From our survey we found that 37% of the people did not have a role model within the organization. This is an alarming data that shows that the organization is not able to develop its employees who can be a source of inspiration and motivation for the others. The organization has to think seriously in this direction and should develop a culture in which the hidden qualities of the employees are developed and brought to front. This culture can only be developed by proper motivation and appreciation of the employee, ensuring transparency in the working of the organization and instilling a feeling of belongingness and ownership in the employee for the organization. Such a climate would definitely encourage the individual and bring out the best in him, which would in turn serve as a motivating factor for the rest.
Monetary incentives are also a strong motivating factor but we think that for an enterprise to develop an entrepreneurial culture and to bring in awareness about monetary factors and cost control in the organization, the person’s incentive should be directly linked to his or his section’s performance. For this the concept of independent profit centers should be implemented and each shop should be asked to make its balance sheet and declare it at the end of each quarter and financial year. Cost consciousness should be brought down to the grass roots level and each person should understand the economic importance of the work done / not done by him for the organization. The incentive should then be linked to the profit/loss a department makes. This would definitely motivate them to work harder and do whatever is in their hands for the betterment of their department in particular and organization as a whole.
When we are talking about cost consciousness and individual profit centers, we should also look at the performance of the service agencies present in the large organization. These service agencies should be made to understand their true role in the organization i.e. they should be made aware that their existence solely depends on how efficiently they give their services to the shops. The shop heads should be given the discretion to outsource their jobs from agencies outside the plant rather than give them to service agencies if it is found to be more profitable for his shop. This would also develop some competition in service agencies and they would gear up for their survival.
One of the major problems that a large organization faces is to make its employees aware about its visions and policies and also convince them about the same. Awareness about the organization’s visions and goals is of paramount importance for its employees because if they are ignorant of the organization’s visions they would act according to their own goals and targets and instead of working together to achieve a common target they would work in random directions with conflicting interests and ultimately leading to chaos. To create awareness about company’s visions and policies up to grass root level, people should be taken into confidence while fixing vision statements and goals. In a large organization if this is not possible, the top management should involve at least the departmental heads. The departmental heads should in turn take feedbacks from their subordinates about their views and also fix the goals for their department in line with the organization’s goals. Further each section should also draw its vision / goal from the organizational / departmental goal and each employee should be involved in achieving it. The departmental heads should devote more time in these activities rather than the day-to-day affairs. The organization should make extensive use of computers for creating awareness in people regarding company’s policies, financial & operational statistics, the competitors’ operational & financial statistics and all other relevant information. For this the computer density needs to be increased considerably along with imparting training to people for making fruitful use of computers.
One of the major features of an entrepreneurial organization and major requisites for creating an entrepreneurial culture is considerable delegation of power. From our survey we found that delegation of power to optimal level is not present. Employees feel bound and constrained by their limited powers and have to wait for their senior’s approval even for taking minor decisions. It is seen that seniors often feel angry and bypassed when their juniors take any step without taking them into confidence first. For this the responsibilities and powers of each executive should be put down in black and white and they should be made accountable for their decisions. The senior officers should interfere in the working of his subordinates only when it is very necessary or when asked for it. The seniors should be more of a guiding figure than a dictator.
The environment in the organization should be made more open and individuals should be made to feel that they are important to the organization. For this the views of the individuals should be heard with an open mind and major policy decisions should be taken after taking them into confidence. One of the ways for achieving this is to have regular interaction of all levels of executives with the top management where they would be free to give their views and suggestions. Conducting regular surveys of the employees, analyzing the feedback and taking concrete action based on them, can also do this.
The organization should be made more flexible and market oriented and should be able to meet the challenges of the competitive and fast changing market scenario. For this people at the senior most level who formulate policies could be brought from outside. These people would have wider experience and would bring with them new energy, new vision and new way of doing things. Similarly, the people from the organization should be given opportunity to go out and venture into new areas. Also, the product mix of the company should be reviewed regularly and new products should be developed as per the needs of the market. For this greater emphasis should be given on research and the organization should allocate a larger part of its budget to R&D activities.
The organization should also be more customer oriented, and should understand their value and do whatever possible to keep them satisfied. This means creating a more customer friendly environment, which is possible only when all the employees are made aware of the market needs and the feeling should be instilled in them that customers are their actual paymasters. For this regular workshop of all executives should be held where they would be apprised of the market condition and demands and what is expected of them to achieve the challenges. The management should be able to react to the changing market situation without being shackled by the long and bureaucratic decision-making process to complete. For this the organization should have a flatter structure and number of hierarchical levels should be reduced.
