in. I would assume role, as a manager can make or break a job.)
I feel that the Delta group did a solid job analyzing the Delta/Northwest merger. Their interventions and recommendations addressed the needs of the company as well as the needs of the individual employees who are all vital to the merger. If I were a consultant, I might add an additional recommendation to Delta. As mentioned in the presentation, the company culture must evolve with the merging of the 2 companies. Yet at the same time must incorporate some of aspects of both of the companies in order to ensure that both sets of are able to feel some ownership/identify with the organization.
In this regard, I would suggest that a “leadership board” be formed that is made up of both Northwest and Delta employees. The purpose of this board would be discuss which aspects of each organization are most important to the employees and would be beneficial to incorporate into the new Delta Airlines’ culture. Ideally, the members of this board could be nominated by the employees so that they feel as if they have a voice in the formation of the new culture of the organization. Additionally, the company may benefit by diversifying the executive leadership possibly through development of the current employee pool.
The Google team had an amazing presentation! While Google portrays itself to be a company that is so ideal to work for, no employee wants to leave, I saw that this was not indeed true. The portion of the presentation that I can best relate back to one of the topics we discussed in class was the lack of employee engagement and motivation.
While Google provides its employees with a multitude of benefits and invests a large amount of resources to employee retention and satisfaction, they do a poor job at ensuring employees are engaged and motivated. In the employee engagement presentation presented by Professor Bazigos, there are huge opportunities related to innovation when you actively engage employees. On the contrary, there negative impacts to not actively engaging employees. Some of these are reflected in the Google presentation: 1) low motivation which could possibly affect business growth and development 2) high turn-over, which leads to increased spending on recruiting and training.
I worked for a global company a couple of years ago where there was absolutely no employee engagement from middle-level managers and downward. Employees were clearly unhappy, as they felt that their skills were clearly under-utilized and they were not valued. These feelings had a direct impact on employee interactions with one another and even employee-manager relationships. The company lacked knowledge sharing between employees and clear goal communication to lower-level was non-existent. A few employees along with myself even related our feelings to that of being trapped. Eventually, I left and sought employment at a smaller company where I was able to make decisions, manage people and have direct interaction with leadership.
In conclusion, employee engagement plays a huge role in the sustainability and growth of an organization. A lack of employee engagement in even some of the best companies will inevitably force individuals to find more relevant positions with competitors.
When your employer has earned status as a verb, how could your job NOT be cool?
Well, I think the Google team got to a good answer on this. They did an excellent job showing the idealism of the young founders of the company, which contrasts with the current reality of the behemoth it has become with tends of thousands of employees worldwide. In short, the context of the culture the founders created has changed, yet Google is clinging to its mantra, “Do no evil.”
A challenge for such a broad guiding principle is that the definition of “evil” can be loose. Some would argue that Google’s acquiescence to China’s demands to censor search results in China is evil. Others may see Google’s attempts to scan the contents of the world’s books to make them available for free without compensating the copyright holders to those books as evil—authors, after all have rent to pay and families to feed, as do the people who publish their books.
This contradiction may make it extremely difficult for people who work at Google to meet their individual need of “doing no evil” in the world. Google’s attempt to use extrinsic rewards, such as the bevy of on-campus goods and services and the across the board 10% compensation raise, will not have a lasting impact for those who chose to work at Google to meet their intrinsic needs.
The Google team made a compelling case that illustrates Google’s current challenges.
In one of our modules we spoke of enterprise wide cultural change, and this is the heart of what the Delta group was proposing. Though they are planning on using best practices from each company, it still creates a culture change company wide, because they are merging two distinct and individual companies in to one comprehensive organization.
One of the key features of culture as identified in the lecture is structural stability, which Delta at this point is lacking. There isn’t really a stable sense of group yet, and the Delta Legacy is shining through much brighter than the NWA Legacy. A new culture is in the process of being formed, and it will take much work to ensure that it is a culture that equally values Delta and NWA Legacies.
By being willing to learn from NWA, Delta can create an adaptive culture that follows the plan set forth by the consulting team. Communication is key here, as is building confidence in the new organization. By making everyone feel as if they are part of the new Delta and not a refugee of their old company, a new enterprise wide culture can be achieved.
The Delta presentation clearly highlights the importance of encouraging employee engagement to help merge the two different cultures (Delta and Northwest) into one platform. Each of the company will have their own unique management practices and strategies in their daily operations; however, it is imperative that both companies have to thoroughly evaluate the risk factors associated with the way they run the company. Determine the pros and cons of Delta and Northwest management practices and through parallel testing approach, they can conclude what styles will be most suitable for the new company. One of DMS recommendations for Organizational analysis- determination of Delta’s new identity and culture; definitely needs an abundance of employee engagements in order to derive their future goals and conglomerate each companies culture into a brand new culture without creating internal conflict. By having employees involve in future decision makings, an atmosphere of employee empowerment will be created and hence it will make it easier to systematically collect data while conducting assessments.
Communication is vital for the post merger transitional period of the new company. It has to be clear and consistent for both of the legacy cultures because any miscommunication will have an adverse effect on the business. Employees and Senior Management have to iron out their own integration plan, highlighting the importance of their labor issues in order to avoid having bad management-employee relations which is common in the airline industry, hence, engaged employees equates to effective communication. As mentioned by the consulting group, effective communication will help to dispel rumors, ease uncertainty, help with the retention of key employees, etc.
My personal recommendation is to utilize each company as a separate entity, hence, preserving their own deep rooted historic values. Ensure that each company management practices is aligned to provide efficiencies in their own operations but have one common mission and strategy because it is still one company. This will alleviated the problem of searching for a new identity within the new company since each company (Delta and Northwest) will maintain their existing identity.
There are two parts of the Delta team’s presentation that I found particularly interesting. First is the discussion of the union employees versus the non-union employees. Second is the problem of merging two different cultures. I thought the team did a great job at presenting the various issues with both of these concepts.
With a union and non-union organization combining there are bound to be a lot of complicated issues. One thing a union does is create a clear divider between the workers and the management. Northwest was used to that dynamic. However, it appears that Delta is trying to take a much more paternalistic attitude and empower their staff. Developing trust is hard enough during a merger, let alone with the union/nonunion dynamic thrown into the mix.
The potential solutions the Delta team came up with regarding the issue of merging cultures were well thought out. By implementing the consulting team’s recommendation of keeping parts of both cultures and forming a new culture, there is less risk of completely losing part of the population. When employees from both sides see the effort being made, I think they will be more engaged and willing to work hard for the new organization.