Organizational culture problems in a male-dominated, outdated management firm

Resolving Organizational Culture Issues

Situational Overview and Background of the Issues

The organisation consists of 43 employees managed by a management team of 3 males in their middle 60s: a Director, General Manager, and National Sales Manager. The average age of the employees is 30, and only 3 of the employees are female. The 3 managers all adhere to very outdated authoritarian management styles and communication patterns, routinely resorting to verbal abuse and screaming. The managers maintain very high expectations; meanwhile, they pay their employees less than is standard within their industry. Female employees are paid even less for doing the same jobs as their male counterparts and they receive less respect and deference than male colleagues in identical positions. The management team spends a large percentage of company profits, partly because they adamantly refuse to adopt newer technologies that have already become standard in contemporary business organisations as well as in their industry. In general, the organisation's personnel do not respect the managers and this is reflected in an unusually high turnover rate.

The Impact of Diversity Issues

Gender

The three female employees endure significantly worse treatment by management than their male counterparts. All three managers regularly employ pejorative sexist terminology, such as addressing female personnel by the terms "honey" and "sweetheart." In any situation involving the delegation of supervisory authority or responsibility, management invariably prefers male employees, ignoring any requests by female employees to be considered for projects or other responsibilities. The female personnel are instructed to submit their work to male colleagues for review before submitting them to management, even where the respective female employee is more experienced than the male employee. The three female employees all receive less compensation than their male colleagues occupying identical positions and fulfilling the same responsibilities.

Spiritual Orientation

The three managers make occasional references to "good Christian" values and sometimes compliment staff members on trinkets or jewelry with apparent Christian identity; they also sometimes make references to the fact that the Director and General Manager are members of the same church, such as in connection with work-related conversations they have over the weekend. Meanwhile, the management, communication, and interpersonal styles of the managers are antithetical to even the most secular conceptual approaches to so-called "Christian" ideals. They neither express nor manifest any respect for others; and they violate fundamental and foundational Christian concepts such as "do unto others." They make decisions and exercise their authority to change elements of the office environment without any explanation or apparent need, even where those arbitrary decisions cause significant annoyance and ultimately interfere with operational productivity.

To the staff, those types of decisions, such as to reassign work stations and to order restructured working teams without any justification or explanation, appear to be nothing more than deliberate attempts to demonstrate authority by its exercise and even outright malice. As a result, employees are guarded about expressing any preferences because they believe management will exploit any apparent opportunity to cause instability and to prevent employees from becoming "too comfortable" in the office. Naturally, there is no trust of management on the part of the staff; a culture of secrecy prevails along with the mindset that the less management knows about them the better.

Policies and Practices that Affect Interpersonal Communications

In some respects, elements of the managers' management style are contagious in precisely the manner described in the relevant literature (Avolio, Walumbwa, & Weber, 2009). Instead of demonstrating patience and consideration, some coworkers -- particularly those with seniority and supervisory responsibilities -- have emulated the unforgiving authoritarian style of management. In some cases, they do so while excusing their conduct on the basis of mutual awareness of the consequences faced by supervisors if work for which they are responsible fails to meet management's approval. As a result, there has been an evolution of sorts in which long-term employees typically treat their subordinates in substantially the same manner as the managers treat their staff.

The senior staff members often resort to raising their voices inappropriately and they respond to being criticized by management by blaming their subordinates for being responsible. As a result, employees communicate much less with their superiors than they do among themselves and with significantly less disclosure. This undermines operational efficiency because employees seek guidance from one another in situations where it would ordinarily be more appropriate to direct to supervisors. Another result of these communications and interpersonal styles that prevail in this organization is an unusually low employee retention rate. Predictably, this also undermines organizational efficiency and increases overhead costs by virtue of the continual expense of hiring and new-hire training and by the corresponding diminution in productivity that is typical in any organization where high turnover means that a significant percentage of personnel are still learning their roles and responsibilities (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Similarly, the fact that an unusually high number of employees are perpetually searching for alternative vocational opportunities that will enable them to resign from the organization also significantly decreases productivity during that period (Robbins & Judge, 2009).

Predictably, turnover rates are highest among female employees by virtue of the extent to which they are patronized, insulted, and deprived of equal opportunities to earn and to increase their responsibility levels or advance within the organization. A culture of resentment and "us against them" exists on the part of the three female employees and that is a pattern that has been substantially consistent with other female personnel in this organization. In many respects, some male employees have adopted the attitudes modeled by management toward females, even employees who had never previously held chauvinistic or sexist attitudes. This also is entirely consistent with the relevant literature pertaining to the adoption by subordinates of attitudes and values of superiors (Fitch, 2010). As a result, female employees tend to consult primarily with the other female employees and only as necessary with their supervisors and other male employees.

Furthermore, the managers' disdain for adopting modern technology, particularly for communications, has generated apathy on the part of many employees who are responsible for soliciting new business. They have come to expect and to anticipate surprised responses that obviously mask amusement or disappointment with humor (or just silence) and they have become conditioned to avoid putting themselves in positions where they will be embarrassed in that regard. Some employees have also learned to exploit that situation to their benefit, such as by pretending not to know one another's email addresses when that provides an excuse to avoid responsibilities or having to inconvenience fellow employees. This To a great degree, this is also consistent with the relevant literature about the evolution of defensive reactions as a consequence of resentment toward the unfair and inconsiderate business practices of managers and supervisors who are perceived as uncaring or malicious (Avolio, Walumbwa, & Weber, 2009; Maxwell, 2007).

Recommendations

On the basis of the existing issues in this organization, the following recommended changes would be advisable:

First, management personnel must receive training to increase their awareness of the degree to which their policies, practices, and management and communications styles are adversely impacting their organization. It is anticipated that the best approach to making any meaningful progress in this respect would be by emphasizing the connection between the prevailing culture and practices of the organisation and revenue. In general, this is a fundamental constant within the change management process in so far as reluctance on the part of decision-makers is concerned (Robins & Judge, 2009).

Second, once management agrees to consider making the necessary changes to increase productivity and revenue, they should receive a formal outline detailing the various specific changes required to improve the organisation. In order to improve morale and productivity, management must change the way that managers criticize their employees. Specifically, there must be a logical basis for criticism based in the failure to follow objective processes or directions. Conversely, if management hopes to improve the office culture, employees must never be criticized for decisions or actions that they could not have known were improper in advance. Most importantly, undesirable results of decisions or actions can never be the basis for criticism if the decision or action in question was approved or otherwise considered appropriate at the time it was made. To allow management to criticize employees after the fact as a result of circumstances that were not reasonably attributable to any mistake or fault of employees completely undermines the type of trust and perception of being appreciated by their organisations that are essential to long-term employee satisfaction, trust, loyalty, and retention (Douglas & Zivnuska, 2008; Maxwell, 2007).

Third, management must come to the understanding that it is never professionally appropriate to scream at fellow employees of subordinates. Presumably, the purpose of criticism is to help employees improve their performance for the benefit of the organisation. However, when they are subjected to verbal abuse or unfair criticism, the predictable result is to from resentment toward the employer and to the organisation and to care less rather than more about performing their best. Instead, they modify their performance for defensive purposes to avoid blame and they adopt practices of concealing any negative information that could conceivably result in criticism or blame (Maxwell, 2007). The managers must, therefore, come to understand that if their goal is to maintain maximum productivity, efficiency, and revenue, it is in their interest to fundamentally change the way that they communicate with their employees and the manner in which they express dissatisfaction even where it might be warranted under the circumstances.

Moreover, management must receive training to better socialize them to contemporary standards about interacting with females in the workplace. Specifically, they must change the way that they treat females as less able or less deserving of the chance to fulfill vocational responsibilities. They must also change the way that they address females in the workplace. Naturally, pejorative euphemisms (i.e. "honey" and "sweetheart") must never be used to address employees. Furthermore, if the organisation hopes to generate optimal productivity from its female personnel, it would be advisable to treat females and males equally and to extend that principle to their relative compensation packages. According to the available literature, pay differential that is perceived as unfair undermines employee morale and increases employee turnover (Thompson, 2008). It is entirely conceivable that the difference in salary at issue is significantly less than the financial cost associated with the consequences of current discriminatory policies in that regard.

Fourth, management must change the way that it responds to initiative on the part of employees. If the organisation wishes to benefit from the productivity associated with a positively-motivated staff, it must create a culture that embraces personal initiative and that rewards employees who express an interest in improving aspects of operations or policies that they believe may be beneficial to the organisation. The current style of response on the part of management in that regard is the antithesis of the positive culture necessary to promote beneficial contribution in that respect (Maxwell, 2007). Ideally, management must permit two-way communication and so-called "upward management" to maximise the contribution from its most talented and dedicated personnel (Gove, 2008).

Finally, the organization must conduct an operational and process audit that includes the incorporation of the most appropriate and beneficial technology. Already, the failure of management to adopt standard communications and other digital technologies has affected productivity, client relations, and revenue adversely. In the future, technological innovation and the dependence of organisational success on maintaining the most up-to-date business technology is only expected to increase further and the need to adopt emerging technology will likely increasing continually owing to the ever-increasing rates of technological development and the adoption of new communications technologies in contemporary business (George & Jones, 2008).