A friendly and courteous staff is in many ways the clinching factor behind high customer satisfaction which in turn leads to greater monetary returns. An entire cultural transformation is then required. Due to scientific breakthrough such as CT Scans and more traditional methods such as experimental psychology, scientists are able to decipher how organizations can truly foster an energizing work culture. First of all, autonomy in decision makings needs to be granted to the front-office personal as they are the ones directly in touch with customers. As they can directly capture business intelligence on the customers, they need to be empowered and now micromanaged. Another tenet is that employees must get a sense of bigger things at play behind their work. They must feel that their work is contributing something much bigger than mere routines. A final method is through rewards and recognition. Little successes need be celebrated and elicits pride among the employees.

Source: https://www.strategy-business.com/article/00271?gko=d819d

Uploaded Date:28 November 2017

While companies across the board may be talking up digital transformation through external disruption, it is the internal threat that is proving to be more difficult to manage. Many especially at the middle management level are particularly hostile to the ideas because they perceive the transformation to be time-consuming and thus to strip off productivity in the near-term. Many fear unintended consequences of digitization. Middle managers in particular feel particularly threatened due to the fact that this working style based around data and business analytics takes away from them a sense of control they’ve been used to. Another reason may simply be a genuine questioning of the value of each idea. While the innovators may jump at the opportunity to do new things, a lot of such ideas may simply lack the forcefulness to be hits. Digital transformation needs to be at three levels- cultural, structures and people. The change agent expected to resolve this can do so by explaining to the stakeholders the opportunities this will provide, so that they do not perceive digitization as a threat. Proper corporate training needs to be given to them through constant education involving virtual chatrooms and getting digital leaders to engage people. Lastly, digital leaders need to be truly empowered so they can carry on with their work without fear of interruption.

Source:https://knowledge.insead.edu/leadership-organisations/overcoming-resistance-to-digital-change-7496

Uploaded Date:28 November 2017

Company culture and employee engagement are two vastly, though related aspects, not to be mixed up with one another. While the former implies entertainment and perks, the latter is about decision making freedom, work-life balance or the opportunity to work on innovative projects. Both are necessary, but working on one does not naturally translate to the other. Marketing research leader Gallup has confirmed that companies which feature on the top quartile of employee engagement tend to be more profitable than the others. The cultural drivers of either though differ depending on industry in question. In a fast-evolving field such as social media, a disruptor such as Facebook made strides by empowering the employees and tolerating mistakes as part of the learning curve. However, in more traditional, process-oriented places such as utility firms or power plants, mistakes can prove to be costly, so adherence and safety are stressed upon. Business consulting behemoth PwC confirms that the top reason for employee drain happens due to employees working on unrelated tasks. Company culture also needs to consider other factors such as costs, and things will not change overnight. Australian airliner Qantas is an example of a company that did not buckle under pressure, allowed short term brand erosion, but ended up winners, all because they had a strong company culture at heart.

Source:https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/Improving-Company-Culture-Is-Not-About-Providing-Free-Snacks?gko=14d54

Uploaded Date:16 November 2017

Company anniversaries always bring this realization of how organizations change over time. It depends on people in charge changing customer expectations and of course the skills in demand. However, the company DNA or its ultimate values must not alter too much. In order to get top value out of any organization’s core, certain principles have proven useful over time. One such is that for all the changes in personnel, all employees may broadly be grouped under seven categories which are – passive-aggressive, resilient, just-in-time, overmanaged, fits-and-starts, outgrown and military-precision. Ultimately companies are a combination of these personalities, a few of which always endure. A common concern among companies across the board is the mismatch between grandiose corporate strategy and its weak execution. Even where execution is strong, it has been observed to be non-durable unless frequent external interventions exist. Four pairs of independent factors are most responsible for final performance. These pairs are- decision rights and norms, motivators and commitments, information and mindsets, and finally structure and networks. The organizational chart must only be the framework, not the final word. Instead intangible factors also creep in. High performance is a result of holistically driven values and not a one-off.

Source:https://www.strategy-business.com/blog/The-10-Principles-of-Organizational-DNA?gko=c5b42

Uploaded Date:16 November 2017