Effective Ways Of Motivating And Providing Leadership In Organizations: Analysis Using Relevant Motivational Theories

Discussion of the ways in which organisations motivate their workers

British Petroleum is an organisation that operates in Fuel stations and also in forecourt retails. In the course of this report, various HRM leadership models Like Maslow’s Theory, Herzberg Theory, Taylor’s Theory of motivation and Servant leadership Model, the effectiveness of leadership in successfully achieving organisational transition have been analysed. The transition began with inauguration of the new CEO in 1992. The other factors like formation of interdependent work groups and adaptation of horizontal drilling facilities have also been discussed. In the light of these contexts, the leadership campaigns have been assessed. Besides, the major managerial strategies like reduction of work force and breaking up of the strategic collaboration with local financing and investing companies have been analysed here also.

Figure 1: Maslow’s Motivational Model

(Source: Hayes, 2018)

Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory of Employee Motivation

Figure 2: Employee Motivation in BP according to Herzberg’s Theory in HRM

(Source: Bp.com, 2018)

Taylor’s Motivational strategies and their application in BP

As informed in the employee motivational strategy of Taylor, the employees in any organisation require close supervision. The theory professes that the employees do not deliver output in an organisation out of their own will. Pertaining to the Taylor’s theory, the upper management had decided to break down the basic work flow into small task pattern and thus created small works which would conduct internal collaboration during their performance. However, the management reverted from using an autocratic management pattern and used the persuasive model of employee engagement to accomplish the organisational outcomes.

Analysis of the need for strategic change in British Petroleum 

British petroleum needed to adapt organisational change due to dissatisfactions of the pressure groups with some of their business practices, environmental damage caused by the deep sea activities and hazards caused to the workers. The new strategies like investments in renewable energy to balance the greenhouse gases needed new leadership styles. They adopted a policy of high engagement with the stakeholders to spread their business domain and as an outcome, generated greater business value. As per the views of Al-Haddad and Kotnour (2015), this involved leadership approaches for communicating the benefits of the strategies to the stakeholders. The marketing team also needed to conduct highly integrated market survey for realising the values of brand or its products in the market.  

Major drivers of Organisational Transition

Employee Management conflict

The political and environmental aspects have affected the business of British Petroleum. An oil spill in the business domain in USA invited criticisms from the governments and media. According to the information provided by Prokesch (1997), the leaders of change management addressed this conflict by allowing compensation. The organisation had to improve and upgrade the drilling machinery in order to make their systems spill proof. The upper management played a considerable role in that context by training the staff for using the upgraded technology. An innovative on field training program was organised by a third party foreign company that provided real time training to the employees. The company had anticipated a fall in the extraction rate by 0.8 million cc in that financial year (Bp.com, 2018). However, the prospective training program organised by the external training agency reduced the rate to 0.2 million cc approximately (Theguardian.com 2018).

Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory of Employee Motivation

Figure 3: Tracking the fall in the extraction rate by cc

(Source: Bp.com, 2018)

Leadership in Stakeholders involvement

In terms of market investment the management of BP expects a profit maximisation channel, market share growth along with elevation is the production quality and performance quality. Thereby BP followed a threefold system for fostering stakeholders’ engagement (Bp.com, 2018). The first step is the Configuration system. The company broadened their organisational structure with the employment of an executive level officer in every field with a spill mill located and a supervisor group to monitor their performance. There by the work processes and design were also altered by the leaders of organisational change. The second aspect is the Functional Structure (Heflin & Wallace, 2017). With the growth in the organisational structure the functioning structure also enlarged. The upper management also required to take additional supervising roles. The reports on production, accounting as well as HR policy were released by the management every three months in a financial year. In the views of Elliott et al. (2017), this confirmed a stringent work regime for the employee and hence the workers needed enhance their engagement with the organisational objectives. The last aspect is the Convergence system. The convergence team was created by the organisation to analyse how much the responsibilities of each segment, viz. technologies, production and customers converged with each other. In the long term this convergence team would yield result by formulating the definitive job roles of every employment sector of the company.

Leadership for managing resistance to change

The stakeholder groups which brought up sustained resistance to this change in the internal environment are the employees. The financers also surfaced apathy to the newly proposed work design. Hence the company followed a three step resistance management model. In this regard, it requires mention that the company did not recognise the individual resistance of the employees or the other stakeholders. In order to address collective resistance, the company organised mechanisms for 3D analysis of the change. This helped the stakeholders the new work methods (Bârg?u, 2015). However, there were various controversies regarding the unhuman employment conditions at BP. The 350 most senior employees from China and Venezuela were asked to train the employees in the Alaska region (Bp.com, 2018). Thus implementing the model of servant leadership, the resistance from the employees could be evaded. The group of employees found it easier to communicate with the Alaskan employees to make them understand the change model that British Petroleum was trying to establish. The employees were widely acknowledging the instructions from the peers and were more likely to share and consider the ideas. Thereby their resistance level was less likely to umbrage.

Taylor’s Motivational strategies and their application in BP

The interrelation between the organisational culture and structure helped British Petroleum to achieve remarkable sustainable business growth. In British Petroleum, the giant Oil and Gas yielding facilities are unique for their low operational costs. Other than that the extensive market shares along with large output volume are other distinctive features that ensures organisational transition. In Europe, the market share of lubricant and oil was inadequate to accommodate the large production volume of the company from the yield stations in European seas. This is why the company assimilated with Mobil’s. As per Bolden (2016), this helped them in gaining a larger share of the market. The price competitiveness of BP products also increased and this resulted in increase of savings delivered from 400 million to $500 million (Bp.com, 2018).

Previously, the company teamed up with local companies to in order to develop these fields. Later, the company itself arranged the capital budget value of $ 2.2 Billion. In the views of Kok and McDonald (2017), the challenges that the new team of the company addressed are decommissioning of wells, and also cutting down the former size of the workforce. The active participation in the automobile industry helped British petroleum to reduce the cost of operation in their service stations. Working in close quarters with the US army in the Alaska oil belt and thereby sharing knowledge helped the company to create a better and more capable workforce.

After change management, the company has a reduced workforce of 53000 employees functional only in the Oil and Gas industry (Bp.com, 2018). Previously, the company reflected a culture of enlargement of workgroups for enhancement of performance. Series of incidents like Oil spills in the European seas and the extreme high rate of greenhouse emission forced the company to narrow down its team structure (Hallinger & Chen, 2015).

The credit for setting up this new organisational structure goes to David Simon, who became CEO of BP, Oil and Gas in 1992. Under his execution, team work and perform-ability were two great parameters of employee appraisals. However, he also needed to ensure smooth workflow among the various workgroups. In order to achieve that the company needed to ensure that an extensive communication of implicit as well as explicit knowledge among the employees took place. As per Chiu, Owens and Tesluk (2016), this initiative was basically a reflection of the servant Leadership model that helped to establish a communication between the employees who had the know-how about resolving problems with the other who would require their consultation when they faced any challenge.

Leadership in British Petroleum and its impact on Organisational Transition

In the opinion of Johnston et al. (2015), these motivational activities were organised in order to prevent the penetration of self-satisfaction in the employees so that they strive further towards excellence.

The ulterior motive of the organisation was to formulate multidisciplinary teams that were capable to tackle the challenges in Workplace. The multidisciplinary attribute of the work groups helped to establish the offshore reserves for BP within an artificial island. The adaptation of the new horizontal drilling technologies made this happen for BP. This facility reduced operational cost by $7.5 million.

BP rigorously followed the model of Flat Team based organisational model. According to Klinga et al. (2016), this model requires the employees of various departmental teams to encourage others for achieving excellence through active participation.

Policy of making small Work Groups

The managerial committee after the inauguration of the new CEO in 1992, adapted a dominant policy of work force fragmentation in the Oil and Gas sector. In this context, servant leadership was introduced in the company. The employees were advised to self-direct themselves and work in close quarters with the team of the 350 specialised employees team that were formed the company. This sharing of the authoritative role emphasised the employees’ better engagement with the organisational goals.

Rewarding remarkable achivements

Another major strategy against employee motivation that was undertaken by the company is appraisal or rewarding of the employees against their claimable achievement. The upper management after the ascension of the new CEO in 1992 did forlorn the policy of penalising the employees for under-performance (Bp.com, 2018). In the appraisal, the employees mutually review each other’s performance and this review forms the basis of the appraisal valuation.

Health and Health care packages for on field workers

The company faced a high rate of absenteeism and internal strife from the employees owing to high work pressure that they were burdened with. This was particularly the case with the firm workers employed in the Oil stations in the company. In order to assure the retention of the employees, a new appraisal policy was formulated by the HR team of the company. The Health and care package for those employees was launched. This included health care expenses alongside a customary health hazard coverage.

Group Monitoring Policy

Another important motivation campaign is the group monitoring policy. The senior and most experienced employees conduct one on one motivational session with the new joiners of the company. This helps to create a strong bonding of the employees with the working units.

Analysis of the need for strategic change in British Petroleum

Working on Rotational shifts

The employees of the Oil and Gas sector at British Petroleum enjoys the facilities of working on rotational shifts. They select their shift timings on their will. Other than the most critical phases like drilling times, the employees are liable to enjoy this advantage (Bp.com, 2018). This ensures their engagement with the upper management. As proposed by the Herzberg’s theory, this strategy is an effective framework for sufficing the intrinsic needs of the workers in an organisation.

Conclusion

This report includes a thorough analysis of the outcomes of the leadership factors that ensured a smooth implementation of the organisational changes in British Petroleum. Analysing the changes that were introduced in the work design, organisational structure and the work flow structure, it can be opined that a flat structural model have been followed by the company. The amalgamation of various work groups made it easy for the company to adapt the changes to external and internal business environments also

Reference List

Al-Haddad, S. and Kotnour, T., 2015. Integrating the organizational change literature: a model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), pp.234-262.

Bârg?u, M.A., 2015. Leadership versus management. Romanian Economic and Business Review, 10(2), p.112135.

Bolden, R., 2016. Leadership, management and organisational development. In Gower handbook of leadership and management development (pp. 143-158). Routledge.

Bp.com, (2018). About BP. Available at: https://www.bp.com/ [Accessed on 16 July 2018]

Chiu, C.Y.C., Owens, B.P. and Tesluk, P.E., 2016. Initiating and utilizing shared leadership in teams: The role of leader humility, team proactive personality, and team performance capability. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(12), p.1705.

Dewydar, W., 2015. The Optimum Relationship between Managers and Employees. International Journal of Business and Social Science, pp.135-141.

Elliott, E.G., Ettinger, A.S., Leaderer, B.P., Bracken, M.B. and Deziel, N.C., 2017. A systematic evaluation of chemicals in hydraulic-fracturing fluids and wastewater for reproductive and developmental toxicity. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, 27(1), p.90.

Ellmer, M. and Reichel, A., 2018. Crowdwork from an HRM Perspective–integrating Organizational Performance and Employee Welfare. Working Paper, HRM Group, University of Salzburg, H. 1.

Hallinger, P. and Chen, J., 2015. Review of research on educational leadership and management in Asia: A comparative analysis of research topics and methods, 1995–2012. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 43(1), pp.5-27.

Hayes, J., 2018. The theory and practice of change management.

Heflin, F. and Wallace, D., 2017. The BP oil spill: shareholder wealth effects and environmental disclosures. Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, 44(3-4), pp.337-374.

Johnston, R.P., Lim, J.B., Lau, H.H., Xu, Y., Sonebi, M., Armstrong, C.G. and Mei, C.C., 2015. Finite-element investigation of cold-formed steel portal frames in fire. Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers-Structures and Buildings, 169(1), pp.3-19.

Klinga, C., Hansson, J., Hasson, H. and Sachs, M.A., 2016. Co-leadership–A management solution for integrated health and social care. International journal of integrated care, 16(2).

Kok, S.K. and McDonald, C., 2017. Underpinning excellence in higher education–an investigation into the leadership, governance and management behaviours of high-performing academic departments. Studies in Higher Education, 42(2), pp.210-231.

Prokesch, S. (1997). Unleashing the Power of Learning: An Interview with British Petroleum’s John Browne. Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/1997/09/unleasing-the-power-of-learning-an-interview-with-british-petroleums-john-browne [Accessed on 16 July 2018]

Theguardian.com (2018). Rise in global carbon emissions a ‘big step backwards’, says BP. Coal rebound and slowing efficiency gains in 2017 suggest Paris goals may be missed, says oil firm. The Guardian. Published: 13 July 2018. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jun/14/rise-fall-of-bp [Accessed on 16th July 2018]