Organisational behaviour is the study of employees within an organisation and how they behave. This is so the company is able to see if the workers/employees are working at the correct standard

Francesca Lewis Organisational Behaviour Mrs Beverly Wong

What is Organisational Behaviour?

Organisational behaviour is “One of the most complex and perhaps least understood academic elements of modern general management, but since it concerns the behaviour of people within organisations it is also one of the most central… its concern with individual and group patterns of behaviour makes it an essential element in dealing with the complex behavioural issues thrown up in the modern business world.” (Financial Times Mastering Management Series 2)

Organisational behaviour is the study of employees within an organisation and how they behave. This is so the company is able to see if the workers/employees are working at the correct standard and if so can it be improved and if not why not. Motivation plays a large part in organisational behaviour because it is a major element in improving an organisation.

A basic framework of study is:

The Fundamental recommendations put forward in the article concerning the motivation of employees can be split into four areas:

A defined path for progress in a career based on training and development.
Keeping the employees informed to give a sense of their personal significance in contributing to the success of the company where they work. This creates a stronger sense of involvement and self importance.
The need to show continued and constant appreciation of their performance. Recognition is a reward in itself. This has to be maintained and repeated to be effective.
Ensure the employee is satisfied and is given the same care and attention as a customer or guest.

The purpose of motivational theories is to predict behaviour. Motivation takes two forms, extensive motivation which relates to salary, fringe benefits, promotion opportunities and security and intrinsic motivation which is behaviour motivated by physiological rewards such as a sense of challenge and achievement, the receiving of appreciation and positive recognition.

In general, personal motivation for work is economic as well as intrinsic in the sense of personal satisfaction and also in the aspect of developing social relationships with colleagues.

There are two styles of theories; Content Theories which has its emphasis on what motivates individuals and Process Theories which emphasise the actual process of motivation.

There is no firm definition or theory that is the absolute benchmark for the nature of motivation. All the major theories have merit and are all usable tools to a manager looking to get the best from his staff but differing industries and companies at different sizes will be able to select a theory to match their situations. No one theory of motivation can completely explain all aspects of human behaviour. “The manager, therefore, must judge the relevance of these different theories (of motivation), How best to draw upon them and how they might effectively be applied in particular work situations. The manager should be aware of at least the main theories of motivation.” (Mullins pg 414)

The principle concept theories in motivation are:

Maslow – Hierarchy of needs – Five levels of need each to be satisfied before the next level becomes a motivating factor.

Alderfer’s – Modified need hierarchy model – People have existence relationship and group needs.

Herzberg – Two factor theory – Achievement and responsibility at one higher level with working conditions, policies and pay which will not on their own add motivation.

McClellands – Achievement motivation theory – For people with high achievement needs.

Process theories

Vroom – Expectancy – Has motivation as a function of the relationship between effort and ...

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The principle concept theories in motivation are:

Maslow – Hierarchy of needs – Five levels of need each to be satisfied before the next level becomes a motivating factor.

Alderfer’s – Modified need hierarchy model – People have existence relationship and group needs.

Herzberg – Two factor theory – Achievement and responsibility at one higher level with working conditions, policies and pay which will not on their own add motivation.

McClellands – Achievement motivation theory – For people with high achievement needs.

Process theories

Vroom – Expectancy – Has motivation as a function of the relationship between effort and performance, with reward related to performance.

Adams – Equity – Comparison of fairness of treatment against other workers.

Locke – Goal – Peoples goals/intentions play an important part in determining behaviour.

Heider and Kelley – Attribution – Interpreting the received causes of behaviour influenced by internal forces such as ability/skill/effort/fatigue and external forces such as company policies on the manner of superiors. (Mullins)

The recommendations put forward in the article concerning better motivating the hospitality workers are all valid and draw from several theories.

Point A) Looking for a clear path to promotion and development opportunities is related to, McClellands achievement motivation theory and both the expectancy and Goal theory.

This recommendation is a positive one. The problem for the industry is highlighted in the report with 40% of employees changing jobs in a year cannot be good for continuity. The more staff that can be retained will save cost, time and trouble in maintaining levels of service with a more settled core staff base.

Point B) The reports says 44% of workers believe that employers do not appreciate their effects and 35% saying they felt “like a number” highlights the industries weaknesses in retaining staff. 33% said the company didn’t keep staff informed about company objectives. This is pretty desperate stuff and satisfaction level is low. Both the Maslow and Herzberg theories are involved in this aspect.
Point C) The need to show continued appreciation is sadly lacking. This is illustrated by the statistics in points A and B but its importance is highlighted in the report i.e. “if an employee feels valued, they are more apt to stay and grow with a particular company and deliver a higher quality of service.”

Point D) Recognize, reward, repeat, relies on better management of the employees and building long term relationships to ensure that the people feel valued and continue to feel valued. This is an ongoing exercise. The Maslow theory shows that respect from others is contributory to self esteem and self actualisation and so maximum performance. In Mayo’s theory results showed that attention given by management is a powerful multiplier as in Herzberg achievement/recognition is seen as a major force of motivation.

Point E) Communication and awareness by the staff of management actually looking after them rather than taking them for granted and being treated in a way that makes them feel “just like a number”

In essence the link between answers D and E is feeling valued adds to motivation. This has to communicate to the employee to ensure that their own personal self esteem is satisfied and in feeling secure they will perform to the maximum to maintain this sense of well being.

The hospitality industry is a difficult one, to maintain consistent work and retains employees is difficult. Demands on the workforce can be intense and pressurised and workers tend to follow the work even if it means temporary employment with a range of employees. There is also a lot of competition within the industry as companies vie to get the best employees.

The hospitality industry must learn to treat its employees better and answer the criticisms in the report, feelings of not being appreciated, uninformed, not valued, lack of respect for immediate supervisor – poor leadership and leadership techniques.

Any company that can answer these points by taking the benefit of the motivational theory and applying them will gain an advantage over their competitors.

Question 2

The recommendations are very worthwhile but there are inherent problems when they are applied across the industry. The hospitality industry is very disparate with small, medium and large players in the industry.

Looking at the recommendations for a career development plan this is fine within a large or medium size business but often in small companies there is no opportunity for promotion or the money to fund training programmes. It could be that by the very nature of the business e.g. outside events, that the work is not constant i.e. if there are no events for periods of the year or it could be a family or well established firm where there is no immediate prospect of promotion and that the job role offered does not merit training.

It could be that the person concerned is filling a particular role within a team. However, one of the telling points in the report was that their supervisor does not make time to review concerns nor try to help them improve. This must be de-motivating to the individual and the management must try to address if they want happy and satisfied employees.

Employer’s/Employee communication which is the basis of the second proposal are not without problems. Companies may not want too much information about the performance and operations of the business in the public domain as they may feel it could be harmful to their prospects if competitors were to get hold of it i.e. a general memo or in-house publication may reveal certain information that a competitor could use against the company. How much information is necessary? Which staff members would benefit from it? The transient nature of certain staff within the hospitality industry would make certain employees very wary of disclose information.

The problem with the “Three R’s Rule” is the reward element. There is nothing wrong at any size of business in showing appreciation of performance the difficulty lies in how this is done. It may not be within the remit of the particular manager to financially reward especially hard-working staff and then if the manager continuously recognise and repeats praise for hard work at what point will the employee become disillusioned with extra praise but no extra money, equally in the sometimes hectic world of hospitality. Does this type of recommendation make the bad worker worse because they never get recognised or it could it lead to favouritism?

In asking employees about their day the idea to show the same commitment to employees is as customers a worthy idea, the problem that this may lead to is that if it becomes too much of a policy diktat will the employees view this as disingenuous or cynical? and it could actually turn out to be a turn-off if not auctioned properly something which would be very difficult to deliver when the pressure was on in the work place.

Question 3

Managers aim to achieve results by organising and motivating their staff so that they get the maximum effort for most of the time from them. This is maximising the utilisation of human resources. How the manager behaves and the way he performs this job depends on how his style of behaviour is perceived as appropriate to the circumstances in which he works.

The contingency theory approach to management takes the view that there are many variables, situational factors which affect performance. This theory is about differences not similarities between companies. Managers adapt and change the way they behave according to the situation they find themselves in and the staff they are given to work with. It is for the manager to be assessing what style of management will motivate those particular people.

In the hospitality industry the style of management required will be different in an outside catering company to that required in an international conference at a five star hotel or presentation and the people working in those environments would not accept being treated all the same.

Staff in hospitality work at all different levels/conditions. There are different terms of employment and varied levels of job security within this industry. There are permanent, part time jobs, “on call” ad hoc basis. A single management style would be to narrow and not pragmatic.

The Style of management an individual adopts varies to suit the style of the company, its image, its employees and its targets.

The managerial/leadership grid (R) (Mullins) is one way of categorising styles of management, the BLAKE and Mouton managerial. The diagram shows the comparison of managerial styles in two modes:

Concern for production – is shown along the horizontal axis of the grid and relates to the managers desire to achieve results and profits and accomplish immediate tasks i.e. concern to create high productive output.

Concern for people – is represented on the vertical axis and emphasises the manager gives to people and their needs.

The significant point of the grid is to discover how worried/committed the manager is to each of these aspects. The four corners and centre of the grid show five basic management styles

The impoverished manager (1.1 rating) low concern for production and people this is a manager who works to minimum effort to sustain the daily running of company.

The Authority-Compliance manager (9.1 rating) Profit/Production motivates. Autocratic peoples needs come second to profit.

The Country Club manager – (1.9 rating) People matter most. More interested in staff satisfaction and working at a steady tempo.

The middle of the road manager (5.5 rating) Manager varies between need for profit and people needs swinging between the two as the situation dictates.

The team manager (9.9 rating) Manager uses the dedication of the staff to fulfil their needs high concern for people and high concern for production.

The management grid allows a manager to review where he is. The 9.9 manager is what the manager aims to strive for. Most managers have their own dominant style which they tend to use most of the time but have a back-up style they can revert to if their normal style is not working.

I feel that the above explains why one given management style is inappropriate for all occasions. The good manager will shrive to achieve the most productive work and profit whilst according as many of his staffs needs and desires as he can but he also has to return flexibility which may mean adopting differing styles of management to the ever changing business scenarios.