Sustainability and Supply Chain Management

Question: Discuss about the Sustainability and Supply Chain Management. Answer: Introduction Organizations develop a number of strategies to improve their operational efficiency which in turn helps them maintaining competitive advantage(Basoglu, 2007). Operations efficiency has significant impact on organizational goal attainment. The scope of this report is to analyze and understand a retail store company based in Australia. The company deals in sales of retail products of perishable and non-perishable nature through its retail and online stores. The company had been established in the year 2001 by John Meyers. It has its headquarters in Hawthorn East, Victoria, Australia; its parent company is Wesfarmers. Being a retail company it keeps a variety of products that meets need of a diversified range of customers from all ages, all income groups and so on. The key person in the business is the CEO and CFO. The business is structured by employees reporting to senior managers, who in turn report to their respective departmental managers as HR manager, Finance manager, Accounts m anager, and they in turn report to the CEO and CFO. Both the CEO and CFO are dynamic personalities who believe in rapid growth and prosperity of the organization. Both of them have high ethical values and focuses on constant quality improvement(Brown S. B., 2013). As a general manager in packaging department, I want to implement changes in regards to defects in labels in packaging by process improvement. Leadership Team Within the retail organization there are various leaders at each level for facilitating effective workflow. Each team has their team leader who is responsible for their activity and senior managers or leaders in turn are responsible for actions of their team leaders(Yukl, 2008). Figure 1 : Retail Organizational Structure Source: Author Team leader follow transactional leadership styles as it is necessary to motivate floor level employees by reward and punitive methods. Senior managers have been seen to follow transformational style of leadership. Transactional Leadership style: It is highly applicable and can provide intrinsic motivation amongst employees. But it is also identified with the Carrot and Stick style of motivation that leads to high employee turnover ratio and job dissatisfaction(Aarons, 2006). Senior managers are responsible for developing new processes and products, bring about constant changes to the organization to maintain competitive advantage. CEO and CFO also demonstrate transformational leadership styles, which is depicted from their introduction of new concepts in business now and often. Transformational Leadership style: This has often been debated as the best style of leadership as it brings in extrinsic motivation amongst employees. The major weakness of this style is in being ineffective in many instances. Multiple followers take this type of leadership for granted, hence diminishing productivity and performance. Work Structure The above organization chart depicts the work structure for the overall organization. Shop floor level employees perform tasks assigned to them and report to team leaders. Team leaders take tasks from their senior manager, who in turn is liable to answer to CEO and CFO. Managerial roles and responsibility is well divided and sub divided amongst departments. Human resource manager is responsible for workforce management and strategizing, similarly marketing department manager deals with marketing and sales of products. Finance and accounts departments are responsible for all calculations and accounting. Product and supply chain manager is responsible for handling steady flow of goods to and from the stores and warehouses(Alvesson, 2012). Decision Making Most decisions of strategic nature are made by senior leaders and managers of the organization. An employee feedback procedure type of decision making can be more effective in the current organization. The same decision making procedure cannot be applied in all situations as every situation have their respective requisites. In case all decisions are taken uniformly then it can lead to failure of processes. Teams and Team building In order to enhance team work within the organization, following steps will be adopted; Implementing recognition program: This step will encourage quality teamwork by rewarding achievers or performers. Outlining roles: Each member of the team needs to have an identified role such that there is no confusion. This will give rise to higher accountability and responsibility amongst individuals(Basoglu, 2007). Identifying existing issues: Existing problems amongst teams needs to be sorted and solved for better team performance. Encouraging Social activities: By involving various members of the team in social activities will encourage more team work. Motivation The two staff members selected for the purpose of identifying motivation, is two shop floor level employees. Appropriate motivators for one will include intrinsic motivators as bonuses and pay hike. While for the other will be good job design, performance appraisal and other extrinsic motivators. Motivational levels and indicators vary greatly with individuals. Each individual have their own requirements hence motivators needs to cater to these needs. Conflict There is some conflict occurring in the current team. It is a functional in nature. Such conflict indicates mismanagement of task and impropriation of duties amongst employees. Due to scarcity of staff, they are regularly doing over shifts, whereas some staffs have not been allotted duties. Organizational culture is responsible to some extent for arousing this conflict. The two most important benefits of functional conflict in workplace is process innovation and process improvement towards efficiency(Behfar, 2008). Conflict has disturbing impact on the team leader as he is unable to manage few staffs and divergent roles and duties. Strategies used for promoting functional conflict is create situation for conflict and criticizing managers for their roles. Work Forecast Work forecast is planned by taking adequate account of available resources. Volume of work can only be adequately forecasted on the basis of resources availability and thereafter contingency planning. Computerized work forecasting systems are available that takes into account resources and allocates them accordingly. Otherwise human resource manager prepares a work schedule and hands them to respective teams for their work forecast planning. Time Management Time management is ones ability to utilize time effectively. Proper work scheduling and planning with deadlines can help time management at workplace(Bendoly, 2006). Quality Assurance Quality assurance is the process of maintaining adequate quality by attending to every step in manufacturing or delivery. Quality can be improved in the desired workplace by adhering to total quality management (TQM) and adapting ISO standardization on quality. Legislative Context Equal Employment Opportunity: It is illegal to discriminate individual against a job for race, color, sex, religion and so on. This retail organization provides equal opportunities for all without discrimination(Brown S. B., 2013). Diversity: Employees needs to be from diversified backgrounds. The retail organization have a diversified workforce from various ethnic and regional groups. Anti-Discrimination: It provides for right of people to be equal. The retail organization does not believe in discrimination and hence confines to the law. Unfair Dismissal: It is termination of contract of employment by inadmissible reasons. The organization does not do unfair dismissal of any employee. Short term work organization: It hires employees for short time period to handle extra work load. Sometimes due to excessive work pressure the organization hires short term workforce on contract under this legislation. Reference Alvesson, M. (2012). Understanding organizational culture. Sage. Basoglu, N. D. (2007). Organizational adoption of enterprise resource planning systems: A conceptual framework. . The Journal of High Technology Management Research, 18(1), 73-97. Bendoly, E. D. (2006). Behavior in operations management: Assessing recent findings and revisiting old assumptions. Journal of operations management, 737-752. Brown, S. B. (2013). Operations management: policy, practice and performance improvement. Routledge. Brown, S. B. (2013). Strategic operations management. Routledge. Heizer, J. R. (2016). Principles of operations management: sustainability and supply chain management. Pearson Higher Ed. Slack, N. (2015). Operations strategy. . John Wiley Sons, Ltd. Slack, N. C. (2010). Operations management. . Pearson education.