Classic Cases of Intervention and OD

Posted: October 17th, 2013

Classic Cases of Intervention and OD

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Classic Cases of Intervention and OD

JetBlue is one of the leading airlines in the United States. The airline has been operational since 2000 and managed to fend off competition from the bigger airlines such as the delta airlines. Managing such an airline requires devotion form every employee within the organization to meet customer needs. This experiment is conducted to find out the effects of technical innovations within organizations. The structural innovation chosen within the JetBlue airlines is organizational restructuring and employee involvement (Lee & Teo, 2005).

In the organization restructuring, one strategy was used, which was downsizing. The structuring of the organization aimed at satisfying the internal customers in order to satisfy the external customers. The redesigning was aimed at all departments within the System Operations Center that included the maintenance control, system control, crew services and blue watch security. The SOC is the main department within the organization served with the technical role. The intervention involved was downsizing, which was done through systematic redesign and organizational redesign. The systematic redesign aimed at changing the culture of the environment in the long-term where responsibilities were changed in order to allow continuous innovations and improvement. On the other hand, organizational redesign within downsizing aimed at eliminating some of the functions and merging some of the units to work together in order to eliminate layers. This allowed the employees to work together towards achieving one end goal (Lee & Teo, 2005).

The other technical intervention used was employee involvement whose main aim was to motivate employees. The involvement here aimed at increasing the input of employees to decision-making process that affects them directly. Some of the tactics involved in promoting worker involvement included provision of information, developing knowledge and skills, delegating power or authority and including rewards. Employee involvement increases the morale of the employees as well as their well-being since they are involved in discussing matters that affect them. Additionally, employee involvement has the effect of improving communication within the organization, improving employment capabilities, coordination and motivation, which lead to improvement in productivity. It enhances the wellness of employees, satisfaction with work and increased employee retention as well as attracting better employees (Mulili & Wong, 2011).

The innovations were quite successful considering that the turnover of leadership went down and crew leaders were able to adapt to the culture of the organization. The employees now understand how their behavior can affect the organizational culture, which is important in customer satisfaction. All the employees were involved in the intervention, which allowed better flow of communication. This made it clear that all employees play a role in building customer satisfaction as well as maintaining the organizational culture. After these interventions, the organization productivity improved with improvement in employee satisfaction and retention as well as involvement in decision-making. More so, costs brought about by high turnover rate and poor performance was reduced.

Currently, the status of the interventions used has improved where the employees have fully adapted the new culture. Additionally, employees have learnt how to make use of their involvement in decision making within the whole organization. This has seen more improvement with the SOC department as well as the leadership of the airline. This has continued to improve productivity as well as customer satisfaction. Considering the intervention was meant to be continuous, it has achieved its goal. Further, it continues to change the organization as the business environment changes. Therefore, adopting a continuous intervention is very important for al organizations (Mulili & Wong, 2011).

From these interventions, other organizations can learn that employees are the most valuable asset of an organization, which means that their satisfaction is the satisfaction of the customers. With the employee involvement, positive results were achieved. Therefore, organizations should be ready to work hand in hand with their employees. Structures that do not allow employee involvement to decisions and information should be eliminated. On the other hand, organizations need to not that downsizing not only means reducing the number of employees. Restructuring the organization as and changing the organizational culture where tasks are redistributed or some of the units merged are better. Organization can realize that organizational development is crucial for modern organizations due to the rapidly changing environment (Neuman, Edwards & Raju, 2006).

References

Lee, G. & Teo A. (2009). Organizational Restructuring: Impact on Trust and Work Satisfaction. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 22(1): 23-39.

Mulili, B.M. & Wong, P. (2011). Continuous organizational development (COD). Industrial and Commercial Training, 43 (6): 337-384.

Neuman, G.A., Edwards, J.E. & Raju, N. S. (2006). Organizational Development interventions: A Meta-Analysis of their effects on Satisfaction and other Attitudes. Personnel Psychology, 42 (3): 461-489).