Outline of the Purpose and Structure of the Report

Brief Description of 365 Emporium.

365 Emporium Company was established in the early 1900s and it perceived as one of the vast retail pharmacy and grocery chains in Australia. The company sought to offer a one-stop shop for food, health and beauty, general merchandise and pharmacy services. Particularly in beauty, the firm sold hair care, cosmetics, skincare and personal care. The company was known to allure employees locally with a firm sense of loyalty which made it possible for such employees work for the organization their entire lives. 365 Emporium resolved to acquire seven smaller firms from 2003 to 2012 in an effort to maintain its growth owing to increased online competition and mass retail space that was being overcrowded from the early 2000’s.

Psychological Contract

It will involve examining how the firm has managed the psychological contract it has with Makena Lane and whether it has been able to achieve balance in that relationship.

The focus will be the assessment of Makena Lane as a manager or leader through the application of at least one theory of management of leadership.

It will focus on analyzing the approach of Makena Lane to motivation, basing the analysis on at least one theory of motivation.

Identification and justification of one course of action to improve things under motivation, psychological contract and management/ leadership.

Conclusion

Reflection on the value of the exercise in attaining learning outcomes.

Psychological Contract

365 offer to coach Lane was a brilliant course of action. It would provide inspiration in terms of leadership by fixing interactions with others having varying viewpoints, motivation levels and experiences (Walker, et al., 2016). However, I feel that it was a little late to enroll Lane for the coaching considering how much time she had already spent in the company. Complaints had also been raised about her by other employees. It was not an easy task managing the psychological contract considering that Lane was still required to play her roles in the company’s operations. It was important that 365 allowed Hale to interview Lane’s co-workers coupled with her assessments and reflections that would enable Hale develop a report which synthesized her findings thus identified key challenges of Lane. In regards to relational practices, Lane was assigned the practice called ‘pause’ that was facilitated by 365. It requires a person to pause for a few seconds when speaking in conversations which are potentially contagious (Finlay, 2015). Lane was provided with an actual and real time context of learning the relational practices. For instance, Lane would “let others be the star” by letting her employees make all presentations during meetings in an effort to improve relationships in the business unit with other teams. I feel that independent practices like nutrition, self-care and exercises through adjusted time frames for lunch breaks and meetings contributed significantly to the effectiveness of the Lane’s coaching and its subsequent management. It is important to note that health has a direct influence on an organization in decision making, interpersonal skills and problem solving (Glanz, et al., 2015). I believe that the one-year coaching period was enough and proved the company’s commitment to facilitate Lane’s upward mobility. 365 was able to find balance in this relationship in the sense that Lane’s coaching was a success. For instance, her relationship with other employees improved as well as the company’s competitiveness in terms of market share and hiring framework.

Psychological Contract

Management consists of interlocking roles of creating corporate policy and planning, organizing controlling and channeling a firm’s resources to achieve the policy’s objectives (Hislop, et al., 2018). Lane’s top priority was to upgrade customer experience by advocating for promotional campaigns that would be integrated across the firm’s weekly emails, Sunday flyers, website and in-home coupon booklets. They would lead the customers to corresponding displays in stores. Based on the scientific management theory, Lane utilized credible information she obtained by assessing the needs of the customers, both existing and potential customers that eventually enabled 365 operate more efficiently and profitably in the long run. This approach utilizes measurements and data to make organizations more effective (Rohleder, 2010). For instance, she used the recent annual decrease in contribution margin of beauty products and revenues as a call to action. However, I realized that Lane overlooked the importance of keeping other employees satisfied and engaged which consequently led to quitting of some employees. She sought to ensure that giving preference to practicality and precedent no longer guided the problem solving approach of her team. Therefore, I feel that the “fair” departures could have been avoided if her management approach gave a provision for staff to adjust. I found Lane’s decision to utilize 365’s heavily invested data of customer base resourceful. It presented a substantial possibilities for data-driven decision making. She created a novel process to get new customers of high value beauty from the company’s program of general loyalty.

The process of motivation captures the need to select between alternative forms of action aimed at achieving a desired goal (Bjerregaard, et al., 2015). The human relations theory whose foci is on motivation, leadership and group motivation would apply in Lane’s case (Bauer, 2012). She perceived the aspect of motivation positively when she accepted 365’s offer of psychological contract. One of the benefit of the coaching would be improving her reputation among the other employees that had begun to deteriorate. Her leadership capacity would not thrive amidst of her junior and peer colleagues defensiveness despite receiving support from the senior management. However, Lane held on to the senior management’s encouragement to push forward with her new approaches of enhancing customer experience. She was displayed open-mindedness by valuing the coaching impact at 365 and elsewhere. She perceived the motivation approach with strategic thinking, rigor and a bias toward action. It would put her in a better position to learn, understand and adopt the most viable relational practices, independent practices, sustainability and “self-generation”. The human relations theory provides for the enhancement of motivated leadership in an organization with a desired objective as it would be evident in Lane’s case (Dalton, et al., 2010). The key objective of the coaching program was to develop the ability to drive inner-growth independently and generate solutions in a sustainable manner.

Management or Leadership

Psychological Contract

Companies should prepare a systematic and comprehensive framework that should be induced into various job descriptions. The framework’s objective would be providing trainings on the psychological aspects as dictated by the respective job specifications especially in the managerial dockets (Wellin, 2016). Therefore, the employees, mainly those holding managerial positions should be subjected to psychological contracts as soon as they join the respective organizations (Abdullah, 2017). For instance, if 365 had done that with Lane as she joined, they probably would have avoided the “fair” departure of employees owing to the complaints raised against her interpersonal skills.

Companies should advocate for policies which promote balance between management needs and the needs of the subordinate members of staff in an effort to create harmony in executing the firms’ business objectives (Machado & Davim, 2016). This is because a harmonized management has a direct influence on the success of a business on various aspects like competitiveness in the market. This is evident in 365 through the refinement of its management of operations by Lane.

Organizations should have motivation programs on a quarterly basis for its employees from the managerial to the junior staff. However, the motivation programs should be custom made to address the unique needs of the employees. It would significantly increase the desire of employees to deliver results in a self-driven manner to the advantage of the organization and the employees too (Chapman & White, 2012).

Conclusion

I have been able to make progress toward achieving the learning outcomes of the exercise. I have developed a deeper understanding of organizational behaviour based on Makena Lane’s experience at 365 Emporium.

Some organizational factors which contribute to success include vision, implementation, organizational culture, empowerment, competitive pay-scale, leadership, job satisfaction and employees training and development. Competitive pay levels enhance job performance. Executing properly staff trainings encourages growth within them thus the organization. Satisfied employees are more productive (Richard D Schoolar, 2016). Culture assists firms achieve its desired goals by improving performance.

The contribution of an individual to the organization is significant as long as he/ she is able to perform as expected. For instance, this can be illustrated by Lane’s contributions in enhancing profitability and the competitiveness of 365 in the market.

Theories of motivation include Maslow, McGregor, Herzberg, Likert and Argyris among others. Maslow suggested a hierarchy of human needs from basic needs at the bottom to higher needs at the top (Stoyanov, 2017). It therefore requires managers to consider the aspirations and needs of individual staff. The management of 365 could adopt this theory in an attempt to motivate its employees by ensuring that all levels of needs are satisfied, before elevating them to the next higher level. McGregor (Theory X and Theory Y) make two noticeably varying sets of vast assumptions regarding their staff members. He identifies two major types of persons for managers to consider how to execute the motivation program.

References

Abdullah, A., 2017. Managing the Psychological Contract : Employee Relations in South Asia. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Bauer, T., 2012. Compare and contrast scientific management and human relations theory. s.l.:GRIN Verlag.

Bjerregaard, K., Haslam, S. . A., Morton, T. & Ryan, M. K., 2015. Social and relational identification as determinants of care workers’ motivation and well-being. frontiers in psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01460/full

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01460

Chapman, G. & White, . P., 2012. The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace : Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People.. Chicago: Moody Publishers.

Dalton, M., Hoyle, . D. G. & Watts, . M. W., 2010. Human Relations. s.l.:Cengage Learning.

Finlay, L., 2015. Relational integrative psychotherapy : engaging process and theory in practice. Chichester, West Sussex ; Malden, MA : John Wiley & Sons Inc.

Glanz, K., Rimer, B. K. & KViswanath, . K., 2015. Health behavior : theory, research, and practice. 5 ed. San Francisco, CA : Jossey-Bass.

Hislop, D., Bosua, R. & Helms, . R., 2018. Knowledge management in organizations : a critical introduction. 4 ed. s.l.:Oxford univ Press.

Machado, C. & Davim, . J. P., 2016. Organizational management : policies and practices in a global market. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; NewYork, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Richard D Schoolar, D., 2016. Planning for organizational success: a leadership guide to achieving success with a plan. Pittsburgh, PA : Dorrance Publishing Co.

Rohleder, E., 2010. Taylor’s Theory of Scientific Management and the Implications for Contemporary Management Practice. s.l.:Munich GRIN Verlag .

Stoyanov, S., 2017. A Theory of Human Motivation. s.l.:CRC Press.

Walker, A., Accadia, R. & Costa, . C. M., 2016.44(8), pp. 1059-1069. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jcop.21827

https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.21827

Wellin, M., 2016. Managing the Psychological Contract: Using the Personal Deal to Increase Business Performance. s.l.:CRC Press.