ORGANISATIONAL TRANSFORMATION IN PRACTICE

Organisational Transformation in Practice



Organizational Transformation

Problems and context

Having successfully completed three semesters of my master's program, I decided to take a semester break and do an internship in order to gain a bit of practical experience. I strongly believed that an internship would serve as the ideal endeavor to aid me in acquiring relevant working experience while also helping me gain sufficient knowledge of the corporate environment. Moreover, it would also allow me to apply the concepts and theories that I have learned thus far in the Master's program.

Hence, I took up the task of dropping an application for internship along with my resume at nearly three dozen nearby offices and waited with bated breath for a reply. To my delight, I got positive replies from three different companies where I had dropped my resume and after giving nearly a dozen interviews, I was finally selected by a multinational company that manufactured a diverse range of healthcare products and services for a global clientele.

My date of joining work was Wednesday, which was the start of the new month and I showed up at the office on time and with a positive and upbeat attitude. On my very first day at work, I was delegated the responsibilities of a line manager and supervisor and this essentially required me to undertake a wide range of complex and rigorous tasks related to supervision of employees and operations (Brittel & Newstrom, 1990, pp. 147).

Consequently, a short orientation session was arranged during which I was formally introduced to the nearly 300 workers who would report to me. Out of these 300 workers, 200 employees worked on factory machines in groups of three each while the remaining 100 were largely responsible for overseeing manual tasks. Furthermore, I was to report to three managers in particular - the senior manager, the accounts manager, and the warehouse and stock supervisor.

Apart from the primary task of supervising the employees and overseeing operations in the manufacturing facility, I was tasked with the additional responsibilities of handling payroll registers and monitoring the attendance of employees. In addition, I couldn't help but notice how cooperative and subservient the workers were towards me on my first day.

During the course of the first week, I was tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that the workers signed their attendance sheets every morning without fail by reporting to me. In addition to this, I was also supposed to make sure that all the workers were working their shifts efficiently. In order to ensure this, I was to visit the factory floor after an interval of every two hours. I had little trouble in carrying out my responsibilities and the workers were cooperative and supportive.

However, as the second week progressed, there was a subtle but unmistakable change in the behavior of the workers - or perhaps it was there all along and I only realized it then. Nevertheless, I gathered the distinct impression that the chief maintenance engineer and a majority of the factory ...