Organisational Change - The Wakewood Organisation

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Changing and Developing Organisations                Teacher: Kia Lindner

BS 2102-3                Student number: B27

Organisational Change

The Wakewood Organisation

Wakewood is a company that consists of seven autonomic units. Each of these units is controlled by a General Manager and seven Functional Managers for every department. Below you can see the hierarchy to have an overview on one of these units that will be analysed in this case study.

        Hierarchy Unit 7

What is going on with Unit 7? The Chief Executive Officer which is responsible for the seven units has been informed about the performance of Unit 7. He has a lot of experience being CEO and he has already managed difficult situations with other units of the company over the last four years. That is why he has a very good reputation. The most important external and internal pressures that Unit 7 has are: Customers are not satisfied with the quality and service provided by Unit 7 because of inefficient after sales service and low quality of products. Staff is unsatisfied with their work due to a low staff morale. Implementation of new technology is also a big problem because the employees have no knowledge using it. Furthermore the management skills in the introduction of changes are also a difficult task that has to be altered. The General Manager has been working for 18 years with Wakewood but he does not pay much attention on the needs of the clients as he should. The Chief Executive Officer concluded that the two most urgent changes that have to be exercised in Unit 7 are to change the attitudes and the organisational structure so as the improvement of knowledge of technology.

How can we convince employees that organisational changes are needed?

The staff morale is poor. Employees are not very motivated in doing their work. The results of production are not satisfactory and employees do not feel comfortable because they do not have enough knowledge in the processes of production and in the new technologies. The organisation implemented a new computer technology but the employees have not been trained on it yet. All these factors are affecting negatively on the motivation of employees. (Class Notes)

As the motivation-hygiene theory of Herzberg explains motivation is the most important thing regarding the satisfaction of employees. He explains his theory by two different kinds of factors that have a big influence on employees’ satisfaction. Herzberg differentiates between factors of motivation and factors of hygiene. The factors of hygiene are: working conditions, company policy, relationship with supervisor, salary and relationship with peers. He says that all these factors are leading to dissatisfaction. The factors of motivation are: achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement and growth. If fulfilled these are the factors leading to satisfaction. Herzberg reasoned that because the factors causing satisfaction are different from those causing dissatisfaction, the two feelings cannot simply be treated as opposites of one another. The conclusion of his theory is that management not only must provide hygiene factors to avoid employee dissatisfaction, but also must provide factors intrinsic to the work itself in order for employees to be satisfied with their jobs. (Xavier Llopart Pérez, 1997)

It is also very important that the staff feels identified with the aims of the company. When employees feel as a part of company they are much more involved in doing their tasks and they feel responsible to reach the objectives.

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In the case of Wakewood the problem started already with the inability of the CEO to devote enough time to the Unit 7. We can also see that the General Manager has the ability to control costs and activities but he does not care on the complaints of the clients. He also seems to be largely disinterested on the slow progress of the Unit.

This can be due to a time problem because he has too many tasks to resolve and too much responsibility. Probably his own morale is also low.

First of all the principles ...

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