Abstract
In the present-day world of high competition, life in the fast lane and an unceasing chain of discoveries made in the field of technology in general and informational technology in particular on a regular basis, entrepreneurs have to make a choice between speeding up their staff turnover and investing into their personnel, therefore, contributing to the professional growth of the latter and making sure that the company should have highly qualified specialists. While the latter seems a much better option, creating the environment for employees to develop is a very challenging task, seeing how it presupposes reaching several objectives.
Having to introduce the principles of corporate morals, as well as to create a role model for every single company member to follow, the company leader will have to reconsider his or her leadership style. As a result, an elaborate, careful and very risky plan has to be developed, which begs the question whether the result is worth striving for. Although the choice between increasing employee turnover and providing the staff with the environment in which they can grow seems obvious, the effects of employee morale, customer satisfaction and internal training on the company’s profits remain to be checked.
Introduction: In Search for the Golden Mean
Quantitative performance of a company is often considered the basic measure for business success (Kotter, 2008). However, pushing the employees’ performance to the breaking point without taking the long-term perspective into account might result in an even more drastic effect in the future, when a sudden crisis or even an unexpected change in the business environment or economical landscape occurs (Lawler & Worley, 2006). However, by planning the company’s future strategies based on the qualitative considerations instead of quantitative ones, one can achieve steady progress, increasing the production processes at the same time.
Qualitative Considerations: Long-Term Benefits
Despite the fact that addressing current issues is important for any company, it is also necessary to think of the future of the organization and be able to predict the challenges and opportunities that a company can possibly have.
The effects of employee morale
On the one hand, there is little connection to the moral principles that an employee is guided and the results that the given employee delivers. However, when considering the issue deeper, one will have to admit that the employee morale can easily clash with the company’s moral compasses, which will inevitably lead to a major conflict among employees or between the staff and the company managers resulting in dismissing the employee (Doran & Roland, 2010). Therefore, it is important that the employee morale should be up to the company’s standards.
The effects of customer satisfaction
On the one hand, the link between the customer satisfaction and the company’s performance is obvious. However, in the context of long-term benefits of strategic initiatives, current customer satisfaction might seem not that an important issue to focus on. To prove the significance of customer satisfaction on the aforementioned issue, it is necessary to mention that customer satisfaction leads to long-term relationships with the customer who was left fully satisfied. Therefore, with the increase of efficiency, a company is highly likely to have a base of devoted clients, which is going to be especially important in case of a temporary crisis.
With regard to the given issue, such aspect of organization’s functioning as employee satisfaction should also be given a proper mentioning. Often overlooked, employee satisfaction is crucial not only in that it makes the staff provide the services of the corresponding quality, but in that it shapes the employees’ attitude towards work, therefore, enhancing their motivation.
The effects of internal training
Again, the effects of the internal training on the company’s efficiency and the increase in the production process, as well as the organizational issues, are obvious when being looked at in the short-term perspective. In the long-term prospect, however, their influence on the strategic initiatives becomes not quite clear.
To start with, it is necessary to stress that staff turnover will always take place, no matter what company. Though, depending on the company’s performance, this process can be either slowed down or increased, people will come and go under the influence of a number of factors, starting from objective (lack of skills) down to personal ones (the necessity to move). Hence, it begs the question whether training the people who will inevitably leave is reasonable.
However, it is still worth mentioning that, the more a company invests in its staff, the more it will get in return. First, it is important that the company could use the services of qualified staff, which internal training will provide.
Second, receiving the opportunity to perfect his/her skills, an employee will most likely appreciate the gesture and, thus, get back to the organization. Lastly and the most importantly, internal training allows for making sure that the employees acquire the exact skills that will be required for them to keep the production process fast and flawless. In contrast to external courses, which are extremely hard to control, internal ones can be shaped towards any specifics of the company, which is especially important in the long-term planning, seeing how the training process can be adapted to any changes within the organization.
Avoiding the Possible Pitfalls: The Lack of Sustainability
Del Angel warns, however, that there are considerable obstacles on the way of perfecting the performance of the organization in that the enhancement of production processes has a negative effect on the relationships between the members of the company. The factors influencing the negative change in the relationships between the employees, as well as the regress in employees’ motivation are numerous, yet there is a basic issue that is worth being mentioned. Most people prefer stability to change. Therefore, they are most likely to be against the introduction of new rules. However, by shaping the employees’ organizational behavior, one can address the given issue. Thus, transformational leadership will be required as one of the basic strategies to adopt.
As Del Angel and Froelich explain, following the principles of the Six Stigma blindly does not guarantee long-term success; on the contrary, copying the given approach and increasing the company’s performance without considering the specifics of its organizational behavior can be deadly for a firm: “This success, however, often becomes a short-term phenomenon because companies fail to sufficiently recognize the many factors that impact the long-term sustainability of improvements” (Del Angel & Froelich, 2008, p. 34).
However, organizational behavior is rather flexible when efficient leadership approach is used. By adopting the key principles of transformational leadership, a company leader is capable of changing the employees’ organizational behavior by shaping their attitude towards work through addressing the issues that motivate every single member of the staff.
Enhancing corporate ethics
Perhaps, one of the most challenging tasks concerns the introduction of ethical principles into an organization. As a rule, adults do not like being preached and talked down to; therefore, it will be necessary to switch from the authoritative leadership type to a more reasonable approach. However, by reconsidering the company’s values and shaping its mission and vision, one will be able to address the employees’ common sense.
Organizational behavior and the related issues
To change the organizational behavior of the employees, a more active set of measures is required. Since people are often unwilling to change their behavioral patterns, yet are especially susceptible to the patterns accepted in a particular society, it will be reasonable to offer the staff a role model to follow. Once having the exact example of what they are expected to do in front of them, employees are likely to start following it subconsciously.
Conclusion: When Organizational Behavior Issues Come to the Forth
Although the process of setting the premises for the long-term benefits to occur, and the design of the strategies that will affect the long-term benefits of a company is quite complicated and needs taking a number of different factors into account, it will doubtlessly affect the outcomes of the given strategies applied to practice. True, accidents can happen, and it goes without saying that some of the plans will have to be changed in order to adjust to the new environment.
However, the basics that were created when taking all the aforementioned factors into account will remain; and, more to the point, these basics will be flexible enough to build new tactics on. Once the employees’ attitude towards their work is changed and the staff is provided with the motivation for excelling in their work, it can be assumed that a company will succeed in the chosen field disregarding its subject matter.
Reference List
Del Angel, C. & Froelich, J. (2008). Six sigma: What went wrong? Customer Relationship Management, 12(11), p. 14.
Doran, T. & Roland, M. (2010). Lessons from major to improve primary care in the United Kingdom. Health Affairs, 29(5), 1023–1029.
Kotter, J.P. (2008). A sense of urgency. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.
Lawler, E. E. & Worley, C. G. (2006). Built to change: How to achieve sustained organizational effectiveness. New York: Jossey-Bass.