The concept of organization behaviour is a very important tool for any organization. It usually determines whether the business will succeed in its undertakings or not. Good managers must be able to effectively how to use the tool to gauge the employees’ response to different organizational policies. However, to effectively understand the concept, we first begin with the explaining the basic definition of the term organization behaviour and then move on to explain its significance to management in relation to the underlying problem which now faces Mr. Backer the manager of the regency grand hotel.
Organizational behavior refers to how the organization structure and practices influence the behavior of persons and how the persons influence the organization (McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione, 2009). Primarily, the authors claim that managers must be able to understand the organizational structure and organizational behavior to effectively manage the affairs of the business and improve the quality of products that the organization produces. In this case, they take an organization to mean a group of people with “structured patterns of interaction, coordinated tasks and working towards some purpose” (McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione, 2009).
As companies grow, they usually extend to other markets, which are in foreign countries in order to enlarge their businesses. This extension of the business activities to markets, which are beyond their borders by acquisition, takeovers, or mergers, is known as globalization (McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione, 2009). However, globalization usually comes along with many challenges, which managers must effectively cope with one of them being intensive competition from other global firms. These are the main challenges that the Regency Grand hotel faces.
Summary of the underlying problems
The change in management of a financially stable company brought with it many challenges that, though the manager was capable of handling due to his effectiveness in integrating other newly acquired hotels in the hotel chain, threaten the survival of the company. These challenges have affected the organization behaviour and seem to threaten the financial profitability of the company.
One of the challenges that the manager faces is managing diversity in the organization. According to McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione (2009), the contemporary business environment has presented organizations with primary and secondary diversity issues to deal with, more so as more women join the workforce and professional world, and due to the emerging diversity of needs among the generation X, generation Y, and baby-boomers. However, diversity may have advantages, and therefore organizations must be ready to be strategic in embracing cultural awareness, family-friendly policies and employee empowerment.
Mr. Becker, the new manager of the hotel, introduced empowerment to the employees. These measures have been faced by so much resistance from the senior staff since they undermine their status quo. They have resulted in creating barriers to the employees’ ability to make independent decisions by using the loophole posed due to lack of definition of the major and minor issues. This has caused so much social tension in the organization with many situations arising which call for the attention of Mr. Becker since he is the one who came up with the changes.
There is also a general lack of communication between the management and the staff of the hotel. This has partly been initiated by the employees pestering Mr. Becker on issues, which Mr. Becker regards as petty. According to McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione (2009), changes in business always bring about different forms of communication, which the managers must be ready to address. Lack of effective communication channels has resulted in the loss of harmony and unity of the workers of the hotel. They are quick to point fingers at each other due to mistakes, which their fellow workers make. This ultimately affects the workers confidence and their service delivery. Reduced employee confidence and the lack of unity have led to the poor service delivery of the employees. This is clearly highlighted by the poor ranking of the hotel by a travel magazine.
The above problems have led to the ultimate deteriorating of the image of the company. This would deprive the hotel potential customers who would not like to be associated with the hotel due to its bad image. In addition, the above problems have financial implications on the company due to reduced customers. The management of the hotel must therefore come up with swift measures to solve the underlying problems and help clear the image of the company to the public.
Management and organization behaviour
In this section, I will attempt to come up with solutions to the problems facing the regency grand hotel. However, in order to do that, it is important to begin with explaining the concept of organization behavior vis-à-vis the regency grand hotel.
Among the most important assets of a company is its human capital. Organization behavior is well understood in terms of
- Individual behaviors and values
- Team aspects
- Organizational processes
The individual behaviors are a very important aspect of organization behavior. The attitudes of the workers determine their behaviours and very many other aspects of the workers’ output. They dictate how an employee will perform his duties and his perception of the management (Navarro, 2005, p 234).
Managers should be particularly concerned with attitudes of the employees with regard to job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment (Fox, 2007, p 55). Job satisfaction refers to how an employee views his job. Positive attitudes towards the job will make the worker to be more committed to the job hence increasing his general output. However, negative attitudes make the worker do the job poorly and he usually lacks commitment in the job. Job involvement refers to how the worker identifies with the job and his general participation in the work. Organization commitment refers to the amount of loyalty that the worker has towards the organization (Fox, 2005, p 56). The attitude of the workers also determines the rate of turnover of the workers and the absenteeism of the workers.
Team processes refer the employees’ interaction and influence on each other in the process of achieving organizational goals and objectives. These employees see themselves as a social entity within the organization. The team is usually entitled with the performance of a certain task within the organization. Organizations must ensure that teams are efficient and there is a high level of cohesiveness within the teams (Navarro, 2005, p 242).
The organization processes relate mainly to the organization culture and the organization change. Organization culture refers to the workings of an organization and its general attributes which are shared by the employees. This attributes are different for different organizations (Fox, 2007, p 32). The organization culture is a strong bond that helps the employees identify with the organization.
An organization is not a static entity; it is always subject to change to enable it to cope with the competition and the dynamics of the market. Therefore, the organization change is a very important aspect for any organization’s existence and success. The organization change is mainly of two types internal or external. The external forces of change are mainly due to changes in technology, social change, changes in the marketing conditions and globalization (Singh, 2009 p 343).
The internal forces of change are mainly the changes in the management, changes in the socio-cultural values of the employees, and changes initiated by the management to create a dynamic environment (Singh, 2009 p 345). In addition, the trends in globalization have influenced values and ethics in the organization, thus the organization must realize importance of different values, which may be personal, cultural, organizational, or professional, as well as put emphasis on ethical business conduct (McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione, 2009).
The above changes elicit different reactions to the changes on the workers depending on the type of change. Their reaction may either be beneficial to the company or have detrimental effects on the company.
Applications on the Regency Grand hotel
Since I have now explained the theoretical part, let me get to the practical part, which relates to the problems of the regency grand hotel and explain what ails the hotel. The main problem of the regency grand hotel is the inability of the workers to cope with the changes, which have been brought about by the changes in ownership and management of the hotel.
The Regency Grand hotel used to be a highly successful organization before acquisition by the American hotel chain. The hotel staff used to work well and had adapted to the working conditions of the organization. The management of the organization had managed to attain the desired attitudes of the employees by giving them a huge bonus. The acquisition by the American hotel chains and the subsequent change in management was not well anticipated by the workers of the hotel.
The new management came with its ideas, which seemed foreign to the staff of the hotel. The change in management resulted in a change in the organizational culture of the hotel. The members of staff of the Regency Grand hotel were not used to making liberal decisions concerning their works.
In addition, the people who were in the leadership positions felt aggrieved by the ability of their juniors being able to make independent decisions without having to consult. These people felt that their powers had been reduced and hence they came up with mechanisms to show that they are still superior by having to differentiate between the major and minor issues. This led to a reduction in the teamwork among the employees. Team spirit of the employees was also diminished by their empowerment as they started pointing fingers at the other employees for their mistakes (McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione, 2009). In summary the major problems that the Regency Grand Hotel faces are
- Employee dissatisfaction
- Lack of democratic administration
- Resistance to change
- Inability of the employees to cope with changes in the organization culture
Solutions to the problems
Mr. Becker was has previously been able to effectively integrate new hotels into the hotel chain in his home country. However since he has been transferred to a new hotel in a foreign country he should have first taken time to familiarize himself with the organization culture of the new hotel before implementing his ideal measures in quick succession. Understanding the organization culture would have helped him to customize his applications to suit the Regency Grand hotel. Mr. Becker should also consider the cultural views of the societies from which these employees come from.
Lack of democratic management has made the workers to distance themselves with the new organization cultures being imposed by the new management and so reverse to the old practices, which they used to do. The best way to do this is by facilitating dialogue between the management and the employees in order to incorporate the employee’s views in the working of the company. This would maintain the financial profitability of the company by adapting its previous practices, which were good.
To solve the underlying problem of employee dissatisfaction the management should come up with strategies, which will boost the morale of the employees (McShane, Olekalns and Travaglione, 2009). The management should also award innovative ideas based on their effectiveness.
Mr. Becker introduced several changes within the organization, which are met with resistance as they change the status quo of the supervisors (Singh 2009 p 190). These supervisors impose barriers to counter the changes, which have been proposed by Mr. Becker. To help solve this problem Mr. Becker should involve the supervisors and other senior staff in not only the implementation of the strategies but also in their generation. This would make the senior employees seem that they collectively “own” the ideas and hence conform to the proposed measures and ensure the implementation of the ideas. The senior employees will effectively do this since the changes brought about by the management do not affect their status quo.
To improve the teamwork of the employees the organization should create team-building strategies targeting the employees. The organization can facilitate this either through the creation of group activities of the employees or by the hotel management creating various functions, which enhance the employee participation in the activities.
The management of the hotel must also come up with measures to help improve the image of the hotel to the public. They can do this either through undertaking vigorous advertising campaigns or designing of new products for their customers.
Conclusion
By implementing the measures proposed above, the Regency Grand hotel will be able to improve employees’ satisfaction, reduce the tensions among the employees and help improve the interaction between the top management and the employees. by so doing the organization would be able to counter the problems which had occurred and hence be on its way back to sound organization practices which would lead to improvement in the customer satisfaction. This would in the long run lead to financial benefits to the Regency Grand hotel as a hotel in the American hotel chain.
References
Fox, W. (2007). Organizational Behaviour. Cape Town: Juta and Company Ltd.
McShane, S., Olekalns, M. and Travaglione, T. (2009). Organizational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim. 3rd edition. Sydney: McGraw-Hill Australia.
Navarro, P. (2005). What the best MBAs know: how to apply the greatest ideas taught in the best business schools. NY: McGraw-Hill Professional.
Singh, H. (2009). Organizational Behavior. New Delhi: FK Publications. Web.