Organizational Behavior: Kudler Fine Foods

Organizational Behavior: Kudler Fine Foods

MBA 502

University of Phoenix

Organizational Behavior: Kudler Fine Foods

Brenda Wagner, human resources manager for Kudler Fine Foods has asked Team A to review employee files and other documents in order to assess readiness for change. To make a proper assessment, Team A will examine the organizational culture and structure, analyze the leadership style and examine how the leadership style determines employee motivation. The analysis will also include both external and internal drivers of change for Kudler Fine Foods. In addition to this assessment, Team A will also try to incorporate appropriate benchmarking examples in order to provide some background for the management team at Kudler.

Organizational culture

Kudler Fine Foods has created a team culture. The organizational fit for Kudler could best be described as a baseball team culture. " Baseball team culture is found in organizations in rapidly changing environments, with short product life cycles, with high-risk decision making, and dependent on continuous innovation for survival". (Gomez-Mejia & Balkin, 2002.) All retail organizations need to move quickly. Consumers are fickle and are constantly searching for the next new thing.

Employees who are attracted to this type of environment are typically " a risk-taker, enjoys being a "free agent", shows little commitment to one employer, and thrives on time pressures and stress." (Gomez-Mejia & Balkin, 2002.) Kudler's work force is perfectly ready for change. This type of culture will easily support and envision a change. This type of culture is also easily empowered.

Even though the culture at Kudler's is naturally fit for change, certain key points of transition will need to be employed in order to make change successful in this baseball team type of organizational culture. It may be more difficult to incorporate the change as a piece of the culture due to difficulties retaining this type employee. The employees may not stay with the company long enough to incorporate the change part into the corporate culture. This lack of employee retention would additionally impact the consolidation of improvements and additional change.

Cisco Systems is a company that produces routers for Internet traffic. It is also a very fast, changing retail environment. Cisco has created the same form of corporate culture as Kudler. Kudler's is still a relatively small company. Corporate executives are still very involved with employees and day-to-day decisions. At a time of change, it will be important to retain the employee merit increases, paid for performance bonuses, and the spot bonus programs that are currently in place.

The CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, has fostered an open environment. He is very close to his people, even to the point of not having an office, but sharing a cubicle with the other employees. John Chambers motto: "Never ask your employees to do something you wouldn't be willing to do yourself". (Gomez-Mejia & Balkin, 2002.) Kudler's management needs to stay very involved on all levels of employment in order to make change successful in the current organizational culture, much like Cisco management.

Organizational structure

There is definitely a vertical organizational structure at Kudler, due to the structure of the organizational chart. Managers are directly responsible for the people who are beneath them in the vertical organizational chart. However, Kudler is also working horizontally as well. This is evidenced by the fact that different departments are beginning to work together to solve issues. For example, the purchasing department is working with the sales and marketing department to help rollout to their vendor community the new inventory management and forecasting tools and the supplier relations program. The sales department is working with the financial department on cost reduction plans.

This cross functionality will help alleviate any pains from change. Departments that are already coordinating efforts will be able to work with one another. Relationships have been established between departments. This horizontal structure will definitely improve Kudler's ability to adapt to change quickly.

Leadership style

Even though the organization is highly structured, Kathy has offered each store a certain amount of autonomy. The leadership is set up in a divisional approach where each store manager is responsible for the administration each store. The managers are in charge of the day to day operations of each store from supervising the employees to ordering and replenishing the store. The administration's team efforts are reflected as the store managers are supported by the inventory manager and the sales team. The format of the annual employee performance reviews also reflects the team management style. Job descriptions are clearly defined along with the expectations for job performance. The employees are encouraged to improve themselves by setting goals for the year. From the performance reviews, the Kudler company has a primary focused on customer service. Other steps, such as computer programs, are being implemented to foster serving the customer.

The company is also looking for long term relationships with their employees. Kudler's offers a very good benefits package. This includes a 401(k) program, paid holidays, vacation benefits and health insurance. With these things along with encouraging individual improvement, Kudler Fine Foods hopes to retain their employees through job satisfaction. However; upon looking through the employee reviews, it does not appear that the employees are rewarded equally well for their job performance. For example, in the 2003 review for Craig Drohos, he was marked as "meets expectations" in most the areas of review but the comments reflected excellent work and great improvements. His raise that year was slightly above the cost of living. Even though the stores are managed individually, Kathy should encourage better rewards for excellent service to the company. If the company does not respond properly to their employees service, then the employees may start to look elsewhere or not perform above what is expected. Since the Kudler company is keen on employee training, Kathy might want to look into training supervisors regarding performance evaluations to be able to reward employees that are ambitious (Tabor, 2006).

Leadership