Importance of Organization Culture, Engagement and Training of Employees - Essay Example

Student Name Tutor Title: Organization Culture Institution Date Organization Culture Introduction Organizational culture has been widely researched in part because it holds the organization together and encourages employees not only to perform well but also to feel committed to the organization (Wilderom et al. 2004). In deed, academicians and practitioners have expressed increased interest in the topic of organizational culture. Various studies have demonstrated the significant role organizational culture plays in the performance and efficiency of an organization (Al-Swidi and Mahmood, 2011). However, despite the importance as well as continued use of the term “organizational culture” some scholars have also come out criticizing the light hearted way with which this concept is investigated (Wilderom et al., 2004). Consequently, measuring organizational culture is one of the many aspects of organizational culture that are left unclear and need to be further investigated. Moreover, in spite of the fact that it has been research extensively in the last decades, there is still no consensus on causal relationship between Organization culture and performance as illustrated by empirical evidences emerging from various studies and research about the effect of organization culture on performance have so far elicited mixed results that are either inconclusive or contradictory (Lou Ojo, 2009). Again, Organizational culture is often discussed in the context of transformational leadership, general organizational effectiveness, and outside of discussing business, this term appears most often in reference to successful sports franchises, which with their multi-leveled management and need to produce tangible results against competition, often are run like corporations. This study will explore in detail the concept of organization culture in details in a bid to finding ways through which an organization can enhance its performance using a customer drive case. This will entail discussion and description of how an organization can be improved along a positive culture. Organization Culture Pareeck (2003) defined culture as the cumulative beliefs, values and assumptions, underlying transaction with nature and important phenomena. Culture in an Organization evolves out of collective perceptions of employees on various aspects of the Organizational work life. Valencia (2011) view organization culture as “the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization.” On the other hand, Saba (2011) believes culture in an organization basically consists of the statement, assessment, standard and concrete symptom of organization employees and their performance. He also argues that individuals often move toward the organization and judge the culture of organization. There are various models of organization and in most cases; steady tools are available and formulated to measure the general culture of organization. One such tool is the one that revolves around culture as bureaucratic, innovative, and supportive. Where Bureaucratic culture of organization is based on clear judgment, arrange in a proper manner and have chain of command plainly classify the roles and responsibilities of each person. On the other hand, innovative culture is illustrated by creativities, result oriented and attractive towards high risk but supportive culture sustains expectation, team work and individual autonomy that differentiate by rational and satisfied common contacts (Saba, 2011). Competing value framework (CVP) model is one the generally used model in explaining organizational culture. It is associated with four major tenets. The first one is the clean culture (team work) where individual work together and share with each other. The feature of this type is one associated with joint effort, collaboration, workforce loyalty to organization and human resource participation. The second culture is the Adhocracy culture where organization has organic culture that illustrate innovative place of work, gave the power to employees to take the risk and make effective decision while the third, Market culture is where organization gain the competitive edge and make the dealings with additional stakeholders. In addition, effective output and competition are basis for market culture. Lastly is the Hierarchy culture where organization is characterized by formal and several hierarchies. Proper rules and practices are followed and have many levels of positions and parallel work for doing the operation (Cameron & Quinn’s, 2006). The second theory is the Social exchange theory where one of the assumptions is that there is interaction among the two or more groups and each set gave feedback to each other and trust is the basic foundation exchange (Byrne et al, 2010). “The motivation of a party to be vulnerable to the actions of another party based on the expectation that the other will perform a particular action important to the trustor” (Camerman et al., 2007). Again, team work provides the more effective results as contrast with the individual who functioning by their self. The benefits that are obtained by working in teams are higher quality of work, numerous points of view, better creativeness, preciseness in decision making (Camerman et al., 2007). Importance of Organization Culture It is worth noting that culture is usually diverse and every organization has its own unique culture or value set. However, many of the organizations don't consciously try to create a certain culture but the culture of the organization is typically created unconsciously, based on the values of the top management or the founders of an organization. Organizational culture has been associated with a range of benefits. One of such benefits is economic performance and success. Scenarios where organizations dedicated to continuous improvement, with visionary leaders who ‘walk their talk’ and focus Organizational culture has also been shown to be important for successful new product/process innovation and organizational change (Saba, 2011). Strategies to manage a customer-driven organization to build a strong Customer drive organization in the context of this paper is banking industry. Today in the global competitive business scenario, banks have been facing many changing challenges caused by globalization, liberalization, technological advancements, and changing customers’ technological-driven expectations (Moreno et al., 2005). However, according to Li and his colleques, the major challenge currently facing banks the aggressive competition caused by the increasing number of banks operating in the same environment and targeting the same customer segments. To add on this, they argue that this aggressive competition has been even made worse since all banks produce almost the same products and services (Saba, 2011). Engagement and training of employees This is one of the strategies that can sustain an appropriate customer base. It generally requires the commitment of frontline staff, in particular, as a key determinant of customer satisfaction and loyalty. On the other hand, frustrated and confused employees tend to not only frustrate but also confuse customers. Imperatively, it is quite vital to be clear on the organization’s goals and expectations. Learning should for instance focus on developing, information and knowledge, to change behaviors, and to improve bottom-line results” Saba Sattar (2011). On the same vein, Cameron and Quinn’s, (2006) argue that there are two main justification behind successful organization which include situation modification which will be less than or equivalent to organizational learning and Secondly, to endure, organization must use learning most advantageous and attain quality. Organization culture training and expansion plan are interlinked with each other and the organizational culture outlines these policies. Apart from improve the organizations’ culture through leaning and training, it is also necessary to enhance employee engagement culture. According to Gonrig (2008) employee engagement is powerfully linked to business success factors such as: performance efficiency, attendance and retention; customer service and satisfaction; customer loyalty and retention as well as profitability. The challenge for businesses is to create an environment where employees understand and commit to the company’s direction, strategy and goals. This requires a holistic, coordinated effort to ensure that a number of key elements or building blocks are in place aligning and engaging people to a clearly articulated strategy requires a though orientation the organization purpose where bank staff clearly understand what is expected of them and what they are accountable for. It also requires people systems and processes that drive the recommended behavior to achieving this purpose, capable leadership and a positive working environment. In a customer driven organization like bank, it is thus very important to cultivate a culture of engagement. Encourage and prepare employees for Change There is also need to cultivate a culture of readiness for change. This is a critical precursor to the successful implementation of complex changes in an organization setting. Drawing on Lewin's three-stage model of change, change management experts have prescribed various strategies to create readiness by 'unfreezing' existing mindsets and creating motivation for change. These methods range from highlighting the discrepancy between current and desired performance levels, fomenting dissatisfaction with the status quo, creating an appealing vision of a future state of affairs, to fostering confidence that this future state can be achieved (Meyer &, Herscovitch, 2001). From motivation theory, change commitment say in a bank is largely a function of change valence. That is to say, the more organizational members value the change, the more they will want to implement the change, or will feel to engage in the courses of action involved in change implementation. Innovative Culture In the wake of many challenges and technological revolution which has changed the traditional aspects of doing business in today’s knowledge based economies. Consequently, all the methods used earlier to solve customers’ problems are no longer effective (Ramachandran, 2003). There is need to cultivate innovative culture. Al-Swidi and Mahmood, (2011) postulate that innovation is the core of entrepreneurship that leads to sustainable growth of an organization. They have also argued that innovation adds a value to the bank or any other organization due its emphasis on identifying the customers’ dissatisfaction causes to develop proper solutions that eliminate them. Promoting a Service culture Service culture is not one of the dimensions of organization culture, but given the importance of the bank industry in the overall economy, having a service culture can make or break an organization. One way of achieving a positive service culture is through training employees to serve the customer well, and cross-training is the norm. Also, employees can also be empowered to resolve customer problems in ways they see fit since they are the people with direct customer contact and thus are in the best position to resolve any issues. Another strategy of achieving this may be through initiating a reward to staff service performance through bonuses and other forms of incentives (Bryan, 2009). There is also need to formulate effective customer retention programs and alignment of associated culture. For starters, changed customer attitudes and issues of trust and savings as well as investment security must be addressed by the right products and services, and delivered by people with the right training and understanding. Promoting a strong culture Strong culture in an organization entail how widely and deeply employees hold the company’s dominant values and assumptions. In a strong organizational culture, most employees across all subunits hold the dominant values. These values are also institutionalized through well-established artifacts, thereby making it difficult for those values to change. Moreover, strong cultures tend to be long-lasting; some can be traced back to company founder’s values and assumptions. Bryan (2009) has argued that a strong organization culture potentially increases a company’s success by serving three important functions namely control System in that organizational culture is a deeply embedded form of social control that influences employee decision and behaviour. Culture is pervasive and operates unconsciously. Secondly, it can act as social glue that bonds people together and makes them feels part of the organization experience. Employees are generally motivated to internalize the organization’s dominant culture because this usually helps fulfil their need for social identity. This social glue is increasingly important as a way to attract new staff and retain top performers. Lastly, strong culture can help in sense-making where employees understand what goes on and why things happen in the company. Strong culture can be illustrated when most employees in the organization show consensus regarding the values of the company. A culture’s content is more likely to affect the way employees think and behave when the culture in question is strong. For instance in a bank industry, cultural values that really emphasize more on customer service is likely to lead to higher quality customer service if there is widespread agreement among employees on the importance of customer service-related values (Bryan , 2009). On the same vein, a strong culture may sometimes outperform a weak culture especially because it is attributed to consistency of expectations in the organization where employees know what is expected of them, and the culture serves as an effective control mechanism on member behaviors. A strong culture is likely to lead to more stable organization performance in stable environments. However, in volatile environments, the advantages of culture strength disappear. Again, strong culture sometimes may hinder change or innovation. Proper recruiting and training of employees In many cases, services industry or customer-driven organization like banks depend on direct, personal interaction between customers and a firm's employees. The nature of these interactions strongly influences the customer's perceptions of service quality. More often than not, customers judge the quality of the service they receive largely on their assessment of the people providing the service. In the case of bank, more efforts should be devoted to recruiting, training, and motivating employees, particularly those who are in direct contact with customer. Team Culture and good leadership It is also important to promote team-oriented cultures which are collaborative and emphasize more on cooperation among employees. Just like other cultures, this can be achieved by training of employees so that they are capable of helping each other when needed. In team-oriented organizations, members tend to have more positive relationships with their coworkers and particularly with their managers. In terms of Leadership, It is necessary to implement a feedback loop between the leader and the rest of the company as it grows. In a start up, the culture is a blank page in need of material. The leader must be aligned with the culture of the organization. At the same time, he or she is also responsible for shaping it. Conclusion Organization culture can be understood in terms of seven different dimensions, depending on what is most emphasized within the organization ranging from innovative cultures which are flexible and adaptable and on the other hand, strong cultures can be both an asset or a liability for an organization but can be challenging to change. All in all, organization culture forms a vital component to its success. References Al-Swidi, A. K., & Mahmood, R. (2011). Fostering the performance of banks through Total Quality Management (TQM) practices: A bank branches perspective. European Journal of Social Sciences, 19 (2), 268-285. Bryan J Weiner (2009) A theory of organizational readiness for change, Implementation Science 2009, 4:67 USA Cameron, KS and Quinn, RE (2006), ‘Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture: Based on the Competing Values Framework’, Revised edn, Addison-Wesley. Gonrig, M. P. (2008). Customer loyalty and Employee Engagement: An Alignment for Value. Journal of Business Strategy, 29, 29-40. Meyer JP, Herscovitch L: Commitment in the workplace: toward a general model. Human Resource Management Review 2001, 11:299-326 Moreno, A. R., Morales, V. G., & Montes, F. J. L. (2005). Learning the quality management process: Antecedents and effects in service firms. Industrial Management & Data System, 105 (8), 1001-1021. 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