The report will essentially demonstrate how management functions can be applied to settled real-world problems that will be experienced by firms in their respective industry. In this report, the case study of Beresford Australia will be utilized to demonstrate how management functions, in this case, leading and planning are very important to resolve the problems.
Also, the report will discuss regarding the concepts of how an organization can change Its organizational culture Scope The extent of the research is basically the comparison of the four management unction’s (Planning, Leading, Organizing, and Controlling) and also analyzes the relationships of those 4 functions with changing organizational cultures. Methodology The information that the authors used Is essentially based from e-journals of management In Monish library. The authors also extract information’s from academically recognized online articles which discuss the relevant topics to write this report.
Assumption The authors have assumed that the two most appropriate management functions to change organizational culture are Leading and Planning. There is no research one to Justify the statement regarding Leading and Planning are the most appropriate management functions to change organizational culture. Limitations Detailed Information concerning the background Information of Beleaguers Australia Is difficult to be located. On the other hand, background Information of Its parent company, Beresford GAG was available in many sources.
However, the authors managed to extract the background information of Beresford Australia in an online Australian article, but there is a limitation as the article is available with anonymous authors. Beresford Australia As being stated above, the company that Is Involved in this report Is Beresford Australia, a subsidiary company of Beleaguers GAG In Germany. Beleaguers Australia Is a company that manufactures and sells products In the FMC (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) Industry. Products such as Skin care product; Sunburns Lotions are operated by Beresford.
Famous brands from Beresford are brands such as Handclasp, and Naive, these brands are the leader brand in their respective category. With around 17,000 Employees over 150 International affiliates, Beresford is undoubtedly a leading International branded goods company. Beleaguers Australia can be considered as a well-established company. It started operating since 1934 in Australia and 1997 in New Zealand. The Sales figures of Beresford Australia constantly growing every year, with 2011 year turnover of ADD 130 Million. Operating in the FMC Industry making Beresford competing in a very ruthless Industry.
One of the greatest rivals of Beresford is no other than Procter & Gamble. National Distribution Centre is located at Huntington, Sydney and also a state sales office in Melbourne. The business (Beresford Australia + Newsstand) was made up f over 200 people and incorporate departments such as Sales, Human Resource, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, and Shopper and Customer Marketing. Beresford Australia is made up of some particular organizational values which are Excellence, One Team, Openness, Respect, Positive Energy, Accountability, and Commercial Care.
Beresford Australia has achieved numerous awards regarding Human Resource Management, such as National Awards for HRS Impact in 2009, and HRS weekly Australian 2006 Best Employer Branding Strategy award (Robbins, Bergman, Stag, Coulter, 2012, p. 424). From the statement above, a conclusion can be made that Beresford Australia has performed well regarding their human resource management. However the authors’ main findings discovered that, few years ago, due to the lack of fame of its brand name, the company has difficulties in attracting young and talented new staffs.
One of the well-known products from Beresford Australia is NAIVE, skin care products. Customers are familiar with NAIVE but not familiar with Beresford Australia (Robbins et al. 2012, p. 424), this is why Beresford Australia is having lack of fame of its brand name. Compared to Broodiness’s competitors in the FMC industry such as Procter and Gamble, their customers are familiar with both Head and Shoulders and the Procter and Gamble itself. Furthermore, the company has stated that attracting and retaining good employees are key determinants of the company’s on going and future success.
As a result, the company focused on their branding strategies to attract and retain talented employees. In addition, the company has also come up with plans to ensure great experience for workers in the workplace, also motivate and appreciate worker’s efforts. Plan of the report The plan of the report is basically, the authors will firstly define each management functions that are utilized in the report and give real examples of how those functions can change the organizational culture.
Organizational Culture First of all, in order to understand what organizational culture is, the definition of organizational culture is “the set of key values, beliefs and attitudes shared by organizational members” (Williams & McMillan, 2010, p. 59). Therefore, in order to change organizational culture, organization must change its key values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by organizational members. Organizational culture could be changed into an ethical culture, innovative culture, customer-responsive culture, or culture that embraces sustainability.
In this case, Beresford changed the organizational culture into culture that embraces sustainability. The reason behind the change in culture is due to Beresford aimed to promote their brand so that they could attract and retain talented new staff. Some people have under-estimated the difficulty on changing an organizational culture, and conclude that “how to change an organizational culture” is a simple question. However, the truth was not as simple as most of the people have thought (Bergman, 2009). Culture is “a complex system with a multitude of interrelated processes and mechanisms that keep it humming along” (Bergman, 2009). Efferent methods of changing organizational culture. And these methods can be related to the four functions of management. For example, rewarding an employee for his/her outstanding performance was one of the methods of changing an organizational culture (Bergman, 2009). It will unconsciously create a system in the organization and hence, a culture. A system in the previous context basically means n automated process or procedures, that an employee will automatically appreciate that if he/she has put outstanding efforts, he/she will be systematically rewarded, as well as vice versa.
A relationship to one of the management functions will be realized, as we all know, rewarding an employee will motivate them and motivating employees are related to leading. The process of changing organizational culture of Beresford is done through four functions of management. In this essay, the authors will be discussing two functions of management, which are planning and leading and how it is related to change in organizational culture. Planning In order for Beresford to face the problem of their branding that results unable to attract and retain talented new staff, they have to change organization culture.
Changing of organization culture could be done through four function of management. Therefore, planning is essential to change organizational culture. Planning is often called the primary management function due to it is the base for all other management function. Without planning, managers would not know what to organize lead or control. Planning is also important due to some reasons, which are roving direction, reduce impacts of change, make use of resources more efficient, and establish a standard that allows better control.
Planning involves defining goals, establishing strategies for achieving those goals, and developing plans to integrate and coordinate activities . Based on the definition, we can conclude that planning concerns about what have to be done and how it is to be done. Planning involves two elements, which are goals and plans. Goals are “desired outcome for individuals, groups and entire organization” . Based on the definition we can conclude that goals are direction for all management and the benchmark, which old be compared to the actual performance of the organization.
In refer to Beresford case, the goal that is identified by authors is Beresford aimed to promote their brand so that they could attract and retain new talented staff. Therefore, the direction or target that is provided for all management is creating brand, which could to attract and retain talented new staff. This direction would determine how an organization operates which will be discussed in plans section. The other element of planning is plans. Plans are “documents that outline how goals are going to be met and that typically describe resource allocations, schedules, ND other necessary actions to accomplish the goals” .
Based on the definition, we can conclude that plan consist of the way to achieve goals. In comparison to goals, plans refer to how it is to be done, and goals refer to what have to be done. In refer to Beresford case, there are several plan that Beresford done in order for Beresford to achieve their goals. In the article, it is stated that attracting and retaining good employees was identified as a critical issue for the company’s ongoing and future success. In order to would focus on the branding of the company itself.
Based on the statement we can conclude that, the goal is to attract and retain talented new staff and the plan that Beresford applied to achieve the goal is to promote their brand so that they could attract and retain talented new staff. In order to promote their brand, Beresford come up with incorporated new employee value propositions such as team members who are passionate people; supporting others; learning and development; recognition of effort; career development opportunities; flexible working hours; and approachable leaders who drive values and promote mutual respect.
All of those armed a basis for developing new organizational culture that will support Beresford brand as a company. Beresford also introduces number of new management and human resource initiatives such as change the look and feel of recruitment advertisements, introduce six monthly performance management systems, and peer interview process. The plan that Beresford created is changing the organizational culture. Which then changes how the organization does things such as new systems or other human resource initiatives. Another goal that is identified in the article is Beresford aims to become an employer of choice.
The plan that Beresford come up with is first they identify potential human resource management and management gaps between how it was operating in relation to the management of staff, and how it should operate in order to be considered a great place. Based on the research, Beresford started to develop programs and initiatives to make the gaps less and deliver on its promises. The program that Beresford develop is interviews for both internal and external focus group of high performing individuals, in order to determine what employees were looking for in an employer choice, in what respects, and how Beresford met some of hose expectation.
Based on the results of the program, Beresford implemented number of human resource and management initiatives. Beresford recognize that an individual spend part of their life at work, therefore Beresford conclude that based on the research they have to provide an organizational environment where employees had an opportunity for professional and personal development and contribution. It also have to be a place where they could make a difference and be successful, while also having some fun and enjoyment in the process of doing their jobs.
Leading As being discussed in the Introduction, the other management function that will be applied is leading. When it comes to the employees, Leading is the most relevant function of management. The definition of leading will Justify the previous statement. Leadership is “the process of influencing others to achieve group or organizational goals” (Williams & McMillan, 2010, p. 277). The “Others” in the previous statement refers to employees and workers in an organizational. Why employees?
Organizational goals and objectives are not executed by the owners or the members of the Board of directors. Instead, the workers and the managers are the one that will determine whether organizational goals are achieved or not. In addition, the “influence” in the definition of leading represents motivating and inspiring workers. Beresford Australia’s present objectives now is not attracting talented workers anymore, they have done their branding strategies and able to attract more skillful company, and also to change the organizational culture through leading and planning.
Changing organizational culture through leading can be in various ways, the essential points Increasing employee Job satisfaction, select the most suitable adhering style, and conflicts should be resolved immediately (Robbins et al. 2012, p. 105) However, leading is sometimes very challenging (H. R Waning, 2009) because the managers are dealing with people rather than machines. Since Machines have no feelings, organizations are not required to motivate them to work efficiently. On the other hand, employees are humans; humans have feelings and easily bored.
Therefore, workers need motivation and inspiration to work at their best. This explains why leading is difficult. According to Measles theory, motivating employees re not limited to only money, but also security, self-esteem, etc (Robbins et al. 2012, p. 559). The problem in Beresford Australia’s case study is not how to attract the employees anymore, but to ensure their talented employees work efficiently while changing organizational culture, and to avoid huge employees turnover. Leaders will also have different types of leadership styles.
Some are very “dictator”, some are giving complete freedom to employees, or giving employees opportunities to give opinions. The three leadership styles will influence the way employees perceive towards their leaders (Has & Chem., 2011). Autocratic leaders are leaders who are basically making decisions without asking employees for their opinions (School & Blue, 2011). This sometimes De-motivate workers, because they feel that they are not important and treated as a very low-involvement party.
On the other hand, leaders can motivate workers by using a democratic leadership style. Democratic leadership style is the “inverse” of Autocratic leadership. Leaders who use democratic leadership style is usually “encourage group members to employ their own methods and policies and elicit equal input when decisions are to be made” (School & Blue, 2011). This motivates employees since the employees will automatically feel that they are involved in the decision making process.
This have been done by Beresford Australia as the fact in the case study stated “employees had an opportunity for professional and personal development and contribution” and “place where they could make a difference and be successful” (Robbins et al. 2012, p. 424). That’s enough from the manager’s side. Influencing employees to do a particular action is not necessarily done by the managers or leaders of the organizations only. Changing an organizational culture is similar to the effort when a mother influence heir children like the vegetables.
Different methods are used from giving them ice cream as a reward, or explaining why vegetables are important. But on the late sass, researcher Lean Lips Birch found the best way of influencing others to perform a particular task; Peer Pressure (Bergman, 2009). His research comes up with a conclusion that others will follow what their peers are doing (Bergman, 2009). The same theory applies in all suitable situations. For example, a child that rejects to eat vegetables will eventually eat vegetables if he/she is placed in a group of children who eat vegetables.
