The BFGym Company Advantages and Disadvantages

The BFGym company has its advantages and disadvantages. I am going to outline these strengths and weaknesses and prove them with different ideas and theories that have been outlined throughout this course. I am going to be talking about motivation from different perspectives, the team work that takes place in this company, whether the type of team work is beneficial or disadvantageous to the company, the culture that is practiced in BFGym and why its bureaucratic structure proves to have both destructive and positive effects to the company.

The lack of motivation is apparent in BFGym due to the lack of job satisfaction. Not only can this cause a high employee turnover rate but can also bring about evident traits in workers that disturb organisational functioning (Spector, 1997). Successful enterprises have great leaders and listeners which BFGym seems to lack at the managerial level. (Brian, 2013) explains that listening is a powerful tool because it will help employees feel good about themselves. If managers exercise this quality, labourers will feel more valued and more important in the workforce.

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Managers will also be more aware of the situation at hand and can quickly tackle the problems or difficulties that are occurring in the firm.

(Rollinson, 2005) outlines that, certain people have high need for affiliation, they aim to have strong relationships with people and need to feel like they belong to a specific group to better their motivation. These are personality traits that have been acquired from childhood. This is known as McClelland's 'need for affiliation' theory.

According to the case study, one of the workers felt as though his input was discarded and didn't feel like he fitted in with the group which in turn would lead to his demotivation. McClelland claims that adults can be taught to have higher levels of striving for achievement. This notion contradicts his own argument that characteristics such as needing to achieve and need for power are all permanently acquired from child hood. When a person reaches adulthood it's hard to change how they think and act, hence, the training may not lead to permanent changes which would aid their enthusiasm and motivation (Rollinson, 2005).

Nick explained that he was getting treated unfairly because some of his colleagues were taking advantage of the fact that he was a relatively new worker. The managers were giving him classes that other trainers did not want to do, for example, those over the weekend or early mornings on the week days. Perceived inequity can lead to the downfall of the work force. If certain individuals, like Nick, feel as though other workers in BFGym are able to choose classes that are comfortable to their own schedules, it will inevitably trigger feelings of resentment towards the managers and his fellow peers. This will in turn affect his behaviour and his work. (Rollinson 2005) states that for motivation to exist in people, the rewards or treatment obtained by an individual should be fair in comparison to those received by fellow workers - this is called 'Adams's equity theory'. Equity can be achieved by managers through 'modifying inputs, for example, where a person feels under-rewarded effort can be reduced' (Rollinson, 2005). The managers need to take into account that Nick feels as if there is inequity in the company and tackle the problem head on using 'Adam's six basic options for action'. This can only be achieved if the managers build a strong listening relationship with their subordinates, which they don't seem to utilize as mentioned before.

Stress can also lead to demotivation. (Mullins. 2016) portrays that increased workloads, 'lack of empowerment and autonomy over control of work' and an autocratic type of leadership (which can come from line managers) can lead to stress. This is prevalent in the case study as Robin stated that having more leverage when it comes to his work would be beneficial. BFGym seems to practice a bureaucratic style of leadership. The managers don't take into account ideas or requests made by the employees. This is shown when Jane wanted to change some of the exercises but it was disapproved by management. Also the workers do not have authority on what classes they get to teach.

Team work is very essential regarding the progress of a company. When people work together they tend to achieve objectives or goals set in a more efficient and timely manner. According to (Butler et al, 2011) teams enhance innovation and creativity and they enable people to learn from each another through cooperation. The type of team that exists in BFGym is known as a 'pseudo' team. This type of group is only a team by name and they do not work interpedently to achieve a shared objective. There is a lack of communication skills in these types of teams. This is shown in the case study, where each worker has his or her own time table to follow and never have to come together and use all of their talents to complete a shared task or objective. Pseudo teams usually experience lower levels of well?being and higher stress levels than members of real teams (West et al, 2013). Stress seems to be affecting most workers at this firm.

Process losses is inefficient problem solving in groups. This is another massive issue affecting the labour force at BFGym. These include 'social conformity' and 'social loafing'. Social conformity is when people always agree with the majority's opinion even if they disagree with it. They do this to avoid arguments and confrontation (Butler et al, 2011). This is represented in Nick's personality when he refrained from voicing his opinion on how he truly felt. Social loafing is when specific members of a group put little to no effort to a task and usually have low commitment levels. This can be detrimental to the company when other members of the group feel as though they are working hard and contributing to the task at hand. Hard working individuals may begin to feel frustrated which could result to demotivation and withdrawals of effort (Butler et al, 2011). This is depicted when Phillip was unhappy with Robin and Jo's attitude in regards to the meeting.

Process gains is when a group process leads to performances that exceeded expectation. Communication in a business can lead to process gains. According to (Butler et al, 2011), employees should feel comfortable to state their point of view across and should not feel shy to speak out. Kate tried to exercise this quality by holding the meeting so that everyone can share their trials and tribulations that they are experiencing at the work place.

BFGym can enhance their group work by using tools such as brainstorming. This can produce ideas and suggestions that affect companies positively and also provides a space for creative thinking. BFGym can also participates in more group activities. 'People join groups so that they can enjoy the company of other likeminded people' (Mishra, 2010).

Culture is a very complex notion and has many different definitions and interpretations. The dominant culture in this firm would be the 'role culture'. In this type of culture, the job description is way more important than the individual worker. Workers feelings and thoughts would usually not be taken into account. All decisions regarding the firm would be made by a select group of managers. All the managers care about is meeting deadlines, completing tasks, ensuring that their customers are always content with the service provided (Mullins, 2013). The case study portrays this type of culture as the managers operate in a bureaucratic type of style, ensuring all decisions are made by them and controlling almost everything that their subordinates do. The trainers have little to no influence in the work that they do and the management only cares about maintaining good results which is keeping the customers happy. The number of customers increased at BFGym which caused the line managers to either increase the number of classes in the trainer's schedules or remove the one to one sessions and replace them with bigger classes. Jo expressed that she was very distressed by this. This type of culture can continue to negatively affect BFGym. According to (Mullins, 2013) bureaucratic type of culture can lead to higher levels of stress among the workers.

The most appropriate culture for BFGym to use would be the 'person culture', this is where individuals have complete autonomy and influence over the work that they do. Some workers have stated that they would like some sort of leverage in regards to what classes and how many classes they teach. The person's culture would allow all the employees of the gym to accomplish goals as a unit. Goals that they wouldn't be able to accomplish as separate individuals (Rollinson, 2004). The down side to this type of culture is that there may be a lack of coordination and control (Rollinson, 2004).

The benefits of BFGym having a bureaucratic structure is that there is a clear operating structure. Everyone has to follow what the line managers says. This type of hierarchical structure can avoid slow decision making (improve timeliness) and chaos (Adler, 1999). For example, all the trainers at BFGym are assigned to teach certain classes, so everyone one knows what they are doing according to their own set time tables. If the trainers had the power to choose what classes to teach, the process of creating the schedules would be difficult. All the trainers would have to come to an agreement about the schedule ensuring that they are all happy with the way things are set. Getting everyone to agree could prove to be challenging and as a result can affect timeliness. Therefore, it's much easier for the line managers to set the time table and control how things function at the firm.

Customers have enjoyed coming to the gym due to the professional services BFGym provides. The workforce in this firm is also very engaging. This is because bureaucracy is instrumental in the performance and completion of standardised activities by workers, which is also completed in an efficient manner (Robbins et al, 2017). Bureaucracy can also lower the costs of a company in relation to recruitment. These types of companies can get by with lower skilled managers because the rules and regulations take place of any managerial action that might be needed (Robbins et al, 2017). This seems to be the case at BFGym. According to the case study the managers are only responsible for creating a schedule for the trainers and allocating which classes each employee is going to teach. This doesn't take much skill.

The downside to this type of structure is that there is no room for modification. If a request or idea doesn't fit in with the rules or the way things run in a company it is highly unlikely that it will be considered (Robbins et al, 2017). This is portrayed when Jane asked to change classes and her request was shut down. This is because the managers saw no need to change things because customers were happy with the way things were. This type of structure can be seen as primarily oppressive and controlling (Gay, 2005). One of the workers stated that she does not appreciate the strict structure at the gym. This shows that the bureaucratic way of running things does not work for everyone and in turn can lead to the stress and demotivation that the workers are feeling.