Human Resources and Organizational Behavior

Human Resources and Organizational behavior in Shopping Mall organizations (METRO Cash and Carry)

Organization is a social place working for the productivity and prosperity of mutual goals and aims. Shopping Malls are the big organizations having products and services. On daily basis thousands of people come and go for buying things or even visit the malls for the window shopping. Hence, the customer services must be excellent. People must be valued and catered in the way they need. Shopping Mall is a diversified workplace that includes people, their behaviors, their attitudes and the way they interact with each other. If we exclude people from the Shopping Malls then there would be products and empty buildings only.

Human beings have different priorities, different hobbies, living standards, way of living, the cultures, the way they speak, the accent, the language, different kind of dresses they wear and the different behavior that is the core part of any one's personality or the culture they are brought up in. That is why the organizations remain on the toes to come up to human expectations to the extent they can. Respecting the individual differences is known as being ethical. Ethics are very much important to follow especially in organizations that are having customer as their focal point. Especially when the organizations have customer sales, customer care and customer retention orientation like shopping malls. It is the sole discretion of the staff of the mall to interact with the customers in the humble manners so they can visit you frequently and have frequent sales.

2. Organizational Behavior and Globalization in Shopping Malls:

The globalization has changed the organizational trends in terms of work ethics, workforce diversity, by having people from different cultures and ethnic groups. This diversity or change in organizational avenue has a great responsibility to maintain the workplace discipline, harmony and equality. The Metro cash and carry is a big mall that has been expanded in more than 29 countries of the world by having 120,000 skilled employees. There is a vast range of customers including normal household customers, hotels, business organizations, retailers, restaurants and many more. It is one big wholesale market in which people do visit for monthly groceries, buying of more than 20,000 food items and more than 30,000 non-food items, which includes electronics, crockery, clothing, equipment and much more.

It is found that the companies who go global and they are known as multinationals who tend to enter the new market by removing the boundary lines and market barriers. These are the companies who hold the greatest responsibility on their shoulders to follow the ethics as their company policy by having employee relations and to know the cultural aspects of any country. It is the organization's responsibility to operate ethical while entering a new country as they have to create their own image in the people's eyes (Mahdavi, 2001).

3. Cultural Diversity and Organizational Behavior:

Organizations have different kind of people with different habits and sometimes you have to make a group with the people you don't like. It looks so bad and unethical if you make a big noise that I don't want to work with this person. This behavior is quite unethical and irritating, and this attitude can hurt the others feelings. Business ethics and organizational behavior go side by side while doing business or work, in national or international market. Before the advent of organizational development and organizational behavior tools got established the employees were taken as the workers in the organization. The heads of the organizations used to take employees as workers not as assets to them. But soon the organizational development techniques have been evolved, the organizations started thinking of the employees and now they take workers or the employees as the biggest assets of the organizations. That has boosted the employee image and self-worth. By this thought the goals of the organizations have been aligned with the goals and objectives of employees. This has helped in having a better relationship between the workforce and organization by having the social objectives rather than individualistic approach.

4. Organizational Behavior and Customer Focus:

Apart from an extensive range of products the customer services there are other important aspects in which Metro focuses a lot. The human resource department is highly efficient and effective in terms of response to customer needs and requirements. The human resource depart is continuously evaluating the employees' performance, assessing the gaps between actual and desired performance. Evaluation forms are present on the entrance desk for the customers; they can fill according to their experience. The Metro Cash and Carry is always ready to have the critics in order to improve their customer skills according to customer demand. The behavioral response is always examined; the way the employees respond to customer is always being examined. This Organizational Development tool has made Metro a benchmark for other malls and cash and carries.

It is not the traditional cash and carry. It is a high technology Mall people visit for the enjoyment purposes. If the big giant customers such as hotels and the restaurants have the orders they can call, do fax or an email. The Metro does deliver in the form of big consignments to the customer. This strategy is helping in enhancing its customer value and customer satisfaction.

The human resource department is always on the toes to cater every customer to make them satisfy. It is mandatory for each employee to exhibit a competent behavior to every customer whether big or small. The researcher found that the ethical behavior always help to control the temperament of an individual (Morf, Schumacher and Vitell, 1999, p. 256)

The Metro Cash and Carry is always striving to expand its focus on organizational behavior of employees, peers and the customers. The mutual respect makes a good and effective team. The dedicated sales force work hard to manage the sales floors by effective communication with the customers who visit the Metro on regular basis. This helps the employees to understand the behavior of different customers on a daily basis and it is like a self training to them to develop a good reputation. So the customer will come back again.

5. Healthy Environment and Organizational Behavior:

The healthy environment is the basis of maintaining the discipline and ethics at the workplace. This will make people to collaborate and help each other in the time of difficulty. Business ethics or the corporate ethics started establishing from 1980. The organizations were developing and there processes were polishing with the time. Employees in the organizations were not paid according to the work and efforts they used to exert, but soon the establishment of the ethical issues, this problem has been sought out and now they paid just and fair. If the employee is satisfied he will be working with motivation and definitely bring a good name for the organization and for himself. Otherwise if the employees are not satisfied they tend to commit corruption which is unethical, the issue most of the organizations are facing. This crime happens where the employees are receiving non-equitable salaries; the people may get burnout, frustrated or angry with the workplace. The frustration or the burnout will make a cynical man. The communication or the transfer of information may get affected. The communication of the relationships among the team may distort due to lack of appropriate compensation. The favoritism and false benefits to a group and avoiding the other ethnic group can be a great cause of the dysfunctional work place.

The employees are the assets of any organizations, they are the people who are responsible for the growth of the organization, and as the organization is a combination of different people from different cultures and religions. The company has to make certain rules and regulation regarding ethics and its management that nobody can interfere in anybody's religion or culture, and everyone must respect the other without any discrimination.

There is a strong relationship between Business ethics and organizational behavior. When a person is being ethical, it surely means he is not going to perform the wrong deeds; he will work righteousness and maintain his or her standards as an upright person. When a person is ethical it means he will not do favoritism and will take the decisions on merit not with the cultural or social biases. The same goes for the organizational heads they are supposed to remove the cultural differences, improve the uniformity and equity and fair organizational system to all levels of hierarchy and people. The researchers found that if the employees are motivated, they tend to exhibit good behavior to the customers that makes a good image in customer's eyes for the services you render (Bienstock, DeMoranville and Smith, 2003, p. 357)

6. Training and Development:

Mall culture is expanding day by day. It has been seen that most of the workforce that is working in malls is not very educated, shy and even does not possess the complete details about the product features. So when these less trained and educated employees see any customer coming towards them. They try to avoid, move here and there or goes out of the reach of the customer. The Malls do come under the category of Retail business. In which there are different brands, shops and products of different companies are present under one roof. Every customer who visits is different in terms of education, product knowledge, from educated or uneducated background. Here is the importance of human resource management plays its part; where the human resource department has to train the employees to cater every customer. So the employees can respond to every query that is being asked by the customer with wisdom and technique.

It is the sole discretion of the organizational heads to deliver the trainings to the employees of the organization. The coaching, training sessions should be on regular intervals. Informational handouts should be distributed on regular basis. In this way everybody will be equipped with the important information regarding the ethics or workplace. These efforts towards the workforce will make them aware and will avoid committing an unethical act or misbehave with anyone. Ethics are the code of conduct of spending a healthy and peaceful life. It is found that the ethics are the morals that helps individual to take certain good decisions that cannot cause any problem to the other, ethics helps a person to take a right decision, holds his temperament towards the bad things and spend life in a normative way, the person who have the ethical values, his behavior is always predictable that he will be acting like this in a particular situation. That is why business organizations of today focus on the ethical values and organizational behavior in order to remove the uncertainties regarding behavior of people who are brought together by different cultures and diversities. So they all merge together and work together in a healthy environment.

7. Metro Cash and Carry and Customer Values:

Metro has the wide extensions and customer focus on more than 29 countries. It is difficult to manage the management and standards of state of art in every country. Every new community and their responses are difficult to manage. But the Human resource department has one focus everywhere that is organizational behavior towards the customer and their satisfaction level. This helps in maintaining the harmony and value among the employees, working staff and especially the customer. Customer retention is a challenge for every organization operating in this competitive era and time of quality and features. Monthly groceries buyers, small businesses and retail outlets are the customers of Metro Cash and Carry. The management has extended its hands to all the business units and household units to expand its customers. The thing is they try to value each and everyone at the same ground of quality response and competent behavior. That makes the customer stick to Metro Mall.

8. Visit to Metro Cash and Carry:

The visit to Metro Cash and Carry was very productive. The meeting with the head of human resource department and employees has explained every aspect of the organization lucidly that has been focused. Plus the head of human resource department has stated the Metro's objective in some bullet points such as:

1. They want to be market leader in Cash and Carry Malls

2. Their focus is customer satisfaction

3. Everyone in the organization is ethically committed, values and maintain the healthy environment throughout the organization

4. Every employee has a focus on communication

5. They want to be innovative in their quality, procedures and services

6. They have strong devotion to provide best services to customer and their money

7. The organization takes their employees as their most important asset, so they keep on investing them.

8. They try to adapt the atmosphere, ethics and culture of every region they enter

9. The organization tends to study the cultural dynamics of countries they work in.

The Organizational Environment at Metro Cash and Carry

Employee Values:

The head of human resource department explained us that every employee working at any level in the organization is considered equal; their valued opinions are always respected. The treatment given to each employee is just and fair. The management has never been biased to anyone. The management is successful in maintaining the trust among the employees, workers and management staff.

Bureaucratic Approach:

The Metro Cash and Carry is an organization that is open to everybody's opinions. They believe in two way communication style. They avoid orders to be given and obeyed forcefully. They always try to achieve the change in the organization by having open discussions and sharing of ideas are always respected and given values.

Autonomy Sharing:

Being a global organization Metro Cash and Carry believe in the sharing of power and decision making. The management is always making people take risks and try to learn by themselves. If any mistake or mishap occurs, we tend to encourage the person. So he does not stop being innovative.

Role of Managers:

The managers are always motivating employees to take their decisions. That is why everyone is enthusiastic and committed to workplace ethics.

Organizational and Personal Objectives:

Being a big organization, the Metro Cash and Carry has management by objective concept of working.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Rewards:

The Mall type organization needs that their employees remain happy and content. So the motivation level must be up all the time. The appraisal is being done on the actual performance level. No favoritism at any department. That is why the employees are satisfied with the transparent reward system which includes money and other perks as a reward.

Work as a Team:

The Metro Cash and Carry has developed the concept of working in teams. The team helps each member if anyone is facing any difficulty for example is customer queries. Like if a person is unable to answer all the questions of the customer, he or she will ask the other team member to answer them. In this way the learning process enhances.

Green Environment:

The Metro Cash and Carry respect the health of its employees and do care for them. That is why they provide safe and healthy environment for all the workers. If they feel something should improve, the management listens to it and implements the new and innovative environment needed by employees.