Introduction

I was recently hired by senior management at Bison Tech as an organizational behavior consultant to provide some analysis and feedback of their organization. Bison image was located online (Acker, n.d). Over the last few weeks, I have spent some time getting to know the organization, its managers, employees, and the current organizational issues that have become a challenge. Many issues were discovered during my interviews, and I have developed a few strategies for Bison Tech to implement to make some immediate improvements for a more efficient and effective organization.

About the Organization

First is a little background information about Bison Tech. It was founded in 1995 by CEO/President, Charlie Fox. The company is in the software and web site development industry, with most of its clients in the commercial sector. The company is an S-Corporation, privately held, with annual revenues of about twenty million dollars.

Impact of Structure and Culture

Before looking at the challenges the company is currently facing, it is important to understand why organizational design and structure are important to the success of a company. The structure and culture have multiple impacts across an organization. Structure and culture will determine how information flows between managers and employees, how efficient and effective the staff are not just in their work projects but also in decision making and problem solving. Structure and culture will have a direct impact on quality of work, customer satisfaction, as well as employee motivation and job satisfaction. Equally important, it will affect the organization's ability to adapt to future challenges (Black, 2019).

Organizational Structure

The organizational structure of Bison Tech is a cross functional matrix team. Teams consist of functions such as human resources, accounting, contracts, and bids and proposals. Then, there are secondary project teams that consist of a project manager, project staff, and a mix of staff from each of the functional teams. In a matrix structure such as this one, employees often have more than one direct report with multiple priorities that sometimes compete against each other. Information flows up and down in a hierarchical manner, but also cross directional between functions and projects (MindTools, n.d.).

Management's Perspective of Organizational Behavior Issues

Understanding the organizational structure of the company helps to build context regarding the organizational behavior issues that Bison Tech is currently experiencing. Management at Bison Tech has noticed a significant decline in employee morale and engagement over the previous twelve months. Low engagement and employee morale is significantly affecting efficiency and accuracy in work products. Poor efficiency and work product errors are causing delays in responding to customers, delays in payments, and delayed deliverables. These inefficiencies, inaccuracies, and delays are causing strained customer relationships, loss in customer confidence, loss of follow-on projects, and loss of future teaming efforts.

Employee Engagement Survey

Understanding management's perspective of the organizational issues is only one half of the equation though. To get the full picture, an employee engagement survey was conducted as well. The following bar charts show the results from the survey. The items were grouped under four areas of issues labeled as individual, team, leadership, and diversity and inclusion.

Individual

A couple of things seem to be going well on an individual basis. Employees reported that their work hours and locations are flexible, they do not feel micromanaged, and performance expectations have been clearly set by supervisors. However, fifty percent or less feel that their individual contributions are valued by management, and they do not have adequate resources such as technology, support, and time.

Team

Looking at the issues on a team level basis, it appears that sixty percent or less feel there are multiple issues to be addressed. Team members often must overcompensate for underperformers and workloads are not evenly distributed. They also feel that the team is dysfunctional, not performing cohesively toward the same goal, and not equally vested in the output of work products.

Leadership

Looking at the issues that employees are experiencing with leadership, there is an exceptionally low confidence rating. Seventy-five to ninety-five percent of employees feel that leadership does not communicate about the direction and future of the company. They feel that there are no opportunities for on-the-job training, mentorship, and professional development. They also feel that leadership is not transparent with communication.

Diversity and Inclusion

The last area of issues falls under diversity and inclusion. Fifty-five percent of employees feel there is equity and fairness regarding performance expectations and consequences for non-performance. While eighty to ninety percent feel that the company engages actively in inclusivity and has a diverse workforce. However, ninety percent reported that they feel the company engages in nepotism or favoritism.

Motivation and Engagement

One of the ways in which the organization can begin to address these issues is by looking at how it manages its human capital. First, it is important to understand the difference between employee motivation and engagement. Employee motivation is measured by willingness and desire to put forth the effort required toward meeting organizational goals. Engagement is measured by the amount of effort the employee exerts to meet those goals (Deressa & Zeru, 2019). Because engagement is driven by motivation, an organization should consider what needs motivate each employee. Using Alderfer's ERG (Existence, Relatedness, and Growth Needs) Theory, managers can develop a better understanding of what needs are not being met. Existence needs would include things like insurance, comfortable working conditions, time off, and no layoffs. Relatedness needs include things like quality supervision, work teams, and recognition. Growth needs include things like learning, challenge, advancement, responsibility, autonomy, and achievement.

Strategic Thinking

Once management has a better understanding of individual employee needs, they can engage in strategic thinking to anticipate opportunities and challenges for the future. While this certainly applies to human capital, it also applies to the organization. Effective managers will need to constantly monitor the environment to identify internal and external factors to develop strategies on how to respond (How Internal and External Factors Drive Organizational Change, 2016). Internal factors include things like changes in people, working conditions, and systems. Whereas external factors include things like natural disasters, competition, economic fluctuations, and political conditions.

Learning Organization

As a learning organization, it is imperative to provide learning and growth opportunities. It not only motivates employees by meeting one of their basic needs, but also gives the organization a competitive edge. This is possible because employees are encouraged to learn from their own experiences to improve performance based on successes and failures. Failures are not swept under the rug but are encouraged to be discussed openly in what is known as a "lessons learned" setting. Management encourages and fosters open communication companywide. Instead of just selecting a few at the top who have a "need to know," it is assumed that everyone has the need and information is shared collectively (Wilhelm, 2017). A learning organization must continuously learn to adapt and adjust in a constantly changing environment. This will ensure that the organization remains relevant or ahead of their competition. The organization's survival could depend on it.

Inclusion and Relationship-Building Strategy

Inclusion

When considering the organization's human capital, it is equally important to address inclusivity and relationship-building. When conducting the employee engagement survey with Bison Tech's staff, some of the employees had noted that it was the first time they had been invited or provided with a safe space to voice their concerns. The purpose of inclusivity is to ensure all employees feel valued as members of the organization and that their contributions to the organization really matter. Again, one of the survey questions specifically asked if employees felt valued, of which only forty-five responded yes. To improve inclusion and relationship-building, it is recommended that leadership respond on with a multi-level approach. This approach begins with educating leaders about inclusivity and how to model inclusive behavior. It also includes forming an inclusion advocacy group to support underrepresented members. Employees can be encouraged to share their backgrounds in the workplace. Differences in culture and backgrounds should be respected and celebrated (Gurchiek, 2018). This type of behavior can facilitate a sense of safety for people to show up as their authentic selves at the workplace. Most importantly, as shown in the engagement survey, employees have a need to be listened to as well as having a safe place to voice their concerns.

Relationship-Building

In addition to inclusion, there are soft skills for relationship building that everyone in the organization would benefit from learning (LinkedIn, 2020). These relationship building skills include learning interpersonal skills, non-verbal and verbal communication skills, listening skills, empathy, emotional intelligence, and networking. Effective communication skills can be practiced through active and passive listening and contributing to group conversations. Additionally, relationship-building can be enhanced by working in teams, openly dealing with conflict, and displaying positive reactions when receiving feedback.

Improvement Strategies

Redefine Culture

In addition to inclusion and relationship-building, there are additional improvement strategies that Bison Tech can consider. First, the company can consider redefining its culture. In 1995 when the company was first formed, the hierarchy culture may have served the company well. However, in 2022, the organization may find that adopting a clan culture, one that focuses on relationships, team building, and mentoring might be better suited. This does not mean that processes and procedures cannot still follow a hierarchical structure. It means that the people need to be managed more so as people rather than widgets.

Redesign Organizational Structure

There seems to be many layers in the cross functional matrix structure of Bison Tech. There are many managers reporting to the Vice President of operations including all functional managers as well as all project managers. Based on the results of the engagement survey, communication at the executive level is suffering. This could be a result of the Vice President being overextended with too many direct reports. The organization may look at redesigning its structure to that of a network, which is more flexible and can adapt to changes more quickly (MindTools, n.d.). Outsourcing some of the oversight of the management of project managers will free up the Vice President to improve communication and effective decision making.

Redevelop Leadership Skills

Redefining culture and organizational structure will set the tone and expectation of behavior within an organization. To effectively execute these organizational changes, it is crucial for management to redevelop its leadership skills as well. The most important leadership skills that should be improved include communication skills, commitment to others, awareness of individual employee goals, and how to build ownership and trust within the organization (DePalma, 2018). When communicating with employees, leaders should strive to improve demonstration of concern for others, assist in brainstorming for solutions, and follow through with periodic reviews and measurement of goals.

Conclusion

Bison Tech has recently been faced with many new organizational behavior challenges. After taking a close look at results from an employee engagement survey, leadership can begin to understand the reasons behind low morale and employee engagement within the organization. A review of the current organizational structure and culture helps management understand how information currently flows through the organization.

Through effective management of human capital, leadership can begin to address behavioral issues. Developing an understanding of employee motivation and needs will assist leadership in improving employee engagement. Strategic thinking and facilitation of a learning organization will give the organization a competitive edge and ability to adapt to future challenges. To build on this advantage, an inclusion and relationship-building strategy will benefit the organization as well.

To address the more specific behavioral issues discovered in the engagement survey, three strategies were provided to leadership for improvement. These strategies included redefining culture, redesigning the organizational structure, and redeveloping leadership skills. Finally, leadership is encouraged to consistently monitor the environment for internal and external factors that could impact the organization. It is important to remember that one solution may uncover a new problem. Continue to strategize for multiple outcomes and encourage innovation across the organization.

Q. Build and expand upon the work of the consultant whose case you are analyzing and commenting on.

• • Focus on strategies that impact effectiveness and efficiency.
  • Consider any and all factors that have been presented and/or discussed during the course.
  • Propose the type of information about the organization that could be helpful but is not presented.
  • Discuss change strategies and identify which actions should be focused on first.
  • Use resources from this session and/or others and research-based articles from the online library to support your strategies and analysis.