Employ Aiming To Keep and Develop, but Be Cautious of the Prevailing Organizational Culture
By Mwangi Wanjumbi, Newtimes B. S. Chief Consultant/Trainer
The recent judgment that ordered Kenya Airways to take back more than 400 earlier retrenched staff, elicits both anger and joy at the same time. Obviously the staff and their leaders are grateful for the court ruling. Conversely, it is not just Kenya Airways that feels disadvantaged by the ruling. The entire investing public has been unable to conceal tantrums induced by the ruling.
Needless to venture into the intricacies, I would want to straight away focus into the future based on the ongoing trends and dynamics of a globally competitive business environment. In that regard, I foresee a situation whereby the leaders of the agitated investors will in the next 2 years or so call a stakeholders’ conference one day.  The aim will be to appropriately guide their members as we are about to see in the message envisaged below.
Thus, “fellow investor ladies and gentlemen! As your chairman, I have found it necessary to update you on ongoing global business trends. As you may be aware, our organizations have variously been going through cycles of good and turbulent times, since the liberalization of the economy in the 1990’s. Obviously, the same have been driven by forces of change, which were previously less volatile.
Many of us have now been accustomed to the change dynamics, therefore continuously coping with the desirable adjustments. Alongside, most organizations have employed various business development strategies depending on the situations at hand. Invariably, almost all our organizations have unleashed the various turnaround strategies, at one time or the other. Foremost of them all has been the seemingly infamous retrenchment.
It is about reducing operational costs and almost always targets scaling down of staff levels. Our thinking has been based on the historical perspectives that largely prevailed in the 20th Century. The paradigms then reflected the industrial era organizational culture which largely perceived employees as tools of performance, therefore costs to organizations. Further, organizations were largely driven by the profit and legal motives in total disregard of the moral motive, which recognizes attributes such as fairness and social responsibility. Sadly, these cultures and motives are highly prevalent in most of our organizations even up to this day.
Thus, in good times, we never hesitate to enlist new employees. Conversely, we are never shy of employing this retrenchment strategy in the advent of lean times. In other cases, we have retrenched perceived expensive senior staff only to immediately replace them with assumed cheaper ones.
However, since the infamous ruling of about 2 years ago, when Kenya Airways was ordered to take back its retrenched staff, things have never been the same amongst us, your leaders. Indeed, we consulted widely amongst ourselves, after which we went back to the drawing board. We have carried out extensive research based on locally available information. We have sent teams especially to the US, the HQs of free enterprise, to study the trends there. We have consulted leading organizational development experts both locally and abroad.
We have finally concluded that fighting change can be futile. Further, it is detrimental to rely on historical perspectives to safeguard our business interests, in a globally competitive environment. Incidentally, we have also realized that the courts were inadvertently enforcing modern global organizational culture. The same as we now realize could be mutually beneficial to all the parties, especially if we can focus on the opportunities.
Apparently, those who have embraced modern global organizational culture already know some things that others don’t. Tools of performance for example are inappropriate in today’s information age of the 21st century. This modern global culture perceives employees not just as intelligent capital, but also as members of organizational family.
Ideally, it is now a matter of hiring with intentions of continually maintaining and developing the organizational human capital. In any case, it is the same human resource that should keep developing organizational solutions applicable in both good and bad times. They have been credited with thinking and retaining knowledge on behalf of organizations. Under such circumstances, sense of belongingness becomes highly entrenched. Can the situation be the same when employees expect to be retrenched at will or convenience of the employer? Besides, do families do away with some members during difficult times?
Ostensibly, this modern global organizational culture could be beneficial to all of us. In fact, I even see a situation whereby, we can easily clip the wings of trade unions, if we can all become compliant with this modern global organizational culture. Shall we all agree to comply?“
Meanwhile, modern organizational culture largely demands new paradigm shifts for all. Our firm has been committed to helping organizational employees to embrace new mental shifts since 2007. Alongside, we have been administering a uniquely developed tool, aiming to achieve this. Ideally, it is about inspiring change in people’s work ethics. This tool involves a short test whose answers are eventually corrected by the participants themselves. Ironically, a monetary reward has always been dangled for any training delegate who obtains at least 9 out of 10 marks.
Nonetheless, the tragedy is that only two ladies (one from a quasi government body and another from a leading insurance company – mind you, no intended gender bias), have so far obtained 7 out of 10 marks therefore, still missing on the monetary reward. Even trainers, who have experienced the same through TOT programs conducted by this writer, have likewise not been lucky.
Interestingly, when the tool was administered amongst one senior organizational management team, the CEO was not excited about the responses witnessed. That led to more in-depth application of the tool. The exercise brought out some previously hidden dimensions on the organization’s culture, which were a hindrance to desired growth. The same were eventually tackled. Why at all bring out these illustrations?
Continued treatment of organizational employees as costs or tools of performance will no longer be tenable and could attract bumpy times, as we have started witnessing. Likewise, employees with challenged work ethics may encounter difficulties in today’s employment world that requires intelligent capital as opposed to workers. Thus, embracing and entrenching modern global organizational culture ensures maximizing on mutually beneficial opportunities. Will you embrace this modern culture now or wait for change dynamics to take their own course?