The top-down communication in this organisation is required to allow Mr. Hofford to inform employees about changes in the macro-environment, which affect the organisation, organisational attitudes/expectations/beliefs, and concerns about the daily operating procedures that Mr. Hofford may have. The bottom-up communication should allow employees to inform Mr. Hofford of any machinery/vehicle difficulties, employee illness or ordering difficulties.
These sets of information are important and must be received and dealt with promptly in this dynamic business environment, however, this is not functioning effectively particular respect to the depot. The bakery has an intermediary in the form of the bakery manager who can deal with smaller difficulties personally and promptly, addressing Mr. Hofford only when necessary. However, this effective intermediary does not exist in the depot and there is only the singular channel of communication to Mr. Hofford. As Mr.
Hofford is a business man investing money in several business ventures, it proves very difficult to contact him all of the time, particularly as deliveries take place between the unsociable hours of 12am and 8am. The goals which need to realised by an implemented change will be to have stable passage of ‘vertical communication’ with the depot to avoid communication breakdown and communicative methods must be considered in informing staff of organisational goals, expectations whilst providing information to management about employee individual goals, needs and expectations from the organisation.
Within the organisation, ‘horizontal communication’ is required between the two departments. This communication is core to the operating procedures of the business as it is where the drivers communicate the orders of fresh bread, rolls, etc. to the bakery, in order for the bakery to make the correct amount for the next day. Unfortunately, it has been noticed that this vital communication is also suffering from communicative barriers, this time concerning the people rather than the process.
Poor initial communication of organisational goals has lead to incoherent team goals, conflicting departmental cultures and perceptual filters. These barriers are making the two departments work against each other and lead to poor motivation of bakers to complete the orders, inadequate record keeping of daily orders and sometimes they are even lost. These factors are very detrimental to the organisation and even though are communicative problems; they may require action through teamwork and motivation as remedial change. 3. 1. 2 Motivation
The concept of a motivated and efficient team at work has become increasing important in the modern, flexible business environment and Hofford distribution is no exception. A motive is “the reason for doing something”, and motivation is how people enthuse people to do that particular task. Mullins (1993) describes motivation as ” the ‘driving force’ through which people strive to achieve their goals and fulfil their values”. A motivated team in an organisation is a valuable resource as they will work efficiently and effectively in order to achieve both personal and organisational goals.
In this organisation, the staff are carrying out an additive task, everyone has an input which is required to provide the final product to the customer, this requires teamwork to reach these goals and in order to this the team needs to be sufficiently motivated. A demotivated workforce on the other hand may lead to absenteeism, poor performance. There are a few minor factors that are currently making the staff feel particularly demotivated to work, minor details such as the fact that staff do not feel that they are being acknowledged for their work and do not feel particularly significant.
This may seem quite small to the senior management, but as this appears to be the general consensus throughout the entire organisation it has led to absenteeism, lack of respect for the organisation, very little drive to fulfil personal potential and poor performance. This organisation needs to implement some organisation change in order to motivate staff to reach their potential and cut down on poor attendance records. They need to be given a vision and goal to strive for but many do not know what these goals are.
The overall aim from the implemented change would be to take the currently formed formal group and in order to carry out the daily additive tasks to the organisations fullest potential, create psychological groups who have common goals and receive both extrinsic and intrinsic rewards from their work. 3. 2 Plan of Implementation When implementing change, it must be carried out in a structured for in order to gain maximum benefits. Possibly the most popular model of a planned approach to change is the Lewin ‘3 stages of implementing change’.
The concept of breaking down the hardened structure of an organisation, implementing change and then hardening the organisation into a new accepted system is very popular and easy to incorporate when implementing change. 3. 2. 1 Communication The difficulties motioned earlier concerning communication I feel must not be taken lightly. The consequences in this business of making an inadequate delivery of goods due to poor or ineffective communication on a more than irregular occasion can result in customers buying goods from another supplier.
Some fairly incremental; changes need to be implemented in this area to avoid the problems identified. The main change which I feel could be implemented in the depot is the introduction of some kind of depot manager or supervisor to aid in with the core purpose of a communicatory aid in the top-down and bottom-up communication channel in the depot. I feel confident that a depot manger would be an effective intermediary in the top-down communication channel in express organisational goals to the drivers, reinforce expected behaviour and norms of the organisation, such as absenteeism, performance, etc., and keep subordinates informed.
All vital communication to provide man informed and driven workforce, which is evident from the use of a bakery manager in the bakery. Other forms of change that may be used to create the same advantages may be regular meetings with middle management, in-house newspapers/magazines/leaflets, notice boards, e-mail/intranet, t6eam briefings, and employee reports. I agree that these are all good mechanisms for communicating unilaterally with employee’s information such as organisation goals, expectations, etc.
but do not feel that these would be fully appropriate for this organisation. In-house leaflets and an intranet are not cost effective options, and although team briefings, notice boards, etc. are helpful, I feel that these would not adequately improve the current state of communication but instead would be excellent supporting aids to be used in conjunction with and by a depot manager and to be used by the rest of the organisation On the other hand, bottom-up communication will also be more effective and efficient.
The depot manager will have the knowledge and power to deal with most department difficulties, which would usually be given to Mr. Hofford, whilst enabling vital information to be selectively reported to him. This is important, as it has been mentioned that Mr. Hofford is a busy businessman with limited time resources to allocate to his businesses when required. Attitude surveys, suggestion boxes and team focus groups would be an ideal structured way of receiving constructive comments from the workforce communicating from bottom-up.
This should be implemented in both departments of the organisation as these people work in this environment each and every day and are the people who are most likely to forecast areas of concern and how these obstacles can be overcome. Moving on to ‘horizontal communication’ between the two departments, the bakery and the depot, I have already mentioned that it is a people problem as apposed to a problem with the processes involved. The problems that arise are incoherent team goals between the two departments due to poor communication, conflicting departmental cultures and detrimental perceptual filters.
In the current state, I am personally surprised that this situation was not addressed earlier, but an appropriate influence on this communication can resolve any past difficulties. The incoherent team goals has already been addressed, The use of notice boards stating company mission statements, goals and objectives along with teams briefings will firmly inform and educate the staff of the ‘entire’ organisation of the organisation objectives giving this cohesion of an organisational culture. As for the other two barriers of communication, thee are strongly linked to the motivation of the working team and are addressed in the next section.
The way communication has been recorded has been cause for concern, lost orders are unacceptable therefore a more structured procedure must be put in place. An example may be to use the e-mail or fax as opposed to phone orders but the disadvantages here include their inefficient cost-benefit ratio and more importantly the lack of immediate feedback in the communication process. A technological breakdown would also be detrimental to this organisation. A preferred procedure of change may be to delegate responsibility of receiving orders to a specific baker.
This person must obviously be selected with skills of reliability and good organisation skills, and willing to take ion this task. 3. 2. 2 Motivation Basically, motivation is a set of building blocks including needs, values and goals. People may go to work (action) to receive payment (goal) because money is valued as it allows purchase of food (need). Fig. 1. 2. – Relationships between the building blocks of motivation If these building blocks can be identified then the organisation can appropriately motivate its staff.
There are three distinct aspects in which motivation can be viewed, drives (e. g. , wealth, status and power), motives (e. g. an individuals choice of goals) and motivation (processes by which directed behaviour is initiated). Many theorists have taken their own approaches to needs driven and values driven motivation. Amongst many, Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’ (1954), Alderfer’s ‘ERG’ theory (1972), expectancy and equity theories are most prominent, but Herzberg’s et al’s two factor theory is particular useful to use with this organisation.
