People in Organisations

Introduction

This report is based on the analysis of the case study based on ‘The Phoenix Group places wellbeing at the centre of benefits strategy’. In September 2018, the Group acquired Standard Life Assurance, which has led to significant rise in the numbers of its total employees in the UK. In fact, the numbers of employees in the Group after acquisition jumped from 800 to 4300 in the UK. Although the acquisition of Standard Life Assurance was aligned with its growth strategy but the rise in the numbers of employees have created new challenges for the Group particularly in terms of the ensuring wellbeing and benefits of the employees. In this regard, the Group has introduced several schemes and benefits programme for its large pool of employees yet the management in the Group is increasingly concerned about the motivation of the employees in the organisation which is believed to have considerable impact on its performance.

Against this backdrop, this report attempts to answer the two important questions explaining the role of leadership, stricture and organisational culture on the transitional change being carried out by the management. Second, the report evaluates the ways in which The Phoenix Group may build effective teams through motivation and also identifies team development attributes that may contribute to The Phoenix Group’s success.

Question1. Structure, Culture and Leadership

The current business environment is fast changing as a result of which the organisations are under immense pressure regarding how to respond to the changes. Accordingly, the acquisition of Standard Life Assurance by The Phoenix Group has led to significant changes in its structure and numbers of employees. It has become essential for the leaders within the Group to demonstrate effective leadership skills in order to ensure successful transition in order benefit from the acquisition and to attain steady growth of the Group. It can be firmly argued that effective leadership practice within the Group is key to overall organizational performance and change (Deal & Kennedy, 2000). It is essential for the leaders in the Group to demonstrate high degree of competencies and skills to motivate the employees in the Group and to ensure smooth transition. Correspondingly, it can be argued that the leaders within the Group has important role to play for the success of the Group and to carry out the transition change in smooth manner.

At the same time, it is important for the leaders in the Group to clear and straight vision regarding the future as well as the transition change. Without vision, it is challenging for the leaders in the Group ensure smooth transition. It is equally important for the leaders in the Group to communicate the vision across the organisations and to all employees in the organisation. There are different types of leadership style that leaders often follow to respond to changes effectively. In the context of The Phoenix Group, transformational leadership style can be argued to have considerable impact on the change management as well as influencing the employee’s behaviour. The theory of transformational leadership is the most closely aligned theories of leadership with respect to change management and employee motivation. It is worth to note that the transformational leadership constitutes four key dimensions that include inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, idealized influence or charisma and individualized consideration (Nyberg et al., 2005). Thus, transformational leadership practice can be argued to be highly effective within the Group for smooth transition. Accordingly, the transformational leadership theory states that “by articulating a vision, fostering the acceptance of group goals, and providing individualized support, effective leaders change the basic values, beliefs, and attitudes of followers so that they are willing to perform beyond the minimum levels specified by the organization’’ (van der Voet, 2014). Additionally, the leadership behaviour also has considerable impact on the well-being of the followers in the organisation. Accordingly, the practice of the transformational leadership by the leaders in the Group cans positively influence the well-being of the employees in the organisation (Holten & Brenner, 2015). In this regard, it is argued that the transformational leaders often act in charismatic, which inspires the employees in the organisation to idealise them. The idealised influence is an important dimension of the transformational leadership, which creates the leaders to engage in ethical reasoning, which addressing the needs and well-being of the employees, which is argued to help the leaders to take actions that would benefit the employees and promote their well-being (Kelloway et al., 2012). The transformational leaders in the Group through relating the employee’s performance with the reward system and developing employee training programs can motivate the employees to demonstrate new behaviours and accomplish their personal as well as broad organisational goals and objectives (Liu et al., 2010). In addition, the transformational leadership is considered to be highly effective for the leaders in the Group in order to manage change effectively while ensuring well-being of the large pool of the employees in the Group because this leadership style is widely claimed to be effective in reducing adverse health implications on the employees and plays a critical role in improving the wellbeing of the employees in the organisation (Skakon et al., 2010). Clearly, the role of leaders within the Group is extremely important and the practice of transformational leadership style by the leaders within the Group can greatly help them to ensure long term success and engaged performance of the organisation while also contributing to transition and well-being of the employees.

Organisational structure has significant impact on the behaviour of the firm as well as the people working in the organisation (DeCanio et al., 2000). Accordingly, when carrying out transition change in an organisation, it is more likely to bring changes in the functions, roles and structures. It is critical for the organisations such as The Phoenix Group which is undergoing through transition change to realign the changes in the organisational structure with its new objectives to ensure smooth transition and to achieve the key objectives that it intends to achieve by introducing changes in the Group. However, many organisations often overlook the changes in the structure during the transition phase, which causes confusion within roles, slow decision making, poor coordination, and increased complexity as well as causes stress among the people in the organisation. Additionally, it is often argued that attitude and behaviours of the employees in the organisation are largely dependent on the organisational structure (Corkindale, 2011). Hence, it can be argued that the Group needs to lay adequate attention on the well planned organisational structure so as to ensure that employees in the organisation understand their roles and perform their task efficiently with minimum stress. Accordingly, the well planned organisational structure can be argued to facilitate the Group to bring positive changes in the attitude and behaviour of the employees working in the organisation, which is critical for achieving successful transition for the Group. In addition, the Group needs to ensure that the organisational structure is not rigid but at the same time it needs to be performance oriented. Building such organisational structure is anticipated to reduce job stress while promote well-being and motivation among the employees in the organisation, which in turn support effective transitional change within the organisation (Lu, 1999).

In the similar context, organisational culture is identified as another major factor that can have considerable influence on the success and failure of the transition process within the Group. Accordingly, it is argued that every organisation have unique set of organisational culture, which is expressed in terms of pattern of values, norms, beliefs and attitudes that shape the behaviour of the people in the organisation. Accordingly, it has been argued that during the transition, it is essential for the organisations to consider the organisational culture prevailing within the organisation (Iljinsa, 2015). The adequate understanding about the organisational culture by the leaders in the Group has the potential to provide necessary ingredients for carrying out the transition process effectively and successfully. On the other hand, it is important to note that the lack of understanding about the organisational culture can serve as barriers for change initiatives and can negatively influence the transition process (Rashid, 2004). At the same time, the organisational culture is ascertained to allow the Group to effectively address the problems faced by the Group as well as adapt to ever changing external environment which is critical for ensuring the success of the transition phase. Moreover, the organisational culture is argued to facilitate the Group internal integration of the resources as well as personnel that are the part of the transition and thus can prove effective in ensuring the success of the transition process. Hence, it is essential for the leaders in the Group leading the transition process to formulate strategy for change that are compatible with the organisational culture. In order to achieve this, the leaders within the Group needs to demonstrate adequate understanding about the prevailing organisational culture as well as align the strategies for change with the organisational culture. Aligning strategies for change with the organisational culture can further reduce the resistance from the employees towards the change initiatives and support the smooth implementation of the transition process (Janićijević, 2012).

Question 2. Motivation and Effective Teams, and Presentation

Employees are the most important assets in organisations like The Phoenix Group that deals with insurance services. The success of the Group is largely based on the performance of the employees working in the organisation. The current business environment is highly dynamic and competitive. For businesses to succeed in such business environment requires high degree of cooperation among the employees and they needs to work together towards the achievement of common goals and objectives. Working together by sharing ideas and experience is critical for the employees in the Group to improve the overall performance of the Group (Fapohunda, 2013). However, high degree of cooperation and sharing of ideas and experience is not possible without building effective team within the Group. Working as a team in the Group has the potential to promote increased cooperation and communication within the team members. Every individual has unique set of expertise and skills, building team in the Group can help the Group to consolidate their expertise and skills towards ensuring increased organisational performance. Clearly, building team is an important requirement for the contemporary business organisation like The Phoenix Group. Nonetheless, it is challenging for the Group to build effective team that can positively contribute to the success of the organisation

Scholars in the past have identified sequence of steps for building effective team (Mealiea & Baltazar, 2005). However, an important aspect that plays a critical role in building effective team within the Group is closely associated with the employee motivation. Accordingly, promoting motivation among the employees in the Group is anticipated to provide the Group with useful tool in building effective team. It has been further identified that the little attention has been laid on the aspect of motivation in the building effective team (Hu & Liden, 2015).

Accordingly, promoting motivation among the employees in the Group is argued to encourage collective efficacy and team empowerment, which are important aspects in building effective team. The team members that are highly motivated and empowered are argued to demonstrate high level of commitment in working together with other members and are more willing to share their ideas and expertise for the improved performance of the team as well as the Group (Seibert et al., 2011; Stajkovic et al., 2009). In the similar context, De Dreu (2006) argued that the motivation provides increased value to team effectiveness and leads to effective team outcome.

As per Tabassi et al (2011) claimed that motivation and training are two important componenets of building effective team. In this context, it has been further argued that motivated team members are willingly participate in training and development programs which in turn have the potential to contribute in building effective team in the Group. Moreover, an important impact of motivation on building effective team is that it encourage behavioural changes among the team members and encourages them to actively cooperate and coordinate on various issues among the team members and also promotes harmony by preventing any potential conflict within the team (Fapohunda, 2013). Accordingly, these factors coherently explains that motivation have a considerable impact on building effective team and thus the Group needs to lay a considerable attention on motivating team members. Additionally, the Group can use monetary incentives as well as non-monetary incentives to motivate the team members and build effective team for its long term success of the Group.

There are numbers of team development attributes that may contribute to The Phoenix Group’s success. In this regard improving communication is an important team building attributes that can be argued have positive impact on The Phoenix Group’s success. Accordingly, promoting open communication with among the team members can lead to enhanced sharing of thoughts, ideas and opinions among the team members. At the same time, encouraging effective communication can help the Group to track the performance of the team members and the progress of the team (Lee et al., 2010; Choudrie, 2005). On the other hand poor communication can lead to poor performance of the team members as well as it can led to generation of conflict which can negatively influence the ability of The Phoenix Group’s to attain improve performance and success (Fapohunda, 2013).

In the similar context, another major team development attributes for that may contribute To The Phoenix Group’s success can be argued to be related with diversity of team members. It is important for The Phoenix Group to promote diversity in team building and development. Accordingly, every individual have unique set of skills and expertise that they may offer to team. It can help the team within the Group to acquire knowledge and understanding about different issues and problems from different perspectives and seek wide variety of ideas and opinions which can increase the effectiveness of the team to address the problems faced by the Group effectively and contribute to its success (Caruso & Williams , 2008).

Leadership is yet another important team development attributes that The Phoenix Group needs to consider in order to ensure its success. Accordingly, effective leadership practice is essential for team development because the leaders are responsible for setting goal for the team, motivating team members and keeping the interest of the team members protected and balanced (Sheard & Kakabadse, 2004). Ineffective leadership practice for managing and guiding the efforts of the team members can be a source of poor team performance which can reduce the productivity and performance of the team members as well as the Group. Hence, leadership is a critical team development attributes that needs to be considered for the successful performance of the Group.

Additionally, creating cordial and transparent workplace environment is also important team development attributes. Such environment helps the team member to socialise as well as develop positive relationship with each other while it reduces the chances of conflict among the team members. Hence, for team development and to realise the positive team outcome that can have favourable impact on the Group’s performance and success, it is essential to focus on building cordial team environment (Kakar, 2018).

Presentation of Key Findings

Conclusion

This report answered two specific questions related to the case study based on ‘The Phoenix Group. With respect to the first question, it has been claimed that leaders in the Group has significant role to play in order to ensure smooth implementation of the transition process. Accordingly, it is essential for the leaders within the Group to exhibit high level of competencies and skills to motivate employees as well as develop strategies that would contribute in increased wellbeing of the employees in the organisation. At the same time, the organisational structure and culture of the Group is also ascertained to play critical role in ensuring the success of the Group’s transition process. In this regard, it is critical for the leaders within the Group to lay adequate attention on well-planned organisational structure as well as its organisational culture for positively influencing the behaviours of the employees in the organisation and to seek support from them for implementing the transition process effectively.

At the same time, motivation is ascertained to have significant impact on effective team building. The leaders and managers within the Group need to motivate the employees to seek their cooperation and promote collaboration essential for effective team building. At the same time, they should place importance of communication, leadership, diversity and team environment which are key team building attributes that can immensely contribute in the Group’s success.

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