How Ngai Tahu Can Improve Organisational Performance - Case Study Example

How Ngai Tahu can Improve Organisational Performance Name Institution Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Organisational Analysis 3 Recommendations for Enhancing Organisational Performance 4 Enhancing Organisational Culture 4 Motivating and Rewarding Employees 5 Effective Leadership and Management 7 Establishment of Teamwork 8 Transformational Leadership Style 8 Individual Job Design and Stress Management 9 Designing the Organisation to Perform 10 Conclusion 12 How Ngai Tahu can Improve Organisational Performance Introduction Companies are faced with very strong competition which tends to create many challenges. Therefore, there is a need for continuous enhancement of company’s competitive advantage that will enable the business to survive (Robbins and Judge, 2015). In order for this to happen, every organisation must exploit the full potential of the employees. This report will is based on a case study about Ngai Tahu. It will offer a number of recommendations that can be used to enhance organisational performance. The report will first review the mission, vision and strategy of the company, its design and what the company has attained. Second it will highlight how motivating and rewarding the employees can enhance their performance. Another recommendation for Ngai Tahu is ensuring good management and leadership. Third, the company should change the individual job design and minimize employee stress level. Fourth, changing the design of the organisation can influence employee performance. Lastly, identifying and enhancing organisational culture is another way of improving performance. Organisational Analysis Ngai Tahu is a young New Zealand based enterprise that is growing dramatically. It has about 56,000 employees. The vision of the company include respect and maintenance of relationships, respect to all the members of the company and to others, protection of the environment, people, resources and knowledge, personal integrity and strive to ensure achievement of organisational goals. Ngai Tahu has established expert governance with board of 7 directors with common capability matrix such as director skills, individuals who align with the company’s aspirations and expectations and who can do work right away. All leaders in the company share the vision and values of the company and undergo development and capability programs in order to enhance their performance. The leaders are responsible for monitoring employees. Since the company has implemented corporate social responsibility, it is able to achieve customer loyalty and enhanced reputation. Due to clear goals, vision and values, Ngai Tahu can achieve clarity on expectations, roles and responsibilities of workers. Recommendations for Enhancing Organisational Performance Enhancing Organisational Culture Every organisation introduces to the employees the values, objectives and norms that make up the organisational culture. Organisational culture assist employees get familiar with the operations and practices of the organisation (Covey, 2013). Effective understanding of organisational culture can contribute towards improvement of employees’ performance. It is very essential for organisations to identify the value, objectives and norms of the organisation in order to boost their competitive advantage. The fundamental challenge facing Ngai Tahu is the nurturing of organisational cultures that encourage delivery of quality products and services to customers and taking care of the stakeholders needs. Culture plays an important role in boosting competitive advantage (Bezrukova et al., 2012). Competitive advantage is partly brought about by the formation of organisational competencies, norms and values that are not imitable or substitutable by the competitors. The performance of employees in the organisation relies on the level to which the norms and values of the organisational culture are shared. For organisational culture to enhance performance and productivity, it should be viable, rare and imperfectly imitable (Bezrukova et al., 2012). Ngai Tahu can enhance organisational culture by creating a positive working environment that supports enhancement of career and exploit talent. A huge number of people view work as boring, tiresome and stressful. A solid stated organisational culture that ensures enjoyment enables employees to love their jobs and put efforts in accomplishing goals and objectives. This raises employee morale and commitment (Bezrukova et al., 2012). Culture that supports open communication between the subordinate employees and the management improves the cooperation and coordination within a team. This boosts performance and breed success. When there is constructive organisational culture in Ngai Tanu, there will be effective team communication and employees will be encouraged to accomplish the mission and visions of the organisation (Covey, 2013). Organisational culture may be in form of authority structure. The structure of authority in organisations determines how human resources are managed, how customers are served and how employees are managed. Constructive structure of authority may bring about constructive organisational culture that improves employee satisfaction and enhance organisational performance (Bezrukova et al., 2012). Although decisions are made by the management, employees should be involved in decision making. This results to positive employee interaction and commitment and therefore they have a higher order satisfaction which enable them achieve organisational goals. Through such management decision, constructive organisational culture is developed that leads to employee satisfaction and effective delivery of products and services (Bezrukova et al., 2012). Motivating and Rewarding Employees Ngai Tahu can enhance organisational performance by motivating and rewarding the employees. Managers should aim at motivating the employees in order to achieve success (Schacter et al., 2011). There are many theories of motivations that have been developed that can be used by Ngai Tahu in order to implement motivation strategies. One important theory is Maslow Hierarchy of Needs Theory. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory argue that people have a hierarchy of needs that should be satisfied from bottom to top. From the bottom are the psychological needs that are satisfied first and at the top are the self-actualization needs that are satisfied after other needs (Schacter et al., 2011). These are needs which humans require in order to survive such as shelter and clothing. This comes in terms of adequate wages as well as a stable income in employees. Managers can attend to the psychological needs of their employees by offering a comfortable working environment (Schacter et al., 2011). Once the employee’s basic needs have been adequately met, they will want their social needs met. This level of social connections is fundamental in humans because they show a certain level of acceptance into their social environment. According to Maslow theory, Ngai Tahu can encourage cooperative teamwork by giving employees an opportunity to tackle both mental and physical challenges together as a team. In addition, in order for managers to motivate their employees effectively, they can offer both praise and recognition when they have done well (Fredrick, Bernard and Barbara, 2011). This can boost the employees’ self-esteem thus motivating them. Employees require self-actualization so as to reach their full potential. Therefore, CEO can effectively utilize this need by challenging their employees in their area of expertise. This can help the employees broaden their knowledge, improve their capability and contribute more in a teamwork project. Also, according to the theory, managers ought to invite their employees to take part in decision making activities (Fredrick, Bernard and Barbara, 2011). This will give them a sense of leadership giving them morale in participating in decision making procedures in a teamwork project. Rewarding the employees is another way of motivating and increasing their performance (Webb, 2007). There are positive ways of rewarding the employees. Rewards should be given to employee who exhibit desirable behaviour and perform well. In addition, the rewarding should be immediate in order to ensure the higher value of the rewards. Ngai Tanu should implement incentive remuneration systems and pay for performance strategy in order to increase employee productivity. An incentive remuneration system that is fair is able to increase the proportion of employees’ performance contributions (Webb, 2007). Effective Leadership and Management There are essential managerial skills that managers should have and they include technical skills, human skills, emotional intelligence and conceptual skills. Management involves coordinating and supervising activities of individuals in order for the activities to be finished successfully and effectively (Bazerman and Moore, 2009). Effective managers are characterised by efficiency and effectiveness. According to McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, managers have the ability to influence the performance of the employees. Theory X argues that people lack ambition and hate working and prefer being led while theory Y argue that some people are self-directed and are willing to work on their own. No one theory applies in all situations. People are different, have different needs and possess different talents and capabilities. Therefore, managers should work at responding to individual differences (Pentareddy and Suganthi, 2015). However, there are some strategies managers can use to enhance organisational performance. Establishment of Teamwork A single brain most of the time cannot make critical decisions alone. A person requires support group to develop an effective solution (Michaels, 2001). There are some tasks in organisations that cannot be accomplished by one individual; they require people to come together with the aim of accomplishing common goal. Therefore team management should be in place in Ngai Tahu in order to make sure that the team members coordinate for common goal. Management is an essential part of an organisation. A team that is managed meritoriously often accomplish the set goals. For managers to establish a successful team, it is paramount they be more of a supporter than a strict boss. They should also ensure that all members are willing to take part in the team (Daft and Marcic, 2009). They must motivate the team members, solve any query that may come up and participate in the team activities. This will improve organisational performance. Transformational Leadership Style Transformational leadership style is among the most effective styles in management. It involves transforming, inspiring and motivating the employees to work towards achieving project objectives and goals (Lim and Ployhart, 2004). Transformational leaders have high emotional intelligence that gives them high ability to motivate the employees. It can therefore be successful and operational in Ngai Tahu as it will improve its performance. Transformational leaders are able to inspire and motivate team members by taking care of their high-order needs. This inspires employees to work hard towards achieving project goals. Transformative leaders focus on leading by example, encourage growth, coach and empower team members and inspire them to go to new heights (Lim and Ployhart, 2004). Therefore, Ngai Tanu senior management should use transformational leadership style in order to enhance organisational performance. Individual Job Design and Stress Management According to the model of Psychological Contract, there are some expectations that employees have about working relationships in a company (Xianhai, 2010). A healthy psychological contract is able to provide a balance between employee contribution and inducement received such as salary and incentives. An employee is able to provide contributions like loyalty, time as well as effort. In order for employees to perform well the quality of work life should be enhanced. One way senior management in Ngai Tahu can enhance quality of work life is though creating work-life balance. Job satisfaction is linked to low absenteeism and high turnover. Job satisfaction is affected by factors such as pay, advancement opportunities, supervision and design of work. Job design and employee stress level influences employees’ ability to accomplish organisational goals (Xianhai, 2010). Job should be designed in such a way that makes employees confortable to perform their tasks effectively. Aspects of job design include job simplification, job rotation and job enrichment. Job simplification involves the standardization of work procedures and hiring highly qualified personnel to carry out highly specialized tasks. Job simplification is possible through automation. Therefore, Ngai Tahu should increase job automation and total mechanisation in order to simplify jobs. It should integrate technology and human resource in its job systems (Xianhai, 2010). However, in order for this to be possible, they should first train the employees in order for them to get familiarized with the new machines. In addition, the company should build more opportunities for employee satisfaction. This can be done through removing controls and minimizing employees’ supervision in order to give employees a sense of power and accountability. Senior management should utilize core characteristic model that allow them to design jobs that best fits the employees’ needs. For instance they can offer flexible working hours (Gberevbie, 2011). In order to minimize and manage employees stress, Ngai Tahu can implement family friendly management practices. Senior management can commit to assisting the employees establish a balance between work and family life. The more the management values the employee’s work-life balance, the greater the chances of enhancing organisational performance. In addition, when the management is focussed on satisfying the employees’ needs, it will endeavour to implement family-friendly management programs (Wood, Menezes and Lasaosa, 2003). For instance, labour issues like absenteeism and stress are family related and management can respond by implementing family-friendly policies. It has been seen that family-friendly programs have positive outcomes when it comes to employee commitment and organisational performance (Ramsay, Scholarios and Harley, 2000). Designing the Organisation to Perform Organisational design involves the creation of structures that allows the establishment of company’s mission and objectives. Organisational design is able to bring into line the structures with situational contingencies such as technology, strategy, environment and people. One of the functions of the management is to design tasks. This involves the creation of structures and processes in order to produce results and deliver organisational performance (Xianhai, 2010). Organisational design entails communication lines, organisation infrastructure and reward systems among others. Organisational design requires innovation and flexibility in order to respond to the change. Change is considered the most intimidating but necessary process that every organisation should undergo. Change often leads to uncertainty of the unknown that creates fear of failure (Xianhai, 2010). Senior management should look for techniques that will help in successful planning and implementation of change to overcome challenges that come with it. Leadership entails preparing and leading other individuals through change by motivating and desiring and setting direction for the rest to follow. Successful manager is supposed to put all his attention on the positive aspects of change and should use the time framework of change to re-emphasize what the organisation stands for by re-enforcing existing values and vision (Carasco, Woocheol and Taesung, 2015). In addition, a good organisational design should offer people with support in order to achieve the goals and objectives of an organisation (Crossman, Bordia and Mills, 2011). According to modern management theory, there is need for a good fit between employees and organisational structures. Senior management should design an organisational structure that supports open communication. Effective communication is very important for managers and the employees in any business organisation. Effective communication in business increases productivity, rate of retention and improves working environment (Crossman, Bordia and Mills, 2011). Effective communication is core prerequisite for the achievement of organisational goals. Typically, no organisation can exist without communication. Co-ordination of work within an organisation is impossible without communication and every act of communication has an effect on an organisation in one way or another. Every department in Ngai Tahu contributes whether directly or indirectly to the production and delivery of quality products and services to the customers. The structure of the organisation should be designed in a way that every department in the organisation is intertwined to one value and culture (Crossman, Bordia and Mills, 2011). There is need for the coordination of departments in the company. The senior management of the company should ensure that all the departments operate towards achieving common objectives. Conclusion In order for Ngai Tahu to enhance organisational performance, there are a number of adjustments that needs to be done. One way is to enhance organisational culture. For organisational culture to enhance performance, it should be viable, rare and imperfectly imitable. Ngai Tahu can enhance organisational culture by creating a positive working environment and ensuring enjoyment in the work place. Ngai Tahu can enhance organisational performance by motivating and rewarding the employees. Rewarding the employees is another way of motivating and increasing employee performance. Ngai Tanu should implement incentive remuneration systems and pay for performance strategy in order to increase employee productivity. Also, senior leaders should use transformational leadership style and promote team work in order to enhance organisational performance. Ngai Tahu should implement family-friendly programs in order to improve work-life balance and minimize employee stress. In addition, the company should create good organisational design to offer people with support in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the organisation. 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