In your continued role as NoJax\'s organizational behavior consultant, you will
ID: 425000 • Letter: I
Question
In your continued role as NoJax's organizational behavior consultant, you will examine their culture and how management can help employees adjust to change. You will need to use the management profiles in the company background document to analyze leadership traits and styles. NoJax needs you to write a report of their company's culture and how change may impact employees and their relationship with management.
Assess the company's culture and provide your analysis, including the relationships between management and employees.
Identify the company's structure and explain how it impacts the culture.
Provide an analysis of management leadership traits and leadership styles. Assess how those traits and styles may be impacting the company's culture.
How might a change in structure or management style impact the culture and employees?
NoJax Inc. Company Background
NoJax Inc. is a small American company that designs and manufactures specialized athletic shoes, clothing, and accessories. The business was first started in 2010 when two cousins, Noah and Jaxson Williams, recognized that very few quality options were available for people that led an active lifestyle, specifically regular gym goers. This realization led the Williams cousins to create a shoe prototype designed with weight lifters in mind. The first shoe, dubbed the NJ Elite, emphasized comfort and support that wouldn’t interfere with weight lifting form while exercising. As the NJ Elite gained popularity with local retailers, NoJax expanded their offerings into sports apparel. Since then growth has been tremendous, and NoJax has grown from those small local stores carrying their products to over 200 retailers nationwide. Currently, NoJax has four main areas of focus: shoes for running, apparel for running, shoes for weight lifting, and apparel for weight lifting.
The NoJax brand is targeted at the fitness lifestyle. This psychographic segmentation strategy goes beyond typical demographic boundaries and has allowed them to position themselves as a high quality option for people serious about exercise. While this is currently a niche market, it’s a market that continues to grow as cultural trends shift more towards health and wellness. Much of NoJax’s marketing involves online advertising with fitness websites and sponsoring fitness competitions, such as the CrossFit Games and the Chicago Marathon.
Revenue for the business has grown consistently as their market and the consumer base has expanded. Last year, NoJax earned $6 million in sales with a 15% profit margin, which is above industry average. The brand is moderately priced when compared to the competition. Shoes sell for around $80, shirts go for $50, and pants average a sales price of $60.
NoJax is currently considering expansion into other markets. However, they have decided to bring in an outside consultant to analyze the company’s design for its impact on organizational behavior. Other than the addition of new product lines, very little about the company has been updated or changed since their operation began. NoJax senior management is concerned that the outdated company design and the new employees that they’ve hired may be negatively impacting the business’ effectiveness. Below is data for the consultant on the company structure, policy, and key employees.
NoJax Inc. Company Structure
NoJax Inc. currently uses the matrix structure pictured below. Product managers each oversee a single specific product line. There are currently four product managers that oversee four different types of products. Those products are running shoes, running apparel, weight lifting shoes, and weight lifting apparel. There are also three different departments with their own expertise. Those departments are Design, Marketing, and Research and Development (R&D). The Senior Management team currently consists of the two company founders, Noah and Jaxson Williams. There are a total of 50 employees working at NoJax in the positions shown below.
Senior Management
Alice Bloom Design Manager
Janet Johnson Marketing Manager
Orlando Grant R&D Manager
Carrie Durant Running Shoes Manager
Jesse Mercado Running Apparel Manager
Anam Basra Lifting Shoes Manager
Lynn Bryant Lifting Apparel Manager
NoJax Inc. Policy
NoJax currently adheres to a very centralized power and decision making structure.
Employees are heavily monitored in order to make them as efficient as possible at their positions. This includes weekly status meetings with managers and daily activity reports that must be filled out by each employee.
When decisions do have to be made it generally requires multiple approvals from both direct managers and someone from the senior management team. Routine decisions regularly take 48 hours to be made.
Disagreements between the product and department managers happen frequently and a clear mediation process for these instances has yet to be developed.
Roles and members of teams stay consistent. Employees do not rotate through positions at the company and are restricted from changing teams.
Job tasks and design is very clearly defined with little variation between roles.
Yearly evaluations of employees include ranking all of the employees in the company. Raises are handed out based on each employee’s ranking. The top workers can receive up to a 6% raise and the bottom employees receive no raise.
All employees are paid a base salary. Pay is slightly above industry average, and employees average 50 hours of work in a week.
NoJax does offer health and dental to employees but nothing in the form of investments or retirement plans.
The hiring process at NoJax Inc. includes individual interviews with a product manager, a department manager, and then senior management. Typical time from receiving a resume to being hired is three months.
Employees are allocated ten days off a year. Those days are meant to cover everything. This includes sick days, vacation, and personal days. Any days missed past that must be emergencies with some form of proof, such as a doctor’s note.
Human Resource responsibilities are handled by the senior management team, as an actual HR department has never been created.
All manufacturing and distribution of NoJax products are outsourced to third-party partner businesses.
Discipline at NoJax works on a point system. Infractions, such as being late or acting out, cause employees to accumulate points. After an employee reaches 10 points they are written up. An additional 10 points can lead to a suspension. Points reset every calendar year and there is no carry over from the previous year.
Alice Bloom
Position: Design Department Manager
Sex: Female
Age: 62
Race: Caucasian
Work Experience: 40 years
Education: High School Diploma
Extraversion--High
Emotional Stability--Medium
Openness--Low
Conscientiousness--Medium
Agreeableness--Low
Employee:
Janet Johnson
Position: Marketing Department Manager
Sex: Female
Age: 27
Race: African American
Work Experience: 5 years
Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing
Extraversion--High
Emotional Stability--Low
Openness--High
Conscientiousness--Medium
Agreeableness--Medium
Employee:
Employee:
Orlando Grant
Position: Research and Development Department Manager
Sex: Male
Age: 29
Race: African American
Work Experience: 4 years
Education: Associate’s Degree in Marketing
Extraversion--High
Emotional Stability--High
Openness--High
Conscientiousness--Low
Agreeableness--Medium
Carrie Durant
Position: Running Shoes Product Manager
Sex: Female
Age: 41
Race: Caucasian
Work Experience: 12 years
Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Communications
Extraversion--Medium
Emotional Stability--Medium
Openness--Medium
Conscientiousness--Medium
Agreeableness--High
Employee:
Employee:
Jessie Mercado
Position: Running Apparel Product Manager
Sex: Female
Age: 34
Race: Hispanic
Work Experience: 10 years
Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management
Extraversion--Low
Emotional Stability--Medium
Openness--Medium
Conscientiousness--High
Agreeableness--High
Employee:
Lynn Bryant
Position: Lifting Shoes Product Manager
Sex: Female
Age: 52
Race: Caucasian
Work Experience: 20 years
Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology
Extraversion--Medium
Emotional Stability--High
Openness--Medium
Conscientiousness--High
Agreeableness--Medium
Employee:
Anam Basra
Position: Lifting Apparel Product Manager
Sex: Female
Age: 38
Race: Pakistani
Work Experience: 10 years
Education: Master’s Degree in Sports Management
Extraversion--Medium
Emotional Stability--Medium
Openness--Low
Conscientiousness--High
Agreeableness--High
Senior Management
Explanation / Answer
With NoJax the prevalent organisational culture is strictly hierarchical, with centralisation of power and exclusive management from top down. This creates all responsibility and accountability at the top management level with lower levels mostly performing the jobs delegated to them with clear instructions to be followed precisely, it is the typical command and control structure which is mostly prevalent within the defence forces. It discourages innovation, initiative and leadership within employees and expects only completion of the given job in time and of the qualty and in the manner expected. With unprecedented advances in communication technology, businesses have to adapt to operating within a global environment, ensuring sustenance and growth by introducing strategies which are dynamic in nature and conducive to implementation of change. The major challenge facing NoJax is its inability to initiate a transition from a conservative business model to a global one which encourages Innovation and explores the talent existing within the workforce, which is necessary for an organization involved in the dynamic and competitive industry of sports garments and shoes. Given the diverse cultures of the employees it is important that this be utilised for improving output through the involvement of employees in planning and decision making by a introduction of inclusive management. The diversity of workforce can prove to be highly beneficial for the organisation as it is well established a diverse workforce generates Innovation and growth through exceptional ideas as well as, extraordinary solutions.Every culture has powerful factors intrinsic to it therefore by employing a multicultural workforce the positive value different cultures bring to the table offer unexceptional approach to every situation through different ideas resulting in a multicultural perspective and rare solutions resulting in unprecedented success.
The type of change required within the NoJax Company, is of the transformational kind as the vision of the organization requires to be modified, and the goals reinvented to match the current global environment the company is operating within. Basically the company requires an absolute overhaul of its principles, mode of operation, the processes in place, as well as, the management and HR practices. It needs to evaluate areas to focus monitoring and control required, for efficient management and optimal results. Successful implementation of the transformational model requires a dynamic organizational setup such as, adhocratic, led by a visionary and strategic leader who will ensure inclusive management, and motivation through exemplary performance. The transformational change requires significant involvement of staff at every level of the organization, control structure being top down with effective flow of communication throughout. It is essential to ensure that the entire organization understands the requirement for the transformation, the objective it is to achieve, the impact on every employee and the importance of the entire organization moving forward as a whole.
For any change to be effective it is essential that the leadership be extremely exemplary to ensure motivation of the entire organization and successful implementation of the change at every level. Therefore top management which institutes the change has to be dynamic and not only initiate the change but be the change itself. Considering the co-related products and its marketing strategy it is very important that the marketing team and the Salesforce be changed into a cross functional unit to be able to better meet customer requirements, as well as optimize sales. The sales and marketing managers need to understand the importance of leading the team, effectively and delivering excellent results by keeping them motivated. The leaders need to be focused on the results to be achieved while, charting a roadmap for the team to be able to achieve the required results. Effective utilization of input data of customer feedback and implementing the required control to change in plan, should be a part of any transitional management. The design managers are an important profile for the organization considering the dependence on the supremacy of the product for their success in the Global Arena. Design managers therefore should understand the requirement for innovation as well as ideas which require out of the box thinking along with talent. The manager should be highly motivational as creativity requires motivation as a primary input.
In any organization, it is necessary for employees to understand the reason behind anything happening in the organization that directly or indirectly impacts them. It should be one of the major responsibilities of any organization to address employee concerns and treat them as an integral part of the corporate structure. Inclusive management is a must not an option in today's competitive world and every capable management understands the need for retaining employees and inspiring loyalty. If we want an employee to give their best output and implement change which is quickly adapted to without losing employees or work days, we need to make them part of that change and address their fears and apprehensions on how this would impact them. Achieving this would mean guaranteed success in implementation of the required changes.