GSBS6060 Strategic Management

1. What processes are in place in your current, or previous organisations, to ensure effective communication of information to its staff regarding;
   1. The achievement of work responsibilities,
   2. How and with whom they should raise issues to be resolved,
   3. How the outcome to an issue raised is communicated back to employees.

2. How does your organisation’s policies and procedures support the development of effective workplace relationships? In your answer please consider the following and attach a copy of the relevant policy as evidence.
   1. Cultural diversity, integrity and ethics,
   2. Gaining and maintaining trust.

3. How do you manage your communication style to ensure alignment with your organisation’s policies regarding diversity and ethical conduct  Give an example of what is appropriate and not appropriate.
4. How do you guide and support your team to communicate appropriately in a culturally diverse workplace Give an example of where realignment or reminder has been necessary.
5. Identify two external professional networks that could help you to develop valuable workplace relationships.
   1. How would connecting with these networks contribute to positive business outcomes for your organisation
   2. In the next twelve months, how do you plan to develop and maintain effective internal and external work relationships

1. The different processes to ensure effective communication or information to its staff

a) The achievement of work responsibilities

As it is very important to ensure proper communication between the staff of different department of the organization named Woolworths limited so that the entire organization can work smoothly, some steps should be followed (Woolworths Online 2017). The staffs should be very clear about what roles they have to perform for the benefit of the organization. They should not get confused if they do not understand their exact roles. The staffs should listen what the leaders have to say, speak up if they face any problems regarding to that, ask questions and provide feedback to their seniors. The staffs have been working hard to adopt these things.

b) People to discuss with to resolve the issues

The staffs should not be afraid of approaching the managers and the trainers if they face troubles in understanding their roles. They should maintain a clear and concise communication between the leaders and themselves. The leaders want to bring the best out of the employees so they will be ready to pour the inputs into them (Shockley-Zabak 2014). The managers will boost up them to perform better within the given time. The staffs have to fulfill their duties following the requirements of the organization.

c) The way in which the outcome of the issue raised is communicated back to the employees

The process of feedback providing is a very important issue in this case. Whenever an employee feels insecure or unsafe in the working environment, he can raise questions or issues to the managers or the Human Resource Department. They should discuss the problem with the employee and sit with him to resolve the issue. If they find any justification about the problem, they will discuss it with their higher authority and then fix the issue by providing feeding the feedback about what decision they have taken. They can arrange for meetings in this case.

2. Organizational policies in support of developing effective workplace relationships

a) Cultural diversity, integrity and ethics

It is very important to note that the factors like the cultural diversity, integrity and ethics are very well maintained in Woolworths limited. It is because the organization has a fair amount of reputation all over the world. Their employees are from different countries and they remain like an integrated community. They act on the same page and work for reaching the strategic objectives of the organization (Pieterse, Van Knippenberg and Van Dierendonck 2013).

The ethical policies are a serious issue in this factor because the workers have to maintain some code of ethics in order to avoid discrimination among the members of the organization (Sekerka, Comer and Godwin 2014). The suppliers of the organization should not engage in bribery or any other rough work like that. The workers of the organization are not permitted to incur into debt through recruitment fees, fines or any other things. The workers have the full freedom to leave the workplace after their shift timing is over. The work environment provided to the workers shall be healthy and hygienic. These are mainly the ethical issues that are maintained by Woolworths.

b) Gaining and maintaining trust

Woolworths are providing over 18 million customers every week and their customer base is growing rapidly. This is because they have ensured an amount of trust in the minds of the customers that they feel Woolworths products are loyal to them (Sousa?Lima, Michel and Caetano 2013). The Woolworths Rewards is the Australia’s most attractive supermarket loyalty program. The customers have understood the loyalty of Woolworths products so they have gained the trust of the customers.

3. Managing the communication style to ensure alignment with the policies

The communication style of Woolwoths group is very much based on the use of the technological factors. The organization’s policies are very strict to some points and this helps the employees to maintain the code of conduct (Shockley-Zabak 2014). The employees communicate with each other with the technologies like using smart phones and laptops. The employees can be tracked using the GPRS technology and their activities can be recorded if they are involved in any unethical works (Chang and Wang 2015). The cultural diversity factors are supported by the organization as well as supporting the LGBT community (Meyer 2015). The customers are given the right to speak up freely if they are facing any troubles or unethical circumstances from the employees of Woolworths. It is appropriate to track the activities of the workers through GPRS systems within the working hours. It is, however, not appropriate to distinguish between the workers of different social sections.

4. The process of supporting the team to communicate appropriately

  The different teams of the organization are doing their best to retain the competitive advantage over the other rivals. This is an interesting part in the growth of the organization. The team members have to communicate with each other and maintain a healthy relation between themselves (Shockley-Zabak 2014). This is because any dispute between them can disturb the reputation of Woolworths. The team members do not only communicate with each other but also they communicate with the customers, suppliers and members of the other teams. They receive feedbacks from the customers and pass it on to the team members. The team members decide between themselves on how to improve the quality of the products. As the working environment is culturally diverse, the discrimination between the employees depending on their cast, creed or skin color is strictly prohibited by the management (Shockley-Zabak 2014) The leaders like to treat the all sections of the society equally and give everyone the same opportunities along with facilities and remuneration.

5. Valuable professional networks to develop valuable workplace relationships

The two kinds of external professional networks that are dependent on building valuable professional networks are to focus on introducing self to others and the hierarchy whenever the opportunity comes and secondly, to trying to increase the trust, faith and respect that others have in that individual (Gelfand et al. 2014).

a) The networks contributing to positive outcomes for the organization

These external networks are very important for the organization, if especially it is Woolworths, to increase their brand reputation and customer relationships (Wang and Feng 2012).

Whenever the opportunity comes for the team members of the food and drinks section, other retail teams to interact with the hierarchy in some party or organization get together; they should readily be introducing themselves to the higher officials and board of directors and other people. This helps to imprint a good impression on their minds and good performance records enhance the way of growth for Woolworths (García-Morales, Jiménez-Barrionuevo and Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez 2012).

b) Planning and development to maintain the workplace relationships

When the time comes for maintain the relationship of trust and faith between the customers, suppliers, employees and the hierarchy officials, it is indeed crucial to develop the workplace relationships between them (Venkataramani, Labianca, and Grosser 2013). The development of the workplace relationship mainly depends on the teamwork between the employees, helping each other, gaining each others’ trust, working on achieving the same goals for the benefits of the organization (Park and Shaw 2013). Here a chart can be formed in order to show how these workplace relationships can be developed in Woolworths.

The one person I had conflict with in the workplace was the Security Manager Mr. Paul. He used to interfere in my works very often despite having told not to. This would impact in my performance as well as my team’s performance.

1. He is my senior so I respect him in that regard. Though, I am quite familiar to him and we have met quite a lot of times, I cannot adjust with him in lot of cases as he is very curious about what I do all the day in office. I am completely dedicated to my work and I do not want to give that explanation to any other person.
2.   He is always trying to interfere in my professional work and questioning my credibility. As I do not report to him directly at my workplace, I am not liable to answer him what I do.
3. I know there are many positive points if this is resolved. I would get lots of help from him because he is my senior and much more enhanced in experience. However, if this problem were to continue, there would be long-term impacts of it. There could be serious problems arising in the workplace at Woolworths. This could lead to problematic circumstances in my career. I would prefer if he stops this habit, I would get familiar with him and build a good working relationship with him.
4. There are many steps if I want to resolve this issue sooner. I could sit with him, tell him my problems to him and requestedhim to stop these things. I hope this would help to improve the situation.
5. 1. It was a matter of concern when I noticed two boys of my team had a serious workplace conflict between them. The scenario was one boy was a native namely Steve and the other guy were from the Middle East and he was a Muslim. The first guy had made some racist comments regarding his religion. This infuriated the second guy very much so I had to resolve it by making Steve understand the code of ethics and cultural diversity rules that have to be followed in order to stay in Woolworths. Then Steve apologized and the matter ended there.
6. I am a strict observer of the organizational policies and rules. I would go to any extent to make the two contrary ends meet. I would apply the ethical policies of Woolworths strictly on all of the offenders. These difficult situations have to be tackled tactfully and I will not let go any offender. I must make sure that all obey the code of ethics in our organization. I would not let our brand image be ruined at any cost.

References

Chang, M. and Wang, Q., 2015. Application of wireless sensor network and gprs technology in development of remote monitoring system. Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 13(1), pp.151-158.

Clegg, S., Mikkelsen, E.N. and Sewell, G., 2015. Conflict: Organizational. In International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences. Elsevier Science.

García-Morales, V.J., Jiménez-Barrionuevo, M.M. and Gutiérrez-Gutiérrez, L., 2012. Transformational leadership influence on organizational performance through organizational learning and innovation. Journal of business research, 65(7), pp.1040-1050.

Gelfand, M.J., Leslie, L.M., Keller, K. and de Dreu, C., 2012. Conflict cultures in organizations: How leaders shape conflict cultures and their organizational-level consequences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(6), p.1131.

http://www.wowlink.com.au/cmgt/wcm/connect/12bb7080433d314dbfc3bfa521a80a40/19.04.16+Ethical+Sourcing+Policy.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

Lazaroiu, G., 2015. Employee Motivation and Job Performance. Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, 14, p.97.

Manzoor, Q.A., 2012. Impact of employees motivation on organizational effectiveness. Business management and strategy, 3(1), p.1.

Meyer, D., 2015. Violence against queer people: Race, class, gender, and the persistence of anti-LGBT discrimination. Rutgers University Press.

Park, T.Y. and Shaw, J.D., 2013. Turnover rates and organizational performance: a meta-analysis.

Pieterse, A.N., Van Knippenberg, D. and Van Dierendonck, D., 2013. Cultural diversity and team performance: The role of team member goal orientation. Academy of Management Journal, 56(3), pp.782-804.

Sekerka, L.E., Comer, D.R. and Godwin, L.N., 2014. Positive organizational ethics: Cultivating and sustaining moral performance. Journal of Business Ethics, 119(4), pp.435-444.

Shockley-Zalabak, P., 2014. Fundamentals of organizational communication. Pearson.

Sousa?Lima, M., Michel, J.W. and Caetano, A., 2013. Clarifying the importance of trust in organizations as a component of effective work relationships. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43(2), pp.418-427.

Venkataramani, V., Labianca, G.J. and Grosser, T., 2013. Positive and negative workplace relationships, social satisfaction, and organizational attachment. Journal of applied psychology, 98(6), p.1028.

Wang, Y. and Feng, H., 2012. Customer relationship management capabilities: Measurement, antecedents and consequences. Management Decision, 50(1), pp.115-129.

Woolworths Online. (2017). Woolworths Supermarket - Buy Groceries Online. [online] Available at: https://www.woolworths.com.au/ [Accessed 12 Jul. 2017].