Executive Summary
R. H. Hudson Company is faced with difficult problem caused by poor supervision, inadequate management and low motivation among workers. These problems require careful analysis and evaluation. Benefits plans and designs are vital in their own way, but such compensation requires a sizable portion of dollars. For that expense, R. H. Hudson Company would like to receive–but has trouble obtaining–returns in employee goodwill and performance.
Lack of ability limits an individual’s capacity to respond to a challenge–some people are not capable of performing in accordance with their goals. If they do not have the ability, they cannot reach them. At R. H. Hudson Company, performance levels off after the limits of ability have been reached. Decision-making has a stronger effect on high-ability than on employees. The proposed strategies are to introduce codes of ethics, improve compensation systems and rewards, introduce punishments for low quality work, and propose training for supervisors. Many employees fear the loss of control and decision-making authority.
They are worried that workers participation means poor decision-making latitude and influence for them. Thus, workers participation is intended to open up new roles and responsibility for mangers as they are freed, for instance, from certain communication tasks that the work group can take on
Problem Identification and Analysis
The problem appeared in R. H. Hudson Company is caused by poor organizational culture, lack of supervision and poor motivation among workers. In every organization culture determines the ways of performance, interaction patterns between employees, managers, types of communication, climate, morale and satisfaction. R. H. Hudson did not develop an effective system of management and supervision based on leadership skills and personal charisma of the leader.
The key problems are little direct supervision, low pay, no pressure to meet quality standards, etc. Business environment and cultural changes influence organizational culture and influence behavior and motivation of employees. Shared values, visions, relationships and climate influence implementations and perceptions of organizational actions. Ideally, the company’s strategy provides to insiders and outsiders information about what the organization stands for, its image, values, and character. R. H. Hudson Company follows a strategy of product differentiation by technological innovation. It’s a ‘historical trend’ of the company which helps R. H. Hudson Company to achieve success and leadership position on the market (Balsano et al 2008).
The main problems are caused by inadequate management skills applied and followed by the executives. They are not a source of self-fulfillment and personal integrity. While organizational values relate to employees, profit, customers, stakeholders, community, and the like, individual goals will relate to fairness, honesty, trust, respect, quality, and cooperation. These are precisely the values that are inherent in the organizational values statement.
Alone, these organizational values are far too general and open to interpretation. It is easy to forget the particular and complicated nature of human moral experience. Thinking about and discussing the ethical implications of a goal is more practical and valuable than using a list of values or ethical models. Acting on the ethical implications is even more valuable. Ethical action at R. H. Hudson Company is the relentless effort to make values a part of the goal-setting equation. Where the managers go wrong, however, is in expecting more from these values than they can deliver (Robbins et al 2008).
The organizational culture developed by R. H. Hudson Company allows to say that real dilemmas will occur in practical problems where values clash with pressures for tangible and immediate performance. Tangible performance represents values that are readily quantifiable and measurable. They include such objectives as setting goals for growth, productivity, profit, career development, or promotion, all of which may involve career aspirations.
The appeal is to pressure people to cut comers and to shade the truth to accomplish these tangible and measurable objectives. Managerial integrity can be easily compromised at the expense of the more intangible ethical standards. The more tangible measures also carry with them the potential to destroy the shared values on which managerial integrity is based.
The pressure to perform naturally leads to a conflict between means and ends. Managers face the critical responsibility of choosing the right goal to ensure that what people are striving for is the ethical choice. Moreover, because of the propensity of people to do what they are told (and their natural inclination to accept goals as legitimate because they come from an authority figure or from the organization itself), it is crucial that managers do not ask people to employ unethical means to accomplish an otherwise noble goal. Both the means and the ends are valid subjects for ethical questioning (Balsano et al 2008).
Statement of Major Problems
The organizational culture of R. H. Hudson Company influences implementation and acceptance of strategic objectives and goals. The shared values determine the bonding of organizational principles to the goal-setting process. Strategies that consider organizational values in their development will become an extension of organizational values. The values organizational that give R. H. Hudson Company credibility also will give credibility to the individual (Buell, 2008).
The problems at R. H. Hudson Company are caused by poor management and lack of planning, poor motivation and inadequate organizational culture created inside the company. Thus, it is important to note that given a goal commitment, R. H. Hudson Company’s employees continue working at the task until the goal is reached. Employees work longer and more tenaciously for a harder goal then for an easier one, but there can be a trade-off.
Employees with low demands and a long time limit or no time limit may work more slowly then those with high demands in order to fill the time available. When employees at R. H. Hudson Company perform well, they not only feel satisfied with their performance but also generalize this positive effect to the task; they like the task more than they did previously. In conclusion, job satisfaction is not a result of either the person or the job alone but rather of the person in relation to the job (Chan 2008).
Generalization and Evaluation of the Alternative Solutions
Poor organization culture requires new values and policies introduced by the management team. The second solution to this problem is new ethical and moral principles introduced by the company for all employees. The ethics program helps R. H. Hudson Company to stipulate strict moral norms and ethical principles for employees and the management. In export/import organization, functions that ethics perform are
- helping develop and periodically reviewing ethical philosophy;
- coordinating ethics training
- proposing policies relating to ethics; and
- responding in a timely manner to ethical issues and conflicts that are brought to the management by a members of the professional staff (Robbins et al 2008).
Poor motivation and low pay influence attitude towards work and overall performance (Appendix 1). R. H. Hudson Company should introduce new flexible pay scheme based on performance indicators quality of the items. Also, it is important to introduce punishments for financial loss and high spoilage rates. Ay R. H. Hudson Company, human motives develop in sequence according to five levels of needs.
These needs are: psychological (hunger, thirst), safety (protection), social (be accepted, belong to a certain group), esteem (self-confidence, achievements, respect, status, recognition), and self-actualization (realizing one’s potential for continued self-development). The proposals will threaten the need of achievement and esteem needs. It is suggested that the freedom to exercise initiative and ingenuity, to experiment, and to handle the problems of their jobs in their own way are crucial aspects of work. The proposals enveloped for R. H. Hudson Company will allow freedom of choice but will limit personal involvement in work.
So, managerial integrity will be influenced by developing and consistently applying a well-honed set of organizational and individual moral values. Values such as honesty, fairness, and respect for the individual are prerequisites for achieving both integrity and effectiveness. The consistency between behavior and belief, in tune with organizational goals and values, permits the manager to deal with the realities of a particular goal and the means to accomplish it (Robbins et al 2008).
The current situation suggests that with the possible exception of layoffs and terminations, compensation and benefit rates proposed by R. H. Hudson Company are the most high-profile HR management activity performed. There are several factors for the central role played by R. H. Hudson Company’s administration. First, compensation and benefits are important expenses associated with running the company. Second, without layoff, high compensation will hurt the motor industry. Third, compensation rates will lead to great pull and push on employee practices and will play an instrumental role in shaping and redefining the culture of the company (Robbins et al 2008).
The case of R. H. Hudson Company suggests that low compensation is sensitive to competitive labor market and economic conditions. For this reason, using salary decrease skillfully becomes very important. Beyond current pay rates in competitive market conditions, compensation proposals should be correctly structured and designed to support organizational strategies and business aims. Such issues as how much money it takes to serve as a driver to effective performance, ethical concerns in using incentive strategies, and fully aligning incentive programs with organizational requirements are all fundamental ingredients to effective plan design (Robbins et al 2008).
In order to improve supervision and management, R. H. Hudson Company should employ a new supervisor with experience in this field. Mr. Hudson’s assistant Jon, should be trained (leadership and supervision programs are he best solution). Organizational learning is an important part of transformations at R. H. Hudson Company. Organizational cultures are distinguished by the degree to which learning and problem solving occur. The cultural values and traditions are represented by governing variables (or values) and untested assumptions that make problematic the detection and correction of error (Robbins et al 2008).
Improved management and supervision will help R. H. Hudson Company to solve the problems of poor motivation and absenteeism. Some of the cultural values of organizational behavior include unilateral protection of self and others, win-lose relations, owning and controlling of tasks, rationality, and suppression of negative emotions. R. H. Hudson Company’s management follows theories-in-use approach that maximize interpersonal defenses and minimize learning. At R. H. Hudson Company, it s organizational culture should reflect industry requirements and customers’ expectations.
These requirements are high quality, low cost and on time delivery. Each application deals with the realities of a particular goal and how to accomplish it. It is possible to say that new changes will be influenced by old principles of work and will need a new set of principles for further change. In this case, individual integrity is the real foundation on which organizational ethics is built. Integrity includes values, goals, and actions of all people in an organization, but its demonstration is particularly important for an organization’s managers. A manager’s actions are the pivotal link between his or her personal beliefs and organizational aims.
Managerial integrity stands at the center of shared values and the goal-setting process. Managers become known for their ability to bring out the best in people by challenging them with high performance goals. They are also known for their trustworthiness. At R. H. Hudson Company, employees depend upon them to be fair and honest in setting goals at a level that will challenge them but not at such a high level that the goals are unattainable. Trustworthiness is an important component of integrity. Otherwise, there will be no followers. Trust conveys that managers mean what they say. It is a belief in an old- fashioned concept called integrity (Pringle and Gordon, 2001).
Focusing on the small things is one way to build teams in R. H. Hudson Company, but teams can also be built around big problems. Those problems can be addressed by task forces that work on organization wide issues. The task force investigates major issues, develops alternatives, looks at the advantages and disadvantages of each, and provides an action plan. Issues may include the organizational vision or the strategic plan itself.
Task forces also address reorganization, rewards and recognition, communications, training, and education, to name a few. In organizations with effective teamwork, management retains authority for defining the vision. However, work teams plan, set priorities, organize, coordinate with others, and take corrective action. They solve problems, schedule and assign work, and even handle personnel issues such as absenteeism and discipline.
All these duties were previously prerogatives of management. Consequently, the team must now hold the responsibility and authority to implement solutions if it is to be effective. An inspiring vision is needed at all levels of the organization from the executive suite to the mailroom. A correctly delivered vision serves that purpose and conveys the need for change (Krause, 2008).
Recommendations
The organizational culture influences R. H. Hudson Company in two ways: it is influenced by the organizational culture and maintains positive relations between employees. For R. H. Hudson Company, there is a need to sustain effective strategies for cultural values and positive relations between employees. As a result of the complexity of R. H. Hudson Company structure, which include multiple layers of authority, responsibility, and tasks, organizational culture emerges as subcultures with relatively distinct identities In addition to a manager’s characteristic response to stress and concerns; these organizational cultures and subcultures are driven by underlying main assumptions.
At R. H. Hudson Company, organizational culture units employees and motivates them. It may be compatible at any given time and the unconsciously driven main assumption group sabotages the more consciously driven task. Multiple and diverse organizational values exist in different departments and headquarters’. Thus, they follow the spirit and main values of the corporation and its historical traditions. The motivation changes if employees’ communication and interaction actions remain unnoticed. At R. H. Hudson Company, greater autonomy and independence of each department from the central authority structure add to a subculture’s differentiation from the larger organizational culture Garrow and Hirsh, 2008).
The important aspect of R. H. Hudson Company culture are periodic evaluations of the overall performance which makes the organizational culture transparent, as each step or method is reviewed in light of the overall strategic objectives. Simplicity of the process stages also reduces reluctance and mistrust between employees. Ongoing cultural management helps to identify possible problems and deviations early on and allows for corrections and the resolution of weaknesses.
Needless to say, R. H. Hudson Company’s employees are to be part of this process. R. H. Hudson Company management tries to involve its employees in innovation processes in order to improve morale and motivate them. The first step is to display to workers that they stand to benefit from cooperating in the process of organizational culture and new values. The view of participation in planning and decision-making arouses fears and possibly resistance among workers new to this, based on their experience that workplace changes are frequently accompanied by deskilling and the removal of jobs (Robbins et al 2008).
These types of plans do provide positive reinforcement for continuing to contribute to the culture. Thus, some barriers emerge from the concern that worker participation may eliminate the rights of some groups in R. H. Hudson Company (Pringle and Gordon, 2001).
In R. H. Hudson Company, the nature of the individual’s thoughts will also relevant after goals have been formulated. Individuals choose to take action in accordance with each chosen goal. They should focus on what is to be achieved, the means needed to achieve it, and the reasons for, or benefits of, such action. Intrinsic motivation is not inherent in the task but rather exists inside the person.
However, the working environment tends to be governed just as strongly by imposed standards and external rewards (such as pay, recognition, and promotion) as it is by things that are done because they are personally rewarding. This is not to deny that one should enjoy work and achieve personal reward, but in real work settings, such motivation rarely operates in isolation from other types of external motivators. The new proposals will affect task performance in at least three ways (Robbins et al 2008).
Generally, one expects more effort to be expended when goals are difficult than when they are easy. Greater effort should produce in greater performance, and more effort is needed to attain hard goals than easy goals. Managers who set easy goals stop working sooner than those with hard goals. While this result may seem trivial, it does illustrate the fact that challenging goals keep people motivated longer than less challenging goals, even when all individuals are working at the same pace. The lack of coordination and communication will influence organizational culture.
Appendix
References
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Buell, John M. (2008). Living the Organization’s Mission, Vision and Values. Healthcare Executive, 23 (6), 21-24.
Chan Y. H., Taylor, Robert R., Markham, Scott. (2008). The Role of Subordinates’ Trust in a Social Exchange-driven Psychological Empowerment Process. Journal of Managerial Issues 20 (4), 444-467.
Garrow, V.; Hirsh, W. (2008). Talent Management: Issues of Focus and Fit. By: Public Personnel Management 37 (4), 389-402.
Krause, Th. (2008). The First Two Steps in Safety Strategy: Self Education and a Behavioral Vision. EHS Today, 1 (2), 28-28.
Pringle, H., Gordon, W. (2001). Brand manners: how to create the self-confident organisation to live the brand. Chichester; New York: Wiley.
Robbins, S. et al (2008). Management. 5 edition. Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.:Pearson Eduation Australia.