Wesfarmers' Organizational Behavior: Issues And Best Practices Essay.

Describe about the Organization Behavior for Wesfarmers Organisation.

Overview

The project aims to describe the organizational behavior of the chosen organization, Wesfarmers. Wesfarmers Limited is an Australian conglomerate, that has it’s headquarter in Perth. The company interests in retailing, chemical, fertilizers, coal mining, industrial and safety products. The company has the highest revenue of AU$62.7 billion in the financial year, 2015. The profit earned in 2015 was AU$2.44 billion. 205,000 number of employees work under the company, serves the areas of Australia, Bangladesh, Ireland, New Zealand and United Kingdom.  

• To critically evaluate the organizational behavior based on emotions, personality, attitude and motivation
• To analyze the organizational behavior in Wesfarmers, Australia
• To design a organizational behavior plan for Wesfarmers, Australia
• To identify the challenges in the organizational strategies in the organization and providing recommendation

The study focuses on the organizational behavior issues of Wesfarmers. The lack of job satisfaction within the staffs of the company is an emotional issue faced by Wesfarmers. Furthermore, Wesfarmers has few employees those who have personality traits that are considered beyond the norm. The leadership personality of the company is another major concern as the leaders imposes too much leadership on the team members that causes motivational issues in the workplace.

The lack of job satisfaction within the staffs leads to poor productivity of the organization. Employees tend to lose the quality of work when they are unsatisfied with the work. Moreover, when the leaders of Wesfarmers do not allow the staff members to work freely by following authoritative leadership, there is a negative impact on the organization (Punnett 2015). The employees are highly de-motivated that decreases the productivity if the employees and the organization.

The section deals with the objectives of the study and the issues faced by Wesfarmers. The justification of the issues is discussed to provide knowledge about the study.

Literature review

Some of the best organizational behavior practices in an organization that will help in bringing positive changes in the organization are:

• Proper planning

Once proper planning is done in the organization, chances of mistakes or issues will be less in the future. The employees will be sure that they are prepared for any kind of issues in the organization

• Regular feedback

Regular feedback from the employees as well as the managers is necessary so that the organization is always updated with the changes that are happening in the organization (DuBrin 2013).

• Teamwork

Once the employees and the managers will work as a team, they will be able to produce in a better manner (Greenberg 2013).

• Measuring the changes

If there is any change required in the organization. The changes should be measured by taking the feedback of the employees and the expenditure required for the change. planning should be done before the changes and then applied in the organization.

Objectives of the study

Out of all the organizational behavior practices, Wesfarmers should take the feedback of the employees and the implement teamwork in the workplace. The employees are not satisfied with the job and hence it is affecting the emotions of the organization. On the other hand, the leaders are following authoritative style, which is affecting the organizational behavior. If the feedback of the employees are being taken at a regular basis, the manager will be able to understand the exact problem. In addition to this, the teamwork will help in promoting a democratic leadership style (Nahavandi et al. 2013). Hence, the employees will be able to work with each other

Figure 1: The basic organizational model

(Source: Robbins and Judge 2012)

As per the basic organizational model:

• Inputs
• At the individual level, the employees are not satisfied with the job
• At the group level, there is lack of teamwork due to the authoritative leadership style
• At the organizational level, the culture of the organization is affected.
• Process
• At the individual level, the emotions of the employee is hurt as they are not able to perform well
• At the group level, the strict supervision on the employees prevented the employees from carrying out any job in a proper manner
• At the organizational level, the human resource could not be managed properly
• Outputs
• At the individual level, the employees were not able to give proper output by applying the knowledge
• At the group level, there are collisions among the employees
• At the organizational level, the productivity was hampered

Wesfarmers is currently facing issues regarding job satisfaction among the employees and the attitude of the leaders. In turn, it is affecting the motivation of the employees and distortion the productivity of the organization. The best human practices that could be applied by Wesfarmers is taking the feedback of the employees at regular basis and the implement teamwork. The basic organizational model will help the organization to keep a check on the inputs, process and the outputs. The outputs will turn help the organization to decide the changes needed in the organization.

Analyses and development

The organizational behavior plan of Wesfarmers studies the behavior of the employees and other members of the company in order to provide strategies that help to overcome the issues prevailing in the company. Wesfarmers experiences organizational behavior issues that decrease the performance level of the company. The improper organizational strategies within the workplace cause the employees to feel unsatisfied about the work that they perform (Goethals et al.  2014).

 Lack of employee management relations and employee dynamics is a factor behind the poor performance and imbalanced emotions of the employees in the workplace (Lapierre and Allen 2012). The existence of personality trait beyond the organizational norms is another major issue that Wesfarmers faces. The personality issue has an adverse impact on the organization as the relationship between the employees and the managers or between the employees is hampered. Weak relationship in Wesfarmers lowers the productivity and the efficiency of the company (Pereira and Gomes 2012). On the other hand, Wesfarmers follows authoritative leadership within the workplace. Therefore, the leaders of the company apply policies and procedures that the members has to follows. The authoritative leaders decide the goal of the company and they have direct control on all the activities performed in the organization. The type of leadership followed by the company does not allow the employees to participate in the process of decision-making (West 2012). The authoritative leadership has a negative impact on the employees as the employees are de-motivated and the confidence level is also lowered. In the opinion of Wilson (2013), authoritative leadership causes reduction in the anatomy in the team.

Case issues

In order to address the issues taking place within the organization, Wesfarmers needs to implement proper strategies that help to overcome the issues. The organizational behavior strategies require proper designing such that all the issues of the company are covered. Identification of the requirements in the strategies is the primary task of the managers of Wesfarmers (Schreiner 2016). The requirements in the strategies vary from one organization to another, as the issues are different from each other.

However, as the company has issues related to the emotions, personality, attitude and motivation within the workplace, the strategy development needs to be according to these concerns. The emotions of the employees can be managed by increase the interest of the employees through higher incentives, better working environment and improved communication. Although these requirements are effective in solving the issues, the company faces challenges of cost minimization (Kerzner 2013). In order to provide higher incentives, it is necessary for Wesfarmers to cut down its expenses. Furthermore, improved communication can be achieved by incorporating innovative strategies and technologies (Altman, Valenzi and Hodgetts 2013). Therefore, Wesfarmers have to deal with the challenges effectively to successfully achieve the objectives.

The authoritative leadership followed by Wesfarmers is a serious issue that the company has been going through. The leadership style is needed to be changed in order to bring efficiency in the workplace. Effective leadership styles such as democratic leadership can be implemented in the organization to improved productivity in Wesfarmers, as employees are motivated through increased participation in the activities (Robbins and Judge 2012). Implementing the new leadership is challenging for the company as the leaders and the managers needs to make aware of the ill effects of authoritative leadership, which is difficult. The employees also need to adapt to the new changes that is time consuming and causes harassment within the organization.

This section of the study deals with the analysis and the development of the organizational behavior of Wesfarmers. The organizational behavior plan of Wesfarmers is described based on the issues faced by the company in the areas of emotion, personality, attitude and motivation. The requirements in the development of the organizational behavior strategies in Wesfarmers are accessed along with the challenges that the company might face during its implementation. The proper identification and its implementation help Wesfarmers to achieve its organizational goals.

Final recommendations and conclusion

A proper organizational behavior plan helps Wesfarmers to deal with the issues within the organization. The organization needs to build up proper communication between the employees and the managers of the organization. Taking regular feedback from the employees allows the managers to become aware of the problems faced by the employees or determine the areas that need to be improved. The process of receiving feedback from the managers helps the staff members to understand the performance level of each individual working for the company. Regular feedback can increase the job satisfaction level within the employees, as they are continuously aware of the changes in the company and are guided by the leaders. The regular feedback motivates the employees that results in better performance of Wesfarmers.

Case justification

The teamwork within the organization further helps to achieve the goals of the organization in an efficient manner. Working as a teams helped the team members of Wesfarmers to increase their skills and knowledge as the team members are able to learn from each other within the team. Storey (2016) mentioned that teamwork increases the flexibility in the workforce through cross training.

The OB model of Wesfarmers indicates that as the staffs are highly unsatisfied due the poor performance, the expected outcome is not achieved. Lack of teamwork, proper leadership style and inability to perform well is the cause of disputes in the organization among the employees. The improper management affects the organizational culture to a great extends.

Conclusion and recommendation

From the overall study, it can be inferred that the organizational behavior is an important concept in Wesfarmers. An effective OB plan helps to achieve increased performance level for the company. The company needs to incorporate effective organizational behavior strategies that will support teamwork and motivation of the employees. The higher the employees are satisfied and motivated, the more will be the employees be able to work efficiently. This increases the productivity of the employees that further increases the productivity of Wesfarmers.

Wesfarmers thus needs to change its leadership style from authoritative leadership to democratic leadership that allows the employees to actively participate in the decision making process. The employees are able to fee motivated as they feel important in the organization. Moreover, the emotions of the employees needs to be paid importance and this can be successfully achieved by applying strategies such leadership strategies, regular feedback and proper planning. Wesfarmers will thus be able to reach its goals and meet its organizational objectives if the company is able to plan, implement and follow the organizational behavior strategies effectivel.

References

Altman, S., Valenzi, E. and Hodgetts, R.M., 2013. Organizational behavior: Theory and practice. Elsevier.

DuBrin, A.J., 2013. Fundamentals of organizational behavior: An applied perspective. Elsevier.

Goethals, G., Allison, S., Kramer, R. and Messick, D. eds., 2014.Conceptions of leadership: Enduring ideas and emerging insights. Springer.

Greenberg, J. ed., 2013. Organizational behavior: The state of the science. Routledge.

Kerzner, H.R., 2013. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Lapierre, L.M. and Allen, T.D., 2012. Control at work, control at home, and planning behavior implications for work–family conflict. Journal of Management, 38(5), pp.1500-1516.

Nahavandi, A., Denhardt, R.B., Denhardt, J.V. and Aristigueta, M.P., 2013.Organizational behavior. SAGE Publications.

Pereira, C.M. and Gomes, J.F., 2012. The strength of human resource practices and transformational leadership: impact on organisational performance. The International Journal of Human Resource Management,23(20), pp.4301-4318.

Punnett, B.J., 2015. International perspectives on organizational behavior and human resource management. Routledge.

Robbins, S.P. and Judge, T., 2012. Essentials of organizational behavior. Boston: Pearson.

Robbins, S.P. and Judge, T., 2012. Essentials of organizational behavior. Boston: Pearson.

Schreiner, E., 2016. Stimulating innovation: The role of leadership, teamwork, and boundary spanning (Doctoral dissertation, Universität München).

Storey, J. ed., 2016. Leadership in Organizations: Current Issues and Key Trends. Routledge.

Wesfarmers.com.au. (2016). Home. [online] Available at: https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/ [Accessed 9 Sep. 2016].

West, M.A., 2012. Effective teamwork: Practical lessons from organizational research. John Wiley & Sons.

Wilson, F.M., 2013. Organizational behaviour and work: a critical introduction. Oxford University Press.