Summative Essay

INTERVIEW –

        QUESTIONS –

                STARTER:

                What is your name?

                What is your role within the organisation?

                How long have you spent at Stoneacre?

MAIN:

How would you define the culture of the organisation?(main value and belief?

Do you feel as though culture is influenced by the environment or the people within the organisation?

                Does the culture of the organisation effect recruitment strategies?

                How do you handle conflict throughout the organisation?

Have you ever changed the culture since you began your role within the organisation?

                        If so how?

Did it effect employees?

Did you feel resistance to this change?

                Do you actively try to uphold the current main culture?

Do you feel as though subcultures are apparent throughout?

Do you feel your core values and therefore culture is shared by everyone?

How do effectively control and coordinate your employees?

How do believe that your employees are motivated?

                Do things uphold with the current culture?

Do you believe that the culture of the organization is portrayed to the consumers?

Do you feel as though your culture is strong or weak?

                        How does this impact on effectiveness and efficiency?

I: Good afternoon Sir, my name is Thomas Brookhouse. Let’s Begin. Could you please tell me your name?

R: Good afternoon Thomas, my name is Shaun Brookhouse.

I: And what is your role within the organisation?

R: The official title of my job is Regional General Director.

I: Ok.

R: My job consists of going around our 32 company locations and essentially fixing and mending problems within the company.

I: How long have you spent with the company?

R: In total, throughout all my different roles at Stoneacre, I have been here… 11 years now.

I: how would you define the overall culture of the organisation, in terms of certain values and beliefs throughout the company?

R: (use raspberry jam quote and subculture here) At Stoneacre the culture is one which is very powerful and has a strong message, one which we would like to believe is understood and embedded into the minds of our workers. Culture for Stoneacre is best described as the joint personality of the companies’ employees, the way we work and operate. Also I feel values and beliefs are very important in any organisation, this is true for Stoneacre. When employees come through our training programme we make it apparent to them that each manager or in my case director will have their own values and beliefs and so will influence them through this. However, we also make it very clear that there is also a shared company ‘code’ that must be followed in relation to beliefs and values. These consist of creating a safe and fair environment for it’s employees, as well as aiming to be a leader of employee satisfaction due to the competitive nature of the job market. Actually we also always put the customer first and we believe that this is what ahs helped us to become so successful.

I: Do you feel that the culture of the organisation is influenced by the environment or people within the organisation?

R: I would say that both impact the way that the organisations culture is manifested, the environment side would be that we feel as though our culture should always be changing in slight ways in order to adapt to the different business environment that we are facing. However, the main impacting factor of the culture would be the people within the organisation. The CEO’s and managing directors of the company have the main impact upon the culture and then as we go further down the organisation to the work floor employees they have little if any power to impact the core company culture.

I: Perfect, Thank you. Does the culture of the organisation effect recruitment strategies?

R: When we actually select the potential employees after interviews we send them all to our two-day training course, in which they begin to learn and develop their understanding out the core values and beliefs of the company and its employees. This will then filter out the candidates that best fit with our attitudes and overall culture. The main thing to note is that we do not discriminate at any point, as we believe that our culture is achievable for anyone.

I: Slightly different question now. How do you handle conflict throughout the organisation?

R: So at Stoneacre we adopt a very strong policy when it comes to conflict, this then follows what we say about our core values, and that we aim for total employee satisfaction. When we receive a complaint or hear of a conflict that is employee vs employee we send this straight to our Human Resources department, however, if we have an employee vs customer complaint this is dealt with instantly either on the day or is sent to our dedicated complaints department and will be dealt with within 2-3 working days.

I: Have you ever changed the culture of the organisation since you began at the company?

R: I have only ever had to do this at one branch in the North East and I actually found it very challenging due to the nature of the company’s culture and how deeply inner it was.

I: Did the change of culture effect employees?

R: At first they weren’t very optimistic towards the change, however, after they realised what I was doing and changing about the culture, making it stronger. Not only that but the changed eventually increased utility and boosted moral throughout the branch and increased company sales.

I: Did you at any point feel resistance towards this change?

R: At first there was a wall of defence put up about the idea of change in culture however to begin with I made small changes as this increased their belief and trust about positive change and then afterwards transitioned to the harder more serious changes, this proved to work well as there was little if any resistance.

I: Do you as a senior manger try actively uphold the core culture?

R: Of course I do, I try to be not only a good manger but an effective leader as well. Any problems that the employees have I solve and try to create great job satisfaction through my leadership skills as well as always… I guess… trying to make sure that the customer gets as much as they deserve, whilst still generating a profitable trade for ourselves.