Perfect Pizzeria: Case study Essay

Job satisfaction is a key driver to corporate success. It is clear that at Perfect Pizzeria employees are dissatisfied with their work environment. In order to overcome job dissatisfaction, one might influence employee motivation by applying the expectancy theory – the theory of motivation that suggests employees are more likely to be motivated when they perceive their efforts will result in successful performance and ultimately, desired rewards and outcomes (McShane and Travaglione 2007, p146). The effort-to-performance (E-to-P) expectancy is the belief that increased effort will lead to increased performance. In the present case, the company has no systemic criteria in hiring and formal training for mangers reduce the capability of performing the job successfully. Also, the indistinct role perception for night managers to perform regular employees’ duties and for assistant managers to learn bookkeeping and management reduce efficiency. In order to strengthen the individual’s belief that s/he is able to perform the task, the company should select the appropriate person with the required skills to do the job and to clearly communicate the tasks required for each position. Furthermore, managers should provide the necessary support to get the job done and to create workforce harmony. The performance-to-outcome (P-to-O) expectancy is the belief that performance at a certain level will result in the attainment of outcomes. The case suggested that employees are not reward based on their performance as they only earn the minimum wage. On the other hand, mangers are rewarded based on the percentage of food unsold or damaged, which is not highly correlated to performance. In order to increase the belief that good performance will result in valued outcome, the company should transparent the process that determines employee’s reward and explain the outcome that will result from the desired performance. Most importantly there should be an accurate measure of job performance in place. The outcome valence (V) is the importance that the individual places upon the expected outcome. Employees may mainly motivated by money and equality, which is deprived at the present situation. In order to ensure rewards are valued by employees, the company should distribute bonus for desired  performance and promote fairness within the company. The MARS model of individual behaviour highlights four factors that influence employees’ behaviour and explain the current resulting performance (McShane and Travaglione 2007, p36). The inequality of reward to performance discourage efforts (motivation), the mismatch of individual competencies with job requirement undermine employees’ performance (ability), the replicate of duties between night managers and regular employees and assistant managers dimmed their assigned tasks (role perceptions), and the retaliatory measures between managers and employees restrains employees to achieve their performance potential. To overcome the motivation problem, the company should promote equality in the distribution of rewards. The Equity theory suggests that employees strive for equity between themselves and other workers, therefore positive outcomes and high levels of motivation can be expected only when employees perceive their treatment to be fair – when the ratio of employee outcomes over inputs is equal to other employee outcomes over inputs (McShane and Travaglione 2007, p154). The first move to adjust the under-reward inequity for employees is to make them engage in organizational citizenship by mobilizing qualified workers to full-time job. The company should have a competency-based reward system in place. When employees show exceptional competence in workforce, their pay will get increase with the skills demonstrated in order to reinforce the probability of that specific behavior – positive reinforcement. On the other hand, instead of having a percentage of food unsold or damaged b onus scheme, managers should be rewarded based on their performance and qualification. This would be an equitable solution for both managers and employees. To overcome the ability problem, the company should select employees whose existing competencies best fit the required tasks. This mismatch of ability can be seen where relatively young and inexperienced managers are performing challenging tasks, whereas having highly educated employees responsible for less challenging tasks. A solution for that is to increase the capability of college qualified employees through job design. Having the required  knowledge and educational background employees may get promote to perform those challenging tasks. To support multi-skilling, the company should exercise job rotation by moving employees from one job to another to enable them to learn several jobs. Moreover, job enlargement also increases skill variety, and work efficiency and flexibility. To ensure high satisfaction and performance, employees need to have autonomy as well as job knowledge. As shown in the case, with the absence of supervisor the unsold or damaged food percentage remained at a low level. This led us to another important point – job enrichment. The heart of job enrichment is to give employees more freedom. To avoid the misuse of freedom, value congruence within the organization become significant, as such all employees share a common value to achieve a common objective. To overcome the problem of role perceptions, the process of goal setting is dominant by clarifying employees their role perceptions by establishing performance objectives (McShane and Travaglione 2007, p149). The goal has to be specific and relevant. For example, the role of night managers is to control the operation in the evenings (relevant) and to report the accurate employee mistake and burned pizza (specific). Yet the night managers should be committed to accomplishing the challenging goal set. This refers back to the E-to-P expectancy, the more belief that the goal can be accomplished, the more committed the night mangers are to the goal. Last but not least, to overcome the tension between managers and employees the building up of organizational commitment is essential. Managers should treat employees with justice and support, in which to retrieve the benefits employees had – free pizzas, salads or drinks to build affective commitment and organizational justice discussed above. In addition the building up of trust is equally important, therefore to intimidate with a lie detector ought to be abolished. Employee feel obliged to work for an organization only when they trust their leaders. Therefore, with high levels of affective commitment employees are less likely to leave the organization, and have a higher work motivation as well as somewhat higher job satisfaction. Reference List McShane, S. and Travaglione, T. (2007), Organizational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim, 2nd Edition, North Ryde: McGraw-Hill Australia.