The components of organizational Culture

Organizational Culture Defined

Deal and Kennedy (2000: 4) have been described about organizational culture as ‘the way we do things around here’. Organizational culture is the pattern of values, norms, beliefs, attitudes and assumptions, it has not been formulated, but the model of how people behave in organizations and what needs to be done.

Main components of organizational culture are Value, Norms, Artefacte and Management or Leadership style.

Values

Value is the belief in what is best for the organization, what is good and what can happen. An organization's 'fixed value' can only be recognized at the highest level or shared through outsourcing, which can be characterized by cost change. Areas in which values may be expressed are Care and consideration for people, Competence, Competitiveness, Customer Service, Innovation, Performance, quality and Teamwork.

Norms

Norms are unwritten rules, “rules of play” and informal instructions on the action. Norms tell people what to do, believe, and even close. They are never expressed in writing because if they were, they would be policies or procedures. Typical norms are how managers treat the members of their teams, the prevailing ethic, Status, ambition, performance, Power, Politics, Loyalty, Anger, Approachability and formality.

Artefacts

Artefacts are the visible and tangible aspects of an organization that people hear, see or feel and which contribute to their understanding of the organization’s culture. The working environment, the tone, and language used in e-mails, letters or memoranda, the manner in which people address each other at the meeting or over the phone, the welcome given to visitors and the way in which receptionists deal with outside calls that can be included in Artefacts.

Management Style

Managers use approach to deal with people- style of management – is a noteworthy part of the culture of an organization. The following extremes described the management style.

Charismatic or non-charismatic

Autocratic or democratic

Controller or enabler

Transactional or transformational

Reference/Bibliography

Armstrong, M. (2012) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 12th edition

Deal,T and Kennedy,A (2000) Corporate Cultures, New York, Perseus Books

https://www.slideshare.net/SelvaNath/differences-in-culture-for-ib

How Organizational Culture Develop

Organizational Culture Defined

Deal and Kennedy (2000: 4) have been described as organizational culture as ‘the way we do things around here’. Organizational culture is the pattern of values, norms, beliefs, attitudes and assumptions, it has not been formulated, but the model of how people behave in organizations and what needs to be done.

How Organizational Culture Develop?

Schein (1990) have been indicated the values and norms that are the basis of culture are formed in four ways;

First	By the leaders in the organization, especially those who have shaped it in the past. It means peoples that people identify with visionary leaders – how they behave and what they expect. Also, note that treats them as role models and pays attention by such leaders.
Secondly	Culture is formed around critical incidents – lessons learnt on Desirable or undesirable behavior are important events.
Thirdly	Establishes values and expectations among organizational members need to maintain by effective working relationships for the culture develops.
Forth	Culture is influenced by the organization’s environment, which may be dynamic or unchanging.

Table 1 – Four ways of indicator of the Value and norms

The result of shared experiences is culture evolve over time. Schein (1984) suggested that this is a learning process that takes place either through the trauma model, in which members of the organization learn to cope with some threat by the erection of defense mechanisms, or by means of the positive reinforcement model, where things that seem to work become embedded and entrenched.

Conclusion

Learning occurs when people adapt to external pressures and develop successful and effective ways to manage internal challenges, tasks, and skills.

Where culture has developed over long periods of time and has become firmly embedded it maybe difficult to change quickly, if at all, unless a traumatic event occurs.

Reference/Bibliography

Armstrong, M. (2012) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 12th edition

Schein, E H (1965) Organizational Psychology, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, Prentice-Hall

Schein, E H (1984) Coming to a new awareness of culture, Sloan Management Review, 25 (2), pp 1-15

Schein, E H (1990) Organizational culture, American Psychologist, 45, pp 109-19

Employee well being

Importance of concern of Employee wellbeing

Employers have a duty, which means using a socially responsible approach to tracking people.

Employers are responsible for creating favorable working conditions, not only because it is their responsibility, but also because they are part of the general remuneration system. Provide the organization and help establish it as “the best place to work”

The work environment

The work environment consists of the system of work, the design of jobs, working condition and the ways in which people are treated at work by their manager and co-workers. Wellbeing is achieved when the account is taken in designing the work system and the jobs in it of the needs of the people concerned. Managerial behavior, archiving work Life balance and dealing with issues like stress, harassment and bullying are the way of employee treated.  

Managerial Behavior

Lawler (2003) suggests that what managers have to do is ‘Treat people right’. This means recognizing and encouraging them as people with different needs and desires, as well as helping them develop and treat themselves with human attention.

Work-Life balance

The term As Kodz et al (2002) explains, the principle of work-life balance is that: ‘There should be a balance between an individual’s work and their life outside work, and that this balance should be healthy’. Flexible work is the most practical solution for establishing an effective balance between work and personal life. This includes flexible time, homework, part-time jobs, and weeks of hard work, yearly hours, collaboration, and part-time jobs.  

Sexual Harassment

This is important for making decisive attempts to minimize it through policy statements supported by specific procedures for filing a complaint for assistance.

Bulling

People who think they have been bullied should have the right to discuss the problem with someone in the human resources department or coach or consultant. A policy should be published that bullying is unacceptable behavior.

Conclusion

The overall health and well-being of employees is more than the medical health of people. It also includes their mental state, work environment, the balance between work and personal life. It is important for employers to improve employee health and well-being and to make them happy and motivated at work. After all, when an employee is happy, he is much more productive, efficient, and busy.

Reference/Bibliography

Armstrong, M. (2012) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 12th edition

Kodz, J, Harper, H and Dench, S (2002) Work-life Balance: Beyond the rhetoric, Report 384, Brighton, Institute for Employment Studies

Lawler E E (2003) Treat People Right! How organizations and individuals can propel each other into a virtuous spiral of success, San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass

http://www.mycirclecare.com/improve-employee-health-wellbeing-circlecare/amp/

The Theories of engagement

Participation occurs when people commit to their work and organization and are motivated to achieve higher levels of productivity. It has two interesting aspects:

0      1)  Involvement in the work, when employees make diligent efforts, they find their work interesting, complex and useful.

0      2)  Organizational Participation identify the value and purpose of the organization and consider it the best place to work and continue working.

Components of engagement

The institute for Employment studies has modeled the components of engagement as shown below.

·         Commitment - the relative strength of the individual’s identification with, and involvement in, an organization.

·         Organizational citizenship behavior – as define by Organ (1988), is employee behavior that goes above and beyond the call of the duty and contributes to organizational effectiveness. It is discretionary and not explicitly recognized by the employing organization’s formal reward system.

·         Motivation – the force that energizes, directs and sustains behavior. It can be

intrinsic	Extrinsic
behavior is afforded by affected by factors that may arise from the work itself and are self-generated	Which occurs when things are done to or for people to motivate them

                Table 1 – Motivation

The motivation element in engagement is intrinsic. As Macy et al (2009:67) observed “when the work itself is meaningful it is also said to have intrinsic motivation”

Facets of engagement

According to Alfas et al (2010: 5) engagement as having following three core facts:

Intellectual engagement	Affective engagement	Social engagement
Thinking hard about the job an how to do it better	Feeling positive about doing a good job	Actively taking opportunities to discuss work-related improvements with others at work

Table 2- Facts of Facets of engagement

Balain and sparrow (2010: 183) considered that engagement should be seen as a ‘belief’ and not an attitude, ie it is largely a cognitive construct (intellectual engagement) rather than an affective or behavioral one. They suggested that engagement will have effective and behavioral outcomes but it is necessary to separate the cause from the effect.

Discretionary behavior

 As described by Purcell et al (2003), discretionary behavior refers to the choices that people at work often have about the way they do the job and the amount of effort, care innovation and productive behavior they display. It can be positive when people ‘go the extra mile’ to achieve high levels of performance.

Conclusion

Employee the theory is affirmed simply as common sense. In theory, the leaders of the organization should ensure that all personnel are fully involved and have completely changed their jobs.

Reference/Bibliography

Armstrong, M. (2012) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 12th edition

Armstrong,M.Brown,D and Reilly,P(2010) Evidence-based reward management, London, Kogan Page

Balain, S and Sparrow, P (2010) understanding the value of engagement

Performance management Theories

Performance Defined

Performance means both behaviors and results. Behaviors emanate from the performer and transform performance from abstraction to action. Not just the instruments for results, behaviors are also outcomes in their own right- the product of mental and physical effort applied to tasks – and can be judged apart from results by Brumbach (1988: 387).

Performance management

Performance management is a systematic process for improving individual, team and organizational performance. Brumbach (1988: 389) suggest that ‘human performance is managed in order to achieve positive successes, avoid negative successes and failures and be hospitable to positive failures’. Getting better results by understanding and managing performance within an agreed framework of planned goals, standards and competency requirements are means of the individual-level performance management.

The individual performance management  for the aligns individual objective to organizational objectives and encourages them to uphold corporate core value, enable expectations to be defined and agreed in terms of role responsibilities and accountabilities and behaviors, provides opportunities for individuals to identify their own goals and develop their skills and competencies.

Underpinning theories – Buchner (2007)

Goal theory

Goal theory, as developed by Lathanm and Locke (1979), highlights four mechanisms that connect goals to performance outcomes.

01.  They direct attention to priorities

02.  They stimulate effort

03.  The challenge people to bring their knowledge and skills to bear to increase their chances of success

04.  The pore people will draw on their full repertoire of skills.

Advantage- supports the emphasis on performance management on setting and agreeing objectives against which performance can be measured and managed.

Control Theory

Control theory focuses attention on feedback as a means of shaping behaviors. As people relieve feedback on their behavior they appreciate the discrepancy between what they are doing and what they are expected to do and take corrective action to overcome the discrepancy. Feedback is recognized as a crucial part of performance management process.

Social Cognitive theory

This suggests that what people believe they can or cannot do powerfully impacts on their performance. The social cognitive theory was developed by Bandura (1986). It is based on his central concept of self-efficacy. Developing and strengthening positive self-belief in employees is, therefore, an important performance management objective.

Reference/Bibliography

Armstrong, M. (2012) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 12th edition

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newHTE_87.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1ojeClTzYM

researchgate.net/figure/Banduras-model-of-Social-Cognitive-Theory-representing-the-triangular-relationship_fig2_257633027

Flexible working

Introduction

Reconsidering traditional employment patterns are calling as flexible working. Better operational flexibility, advance the use of employees’ skills and capacities, increase productivity and employment cost are the aims of the flexible working pattern. This could include operational flexibility, multi-skilling, job sharing, and the use of the sub-controlling and outsourcing, home working and flexible hour arrangements.

·        Operational flexibility

Operational flexibility raises to flexibility in the ways in which work is carried out. Financial flexibility sometimes extends to this term. The three forms of operational flexibility are the following;

Forms of operational flexibility	Description
Functional flexibility	Employees can be redeployed quickly and smoothly between activities and tasks. Require Workers who process and can apply a number of skills. Require workers who carry out a number of different tasks in a work team.
Structural flexibility	‘Flexible firm’ where the core of permanent employees are supplemented by a peripheral group of part-time employees, employees on short or fixed-term contracts or sub-contracted workers (Doeringer and Priore (1971) and Atkinson (1984).
Numerical flexibility	Associated with structural flexibility. The number of employees can be quickly and easily increased or decreased in line with even short-term changes in the level of demand for labor.

Table 1 – Operational Flexibility forms

·         Multi-skilling / Job-Sharing / Homeworking/ Flexible hour arrangements

	Introduction	Advantages
Multi-skilling	The employee can be used flexibly, transferring from one task to another as the occasion demands.	This means multi-skilling take place when workers acquire through experience and training a range of different skills they can apply when carrying out different tasks
Job-Sharing	Two employees share the work of one full-time position, dividing pay and benefits between them according to the time each works is an arrangement. This can be splitting days or weeks or, less frequently, working alternate weeks.	Include reduced employee turnover and absenteeism, due to it suits the needs of individuals.
Homeworking	Such roles as consultants, analysts, designers or programmers or undertake administrative works can carry out home-based employees.	Flexibility to respond to fluctuations in demand, reduced overheads and lower employment costs if the homeworkers are self-employed
Flexible hour arrangements	Can include flexible daily hours, weekly hours, daily and weekly hours, compressed working weeks or annual hours.	The employee may follow an agreed pattern day by day according to typical or expected workload, worked at certain peak periods during the year, working time can be unlike daily or weekly the arrangement, work fewer than the five standard days, scheduling hours on the basis on the number of hours to be works.

Table 2 – The reconsidering employments patterns

Flexible working is a pattern of working practice or working hours that deviates from the stranded or normal arrangement has many advantages.

Reference/Bibliography

Armstrong, M. (2012) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 12th edition

Lypton,T (1975) Best fit in the design of organizations,personal review,4(1), pp 15-22

https://salesrain.com/the-rise-of-flexible-working/

Learning Theories and Styles

How people learn

The two ways of learning are individuals learn for themselves and learn from other peoples. Social learning that people learn as a member of teams and by interaction with their managers, co-workers, and people outside the organization. Experiential learning is people learn by doing and by coaching.  Individuals learn will differ and the extent to which they learn will depend largely on how well they are motivated or self-motivated. The key learning theories are following,

Reinforcement theory	Cognitive learning theory	Experiential learning theory	Social learning theory
Changes in behavior take place as a result of an individual’s response to events or rewards or punishments. ‘Operant conditioning’	Learning involves gaining knowledge and understanding by absorbing information in the form of principles, concepts and facts and then internalizing it. ‘Powerful information – Processing machines’	When people learn from their experience by absorbing and reflecting on it so that it can be understood and applied. ‘Own learning’	Effective learning requires social interaction. ‘Communities of practice’

Table 1 – Learning Theories

Learning styles

Individual’s learners will have different styles – a preference for a particular approach to learning, but learning theories describe in general terms how people learn. There are two most familiar learning styles produced by Kolb et al and by Honey and Mumford.

Kolb et al’s learning style

Kolb et al (1974) identified a learning cycle consisting of four stages defined as follows:

01	Concrete Experience	It can be planned or accidental.	How experience is translated into concepts that are then used to guide the selection of new experiences. Learn effectively. Individuals must shift from being observers to participants. From direct involvement to a more objective analytical detachment.
02	Reflective Observation	Involves actively thinking about the experience and its significance
03	Abstract conceptualization	Generalizing from experience to develop various concepts and ideas that can be applied when similar situations and encountered.
04	Active experimentation	Testing the concepts or ideas in news situations.

Table 2 –  Kolb et al (1974) learning cycle consists

Figure 1 Kolb et al’s learning cycle

The Honey and Mumford learning styles (1996)

01.  Activists – who involve themselves fully without bias in new experiences and revel in new challenges.

02.  Reflectors – Who stand back and observe new experiences from different angles. Collect data, reflect on it and then come to a conclusion.

03.  Theorists – Who adapt and apply their observations in the form of logical theories.

04.  Pragmatists – Who are keen to try out new ideas, approaches, and concepts to see if they work?

Figure 2 Honey and Mumford learning cycle

Reference/Bibliography

Armstrong, M. (2012) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 12th edition

Honey, P and Mumford, A(1996) The manual of learning styles,3^rdedn, Maidenhead, Honey publications

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles

https://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html

https://community.dpgplc.co.uk/blog/honey-and-mumford-learning-styles-a-simple-picture