You have recently been hired as the Director of Human Resources for Wilson Brothers Canada and have HR responsibility for all of the company’s Canadian operations. Bob and John Wilson have asked you to prepare a report for their review focusing specifically on organizational behavior within the company. Review the Wilson Brothers Case Scenario in depth and address only the required ten (10) topics listed below in your analysis report. Marks are allocated for thoroughness of coverage of the ten required topics and their analysis-linkages to appropriate OB theories and practices from the course and external sources. It is not enough to just describe the happenings at Wilson Bros. Analysis should include the effectiveness of the current approach for each of the ten topics as well as recommendations for improvement in each. Use each topic as a heading in your analysis. While there are no page requirements for the analysis report include all relevant analysis and be concise. Remember this is an Executive Summary for the owners of the company.

The required ten (10) topics to be covered, and subjected to analysis, are:

1. Organizational Design and Structure (Advantages/Disadvantages).
2. Job Design (Use of job design principles to impact employee motivation and employee engagement).
3. Decision Making (How decisions are made and communicated).
4. Equity (Specific issues related to perceived fairness in the organization).
5. Organizational Culture (Culture(s) within the organization and the effect of the culture(s) on organization performance).
6. Organizational Change (Analyze any significant change – current changes being implemented; a recent change already implemented; changes being contemplated for the future).
7. Work Groups/Teams (The existence of group or teams in the organization and their effectiveness).
8. Conflict (Evidence and effect of conflict in the organization and how it is handled).
9. Leadership Style (Leadership style of the owners).
10. Power, Influence and Motivation (The types of power used by the Wilson Brothers and how they impact and influence employee behaviour and motivation). Question: Describe the current situation for each topic at Wilson Brothers and analyze the effectiveness of their approach i.e. how it helps or hinders. Make recommendations on how Wilson Brothers can improve. Link your recommendations to specific OB theories/concepts

Answer:

WILSON BROTHERS CANADA

Organizational design and structure

Wilson brothers use a functional structure to manage the organization. Although it is not a small enterprise the structure has helped to simplify and fasten a lot of activities. The Wilson brothers are the main authority and decisions are made by them directly. There is no complicated bureaucracy that has to be followed in decision making in the organizations. Issues that need to be addresses are taken directly to the Wilson brothers by the functional managers.

The advantages of this functional structure include;

It helps to solve urgent matters with enough precision and swiftness. Some issues in business are urgent and need not be taken through long protocols or else money will be lost and losses incurred. This simple structure has helped the Wilson brothers company to avoid such cases in a great deal.

A simple functional structure also helps to create a sense of equality as there are no specific lines of authority as division is based on functional units. This has acted as a source of motivation in the Wilson brothers company.

The disadvantages of this structure include;

Some issues in business require detailed consideration and the simple structure do not serve as a good avenue for that purpose.

A simple structure may lead to chaos in a business especially when it starts to expand due to lack of clarity of responsibility and authority in the functional units.

Job design

Though most people tend to think that the salary for a job is the motivation factor, the way the job is designed is even more important in influencing motivation for the job. In Wilson brothers company job specialization is used for specific jobs where detailed skills are needed. Job rotation is exercised in jobs that are monotonous and are likely to cause boredom.

Advantages of job specialization include; in depth skills are gained by the employee and this helps him or her to get better and better as time goes by. This leads to increased productivity. Another advantage of job specialization is that it saves on time and cost as the employee becomes more efficient and can therefore do the same job in a short period of time. Costs are also reduced in that the employees become more accurate and defective products are reduced.

Job rotation on the other hand acts as a source of motivation as it eliminates boredom of a similar routine job. It also helps the employees to gain different skills in working in different jobs. This makes work more enjoyable and raises motivation for employees.

Decision making

For any business to be successful, it has to have the capability to make informed decisions in a timely manner. One of the elements that have set aside the Wilson brothers company is the way it makes informed decisions in a very short duration of time. Decisions that take many of its competitors months or even years to make are usually made in a matter of days or at most weeks by the Wilson brothers. This has made the business more flexible than its competitors. The flexibility has also enabled the Wilson brothers to take advantage of the business opportunities that need to be grabbed immediately. This is how the business has managed to expand in a very short period of time.

Equity

The company does not provide any kind of equity shares for the employees. There is also no record of equality policies for employees. While most organizations offer standardized pays for similar job groups, Wilson Brothers Company operates differently. The employees in the company are hired on the basis of their academic and job experience qualifications. Bearing in mind that Wilson Brothers Company is one of the best companies in the industries it attracts high skills from the market. Employees are paid on the basis of their performance and not on the basis of job groups.

The policy of Wilson has the following advantages; the employees are motivated to perform better because payments are as per the level of performance. Another advantage is the fact that the employees aim at gaining more and more experience to help them perform better. All these help to increase the profitability of the company.

Some of the demerits of the lack of equity provisions policy are that it may trigger bitterness among employees because some may feel that they are being paid lesser than their fellow employees who probably have lower academic qualifications. This policy of Wilson also requires a strict performance evaluation procedure which may also be a source of conflicts in the organization. This is because most of the times, employees may feel like their ratings are not as high as the effort they put into their work. This may actually be a cause of low motivation in the work place.

Organizational culture

When it comes to the internal culture of the Wilson brothers company, the main elements are the culture of unity, teamwork and hard work. The employees of Wilson Company are well organized and united. They support each other in the implementation of tasks. This makes jobs easier to do as the employees support each other. Employees show loyalty and the spirit of teamwork by wearing jackets with the Wilson brother’s company logo. Hard work is also a key element in the culture of Wilson Brothers Company. Even the Wilson brothers themselves are said to work as many hours as the other employees, and have often been described as hardworking. They lead by example.

The external culture of the Wilson brothers company has always been set to relate to the culture of the local area that the outlet is established. When the company intends to expand into different areas, they hire a CEO from the local area to ensure that the culture of that specific place is well represented. This has helped the company to be popular among many cultures and this increases the brand loyalty. The company has therefore continued to expand and be accepted in different cultural areas. It has grown to be the most profitable company in its industry.

Organizational change;

The Wilson Brothers Company has been faced by numerous challenges over the years. This is because of the fact that the industry that the company is operating in is dynamic and has kept changing over the years. People are more cautious with what they eat unlike they were before. This is because of the increasing health concerns regarding fast foods that are sold ready to eat. This change in preference has forced the Wilson brothers company to embrace change and ensure that their food is health friendly. Appling change has never been a problem in the Wilson brothers company because they are poplar for flexibility. The management of Wilson brothers is highly flexible and makes necessary changes where need be. Despite having adapted to the health needs of their consumers, the Wilson brothers company has had to find more cost effective means of production simply because the demand for ready food that they offer has generally fallen. They have to therefore manage their costs of production so as to stabilize their profits. Generally, Wilson brothers can be said to be flexible and highly successful in implementing change.

Work groups/teams

The Wilson brothers company has a record of tremendous success because of utilization of team work benefits. Employees are grouped into teams that help to achieve various organizational goals. The organization has experienced the following advantages from using teams;

Team work has helped to improve the skills and the experience for the employees, which has in turn helped them to perform better in their jobs. Better performance translates to higher productivity in the company. Team work has also helped to foster a sense of unity among employees and this has increases company loyalty and increased productivity. Team work has also created an internal culture of helping each other which just makes the company to grow stronger.

Conflict; because of the fact that the organization groups its employees as teams there never lacks conflicts here and there in the Wilson brothers company. Some of the reasons as to why employees may be in conflict are because some members of a team may feel like they are putting more effort in the task at hand more than others whereas those that tend to put lesser efforts still take credit for the success and are rewarded equally as well. This creates resentment and bitterness causing conflict.

Wilson Brothers Company has a very effective policy of handling conflicts. No long procedures or bureaucracy needs to be followed so as to solve conflict in the company. Anyone with an issue or in a conflict can approach the Wilson brothers directly who quickly resolve the issue. This helps to save time and maintain an environment of peace in the organization.

Leadership style

There are many leadership styles some which include;

Autocratic leadership; this is the kind of leadership that focuses on what the boss wants. Employees follow orders of the boss and they are not given a chance to express their opinions. This leadership style limits creativity but is also effective where quick decisions need to be made.

Another leadership style is the democratic leadership style where employees follow the instructions of their leaders but they are given a chance to express their opinions. The leader is concerned with the welfare and the comfort of employees.

Team leadership is another form of leadership where the organization is divided into teams and each team has a leader that focuses on the needs of the team members as they carry out the task at hand.

In the Wilson brothers organization, a mixture of democratic and team leadership is exercised. As much as employees are supposed to follow the instructions of their bosses the management ensures that the employees are given room to give feedback. His style of leadership is advantageous in that it fosters unity in the organization as the employees learn to support each in their teams so as to achieve tasks. It also gives room for creativity and innovation in the organization and hence growth in the company. It is important for employees to feel important in a company and to feel appreciated because it gives them a sense of loyalty. It also goes a long way in reducing employee turnover and hence saving the company a lot of money.

Power, influence and motivation

Power, influence and motivation are interchangeably used in the organization to influence employee behavior. Motivation is used to create a sense of loyalty and love for the company so as to increase the commitment of the employees in their jobs and hence make them to perform better to increase the productivity of the company. Motivation is used through better salaries and incentives for high performing employees to encourage them to perform even better and to make other employees work harder to reach their level of performance.

Influence is also a tool used by the Wilson brothers to help employees learn via the example of their leaders. The Wilson brothers are said to be very hardworking and they actually work a certain number of hours. This has influenced other employees to be hardworking as well and they work as hard or even some times more than their leaders.

Power is another tool used by the Wilson brothers to influence behavior of employees. When faced by cases of undisciplined employees the Wilson brothers use their powers to discipline tem. This serves as an example to other employees with such behaviors. In this way the leaders are able to control employee behavior.

Conclusion

The Wilson brothers company is well organized and if it were to be rated it would score highly. It is however not perfect and the competitors are always looking out for their weaknesses so as to take advantage of them. This means that the company should focus on becoming better and the sky should be the limit if it has to thrive in the today’s competitive market.

References

John K (2004), Principles of management, leadership styles and their merits and demerits, 1^st edition, California author

Peterson J (2000), organizational behavior, the forms of organizational structure, 2^nd edition, Longhorn Publishers.

Luke M (2001), Organizational behavior II, the various aspects of an organization, 2^nd edition, California author.