Teamworking week 13

Teamworking                                         week 13

At school we had to give a presentation in groups of three on the recession in Europe and its affects all over the world. I would say we applied the Belbin theory within our group, although there were only three of us in the group which obviously means the three of us could not take more than a role each. But what we did was picked a role each and tried to put our best into it. One of the member was very creative and he had a lot of knowledge as compared to the others in the group, so he was the one who gave the ideas and suggestions. The second member collected and finalised the required piece of work that was needed and later he explained all the work in points to the whole group so that no confusions could be left behind. The third member piled up all the work and jotted all the points inform of slides on PowerPoint so that the presentation could be delivered in a way that everyone gets attracted to it. We were all satisfied with the work because we all knew we put in equal effort into the work as we all had done it together so our team work and advance planning shows that we applied Belbins theory which tells the ways to avoid future problems.

http://www.istockphoto.com

 Though we were a small group but everyone had some qualities. One member of our team was action oriented as he was well disciplined; task oriented and was a good finisher. The second member was people oriented as he was committed to team goals, he was a good listener as he was getting all the knowledge and he was the one who motivated the team that how well we all were doing. The third member played Cerebral role according to Belbins theory as he was highly creative, hardworking with lots of knowledge and he was the one who used to take crucial decisions

According to the theory of Bruce W. Tuckman there are four stages of group development; Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. Adjourning is also a stage but it is after the work is finished.

http://www.theflyingdoctor.nl/blogs/media/tuckman.jpg

Relating my group to these stages:
Forming is a process in which group comes together and start to get to know each other and further plan out the tasks that who has to do what. So on the next day when we were given the assignment we had our meeting in which we all had casual chat to get to know each other and then we started planning our assignment. We planned everyone’s role that who is responsible for doing what work. So this situation exactly matches with the first stage.
Storming is the stage when group acquires some sense of security as they clear up the issues of what they should be doing. In our next group meeting we sorted everything that who is the group leader and what role each one of us has to play.
Norming is the stage when group decides that how they are to operate together. We sorted the barrier of communication by exchanging our cell numbers and our email ids so that we could tell and ask what we all are doing so that we could inter-relate all the work. We also motivated each other when anyone of us brought a good idea or did a good piece of work.
Performing is when the group produces what it has gathered together. This is the last stage and it was the day before the deadline when we finished all the work and helped out each other if there were any confusions. Our group gathered all the work and we all discussed how it all went for all of us.
Adjourning is the final stage when the task is finished and everyone shares his/her feeling that how well it was. So after submitting the assignment we all had a good chat that how helpful the information was in the assignment and how much we all enjoyed during our meetings.

‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins

Two companies out of hundred top companies to work for:

The best company to work for I think is Microsoft. They are enjoying their success in the whole world just because their teamwork n hard work is paying off. Their strategy is that the owner Bill Gates selects employees by vision that how they will prove to be a success for the company. Not just this Microsoft sets targets for its employees which are obligatory on them to accomplish. At the end of every year the employee is seen as the least motivated or not goal oriented is fired from the job so this makes the employees more motivated to their work.
               
The second best company according to me is Blue arrow which is a recruitment agency. Teamwork plays an important role in the day to day dealing of the company as they have certain jobs to which only specific or appropriate people can apply so they help the people and the company to choose the best out of the people with related skills needed for the job to be done. People have to register with the Blue Arrow if they want to seek employment from the company. So Blue Arrow has lots of branches in UK and are well established as they are helping both the company and the employees.

References:
http://www.theflyingdoctor.nl/blogs/media/tuckman.jpg  Accesses on 16 April 2011
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/2055573/2/istockphoto_2055573-teamwork.jpg  Accesses on 16 April 2011
‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins. Ninth Edition (Prentice Hall). Page no 318

Conflict Week 6

Conflict                                                week 6

It was one of our coursework assignments in the university in which we were sorted in a group of four where we all were very motivated as we finalised our topic after our first group discussion. We planned our next meeting on the very next day so that we could set the goals for our group so that no conflicts can be seen in our group. We decided what role each person was going to play and what were the duties of everyone to bring out the best from our group. The next week we met and we brought the information we all had gathered about that topic but two of the team members came empty handed. One had an excuse that he was too busy and the second one said he just did his part but he couldn’t bring. So we just avoided the first thing that could have turned into a conflict. Later on we planned the next meeting but just two of our members were there so we thought the problem was of communication. We came to a conclusion that how to overcome the problem of communication which was leading towards a conflict so we shared everyone’s cell no and email id. Things were all going smooth after that but we were unable to achieve our purpose that was to get an A grade but still we all tried to give our best but still some problems were seen due to which we couldn’t achieve our goal.

Different Sources of Power:      
Coercive Power: this is the power that is seen with the ability to bribe, to threaten people and to use physical force to let people do something you want. This can be seen In case of getting jobs where people usually bribe the selectors to get that job so that even the people who deserve more are rejected. This is seen in most of the developing countries where corruption rates are very high.

Referent Power: comes from within the person as it solely depends on the interpersonal skills of the person due to which people follow them and respect them. Referent power is also based on the personal relationships and friendships that are found in working situations. Example can be taken in case of political leader whom people follow and due to their charismatic leadership they get the work out of people they want.

Expert Power: it is based on the expertise held by an individual so it is similar to that as referent power as it originates from within the person. These are the people or group of people who use the power of their skills and knowledge they possess to get what they want. This is seen in case of highly educated people who can get the job where ever they want to work with their own terms and conditions this all because of their skills and knowledge.

http://www.healthylifestylesblog.co.uk

Reward Power: is the ability to influence behaviour like managers have the power over the distribution of organisational rewards such as pay, promotion etc so in the same way the employee have the power of the promotion of supervisor and his rewards as their feedback make changes a lot. This is also called a 360 degree feedback system. This is seen in organisations such as KFC where a person gets promotion only by the positive feedback of the employees.

‘’Introduction to Organisational Behaviour’’ by Richard Pettinger

Five strategies to overcome Conflict
Goal Oriented approach: goals should be clarified before starting the work. Like role should be finalised which means everything should be planned that who is going to do what which will avoid any misunderstandings.

http://www.missionarycare.com

Communication: is the transfer of messages from the sender to the receiver through a medium. Whereas an effective communication is the one in which message is understood by the receiver and acted upon through a feedback if required. This was also one of the problems as I discussed above were seen in our group although some measures were taken but still the problem lied in our group was a better communication. A better source of communication is also needed to overcome any conflicts.

Compromise: in my eyes this is the best way to overcome conflict. It is always better to sit face to face with whole the team and discuss all the problem and then some should be the ones which should be dealt with and on the rest both sides should compromise.

Group Activities: relates that the group should also casually sit together and discuss other topics so that they get to know each other. The group should try to have some kind of activities so that they may get comfortable while working with each other rather than meeting in a very formal way. So group activities or casual meetings also avoid conflicts.

Avoidance: this can sometimes be the best source to overcome conflicts as a person totally avoids others views and thoughts just not to start a new conflict but it usually does not happen but sometimes this is the best solution.

‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins.

Conclusion:
There are many minor things which we usually ignore but still we never know that how big they turn out to as a big conflict. It’s always better to sit face to face and discuss all the problems so that a group can avoid conflict and achieve its goals that it has set for itself. On the other hand power also means a lot when getting the work done by the time and with the own choice but still the power shouldn’t be used where it is not needed as it will prove to be an unethical and sometimes unlawful offence.

References:
‘’Introduction to Organisational Behaviour’’ by Richard Pettinger published in 1996 (Macmillan press LTD). Page no 210-212
‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins. Ninth Edition (Prentice Hall). Page no 101-103
http://www.healthylifestylesblog.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Power-of-Blogging.jpg  Accessed on 5-04-2011
http://www.missionarycare.com/images/conf1.gif  Accessed on 5-04-2011

Recruitment week 18

Recruitment                                                  week 18

I viewed a certain online recruitment sites like Reed, Monster, Fish4jobs etc and found how they impact on people. Basically these online recruitment agencies are the organisations that maintain a database comprising of all relevant information on individuals who are looking for jobs and businesses where vacancies exist. These agencies make an effort to arrange meetings or act as a communication channel between the two parties and charge commission of their services. Apart from helping companies and employees these online agencies also help people to make their CV. They tell the ways in which to improve their CV making skills in order to meet the professional skills for applying a good job. These online recruitment agencies are used as a platform to advertise jobs by different companies. These recruitment sites also help in some common interview asked questions and so they try to provide every single aspect that is related from finding a job to calculating the salary for the job. Whereas the layout is concerned all the recruitment sites have similar things but the layout style is different from others. Every recruitment site has a different layout to attract people to register with them. Recruitment agencies like Reed have offices in almost most of the areas in UK so that they can help people to get local jobs and this thing proves to be highly useful for individuals who intend to work in their hometown.

http://www.economicalinformation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Online.gif

The recruitment campaign that really interested me was of Awaaz radio that is a new 107.4FM channel recently started in High Wycombe. Awaaz Radio is a new radio channel which had many vacancies at the time when I was interested in it. They were advertising the jobs by leaflets and on other radio channels. Not just this they had posters all over the High Wycombe and other near areas to attract people to apply for jobs. This was the channel specially started with intention to entertain the Asian community that is living in or in the surrounding areas of High Wycombe. Many people are in UK from different parts of the world but majority of them are Asians who moved have moved to UK. So my intention was to do something for my community by any means and this was the time I had the perfect chance to do so. The motto they had on their posters was that this is the time to do something good for the Asian community so that got me very interested as my thinking was same as that written on the poster. 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRG9dS0OOYZHjFAk-IUIETFCbZOlZyRDMVuxbLzll1Zp4VVjzJRh2QLF6WUaAimp7q5nT7SrhkgaygYYsAdcUoYU5QxSFpWrTRfeZsoZorUqWZ1UXoCTQSAhDL2pcXJWs2ABmAKZxOF56V/s1600/awaz-107.4.jpg

Five advantages of online recruitment:
Cost Effective: as the company who has to advertise a job has to spend a lot of cash on advertising the job by different means like on newspapers or by leaflets etc but online recruitment agencies have saved that cost as they charge very low as compared to the other advertising methods.

Less Time Consuming: by advertising the job on recruitment agency sites it saves time for the company as well as for the people. Company saves time as the just advertise on the online recruitment site and so later on they get the response that they are looking for on the other hand it saves a lot of time for the people as they have to go to every place to apply for a job. But now people can apply jobs by sitting at home all they need is a computer and an internet connection.

Big Audience: there are millions of people who are using recruitment sites to apply for the jobs that they are looking for. Big audience gives advantage to the companies as they can get the kind of employee that they are looking for with the required past experience and education.

Success rate: there are better chances of success as the people can apply to as many jobs as they can and can get lucky at any one of them. Companies also get success as they get loads of CV’s from different people with different experiences in the past so this gives a sea of options for companies to choose the right employee.

Quick Response: sometimes it does happen that some companies need an urgent employee for the company so they post a job on the recruitment agency website and they might interview people within an hour’s due to bulk to application and they might get an employee by the end of the day. This sometimes happens but not usually as it depends on the time company has to get an employee.

Five Drawbacks of Online Recruitment:
Big Audience: it sometimes proves to be disastrous for both the company and the people as there will be many applications so it will be hard for the company to appoint the best out of so many as many applications might be ignored due to bad presentation of past experiences or the amount of applications.  So company might waste their time spending on looking for so many applications.

Not Reliable: means that it’s not always sure that your CV is whether checked by the company or not. It’s not sure that they will just hire someone who has applied via the online recruitment site because there are many companies which advertise their job in many ways eg newspaper etc if companies just rely on online recruitment they might miss out one of the top candidates.

Less Face Contact: this might make the company to take interview on call as so many companies do nowadays which proves that the company to misinterpret the personality as its quite different while talking on phone instead of talking face to face.

Specialized Jobs: in case of jobs that require too much knowledge and experience won’t be suitable to be advertised on the online recruitment site as this process would be done in a more suitable manner. So in case of specialized jobs companies should use a better way such as headhunting. So it is not always suitable for people who are highly skilled and highly educated to get the kind of jobs they are looking for.

Expensive: may be the candidate selected for the job might be from another country so it might prove to be too expensive to bring him in the country of origin where company is operating.

Internet: internet is now very common these days but still there are many parts of the world where still internet is not easily accessible so there might be many people who deserve the jobs better than others but still are not getting due to the unavailability of internet.

http://ezinearticles.com/?E-Recruitment:-Advantages-and-Disadvantages&id=5228230

References:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRG9dS0OOYZHjFAk-IUIETFCbZOlZyRDMVuxbLzll1Zp4VVjzJRh2QLF6WUaAimp7q5nT7SrhkgaygYYsAdcUoYU5QxSFpWrTRfeZsoZorUqWZ1UXoCTQSAhDL2pcXJWs2ABmAKZxOF56V/s1600/awaz-107.4.jpg  Accessed on 5-May-2011
http://www.economicalinformation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Online.gif Accessed on 5-May-2011
http://ezinearticles.com/?E-Recruitment:-Advantages-and-Disadvantages&id=5228230  Accessed on 7-May-2011

Perception and Communication Week9

Perception and Communication                          Week9

The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

Marcel Proust, “The Captive, “Remembrance of things past”

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write stories. Stories of life. Some of these stories leave an everlasting affect on you and change your perception of life and behavior towards your relations. Friendship is one of the most beautiful relations in this world, God’s gift for His people. But one has to be very careful while choosing friends. Because people you trust most, sometimes desert you most. I have a similar story to tell you, how a dear friend of mine changed my way of thinking.

http://www.sapdesignguild.org

In my early teenage years I used to have lots of friends. And I was in habit of spending plenty of time with them, ignoring my family. For me they were the most precious asset of life. May be it was because my parents sent me to boarding house when I was too small. And inside me there was some sort of rage against my family for sending me away from themselves. I just decided in my own self that everybody can leave me except my friends. But I was wrong.

Bilal was one of my very good friends and also my first cousin. We used to stay all day together, sharing views on every minor happening of life. Whenever he needed me I was there. I used to give him preference on my own siblings. Not thinking of the fact that this behavior might be hurting them. But perhaps I loved teasing them. I had this confidence that Bilal would give his life but not let anyone hurt me. I did not know that something would happen one day and change my whole perception.

One fine evening I and Bilal were going to have dinner outside, as sitting and dining with family at home was like a curse to me. On our way I saw some villagers going in a group at the side of the road. But when I reached near them, all of a sudden two of them came in the mid of the road while chatting with each other and not knowing about our upcoming car. I had to apply my car’s brakes in emergency but even I was not sure that I would be able to save them or not. With God’s grace I saved them and myself too. My car’s brakes produced a huge sound and the men in front of me got so scared that they fell down in the mid of the road. I came out of my car to see if they r fine but they got really offended and started abusing me. I tried to explain myself but this could only add to their fury and they started beating me. I was assuming that Bilal would come out of the car and save me from these illiterates. But to my surprise he did not bother to come out for my rescue. At that time I felt that kicks and slaps of those villagers could not hurt me more than my friend’s silence. They left me half-conscious on that road. I dragged myself to car. Bilal was sitting quietly, not saying even a single word. I went straight to my own house from there. When I entered home my parents and siblings got shocked seeing me. They took me to hospital and pampered me as much as they could, not ask anything about the incident.

http://www.clipartoday.com/_thumbs/022/People/adolescents_cartoons_200722_tnb.png

This accident was like an eye opener for me. I never saw Bilal after that. But I never forgot him. Because he made me realized what I was missing in my life, love and affection of my own family. I apologized them for my behavior in the past. And they forgave me and accepted me back to the family whole heartedly.

Somebody said once that “my mistakes are my life”. I totally agree with him. I learned from my mistakes. Friends are precious but not more than our family. We cannot give them the place that is totally reserved for our beloved parents, brothers and sisters. And one more thing, now I take too much care while making friends and then trusting them. For our feelings are priceless and we should not allow anyone to hurt them.

Three ways in which the university can improve communication with the students.

Effective feedback: means here that a proper effective method should be made by the lecturer at least once a month to discuss all the issues and problems that students are going through. It should be a kind of one to one meeting so that a student who is shy can also deliver his/her views about the lecture and apart from this it will also help the lecturer to find that who is weak in that subject so that lecturer might help that student in her next lecture’s. The lecturer will also be able to give feedback to every student that what they are lacking in and what they are good it and I think this thing will motivate the students as they will be appraised for the hard work they are putting in.

Attractive activities: I feel there should be a group activity arranged by the lecturer once or twice a month covering specific topics done in past as this will help the students to keep up to date with the work they had already done. Apart from this it will also create a friendly atmosphere among the class mates as the group activity will bring all together and it will reduce the racism as well. I fell that lecturer should put people from different cultures into one group so that everyone gets to know each other and a better communication could be made as friendly discussion removes the barriers like racism.

Student Representative: I have been receiving emails regarding student representative from the university so what I think is that there should be a student representative for international students as well with whom all the international students can meet and discuss the issues that they are going through. This will not only help the students it will also leave a good impact as it will show how concerned the university is about international students and this will give the students an effective medium to talk to the management of the university for what they expect and for what they are going through.

Furthermore there are many other ways in which university can improve its communication with the students but as far as I’m concerned I think these are the most important ways to improve communication between university and students.

Refrences:
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/resources/optical_illusions/images/motion.jpg  Accessed on 5-04-11
http://www.andreadams.com/assets/watermark%20files/fight.jpg Accessed on 5-04-11

Leadership Week 5

                                                                    LEADERSHIP                                      WEEK 5



A manager is a person tasked with overseeing one or more employees or departments to ensure these employees or departments carry out assigned duties as required. Depending on the size of the company there might be a single, dual or triple management layer involved. Management can be described by the following functions and elements:
Planning: this involves setting objectives and also the strategies, policies, programmes and procedures for achieving them. Planning is primarily the job of line managers who might act upon the advice of specialist staff managers.      
Organising: managers set tasks which need to be performed if the business is to achieve its objectives. The tasks such as manufacturing and packaging need to be organised to achieve this goal.  
Commanding: managers have to give instructions to subordinate to carry out tasks.
Coordinating: is the bringing together of the activities of people within the business. Individuals and groups will have their own goals, which may be different to those of the business and each other.
Controlling: managers measure and correct the activities of individuals and groups, to make sure that their performance fits in with plans.          

Whereas, Leadership is the art or process of influencing people so that they perform assigned tasks willingly and in an efficient and effective manner. Leadership is, therefore, crucial in motivating and inspiring the workforce. It is useful to distinguish between managers and leaders. Managers have positional or legitimate power as a result of an appointment to a particular position. Leaders may be appointed or may emerge. Managers act as functionaries whereas leaders are innovators. Moreover, managers accept responsibility but leaders are known for seeking it. So in short, manager is the one who is involved in planning, organising, commanding, coordinating and controlling whereas leaders are those who are involved in handling the management and all.

http://www.mindtools.com

The country club leadership is a kind of leader who is too much concerned about the needs and feelings of his/her team member and thinks that this attitude keeps the staff motivated and makes them to work more hard but it ends up with lack and poor level of production due to lack of direction.
Impoverished are the kind of leaders who are least bothered about the need of members of team and are in no mood to guide the other colleagues to the right direction which eventually leads to complete failure of business and disharmony in the organisation.
Middle of the Road is a style that seems to be balanced but still a problem also lies in it as they are not too much concerned because of so many compromises due to which neither the production nor people needs are fully met.
Team Leader is the ideal style of leadership thought by Blake and Mutton as this leader is highly concerned with the needs of production as well as the needs of the people which altogether make a suitable and best working environment for the organisation. When employees are committed to their work as they know organisations success is purely based on their hard work so this leads to high quality level of production and on the other hand it makes the leader highly concerned to its member’s needs.
Produce or Perish are those leader who are autocratic as they just think the employees needs are secondary to the needs of the organisation. These leaders are quite strict and follow on their own rules as they think employees just work better if they know they will be punished for any mistakes. What they are just concerned is that the job must be done at any cost.
‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins.

Recently I worked at KFC and found out how their working environment is. At the start they all were very friendly and I thought this is the best organisation to work for but as soon the work started I was quite amazed that how these people are working without any rest for so long. We had one manager and one leader at every shift. The manager used to sit in the office and used to come after a couple of minutes just to check how things are going where as our leader was the one who used to stand and move on every task to help others. As I was the new member so I was too slow as compared to people working over there because it was the first time I was doing a job in a fast food restaurant so the leader used to stay most of the time with me on cash till. My job was to serve the customers by taking their order. Our leader was really concerned to the employees and the production which involves the serving and taking of orders. So I think the style of leadership of our leader was of Team Leader according to Blake and Mutton diagram. I think this because our leader used to help employees when they used to get tired as he asked them to take some rest and he will continue their work for that time and apart from this he was active member when he helped every area that was working slowly in order to keep the pace of the work proper.

http://www.nutmegradio.com

 The leader I like the most is Nelson Mandela as we discussed about him in the lecture that how much hardships he had to face all his life just due to the unfairness and discrimination that black and coloured people are subjected to in South Africa. Nelson Mandela personifies passion. As he sacrificed all his private life and his youth for his people, and remains South Africa's best known and indeed a superhero for his own people. Mandela participated actively in politics to oppose the apartheid movement. He fought all his life just to end the racial segregation so that the next generation doesn’t has to go through what they had gone from. His whole life is lived in the vision of creating racial equality and with only a one view of humanity as he believes that all are free to do anything and anywhere. Mandela spent 27 years behind bars as a political prisoner due to his movements and other political fights that he had gone through. But that has not left a dent in his spirit and never stopped him from continuing his struggle to rid South Africa of Apartheid. In 1994, four years after his release from prison, he became the first democratically elected president of South Africa at the age of 75 and still we can see on news that how much respect and honour his people have for him. I like his personality due to many reasons as we all still see how down to earth he is and what he has done for his people and I think not just for his people but he has set an example to the whole world to finish the racism that is ruining the minds and lives of thousands of people. The other thing I like his personality was his commitment and his aim that stayed consistent throughout the time even he was in jail or even when he had to go through hardships. He is the man of mouth as never refuses what he promises or what he says. Apart from giving examples I think we all should follow the example that Nelson Mandela has set for all the human beings on earth.
http://www.nelsonmandela.org

Conclusion:
This blog tells all the types of leadership styles according to Blake and Mouton grid and tells us how we can separate the styles of leadership into different categories. Every leader is different as he does something different for which he is well known and people do remember a good leader for decades and great leaders never die as they live in our history which we can’t regret and Nelson Mandela is one of those whom people will never forget.

References:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_73.htm Accessed on 15-04-2011
http://www.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/memory/views/biography/ Accessed on 15-04-2011
http://www.nutmegradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Nelson-Mandela.jpg Accessed on 15-04-2011
‘’Management and Organisational Behaviour’’ by Laurie J. Mullins. Ninth Edition (Prentice Hall). Page no 461-463

Culture Week 4

CULTURE                                                                         WEEK 4

I worked for PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Company) in customer care office as it was always flooded with loads of people with the small issues that they were going through. As my job was temporary so they always gave me to do job on different timings so that let me meet many people within the organisation. This let me think of many good aspects of working in that organisation as I saw every worker was happy with the job and the company policies. The very few visible aspects of culture I saw were:
The workers were highly motivated by the owner and owners had developed  a sense of belonging amongst the members of the workforce. And the employees had a feeling that they were integral part of the company and the contribution towards company growth was deeply valued by the owner.
The second visible aspect was the respect for each other’s culture and moral values. In other words the company had great respect for the ethics as they are very important part of a company. Ethics can be defined as a system of morals or rules of behaviour. These are the values and beliefs which influence how individuals, group and societies behave.
The next aspect was the feedback given by the customer. As there was a complaint box as well as a suggestion box for the customer and that box was opened by the manager and he used to give feedback to all the employees in order to maintain the standards of the company to the demands of the customers. Regular feedback was a best part of the company that I felt was the most helping. Job enrichment was also a visible aspect but was rarely seen in case of extra ordinary work and loyalty to the company.
 

http://www.newzealand.com/travel/about-nz/culture/culture-home.cfm  

HANDY:

The British management writer, Charles Handy, classified organisational culture by the power of individuals' roles and functions within an organisation. Handy's four cultures follow.

Power Culture is a situation in which a person is centre of attention or he is such a powerful personality who controls and coordinates everything on his own with no instructions. Individuals generate power cultures when they attract those who have faith in them but the main problem lies when the size of organisation grows and diversifies as it becomes difficult for the individual to sustain that high level of influence. The best example is of this is our politicians. They are the centre of attention of the people and their influence can be seen on everyone as they become ideal for most of people. People try to copy them or else follow them and their rules of life.

Role Culture are found in case of organisations which are huge in size where everyone has to follow the rules and regulations of the company and they can’t do anything with their own choice as they do not have the authority to do so. In this only the person who has authority to do anything can change or fix things otherwise ever member has to do what he/she is employed for. This can be seen in case of educational institutions in which everyone has to follow the rules and there is no one who can change the rules as management is the highest authority to make any leniency for anyone in case of any mishaps.

Task Culture is when the ultimate priority is to complete all the tasks before the deadline as it is job oriented. People have freedom as no rules are set so this gives an advantage to the people to complete in their own way so that they can bring out their best. This can be seen in case of group assignments in universities as the group is given a task to find and deliver the correct information on a topic before the deadlines. All students in a group share the work of assignment and they interrelate it with other work by just communicating that what ideas that are putting in the task given.

Person Culture sometimes also classified as People Culture exists for the people in it, which means a group of people with common interests join hands to start an organisation.  The example of this is the guys who made Facebook. They had common interest that they should create something in which they can contact each other with no barriers but they never knew that it will prove to be such a big success.

After a brief look over this wide topic ‘’Culture’’ I think it is impossible to classify culture in one of the four types. Every type of culture reflects a different situation and cannot interrelate it to the other. Culture depends on different situations, like if like people are working in an organisation there won’t be any unique or new ideas brought in as they are like-minded people and so if u see other culture like in power culture just one person is the centre of attention so till how long he would carry on and till how long people will follow him but at last people will get fed-up as the organisation size will grow.
‘’Introduction To Organisational Behaviour’’ by Richard Pettinger published

Conclusion:
           In conclusion I would say that there are many advantages as well as problems as these cultures do not exactly fit in large organisations and in case of mergers or takeovers as they might have different culture so an Organisation must use different policies in different parts of the world as there are different demands. A company must have respect for the ethical related issues as they might cause problems for a worker, owner, customer and the company. But I have learnt a lot from this topic as it has told me how different organisations operate and how individuals are different from each other.

References:
‘’Introduction To Organisational Behaviour’’ by Richard Pettinger published in 1996 (Macmillan press LTD) Page no. 402-404
http://www.newzealand.com/travel/about-nz/culture/culture-home.cfm  Accessed on 17-04-2011
http://www.ptcl.com.pk/pd_category.php?pd_id=5   Accessed on 17-04-2011

Improving Staff Performance Week 3

IMPROVING STAFF PERFORMANCE                         WEEK 3

The word motivation is coined from the Latin word "movere", which means to move. Motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviours. Motivation is what causes us to act, whether it is getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge. It involves the biological, emotional, social and cognitive forces that activate behaviour. In everyday usage the term motivation is frequently used to describe why a person does something. A number of social scientists have expressed their views and wrote theories regarding the importance of having a motivated workforce. Further those theories are divided into two categories, Content theories and Process theories.

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The content theory of motivation mainly focuses on the internal factors that energize and direct human behaviour. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Alderfer's ERG theory, Herzberg’s motivator-hygiene theory (Herzberg’s dual factors theory), and McClelland's learned needs or three-need theory are some of the major content theories.

Another type of motivation theory is process theory. Process theories of motivation provide an opportunity to understand thought processes that influence behaviour. The major process theories of motivation include Adams' equity theory, Vroom's expectancy theory, goal-setting theory, and reinforcement theory.

‘’Introduction to Organisational Behaviour’’ by Richard Pettinger

I worked in KFC for a few months and noticed that KFC deals in many ways to motivate their workers as they are famous for their team work approach as they believe that a goal oriented approach, diversity, feedback to workers and a little competition between employees is the best and far most the ultimate way to motivate workers. Not just this there are other motivating factors as well. The different ways in which KFC employees are motivated:

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Team Work: it is an established fact that workers perform their duties more effectively if they were given a chance to operate in form of groups or teams. They can work as a cohesive unit and pursue mutual goals successfully. Moreover, this practice makes work enjoyable and less monotonous.  Team work is the most important point that leads towards success. We all used to work as a team as we all knew that how much our contribution is important to the success of the business and to deliver best results. Working together as one team we built a partnership and trust amongst the employees which resulted in improved performance and respect for each other.

Bonus: I think this is the one of the best motivators for employees because the bonus acts as a reward for their extreme hard work. This bonus makes everyone work hard and keep the restaurant up to the standards that company had set for themselves which include good quality service, good quality food and good quality environment for the customers as well as the employees. Bonus is also given to the employees of the whole branch if the restaurant meets all the standards set by the company which are usually checked by unannounced visits or by mystery customers.      

Promotion:  it refers to an attempt to increase the scope of a job by broadening or deepening the tasks undertaken. It is when an employees is given more authority and employee is supposed to carry out more work of similar nature but this time employee enjoys a sense of achievement and job satisfaction as he is more authoritative. For instance in KFC a team member is made a team leader if he is working very well from a long time n a team member is made an assistant manager so this chain of giving more authority motivates the employees.              

Daily benefits: this includes a free meal every full shift a member has done. This is a motivator as it shows the employees how much they mean to the country and apart from this also acts as a reward for the day to day hard work the employees are putting into the business. Apart from this a 20min break is also given to the employees as they get tired working constantly in the restaurant serving loads n loads of customers.

The process theory that relates to KFC is Vroom Expectancy Theory. This theory tells that people will be motivated to do things to reach a goal if they believe in the worth of that goal and if they can see what they do, will help them achieve it. In other words, Victor Vroom believed that an individual’s motivation towards doing anything will be determined by the value he places on the outcomes of his effort, multiplied by the confidence he has that his effort will materially aid in achieving a goal. This may be described as:

FORCE= VALENCE × EXPECTANCY

Where, Force is the strength of a person’s motivation, in KFC the greed to employees to get promotion or bonus is an inner motivation that helps them to work hard. Valence is the strength of an individual’s preference for an outcome as the outcome at KFC is promotion and bonus. Expectancy is the probability that a particular action will lead to a desired outcome. The desired outcome can be anything like for someone it can be experience working for a multinational company or for some people who want to work forever it can be promotion and for people who work part-time or who are students their desired outcome will be bonus.

Conclusion:
Motivation is the driving force that enables a worker to perform at his best level. A business should have a well-motivated workforce if it wishes to achieve its objectives such as productivity, minimising wastage, enhancing efficiency, maximising profit etc.. KFC and other big organisations have enhanced their company’s image a lot with the help of their employees only by motivating its staff to bring out the best out of them so that they deliver the best to the people. Apart from this topic clearly tells and explains how the organisations are also benefiting by motivating its employees.

References:      
http://redriverpak.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/motivation1.jpg   Accessed on 8-04-2011

http://couponcravings.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/kfc.jpg  Accessed on 8-04-2011

‘’Introduction to Organisational Behaviour’’ by Richard Pettinger published in 1996 (Macmillan press LTD). Page no 94-133.
http://careers.kfc.co.uk/ (Accessed on 10 april 2011)