Organisational Culture

Some of the visible aspects of culture in Primark are:

The language and jargon that is used by employees and managers in Primark is formal, when communicating to each other managers will often use other words to describe what they want the employees to do instead of plain English. Examples of jargon that is used by managers in Primark includes deep dive which means getting into detail, joined up thinking which means to discusses view points of employees and come to an agreement or compromise, win solution that means to provide a product or service that makes everyone happy, moving forward meaning to progress on an idea and USP that means the unique selling point. All of this jargon is used most often by the managers when speaking to the employees.  The language that employees use when dealing with customers at Primark is more laid back and less formal so that they are able to communicate on the same level as the customers to provide a good service. Managers will use jargon in place of other words in order to get a point across in a swift manner and expect the employees to understand what they mean by using these words.  It also displays a sense of authority as  when a manager uses jargon to talk to an employee is that it puts them in a higher position as they are using formal language whereas an employee would use more informal language even when communicating with their managers in Primark.

Another visible aspect of culture in Primark is their motto, which is `uptown clothes down right prices`.  This shows that Primark is promoting to its customers that it is able to provide its customers good quality clothes for a price that is reasonably cheap and that they believe that customers would be willing to pay for the products

Unwritten rules and expectations that Primark has form its staff members and managers is for them to always be dressed in their uniform and be present themselves in a professional manner when dealing with customers.

The way in which managers dress in Primark is that managers generally wear white shirts and trousers for men and white blouses and either skirts or trousers for women which is more formal and presets the managers as having more responsibility and be more professional. The uniform for sales employees is all black clothes and black shoes. The difference between the clothing shows that managers have higher authority and a higher rank within the organisations than the sales employees.  The dress code of the managers looks more for an office environment but the dress code of Primark sales employees is although unique does not look good and can give customers the idea that Primark does not take into consideration their employees dress code and how this can impact whether customers would feel comfortable dealing with people wear all black or not.

A power culture

What handy meant by the power culture, was that in an organisations driven by power there would be a lot of employees that would be aiming to reach certain positions in the business and that there would be a central powerful figure in the business. The central powerful figure in a business such as Pirmark would be either a CEO or a chairman of the business, as it is the highest position within the business and the CEO or chairman has influence and power  over decisions made in the business and ultimately has the final say about what changes or improvements need to be made in the business. The power culture also shows that the employees within this environment are able to make fast decision it is ideal for the head of a business to be in this culture because based on their decision a business can expand or fail .  there is more faith in one person in the power culture and it does not have faith in comities as the individual in power needs to be able to change very rapidly and adapt new strategy of business or can die due to the person in power.

A role culture

The role culture portrays what happens in an organisation that does not need to constantly change. In which employees are assignment jobs to carry out by higher up managers and staff within the organisations. The work that is given to the employees is decided by certain rules or regulations that have to be adhered to. There is not much co-ordinations within the organisation and the work is all paper based. The power within the culture of a bank is based on the hierarchy with senior staff having a lot of power and junior staff not having much objexction and carrying out the jobs at hand.  The job description is more important within these types of organisations such as banks and building societies as opposed to skill and personalities of people who control the culture. Employees in the organisation are not advised or encouraged to performance better as what they are doing following their job description is sufficient enough

A task culture

A task culture organisation focuses on getting projects done, it also relies on team work between staff, the task that is at hand is the key for the organisation to be able to generate a profit by completing it. It relies heavily on research development actives.  Lots of different task are carried out by employees in order to accomplish future goals. An example of a task  culture based organisation would be tesco , the reason for this is that tesco relies heavily on information and research data that it  collects , this research data is used to see how tesco is performing and if it is doing well enough to expand their business interests. The are lots of different teams in tesco that deal with different task and they are costly changing the task in Tesco . Within a task based organisation it is very important for their to be information and expertise because their needs to be information for the business to use in order to operate and assignment task to employees to carry out. The expertise is very important because if the organisation such as tesco has people who have a lot of expertise and are expertise in their field of work within tesco then the business will be able to carry out the task and feel comfortable that they will be able to succeed in completion of the tasks.  The culture is also  flexible as it offers their to be changes for example if employees need to be able to leave at a certain time or someone is not comfortable doing the task they are assignment to tesco gives them these options. In contrast to power role culture task culture is much more relaxed and less bureaucratic. If there is lack of information or the information is not up to date with restrictions on resources the culture can become a more power based or role based culture.

A person culture

Person culture focuses on single induviduals as they are central top priority in a person culture organisation. The self emplyed organisation revloves ajd depeds on these people and it only exists to serve the interest to the people within the organisation. Examples of a people Culture is architects, barristers and stockbrokers. The whole business in these fields of work relies upon the employees a lot and so there is more communication and interaction between the employee and managers in the business. In the power culture there is athority and employees are told what  to do and in a person cultue the person is able to choose what projects they will work on as it will generate alot of income for the business and the employee will feel more comefortable when working on projects this would wllow.for them to perform.much more productivly. The perdob culture is more sutible for a self emplyed induvidual and is not appropriate for a business organisation as it only deals with the best interest and performance of an induvidual and not a group of people for which a role or task organisation would be best suited to.

The problem with classifying culture into one of the four types described above is that culture is made up of all four of the types mentioned by Handy. Without the classification of one type then culture would not be appropriately categorised. It is difficult to define culture due to the many definitions it has, culture has different meanings depending on the way a business operates. The way in which employees work in a business has a large impact on the culture within the business and not all types o of culture can be classified in the four different types of culture. If culture is classified into one of the culture types then it puts restrictions on the business organisational structure because they would not be able to make changes in the organisation in order to improve the business as when employees would have adjusted to a type of culture environment then the would face difficulty and it could lead t employees leaving the businesses. The employees for example in the role culture are very different form the person culture, the reason for this is that in a person culture it revolves around a single individual to be able to keep the business running and the person culture allows for the person such as an architect and take on different roles in the business and make suggestions for changes. Whereas in the role culture all decisions and work assigned is based on as hierarchy system , employees do not have much say and have to complete task up to the rules and regulations that have been set out by the organisation.

In conclusion the organisation culture in an organisations is very important as it allows the organisations to function properly, there is no business that is not able to be categories in one of the types of culture mentioned  above . The reasons is that structure of a business relies on the culture to be able to operate a business in a good manner and make sure that its employees are able to know what they are required to do within the business. The culture in a business is very important to be analysed as put into practice because it will allow the employees to be more comfortable in carrying out their tasks. The organisation culture that Primark would be best categories is the task culture, the reason is that as Primark has lots of different teams in their stores all the teams are assigned a certain amount of task to be completed by a certain date. This falls under the task culture as the business relies on employees to carry out different tasks at the same time to be able to provide their customers with the service. The employees of Primark are in a comfortable laid back culture as each employee in a team is assigned tasks that are not difficult to carry out and team members help each other to carry out the assigned tasks. 

motivation: Improving Staff Performance

The difference between the process and content theories is that, the content theory assume that people have a set of needs that they pursue and it is what motivates employees and process theories assume that an individual is able to select their own goals and choose how to achieve them through a process of calculation and it deals with how does something motivate employees. An example of a process theory is Victor Vrooms theory of expectancy. The expectancy theory is made up of three steps these are effort, performance and reward. An organisation would use this theory as it shows that if employees put in effort at their performance will show this and they would be rewarded with incentives and their wages.

  

Tesco motivate their employees by many different ways these include :

•         Tesco give their employees the chance to all of their employees that have worked for Tesco for more than a year the chance to save up to £50 every 4 weeks for either 3 or 5 years and receive a tax-free bonus at the end. Employees can use your savings and bonus to buy Tesco shares at up to 20% less than the market price, or take their earnings.(Tesco- Careers share our success,2011)
•         Tesco employees are also given a staff privilege card, this allows them to be able to receive 10% discount in store and extra club card points. (Tesco - Careers staff privilege card ,2011)
•         Tesco give their employees give their employees incentives in order to keep them working hard and motivated, the employees are given discounts on theme parks, holidays and gym memberships which are available all year round.  As Tesco likes to reward hard work from employees they also have special offers throughout the year in order to make sure all employees receive their reward. (Tesco- Careers childcare vouchers,2011)

The expectancy theory relates to tesco in the way that due to employees putting in effort at work it relates to their performance and helps to portray a good image of tesco to their customers. As Tesco employees work hard they are given different types of rewards such as discounts and this motivates the employees to work harder due to this way of motivating the employees performance is even greater and employees gain more rewards.

In conclusion what can be seen form the data shown is that tesco is able to improve their staff performance very effectively by offering their employees lots of incentives and rewards they are able to motivate their employees to work harder in order to gain their rewards. This leads to an improvement in staff performance as they would all want to receive rewards, this leads to the working environment being more comfortable and Vroom’s expectancy theory shows that employees want different rewards and that by companies motivating their staff members the employees will be able to reach to reach their goals and work harder in the process. 

motivational theories

The motivational theories that are used by businesses are Maslows hierarchy of needs theory , Alderfers ERG theory, Herzberg two factor theory or Mcclellands need theory.
Out of the motivational theories the one that relates to me most is Abraham Maslows hierarchy of needs theory  the reason is that i like to draw and paint. what motivates me is my art being appreciated by others and me creating a work of art that i am proud of because it raises my self esteem due to this i have a big ego when it comes to my drawings as i do not like to receive harsh criticism. If i am not able to prodcue a good piece of artwork it will lower myself esteem and this in turn makes me depressed, less social and unwilling to continue drawing the piece of art i was working on. For this reason i feel that Maslows theory relates to me the most due to the self esteem, ego and self actualization that is needed in order to self motivate myself in aiming to reach my goal.

My motivation for starting my degree was to be able to get a better indepth understanding of business and what management in a business encompasses. As it will allow me to have a better chance of getting a job after completion of my course. What motivated me to go to university is wanting to get a higher education that can help me to make a lot of money and find a secure job in a business firm. what i feel will motivate me for the next three years will be the need to get a first or 2.1 degree and the self satisfaction i will have if i reach this goal.
A time when i was demotivated was, at school when i was studying for my GCSE my teacher  asked me what career path i wanted to choose, i said that i wanted to be a scientist or a engineer. when my teacher said to me that it was an unrealistic that i would be able to become one , i was upset and this demotivated me , because of this i did not want to pay any attention to my GCSE exams due to having second thoughts about if i would be able to become a engineer or scientist . In this position i had low self esteem that was having an impact on my productivity making me not want to go to university. What motivated me to continue with my studies and aim to reach university was my parents having faith in me and telling me to try my best whatever the outcome. This relates to the Maslows two top levels of his hierarchy of needs and also relates to Aldefers ERG theory.
because after being demotivated my parents, motivate me by giving me praise and recognition when i reached university and i also am produce that i did not give up in my studies. The way in which me being demotivated due to not wanting to gain further education relates to the theory of Herzberg is, that Herzbergs theory is made up of two factors which are hygiene factors and motivators. As i had no motivation it would mean that my hygiene factor would not be good due to my dissatisfaction of hearing i could not go into my chosen career and it would mean that i would not have any motivational factors in relation to Herzberg two factors theory.
 Mclelland thoery of need relates to when i was demotivated, the reason being that mclelland expands upon the motivational needs of a person and one the needs he expands upon is the need for achievement. If i had this encouragement when i was demotivated i would be able to be motivated and gain good grades, which in turn would lead to me wanting to further my education.
If i were to do something differently when i was demotivated i would have not taken the comments by my teacher too seriously and would have worked harder than i did in order to have achieved more as it wold raise my interest in the field of science and engineering and i would have more of an appreciation for not giving up.

In conclusion i feel that in order for me to feel a sense of achievement and motivation, being demotivated was a factor that helped me and i can see that the theory of motivation that is best fits me is Abraham Maslows hierarchy of needs theory of motivation.