Kanbay is small scale restaurant that provides food and beverage services. In recognition of the stiff competition that exists in the catering industry, this establishment has adapted modern strategies for improving its competitiveness in the market. This includes recognizing the value of employees in bringing competitive advantage to the company. Kanbay has taken various approaches for improving its employees’ productivity, including encouraging teamwork and offering attractive compensation and reward system.
However, despite these efforts, the workforce at Kanbay restaurant appears to be in conflict and very dissatisfied. Although in any given environment there are some shortcomings, Kanbay’s employees have shown a high level of dissatisfaction. This problem has taken a toll on the quality services that Kanbay is able to provide its customers and therefore affecting the company’s competitiveness. This Organization Development (OD) intervention seeks to establish the root causes of this problem and how it can be solved. It is through this strategy that the organization will be able to operate well in the competitive market else things will be worse than before.
This essay is divided into several parts under which the main idea about the services offered by the restaurant will be discussed. We have the ethical consideration part being our first part which introduces the main theme of our entire discussion.
Ethical Consideration
Though there are so many OD’s that the company can use, ethical consideration is the OD intervention which the firm should apply which involves collusion (Cumming & Christopher, 2009). This refers to the process of conspiring with other stakeholders in order to manipulate outcome. As the OD practitioner, it will be important to avoid any temptation to collude so that the OD intervention outcome will be beyond reproach. Another ethical issue concerns the use of data. It will be very important to ensure that the data obtained during research will not be misused in any way. Data that concerns the employees should be treated with the highest degree of privacy and confidentiality. This will help maintaining high standard of information which will be used in the final analysis. Working within some privacy setting, it will enable the intervention used to be fruitful simply each and every step will be dealt as per the committee’s standards.
Data should also not be revealed to third parties without prior permission from the organization management. If the data goes into a third party’s access without the committees knowledge, there is a greater risk that the information might be tempered with which will later provide results which are not valid. The data collection and the entire research process should not involve any aspect of manipulation and coercion. This study will require participation by the employees. Participation by employees will enable information that will be gathered to be valid and useful for the entire research work. However, this participation will be based on informed consent by the employees and not coercion and manipulation.
The employee will be provided with full information about the study and will be given an opportunity to decide on whether to participate or not. It will be an open forum whereby each and every individual will be left to make decisions on their own so as to provide sufficient and quality information. Another ethical consideration has to do with value and goal conflict. The intervention outcome should not conflict with the values and goals of the organization. Although intervention is equally vital within the organization, goals of the company must be observed in respect to rules set for intervention practices. The final ethical consideration involves technical ineptness. This means that the intervention should be useful to the organization.
Proposal for Entering and Contracting
A problem issues have been identified at Kanbay bringing the need for an organization development intervention (Cumming & Christopher, 2009). The first step in the OD intervention process is to clarify this problem issue. Without problem identification and clarity, there is no single ground under which clear and successful intervention can take place. This is usually through conducting a preliminary study. A preliminary study will help identify some of the problems that are possible or that might result from intervention. This will involve examining records, observation and conducting interview. The clarification process will involve identifying members of the organization that have influence on the issue, those who have vested interest or those who have power to approve or reject the OD efforts. The main of having members as part of the team is quite important simply great care will be take in any move of the entire firm intervention. Identifying these members will be useful in determining relevant team for the entering and contracting stage.
The next step in entering will involve selecting the OD team (Cumming & Christopher, 2009). Although the selected team will in one way be trusted simply they have interest on the firms, thorough evaluation is vital to ensure all have been put accordingly. An OD team has to be created to carry out this task. As the OD practitioner, I believe there are individuals within the organization, who would bring vital contribution by their presence in the OD team. These are; the human resource manager, head of units (production, service, front office, finance and marketing), employees’ representatives and employees from different hierarchical levels. The individuals basically contribute the largest part or gives sufficient services towards the organization operations. I strongly believe that what is most necessary for the entire intervention will largely be supported by individuals who hold different positions in the firm, (Rafferty & Griffin, 2001).
Since these problems concern the employees and their welfare, it would be very important to include the human resource manager and the employee representatives. The problem also cuts across the whole organization and therefore it is also critical to include all heads of units and an employee from each hierarchical level. In short problems within an organization are not confined within a particular section and that is the reason as to why participation of the entire team is of importance towards the intervention process and determination of problems.
The next step would be developing a contract. Contracting is an extension of the entering process and clarifies how the OD process will proceed. Without proper directions and though the intervention is better, it turns to be impossible for the organization yield quality results. At this step, expectation of the organization and the practitioner are established, financial and time resources determined and the ground rules that will guide the operation of both parties. In terms of expectations, Kanbay should expect an increase in the levels of employees’ motivation, low employee turnover and improved team work in the organization at the end of the OD process. The reason towards these expectations is that problems of the organization will be dealt with which provides motivation to the employees. The organization should also expect a professional working relation between them and me (the practitioners), (Rafferty & Griffin, 2001).
In return, I would also expect the organization to allow me and the team to exercise our skills and judgment with interference. I also expect to receive appropriate compensation. I would recommend that the OD team to have two meeting in week for two hour each to deliberate on the progress of the intervention. I would also recommend that an appropriate amount of financial resource to be set aside for the process. Without funds and support from the organization, it will be difficult to carry out the process simply because no one will be willing to operate within some lose strategies.
Level of Diagnosis
Diagnosis refers to the system of collecting data in order to determine the state of affair in an organization (Leadsphere, 2008). The problem issue will be diagnosed using the Force Field Analysis model. This model involves analyzing the driving forces and the restraining forces behind the problem issue under study and how they can be influenced in order to achieve the desired state of affair within an organization. This method is most appropriate for our OD intervention, as the problem issue in our organization has already been identified and what is now required are means for identifying the factors that are bringing about this issues. Having understood that the firm has renown its problems, the remaining part of intervention will be much easier. Understanding factors that are restraining our problem issue will also be crucial in identifying solutions for our problem, (Leadsphere, 2008).
Relevant Elements of the System to be Included in the Diagnosis
To clearly understand what is bringing about conflict among employees, low motivation and high employee turnover, various issues must be analyzed (Rafferty & Griffin, 2001). Kanbay implements a reward/ performance based compensation system. Without employees satisfaction is equivalent to zero simply because what the firm expects will be a bit impossible. Our diagnosis will investigate whether this system may be the root cause of all these problems.
Another element to be considered is the amount of workload and work/ life balance. This may be another element that may be causing the dissatisfaction among the employees. The organization leadership will also be placed under scrutiny. The aim of this is to determine whether the problem of employee dissatisfaction may be arising from the company leadership style. If a firm wants a quality and effective employees system, satisfaction is one of the main things that should be considered.
Method of Data Collection
The most efficient methods of data collection for this case would be focus group discussion and interviews. Employees from different units and different hierarchical levels should be selected for the interview. The interview should be a semi-structured one to allow for greater flexibility while at the same time ensuring some bit of standardization. Interviews will be useful in assisting the OD members to make inferences on the possible causes of the problem issue. Several employees also from different levels of the organization should be selected to participate in the focus group discussion which would be useful in providing a way forward to this problem
References
Cummings, Thomas G., & Worley, Christopher G. (2009). Organization Development & Change. South-Western Cengage Learning
Leadsphere (2008). Organizations Diagnostic Models. Retrieved on March 30, 2011, from http://www.leadersphere.com/img/OrgmodelsR2009.pdf
Rafferty A. & Griffin M. (2001). Expanding Organization Diagnosis by Assessing the Intensity of Change activities. Organizational Development journal. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5427/is_200110/ai_n21480671/
