It is important to note the importance of span of control. Span of control refers to the number of subordinates reporting to a single supervisor. It may be wide or narrow. However, NBO requires a narrow span of control, especially in the Sales Department, as it allows greater control over activities.
Another element that should be considered is work specialization. Changes will increase work specialization. When there is a high degree of work specialization within an organization individuals normally focus on only one or few tasks.
Additionally, the distribution of authority throughout the organization will be decentralized, as middle and first-line management will be involved into decision making. Decentralizing authority will enable top management to spend more time on monitoring the environment, looking for opportunities, and planning activities for the future.
The projected changes will inevitably affect employees and employee relations either in a direct or indirect way. Structural changes most often require changes in employee positions. People get fired and respectively hired in order to enable an organization to build the work force that is required to carry out and sustain the change. Normally, there are three possible approaches when it comes to dealing with existing staff – redundancy, redeployment, and keeping old positions. However, in NBO’s case the third option is completely unreasonable, due to the fact that those employees obviously do not possess what is required to carry out the change and even if they do, they did not do it on time, which resulted in a decrease of organizational performance. Redeployment is the second option top management could undertake. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, structural changes affect employee positions and hierarchy in general. The Sales Director occupancy will not comply with the one of the National Sales Director and will have to take the lower position of Regional Manager. Most often, it is hard for employees to deal with such career reductions, because of self-respect and moreover, big ego. Redundancy is the last option management could undertake. Organizational change is the most perfect way to get rid of people the organization does not need. Redundancy is actually the best approach NBO could undertake. Hiring new knowledgeable and skilled people, open to change, is the best thing to do.
Furthermore, changes will definitely boost moral very hardly. By restructuring the Sales and General Insurance Departments management has created new career paths.
New positions (Regional Managers 5; Area Managers 50) and along with them great opportunities for development have been introduced to the organization. This guarantees a considerable increase in moral, which on the other hand affects motivation. And motivation is a key factor in increasing and optimizing overall performance.
Most individuals, for instance, when told their attitude or behavior is inappropriate, are likely to deny it. This resistance, according to Lewin and Schein (1980), can be countered by unfreezing the particular attitude or behavior, by making the need of change so obvious that the individual will become willing to accept the change. The second general step is changing and it occurs when the individual accepts the necessary changes in the attitude or behavior. Locking in the new behavior as a new accepted norm is the third step and it is called refreezing. As a result, the new attitude and behavior become the accepted way of doing things.
Geert Hofstede once said: “Studying culture is looking for trouble.” However, the organizational culture by nature consists of the beliefs and values held by its members. And one should aim at shaping a strong culture, where implicit and explicit assumptions are in harmony, because culture is what drives the organization.
Not all change is warmly accepted by members of an organization. The implementation of a new idea or technique often results in resistance by those who will be affected most. Resistance, however, is common and it is important for managers to understand it and overcome it. Explaining the need for and logic of the change is an effective strategy for reducing resistance. NBO top management should present the change as something necessary but at the same time something good, useful and beneficial for the organization and all of its members. They should emphasize on the benefits and advantages change will bring along on both the short and long-term run.
2. Impact of changes on culture
Changing the organizational structure is just the first step of the entire process. Once the structure has been improved, management should start considering the impact of change on the organizational culture and various ways to further enhance it.
According to K. N. Wexley and G. P. Latham (1981) training and development of employees has many advantages for the organization, referring to both the short-term and long-term orientation of the company: “Training helps the firm meet its immediate human resource needs. Over the long run, however, it ensures that the firm’s employees are ready to meet future challenges”. I would personally recommend both off-the-job and on-the-job training, depending on the situation and the specific skills or knowledge one has to obtain. Training employees away from the workplace and training them at the work place while they are performing job-related tasks, both have their benefits. Additionally, NBO should provide its employees Continuous Professional Development (CPD) throughout their entire career, considering the fact that those employees actually represent the future of the organization.
In recruiting, no matter how employees are later selected, trained, and motivated, it is important to start out with a good group of job applicants. The greater the number of qualified applicants is, the more likely the firm is to build a strong work force. Nowadays, many companies approach human resource management predominantly in an administrative and operational way, meaning that all they do is fill in the open positions that need to be filled and then consider the job done. Leadership is happy because it barely affects the financial books. But it turns out to be just a short-term solution to the problem. Research shows that smart companies engage a different approach. They simply perceive their employees as their greatest asset or capital and they focus on maximizing it. Therefore, the personnel again become an essential part of the company but this time on the long-term run.
After defining the required number of positions, NBO should start attracting candidates. The job specification defines the knowledge, skills and abilities required to carry out the role and the education, experience and qualifications needed to acquire them. Agencies may be used for higher positions, as Regional and perhaps Area Managers. The second step is selection, or to evaluate each candidate and to pick the most highly qualified and suitable one for the position available. NBO management will be using a combination of Intelligence tests and Structured interviews 0.63 as a primary selection tool. They will be assessing candidates based on the five gold grading scheme of Munro-Frazer (1954), evaluating the impact they have on others, their acquired qualifications, innate abilities, motivation, and adjustment level.
Another important matter that should be considered by NBO’a management is retention. Retention refers to efforts by to retain current in their . The purpose is to avoid and associated costs. Insufficient development opportunities, ineffective supervision, poor levels of employee involvement, straightforward personality clashes, and moreover the absence of mechanisms for picking up signs of dissatisfaction all lead to the inability to retain employees. On the counter, salaries, opportunities for career development, and the chance to work with particular people all promote retention. Management must be aware of what other employers are offering and must ensure that their employees appreciate what they are currently being given.
Financial results are a common indicator, used for measuring the overall performance of an entity. Organizational restructuring is an expensive initiative. The introduction of new departments and job positions require recruitment, selecting and hiring new people, and training and development for current organizational members. However, projected changes will increase general efficiency of departments and therefore the overall performance. Change will be extremely beneficial for the organization on the long-term run. In other words, change may be expensive but it is a prerequisite for further development and success.
3. Performance management schemes
Simply put, performance management includes activities to ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on performance of the organization, a single department, processes to build a product or service, employees. Performance management aims at enhancing the skills and full potential of an individual, expanding the knowledge and skills base of the workforce in order for them to be better prepared for change, realizing the potential of the business through its greatest asset – its people. Possible outcomes of practicing good performance management are increased productivity, retention, improved skill base, market success, and employee satisfaction.
Employee performance can be measured by performance appraisal. Appraisal has become a key feature in the drive towards continuous performance improvement. It is concerned with directing and supporting employees to work as effectively and efficiently as possible in line with the needs of the organisation.
The 360-degree feedback is a process whereby an individual is rated on their performance by people related to their work. These may include reports, peers, managers, team members, customers or clients, in fact anybody that is familiar with or in some way related to work of the individual. Generally, using the 360-degree appraisal can bring many individual and organizational benefits. However, the 360-degree appraisal has had a negative impact on NBO employees. Receiving feedback from so many directions has lead to the evolvement of conflicts. Conflicts can put the organization at unnecessary risk and have a negative impact on motivation, performance, and the entire work environment.
Performance management refers to both management and employees. As previously mentioned, Continuous Professional Development should be provided to all organizational members. It will enhance personal development and boost employee’s efforts for winning promotions, thereby automatically increasing overall efficiency and performance. In addition, a review of the salary and incentives budget should be conducted. Improvements in salary and incentives management will result in reductions of costs in the financial books.
Reward schemes have great potential to improve an organization. Properly implemented reward schemes and incentives will definitely improve staff retention rates, ease staff recruitment, keep staff motivated, and attract new costumers. In addition, reward schemes can not only improve performance and motivation but may also be tax-efficient for the business so it's a no lose situation. Rewarding within an organization may be monetary, or may provide additional benefits to an individual, or it may be moral. Moral appraisal has proven to be extremely motivational, resulting in greater productivity.
When dealing with performance management and reward, it is recommended to set objectives and goals based upon a mix of hard and soft targets. Hard targets are based on measurable criteria and can be related to business performance, while soft targets are based on attitudes and behaviors, and the observation of how the job is done. They should respectively equal 75% and 25% when decision making is related to setting objectives and goals.
Effective change management requires continual assessment of the internal and external environment. Naturally, no change management program goes completely according to the plan, as people tend to react in unexpected ways, areas of anticipated resistance may fall away, and the external environment may shift. However, supported by solid decision-making processes and using the up-to-date information from the field, the NBO change leaders should be able to make the adjustments necessary to maintain momentum and drive overall business results.
References
K. Levwin, „Frontiers in Group Dynamics: Concept, Method, and Reality in Social Science,” Human Relations (June 1947), 5-41.
E. H. Schein, Organizational psychology, 3d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1980), 243-47.
K. N Wexley and G. P. Latham, Developing and Training Human Resources in Organizations (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman & Co., 1981).
Dr. Ramon J. Aldag and Dr. Timothy M. Stearns, Management, 1987, p.288. Cincinnati, Ohio: by South-Western Publishing Co.
Filicetti, John (August 20, 2007). . Retrieved/Accessed:
URL: http://www.pmhut.com/pmo-and-project-management-dictionary.
