Improving Organizational Performance Through Leadership Training At Metropolitan Opera

Outstanding Customer Service

It is a necessity for any organization to excel in their performance and Metropolitan Opera in the United States is no exception. This performance of an organization involves the original result as evaluated against the targeted output. The management of organizational performance is widely accepted and approved by all the multinational companies in the world. The particular organization of US has introduced new initiatives and norms that are issued as per the government rules to focus on the performance orientation. Although Metropolitan Opera is a successful organization in terms classical music and other different genres but still they want to improve on their leadership skills for increasing employee retention and decreasing employee turnover. For that reason, they want to apply for funding to conduct a leadership training program which will result on high employee turnover as well as increasing employee retention (Birasnav, 2014). The factors which are responsible for motivating the employees are critical as compared to the attainment of corporate goals. This particular proposal will look into the issue of lack in leadership skills in retaining the employees in the organization and suggest a solution.  

The organization provides an outstanding customer service by directly involving them. This direct involvement will be beneficial for creating a warm and welcoming environment where the opera fans of all categories can enjoy soothing music. Their services encourage the customers to come to their Met Opera Shop if they need to enquire about needs and questions related to opera. They are successful in selling a range of product categories by the implication of up- selling and cross- selling theories. Metropolitan Opera has the ability to develop high- end customer and benefactors by increasing their sale and the opportunity of being their part (Bolman & Deal, 2017). Their customer services do not require any explanation as they had always been outstanding at it. Maintenance of detailed report about the products and promotion of Met Shop keeps the customers informed and updated about the merchandise campaigns, activities of the store and promotion for the products and services. They put their utmost effort in keeping up the visual displays which include the perfect signs, accurate price tags and collections. They also restock and replenish the selling floor from time to time in order to keep the selling area, records and stock area neat and properly maintained. Issue receipts and pack merchandise are also kept in a perfect way for the required business transactions and follow all the policies and programs as per the employee handbook. The employees also answer politely and softly to the customers both over phone and in- face (Gomez-Mejia, Berrone & Franco-Santos, 2014).

Contemporary Framework of Functioning

The Metropolitan Opera has the contemporary framework of functioning by every department. They have allotted team members for various departments of research and development (R & D), administration, sales, operation and marketing.  Every employee of this particular organization can enjoy the same employment benefits which consist of the medical insurance, elasticity in spending accounts, short and long duration disability insurance and many more. They modify the tasks allocated to the employees in order to keep alignment with the strategic initiatives. The employees who are not a part of the sales team get the annual salary as well as the profit sharing by the end of year. The employees are ignorant of the formula used in profit sharing because they are hardly communicated about specific information associated with profit. That does not mean profitability is not discussed at all but done in general. The most important employees of the organization are recognized by the management to provide with periodical stock option grants (Koch, 2017). The process mentioned above is absolutely informal and totally confidential. The human resources program at the Metropolitan Opera is rich in knowledge in various areas required to manage a large office with diversified employees.  They take care of employee recruitment and their training and retention is absolutely necessary which calls for a strong leadership program.

It is a common conception in the human resources program that it should motivate the employees (Northouse, 2015). It can be mentioned that economic compensation is not the only support behind motivation of the employees. Moreover, the team which is working within the organization has observed the other important factors responsible for motivating the employees. These factors are security, category of work, advancement in career and finally taking pride in one’s own company are rated high in terms of employee satisfaction. These factors came forward after the employees of Metropolitan Opera were interviewed and asked about their experience in detail. One of the employees mentioned that it calls for a primary motivation which can be considered as an opportunity to work with the highly innovative technological tools for gaining the outcome of superior quality. On the other hand, another employee had mentioned that he is extremely annoyed with the mess in the organizational structure which limits his capability to carry on with premium and modified outcome. An official of the company also shared similar kind of experience. According to him, the greatest motivating factor can be regarded as the prospect of making something new and durable which will help in the long term sustainability of the organization. The head of sales team had mentioned that he gets highly motivated when he provides hob opportunity for other individuals (Park & Shaw, 2013).

Factors Responsible for Motivating Employees

But there are more in store for employee motivation than the information gathered from interviewing the employees and officials. There are certain de- motivating factors such as politics inside the organization, vague expectations, irrelevant policies and rules, unnecessary meetings, ineffective communication and tolerating poor performance. The manager of the company spoke about the issues which led the company to outperform expectations. He said that communication inside the organization is not carried out in proper time and inconsistent. The expectations are hardly understood which results in most of the employee not offering sufficient contribution thus a lack is created (Satterthwaite, 2016).

A number of steps can be suggested for the motivation of employees in the organization Metropolitan Opera which will lead to employee retention and reduce employee turnover in the company. These steps should be followed for making the corporate culture stronger in the main areas of communication, accountability and appreciation. The feedback received from the employees throws light on the fact that there is something lacking in those areas and must be improved by motivation. In order to fill the gap in those areas, training is required for the managers on communication skills and specially how to determine expectations by sharing results timely to provide public appreciation to those definite contributors. With the completion of the training the specific processes need to be put into the skills of practice. This forms a part of an official process of review which involves monthly meetings between all the employees and the managers. There will be uniformity in the organization if the employees are made responsible for the specific outcome. It can be suggested that the reimbursement and bonus that is provided to the employees do not form the basis of only corporate profit but also on their definite roles and responsibilities ((Koch, 2017). If anyone can meet up the expectation level then he will get the specific reward whereas those who will fail to do so will be answerable for their poor performance and will not be provided with any kind of extra benefit. Moreover, they will be put on a performance improvement plan and there is a scope that they will need to do different task in a different role inside the organization. This improvement requires a great leader who will look into the effectiveness of the training program so that the employees are motivated and the Metropolitan Opera will have more employee retention.

Steps for Employee Motivation and Retention

The HRM of the Metropolitan Opera has fulfilled the necessary condition and knowledge to have an overview of the initiative. The services that will be provided by the HRM are as follows-

• Involve the managerial services for providing efficient leadership training on proper communication to deliver useful feedback to the managers and set a routine for the training session.
• The HRM will manage his task with the officials for modifying and sanctifying the additional benefit, payment and stock option plan (Birasnav, 2014).
• Thus a pact with the HR information system seller to reconfigure the process of act sanction inside the system will help in tallying with the probable suggestion.

Program	Amount
Training of seven managers	$ 20000
HRIS configuration	$ 12000
Total Cost	$ 32000

Conclusion

As it can be concluded from the proposal that the organization Metropolitan Opera operates at a close bond for understanding the business objective to recognize the possible match in partnership to obtain the definite goal. The corporate benefactors of the company deliver the crucial support in operation and thus obtaining a number of employees and remarkable opportunities. The sponsors will also enjoy the benefit of co- branding with the company, tailored experiences and availability to the loyal audiences of the organization. They are also able to benefit from exclusiveness of the services and the sustained collaboration in culture which will give way to working for a longer duration and meeting with the specific targets of the company. The corporate targets involve the sales quota or high market share which do not take the employee motivational factors into account. Actually, the employees are not easily motivated or encouraged to fulfill their own task for the betterment of the organization. If the organization Metropolitan Opera has to achieve its targets then the employees must be put on a leadership training program.

The leadership training program is an absolute necessity for the managers because the employees can be influenced in that way to work better for the organizational performance. With the ongoing changes in the business world, the way of leading a team has also changed. Rather than pushing people for improvement it is a better idea for the leader to pull people towards success. It is the role of an effective leader to direct the team instead of managing them. It is not necessary that a good manager will be a good leader and what is required for the organization Metropolitan Opera is a good leader. An effective training of the managers through a leadership program will deal with high employee turnover and enhance employee retention.

Reference

Birasnav, M. (2014). Knowledge management and organizational performance in the service industry: The role of transformational leadership beyond the effects of transactional leadership. Journal of Business Research, 67(8), 1622-1629.

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John Wiley & Sons.

Gomez-Mejia, L. R., Berrone, P., & Franco-Santos, M. (2014). Compensation and organizational performance: Theory, research, and practice. Routledge.

Koch, C. M. (2017). The Contest for American Culture: A Leadership Case Study on the. Funding Challenges and Successes in Arts Education, 1.

Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications.

Park, T. Y., & Shaw, J. D. (2013). Turnover rates and organizational performance: a meta-analysis.

Satterthwaite, A. (2016). Local glories: opera houses on main street, where art and community meet. Oxford University Press.