Organisational Behaviour in Westpac Banking Corporation - Coursework Example

Restructuring: Westpac Banking Corporation Introduction It is clear that significant change of the life of a person occurs at birth. People often begin their lives with separate value and beliefs due to the constant change of their environment. From then on, people lives take a different direction according to an array of changes that often have positive impact and people need to adhere to the constant change in the environment. Dynamics of change face both the employees and also the managers in a business. Economic uncertainty, increased working hours, workplace stress and also the emergence of new technologies are the challenges workforce in all the organizations face today. The few organizations that change grow because they allow or make room for creativity, innovation and also improvement. This results to high returns in terms of profits and also has a competitive advantage over the other businesses because these businesses (ones which administer change) know the ways to survive in a world that is constantly changing. The businesses themselves can create the change so as to improve the productivity of the employees and also the whole business. Westpac Banking Corporation is a financial company in Australia and also New Zealand. This company has big vision of being among the leading financial institutions across the globe. Their principle is “to assist every one of our 10m customers accomplish all of their financial aspirations” (Westpac Banking Corporation, 2009). With constant change in information, Westpac Banking Corporation has to restructure their managing procedures and also motivate their employees in order to remain competitive and also survive into the 21st Century. Some of the changes affecting Westpac Banking Corporations are; global economy, the rapid development and emergence of information and technology. It has been discovered that the managers of Westpac Banking Corporation are working hard to achieve productivity alongside satisfaction. Westpac Banking Corporation is such a large financial institution that it has a branch at Australia and another branch in New Zealand. The bank is well known for its provision of quality financial services to its customers as well as its prestige. The managers are constantly adhering to the change that is always happening and they are working under pressure to ensure that they remain active even after the change has been implemented into the company. The managers have to anticipate the changes and also deal with them. Wood et al (2006) argued that there are a number of challenges that managers have to deal with because the world has proved that it needs improved and updated quality services. These challenges include; advanced technology, globalization, and employment relationships which often evolve management of knowledge, work place values, cultures and also ethics. Wood et al (2006) also reported that the new competencies for example that cross-cultural awareness often are regarded as important and are being identified so as to help the contemporary managers deal with the challenges.(p.8) Westpac Bank has managers who can go to work the next day and find new advanced changes but still deal with the changes because they are always prepared for anything. According to Wood et al. (2006), a manager is that “… person in an organization who is responsible for work that is accomplished through the performances contributions of one or more other people” (p. 9). Westpac Bank managers solve a wide range issues that deal with human resource. These include; change management, performance management and also organizational culture. While the managers proceed in influencing operations and directions of Westpac Bank, their roles change greatly (Travaglione & McShane, 2007). Removing middle management, changing the economic factors and also practicing delegated responsibility have all led to huge and growing expectations in most financial institutions that the employees are left to fully managed themselves during work hours. The effective managers in the Bank support and also establish the appropriate conditions needed for the purposes of high productivity, this is for the managers, their work units, the Westpac bank as a whole and also for individual contributors. The managers of Westpac bank are faced with the fact that technology and computer era has taken over manual work. The customers can now check their accounts online and make deposits and also withdrawals. The Westpac bank has sought to take their workforce to training instead of hiring new workforce. The fact that the new group of people in the contemporary world has acquired Information and Technology skills does not mean they have the commitment that the continuing employees have. The workforce that is already there has the attitude; dedication and also high team work performance because they have bonds with each other after working for a long time in the Westpac bank. The Westpac bank used manual ways to handle the customers. This meant that the paper work was handled without computers or high powered machines and at that time, the bank still had a large number of clients. When the changes in terms of technology occurred, Westpac bank took the initiative to change its performance so as to enhance efficiency, please their clients, cater for the workforce and also make maximum profits for the bank. Westpac Bank bought high powered machines that took over the manual labor. This did not mean that the workforce was all fired. The employees were taught how to manage these machines and also how to use different computer software to communicate with their clients any time of the day. This also meant that the bank had to hire a lot more employees who worked at night so that the bank could function both day and night 24hours. This was possible after the bank created its own website where the clients who had little time to physically go to the banks could access their accounts through the internet. The customer care of the banks and also the mangers were on standby all the time in case a client needed to talk to either a customer care or the management staff. This meant that the bank created a live chat in their websites for the clients to communicate directly to the bank’s workforce. Wood et al (2006) reported that the managers have to seek key results for a work team; task performance and also the maintenance of human resource. The task performance meant that the employees had to produce services that had good quality and also quantity. The workforce was also maintained over a long time. The bank taught each and every one of its managers on the qualities of being good reliable and also flexible managers would could face change and tackle it within seconds. Managers also had good relationships with their workforce and this meant that the work unit also changed with the change in environment. The work unit also achieved quality outcomes and high productivity. Westpac bank created systems that had high performance. This allowed the work unit to work together in a kind of unity that benefited the whole bank, its clients and also the stakeholders. The bank has highly skilled managers who care for the whole organization, stakeholders who accept the change in environment and finance the bank in so many ways and also the customers who are treated with utmost care making them have complete trust in the Westpac bank for such a long time. Westpac has altered its organization in order to have a positive outcome with the change. This has fostered progress in the bank and the bank has also put into consideration that most people working in the bank have their own cultures, behaviors, and also attitudes towards change. The bank takes it time to enlighten the work unit the importance to change instead of ignoring all these factors that the work force has. It is clear that even rigid organization cultures face constant environmental change. Wood et al (2006) reports that organizations in the public sector are often faced with much more greater challenges. The existence of relentless pressure put on Westpac bank to change its practices and also missions has made the bank alert and also high productivity. The bank communicates to its management and also the workforce. This makes it possible for the bank to have active and full support from the executive committee, employee involvement, intensive analysis and planning and lastly the knowledge that change is necessary and indeed appropriate. The forces for the constant change in Westpac bank are all found in its lifecycle as the bank passes from its creation, growth and towards maturity. Westpac bank takes into account the fact that the work unit has different people in it and some will adhere to change while others will reject. The bank convinces the group that has a lot of rejection the need to change. This meant that salaries had to be raised and also the working conditions favorable. Westpac bank changed its internal control structures; this included the reward systems and also the benefits. The bank also faced political changes where new policies were implemented and the bank changed its operation to fit well with the proposed policies. These changes made the bank ask critical who they were, what they wanted to achieve and also where they are heading to with the change in environment. Wood et al (2006) reported that there are three forces that favour organizational change; the dissatisfaction with all the existing states or situations, the strong attraction of desirable state or position (vision statement) and lastly the desire to formulate all the strategies that lead to desired vision a company wants to achieve. Westpac noted that these three factors were important every time a change was needed. These three factors motivated the work unit in so many ways. Strong leadership, good communication, tight alignment of organizational goals and the work unit, and also intensive explanation for the need to change meant the bank was serious with its visions in achieving only good results. Westpac has faced a lot of changes and in addition to advanced technology, the bank has also faced; political, economical, and also sociological changes. In the economical changes, the bank faced changes in the interest rates, unemployment rates, inflation and also the constant change in the country’s taxation system. In the political changes, the bank faced changes in the government from time to time, changes in the legislation and also the different budget requirements. The sociological factors included customers’ expectations and values, multiculturalism and work ethics. Change is not always caused by external factors but also the bank made its own internal changes. The other external changes that Westpac bank experienced were; when a competitor made changes or the clients demanded improved services. The internal changes include; the usual economic factors for example the recurrent expenditure or the reductions in capital, human factors are where the level if work force unit’s skills is improved, absenteeism and productivity are all considered, resource factors for example the age of an equipment or the required space in the office for each and every one of the work force is looked into. Westpac bank often has the planned and also unplanned changes. Planned changes are the types of changes that occur when there is effort on the side of the change agent (Wood et al, 2006). The bank undertakes the planned changes whenever the future can be predicted with certainty. A psychologist called Kurt Lewin in the 20th Century developed a model that Westpac bank uses when it is adhering to the environmental changes. These include; recognition of the need for change, preparation for the change, unfreezing of the company, making the changes and lastly refreezing the company. The five steps are really simple; the bank identifies the things that need to be changed, gain the agreement in the people who need to be involved to make the change a success and also the managers develop different strategies that they use to have the confidence of the employees in support of the changes. The changes are then implemented and this is often done by an outside agent so that the employees can trust the decision and view it as unbiased. The bank then stabilizes itself with the existence of the new changes. Sometimes the bank has had to deal with cases of reactive response from the workforce. This means that the changes have created a lot of problems that is why the workforce is reacting against it. In such cases the management goes back to the main problem and tries to fix it so that the bank will not fold. Most of the times Westpac bank experiences a proactive response towards the change implemented. This is a good response because the workforce accepts the changes and work together to achieve the same desired goal of the bank. Once Westpac bank realized that there is constant change in the environment, it decided to make or adopt the change programs that were available. The change strategies are; downsizing, acquisitions, merging, moving to other new and well improved premises or expanding their bank to New Zealand, restructuring itself and putting the programs where the work unit was self directed. The bank also created the empowerment programs for both the work unit and also the managers, re-engineered the banking process, employed matrix management and also introduced telecommunication or the virtual offices in the bank where the work unit was able to communicate using telephones or the emails or the live chats in the internet. Some of the employees in the bank had a hard time adjusting to change because not all the employees thought they could meet the required skills. People had a fear that in future they would be fired because the rates at which the changes occur are so fast for some people to adjust. Westpac bank however took care of all these uncertainties by taking the work unit for educational seminars that lasted for six to eight months. The bank paid for all the expenses incurred by their workforce in the process of learning how to adjust to the changes and later, the employees came back with new skills that made the bank improve its services and also profits. From the perspective of an organizational behavior it is important to how behavioral patterns vary across the national and cultural boundaries. Westpac bank has been able to accommodate the different work norms of its workforce and this has ensured high productivity because the work force is able to also control their attitudes towards work and also their fellow colleagues at the work place. The bank has reduced the levels of work related stress the work force might be experiencing by organizing annual parties to appreciate the great efforts the work unit put into place to make the bank a success. This act wins the trust of the employees in the fact that, the work unit feel like the management really care about their well being and this simple act improves the quality of service the work force give so that the feeling can be mutual. Managers in the bank “think globally” and then “act locally” when they are in pursuit of good opportunities. The term “glocal” was introduced by Charles Solomon (1997) when trying to illustrate the above trade-off. Westpac has resulted to employing a good percentage of the natives of Australia who are the Aborigines and the bank has also improved on globalization by employing the people of foreign countries to run the other back in New Zealand. It is obvious that globalization has augmented competition in business including market volatility. This fact has provided many people with jobs and good pay all over the world. Westpac bank has the vision of becoming a worldwide financial institution because many people in the world today have gained enough skills to even work at home for a foreign country. This is possible with the emergence of free internet service, computer system and also the business management software that is now readily available and affordable. The managers in the Westpac bank have developed emotional intelligence where they are able to successfully deal with the work unit in terms of the way they relate to them in the work place. For team building, it has been reported that emotional intelligence is a vital issue (Gosling & Gosling, 2004). According to Gosling & Gosling (2004) “…our emotional intelligence determines our potential for learning the practical skills that are based on its five elements: self awareness, motivation, self regulation, empathy, and adeptness in relationships/social skills” (p. 24). References Abraham, R. (2004). Emotional competence as antecedent to performance: a contingency framework. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs. 130(2), 117-143. Lockwood, N. R. (2006). Maximizing human capital: demonstrating HR value with key performance indicators. HR Magazine 51(9), 1-15. Roberts, B. (2004). Empowerment or imposition: Change management is a big hurdle for manager self-service implementation. HR Magazine 49(6), 157-163. West Banking Corporation. (1997) Our vision and values. Retrieved July 12, 2007, From http://www.westpac.com.au/internet/publish.nsf/Content/WICP+Our+values) Wood, J. M., Zeffane, R., Fromholtz, M. & Fitzgerald, J. A. (2006). Organizational behavior: Core concepts and applications. 1st Ed. Milton, QLD: John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd. Read More