Case study 1 – Motivation And Change Management

1. A change is always required in the organisation operations as there are so many interrelationships of parts that are transmitted to other end and this interrelationship is also for the environment around it (Mensah & Tawiah, 2015). The term organisational change is implied for the creation of imperfection or imbalances on the standing pattern of the situation. Initiating the change will definitely require the employees to make new adjustments. As for me, the first reason to implement change in the company’s business operations to resolve its worldwide check-in disruption. It has been for a while now that customers are facing technical issue while booking the flights which has affected check-in for the flights around the globe.

The second important reason to bring change is for improving the employee turnover in the company. There is a need to recruit a large number of employees in the organisation due to the strong passenger growth in its international business. In order to meet the requirement of the customers, there need to add additional staffs mainly in the South-east Asia. The main motive behind reconstructing the staffing structure of the company is to allow the enterprise to achieve its strategic objectives. It is important that organisation operations are proactive as adding up the employees will lead the company to a new stage (Mensah & Tawiah, 2015). The emergence of the international market is surely forcing the company to bring change its conducts the business.  

The third reason to bring the change would be reducing the third party operations to the flight booking. There are many cases where people are hit or charged with a huge sum of money for cancelling or changing their flights. I really want this to stop as the charges taken by the third party surely implement a negative impact on the company’s image. It is important that employees could reach to every customer possible so that actions done by third parties do not damage the image and brand of the company.   

2. As with the changes in the technical growth, the information age and the global economy, change in the business operations has become normal to the enterprises. Employees in the workplace resist change due to various reasons. According to me, the most important reason for providing resistance for changing is the fear of loss of job or status in the company. It is imperative that new employees may be more talented and hardworking than the existing employees. This fear makes them resist the changes of staffing structure of the company.

 The second reason to resist the change is for the chances of climate of mistrust. Employees have bonding among themselves which includes faith in the intentions and behaviour of the others. Recruiting huge number of employees may lead to reduction of these bonding among the workers. Changes in the organisational structure sometimes result in the elimination or reduction of the roles in the business operations. It is a fact that any sweeping changes on the job can cause the staffs to fear for the positions and roles in the organisation. It is important that a well-planned support is provided to the employees.   

Case study 2 Leadership And Decision-Making

The third main reason for the employees to resist change would for the bad communication strategy. The way of communicating with the employees regarding the change is always a critical factor. It is important for me to communicate with them properly to understand and determine staffs reactions. It is important that employees understand the need for change. I must surely be present for employees questioning as miscommunication may lead to insignificant information.    

3. Use two motivation theories

Every enterprise is aware and knows the importance and benefit of keeping their employees happy and motivated. In business operations, motivation is the word which mainly used for describing the fuzzy statement of “why we need to do this”. Delivering quality services is one of the major objectives of Air New Zealand and there is a need to motivate the employees to continue providing quality customer service during the adoption of change in the company.    

One of the most important theories to motivate the employees is the Maslow’s theory of needs. According to the theory, humans need five basic things in life to be motivated and happy and people need these things in pattern (Manzoor, 2014). These five requirements are physiological (basic stuff such as food and shelter), safety (such as job security, good health), love (friendship), esteem (respect at workplace) and the self-actualisation (freedom to think and create and accept). According to the case situation, the best way to motivate the employees would be by providing proper remuneration and job guarantee mainly during the staffing structural change (Manzoor, 2014). With it, the employees of the company will also lose the fear of job security and will get the physiological and safety needs that employee’s desire. It is indeed true that, once the basic requirements of the employees are fulfilled, they can surely become more motivated and will perform more amicably.   

Another motivation theory to motivate the employees during the designated change in the company would be Herzberg theory. This theory states two different sets of factors that cause satisfaction and dissatisfaction on the job role (Mensah & Tawiah, 2015). In relation with this theory, the most important motivational factors are recognition, work conditions, work quality and growth opportunities. According to the given case situation, I think providing a proper work condition during the change will surely encourage the staffs to provide better service to the customers. It is important to implement tools like customer relationship management mainly during the business changeover to provide assistance to the workers. 

4. It may be possible that not all employees are satisfied with my technique. To deal with these people, here are four different ways to handle them

1. Transparent Communication: Solution of every problem requires transparent communication where every individual concerns and issues can be freely expressed. Communication has its utmost importance in solving an issue. Communication regarding the worker’s concern will create an open dialogue between the people they trust.
2. Breaking down the silos: It is a fact that organisational silos are the main cause of workplace problems. It is important to solve the silo mentality among the organisational members so that they can share information to each other’s. Eliminating the organisational silos will helps the employees to engage more in their respective works.
3. Open-minded people: removing the barriers among the organisational member require them to be open-minded. Solving the issues relating to any organisational change will require the employees to come up with their issues.
4. Solid foundation strategy: without a proper strategy, a change in business operations cannot be implemented. A solid foundation strategy will be implemented in the company’s operation during the change that could provide assistance to the workers.     

Leadership is all about setting up goals, portraying the paths for the employee’s top reach those goals, making the decisions and making efforts with the followers in order to achieve those goals. The normative model of leadership or leadership decision making is the leadership model that assist managers to decide, to which degree their team members need to participate in the decision-making process. The model was developed by Victor Vroom with collaboration with the Philip Yetton and Arthur G. Jago. This model is also referred as Vroom-Yetton-Jago model. The model is distinguished between five different management approaches with the varying degree of participation mainly by the managers and its team members. This theory suggests that that the primary functions of a leader is to make decisions. While making a decision, a leader must reflect the relative importance of the quality of the decision.

Here are five decision making strategies that stated junior managers need to adopt:

1. Decide (Autocratic Type 1): these types of managers make decisions by themselves by using the information available to them. It is suggested that junior managers should be completely autocratic in beginning of career and must suggest with team members while making any decision.
2. Consult individually (Autocratic type 2): in this, the manager delivers the issue to the team members, gathers individual views and then takes decision by themselves.    
3. Consult group (Consultative type 1): In this type, the decision maker shares the concern to its followers and gather their ideas and suggestions and makes the decision alone.
4. Facilitate (Consultative Type 2):  In this type, the decision maker shares the concern to its followers and gather their ideas and suggestions and makes the decision alone. But in this type, the followers reach to a unified decision as a team.
5. Delegate (Group-based type 2): in this type, the decision makes listens to his or her followers and takes decision according to the ideas and suggestions. Leaders don’t force their decisions on this type and the decision taken by the group is the final one.

It is important for the junior managers to understand the degree of the team participation in order to become a successful warehouse manager in future. They must possess sufficient knowledge to make the decision individually otherwise should gather ideas and suggestions from the team members.   

1. Three (3) disadvantages of using a transactional leadership style at The Warehouse

The first disadvantage of executing transactional leadership is that it is a sort of unyielding leadership. This leadership do not have a clear structure and also has unbendable polices and rules. Transactional leaders always tell his or her followers what to do and never accept complaints of any kind (Odumeru & Ifeanyi, 2013). In warehouse, it is important to listen to subordinates as they deliver the exact account of the remaining products.   

The second disadvantage of using this leadership is that it does not motivate the creativity. The leaders are short-term followers and thus makes hard for them to make any changes.

The third disadvantage is the accountability of the employees. In warehouse accountability, it is important that leaders took charge if something goes wrong, but transactional leaders always blame their followers for everything.

1. Three (3) advantages of using a transformational leadership style at The Warehouse

The first advantage of using transformational leadership at Warehouse is that it allows for quick formulation of a vision (Sultana, Darun & Yao, 2015). These leaders communicate their visions properly so that all workers can deal with the challenging situations.

The second advantage is that it promotes enthusiasm. This leadership assist in creating passionate workplace and drive organisations with innovations and changes (Sultana, Darun & Yao, 2015).

The third advantage is that this leadership style utilise inspiration to motivate people. The stated leadership aligns with the ability to motivate and inspire.

1. Advice managers to help their subordinates

Some of the advices are:

1. Creating an inspiring vision: subordinates will need a compelling reason to follow their managers and this is why it will important for the managers of Warehouse to create and communicate an inspiring vision of the future.
2. Personalise the management style: it is important for the managers to adapt their leadership to the different personalities and according to skills of their team. They must act as a mentor and not as a boss.
3. Guide and Inspire: managers must guide its team in the direction they want to lead the team by setting up a proper vision, strategy and goals (Sultana, Darun & Yao, 2015). Managers of Warehouse must inspire their subordinates by continuously engaging their talents and celebrating successes.
4. Be a role model: Managers must act with self-respect, integrity and ethical standards. Subordinates always follow the steps of his or her leader and thus it is important for the managers to be a role model.    

References

Manzoor, Q. (2014). Impact of Employees Motivation on Organizational Effectiveness. European Journal Of Business And Management, 3(3). Retrieved from https://www.iiste.org/Journals/index.php/EJBM/article/viewFile/265/150

Mensah, E., & Tawiah, K. (2015). Employee Motivation and Work Performance: A Comparative Study of Mining Companies in Ghana. Journal Of Industrial Engineering And Management. https://dx.doi.org/https://dx.doi.org/10.3926/jiem.1530

ODUMERU, J., & IFEANYI, G. (2013). Transformational vs. Transactional Leadership Theories: Evidence in Literature. International Review Of Management And Business Research, 2(2). Retrieved from https://www.irmbrjournal.com/papers/1371451049.pdf

Sultana, U., Darun, M., & Yao, L. (2015). Transactional OR Transformational Leadership: Which Works Best For Now?. International Journal Of Industrial Management (IJIM). Retrieved from https://ijim.ump.edu.my/images/pdf/4.pdf