Organizations

1. How does the organization achieve “compliance” from its members?

As our organisation is unionised, it is harder for managers to receive positive compliance from it’s employees as the reward power is minimized. Due to the unionization, decisions about promotions and giving raises are not allowed to be made by supervisors and managers. This restricts the amount of control the managers have over the compliance of its employees. However, I believe that my organization still exploits some power over the interest of my team members.

One attempt of my supervisor’s to keep compliance amongst our вЂ?team’ is to reward hard work with a вЂ?party halfa’ once every month. This included half an hour out of one shift every month dedicated to “pigging out” on party food including lollies, chips, cake and coke etc. We did not receive the “party halfa” if we do not meet the packing standards. Everyone knew each individual had to perform to the standard and not have any one team member let the rest down and therefore increasing productivity and establishing compliance.

As shown above, my fellow employees are referred to by our supervisors and managers not as employees or staff, but a �team’ which symbolises this reality that we should operate not only for our own individual gain, but also the gain of the individuals in that team.

Another act of compliance can be implemented by coercive power. This example is a more subtle version of coercive power; the threat from the supervisor to stay back and finish our work if it is not completed by the end of our shift. The end of my shift is usually around 10.30pm, my fellow employees are young and my shifts include Wednesday nights and Friday nights and my young team members are usually planning to head out on the town after work so an extra half an hour to an hour is a threat to their social life. This usually creates an urgency to get the work done on time and therefore compliance from the team is established and there is an increase in productivity.

2. What are the characteristics of the “communications” in this organization?

The structure of the communication is a hierarchical framework with communication moving downward.

The regional manager usually communicates to the store manager problems with stock, budget and profits/losses. This is then filtered down through the ranks from management to supervisors and finally to us- the workers.

The store manager usually communicates problems in regards to the uniform, safety regulations, and also any problems in regards to customer complaints or local residential complaints. This communication is usually small group based where the store manager holds a quick five minute meeting at the start of the shifts and delivers the problem and suggests how we fix it.

Communication related directly to my work is hierarchical and contains formal interpersonal contact between the manager and the supervisor and then a small group based communication between the supervisor and the team. The media used to send and receive the messages between the manager and the supervisor is both verbal and written. The manager constantly holds meeting with the supervisor to both give instructions and verbally discuss ways to improve productivity.

Also, at the beginning of every night fill shift, the supervisor reads a written time sheet and an instruction sheet left by the manager.

At the end of each night, the supervisor writes feedback of what work was or was not done and occasionally writes a short report of the performance of team member/s.

From my experiences, my organization doesn’t have many barriers to communication.

3. What are the characteristics of the �strategy’ in this organization?

There are five fundamental elements in an organisations strategy; the mission, goals and objectives, strategies, performance indicators and monitoring corrective action. For the organisation to survive and make a profit, it should deal with these issues. Instead of dealing with just my individual business, I took a look at the Coles Group Limited (2006) website of the chain that it belongs to where there is a clear strategy that applies to all of its individual variety of businesses and locations.

The Mission;

The organization as a whole’s mission is to be Australia's number one retailer in all of its businesses.

Goals and objectives

To achieve the mission, the organisations