Organizational Effectiveness and Workplace Culture Assignment

I currently work at a well established flooring company named All Floors Inc and I feel that this project will mesh quite well with my experiences in my current position. I’m quite fortunate in my position, I work as the administrative assistant to the controller for the company as well as the sales support staff to two salesmen. I’m fortunate in the fact that I get to see multiple sides of the business instead of specializing in only one area. In the following essay I will go over a few of the organizational effectiveness perspectives, where they excel in these areas, which areas could use with some improvement and my personal suggestions as to how we can improve them to increase the effectiveness of the company.

Part One

Open Systems Perspective

Lets start with the sales aspect of my job first, even though I’m rarely ever involved in direct sales with the clients, I can see how we apply the opens systems perspective in order to stay current in an ever changing industry. We rely heavily on the feedback from the customer in order to determine which products we display in the showroom and which products to keep in stock. Having that knowledge and applying it to our stock in the warehouse allows us to stay current and keep up with the demand of our clients. This allows us to carry the products that are most in demand and gives us the opportunity to service our customers faster instead of us waiting on product to be delivered to us. This perspective can be applied to more than just the products we supply our customers with, we rely on all forms of feedback from our customers whether it be by leaving a review on google or leaving us a note/email with their perspective on the transaction.

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All Floors Inc has an incredible reputation among the floor covering industry in Calgary for this very reason. They are very receptive to what the customer has to say in regards to their experience with the company whether it be good or bad. They have taken from past experiences and have learned and evolved to ensure those problems are never an issue again in the future. For an example, the company had reached out to a customer who left a less than stellar review about their experience with the company. They experienced an issue where there was quite the wait for their product to be installed, a situation that was never brought to the managements attention. Upon speaking to the warehouse and scheduling staff, they were able to locate where the breakdown in communication happened and have implemented changes to the procedures in order to decrease the chance of that issue rising again in the future.

As for the administrative side, the company is also quite receptive to what the employees have to say as well and they take an active roll in ensuring work runs smoothly and as problem free as possible. A few months ago, we had an issue that resulted from a breakdown in communication between the sales, warehouse and administration staff. Instead of fixing the problem at hand themselves, a meeting was arranged where we were all able to sit down and discuss each departments perspective of the issue and we were all able to come up with a solution that worked for everyone. I’m honestly having a hard time finding an area where the company does not apply these practices, they pride themselves on providing the employees with an incredible place to work and by supplying some of the best service to customers a flooring store in Calgary can provide.

Learning perspective

This is another area of organizational effectiveness that I will have a hard time criticizing because I believe All Floors Inc excels quite well in this area. The four areas of the learning perspective can be applied here, Acquiring Knowledge, Sharing Knowledge, Using Knowledge and Storing Knowledge (McShane, 2018). As I’ve mentioned earlier, the flooring industry is one that is constantly changing, there always seems to be a new technology invented that makes the product easier to install, last longer, easier maintenance for the customer or providing a newer and more authentic look. Without setting that time aside to learn what’s included in the newest technology, it’s easy for the company to fall behind the times and lose their competitive edge over the competition.

All Floors Inc follows a few practices that helps ensure they never fall behind, one of them includes setting up Product Knowledge meetings with sales representatives every time a new or improved product is released. The company stresses the importance of these meetings to the sales staff and the occur usually once a week or so. Once the meeting has taken place, new product information sheets are created and distributed amount the sales staff, ensuring that the proper information is shared among those who were not present and to refresh the staff who were present. By creating these product information sheets, we are also ensuring we’re creating a storage of the information for us to refer back to when and if we need to.

Next comes applying that new knowledge to our sales approach with the customers. Staying up to date with the newest technologies and being able to supply that information to our customers helps to inspire confidence in our ability to get the job done. All Floors Inc also provides learning opportunities for the administration staff as well. One of the most used software programs in the industry is called RFMS and this program seems to update itself just as much as flooring technologies do. To ensure that the program is being used optimally, the company will sign one staff member up for new seminars being provided by RFMS. It is the responsibility of that staff member to attend and take as many notes as possible to share with the rest of the staff upon their return.

Just as with the sales product knowledge meetings, these notes are then turned into RFMS knowledge sheets and distributed amongst the administrative and sales staff. This helps ensure that everyone is kept “in the loop” and using the program the way its intended to be used. Ensuring every employee is using the program in the same way helps avoid any miscommunications that could have negative consequences. An example of this would be the scheduling subsection of the program, if two different employees are using the software wrong, it could result in an installation delay or an installation being unscheduled completely which can turn into a very negative situation.

High performance work perspective

 The two previous perspectives help play a role in the high performance work perspective, they help create an advantage over the competitor stores by guaranteeing we’re providing the most up to date products, providing the best service we can by listening to customer feedback and by staying up to date with the best business practices in the industry. By following these perspectives, the company creates an environment that’s appealing to the employees and makes them feel valued. Employees who are happy with their working situation are more effective in their work. There are other aspects that the company adds to the job that helps motivate their employees, such as placing value in employee suggestions and occasionally providing contests and awards.

All Floors Inc welcomes employee participation and suggestions and they are willing to work with you to implement your ideas if those ideas would help improve the company. This is not to say that there are some flaws with the way they approach this, but more on that later in the essay. The company will also hold competitions for the sales staff periodically which can range anywhere from a gift card to a restaurant or to a vacation courtesy of one of our suppliers. These tactics really up the performance of the staff, meeting our sale goals is an accomplishment in itself but its rewarding to know that all your hard work is being noticed and appreciated. Which in turn only motivates you to continue working just as hard.

Having such a high morale at work plays a great deal into the company’s effectiveness. High morale in the workplace reduces the rate of turnover of staff which reduces the time they would have to take to constantly train new employees. It also helps guarantee that those high performing individuals develop a loyalty to the company and don’t wish to move on to another company. Having a staff who feel appreciated develop a high view of their workplace which can attract new employees by word of mouth.

Another way in which All Floors Inc participates in the high performance work practices perspective is that while they do participate in problem solving situations, they leave a lot of the decision making up to the team of employees who are involved. If a conflict should arise, they will step in and mediate however I have personally never seen a situation where that was needed. I believe this comes from the respect they have for the company, we know we are treated well, we are valued and respected in return so in turn we do what we can to solve issues quickly, appropriately and as smoothly as possible.

Workplace Culture

I have always had an appreciation for my workplace and its culture but I like to think that I understand it much better now having almost completed this course. The overall feeling of our workplace is structural, collaborative and a bit laid back still. The general feel of the workplace is that they do have their set of policies, procedures and values that they expect all their staff to adhere to. You will also find that working together is encouraged and when I say its laid back, I mean that you know when you make a mistake they take a calmer approach. This helps create a calmer environment knowing you wont be berated for a mistake. They value honesty, hard work and the ability to get whatever’s needed done but they know that at the end of the day, it is just flooring and there’s no need to place a great deal of stress to any aspect of our jobs.

Our office staff is small to medium sized with 10-15 people total in the building so you can say that it’s a much quieter workplace than others, especially consider how large our building is and how spaced out our offices are. Because of this, I do find that the workplace can be quite prone to cliques, not that anyone is unkind to another staff member however the administrative employees stick together more due to their close location to each other in the building. As far as language goes, it stick with the generally expected professional tone but with a laid back approach. I have worked in businesses that have no filter what so ever and off coloured jokes are acceptable, All Floors Inc has rules set in place where these topics are unacceptable and will hold accountable those who chose to ignore these rules.

Overall I would label the workplace culture as friendly and professional, they encourage relationships between employees although certain departments still tend to stick together. I have not witnessed any rituals in the workplace other then the aforementioned product knowledge meetings. This is one area I believe they could improve on and I will go into it in more detail later on in this essay.

Its my own personal opinion that then general level of workplace culture in this company is in the middle, I believe there could be improvements however its far from a weak culture. One of their strong points would be their openness to employees and their approach to mistakes when they are made. Management is not the type to point fingers and cause stress in these types of situations, they like to find out what happened, where it went wrong and then we start to work on how we can avoid this in the future. It plays a great deal in reducing the overall stress level in the workplace, creating a calmer atmosphere for everyone.

Part Two

High performance work perspective – Suggestions

I mentioned earlier that the company could perhaps improve areas in relation to employee suggestions. They are open to employee suggestions and are never quick to turn down these suggestions, however I think there could be more done in terms of making those suggestions easier and more approachable. Management relies on you to come to them for a one on one approach. For some one like myself, that can be quite intimidating and could hold me back from sharing any suggestion I may have. I believe having a more open group dialogue would help take away that fear by having other contribute their thoughts to the suggestion or to back up your ideas.

Since starting with this company I have never seen a staff meeting being held and I believe we would be able to accomplish my suggestion above by holding regular staff meetings. These do not have to be weekly but perhaps monthly or quarterly. This would give us the option to discuss our suggestions and ideas more openly.

Another area in which improvements could be made are performance reviews, again this is something I have not seen done since starting there. I understand that if I have been doing poorly at my job, I would be told so but being left in the dark about my job performance is being seen by management is not always motivating. I would like to see this changed by setting up semi monthly performance reviews, in these one on one meetings I would ideally like to go over the areas in which my performance could improve. I would like to contribute my own review of my performance and hear managements side as well. To take it one step further, I would like to set personal goals with my direct supervisor for the next six months, that way when we meet again in six months time, we have another way of determining my work performance and it would also provide me with a motivating factor to meet these goals. I can see no downside to having these performance reviews, how can I effectively improve my work performance if I’m unaware of which areas need more focus? I could be spending my time on areas that require little to no improvement when there’s areas that require much more attention?

Learning perspective – Suggestions

One area within the All Floors Inc learning perspective that could use some modifying is more learning opportunities for the administrative staff. Sales staff are consistently learning and keeping up to date with new product technologies, warehouse and installer staff are often given opportunities to stay up to date with the latest installation techniques but I feel as though the administrative team gets left out. Our controller is the one who is sent to these RFMS seminars and then returns with the information which leaves the rest of us in the office receiving this knowledge second hand.

As some one who is both administrative and a sales support staff, I need to be kept in the loop regarding new product knowledge as it plays a role in my position. Perhaps it is not widely known that I’m also involved when it comes to products and that leads me to be excluded from the product knowledge meetings. One way I could rectify this situation is by setting up a meeting with my direct supervisor to go over my concerns. I believe the direct approach here would be the better option, I could explain to him the importance and how beneficial it is to my role to be included in these meetings. I believe this is something I’ve been afraid of doing as I didn’t want to “step on any ones toes” but I realize I do need to stand up for myself and my role if I believe it will only benefit me and the sales team I support.

One last area that could use some work is the way in which they’ve stored older knowledge. As a new comer to the workplace, I found it very difficult to track down up to date information on the company, products and software’s we use on a daily basis. I only came across manuals that were quite outdated and provided me with little to no information at all. I was fortunate enough to find out that they were outdated before spending too much time reading into them and applying that information that would have been quite ineffective. My suggestion would be to go through these manuals, product knowledge sheets and price lists an a regular basis, I would suggest monthly, in order to ensure that only the most up to date information is available.

This is a job that should fall on each department, such as the sales staff being in charge of the product knowledge and the pricing sheets and the administrative department controlling the policies, procedures and software manuals. Depending on how old the information is, it would be best to go through each form to ensure its up to date and either dispose of or archive anything that is considered out dated. This will help reduce the potential for time wasted learning outdated material and allows us to focus on the correct information.

I have always had an appreciation for my workplace but I have never fully delved deep into the inner workings of it before until now. I have a much better understanding of the company and the areas where I think they excel and make themselves one of the best workplaces to be employed compared to their competitors. I’m also much more aware of the areas that need improving and I will be able to bring this knowledge with me into the workplace and potentially help make it an even better place to work. Being armed with this new information will only help me excel in my future career, where ever life may take me I know I will be much better equipped in understanding why and how the company operates.

 

References

McShane, T. S. (2018). Canadian Organizational Behaviour. McGraw Hill Education.