Organizational Culture Assignment: Hybrid Workplace- Future Of Business

Question

Task: Produce a report on organizational culture assignment of no more than 3,000 words (the word count does not include the reference list at the end of the report) which incorporates the following 4 points.
1) Provide a critique of the extent to which organisational leaders and managers can shape organisational culture in the way that they desire
2) Evaluate hybrid working policies, considering different stakeholder perspectives and paying attention to how this might impact tacit learning
3) Evaluate the impact that hybrid working is likely to have on traditional elements of organisational design

Provide an example of a corporation that has introduced, or is introducing, hybrid working. Discuss how they are doing this, and any challenges they are having, or may experience – you should include the links (URLs) to information on this

Answer

Abstract:
This report on organizational culture assignment will encompass explicitly on the organizational culture. The report also includes how the culture of an organization is influenced by top level management such as leaders and managers. It describes effectively on the differences in the power of each person and how each one of them influences the culture uniquely. Then it expands the premises to hybrid work policy where the particular group of employees are allowed to work remotely from the office, and their benefits and drawbacks are discussed. The report also contains how this hybrid work policy is perceived for different stakeholders such as a company, an employer, and an employee. Finally, the report discusses about its impacts in the six elements of organizational design and concludes with a real-time example of an organization successfully using this policy.

Introduction to organizational culture:
A culture of the organization could be defined as the accumulation of core values, practices, and expectations that assist in maneuvering and enlightening the team members with actions that elucidate what the company is for (Odor, 2018). The organizational culture depends on various factors, such as the geographical locations, behavior of the employees, traditions practiced in the company, and so. And chief among them is the leadership and management styles of the company. A company’s vision, objectives, and values come from the top of the hierarchy to the bottom. And the decisions made by the leaders and managers extensively influence the quality of the culture by making employees happy and satisfied with their job and security. Howsoever the leadership style is either a positive one or negative, it still influences the organizational culture at a significant level.

Impacts of leaders and managers on organizational culture:
Unity in the organizational culture will be a crucial factor determining the prosperity of the company. Being so, leaders could uplift this by providing valuable feedback to the team members in developing their goals, vision, opportunities, and compliance towards integrity. The key roles of a leader that considerably influence the culture are by setting agendas, work prioritization, effective leading and managing, and assigning the work to be done (Balcerzyk, 2021). With such roles in hand leaders play an effective part in enhancing or degradingthe culture of an organization. There are five ways through which leaders influence the organizational culture – by spreading motivations, establishing a strong vision, effectively coaching the employees, maintaining transparent communication, and finally the acknowledgment and the encouragementfor employees of their triumph and mistakes (Nelson, 2018). First of all, a leader’s actions would admire the employees and with good intentions, leaders would be considered a rolemodel. However, if the leader is more motivated by the money, then that would have a negative impact on the culture and would tend to attract only employees who are motivated by money. Rather if the leaderis driven by purpose, then that would develop a positive organizational culture. Secondly, leaders must have a strong vision that could guide the employees to target the same goal for maintaining harmony in the organizational culture. If the vision is not fixed then the outcomes would be unfavorable and would disgruntle the employees and disturb the culture (Jabbar and Hussain, 2017, pp. 99-106). Alongside the leaders have to be formulating an effective plan that includes the goals and strategy that could teach the employees about their objective and policies involved. This would help the employees understand the path they are following and make them walk through a similar road concurrently. Acknowledging and appreciating or encouraging the employees for their fiascos and triumph will assist them in overcoming and providing propitious outcomes (Aqel, Fernandes, and Nunes, 2018). This way leaders could gain their trust and would be conducive to maintaining an effective culture within the organization. Finally, since the leaders lead the company, it has to be their responsibility in having morale in their actions and their ramifications. Blaming others or not exercising in mitigating such problems will build a negative impact on the culture of the organization.

Similarly, the line that differentiates the role of a leader and manager is slim yet the differences are important in developing the culture within the organization.Indeed, the managers of the company play a pivotal role in influencing the organizational culture to a great extent. The role of the managers in influencing the culture of a company relies on the methods a business wants the manager to interact with other employees along with the authority and control the company endowed to its manager (Lister, 2021). They fortify the culture through their actions and words that comply with the values and visions of the organization. Proper and transparent communication by the manager must be followed like in the case of being an effective leader, in enhancing the culture. One of the crucial roles of a manager is recruiting new employees (Martinho, Reis, and Sampaio, 2019, pp. 1680-1688). The culture of the organization could be protected from unfavorable practicesthat disturb the culture. The managers could provide the partial outline of the goals, traditions, values, and visions of the company to the person while recruiting process to make the person on the other end understand the requirement of the employees after being hired rather than looking for their educational requirements alone (Macey, 2016). This would curtail the time taken for the new employees to get accustomed to the culture followed in the company and would avoid any negative impacts on it. The managers could enhance the culture of the company by regularly updating the mission statement of the company, policies involved in the company, operational standards, conducting performance reviews and so.

Hybrid work policy:
For implementing a hybrid workspace, formulating a hybrid workspace policy is pivotal. Workspaces and their requirements have changed over different sectors of the world especially after the pandemic. Being so, the hybrid policy of working is the most viable option for many companies to keep their employees. The hybrid work model can be defined as the structure in which employees would be provided with increased flexibility in time and place to complete the tasks handed to them by the company (Baker, 2021, p. 64). In short, the employees could complete the task from anywhere and anytime (within the deadlines). And the hybrid work policy could be defined as the agreement that summarizes the location, the time and the methods employees could work. The policies drawn are either temporary or permanent according to the target of the company. The policy also includes the legitimate rights of the hybrid employees, the finest practices to follow during the hybrid working, and importantly which jib titles are suitable for this hybrid work. For instance, if the company is a producer of building materials such as cement, sand, and other products then the person in the design sector could be availing the hybrid work benefits while the employees working in mines and machines cannot avail such policies.

Hybrid work policy and the stakeholders’ perceptions:
Hybrid work policies have certain benefits as well as drawbacks to the companies and their employees. The policy also provides the companies with multiple opportunities. For instance, it helps in gaining the attention and retention of diverse talents from different places globally. With the rise in technologies, the interaction of people from different areas of the globe has become easy. This helped the company to employ different minds around the world under this hybrid work policy. Another crucial benefit it provides the companies are truncating the additional costs such as real estate, land taxes, electricity bills, water bills, equipment costs and so. This way the revenue of the company could be enhanced and could then be invested in building the future of the company. This employment policy has been proven to improve business performance (FORTUNEINDIA.COM, 2021). This helped the companies to put their employees first and not the location in understanding the resource availability and workplace enhancement. From the perspective of the employer, the hybrid work policy helps them in recruiting a diverse talent pool to work for the company helping in developing a team with employees having a wide range of skill sets. As an employer, the hybrid working could help in cultivating a better collaboration among the employees since the balanced team could manage the falls of a less skilled team member. However, hybrid working keeps the employees away from the employers. This makes the employers feel difficult in monitoring the performance of the employees. The employers could not identify what the team members are doing and this need for communication rather than simple observations will consume more time. Keeping the employees remote from the employers makes it difficult for the employers to share some insights on how to make a better customer experience and it is difficult for the employers to observe the employees’ interaction with customers. Remote working curtails the opportunities for the high-level executives to share their experience to the employees through break periods and crisp one-on-one meetings.

On the other hand, from the perception of the employees hybrid working lets them have a smaller number of workplace distractions such as dress codes, traveling and so. This policy helps the employees to have a significant amount of contentment in doing their job whenever and from wherever they want, which eventually enhances the creativity manifested by them in the tasks. It also curtails a certain amount of time spent on the commute, which could be then be focused on the productive completion of work provided. Finally, the most important one and is the crucial factor in making this policy suitable is the balance it provides on the professional and personal life of the employees. By working from home, employees can get extra time to spend with their families and children. This will lighten the stress experienced by the employees due to the work and thus help them in focusing more on increasing the productivity of the company. Even though, time flexibility has been beneficial for the employees it is also the reason for employees' burnout due to overtime work (Altemus, 2021). Since the companies are letting the employees work from home, they did not have the responsibility to shut the doors of the office at a particular work period. This makes the employees work for extra time in completing the task quickly. And thus, fading out the line demarcates the personal and professional life. This also makes it difficult for the employees to understand and observe the actions and tactics of the managers and other high-level executives to develop their expertise in the business. This baffles them in comprehending the tools and decisions needed for managing a business.

Impacts of hybrid work policy on the elements of organizational design:
The organizational design could be defined as the process that explains the hierarchy and leadership practices of the company that can affect the culture followed in the workplace, its efficiency, the relationship managed, and value (Fjeldstad and Snow, 2018, pp. 32-39). Overall, there are six elements in the organizational design – work specialization, compartments and departmentalization, formalization of elements, centralization and decentralization, the span of control, and chain of command (Indeed Editorial Team, 2021). The impacts of hybrid work policy in these six elements are profuse.

• Work Specialization:
Assigning a specific task to a particular employee can be defined as work specialization. If the manager or the team leader is clear about what their employees need to be done, then through this specialization procedure each employee will be provided with a specific project according to their expertise. With the help of the hybrid work policy, employers could easily specify the jobs that need to be done by each employee. This way, an employee could know whether he or she is required in the workplace physically for completing that specific job or they could complete it by staying home. This element also helps the employers to consider whom to call to the company and who can do the work from home thus curtailing miscellaneous costs. So, the hybrid work policy has a positive impact on this element.

• Compartments and departmentalization:
Compartments could be defined as a group of professionals with different expertise and skill set. Since the hybrid work policy helps in gathering a wide talent pool irrespective of their location forming the compartments within the workplace is easy and effective compared to the traditional design.
While departmentalization could be defined as the group of professionals with an indistinguishable skill set and expertise. In this case, the hybrid work policy is unpropitious since the drawback of such policy is lack of clarity in the communication which might confuse or engender possibilities where the employees might misunderstand it. Also, in departmentalization, every employee will have similar practices to attain a similar goal. However, in hybrid policy flexibility provided will hinder any such harmony in practices and will make the departmentalization practice less effective.

• Formalization of elements:
This elementspecifies roles and relationships inside the company. Since the policy encompasses who, when and what explicitly to the employees it has a positive impact on this element. However, certain workplace rules such as break time cannot be clarified within the workplace as the employees will be working in a flexible schedule. The break time of one employee may not necessarily be the same as that of another employee during hybrid working. In such cases, the policy has negative impacts on generalizing the rules to everyone equally.

• Centralization and decentralization:
Through a hybrid work policy, centralization could be eschewed from the company since the flexibility is provided to the employees, valuing their efforts and outcomes more than inflicting the workplace environment with the ideas and decisions of the high-level executives. With this policy, the company could bolster the decentralization by making the employees decide the company practices consequently downgrading the possibility of centralization in the company.

• The span of control:
This element of organizational design could be defined as the factor that determines the managing and monitoring skills of a leader or a high-level executive within a company. As aforementioned, one of the challenges faced by the employers in hybrid working is the scantiness in methods available to monitor the actions of the employees since they would be working remotely. Being so, the span of control by the leaders and high-level executives is less thus having a negative impact on this element.

• Chain of command:
The chain of command of the company defines the hierarchy of the business that can affect the culture of the workplace as well as the efficacy of the work produced. In the case of the hybrid work policy, a certain number of employees will be working from remote places with flexible time. The organization in such a situation will be residing inside the virtual office room platforms. Every person of the office would be present in that scenario being so, if the employee wants to raise a complaint or opinion then he or she can share that in the platform where every executive will be present. This will curtail the time wasted on being first shared with the managers and then with the other high-level executives.

Google’s hybrid work policy:
Hybrid work policy has been a point of discussion in every business from small to multi-billion-dollar companies. The corporation we will be focusing on here is Google. Google is a multinational techcompany that provides exceptional services and products related to the internet such as a search engine, digital advertising, cloud computing, and various other software and hardware. And this company never fails to encourage and care for its employees. When the COVID-19 breaks out, lots of businesses have failed since its ignorance in incorporating remote working policies. However, Google has introduced this under the name “Campfire”. This method encompasses involving every possible employee around a different location to take part in the meetings hosted. The primary goal is to make the employees stay away from the office also to be a part of the company’s decision-making process and so. According to the CEO of Google, with the surging outbreaks of the pandemic the company is striving to make every employee benefit through flexible work hours and locations in addition to separate allowances (Pichai, 2021). In his mail to the employees in sharing the details of this hybrid work policy, he mentioned more than 60% of the employees are planning on coming back to the office. However, this might not be the enduring mentality of employees.

In recent updates, it can be seen that the employee resignation rates are proliferating with 4.5 million people out of their offices (Davidson, 2022). To eschew such situations, many companies are now making their approach decentralization and letting the employees take the decision on having their preferred work time and location. The CEO also mentions that the employees will be offered opportunities to completely stay remote from the workplace or change the workplace location after discussing clearly with their project manager or team leaders and the compensation will be provided according to the location. Being a multinational company, Google finds it easy to provide flexible work locations to its employees. Even before the outbreak of the coronavirus the company practiced remote working policies where the employees will be working from remote workplaces due to various reasons. Being so, incorporating the hybrid work policy was not taxing for the company when many companies found this approach problematic. The “global footprint” of Google helps the company to offers further flexibility in the workplace locations. He mentions that people could only be able to apply for the remote work policy within the functions and areas of the product. Even for those employees who are willing to come for office, Google offers a policy stating that they could take a few days off within a week (like visiting the office only 3-4 days a week) and work remotely from their home. The Google CEO estimates that once this policy has come into effect, around 60% of the employees will be coming to the coming to office only when they are required physically, around 20% will be working from their new workplace locations, and the remaining 20% of the employees will be working from home, full-time. According to Herzberg’s Two-factor theory, employee satisfaction is contingent on –motivators (such as recognition and awards thatimprove satisfaction) and hygiene (such as work security, better salary to curtail dissatisfaction). And when juxtaposing this theory with the policy made by Google, the motivators it provides are valuing their opinions on selecting different workplace location that makes them more satisfied and thus loyal to the company, and the hygiene it provides is the flexible work hours and various allowances to the employees that help them feel not dissatisfied of the hybrid work policy. On the other hand, there are possibilities that the company might lose hold of shared values by spreading the workplace to a wider space. Since Google is the company that values the open space for the employees to share their valuable opinions and ideas to the workplace that goes in parallel with the objective of the company, letting the employees work from different locations and the culture at that place might disturb the integrity followed (Sen, Deb and Kumar, 2021).

Conclusion:
Howsoever, hybrid workplaces are the future of business. With numerous benefits to both companies as well as the employees, a hybrid workplace could be a suitable and most viable option for the coming days.

Reference:
Altemus, S.2021,‘Create a Hybrid work policy to help employees work wiser, Activtrak, viewed 14 February 2022, https://www.activtrak.com/blog/hybrid-work-policy/

Aqel, R.A.A., Fernandes, P.O. and Nunes, A. 2018,‘Factors that impact employee performance: the empirical case of two telecommunication companies in Palestine’, In 32nd International Business Information Management Association Conference, International Business Information Management Association (IBIMA), pp. 5657-5668, viewed 14 February 2022, http://hdl.handle.net/10198/21325
Baker, D.2021, ‘The Future of Work is Hybrid: Could Covid be the Catalyst for Organizations to Implement a Hybrid Workplace Model?’
Balcerzyk, D.2021,‘The role of a leader in contemporary organizations’,https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/80996
Davidson, P. 2022, ‘Great Resignation: The number of people quitting jobs hit an all-time high in November as openings stayed near record’, USA Today (Money), 4 January, viewed 15 February 2022, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2022/01/04/great-resignation-number-people-quitting-jobs-hit-record/9083256002/
Fjeldstad, Ø.D. and Snow, C.C.2018,‘Business models and organization design’, Long range planning, vol. 51, no. 1, pp.32-39. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2017.07.008

FORTUNEINDIA.COM2021,‘Hybrid workplace, flexible policies: India Inc.’s new mantra’, Fortune India (Enterprise), viewed 14 February 2022, https://www.fortuneindia.com/enterprise/hybrid-workplace-flexible-policies-india-incs-new-mantra/106118
Indeed Editorial Team2021,‘6 Elements of organizational design’, Indeed, viewed 14 February 2022, https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/elements-of-organizational-design
Jabbar, A.A. and Hussein, A.M. 2017,‘The role of leadership in strategic management’, International Journal of Research-Granthaalayah, vol. 5, no. 5, pp.99-106. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29121/granthaalayah.v5.i5.2017.1841
Lister, J. 2021,Organizational culture’s effects on a manager’s role, Chron, viewed 14 February 2022, https://smallbusiness.chron.com/organizational-cultures-effects-managers-role-18426.html
Martinho, F., Pinto Dos Reis, I. and Sampaio, M.C. 2019,‘Recruitment and Selection as a Tool for Strategic Management of Organizations–El Corte Ingles Case Study’,organizational culture assignment Journal of Reviews on Global Economics, no. 8, pp.1680-1688, http://hdl.handle.net/10400.26/36450
Macey, T. 2016,Does management affect organizational culture?, Vital Learning, viewed 14 February 2022, https://www.vital-learning.com/blog/leadership-and-organizational-culture
Nelson, A. 2018,The impact of leaders on organizational culture, Interactsoftware, viewed 14 February 2022, https://www.interactsoftware.com/blog/the-impact-of-leaders/

Odor, H.O. 2018,‘Organisational culture and dynamics’, Global Journal of Management and Business Research.
Pichai, S. 2021,A message from our CEO: A hybrid approach to work, Google The Keyword, viewed 15 February 2022, https://blog.google/inside-google/life-at-google/hybrid-approach-work/
Sen, P., Deb, P., and Kumar, N. 2021, The challenges of work from home for organizational design, California Management Review, viewed 15 February 2022, https://cmr.berkeley.edu/2021/07/the-challenges-of-work-from-home-for-organizational-design/