Organisational Development - Essay Example

? Organisational Development This paper discusses the organisational development plan for the business named Jim's Cleaning. Jim’s Cleaning has been founded in 1994. Jim’s Cleaning offers services in cleaning for home and office. The cleaning service ranges from carpets to windows, blinds cleaning in office or home, washing of cars, cleaning of kitchens and its appliances, floors of factory and office. It is a leading domestic and commercial service provider in cleaning industry in almost every state with a top class reputation. As employees have direct relationship with customers, profitable customer experiences can only be built on the basis of relationship rather than on transactions. Annual reports show decline in the profit of Jim’s Cleaning as compared to the previous year. The reason for drop in profits was investigated. Employee appraisal shed light on the reason that employees are lacking interpersonal skills and professional work ethics. This is the main reason of low morale of employees and ultimately decline in service and customer satisfaction. In order to maximize the profit chain of service, Jim’s Cleaning needs to concentrate on employee satisfaction by increasing their interpersonal skills. This will result in satisfied employees and ultimately make it customer-centric. “Being truly customer-centric requires that everyone in the organisation be aligned to have contact, or the opportunity to affect customers” (Kotler and Armstrong 125). So the aim of this paper is to identify this issue and to bring difference in the attitudes of the employees which will ultimately lead to customer retention. SWOT Analysis If we look at resources and capabilities of Jim’s cleaning, it can be easily judged that it is creating competitive advantages by adding values in the organization. Strengths The internal and external strengths are distinctive competiveness in the service range from domestic to professional. It has adequate and equitable financial resources. It has a strong brand name. It has dedicated employees. It has speed and efficiency in service delivery. It consists of a capable workforce. Weaknesses It has inability to raise capital to the desired standard. It has low employee morale. Obsolete technology is used. Time lag in maintaining trust and goodwill is present. Opportunities Favourable circumstances that can be a source of potential benefit for Jim’s Cleaning are as follows: After training programs, results will depict improvement in employee’s attitude and this will also result in possible new markets and strong brand loyalty by old customers. Emerging new technology from order taking to service delivery can enhance competitiveness. Expansion of business can be made in other cities as well as a result of increased customer’s awareness in cleaning services. Expansion can be made in service range as well to increase customer’s loyalty and broader range of customer needs. Threats The possible threats to Jim’s Cleaning are as follows: Low morale will result in employee turnover. Many competitors are entering the market. Development Plan In order to resolve the problem, the development process comprises of following steps: Problem Lack of service employee’s interpersonal attributes in Jim's Cleaning is negatively impacting customer satisfaction and their commitment to retain withntioon to Jim' 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 this company. Decreasing morale of employees is directly affecting the level of satisfaction of customers and ultimately success chart of Jim’s Cleaning. Employees in Jim’s Cleaning are not getting successful in satisfying customer to the optimum level. Henceforth customers are not spreading the awareness of Jim’s Cleaning to their friends or family. This is damaging the image of the organisation in different ways. Needs are going unfilled, word of mouth and repeated customers are declining. Ultimately, bad customer service will result in closing down of the business. Satisfaction can only be obtained through achieving and increasing those wants and needs connected with emotional psyche of employees which they are expecting from the services of the organisation (Fretwell 80). Only by understanding and enhancing employee interpersonal attributes that are directly and indirectly affecting their performance will lead to customer satisfaction. Interpersonal communication skills are a necessary contributor towards promoting and flourishing Jim’s Cleaning. It concluded that Jim’s Cleaning need to focus on following: What types of interpersonal skills are necessary for performing specific job? How bad interpersonal skills are affecting the service sales? How it can bring improvement in customer relationship by enhancing interpersonal skills? By finding solutions, change can be observed in the image of the organisation. Employee can also become successful in meeting the goal of customer satisfaction and their retention. Ultimately this will add profitability to the business of Jim’s Cleaning. As we know, the type of services provided by Jim’s Cleaning involves direct contact with customers. That is why non-verbal communication is a leading contributor in evaluation of services. Communication of Problem Being head of the business operations, my next step after recognizing the problem in my organisation was to communicate this issue with all my team members with the aim of taking their suggestions and to arrive at the best possible solution. Firstly, the problem was discussed with my HR manager and possible solutions were investigated for the problem. As we know, the problem is related to interpersonal skills of the customer service staff, so it was decided to involve the team into the process of finding all possible solutions. Another reason behind involving all the service staff team members was to avoid their resistance against change. Ways to Engage Team in Change Process It decided to call a group of 6-8 employees and discuss with them their best or worst experiences, their wishes, and values to identify the best solution of the problem. During the discussion, the employee’s knowledge, skills and attitude approach towards customer services were evaluated. Having discussed with them, HR manager and I concluded that the employees are lacking the right knowledge of exactly what services are offered by Jim’s Cleaning. They also need to refine their English language skills in both written and speaking form. They need to have excellent listening and speaking skills in order to become an effective agent in customer service. They will become effective listeners only if they learn the art of communication styles with customers, their purchasing behaviours and what motivates customers. They need to groom their personalities by becoming more empathic, optimistic, outgoing and organized (Robbins and Coulter 80). Possible Solution After identification of gap through discussion, my HR manager and I decided to hire a trainer to provide the employees with the knowledge and skills needed for performing the required job role effectively and efficiently. The training strictly revolved around how to increase the soft skills of the service employees who deal directly with the customers. The possible areas of skill set that require improvement was also suggested. The following necessary skills have been decided for inclusion in the training program for the employees of Jim’s Cleaning. Company and product information: Firstly, we will design our training course which will provide insight into our company’s mission, vision, standards, policies and procedures and what product and services are offered by Jim’s cleaning. Customer engagement: Training program also teaches the art of engaging the customers in providing services. This is important to do because customer engagement will give a good lasting impression on the customer. Facial expressions; Training program also revolves around managing the facial expressions. This is important because the employees need to learn that it’s necessary for them to always maintain a smile on their face. It is important to always make eye contact with the customers. This allows trust to be built with the customer. Accessibility: Employees will learn how to answer all queries and concerns of customers whether they are on phone or are personally meeting them. They need to learn that never be too busy when it comes to accessing and answering the customers. Personal Appearance: Employees will learn how to make their personalities presentable in front of their customers. Their gestures, postures, and stance matter a lot as they have to deal directly with their customers, and it is important in building trust and first impression. Voice: They will learn how to make their voice clear, how to speak well, how to make the voice pitch clear, how to articulate words and sentences. This is so because voice pitch, tone, pace and volume have the ability to attract customers and build trust level. Reliability: Training course will also cover how to make employees capable of keeping their promises with customers. This is important because whenever employees make any promise it becomes directly associated with the organisation’s image and reputation. Attitude: Service employees need to be aware of attitude colours. They will have to learn how to react to customer’s questions because what the customer listen and how they respond has a direct connection with the attitude of service employee. Training program will include the methods to teach employees how to be polite in their behaviour and how to show empathetic attitude for the customers. Responsible behaviour: Training course will include the methods through which employees will learn how to understand their responsibility towards their jobs. They will learn whenever they make any mistake; they should accept and work upon rectifying the problem. They should also work upon taking corrective action in the problem and be accountable for the results. Stress management: Our program also rotates around how to manage stress and pressure at workplace. They need to learn how to maintain balance between good and bad stress and how to make stress a source of motivation for them. Empathy: Training also teaches them to be empathetic towards customers. They will learn the importance of being empathic rather than showing sympathy to customers. By learning this behaviour they will be able to show the customers that they are really careful about them and their situations. They will learn how to give proper time to customers for resolving their queries and show them that customers are valued. Team work: Training will also take into consideration how to teach employees to work in groups that often have considerable authority in making decisions. It is important and essential element to teach them. Training will consist of role plays and team building skill activities. Conflicts resolution: The training course will also cover how to deal with conflicts that arise at workplace. Training will allow them to recognise, manage and transform the conflicts into a positive force for advancing the services for customers and for meeting the goal of the firm. Ethics: The course will also include the topic of how to behave ethically at workplace. Practice of major values within organisation can only be done by individuals. However, it does not mean that the whole organisation is ethical. Foundation of ethically sound organisation can only be build through publishing, practicing, establishing and executing these values by employees. Audio clips featuring ethical behaviour will be played for the employees so that employees are well aware of ethical behaviour that is to be observed at workplace. Training Method: After deciding the content for training, the next step was to decide what will be the best method to deliver these contents to employees. Another thing to consider was whether program is in house or outsourced. While discussing with the HR manager, it was decided to arrange the program within workplace so that employees understand better the requirements of the job. It was decided to arrange classroom training for the employees. Classroom training is effective for delivery of any type of training content and materials. Instructor will cover a great deal of information in relatively short time. The training program will allow open discussions and instructor will be able to capture the imagination of class. It will be a proper class with all facilities like multimedia, proper seating arrangements and fully air conditioned. The training content will consist of different role plays and activities in order to make trainees able to respond to specific problems they may encounter in their jobs. Different interpersonal skills related to case studies will also be a part of the training material. The aim of case studies is to provide trainees with the information to make decisions which will ultimately increase their ability to make decisions actually at the workplace. Help screens will also be included in the program to give additional explanations when ever needed. Computers will be available to trainees to utilize the advantage of repeating the concept as needed. Training program will consist of audio clips, animations, interactive videos and graphics to make training more attractive and interesting for the trainees. Along with interpersonal skills, training employees will also take English language classes. The purpose behind this training course is to help employees deal with diversity issues. Focus will be paid on the vocabulary which is crucial while dealing with customers. This training program will be followed up throughout the year on regular basis. Training program will revolve around 3 hours and for one day in a week, probably on Saturdays. A professional trainer will be hired for increasing the interpersonal attributes of the service employees. Employees will attend refresher training courses about customer service in proper class rooms and the trainer will also arrange seminars at the head office. Manager of Human Resources & Training and head of all operations will, too, participate in these training programs and seminars. By doing so, a powerful message can be delivered to the employees of Jim’s Cleaning that the top management is concerned about the customer services philosophy and expects that extraordinary customer service should be delivered by the staff. Evaluation and Impacts For determining the worth of this training program, it decided to use the Kirkpatrick model of evaluation. Training program will be evaluated after each class by asking the participants’ opinion. This approach is a good way to obtain feedback. This approach will provide us response and suggestions for improvement quickly and inexpensively. This approach cannot depend upon responses solely. A pre test and post test are designed. Employees have to participate in this test before their training starts. If there is any differences in pre-test and post-test, we can easily judge the impact of training on employees. One important thing to consider is that tests may accurately indicate what trainees learn, but they give us little insight into whether the training participants instil change in their behaviour. For this reason, we will administer a post test after each class. We will compare our sales profit reports quarterly after every training session to determine the extent to which our training program have achieved the stated objective and have actually impacted performance. Appraisals of employees will be conducted after every six months to determine the improvement in the performances and to see whether training achieved its desired purpose or not. The on-going training program will help to boost our employee satisfaction. Through this training program the employees will become more confident, can upgrade their skills, can pace with the changes occurring in the organisation, can work with full potential, and can deal with changing demands and needs. The training program will result in employees who are creative, motivated, satisfied with their careers and have high morals. Training course will allow them to achieve higher customer satisfaction and responsiveness in meeting the job roles. After this program, employees can produce tangent benefits for the organisation. If employees are satisfied at workplace, then this will result in increased performance which ultimately will lead to higher sales. As a result, Jim’s Cleaning will have more loyal customers which will result in profit and growth because customer loyalty is a direct result of employee satisfaction. Through this program employees will add value because now they will be more satisfied, loyal and productive in their jobs. Employee satisfaction, in turn, results primarily from training program enables them to deliver best services to customers. Conclusion Organisation development is a necessary process of improving organisation effectiveness and for achieving the desired goals. If Jim’s Cleaning concentrates on creating value in employees only, then it will be able to make a positive connection between employee satisfaction and organisation profitability. The management should recognise that employee morale, performance and overall job satisfaction is a highly important component for increased profitability. If this change is implemented in the organisation, it will definitely produce positive results. Successful execution of the plan will allow Jim’s Cleaning to constantly perpetuate this synergistic relationship. By this relationship, Jim’s Cleaning will win customer loyalty that ultimately results in increased corporate profitability. Satisfied employees are a precondition for increasing productivity, responsiveness, quality, and customer service. Works Cited Fretwell, Barbara. Promoting Organisational Competency: A Solution to Increasing Employee Morale and Customer Satisfaction. Ceres Innovations, 2002. Print. Kotler, P., and Armstrong, G. Principles of Marketing. 13th Edition. New York: Pearson Education Inc, 2010. Print. Robbins, S. P., and Coulter, M. Management. 9th Edition. Pearson Prentice Hall, 2009. Print. Read More