Critically analyse the roles, functions that managers perform and discuss the challenges and risks they have to address in today’s changing organisations.
The report introduces the various concepts of management and aspects related to it within the organization in Australia namely Woolworths. The topic will illustrate about the various roles and functions of the managers while the issues and challenges associated with the managerial functions in the present changing nature of organization will be illustrated here as well. The report will present relevant data and information about the various ways by which the managers can deal with the issues and challenges, furthermore manage proper business functioning within the retail sector. The importance of maintaining proper values, ethics and diversity to form a great culture can also facilitate the business performance and ensure generating higher revenue and gain competitive advantage in business as well (woolworths.com.au, 2018). The research methodology section will present idea about the most suitable research strategies and approaches along with the collection of qualitative data required for fulfilling the roles and legitimacy of the management functions. This can be influenced by politics and social environment, thereby create an impact of the management of business functions at Woolworths, Australia too.
Few of the major challenges faced by the managers within the organizations are inability to achieve a stretch goal or objective, bringing out the best from the employees, hiring the right people, lack of skills to respond to crisis situations, unable to facilitate continuous improvement and not considering the views and opinions of others. The managers often face challenges while achieving a stretch goal or objective, which often requires proper planning to understand the organizational people, resources and keeping the staffs motivated and encouraged too. Bringing out the best from the employees is another major challenge faced by the employees, because the employees should be treated with respect and aligns their goals with the work goals (Drori, Höllerer & Walgenbach, 2013). It has been a major challenge for the HR manager at Woolworths to handle the underperforming staffs, because of their higher absenteeism rate during the training sessions provided to them. Woolworths, being a retail company, needs to focus on managing the staffs properly and prioritize on improving their skills, knowledge and expertise for delivering the best quality services to people and keep them satisfied. The underperforming employees often could not understand the ways of handling the clients properly, which deteriorates the quality of customers’ services and even damages the brand image and reputation. It is also found that the managers face challenges to deal with the outstanding employees sometimes. It is because the outstanding employees need treatment and for bringing out the exceptional from them, they must be paid special attention (Bohensky, Butler & Davies, 2013). The managers need to motivate and encourage them through training and development sessions, which can result in contributing to the business performance as well as assist the employees in career growth and development. Hiring the right employees has been another major issue faced by the manager of Woolworths in Australia because the candidates are selected based on their performances during the interviews rather than assessing their skills and knowledge needed to make them perform to their potential at work. It is a daunting task and managers often face challenges in hiring the right person for the right job roles (Kokubu & Kitada, 2015).
The management success is dependent upon the performance and contribution of the individual holding the managerial position in Woolworths. There were issues related to the lack of understanding and maintenance of business policies, long terms strategies and laws. Woolworths, though has a good working environment, still has been subjected to challenges regarding team collaboration, sharing and exchange of information across the departments. This has resulted in redundant tasks that deteriorated the company’s production level. The lack of innovation is another problem faced at Woolworths and the manager failed to identify the actual cause that caused hindrance in innovating the business operations and service delivery (Sippola, 2014). The retail sector in Australia has brought some major challenges that can test the patience and ability of the manager and at the same time, result in delivering innovative solutions to meet the changing demands and expectations of customers in the marketplace.
The functions and roles of the managers are to manage the business functioning through management of staffs and making sure that the corporate strategies align with the organizational policies, legislations, strategies, rules and regulations. The challenges stated in the above sector have resulted in high staff turnover and sometimes deteriorated the business performance, which hindered the successful production and delivery of products and services to the customers and unable to meet their demands and preferences too (Haworth, 2016). The manager of the retail company should strive to create a proper plan for determining how the organization’s people and resources are applied to accomplish the business goals and objectives. This would make the staffs understand their roles and responsibilities clearly and follow a strategic vision to move in the right direction. The managers should praise the performances of the workers and keep them motivated and encouraged so that the roadblocks are removed from the path and the milestones are reached properly (Sahlén, 2013). To bring out the best from the employees, it is important for the manager of Woolworths to communicate with the line manager, who acts as an intermediary between the employees and manager. By treating the employees with respect and aligning the personal goals with the work goals could assist in moving in the right direction where they wanted their career to go. A good working environment must be created, which is required for the formation of a positive work culture, furthermore utilize the resources accurately to make the underperforming employees perform to their potential (Delmas, Etzion & Nairn-Birch, 2013). The employees who performed well within the company should be provided with rewards and benefits for ensuring that the staff turnover rate is reduced and they could commit themselves fully to the accomplishment of organizational goals and objectives.
The HR manager at Woolworths should ensure that the recruitment and selection processes are managed properly for hiring the right candidates and ensuring management of a good working environment with a positive work culture that can promote teamwork, coordination and sharing of information within the workplace (Jones Christensen, Mackey & Whetten, 2014). No matter how good the organization is, there are always more scopes for betterment and improvements by changing the processes and through employee motivation and encouragement. Performance monitoring should be along with obtaining feedbacks from the employees regarding their roles and their approaches towards the accomplishment of tasks (Danylchuk et al., 2015). This should overcome crisis situations and foster the development of a good culture where the organizational values, beliefs and ethics could be maintained effectively.
The culture describes the way of doing things the right way following the attitudes, goals, values and beliefs of the organization properly. The moral and ethical values constitute the organizational culture that can allow people to behave and interact properly with others as well as create a good working environment at Woolworths, Australia. The values, ethics and diversity management can not only improve the morale of employees, enhance the commitment of the organization and its employees, furthermore create an involved and retained workforce (Day& Moore, 2018). The ethical culture is centered on the ethical aspects that can influence the respect for humanity and create a better world so that the members of the organization remain committed to the personal ethical environment in the relationship with others within the organization. This would also make the employees aware of preventing any form of discrimination within the workplace; furthermore get involved in activities that are related to the management of social justice and environmental stewardship. By maintaining a diversified workforce, it will be convenient for placing staffs from different backgrounds, culture, ethnicity, race and religion and discrimination shall be prevented as well (Slack, Brandon-Jones & Johnston, 2013). The impact of values, ethics and diversity management is immense and it can enable the organization commit itself fully to manage the business operations according to the vision and mission. The 360 degree evaluations are deployed from the top management level for managing diversity as well as measure the performances of the staffs, make necessary changes and improve their skills and knowledge through participation in the training and development programs. Leadership plays an important role in the management of a positive culture and foster creativity through sharing and exchange or valuable information (Reamer, 2013).
The values and ethics must be followed by the managers of the organization ensure formation of a good working environment as well as improve the process of ethical decision making. The manager should perform as a role model and leader of the organization to guide the employees in the right direction, treat all the employees equally with respect and dignity. The managerial performance will be improved and he or she will be able to set norms, policies, rules and regulations so that the employees abide by those along with providing the social guidelines for maintaining the desirable organizational standards (Parrott, 2014). Not only the manager will learn to respect the ideas and opinions of the team members, but will also use his power and responsibility to improve the social environment, audit the ethical decisions and lastly develop staffs that function with honesty and integrity Australia (Servaes & Tamayo, 2013). Therefore, it is clear that the maintenance of proper values, ethics and diversity can impact the managerial performance and establish a health culture at Woolworths.
The research methodology includes the various approaches and strategies followed to conduct a research on the specified topic of the report and incorporate the utilization of qualitative analysis. The research methodology holds all the important aspects of the research along with the various approaches followed to collect and analyze data for deriving a good conclusion in the end. The research will be conducted considering the positivism research philosophy and deductive research approach, which enhances the scopes for development of testing the variables and linking those to accomplish desired research goals and objectives with ease and effectiveness. It is important to draw analysis of data after collecting data from various sources along with the selection of right samples for accomplishing the research efficiently (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). According to the case study, the managers of the organization are engaged so that they can be interviewed and their useful opinions and responses can be obtained to incorporate the use of qualitative analysis. The use of high quality external sources include the secondary data sources like journals, articles, documents and internet websites from which, the data and information can be collected and analyzed to derive positive outcomes and ensure that the research conduction is successful and noteworthy.
Conclusion
The report was prepared for discussing about the most essential aspects of management and its functions within the business organization Woolworths in Australia. The rationale demonstrated the main issues and challenges faced by the managers such as lack of ability to hire the right kinds of staffs, being unable to handle the underperforming and outstanding employees properly. All these challenges faced by the managers not only hindered the successful development and management of a healthy work culture, but also created differences among employees. The challenges, when not overcome, resulted in higher level of staff turnover and lower production level at Woolworths. The issues and challenges were considered by the managers as a pathway for creation of new scopes and opportunities to facilitate changes and promote innovation for fulfilling the clients’ needs and preferences. The maintenance of values, ethics and diversity within the organization could create a stable culture, where employees should follow the organizational policies, laws, rules and regulations and this should result in teamwork, coordination, sharing and exchange of ideas and opinions for the organizational benefit. All these aspects were included in this report for deriving a good conclusion in the end and ensure that the management perspectives contributed to the betterment of business performance and positive business outcomes as a whole.
References
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woolworths.com.au. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.woolworths.com.au
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