Business development management essay report help: Sustainability
- 1. Executive summary:
Intend of this paper is to define sustainability, job design, goal setting and flexible work arrangements and their importance to the managers and the organization. In this regard, entire report has been continued in several different parts. First, sustainability builds and arranges multiple different circumstances under which both humans and nature can survive in fruitful harmony, that allow pleasing economic, social and other needs of both present and future age groups. To maintain the business, organizations need to make sure that the resources are used fairly so that there will always be some resources that could be used by others. Sustainability within the organization becomes an issue from every perspective whether economic, environmental or social. Additionally, report moves forward with analyzing and discussing about the concepts of job design, goal setting and flexible work arrangements. Job design establishes the scope, requirements, and responsibilities of the task for the job holder and also creating and maintaining a safe work environment as well as provides fair wages, employees’ benefits and a safe working environment. Therefore, managers must understand that each employee possesses different skills and needs. With that in mind, managers can then design or redesign tasks accordingly. Similarly, goal setting is a process of developing and deciding what are the goals company want to accomplish. It makes sure that people are aware of the goals targeted to achieve and what they need to do in order to meet the goals. To make sure that goals are effectively achieved, it is vital that the goals are set through the SMART goal setting theories because they would explain that the goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, and reasonable and time bound.
Moreover, most of the time in organizations, it is due to the lack of foresight by managers and not having the right systems that has caused flexible work arrangement to be unutilized. Thus flexible work arrangements might help assists older workers to stay on in the workforce either to work or to share their knowledge, expertise or act as mentors to sustain the workforce. Afterward, all the concepts defined in the paper has been linked back to the ways in which that can be utilized by the leaders and the managers to formulate effective policies in order to make their organizations more sustainable. End part of the paper describes some decisive points out of the entire discussion in the form of a conclusion.
- 2. Introduction:
One of the core concepts about sustainability is the Triple Bottom Line which reflects the three pillars of sustainability and to convey the vision of business that contributes to the economy, social and environmental sustainability. It is this, which makes sustainability more motivating than environmental management. It is not very easy to manage sustainability in an organization since it needs on its practitioners’ part capacity to challenge frequently almost everything that has gone before. Following this, paper has put its emphasis on importance of sustainability and its influence on organizational behavior. It is no more underground that customer preferences will progressively be described by the business’ capability to exhibit sustainability in its practices.
As such, organizations dedicated towards managing sustainability usually work with a single-minded concentration on creating advantage through reputation. Therefore, organizations with a sustainability strategy will be able to gain a more competitive edge which can assist in increasing their market value and higher profitability. In this regard, environmental sustainability is described as setting consumption limits, addressing population growth and pollution, ethical principles as well as the defective methods of production including the wastage of water, demolition of forests and soil erosion. In simple words, environmental sustainability encompasses making decisions and taking actions that have interests in defending the natural world with key emphasis on safeguarding environment’s capability to help prop up human life.
Furthermore, people in different countries are exploding in population and are also seeking to live high-consumption lifestyle. In this context, companies need to have a sustainable economic model ensuring that there should be proficient resource allocation and fair distribution within the organization. On the other hand, social sustainability suggests having an ethical duty to do something about social injustice, poverty, and human inequality.
Furthermore, employees should be introduced to the backgrounds of sustainability’s tragedy and why they are doing a more significant job when they practice sustainability in the organization. Consequently, managers and leaders could communicate effectively and provide the employees clear instructions in maintaining sustainable organizational development. The current investment to practice sustainability is hardly to be cost-efficient. Although, a few organizations set good model for the rest when they practice sustainability in ranges of forms and earn a good profit simultaneously. To build sustainability, jobs are designed by the management which further are taken into consideration by the organization. Job design refers to the process of distributing an organization’s total work into tasks to complete jobs. Intend of job design is to increase both the organization’s efficiency and employees’ motivation. Well-designed jobs that are meaningful and challenging improve job satisfaction of the employees. This may help to improve efficiency, productivity and morale within an organization. Finally, this could lead to less staff turnover, absenteeism and potentially make an organization more productive.
Afterward, goals are set for practicing designed jobs in an efficient way. To establish goals of the company, SMART objective in considered by the companies. This states that a goal should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. ABC approach is also followed by some organization to set awesome, believable and comfortable goals and to accomplish them effectively. Additionally, employees want to have job security as well as flexible working arrangements so that work-life balance could be managed. In this regard, further segments would discuss all these concepts in depth and relate with several theories and models.
3. Discussion:
3.0 What is sustainability?
During the 1940’s, there were concerns raised in nature resources consumptions and limited availability of resources. In 1960s and 1970s, one’s idea of sustainability is: “The combination of resources, exponential population and rapid development were considered a ticking time bomb.” (Meadows et al. 1972).The key to a desirable future is the concept of sustainable development. In 1997, a definition was offered: “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Stern. 1997).
With the development of modern society, Sustainability goes beyond environmental. People look for development that is sustainable. Scottish Natural Heritage asserts theories and practices for sustainable development (The Scottish government. 2006).
Hence, Sustainability refers to the usage of the resources and returns ethically so that the current and future generations benefit from it.
One of the core concepts about sustainability is the Triple Bottom Line which reflects the three pillars of sustainability and to convey the vision of business that contributes to the economy, social and environmental sustainability (Cheney, Nheu and Vecellio. 2004). This would mean the continuation or maintenance of a condition indefinitely without the abruption, weakening or losing any distinct valued qualities (Daly and Townsend. 1993). Organisations with a sustainability strategy will be able to gain a more competitive edge which can assist in increasing their market value and higher profitability.
The Triple Bottom line agenda requires organizations to focus not only on economic value but also on the environmental and social value. Organizations must consider the needs of community and be socially responsible (Enquist, Edvardsson and Petros. 2007a). Social Responsibility refers to the expectation that business will do to improve the welfare of society (Carroll. 1999). Nowadays, sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are values which are embraced by the most successful and competitive multi-nation companies. (Ehrenfeld 2005).
3.1 Environmental Sustainability
A business can maintain an ecologically sustainable system by preserving a solid base of natural resources without wastage. This requires the conservation of the environment so that the needs of the present are met and our future generations will not be affected. In order to tackle sustainable development problems, consumption limits should be set to avoid permanent damage due to excessive consumption of the natural resources (Lloyd. 2007).
Human population is growing and human activities depend on the natural resources. Environmental sustainability demands that activities are designed to meet human needs but not ignoring the preservation of the life support systems of earth. Nature’s resources should only be utilized at a rate at which they can be replenished naturally for human activities. Ethical Principles should also be considered. However, the Ethical value is difficult to evaluate as ethics differs with one’s values. Ethics deals with rights, justice and values. Therefore, environmental sustainability is defined as setting consumption limits, dealing with population growth and pollution, ethical principles as well as the faulty methods of production which include the wastage of water, destruction of forests and soil erosion (Epstein 2008).
3.2 Economic Sustainability
Different strategies are used in economic sustainability to identify an efficient and responsible way of using the available resources to the business’s advantage in providing long-term benefits. In a business aspect, it would mean having a profit consistently while the business continues to function. Usually, monetary term is used to measure economic sustainability and to identify the amount of return generated by the use of those resources efficiently. At the same time, steps can be taken to identify and correct the areas in which the sources are not used most efficiently. These proposed changes to the operation will make it possible to handle any upcoming potential difficulties before the changes are implemented.
Under this dimension, sustainability would mean the capacity to provide economic welfare at present and future, while more attention are given to the “natural capital” which refers the natural resources of economic value such as plants, soil, animals, and bio-environmental system such as air and water purification (Epstein and Roy. 2003).
3.3 Social Sustainability
Social sustainability is the core element of sustainability and refers to the same idea of the future generations having the same or greater access to social resources as our current generations. Based on the philosophical aspect of social sustainability, individuals’ behaviors, attitudes and actions are focused. Protecting the mental and physical health of all stakeholders, community encouragement, fair treatment of all stakeholders and providing essential services are vital as a society cannot be developed and maintained if the population are in poor health. Sustainability is considered to have attained under this social dimension once the achievement of social justice through equitable resource allocation, wiping out poverty and providing social services to the society (Meadows, Randers and Meadows. 2004).
4.0 Why do managers need to understand it?
4.1 Social Responsibilities
As services and products are produced from raw materials, pollution may occur and will affect the natural environment and society. To maintain the business, organizations have to make sure that the resources are used fairly so that there will always be some resources that could be used by others. Sustainability requires the organizations to give a return to the society. In business perspective, social responsibility refers to managers in taking actions to improve the society by virtue the business being in existence and to improve the overall welfare of society (Laszlo. 2003). Managers need to understand their roles in order to be socially responsible.
4.2 Customers’ Preference
The public has been concerned about environmental quality since 1990s. Customers consider sustainability when purchasing. For some customers, sustainability demands go beyond the product or service it. Customers are happy to know the kind of differences they could make with their spending. On the other hand, customers may also choose not to purchase the product or services if the organizations are not showing that they are socially responsible. Therefore, managers need to understand that sustainability will be affected if the needs and minds of the customers are not met (Post, Preston and Sachs. 2002).
4.3 Globalization and Government Regulations
Government regulations are very important to organizations. Organizations need to consider their international sustainability, including human rights, codes of conduct, and local regulations (Deresky 2008). Developed countries especially are very concerned about the sustainability. Some federals in Australia encourage organizations to allow employees to have flexible-working hours. Understanding sustainability helps to reduce the conflicts when developing new markets and build a win-win relationship with government.
4.4 Organization Development (OD) and Communication: Sustainability is one of the contemporary themes in organizations. Some organizations are good at making profits. Meanwhile, the management of ecological and social challenges can still be considered ‘new turf’. Organizations are looking for development to achieve sustainability. OD refers to application of behavioral to the planned development and reinforcement or structures, processes and strategies to improve performance. Managers need to know sustainability because they play the key roles in OD (Buchanan, Claydon and Doyle. 1999).
When moving towards a new structure, it is difficult to achieve maximum performance if management fails to send clear message. A study in UK found almost 80% employees believed that bosses did not give clear objectives. And one of the elements to determine company competitiveness is whether the organization could meet the employees’ needs. Employees need clear definitions and instructions, enforcements and feedback regarding of their performance.
Employees should be introduced to the backgrounds of emergency of sustainability and why they are doing a more meaningful job when they practice sustainability in the organization. Managers could communicate effectively and give the employees clear instructions in maintaining sustainable OD.
5.0 How Sustainability will influence organizational behavior?
5.1 Improve Performance in Sustainability: If an organization’s main objective is sustainability and being effectively communicated, employees would be motivated and put in effort to contribute to the environment, social and economic aspects. Individuals will fail to perform when organization fails to provide support. For example, if an organization is hiring disables, it must provide proper path, toilet and elevator which are easy for disables to use. All these actions could help employees to know sustainability better and feel more participation in sustainability
5.2 Marketing and Strategic Management
One segment of the consumers highly believes in sustainability. Green marketing target on this segment include: looking for better solution to reduce waste; recycling packaging, local materials and labour. Organizations need to find solutions to produce with lesser energy and consumptions. Strategic management aims to create and sustain competitive advantages. Organizations are setting the organization strategy from a sustainable view. The strategy setting would no longer only focus on the economic and products. The organization strategies would be more practicable, competitive and sustainable.
5.3 Performance Evaluation
Business strategy, technology and employee involvement are the practices that affect work performance. Performance standards require people to behave and think in a particular way, which would lead to a certain performance. Performance evaluation is a process of defining, assessing and reinforcing employee behaviors and outcomes. The criteria, feedback and evaluation should base on sustainability. For example, the KPI could be work efficiency instead of working hours, considering work-life balance returning to the society. There must have a clear goal for employees to performance, and in performance appraisal process, it assesses the outcomes to see whether the indicators work efficiently. In Reward process, it provides reinforcement to ensure the particular outcome or performance would repeat.
5.4 Pioneers Effect
The current investment to practice sustainability is hardly to be cost-efficient. However, some companies set good example for the rest when they practice sustainability in varieties of forms and earn a good profit at the same time. Environmental sustainability is now a value embraced by the most competitive and successful multinational companies (Ehrenfeld. 2005). A survey found that 92 percent senior executives of companies that the environmental problem will be one of the biggest issues in the 21st century. These pioneers illustrated that there are more gains than losses of being sustainability. They encourage the managers to be sustainable (PR Web. 2012).
Sustainability policies will definitely influence the organization behavior. Individuals will improve the performance in sustainability with higher awareness, effort and company support. Company also need to evaluate employee performance base on the sustainability indicators .The customers also help organizations to move to go green from marketing and strategy setting.
6.1 Job Design
Job design refers to the process of distributing an organization’s total work into tasks to complete jobs. Job designing requires planning and detailed description of work tasks and working environment. Firstly, it should establish the scope, requirements, duties and responsibilities of the task for the job holder and also creating and maintaining a safe work environment. Secondly, job design should include providing fair wages, employees’ benefits and a safe working environment. Lastly, it should specify the interpersonal relationships between the job holder (manager) and his superiors, subordinates and colleagues (Schumann.2005).
6.1.1Objective of Job Design
The main objective of job design or re-design is to increase both the organization’s productivity and employees’ motivation. Increasing organization’s productivity can be achieved by focusing on improving quality and quantity of goods and services, reducing operation costs, turnover and training costs. Increasing employees’ motivation can be achieved by increasing job satisfaction.
6.1.2 A Good Job Design
A good job design should balance the needs of the organization, and the needs of the individual employee. Job design is a crucial factor in job recruitment. Jobs that are well-designed are able to attract potential employees who will be motivated to improve the productivity and profitability of the organization. However, if the jobs are ill-designed, it could result in absenteeism, high labour turnover, conflicts and other labour problems.
6.1.3Importance of Job Design to Managers
Owing to globalization, organizations are able to expand rapidly, resulting in diverse workforce. Managers must understand that each employee possesses different skills and needs. With that in mind, managers can then design or redesign tasks accordingly. A manager’s responsibility is to fit individual employee needs with challenging goals and meaningful work, to provide job satisfaction and career advancement (Marilyn 2006).
6.1.4 Job Design Strategies
Manager can consider using any or a combination of the four motivational approaches when design or re-designing tasks.
Firstly, job simplification simplifies work procedures and only hiring worker in clearly stated and specialized tasks.
Secondly, job enlargement increases task variety by merging two or more tasks previously assigned to different workers.
Thirdly, job rotation increases task variety by periodically rotating employees among jobs involving different tasks.
Lastly, job enrichment involves incorporating motivating factors into job content by adding, planning and evaluating duties (Bailey.n.d).
6.1.5 Job design and employees
Managers usually assume that money is a source of motivation for their employees. An effective job design with fair wages is as important as motivating employees to be effective. Job design can influence employee motivation, job satisfaction and commitment to the organization. This makes an impact directly on the efficiency of an organization. Jobs are often designed to encourage specialization through job simplification. Work is usually divided into specific tasks, and assigned to an employee, who becomes very skilled, accurate and efficient in performing the task. However, the lack of variety can lead to boredom, which generally has a negative impact on employee motivation. Employee may not be able to feel a sense of achievement and job satisfaction level may drop. A possible solution is to re-design the work by adding varieties through job rotation where employees move between different jobs periodically. Not only will this reduce the routine of their work, it will help develop a team with a wider range of skills.
A second way to improve employees’ motivation is through job enlargement where employees are gradually given more challenging work and responsibilities. Many employees enjoy learning new things and get more satisfaction from their work if they are given extra responsibility.
Job enrichment is another motivational technique that involves giving employees control over the work they do. By providing them with responsibility and authority, it encourages them to seek out better and more efficient ways to accomplish their task which leads to a potential increase in productivity. Well-designed jobs that are meaningful and challenging increases employees’ job satisfaction. This may help to improve efficiency, productivity and morale within an organization. Ultimately, this could lead to less staff turnover, absenteeism and potentially make an organization more profitable.
6.2 Concepts of Goal Setting
An organization that develops quality and effective goals will bring success for the business as well as sustain the people, place and profits. An effective goal will encourage people to perform at anytime and anywhere. Thus, this can bring success for the organization. Goal Setting is a process of developing and deciding what is the goals you want to accomplish. It makes sure people are aware of the goals target to achieve and what they need to do in order to meet the goals. Therefore, it is common that the goal knowledge is flowed down using the top down approach that the upper-level give goal information to the lower-level (Oracle, 2012). Organization should efficiently use the relevant resources in setting the goals and avoid unnecessary resources. So, it is extremely difficult to get everyone involved and achieve the target goals if they don’t have the common understanding of what is the final goal. This is because they don’t have the basic knowledge of the goal and can’t cooperate in achieving it. To make sure that goals are effectively achieved, it is vital that the goals be set through the SMART goal setting theories. SMART theories can be explained that the goals setting should be specific, measurable, attainable, and reasonable and time bound (Ward).
6.2.1 What are SMART goals?
To be more clearly about the SMART goals theory, organization should provide all the participants a comprehensive information and explanation.
The ‘S’ is the abbreviation of specific goal and the objective. Participants should be aware about the fundamental knowledge like the goal’s objective, people involved, location, deadline and how it can affect.
The ‘M’ is stands for measurable which means that the goal must be measured based on when the goal can be achieved.
In addition, the ‘A’ of SMART goals refers to attainable which explains that the goals must be achieved within the control using useful resources such as people, time and knowledge.
However, the reasonable state that goal set must be logical, realistic and be able to achieve based on what you want.
Lastly, the ‘T’ stands for time bound whichrefers to the deadline which the goal has to be achieved. Being aware of the deadline of the goal can help organization to be more time efficient and reduce all unnecessary resources (Lauritzen, 2011).
6.2.2 Three key concepts for successful goal setting as a sustainable business
In order to be sustainable in the business, the goals set must be fully satisfied and motivate people to continue performing and lead to higher profits. There are three goals that can be used to perform different performance expectations. These three goals can be simplified as A, B and C goals.
‘A’ represents awesome goal and also known as stretch goal. This goal will bring you to new methods that will change the things to become better and have a value return on it.
Whereas ‘B’ stands for believable goal that are goalswhich you believe that can be achieved above the minimum acceptance level. It usually needs some extra job and some changes before you can achieve it.
‘C’ is called comfortable goal which is easy to achieve because it is usually near to the minimum acceptance level. To be employed, one needs to reach the minimal standard of acceptance by being rewarded for one’s achievement (Group 2012).
6.2.3 Summary of Goal Setting
Therefore, goal setting plays an important role in affecting the organization to be sustainable. In order to develop successful goals, participants must clearly understand the goals. Thus, the goals must be in connection from the top down basis. Moreover, goals must be SMART that is specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable and time-based. An effective goal can motivate human beings to put in more effort to achieve. Goals also give a better plan and standard for the organization and they can correct according the criterion when needed (Oracle, 2012). Thus, effective goals setting will contribute to the three pillars of sustainability which are economic, social and environment developments and help the organization succeed (Johnson. 2008).
6.3 Flexible work arrangements
Employees as well as employers these days are facing a dilemma of satisfying these two fold expectations. Employees, on one hand, want to have job security and on the other hand demanding labor markets, work organization and employment to be more flexible. Having this balance is believed to be able to support the organization to be competitive, increase in quality and performance, and enable employees to be more adaptable to changes in the economy. A generation in particular who loves to have flexible work arrangement is those from Generation Y. This group of people had grown up with havinginternet, globalization, mobile phones and Facebook and thus have a different attitude and working style as compared to their parents or grandparents. They prefer to have the flexibility to work from home (Benko Cathleen and Weisberg Anne. 2007).
6.3.1 Environmental Sustainability:
In a recent Guardian Sustainable Business Blog, it states that during the London 2012 Olympics, many organizations were encourage to have flexible working arrangement as it could save organizations carbon, money and increase productivity. The headlines read as “A gold medal for skiving” to allow civil servants to work from home during the event. Though it’s a lazy cultural mind-set, it does enable a shift to a lower carbon economy. There was not only a cut of carbon emissions by 12500 kg by having lesser cars on the road but it also improved productivity of work too (Almer, Cohen, & Single, 2003; Cohen & Single, 2001; Hill, Hawkins, Ferris, &Weitzman, 2001).
6.3.2 Social Sustainability
Stress can be good and bad depending on individuals but stress at work are often caused by job demands intertwined together with other demands of role and responsibilities. The thought to get to work on time and at the same time making sure everything at home is in order can be an on-going stress daily (Nelson & Burke, 2002). Stress at work is perceived to affect an employee’s health (Ettner & Grzywacz, 2001) which is hard to determine as there are other factors that can and should be taken into consideration. However, there had been strong indicators showing that stressed individual’s resulted in a wide range of illnesses thus affecting job performance and satisfaction (Halpern, 2005).
6.3.3 Economic sustainability
Most of the time in organizations, it is due to the lack of foresight by managers and not having the right systems that has caused flexible work arrangement to be unutilized. For instance, in a shrinking workforce, having flexible work arrangements in organizations could open doors for more local workers to be able to work? Past stories have shown that having foreign labours can be counterproductive and costly. Thus flexible work arrangements might help assists older workers to stay on in the workforce either to work or to share their knowledge, expertise or act as mentors to sustain the workforce. Some examples of flexible work arrangement includes flexible time (flex time), compressed work week, telecommuting; job sharing, time off work instead of overtime payments (V-Time/Time income trade-offs: Voluntary reduced work time).
7. Conclusion
True sustainability encourages the responsible use of resources. It is not about the business making a profit but whether the business is creating environmental concerns which could be harmful. Businesses are able to choose raw materials which are more environmentally friendly. This will be beneficial to the business in the long run as attention paid has the potential to expand the community’s investment and also increase its chances for remaining a viable operation. Establishing profitability is the ultimate goal of a business over the long term. A profitable business will be more likely to remain stable and stay in operation from one year to the next.
From this view, this strategy can be a tool to ensure that the business will continue to grow and continues in contributing to the welfare of the owners, employees, and the community. Sustainable organizations are able to attract more talents to join them, retain good employees and do not have to face much financial risks. If an organization’s main objective is sustainability and being effectively communicated, employees would be motivated and put in effort to contribute to the environment, social and economic aspects. Individuals will fail to perform when organization fails to provide support. Sustainability policies will definitely influence the organization behavior. Individuals will improve the performance in sustainability with higher awareness, effort and company support. Company also needs to evaluate employee performance base on the sustainability indicators.
Furthermore, Job designing requires planning and detailed description of work tasks and working environment. Jobs are often designed to encourage specialization through job simplification. Work is usually divided into specific tasks, and assigned to an employee, who becomes very skilled, accurate and efficient in performing the task. Job enrichment is another motivational technique that involves giving employees control over the work they do. Moreover, organization should efficiently use the relevant resources in setting the goals and avoid unnecessary resources. So, it is extremely difficult to get everyone involved and achieve the target goals if they don’t have the common understanding of what is the final goal. Therefore, goal setting plays an important role in affecting the organization to be sustainable. In order to develop successful goals, participants must clearly understand the goals. Thus, the goals must be in connection from the top down basis.
Similarly, flexible work arrangement helps to assist employees in having the flexibility of choosing the timing of their work and/or the location of where they work. These helps in taking away the burdens on those employees that needs to take care of their family members, attending other appointments, sending and picking up their children to and fro from school and at the same time still be able to engage at work. It is appealing to employees, especially Generation Y, who are looking for sustainability as it helps to reduce the tension and stress they faced daily that may lead to burn-out in the long run. It also helps to attract and retain future and current employees, decrease absenteeism and work produce becomes more productive as employees are more satisfied which in turn brings in profits. This may also prevent a shrinking workforce too as it allows older workers the flexibility to work and contribute to the business either as mentors or in some other capacity. Lastly, it helps to save the environment by cutting down of carbon emissions. All these not only increase better work lives balance between work and family responsibilities but also reflect the sustainability of the organization.
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