Abstract
Organisational behaviour is an important notion that has an impact on the manner in which an organisation performs its functions in a particular industry. Every organisation desires to achieve good results from its internal operations. For this objective to be realised, an organisation must put in place effective systems which motivate employees to achieve good results in their workstations.
ADNOC, the state owned petroleum firm based in Abu Dhabi, UAE has managed to institute different policies which are intended to motivate its employees to attain good results in their workstations. The firm’s internal human resource practices focus on increasing employees’ skills, offering them benefits and encouraging them to pursue other activities which are meaningful in their lives.
Introduction
Organisational behaviour is an important concept that determines the manner in which employees perform their duties. Employees’ attitudes in an organisation are influenced by the prevailing culture, policies and long term objectives which a firm has set. The operations of any business firm are driven by a particular purpose which enables managers to implement appropriate strategies to attain positive performance in the long run.
Motivation is an important part of organisational behaviour because it makes employees to be more self-driven, ambitious and dedicated to long term goals of organisations they work for.
Every business firm needs to set high standards in all areas of its operations to ensure its key stakeholders understand what they need to do to attain positive results (McAfee, 2009, p. 45). Therefore, it is important for any business firm that seeks to attain positive outcomes in its operations to hire competent employees who are able to perform their duties more effectively.
Motivation can be described as an inner driving force in an individual that pushes him to work harder to achieve a desired outcome from a particular action. In an organisational setting, motivation for performance allows a business firm to implement effective strategies that make employees have positive attitudes in their workstations.
Consequently, this enables employees to be more satisfied with the roles they are expected to play in their workstations (McAfee, 2009, p. 49). Any motivation strategy that is proposed must involve all employees in a firm before its implementation to make them understand specific sacrifices they have to make to attain good results.
Individual attitudes and inner thoughts of all employees towards the organisation they work for must be positive for such a strategy to work. This essay will discuss the organisational practices of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and the methods it uses to motivate its employees to achieve good performance in their workstations.
Literature Review
ADNOC’s Organisational Profile
ADNOC is a state owned corporation which has the mandate to extract oil and natural gas from reserves in Abu Dhabi. The company was formed in 1971 and since then, it has managed to grow to become one of the major state owned firms in United Arab Emirates. The firm has more than 19,300 employees who perform different responsibilities in their workstations.
These employees are spread out in its eleven subsidiaries which are specialised to perform specific functions that are related to the oil and gas industry (Marcel, 2007, p. 81). All eleven subsidiaries are bound by the firm’s overall vision which requires them to focus on providing high quality results that satisfy the needs of all its stakeholders in the industry.
In effect, this enables the organisation to focus on developing strong relationships with all employees to make them more committed to achieve positive results in different activities they are doing.
The firm has employees from different cultural backgrounds who are required to perform administrative, technical and commercial duties. The firm has instituted effective human resource policies which enable its staff to observe high professional standards whenever they perform their duties.
In addition, the firm’s managers encourage all employees to acquire additional skills in different areas to make them more competent in their duties. The human resource directorate in the organisation monitors all personnel functions which deal with the way employees are selected, recruited, developed and evaluated (Marcel, 2007, p. 87).
In addition, the firm has open communication systems which enable employees to communicate with one another freely. In addition, the human resource directorate executes functions that are related to planning, skills development, job design, talent management and performance evaluation.
These functions enable the firm to perform its functions in the industry more effectively and this helps it to compete effectively with other firms.
Working with Diverse People
Workplace diversity is an important element which enables an organisation to achieve its goals in a particular industry. This enables an organisation to benefit from different cultural perspectives which influence their thinking in their respective workstations. This allows them to use positive influences from their cultural backgrounds to motivate them to attain positive results in their workstations.
Effective management of a diverse workforce allows a firm to become more flexible in dealing with different types of challenges it is likely to face in its operations.
More importantly, it enables a firm to find out specific avenues through which it can improve its human resource practices by taking into consideration the cognitive as well as material needs of its employees (Marcel, 2007, p. 91). Many modern organisations use effective planning systems to manage their employees to make them well prepared to benefit from different advantages of diversity.
Organisations which have people from heterogeneous backgrounds are able to infuse creativity and critical thinking skills in their operations. Therefore, this allows them to encourage their employees to use creative solutions to solve different types of problems they face in their workstations.
This enables them to achieve good results. In the long run, such firms are able to retain their employees for longer periods of time due to good working relationships that their employees have in different settings.
Since many firms engage with different types of customers, they have invested in strong workplace diversity programs to make their employees well prepared to satisfy their customers’ needs (Thompson & McHugh, 2009, p. 34).
Customers from different cultural backgrounds speak different languages, observe their own ethical codes and have different needs. Therefore, appropriate workplace diversity strategies enable an organisation to understand specific cultural issues that are likely to affect how it relates with customers in different markets.
ADNOC has put in place effective strategies which deal with workplace diversity. The firm has a strong ethical code which encourages employee diversity at the workplace to enhance its reputation in the industry. The firm’s ethical codes demand all employees to treat one another with respect to prevent discrimination and harassment.
The firm’s core values require all employees to follow laws and policies which the organisation has implemented to enable them to be more consistent in all functions they perform. In addition, good citizenship policies encourage employees to be more responsible by conserving scarce natural resources in their workstations (Thompson & McHugh, 2009, p. 37).
As a result, employees in the firm understand the importance of sustainable development practices which influence ADNOC’s values in the industry. Consequently, this ties them to the organisational vision which the firm follows to achieve positive outcomes in different activities they are required to do.
Effective workplace diversity policies have enabled ADNOC to establish strong relationships with its employees based on honesty and trust. This has allowed the firm to establish a work environment where personal accountability is taken seriously. This openness has enabled the organisation to motivate its employees more to make them well prepared to deal with different issues that affect them in their workstations.
In the last ten years, the firm has been focusing on hiring more Emiratis to reduce the number of expatriates it employees (Shea & Solomon, 2013, p. 71). Consequently, this has reduced the number of open job opportunities for foreigners in the firm. The organisation offers positive working conditions to its Emirati employees to encourage them to develop their professional skills in the long run.
At the moment, the majority of employees working in the firm consist of Emiratis who are given preferential treatment by the management. Even though this has affected workplace diversity, the organisation’s Emiritisation policy is intended to give the firm’s human resource department a nationalistic identity in the long run.
Leadership
The leadership structure in ADNOC allows all employees to participate in decision making, thereby inspiring them to set high personal standards. The firm’s organisational structure encourages different departmental heads in the organisation to share ideas on how to solve different problems experienced by their subordinates in their departments.
Leaders in the firm encourage employees to acquire multidisciplinary skills to make it easy for them to perform different types of tasks. This allows the firm to reward employees who attain good results in their workstations by promoting them to leadership positions (Shea & Solomon, 2013, p. 74).
Team building processes are used by the organisation to encourage employees to collaborate with one another enable them to learn new ideas and skills. As a result, this approach has enabled the firm to improve its leadership processes to ensure they conform to employees’ intellectual needs.
Leadership is an important aspect of organisational behaviour and it determines the quality of performance attained by different stakeholders in an organisation. An effective leader must be willing to make sacrifices to enable all employees that work under him to achieve positive outcomes in their responsibilities.
Moreover, it is important for a leader to understand how the needs and expectations of employees influence them to attain good results in their duties. The Maslow theory of motivation categorises human needs into five broad categories. These are: physiological, safety, social, self esteem and self-actualisation (Shea & Solomon, 2013, p. 79).
Physiological needs are basic necessities which every person must have to survive such as; food, shelter and clothing. Safety needs safeguard a person’s ability to live comfortably in a particular society such as; employment, healthcare and other benefits. Social needs give an individual a sense of belonging and they enable him to develop good relations with other people in a particular community.
Self esteem needs are inner instincts of recognition and appreciation which make a person to feel that he is valued as a reputable member of a particular society. Lastly, self actualisation is the inner fulfilment a person gets from realising his maximum potential and this is an idealistic objective which is difficult for most people to attain in their lifetimes.
Every leader must consider all these levels to increase employees’ satisfaction and motivation (Gilmore & Williams, 2009, p. 98). They must be willing to transform the organisational culture employees practice to encourage them to set high personal goals and expectations.
More importantly, leaders need to find out which policies they need to implement to motivate their subordinates to work harder to achieve positive results. This approach will enable their firms to achieve their strategic objectives within the set time limits.
One key aspect of leadership which is observed in ADNOC is a flexible organisational structure. Effective communication processes in the firm enable managers to instruct their employees easily. This makes subordinates more willing to achieve good results from different activities they are doing.
Time management is a key factor which allows managers to set targets which employees are required to achieve within specific timelines (Gilmore & Williams, 2009, p. 102). As a result, this has helped the firm to increase levels of professionalism to help it achieve its long term objectives in the industry.
In addition, managers encourage employees to participate in other activities which are not related to their workplace responsibilities. This enables all employees in the firm to take time to reflect about their strengths and weaknesses. Consequently, this approach has enabled the firm to encourage its employees to use critical thinking approaches to overcome different challenges in their workstations.
Motivating for Performance
An organisation must improve its internal working environment to put in place effective conditions which motivate all employees to attain positive results in their workstations. Modern organisations face different types of challenges whenever they attempt to motivate their staff to attain good results.
For instance, poor communication, lack of a well defined organisation structure, poor time management and poor leadership are some of the challenges many firms face. A business firm that seeks to get positive results needs to improve its internal work processes to make employees understand how they can contribute to help it achieve food outcomes (Griffin & Moorehead, 2011, p. 124).
The three needs theory asserts that, people are motivated to achieve good results due to factors related to; achievement, power and affiliation. This shows that for employees to have a strong self drive, they need to feel that the organisation enables them to prosper. In addition, they also need to feel they have strong connections with their colleagues.
Business firms need to make their employees to feel more valuable to enable them to achieve good outcomes in their workstations. The work environment needs to be structured in a manner that makes employees enjoy various activities they are doing so that they can have positive perceptions.
As a result, organisations which give their employees more freedom to use their own creativity to achieve good results realise good results in the long term (Griffin & Moorehead, 2011, p. 129). Therefore, managers need to be encouraged to delegate their responsibilities to employees working in their departments to encourage them to surpass existing expectations.
However, an appropriate job design in a firm that focuses on employees’ ability, available resources and willingness to learn enables a firm to be more successful. As a result, such a firm is able to motivate its workers to be more dedicated in their duties.
ADNOC uses different strategies to motivate its employees to achieve good performance in their workstations. The company assigns employees tasks that are suited to their skills to enable them to achieve good results in the long run. Managers assess work tasks that need to be performed in their departments to find out if their employees are well equipped to perform them effectively.
They also assess general organisational expectations to find out how they can be fulfilled by employees working in their departments (Legge, 2004, p. 43). In addition, they take time to understand their employees to find out if they have what it takes to utilise their skills to achieve good outcomes.
This approach enables them to come up with effective management strategies which increase employees’ commitment in their respective departments to enable them to attain good results in the long run.
Job retention is one of the parameters which the firm uses to assess if its employees are satisfied with their internal working conditions or not. ADNOC has found it difficult to retain some of its best expatriate employees because they feel that they are discriminated against by the firm in favour of local citizens.
Therefore, the firm’s human resource department has not come up with an effective method to address the concerns of its employees to reduce high rates of turnover every year. However, the firm has a technical institute which trains its employees to enable them to acquire more knowledge in different disciplines that are related to its core operations (Legge, 2004, p. 46).
This approach allows the firm to transfer important skills to its workers to make them more competent in their duties. In addition, some exceptional employees are offered incentives to encourage them to stay loyal to the firm to reduce high rates of employee turnover that are currently being witnessed. As a result, this will make it possible for the firm to attain good results in the industry to help it become more competitive in the long run.
Work -Life Balance
Work- life balance helps a person to take an interest in other activities which are different from his work duties to make his life more meaningful. This is an important part of motivation which enables a firm to encourage its employees to take time off work to explore other pursuits which make them happy. Employees need to balance between work and pleasure to enable them to achieve their goals more effectively.
A positive work-life balance enables employees to make positive choices regarding specific activities they are interested in pursuing in their lives (Cameron & Quinn, 2006, p. 136). This enables them to find out specific activities they enjoy in their free time. Most people prefer to spend their free time with their family members to enable them to relax so that they face different challenges in their professional lives easily.
A positive work/balance also helps every employee to define specific goals they want to achieve. Therefore, when a person is away from work, he is able to reflect more on what success means to him and how he can be able to accomplish his dreams within a particular period of time. Many people’s perception of success include; strong family relations, personal career growth, financial prosperity and extensive professional networks.
These attributes make them happy and they encourage them to work harder to attain the goals they have set for themselves. A business firm that encourages its employees to pursue other interests away from work is likely to attain good results in its operations in the long run (Cameron & Quinn, 2006, p. 139).
Employees who socialise outside work are able to establish valuable relationships with other people which motivate them to work harder to achieve good results. Such employees enable an organisation to be more competitive in its operations in the industry.
ADNOC encourages its employees to take part in different activities to motivate them to perform their duties more effectively. The firm encourages its employees to volunteer in different initiatives which are beneficial to the lives of local communities in different parts of the UAE.
For instance, the company recently launched a desert clean up exercise where some of its employees took part in different activities which made them understand the benefits of environmental conservation (Mabey & Finch-Lees, 2008, p. 101). In addition, all employees are given a twenty one day leave of absence every year to rest so that they can come back to work when they are rejuvenated and ready to perform their responsibilities.
This approach enables the organisation to make its human resource practices more responsive to workers’ needs to ensure they are not worried by anything. In effect, this has allowed the firm to attain more positive outcomes in its operations.
The cultural management perspectives which the organisation observes help it to offer employees an opportunity to participate in other activities which are meaningful in their lives. For instance, Christian employees are given time off to celebrate Christmas and Easter holidays, while Muslims are allowed to spend time with their families during Ramadan celebrations.
This flexibility has enabled the firm to retain some of its workers for longer periods of time who enjoy privileges conferred on them by forward looking organisational policies (Mabey & Finch-Lees, 2008, p. 107).
As a result, this has made them more loyal to the firm, thereby increasing their own determination to attain good results in different activities they do in the firm. It is important to note that the organisation has a lot of benefits which it offers to its employees such as a paid annual leave, maternity leave and study leave.
Culture and Change Management
Culture is an important element in any organisation and influences the manner in which employees adopt change. Business firms that are adaptable find it easy to implement different changes in their working processes compared to firms which are rigid and conservative. People are more likely to accept changes which offer them various forms of benefits after a particular period.
Therefore, any firm that seeks to adopt change management practices needs to improve employees’ perceptions regarding the overall working environment (Rojewski, 2004, p. 141).
Some of the factors in an organisation’s culture that are likely to impact on change include: decision making, ability of the firm to take risks, time and existence of career advancement opportunities. Therefore, any new change management system adopted by a firm needs to inspire employees that they will be more involved in decision making processes.
The ability of a firm to take risks determines if it is ready to change its internal and external operational systems. A firm that finds it difficult to take different types of risks may not be in a position to adopt drastic changes easily. The extent to which a firm’s goals are aligned to specific time limits influences its ability to adopt change management strategies.
In addition, such goals need to offer career advancement opportunities for employees who are loyal and achieve good results in their respective workstations (Rojewski, 2004, p. 147).
Therefore, a business firm needs to understand specific aspects of organisational culture that are likely to favour or hinder change management processes from being adopted successfully. This will enable it to set more realistic goals which enable employees to understand how proposed changes will benefit them in the long run.
ADNOC has managed to review its internal systems of operation to make it easier for indigenous Emiratis to work in the organisation. Some of the changes which the firm has introduced include; high quality employee evaluation methods, individual coaching and continuous professional guidance.
Since more employees have realised the benefits of mentoring and coaching, they have become more accommodating to these new operational systems. The company’s internal policies have also been restructured to pave way for performance management human resource practices.
These changes have improved employees’ attitudes in their respective work stations making them more willing to make sacrifices to attain good results (Rue & Byars, 2003, p. 71). This approach has enabled the organisation to place more emphasis on employees’ career progression. As a result, all employees in the firm are confident that existing systems offer them an opportunity to grow their professional abilities.
ADNOC has also instituted training programs for both male and female students who attain outstanding grades in different schools. This approach has enabled the firm to change its internal human resource practices to allow more women to be recruited into the organisation.
In addition, this has enabled the firm to develop a pool of talented Emirati professionals who are technically equipped to perform crucial functions in the oil and gas sector (Victor, Hults & Thurber, 2011, p. 111).
More importantly, this will make it easy for the firm to hire competent employees that can meet its expectations in the industry in the country thereby reducing its overreliance on expatriates. Consequently, this has made it possible for the organisation to manage its internal performance to help it achieve its goals in the industry.
Emiritisation
This is a program which was initiated by the government of the UAE to encourage both public and private enterprises to hire more Emiratis. The policy focuses on equipping Emiratis with different types of skills to make them more competent in different fields of practice to reduce the country’s overreliance on foreign workers.
A majority of Emiratis are employed in the public sector due to high salaries, job security and more opportunities for personal and professional growth. Therefore, the Emiritisation program seeks to change this situation to enable more citizens to have more favourable perceptions towards getting employment in the private sector.
ADNOC has been one of main state owned firms which has changed it internal policies to make them more aligned to the Emiritisation program (Victor, Hults & Thurber, 2011, p. 115). It has developed effective human resource programs to encourage more Emirati nationals to apply for vacant positions in the company.
The company offers its Emirati employees an annual paid examination leave of fifteen days to encourage them to acquire more technical skills. In addition, the firm offers social allowance, child allowance and travel allowance to Emirati nationals who work for it. This approach allows the firm to motivate its Emirati employees to make them more willing to achieve good results in their workstations.
In addition, the firm has also implemented policies which reserve some specific positions for local Emiratis to enable it to increase its productivity to attain good results in the long run.
Since the firm’s long term objective is to have more than 75% of its workers drawn from the local population, it will be able to use Emirati cultural values to guide its operations in the industry (Victor, Hults & Thurber, 2011, p. 119). Consequently, this will make it easy for the firm to motivate its employees to attain good results in their duties.
Analyses
The Maslow’s theory of motivation helps an organisation to understand specific goals it intends to achieve in its operations. Therefore, it allows a leader to understand the needs of all employees and how they are likely to impact on their ability to achieve good results in their workstations.
More importantly, it enables employees to find out specific issues that make them want to be part of an organisation and what they stand to gain by being loyal to its core values in the long run.
In this case study, it is obvious that ADNOC has focused more on strengthening the value of its internal operations to make its employees more effective in what they do in their work stations. Performance management, cultural focus, change management and leadership are key concepts which influence the firm’s overall organisational culture.
Conclusion
ADNOC’s overall organisational culture enables it to attain good results out of its operations. The firm’s internal human resource practices need to focus more on improving its relations with employees to make them more willing to attain good results in their duties. In addition, the firm talent management policies enable its managers to make its employees more competitive in their duties to enable it to excel in the long run.
It has effective recruitment and selection processes which attract highly qualified professionals who are able to surpass expectations set by the firm’s management. Consequently, this approach will enable the firm to increase the value of its internal operations in the industry in the long run.
References
Cameron, K., & Quinn, R. (2006). Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based on the competing values framework. San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass.
Gilmore, S., & Williams, S. (2009). Human resource management. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Griffin, R.W., & Moorehead, G. (2011). Organizational behaviour: Managing people and organizations. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
Legge, Karen (2004). Human resource management: Rhetoric and realities. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mabey, C., & Finch-Lees, T. (2008). Human resource management at work. London, UK: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
Marcel, V. (2007).Oil titans: National oil companies in the Middle East. Washington, DC: Brookings Press.
McAfee, R.P. (2009) Competitive solutions: The strategist’s toolkit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Rojewski, J.W. (2004).International perspectives on workforce education and development. London, UK: IAP.
Rue, L.W., & Byars, L.L. (2003). Management: Skills and applications. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Shea, G.P., & Solomon, C.A. (2013). Leading successful change: 8 keys to making change work. Philadelphia, PA: Wharton Digital Press.
Thompson, P., & McHugh, D. (2009). Work organisations : A critical approach. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Victor, D.G. Hults, D.R., & Thurber, M.C. (2011).Oil and governance: State-owned enterprises and the world energy supply. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.