Dilemma at Devils Den

Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

Training and Development is imperative to the organization’s progress. Training helps addressing employee weaknesses and builds a reliable and skilled workforce. This will improve the employees’ performance and boost their self confidence, and innovation. By acquiring the needed knowledge and skills, employees can perform more efficiently and increase the overall productivity of the organization.

A healthy organizational culture can be done with two different strategies. The first strategy being an action plan for developing a company that gives back to the employees. A good company understands the importance of building a positive morale and disposition among the staff. Regions Bank has developed a "team works" incentive plan that rewards good sales behaviors for the branches. This has given the employees an opportunity to not only make a base salary, but reap rewards for attainable quarterly sales goals as well. When an employee takes control of their production it gives a sense of ownership to the staff member to take pride in their company and help them develop on a larger basis.

The organization which I attended to analyze their organization, based on the three levels of culture discussed in class was Moe’s Southwest Grill. Over the past couple of years, my friends from Bloomington-Normal have raved about how good Moe’s food is. I thought that this class assignment would be a good opportunity to take up one of my friend’s offer to go to Moe’s. Doing so allowed me to get some great food and to further look into the company’s culture. From walking in, to getting food, and eventually leaving, it was evident what the employees at Moe’s believe in and the culture within the organization. Specifically relating to artifacts, espoused and enacted values, and basic assumptions, Moe’s organizational culture was extremely apparent.

A strong culture is said to exist where staff respond to stimulus because of their alignment to organizational values. (Dayton Business Journal website, 2002, para 1) Therefore, the Hearthside can be said to have a strong organizational culture. This is demonstrated through the employee’s dedication to the same goal of providing quality service. This can be seen through Gail as she attempted to provide extra croutons on the salad, waitresses using tip money to provide a customer with a meal, the cooks cooking the food in a quality way and having the food out on-time, and even the dishwashers taking some sort of pride in accomplishing the dishes in a timely matter. Ironically the biggest detriment to providing quality service at the Hearthside was management and their stingy policies, which demand a mandated amount of sour cream or croutons.

Workplace culture is often hard to describe, because it means something different in every organisation and many times employees feel it’s ‘just the way things are’. But so often it can define a company and when it’s not working well, everyone knows about it.

There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to structure and culture within an organization since industries and situations can vary. Furthermore, if an organization wants to improve its effectiveness and performance, their organizational culture needs to be strong and provide a strategic competitive advantage when it comes to its beliefs, and values. Organizations can differentiate itself from one another by those that do not have structure and culture. It is important to know that employees in all organizations want to work in an environment of trust and respect where they

As of now Susan works as a receptionist at a hair and nail salon. Over the past few years, Susan has held plenty of positions. Susan does not know what she is interested in, or what will work for her. Susan stated that she doesn’t know what she is good at. Susan doesn’t feel as though she would strive at any job. She states that at her last job her supervisor was sexist and racist, but she also revealed that she often missed work or tardy due to hangovers.

A member of staff who regularly works for at least 3 hours during the night period are referred to as night workers. The night period is between the hours of 11pm to 6am, unless the worker and employer agree a different night period but this must include midnight to 5am and the shift must be at least 7 hours long. This must be agreed in writing.

This learner can recommends that it will be up to the nurses to be willing to make substantial changes in their behavior. Managers may be urged to consider altering the starting times of shifts whenever possible to make schedules more compatible with circadian rhythms. Avoid scheduling employees to work more than two or three consecutive night shifts and to providing adequate recovery time between shifts, especially when between night and day shifts. Hours of service regulations, where applicable, should also be considered in the development of a fatigue management program.

Not only is a strong corporate culture good for business by increasing customer satisfaction, it also can help to decrease turnover and save on human resources expenditures. Internal integration should start the minute a new employee enters a company. Training of new employees should include some way of helping them to understand the company's culture. The new hire training program currently in use at Wal-Mart stores includes videos and other information about the founding of the company as well as other general and specific information about the company's culture as well as expectations related to this culture. This is important because a company's culture is not always easily apparent to newcomers and this is what keeps Wal-mart's culture strong (Berg, 2001).

An organization’s culture governs day to day behavior. This type of power may be seen as a control mechanism, which businesses use to manipulate internal and external perception. Every organization has a set of assumed understandings that must be adopted and implemented by new employees in order for them to be accepted. Conformity to the culture becomes the primary basis for reward by the organization. “The role of culture in influencing employee behavior appears to be increasingly important in today’s workplace, as organizations have widened spans of control, flattened structures, introduced teams, reduced

In the case study of the Dilemma at Devil’s Den, we have a student snack bar Devil’s Den, which was managed by contract with an external company College Food Services (CFS) that had many organizational challenges that needed to be immediately addressed. An employee Susan realized these challenges. One of the main many problems was the theft that was going on for a long time. The employees were allowing their friends to take free food, and they themselves were also taking food in large quantities when leaving their shifts. The storage room could be easily accessible as it was unlocked all the time. Employees took advantage of this situation to take free freebies from the storage

Organizational culture has been described as shared values and beliefs that underline a company’s identity. A strong culture that encourages employees from the top to the bottom in adaptation and change can increase organizational performance by energizing and motivating employees, shape behaviors, unify personnel in the goals / objectives and align employee’s actions with the priorities of the company (Daft, R., 2013). Creating a constructive culture should be a manager’s top priority because the right culture will propel a company into a top performer in its industry.

Existing culture can in times be very hard to continue with because of the change in the growth or in the strategic change in the organisation. At such appropriate web of culture is important to be identified or that can be a problem in the progress of the organisation. These identified elements will give organisation a bigger picture of what was going wrong and how can they change it towards betterment of the organisation.