Angel Homes Group
Organisational Culture
Organisational culture forms the basis of improved and sustained organisational performance in the modern world (Owoyemi & Ekwoaba, 2014). Through organisational culture, companies develop patterned beliefs and behaviours through which the operations of employees and organisational management develop their base. Organisational culture analysis based on employee motivation and engagement forms the basis of this report with special focus on the nature of organisational culture adopted by the Angel Homes Group that operates in the United Kingdom.
Angel Homes Group is a housing company that provides high quality affordable houses to both urban and rural dwellers of the United Kingdom (Angel Homes Group, n.d.). The organization has an organisational culture of excellence in service delivery, genuine concern for client needs and employee welfare. Angel Homes Group has thrived in the housing sector of the UK due to its high quality service delivery in this sector that has accorded it many accolades. The most notable organisational culture at the Angel Homes Group is the motivation and engagement of staffs as a pillar for organisational performance and attainment of excellence (Angel Homes Group, n.d.).
At the Angel Homes Group, the motivation and engagement of staffs in their respective roles of service drives the company’s growth and expansion process. The organisational culture of motivating employees in this company is entrenched in the company’s budget and annual operational calendar through which stipulations with regard to how best to keep employees productive and motivated are established. There exists a clear outline of the roles and expectations of all employees in this company and it is upon the individual employees to ensure they live up to their expectations in addition to helping the company achieve its annual goals and objectives.
Organisational Culture- Literature Review
Adewale and Anthonia (2013) describe organisational culture as a practice through which organisations exhibit their shared values and beliefs that help guide the employee conduct and behaviour. The adoption of a particular organisational culture helps organisations shape the nature of their behaviour and practice that eventually helps exhibit their identity. According to Schein (2004), organisational culture refers to a pattern of shared values and beliefs that guide an organization’s path of thought, problem solving, and modality of noting and exploiting opportunities. Through organisational cultures, companies develop distinct operational strategies that help guide their unique identity and operations towards the attainment of their goals and targets.
Moreover, Adewale and Anthonia (2013) record that the modern business environment is largely complex and dynamic, prompting the need to adopt efficiently organisational mechanisms to help keep pace. The researchers further opine that the complexity and dynamism presented by the modern business environment exposes organisations to opportunities and challenges that need to be managed with the available organisational resources. It thus implies that the comprehension of the opportunities and challenges brought about by the business environment dynamism plays an integral role in influencing the nature of organizational strategies and techniques adopted by various companies. Through a detailed understanding of the business environment, Adewale and Anthonia (2013) argue that companies set their goals and objectives that need to be consistently achieved with the aid of a functional organisational culture. The organisational culture helps a company’s administration develop specific sets of assumptions and behaviours that seamlessly align with the set organizational goals and targets.
Owoyemi and Ekwoaba (2014) argue that through the adoption of efficient organisational cultures, business firms and other companies gain a unique motivation to help them work towards the attainment of their set organisational goals and targets. According to Ajika and Awonisi (2004), employee motivation and engagement is a common organisational culture adopted by most organisations that helps them realize their goals in addition to improved market performance. According to the researchers, a motivation and engagement organisational culture can help an organisation’s management and employees enhance their productivity as it helps enhance their commitment to their assigned roles (Ajika & Awoinisi, 2004).
According to Owoyemi and Ekwoaba (2014), organisational culture in the modern organisational settings is an independent variable that needs to be factored in the process of structuring and developing organisational goals and objectives. Through organisational culture, the researcher notes that organisations can establish strong frameworks upon which the identity and performance of a company ought to be benchmarked. Owoyemi and Ekwoaba (2014) postulate the most important part in the organisational management process is not the adoption of organisational cultures but rather the institutionalization of frameworks with which companies can manage their organisational cultures. Proper identification and management of organisational cultures helps companies recognize their most effective cultures upon which they establish themselves (Owoyemi & Ekwoaba, 2014).
Owoyemi and Ekwoaba (2014) note that earlier studies have evidenced that companies that stand for something in the form of some sort of organisational behaviour and beliefs perform better and at a more consistent level when compared to those that do not. According to these researchers therefore, it is important that companies establish strong organisational cultures upon which they can rally their employees and managers towards the attainment of some set organisational goals and targets. The researchers thus argue that organisational cultures are not there to just motivate, develop and cultivate employees but equally help organisations edge off competition in their operational industries (Owoyemi&Ekwoaba, 2014).
The conceptualization of organisational culture as noted by Shahzad, et al. (2012) utilizes two approaches, namely; process oriented approach and classification oriented approach. Through the process approach, the researchers note that organisational culture comes out as a collective behaviour adopted by an organisation through in the cause of running its daily activities. In the classification approach of identifying an organisation’s culture, Shahzad et al. (2012) posit that organisational culture models play an integral role in exhibiting the sort of cultural behaviours and beliefs adopted by organisations. The researchers opine that the onion model is the most common type of organisational culture model adopted by organisations embracing the classification approach. Through the onion model, the organisational command and operational guidelines are structured in a layered format through which an analysis of its power structure, control systems, and routines helps observe and conclude on the type of organisational culture adopted by an organisation (Shahzad et al., 2012).
Critical Analysis of Angel Homes Group’s Organisational Culture
Angel Homes Group sets aside a considerable sum of money to help maintain its annual employee-retraining program (Angel Homes Group, n.d.). Through this program, employees develop exposure to the changing dynamics in their professional lines of duty, retrained to help update skills and motivated to keep up with their good work at the organisation. The organisation holds annual events through which staff training takes place to help both employees and their managers gain the most appropriate skills to help them favourably compete with the other 1800 housing companies operating in the United Kingdom. Through the culture of training and re-training employees and managers, the company is able to remind them of the values and principles of its establishment leading to increased organisational productivity (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2011)..
Most organisations place considerable investments towards the development and maintenance of their organisational cultures. The financial and other forms of resource allocations that companies devote towards the development and realisation of their organizational goals helps the companies maintain a given desirable level of market performance and unique identity just as indicated by companies like the Angel Homes Housing Group (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2011). The organisation invests around £600 annually in employee and manager training and development programs (Angel Homes Group, n.d.). Experts and other industry technocrats run the programs to help employees and managers learn of new advanced technologies and practices that help the company operate with excellence. The money is invested in what the organisation describes as an annual appraisal and progression program through which the company updates itself with the current industry developments (Angel Homes Group, n.d.). Through such events, the organisation learns of new opportunities and lays strategies to help tap them.
The employee motivation organisational culture of the Angel Homes Group does not end with the employee training and development programs but spills over to their recreation and holiday awards. The company is largely concerned of the motivation and welfare of its employees to the point that the management allows employees some days off in the course of the year as holiday. To help the employee refresh after a delivery quality services to the organisation, Angels Home Group allows its employees to go on a twenty-six day holiday when they are new and on a twenty-eight day holiday when they have worked for the company for a period of three years or more (Angel Homes Group, n.d.). Such holidays are provided to employees outside the national holiday provisions of the United Kingdom. In addition to these holidays, the company allows its employees to go on a three-day holiday during the Christmas period at the end of the year.
The holiday provisions to employees portray an organisational culture that tends to ensure all employees relieve the pressure piled in them after a long exhaustive working period. The company’s employee motivation and welfare concern culture further highlights through its endeavour to ensure those employees who fail to go for their Christmas holidays due to job engagements do so at another ideal time. This helps avoid violating its principle of employee treatment and job standard requirements (Angel Homes Group, n.d.). The Angel Homes Group is also a mindful employer as it has mental health provisions through which it lays guidelines on what it does to ensure the mental health stability of all its employees. The mental health provisions highlight the employee welfare and motivation commitments of the organisations and brings to the fore the companies employee motivation and welfare concern organisational culture.
The staff engagement organisational culture at the Angel Homes Group compliments its staff motivation culture. Through this organisational culture, the company ensures that its staffs play an integral role in influencing the cause of the decisions made pertaining organisational operations. Due to the competitiveness of the housing industry in the United Kingdom, all Angel Homes Group employees are expected to be of high quality skills and competencies. In this organization, it is the expectation of all employees to be of high competence and to play a leadership role in the formulation of strategic decisions and competencies. It therefore means that employee it the Angel Homes Group is directly involved in the company’s decision-making process as their input with regard to the adoption of various priorities is of great importance. This deep involvement of staffs in the formulation of crucial company decisions boosts their motivation to work and thus helps enhance the company’s productivity.
To wind up the employee motivation and engagement culture at the Angel Homes Group, the organisation allows its employees the chance to develop recovery plans (Angel Homes Group, n.d.). Additionally, the employees develop functional feedback mechanisms while also providing opinions on what can be done to help improve the quality of services provided by the organisation. These staff engagement provisions at the organisation strongly help realize a highly motivated workforce capable of helping the organisation meet its organisational goals and targets.
The Angel Homes Group’s organisational culture seems effective it helping the company realize its goals and targets. The motivated and engaged workforce greatly commits itself to its duties, hence, helping enhance the company’s productivity. Human beings by nature love motivation and appreciation (Kerr & Slocum, 2005). When this organisation develops a culture of loving its employees and providing for their welfare through holidays and engagement, the organisation plays a major role in boosting the morale and willingness to commit them for the sake of organisational success (Robbins & Sanghi, 2007).
The modern world is dynamic and ever changing. Skills learned at the time of employment can run obsolete with time due to the continued evolution of technology and business landscape. Thus, this prompts the need to update ones professional skills in a bid to help stay maximally productive at all times. The organisations commitment to motivate its employees is in line with Ajika and Awonisi’s (2004) argument that the performance of employees in a company is largely influenced by the amount of motivation they are accorded to help them achieve their goals and targets. The evidence in support of employee motivation organisational culture is exhibited by the company’s excellent performance in the housing industry in the United Kingdom.
Therefore, the annual progressive training and development program adopted by the Angel Homes Group is highly important in helping ensure their employees provide market services and skills at all times. The annual training and re-training of employees at this organisations helps ensure high productivity levels that helps the company maintain high market performance standards that keep it above the multitudes of competing companies. The United Kingdom has more than 1,800 housing construction companies but the Angel Homes Housing Group remains the best housing provider (Angel Homes Group, n.d.). This means that the company’s organisational culture plays a central role in ensuring high productivity and competence levels that exceed the performance of their rivals. The quality employee motivation efforts employed by the management at Angel Homes Group is in tandem with the propositions of Owoyemi and Ekwoaba (2014) who note that organisational performance improves with the adoption of efficient employee motivation and engagement organisational cultures.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Organisation’s Management Practice
The organisation’s management practice strongly helps it maintain high quality service delivery in the housing industry in the United Kingdom. Through the practice, the organization invests a lot in the welfare and competence of its employees to help keep pace with the market demands. Through employee welfare and competence management technique, Angel Homes Housing Group ensures that all its employees deliver their best services to the organisation and this helps it outperform its market competitors.
Additionally, the organisation allows its employees the chance to participate in leadership roles in addition to helping draw service and performance improvement plans. Through this flexible management plan, the company seems to gain from increased employee motivation to service that leads to increased market performance. Hence, the management practice of this organisation helps it maintain its high quality market performance.
Angel Home Group’s management practice seems to be largely devoid of weaknesses due to the continued success of the management techniques it has employed. The company ranks top among all housing companies in the UK based on its focus on high quality service and excellence. The main challenge with this organisation’s management practice is when some of the employees may decide to be unfaithful and draft insincere recommendations on what priorities the company ought to adopt, as that can lead to the collapse of the organisation.
Recommendation
The Angel Home Housing Group’s market performance is exceeds that of its competitors meaning it has embraced efficient management and operational strategies. The organisation’s employee motivation and engagement techniques have been largely successful in helping the organisation meet its goals and targets. To help reinforce the company’s performance, the management should adopt institute a performance evaluation technique through which every employee is to be valued with regard to their individual output. The use of a balanced scorecard approach will highly help this organisation gauge each employee’s contribution to the overall company performance (Ricardo & Wade, 2001).
Through the adoption of performance evaluation systems, employees will be valued according to their scorecard and the organisation will be able to evaluate the success of its staff training, re-training and development programs (Kaplan & Norton, 2001). Through the personal evaluation frameworks, the organisation can be able to estimate the value for money for all its employees and programs. This will help eliminate the possibility of the organisation losing money through training workers who thrive in the success and hard work of their colleagues. It will thus be important and beneficial for the company to adopt the performance evaluation framework to help realize increased performance from all employees.
Conclusion
Organisational culture plays an integral role in shaping a company’s behaviour and uniqueness in its day-to-day operations. Through organisational cultures, company management manages to rally their employees to function in a certain pattern tailored towards the attainment of some set organisational goals and targets. Through efficient organisational cultures, organisations such as the Angel Homes Group find it easy to perform exceptionally well in their fields of service leading to many accolades. The company embraces the employee motivation and engagement organisational culture through which it manages to influence them to increase their productivity. It is thus important that organisations adopt effective organisational cultures to help them realize their organisational goals and targets.
References
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