Evaluating Organizational Effectiveness: A Case Study Of Woolworths Group Limited
Measuring Organizational Effectiveness
The effectiveness of a company involves measures taken to measure and improve future and current performance of a particular company. Organizational effectiveness refers to the technique of measuring how organization is achieving its goals (Argyris,2017 p.89).Organizations have organizational effective groups which helps to carry out specific activities involved in promoting organizational effectiveness. The groups carries out examination of the organizational alignments between different areas and then coming up with the apt measures to improve. It increases the overall trade-offs found between the speed and quality of organizational activities. It comes up with strategies on running businesses. It also facilitates and catalysing the capability building, designing organizational structures and then directing human resource (Argyris, 2017 p.44).
This paper typically highlights and discusses the purpose and scope of a specific company’s operation. It also focuses on the criteria used by various stakeholders in evaluating the organisation effectiveness. Also the implications existing from development of an approach in its effectiveness have been discussed.
In my discussion have used the Woolworths Group Limited. This is a big company in Australia with the extensive retail interest in the country. The company runs more than 900 supermarkets and many grocery stores in Australia. It also runs hotels and give financial services to the customers.
In evaluating the effectiveness of the Woolworths Company limited I will use the following criteria. All the criteria focuses on measuring the company’s performance.
Evaluating the effectiveness in Woolworths based in timelines will be determined by;
- Cycle time .This involves the time used in performing a specific activity in the company. It involves the issue of filling, shipping customer order and responding to the orders in the company(Bagnoli & Megali, 2011 p.146).
- The wait time. This is time experienced by the customer waiting a service or a product. An example is in a case of a customer waiting for an order to be accepted.
- Done on time. This focuses on issue of punctuality. For example, delivering orders at right time and when expected.
Evaluating the company’s effectiveness in field of finance I will consider;
- Evaluating those measures that are related to the profitability in the organization. The incomes incurred in sale of products and other related activities which amounts to profits (Bagnoli & Megalith, 2011 p.147).
- Evaluating use of funds by the management .Effectiveness will be based on budgets, ability to provide adequate capital to accomplish projects and aspect of adhering to time.
Effectiveness in organization is also determined by the workplace environment. This involves the following areas;
- Organizational physical amenities. The effectiveness will be determined by the convenience of the employees, the safety of the workers and the health conditions in business .This determines the business performance(Bratton & Gold, 2017 p.66).
- Organizational culture .The Woolworths Company has values and norms which each worker adheres to. Evaluating how this norms are acceptable or unacceptable by different stakeholders will determine the effectiveness criteria.
The aspect of organizational efficiency is always concerned with the resources which are used by the organization to complete a production chain (Lecy,Schmitz,Swedlund,2012 p.77 ).I will target resources such as the human resource ,the materials used by the organization ,the facilities in the organization and time each activity takes. This means that to be more efficiency is to ensure the organization is able to deliver products to consumers in appropriate manner by using the limited resources.
Quality is always applied in all organizations. This measures or identifies how close an organization conforms to standards (Lecy et al, 2012 p.441).The criteria analyses both the internal and external quality in the Woolworths Company. Internal quality seeks to evaluate the performance of the organization within while the external quality evaluates on whether products or services offered by the company are meeting the customers’ requirements.
There exists various criteria’s to measure or evaluate the effectiveness of an organization. These criteria involve productivity, profitability, overall growth, turnover and the organization cohesion (Mills & Smith, 2011 p.157).
Use of power perspective criteria. It appeases those participants who can definitely threaten the survival of the company. Based on this approach, the criteria against which company effectiveness is mainly assessed through the perspective of minimum-regret principle. Indicators also are interpreted differently amongst the existing stakeholders.
This applies to all companies and contextual criteria that is focused on the overall performance requirements that need a proper assessment of other relevant values such as operative long-term strategic goals. They are necessary for credible evaluative conclusions to be made regarding a company’s effectiveness. Some of the merits include output quality, innovation. Growth, productivity, efficiency and stability of the entire organization.Argyris (2017a) indicates that these criteria can be used by internal stakeholders to clearly capture the means and ends of its operations and activities, low the comparative evaluation of subunits, and recognize the uniqueness of its resources. This criterion of merit is merely comprised of characteristics that typically define an effective organization. These characteristic provided are aimed to be used in all organization which is deliberately structured to serve a particular purpose.
The stakeholders need to collect information regarding performance assessment so as to reveal more unique evaluative criteria. They may arise from social, cultural and political aspects affecting the development and environment of the organization
They predict performance and also measure certain actions that will influence the future of organization effectiveness. The stakeholders of Woolworths need to evaluate how the company keeps existing prospective customers satisfied by performing the required account management functions. Activities such as customer service, special discounting offers should be evaluated in order to predict the future excellence of the company (Mitchell, 2013 p.500).
Implications However, it usually ignores how activity process is accomplished that necessarily contribute to avoidance of the legality of the company’s operations. According to Renz (2016a) this approach leads to a lack of attention to overall output quality and omits the fiscal viability. It has implications for cost-effectiveness, environment and the social effects of company actions among its effectiveness criteria.
Some criteria neglect key stakeholders and external forces that are beyond the control of the top management. Some also lack the specificity of goal measurement leading to confusion and constraints during development. Constraints in the form of issuing policy statements and decisions appear as a result of vague criteria in organization effectiveness development.
Conclusion:
As seen, I would conclude that in order for stakeholders to measure and evaluate important criterion for the effectiveness of an organization, they need to first understand the relative context of the function that is being evaluated. As stated by Argyris (2017, p.66) organizations that perform continuously well are able to utilize effectiveness criteria that are relevant to the scope of its entire operations. They should put in place a well-designed performance system that is vital to reach the efficiency goals of the company.
References:
Argyris, C., 2017.KL5MT Effectiveness,Integrating the Individual and the Organization. Routledge, pp. 559-892, June 19, 01.32.
Bagnoli, L. and Megali, C., 2011. ASSESSMENT12 1ST Discussion, Measuring performance in social enterprises. Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, July 21.11.45.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017.MGTMTP MANAGEMENT 1 &2, Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave. September 01.01.00.
Lecy, J.D., Schmitz, H.P. and Swedlund, H., 2012. MRTYU Theory of management, on-governmental and not-for-profit organizational effectiveness: A modern synthesis. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Non-profit Organizations, 23(2), March 23, 12.32.
MacKenzie, S.B., Podsakoff, P.M. and Podsakoff, N.P., 2011.ASMM12W3 Resource management, Challenge?oriented organizational citizenship behaviors and organizational effectiveness: Do challenge?oriented behaviors really have an impact on the organization’s bottom line? Personnel Psychology, 64(3), pp.559-592, January 23, 05.34.
Mills, A.M. and Smith, T.A., 2011. MTYURT Management, Knowledge management and organizational performance: a decomposed view. Journal of knowledge management, 15(1), pp.156-171, October 21, 2.56.
Mitchell, G.E., 2013. ASSEMENTWQR Management test, the construct of organizational effectiveness: Perspectives from leaders of international non-profits in the United States. Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 42(2), pp.324-345.Febryary 25, 5.34.
Renz, D.O., 2016a. MHYTREW Management analysis, The Jossey-Bass handbook of non-profit leadership and management. John Wiley & Son, August 16, 4.56.