Free Best Buy Organizational Culture Essay Sample

Best Buy is an American enterprise that retails consumer electronics in the US. A typical characteristic of the working environment at Best Buy is the Results Only Work Environment (ROWE), which is a strategy adopted by the human resource whereby employees pay depends on output instead of working hours. Best Buy uses the ROWE model at the store and corporate levels. The adoption of the ROWE model aimed at reshaping the company’s corporate culture and ensuring that employees achieve work/life balance. As a result, there are minimal expectations and restrictions at Best Buy. Bureaucratic rules such as regular working hours and reporting times do not exist at the company. Employees at Best Buy make their own choices regarding organizational tasks and physical attendance. Employee evaluation involves assessing whether they achieve the goals of productivity. The notable impacts of ROWE culture at Best Buy include improved employee relationships and loyalty to the company. In addition, such an organizational culture enables employees to balance work and other social needs and enhances motivation. This organizational culture reduces employee turnover but increases employee productivity and satisfaction. This essay evaluates and provides recommendations for improvement at Best Buy.

Evaluation of Best Buy

According to Best Buy’s organizational structure, employee turnover and physical presence does not guarantee productivity. This is in contrary to the old culture where employee received rewards basing on long working hours. The introduction of the new culture at the organization imposed significant changes regarding how employees view work. The fundamental argument is that the Best Buy’s organizational culture promotes flexibility within the firm. A significant advantage of the organizational culture used by Best Buy is that it prioritizes productivity and not the time spent or the physical presence at work. This workplace environment permits Best Buy employees to take a break rather than engaging in intense work and struggling to restore their focus and creativity during the company time. Employee can resume their duties whenever they feel they are productive, which benefits both the enterprise and its employees through increased productivity and workplace flexibility respectively.

The second advantage associated with Best Buy’s organizational culture is that employees have an incentive to accomplish their duties timely and effectively. Workplace flexibility increases productivity and reduces voluntary turnover rates. Workplace flexibility at Best Buy leads to increased employee morale. This is because employees feel valued by the company and have the capability of making substantial contributions in their roles, which in turn leads to employee satisfaction. Since there are no time limits regarding the working hours, employees place more focus on accomplishing the task at most convenient time. The outcome of such a working environment is that employees use their best effort, which in turn creates maximum output. Valuing employees increases their loyalty; as a result, employees are likely to work harder for the company they believe in and wish to work there in the long-term. Thus, the culture at Best Buy increases production and creates minimal overhead for office space, minimal work stress, happy employees and a results-driven organization.

Despite the numerous advantages associated with workplace flexibility, there are veracious drawbacks of the organizational culture used at Best Buy. It is arguable that flexible employees do not work optimally, hence posing productivity risk. There is the likelihood that employees can forgo their projects to undertake other errands. In the actual sense, flexible employees have to observe deadlines and report to the management. In the case of Best Buy, employees work at the most convenient time in accordance to their schedule so that they can also focus on other matters instead of the limitations posed by the eight-hour workday.

The second potential drawback of workplace flexibility at Best Buy is that it affects communication and teamwork among the employees. There are more difficulties in communication associated with remote working than physical presence. In order to overcome this barrier, it is imperative to use information technology to facilitate full-time communication among employees and management. In sum, Best Buy’s culture leads to less management control, difficulties in measuring output and limited face-to-face customer communications. In addition, the culture at Best Buy imposes significant constraints on building team synergy and management of people.

The third drawback is that there is the likelihood of employee resistance towards the change, especially from employees accustomed to structured workplaces such as traditionalists. Such individuals are likely to oppose the radical change implementation at Best Buy, which poses the need for employee education regarding the new process.

Overall, it is becoming apparent that organizations are getting rid of the structured organizational frame and are starting to embrace norms that maximize employee productivity and satisfaction. In order to achieve this, Best Buy embarked on workplace flexibility that places emphasis on results.

Recommendations for Improvement at Best Buy

Best Buy can implement the latest information technologies to overcome the communication constraints associated with workplace flexibility and remote working. The use of electronic communication facilitates information access by remote employees, which in turn enhances communication among co-workers and the management. In addition, Best Buy should stress the significance of face-to-face customer interactions or the use of interactive forms of communications with customers. The integration of effective business communication into workplace flexibility guarantees increased productivity and quality work from the employees.

The second recommendation for improvement at Best Buy is to place emphasis on management control despite workplace flexibility. The bottom line is that employees should report to the management irrespective of their schedule flexibility. Currently, Best Buy suffers a problem associated with lack of management control due to the elimination of a structured organizational culture with bureaucratic rules. The management should exercise control by ensuring that employees report the progress of their projects, even if they are working remotely. This will help in eliminating problems associated with some employees failing to accomplish their tasks in time because of the flexible work schedule. In addition, control for management helps in establishing frameworks for measuring employee outputs and effective management of the workforce. The need for management control serves to address the underlying fact that remote employees are more likely to lose focus of the company’s mission and objectives because they have the free will to fix their schedule in accordance to their own convenience. In addition, control for management helps to improve the process of managing people within the firm. This is because control for management establishes reporting avenues for the employees, which helps to ensure that employees stay on course with their projects irrespective of schedule flexibility. Control is an essential element of management that Best Buy cannot afford to ignore if it aims at resolving problems associated with the creation of time synergies, enhancing teamwork and communication.

Conclusion

The organizational culture used at Best Buy is based on a results-driven framework. This work culture has significant advantages, including minimal overhead for office space, increased production, minimal work stress, happy employees and a results-driven organization. Nevertheless, this work culture has diverse drawbacks, including lack of management control, difficulties in building time synergies, constraints in people’s management, lack of organizational teamwork and communication, and difficulties in output measurement. Suggested recommendations for improvement at Best Buy include the necessity to adopt the latest information technologies to overcome the communication constraints associated with workplace flexibility and remote working as well as the necessity to place emphasis on management control.

 

Have NO Inspiration
to write your essay?

Ask for Professional help