Organizational behavior issues of Vodafone Hutchison Australia
Organizational behavior is the scientific study of the behavior of the human being within the structure of the organization (Wilson, 2018). However, it should be understood at two levels, one at the micro level and other at the macro level. The micro level analysis of the organizational behavior discusses about the individual human behavior and their impact in the organizational achievements. However, at the macro level it is the understanding of the behavior of the organization, how they adapt to the market situation and their strategic management. This paper will analyze the various micro level analysis of the organizational behavior within the context of the Vodafone Hutchison Australia.
Hutchison telecommunications (Australia) is private limited company, which has fifty percent share with Vodafone Australia (Vodafone Australia, 2018). This merger was a result of the joint venture of 2009.The Hutchison Australia and Vodafone Australia brought together their consumer base under one umbrella. Presently, it has over 5 million users alone in Australia and its annual revenue is over $3.4 billion (Vodafone Australia, 2018). This merger had not only brought together two big companies of the country, it also brought their global expertise, scale and innovative technologies together.
At the individual level of analysis, organizational behavior includes the study of the motivation factor among the employees of the company.
Motivation factor: Managers achieve the organizational goals by guidance and leadership to the employees. Motivation is the reason for an individual’s action towards achieving certain goals. Motivation and satisfaction of the employees are positively related to the productivity of the company.(Aithal & kumar, 2016). The role of the manager is to ensure proper decision-making, leadership and negotiation with the employees. It is found that transformational leadership has a positive impact on the motivation of the employees (Ahmad et al, 2014). Hence, the employees feel motivated if the manager is able to inspire them at work. However, the motivating employees are not the same as it was in past. In case of Vodafone Australia, the employee motivation is weak as there is less commitment to innovation and adaptation. There are number of complaints being lodged against the company’s customer service (Rajeswari et al, 2017). There are complaints by people that the company does not solve the network related issues immediately, rather it takes hours even days often to solve their service issues (Annystudio.com, 2018). This is an issue not with the organization rather with the work culture that the company poses. The company should ensure that the grievances of people are solved with a short span of time, which requires the active mindset of the employees to resolve the issues regularly. According to Maslow’s theory of motivation, there various needs of the employees, which motivates them to work, namely the psychological needs, safety, need, social needs and self-actualization needs(Healy, 2016).
There are certain problems associated with the Vodafone Australia’s operations. Firstly, it lacks an innovative method of employee motivation. Unlike the other telecom companies of Australia like Optus, this company does not focus on employee motivation to a large extent. The company fails to give to its employees the “feel-good” factor .Companies as Optus help the employees with payroll giving and business-supported volunteering (Optus, 2018). There are evidences that due to the lack of motivating measures the employees tend to remain less committed at work.
Theories of motivation and its application
Secondly, there is a need to create little fun within the work environment of the company for the engagement of the employees. It helps building positive relationships within the employees of the company. The Vodafone Australia lacks any such fun method of employee engagement like companies like those that Telstra has adopted.
Thirdly, the company does not acknowledge the importance of thanking their employees for their effort. There is a need to create positivity among the minds of the employees and builds up more commitment for future effort. This positivity could work as a boon for the future productivity of the company.
There are number of motivation theories given by the scholar that could be adopted to change the company’s working style. The theorist Maslow proposes the first theory. According to Maslow’s theory of motivation, there are various needs of the employees that motivates them to work, namely the psychological needs, safety, need, social needs and self-actualization needs (Healy, 2016). This theory is known as the “hierarchy need theory”, that says that people feel motivated due to fulfillment of certain needs. If these needs are fulfilled people feel extremely motivated towards their work (Johnson et al, 2018). The company should adopt this approach to ensure that the employees are enough motivated to their work which can inspire them to be more productive (Ganta, 2014).The Vodafone Australia should adopt a method similar to this so that the company can achieve an overall growth of the employees and the employees feel motivated at work. The company can adopt certain psychological factors like fun programs or it can increase incentives to make them feel safe. Various methods of motivating factors could be adopted looking at the situation of the company. The methods of motivating the employees have been discussed at the later part of the essay.
An alternative to the Maslow’s theory, there is the “motivation hygiene theory”. The motivation hygiene theory is also called the two factors theory propagated by Herzberg, mentions that there two set of factors that determines the job satisfaction of the employees in a workplace (Herzberg, 2017). These factors include responsibility, achievement, recognition and most importantly the opportunities for growth and advancement of the employees. Telecommunication companies like Telstra and Optus in Australia, focuses more on the motivation factors of the employees when work pressure increases because this is the time when the employee motivation decreases. However, Vodafone Hutchison lacks this understanding of the importance of incentives. Companies like Vodafone should ensure that the employees get their tax return benefits at time, which will work as incentives for work (Ganta, 2014).
The company lacks an innovative mode of working. Other telecommunication companies in Australia like Optus has adopted methods for making the work culture more enjoyable. However, this company lacks such an environment that can boost the employee’s morale and productivity at the same time. Hence, there is a need to develop a motivated work culture within the company.
Vodafone Australia also suffered from telecommunication issues, which led to large number of customers opting for other telecom services. The root of the problem is the employee productivity and adoption of proper technology. Because of this, the telecom industries of Australia are able to make their hold stronger in the telecom market of the country.
Challenges of the Vodafone Hutchison
However, the problem not only lies in motivation, there is also presence of lack of motivational leaders at the work place. The company lacks efficient leadership that can be utilized for proper risk management. The leaders at Vodafone Australia lacks a proper mechanism for risk calculation and their timely mitigation. Companies like Optus has adopted a “proactive risk management system” that helps to build understanding between the employees and the leaders regarding the risk issues of the company. A proper risk calculation along with efficient leadership would create employee preparedness for such risk situations.
A proper leadership with efficient skill of organizational development can act a catalyst for change in its employees (Miner, 2015). During the 2013 “Vodafail” movement in Australia, the company lost over a million customer due to poor management of the company’s service. The company’s leadership under the then CEO was difficult to analyse (Annystudio.com, 2018). The company suffered setback due to its approach towards the other players in the market. The company made less effort to bring the lost customers in the market because there are other powerful companies like Telstra and Optus. Moreover, the company failed to create enough employee motivation in order to come out of that situation. Mostly it took a negative attitude towards the challenging situation. There is need for a strong leader for Vodafone at this moment when it is already struggling to establish itself as a major competitor in the market. According to Landis et al (2014), for effective management of the risk situation by utilizing the talent of the people is only possible when strong leaders are operating at the head of the organization. With a lack of effective leadership, the employees would develop a negative attitude towards their work and face lack of motivation to work. Hence, a research and detailed analysis of the organizational behavior is important.
The company should adopt a robust motivation system which will incorporate methods like trust building, incentives for every achievement, setting up smaller weekly goals, focusing on individual than the entire team and creating positivity within the employees(Inc.com, 2018). For adopting this system, the company can adopt the Maslow’s model of motivation (Refer to appendix A). The company should adopt this approach to ensure that the employees are enough motivated to their work which can inspire them to be more productive.
It can ensure that the company hire leaders who has knowledge about the transactional leadership (Antonakis et al, 2014). A transactional leader would use tools like ratings, incentives, rewards and appreciation to motivate the employees.
Vodafone Hutchison should adopt what is known as the “total Quality management” (Hoffer et al 2015). This is a principle of management that ensures quality management of the service rendered and at the same time develops the overall organizational processes. This will inspire the employees of the company to think about what they do and become involved in the organizational decisions. It is about rethinking and reengineering the designs already adopted by the company.
The company should adopt method like “Ping pong” which are adopted by other companies that proved to be fruitful and it helped increasing productivity of then employees.
Vodafone Hutchison Australia has to adopt the “open Innovation” paradigm that helps to build a comprehensive technology and innovation base by adopting the internal and external ideas. Under the Open innovation model, the company can adopt the “Quadruple Helix” model (Parveen et al, 2015). This model is particularly used and verified in telecom companies of Pakistan, which showed positive result (Parveen et al, 2015). According this model encourages the sharing of ideas, help building teamwork and collaboration. Through this application, the company can better judge the issues arising out of poor technology and service because it gives an insight into the positive relation between culture and commitment towards innovation (Parveen et al, 2015).
At the individual level, it can be suggested that the Board of Director at the company number of women should be increased. An equal gender balance in its workforce would help create a positive mindset among the employees. This can act as a motivating factor for the employees of the company.
Conclusion:
Organizational behavior is the study of the individual and the organizational behavior at the micro and macro level. This is extremely helpful in understanding the different nuances of the working of the organization so that the organizational goals could be achieved with greater rate of success. An efficient working of the company based on the study of the organizational behavior, which will ensure the success of the company. It is important to understand the attitude of the employees of a company so that an effective leadership can be employed.
Through the analysis of the company’s organizational behavior it could be summed up that the company has better management of its micro level factors, that are motivation, leadership, incentives, perception, human resource etc. However, the company lacks some of the important things required for its micro level management. The company fails to understand the market demands and delays in their proper implementation and adoption methods. By the time it adopts the required infrustrure, some other major players of the market already fulfils the gaps. The company should focus more on the macro level issues like the productivity, service, quality and judge its position with other companies. It should try focusing more on its organizational behavior outside, at the market place than its domestic concerns of employees behavior.
References
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