Culture

Organisational Culture Blog

An organisation such as Royal Mail employs a diverse mix of people and they all have one thing in common, which is that they will be the best person for the job. So despite the employee’s sex, age, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, or religion they will not be discriminated and will get the job, should they fit the job role. Royal mail is also introducing a number of initiatives at a number of sites, from learning centres through to prayer rooms for employees. Royal mail also offers employees family-friendly policies and if possible flexible working hours to suit their lifestyles. Royal mail also have a pay-roll giving scheme which allows employees to donate money to a charity of their choice. Royal mail takes into consideration the environmental issues when they are planning, decision making and conducting day to day activities.

Handy suggested that organisations can be classified into four cultures. He also stated that the formation of the culture would depend on factors including company history, ownership, organisation structure, technology, critical business incidents and environment.

The four cultures are, power, role, task, and person. The power culture is described by handy as the web. This is where the centre is the power source which has rays which are sent throughout the organisation. The power culture is more common in a small business. It works by trust, empathy and personal communication to be as effective as possible and it also has few rules and regulations but fast decisions are made. An example of power culture would be Tesco as they would have a headquarters base which would then use its power to pass on relevant information to the different types of businesses involved in Tesco such as Tesco bank or Tesco mobile.

The role culture is often portrayed as s bureaucracy, this type of culture in and organisation works by rules and regulations. In this type of culture the job role is more important that the individual and power is based on level in hierarchy, there for the higher up the hierarchy the more power. An example of role culture would be a typical factory as there are more rules and regulation which employee must work with to accomplish the work and the organisation would just look to get the work done from the individual rather than focusing on the individual and getting them as motivated as possible.

This type of culture (task culture) is to do with team work and groups; this is because organisations can put individuals in groups to make them more effective. This culture tries to put the right people together with the right resources and the strength of the group is used to help the business. However they are constantly having to change and have to create temporary task teams to meet future needs. There is also a close link between business departments. An example of task culture would be jaguar; this is because they would have teams who are then assignment tasks which may involve putting part together or creating parts or a combination of both. They would also need good communication between departments because trends are always changing and the organisation may need to change to meet future needs which generally involve new car models.

Person culture is where the individual is focused on by the organisation and the work is set to serve the employees working for the business. Organisations which use this culture reject formal hierarchies for “getting things done” and exist solely to meet the needs of their members. An example of person culture would be consultants as they solely focus on the individual’s problems and try to resolve them. (Laurie J. Mullins, 2010)

The problem with classifying an organisation with only one culture out of four is that it may be leaving out another culture which may be needed. For example parts of person culture would need to be considered in all organisations as the people working for the organisation are important as without them the organisation would fail, therefore this is an important culture as well as the other three. Most organisations would fit into more than one culture as aspects from each culture may be used within the organisation and if an organisation had to be in one culture only then it would be difficult to run and keep everything smooth and someone may be isolated, for example if person culture was ignored then the employees would feel unwelcome.

To conclude culture within an organisation represents what the organisation stands for and how it is ran. An organisation can adopt many types of cultures and each culture would have its own benefit. As a organisation changes and develops the culture may change and the organisation may run differently however the organisation has to also take into consideration is employees and the management to adopt the correct culture.

Reference List:

Laurie J. Mullins (2010) Management & organisational behaviour. 9th ed. Essex: Pearson Education Limited