Organisational Behaviour: Workgroup behaviour in a New Zealand factory

Contents
PART ONE ................................................................................................................................ 3

Question 1: Describe the norms that appear to exist in this group. ........................................... 3

Question 2: Explain why these norms arose. ............................................................................. 4

Question 3: Discuss how useful these norms are for: a member, the group, the factory. .......... 4

Question 4: Discuss how cohesive this group is and who benefits or loses from this level of

cohesiveness. .............................................................................................................................. 5

Question 5: What advice would you give to improve performance of the ‘water removing’

department? ................................................................................................................................ 6

PART TWO ............................................................................................................................... 7

Motivation at Work .................................................................................................................... 7

Organisational Culture and Power ............................................................................................. 7

Description ................................................................................................................................. 8

Feelings ...................................................................................................................................... 9

Evaluation .................................................................................................................................. 9

Analysis.................................................................................................................................... 10

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 10

Action Plan............................................................................................................................... 10

References ................................................................................................................................ 13
PART ONE

Question 1: Describe the norms that appear to exist in this group.

According to Dastani et al. (2017), norms are codes or behavioural guidelines that specify

behavioural norms among organizations that enable predictable actions. There were work

rotations among the employees in which each employee worked in job rotations, for each

member performing a task in specific field for two days. Moreover, the employee group had

themselves formulated this rule as the rule was not mentioned by any of the senior executives

or was not even written in any of the practices. The working days engaged managing 5

cheese loads, with no extra vats to be included. Work breaks were included in the routine

with additional "smokes", spending time in the canteen, the employee group used to leave the

work 10 minutes prior to the actual lunch timings, other than the lunch time, the group also

spent mornings and afternoons smoking and talking, also the group smoked in the working

premises which included cold room. When managers were in near contact, the employees

would receive alarms. Also, the group members used to have continuous interaction sessions

which included any random discussion on weird topics. Also according the members in the

group, without continuous interactions and talking to each other they might tend to quit the

job or go insane at the workplace. Further, they also made their own community or a group.

Other than the members of their own group they would not talk to any other employees in the

organisation and disliked every other employee. Also, they developed such an attitude

according to which they did not help any of the other employee and had developed a mind-set

of “Mind your own business”. At times when there was a larger workload than usual, the

group was still stuck at working on the 5 cheese vents and did not do any extra work. The

group also worked an early warning system to safeguard the group from their managers to let

them understand when a manager approached them. This safeguarded them from the

managers and supervisors.

Question 2: Explain why these norms arose.

According to the group of workers, the water removing job is quit tedious and repetitive thus

the workers required the rotations of each member each two days. The job being hard

requiring a lot of physical activity restricted the handling of 5 vats of cheese each day to

avoid overworking of the members. Anticipation of work breaks made the workers start their

lunch break ten minutes earlier. The close relations between the workers enabled them a

system of protecting each other from supervisors when in the cold room smoking. Off duty

norms were developed from close demographic variables amongst the members.

The created norms were meant to assist the workers in preserving their jobs as they protected

each other from supervisors while they took often smoke breaks in the cold room. They

retained a structure according to which they had a uniform amount of job each day of 5 vats

of cheese to prevent boredom and overworking. Other members in the organisation who

discovered trouble in their activities were provided assistance, but there was a sense of non-

interference that was always promoted. The factory also charged low salaries, and provided

no incentive schemes for the workers which created a sense of demotivation around and

instead of focusing on the actual job they tended to create a bad work environment.

Also, one of the major reason for the norms to arise was the lack of supervision which was

provided in the organisation. The supervisor on duty used to visit the workplace once during

the day and hence this provided them with a lenient environment which gave them an

opportunity to develop their own norms and behave according to their own minds and

perspectives.

Question 3: Discuss how useful these norms are for: a member, the group, the factory.

The norms were useful for the workers as these norms helped the workers with job

preservation. The hard and tough work at the factory led to development of pressure and

immense workload among the workers and hence the norms created by them help them in
pressure releasing and prevention of their jobs. The created norms were meant to assist the

workers in preserving jobs as they protected each other from supervisors while taking breaks.

They retained a scheme in which they had a uniform quantity of job each day of handling 5

vats of cheese to prevent boredom and overworking. Though the workers group did not have

friendly nature but they tended to help the other workers in need. The workers also had made

their shift accordingly by which they managed to work efficiently at particular sections of the

factory.

In regards to the factory, the norms were beneficial in only one aspect. The norms which

were developed by the workers help them in job preservation and these norms were one of

the reason which allowed the worked to stay and work at the factory. These norms thus

helped the factory in retaining their workers. Other than that, the norms tend to have a

negative impact on the factory as it is somehow hindering the efficiency. With the

development of these norms the workers stick to operating only 5 cheese vats per day even if

the factory had lot of work to do. This hindered the production and thus efficiency of the

output at the cheese factory.

Question 4: Discuss how cohesive this group is and who benefits or loses from this level of

cohesiveness.

The team is very cohesive in its regular interactions with each member as a significant

component of the unit. The advantages of cohesiveness are for group employees who take

advantage of extra breaks, with safety from managers discovering them incorrect. They help

each other with enabling coordination and cooperation in rotations among themselves in

challenging tasks. In order to protect each other from the supervisors and regular checks, the

group also worked on an early warning system to safeguard the group from their managers to

let them understand when a manager approached them. This protects them from the managers

and the supervisors who visited the factory for the checks. The group also expected job
breaks by cutting off work ten minutes before lunch, and went together from morning

till evening, smoking talking, spending time together and also settling down in the canteen

together. These practices often showed the level of cohesiveness among the employees.

Everything they did, whether the factory work, hanging out during office hours or after the

office, talking and smoking were all done together. In order to manage their workloads, the

group of workers have managed to balance out their shifts, each of them have made a

schedule according to which each one of them work at a specific task for two days. The

workers group had much collaboration and cohesiveness among themselves.

The managers and the factory had no advantage from the cohesiveness as the participants

worked together to prevent reproaching their leaders. In fact, the managers and the factory

had a bad impact on them due to the collaborative nature of the workers. the group also

worked on an early warning system to safeguard the group from their managers to let them

understand when a manager approached them, due to which the managers were unable to

know what the workers are actually doing. Also this cohesiveness among the employees also

hindered the efficiency and performance of the factory overall. The norms which were

formulated by the employees were due to the co-ordination and unity among the workers

which indirectly impacted the organisation as a whole.

The cohesive nature of the workers sometimes also helped the other workers as the group

used to help other employees in the factory whenever they needed help.

Question 5: What advice would you give to improve performance of the ‘water removing’

department?

The New Zealand Company is expected to improvise a scheme that includes management

into the company. Because of the inequitable breaks, many working hours are wasted. Instead

of making the scheme conducive to laxity, new standards should be introduced to boost the

work output. The Company must provide the employees with appropriate incentive scheme
as well as good salaries which creates motivation among the employees. Effective efficiency

evaluation must also be closely incorporated with other areas of human resources. A

successful change in the company must be practiced which includes recognizing the need for

the change, i.e. why the workers are creating such norms in the organisation, what is the

cause for the same, learning or framing a new behaviour or replacement, and being at ease

with the current scenario (Elsmore, 2017).

PART TWO

Motivation at Work

According to Järnström et al., (2012), in order to feel strong about their employment and

perform the work optimally, most of the staff needs encouragement. Some staff are driven by

cash, while others discover personal motivation for acceptance and benefits. Levels of

motivation within the workforce directly affect the productivity of employees. Workers who

are driven and enthusiastic about their employment are fulfilling their duties to the best of

their capacity, resulting in a rise in manufacturing figures. Motivation of employees has

always been a key issue for leaders and executives. Unmotivated staff are inclined to invest

little or no time in their employment, prevent the workplace as much as feasible, leave the

organisation if opportunities are provided and generate poor value. On the other side, it is

probable that staff who feel motivated to operate will be active, innovative and efficient,

resulting in high-quality job that they voluntarily do. Thus, in the provided case study the

New Zealand Cheese factory must incorporate acts that will help the workers group in

gaining motivation and instead of wasting their times, they will focus on their work and

enhance the productivity.

Organisational Culture and Power

According to Anitha (2016), Organisational culture is a blend of principles and convictions,

appropriate or otherwise behavioural norms, written policies, constraints, and expectations

from top, official and unofficial structures, procedures, processes, and networks. An

organization's culture is a result of history, a range of external and inner factors, as well as

important people's priorities and principles. Culture is expressed in the artefacts rituals, room

layout, furnishings, and methods to deal with different phenomena. In order to enhance and

modify the organisational culture and power at the factory, the management must focus at

providing recognition for facilitating inclusion, creating departments or employment that are

accountable for fresh operations or eliminating unnecessary leadership levels, development of

the organization to enhance the efficiency of an organization and respond to change,

communication to communicate the texts about the principles and attain the goals, training to

assist develop new approaches to issues such as customer service, performance, productivity,

people management and motivation. Recruitment to carry out to alter the sort of hired

individuals intentionally and various measures for performance management must be applied

to guarantee that executives, supervisors and employees are evaluated on the grounds of the

outcomes they accomplish and that programs for performance improvement are used to

capitalize on strengths or to solve weaknesses.

Description

The New Zealand company is into a business to cheese extraction. The company is facing

issues related to low productivity, lack of professionalism among employees. Employees are

often seen in indulging in talks, spending time in irrelevant chats and sitting in canteen. The

approach of employees is not at all promising towards the organisation as they are only

interested in meeting the minimum requirement of the work. To avoid interference of

managers, employees have set alarms so that they will not face any difficulty. Managers’ role

is also a matter of concern in The New Zealand company. Managers did not try to motivate

employees neither they encourage them to perform well. Visit in the cheese extraction area or

cold room area made employees careless and inconsiderate towards their responsibilities.
Employees have unity which they only utilise this for their personal benefits without thinking

that the organisation will face consequences of the same. Groupism is also visible amongst

the employees. Members of a certain group do not talk to the members of the other groups.

Triggering the unconcerned attitude of the employees, compensation given to the employees

had played a major role. These employees are working on a low pay scale which does not

motivate them to perform better.

Feelings

Inconsiderate attitude of the employees towards their responsibilities has reduced the

productivity of the organisation. Producing only 5 cheese loads was the minimum daily

requirement which employees were meeting. During the days of high demand, this process

remains the same and there is no change or additional efforts from the employees were

visible. Continuous interaction and carelessness during the working hours cannot be

overlooked. Managers in the New Zealand company failed to identify these practices. Their

lack of attention towards their team made the team insensitive towards the organisation.

Managers are supposed to ensure that the organisational practices should be maintained,

which they failed to do. Employees are to blame for not showing up their best of the abilities,

simultaneously managers are also responsible for not identifying the reasons for less

productivity. Overall, it is the organisation which may face the consequences.

Evaluation

Lack of professionalism is visible among all the employees in the New Zealand company.

Employees working in the cheese extraction factory and their managers were equally rated as

irresponsible. Managers did not do anything to increase the productivity, they were unaware

about the careless attitude of the employees towards the organisation. Moreover, they never

come up ideas to promote employee engagement, motivation and encouragement towards the

organisation. This indoctrinated a reckless behaviour towards the workplace. No fixed break
timings, leaving working area before 10 minutes to lunch break were few of the common

practices which employees were doing on a regular basis. It is because of lack of vigilance

from the managers that the team members had the inconsiderate approach towards their

responsibilities.

Analysis

Had I been in the similar situation, I would have watched the team, their performance and

evaluated the same on a regular basis. Without evaluating the team performance, it is difficult

to analyse whether the team is meeting their targets or not. Being a manager, it is my

responsibility to maintain the consistent performance of the team.

Conclusion

The above discussed scenario shows that there is a definite need for transformational within

the organisation in order to change the workplace behaviour of the group of workers. There

are various strategies and tactics related to the organisational behaviour that have been

discussed in the report. In regards to the company, New Zealand Cheese, the two most

important strategies that must be in-cooperated includes motivation at work and change in

organisational culture and power. The company New Zealand cheese can change the

organisational behaviour of its workers by implementing these strategies.

Action Plan

Issues Approaches Expected Outcomes

Lack of professionalism Training, strict vigilance and Training will improve the

employee performance efficiency of the

review employees, vigilance

will keep them aware

that all their actions are

 being watched and

necessary disciplinary

action will be taken

against unprofessional

behaviour.

Lack of motivation Incentive schemes and employee Incentive schemes, training

engagement activities. and team leaders among

the member will promote

the motivation in the

employees. They are

being paid less,

providing incentive

schemes to them will

motivate them to

perform better and ear

more.

Low productivity Performance evaluation of Post vigilance on each

employees employee and

performance evaluation

practices, improvement

in performances can be

ensured.
References

Dastani, M., van der Torre, L., & Yorke-Smith, N. (2017). Commitments and interaction

norms in organisations. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 31(2), 207-249.

Elsmore, P. (2017). Organisational Culture: Organisational Change?: Organisational

Change?. Routledge.

Järnström, E., & Sällström, L. (2012). Work motivation. A qualitative study that describes

what motivates employees with routine-based work tasks to go to work.