Organization and Management Theories

Call centers represent a perfect example of the adoption of organizational and management theories, in particular, these two case study, P&O Ferries and Specsavers, reveal the considerable usefulness of approaching organizational problems using these theories.

P&O Ferries joined "TOP 50", a program for call centers, in 2009, they were facing some problems in their call center, and they needed to improve the efficiency of their employees, in order to guarantee a useful service for their costumers. Solutions concerned the training system and motivation to agents which were working in the call center; usually call center are better identifiable as "machines", they work and produce following procedures really similar to Taylor's Scientific Management, not enough work conditions, wage as motivational factor, and absence of communication in the team and between the positions in the call center. Even if the tasks of this particular type of organization do not expect an elaborate managerial system, sometimes it is really relevant how the team perform and how the general harmony is balanced in it, in fact, particular situations in an organization are able to produce unexpected events in other parts of the organization itself.

Following theories established by the Human Relations theory, they tried to create a more affable environment in order to improve agents efficiency, provide new motivational factors such as career opportunities, in other words they want agents to be proud of their belonging and adding their company to "TOP 50", agents felt more responsible and interested in their work.

Even Specsavers joined "TOP 50" program, trying to enrich the position of its call center in the market; providing motivational factors such as prize and rewards, creating team work, enlarging and changing the role of each member of the team, Specsavers achieved considerable results, these initiatives, can been compared to the Behaviourist Approach, which are theories developed by Herzberg, McGregor and Maslow. In order to gain established goals, the managerial activities have to be focused on the organizational and motivational factors, in fact they believed that make employees participate in decision making and in other aspects of the company they can create satisfaction at work, base from where build an organization where every part, function and member are related together providing more communication and efficiency to the team work. A job providing more opportunities, an affable environment and career possibilities, is easily more attractable for possible employees, and represent a considerable motivational factor for staff itself. Specsavers enlarged and enriched the role of each member, created functional task forces and involved staff in critical decision, therefore reward agents effort, in order to create new motivational factors.

Developed by F.W. Taylor, Scientific Management, represented for a long period, between 1850 and 1950, the main approach used by managers to control and organize their company. Based on a focused and deep analysis, Scientific Management objective was to create a system able to provide established level of production, just finding the best scientific method to improve the performance of each function of the company. Motivation was considered differently than nowadays, in fact the only encouragement factor was represented by wages, in fact employees which were working a scientific management-company usually did earn more money according to their improvement and contribute, This system even if was useful to provide a certain amount of profits, was clearly damaging the internal organization, and especially represented a de-motivational factor for employees which were seen as machine, and were continually under pressure, a lack of contribution in fact, could cause the loss of the job or the reduction of the wage.

For these reasons the Scientific Management was criticized for some disadvantages: Lack of relationship between members of the company, in fact, because of the straight division operated from a function to an other, there were no communication from a sector to an other, this influenced also the internal harmony of the group; old and young workers were too distant, this influenced in a negative way the maintenance of a culture in a company, and increase the amount of money that managers had to spend to teach and train new employees, in fact an organization having a solid and strong relationship between members permit to allow old workers to become trainers to new employees; workers were seen as machines, as said before, because the only target was to gain as much production as possible, people represented the way to reach this goal, and no motivational factors were considered except the increasing or decreasing of wages; lack of sense of belonging of staff, they were some times hostiles to the company and to the managers because they knew that every single mistake may cause to them the loss of their role, the loss of the job or the reduction of the salary, the direct consequence of managers behavior were numerous strikes and protests against managers and the creation of group of workers, (Trade Unions) which were involved in a dramatic fight to obtain for workers better work conditions and to established rights for employees and staff members; the quantity preferred instead of quality, managers were focused on production, trying to achieve set targets, and increase profits, this way to behave obviously damage the quality of the production, in fact companies were not able to provide always a medium-high standard of quality in their products.

Scientific Management was preferred for a long period because it was able to provide to managers and to their company some advantages: represented an efficient way to increase production, workers had the only task of achieving a target and produce as they were asked for; training was simple and shorter, each employee had to follow managers instructions and complete their tasks; according to the wage motivational factor, a good effort represented to employees a good increase of the salary, usually tasks were just repetitive and boring but not hard to complete; roles were clearly defined and the lack of a particular sector did not influence the rest of the organization; managers were able to make decision independent in order to the exclusive benefit of the company.

Many different theories and approaches have been developed period after period, each one showed an improvement from the previous one, but still today, modern organizations maintain the same approaches used in the past, this because sometimes there are no better solutions, sometimes just because these have some relevant aspects still useful for a particular type of company. Every author developed different theories following the period possibilities and thought, at the beginning managerial activities were more orientated to the increment of production and profit, evolving, due to experiments, and new theories, approaches changed, trying to understand the complex aspect of motivation and staff morale, individuals and groups become basis where to build a strong and efficient organization.

References

-Mullins, L. (2007) Management and Organisational Behaviour. 8^th ed. Pearson Education Limited: Harlow

-TOP50 (2009) Case Studies: Specsaves [online] Available from: http://www.top50callcentres.co.uk/www.top50callcentres.co.uk/specsavers[Accessed 10 April 2010]

-TOP50 (2009) Case Studies: P&O Ferries [online] Available from: http://www.top50callcentres.co.uk/www.top50callcentres.co.uk/specsavers[Accessed 10 April 2010]