Change at Smith & Falmouth

¶ … Change at Smith & Falmouth Company The Smith & Falmouth Company is currently structured onto three distinct levels -- web development, logistics and marketing. The Chief Operating Officer (COO) is in direct and constant relationships with the nine members of the web development and logistics teams. In terms of the relationship between COO and the marketing team, this is less intense. The Chief Operating Officer, in turn, is subordinated to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), to whom he must defend his decisions.

Given the multitude of relationships and interactions within the internal environment of the organization, several managerial styles are implemented, including direct leadership or delegative leadership. The Organizational culture promotes the necessity for everyone to dedicate its efforts to the competition of their tasks. Little creativity and spontaneity are included in the daily operations. Communications, while existent and recognized in theory, are scarce and generally focused on passing around managerial dispositions to be executed by the subordinates.

Feedback from employees is not requested; furthermore, employee comments are often discouraged by the informal organizational culture. The currently implemented structure, methods and culture have proven enough to ensure the company's survival through today. Yet, the contemporaneous market place is far more dynamic and challenging than ever, meaning that economic agents have to exponentially improve the strength of their organizations in order to maintain and consolidate their competitive positions, and as such survive in the modern day business community.

In order to attain a higher level of performance and success within the future, it is necessary for the company to develop and implement several strategies in terms of human resource management or organizational culture. It should be mentioned that the strategies would not retrieve immediate results, and that the first months would seem to reveal greater costs than benefits.

Yet, it is necessary for the leadership team to stick to the implementation of the changes and they would be able, in less than a year's time, to reap the benefits. The paragraphs below recommend some strategic courses of action to be implemented in order to improve the company's strength. They also offer input on the best managerial practices to ensure the success of the strategies, as well as the estimated impacts of the strategic recommendations.

The current organizational culture is rather enclosed, with employees receiving little encouragement to be creative or independent. Several things should be considered in the implementation of an organizational culture change strategy. These are succinctly presented below: a) Recognize the importance of staff members Most modern day organizations recognize their employees, rather than their capitals, technologies or commodities, as the most valuable organizational asset (Hickman, 2005). A similar approach should be enforced at the Smith & Falmouth Company. This new approach would place the employee at the center of organizational decisions.

There are several means in which the managerial team could go about in changing the organizational perception of the staff members. The most effective of them include: The recognition of the individual -- this virtually means that the managers ought to enforce an organizational culture in which the individual staff member is treated and cherished as a valuable addition to the entity.

The employee should be recognized not only for his ability to complete the tasks, but also for his intellectual properties and know-how, as well as for his ability to be creative and spontaneous and as such help resolve current problems or find solutions to problems that have yet to be identified Employee motivation -- this is a crucial aspect in a fruitful employee -- employer relationship. Employee motivation can be achieved through both financial as well as non-financial processes.

The offering of financial incentives, in the form of salary increases, premiums and bonuses, is often the most popular means of employee motivation. Non-financial means, such as flexible working schedules or promotion opportunities, also constitute a powerful source of stimulated employees (Bruce, 2002). The realization of the important role played by the staff members within the Smith & Falmouth Company would lead to several beneficial effects.

At an individual level, the employees would feel better valued and they would as such increase their loyalty to the organization, their commitment to supporting the entity achieve its goals and their performances. At the group level, the teams would be more united and better prepared to deal with organizational chores. In terms of the entity, it will be better able to pursue its interests. b) Communications The ability to communicate effectively and efficiently is the pillar of any successful organizational outcome.

Communication in the workplace has a multitude of positive impacts on the individual, the team as well as the whole entity. Communication opens doors to finding solutions to the current and future problems; it also improves the relationship between employee and employer and it creates a more pleasant and fruitful working environment.

In order to reap these benefits, the managerial team ought to approach communications by: Promoting open dialogues within the organizational culture -- employees ought to be encouraged to interact with their supervisors, rather than avoid or simply obey them Creating an environment in which communications are possible -- this refers primarily to the offering of a telecommunications infrastructure by which employees have access to computers, internet, telephones and so on d) Employee empowerment Employee empowerment is generically understood as the practice of "giving employees responsibility and authority to make decisions regarding all aspects of product development or customer service" (Noe, 2004).

Within the Smith & Falmouth Company, the practice would be implemented top-down, and the result would be that of better motivated employees, more committed to organizational goals, and as such better chances of achieving company objectives of increased productivity, reduced costs, improved operational efficiency, increased profitability levels and so on. In order to.