Cultural Influences At Qantas Organizations - Myassignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Cultural Influences at Qantas Organizations. Answer: Introduction: Today in the contemporary global economy one of the most remarkable and visible type of change is the organizational change which can have its impact on the employees, customers as well as the organizational performance. Generally organizational change is a complex process which can have a positive as well as negative effect on employee and performance as a whole. In the given situation, the CEO Alan Joyce of Qantas airlines is facing possible resistance to change within the organization. The author being a member of an external management consultancy team engaged by Alan Joyce has asked to prepare a report on evaluation of Qantas performance since appointment of Mr. Joyce and consider the outcome of the organizational culture on its performance. Then identifying the aspects of Qantas organisational culture that needs change and recommending on the possible measures that can be promoted to foster an adaptive culture at Qantas. Evaluation of Qantas performance since appointment of Alan Joyce: In the cut through competition of the airlines business, CEO Alan Joyce promoted restructuring and improvement in the operations of the Qantas airlines both domestically and internationally. The main objective of this step was to sustain and grow in the competitive airline market. This decision was followed by employee lay-offs, early retirements of aircrafts and exclusion of unprofitable airline routes and only focusing on growth of the organization. As a result, Joyce had to experience a lot of resistance to change within the organization, where his decisions made many employee unions, customers and shareholders angry for not engaging employees during the decision making process and other strategic blunders during that time. Alan Joyce also headed the Jetstar airlines in the Asia-Pacific region which also faced loss in the growing low cost airlines market. He planned aggressive expansion plans in the domestic as well as international market in the Asia-Pacific region which failed t o bring productive results as a result the organization faced more losses and criticism for Alan Joyce. Qantas also lost many experienced and talented employees, who left the organization during that time. According to Porter, employee leaves their managers not their organization and Alan Joyce decision for restricting and improvement in the operations of Qantas increased the employee turnover (Mowday, et al. 2013). Aspects of Qantas organisational culture need changing: According to author, one of the main reasons for bad performance and high employee turnover in Qantas is because of the sudden organizational change. Employee satisfaction and organizational culture has a very complex and crucial relation which is undeniable (Pinder, 2014). In the present scenario one of the major reasons for decrease in employee satisfaction, chaos among employee, shareholders and customers, decrease in service quality and employee turnover is the sudden change in the organizational culture. Organizational culture can be explained as the system of shared values and beliefs which exists among employees which determines how the organization and the employees are going to interact and react to certain situations (Alvesson, 2012). An organizational culture develops a unique brand for any organization that assists the organization to have a competitive advantage. It also identifies principles and actions which enables the employees to understand their job responsibilitie s and duties (Colquitt, et al. 2011). Organizational culture promotes unity and uniformity among employees which let them to learn and grow within the organization (Robbins, and Judge, 2012). So, it is important to understand the culture of the organization before taking business decisions which can affect organization culture. According to the authors observations, Qantas before joining of Joyce as CEO followed a normative workplace culture where employees used to do regular jobs which were pre-stretched and had zero risk in job security. The author has also observed that the sudden anger in the employees for not making them a part of the decision making process also indicates that the former management of Qantas had a well structured employee employer communication process which made employees feel valued and part of the organization. There have been a three staged process to manage organizations cultural change. Firstly unfreezing present activities and behaviour, next promoting and initiating new behaviour and lastly supporting and maintain the new behaviour (Cummings and Worley, 2014). In the present scenario one of the most important challenges for Alan Joyce is to understand and combine peoples interest for the long term benefit of the organization. Recommendations for promoting adaptive culture at Qantas: After studying and analysing the given scenario, according to the author, Qantas needs a culture within the organization which will not only bring the employees in a common platform and team work but also will promote long term strategic growth within the organization. According to the author the following steps are important to promote an adaptive culture at Qantas: Awareness: Most of the experienced and talented employees of the Qantas left the organization because they were afraid of the sudden changes that took within the organization. It is the human nature to fear unknown and uncertainty. It should be the prior responsibility of the management to make aware the current changes that the organization is experiencing and clear individual role in this transition period so that the employees are aware about their organizations situation and not left in ambiguity (Alvesson, and Sveningsson, 2015). The major objective is to promote the importance of team work and increase organizational productivity. Learning: Any change is difficult to adopt initially but with proper training and learning it can be mastered. So, the management should arrange training programs for any change in the system or processes so that the employees do not feel uncomfortable with the new changes. This will promote team work and employee loyalty within the organization. In this typical scenario, the management should adopt the evidence-based approach to successfully handle the ambiguity and change that Qantas is experiencing. The management should be flexible and open to new ideas and situations according to situational demands (Locke, 2011). Practice: The management should initiate and promote practicing its newly adopted changes. Any change takes time to get adopted so the more practice the more comfortable the employees will be with the changes. This will assists in promoting new cultural changes within the organization without much chaos. Accountability: After initiating the changes, the management should evaluate the performance after six months to calculate the difference between the desired result and the actual performance. This will help the organization to understand where it stands and the new changes that should be implemented within the organization. Also, Alan Joyce as the CEO of the organization should change his leadership style from autocratic leader to be more transformational and participative leadership style so that the employee feels that their decisions are well communicated with the management (Schein, 2010). This will promote the team work among employees as it will reduce the workload on individual and encourage working on a common goal (West, 2012). Conclusion: In the above scenario, Alan Joyce is the newly promoted CEO of Qantas group, who took steps to strengthen the operational effectiveness of the organization which resulted in chaos and anger within the stakeholders and customers. As a result the organization experienced poor performance among employees and decreasing customer service and also increases in employee turnover. The author being a member of an external management consultancy team prepared a report on evaluation of Qantas performance since appointment of Mr. Joyce and identifying the aspects of Qantas organisational culture that needs change and recommending on the possible measures that can be promoted to foster an adaptive culture at Qantas. In the report the author has emphasized on team work and employee engagement in decision making and has recommended steps which can be adopted to promote adaptive culture at Qantas. Reference: Mowday, R.T., Porter, L.W. and Steers, R.M., 2013.Employeeorganization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. Academic press. Cummings, T.G. and Worley, C.G., 2014.Organization development and change. Cengage learning. Alvesson, M., 2012.Understanding organizational culture. Sage. Locke, E. ed., 2011.Handbook of principles of organizational behavior: Indispensable knowledge for evidence-based management. John Wiley Sons. West, M.A., 2012.Effective teamwork: Practical lessons from organizational research. John Wiley Sons. Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015.Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. Routledge. Schein, E.H., 2010.Organizational culture and leadership(Vol. 2). John Wiley Sons. Colquitt, J., Lepine, J.A. and Wesson, M.J., 2011.Organizational behavior: Improving performance and commitment in the workplace. McGraw-Hill Irwin. Robbins, S.P. and Judge, T., 2012.Essentials of organizational behavior. Boston: Pearson. Pinder, C.C., 2014.Work motivation in organizational behavior. Psychology Press.