Leadership and Governance Study of Patagonia †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Leadership and Governance-A Case Study of Patagonia. Answer: The Importance of Values for Todays Organisations Values are beliefs that a certain way of behaving is preferred. They represent a framework of how things are done in an organization. Organizations, which are successful, place emphasis on values. Values provide assistance to organizations in various ways (Bourne Jenkins, 2013). Values provide a framework for how we treat one another at work- Values provide employees with a direction of how they treat one another at the workplace. The organizations leaders should assist employees in upholding values at the workplace. Values should influence employees to behave ethically. In the workplace, ethical issues usually emanate from quality, safety, property and human relationships. It is the duty of managers to make an understanding of these issues and to instill moral ideals into employees (Cohen, 2015). There are three levels of morality that employees may conform to. Preconventional morality is when one is aware of the cultural implications of right and wrong behavior. In an organization , therefore, an employee will be aware of the effects of following or not following organizational values. Conventional morality is characterized by the compliance of a group of people and their loyalty to authority. In an organization, this is how a team conforms to certain values and has allegiance to their leaders. Post-conventional authority is characterized by an individual being concerned about right or wrong behavior and puts this above their self-interest. This can be applied in organizations when employees consider doing right and wrong as being more key than their self-interest. Values provide a framework for how an organization treats its customers. Customers will be given stellar service if a company has values that focus on customer service. This is key for organizational success. Having good customer service is important as customers spend lots of money per year just to buy products or services. Good customer service can set an organization apart from its competitors and leads to repeat business. Organizations that have good customer values also benefit from free publicity. The values that make up an organization reflect the beliefs of the leaders. When there is no alignment of values of the company and the employees personal values the final result will be poor performance. An organization with good values will be reflected in enlightened leadership. These kinds of leaders see their employees as the greatest organizational asset and have great confidence in their teams. They have power and employees greatly respect them. They also ensure that there is a good flow of communication throughout the organization. In such organizations, the employees understand the high-performance goals that have been set for them by their leaders and are willing to achieve them. They are also very open and discuss their problems with their leaders. The employees are allowed to participate in decision-making hence leading to high motivation, and there is also high loyalty. Through values, leaders are able to build communities in the workplace. This can be done by applying c ooperation in dealing with colleagues. Building a community will ensure that internal communication flows freely, leads to respect among people and roles, responsibilities and decision-making are conducive. An organization with good values embraces diversity. This is very important for a workplace as employees come from diverse backgrounds. International companies must ensure that they understand cultures of where they are operating (Manning Curtis, 2015).To embrace diversity, top leaders must be involved and emphasize on equal employment opportunities. Decisions on promotions and performancemanagement must also reflect diversity. The organization's values should also reflect how diverse an organization is. This will lead to better decision-making and even giving service to diverse customers. An organization with strong values leads to teamwork. Teamwork that is positive allows employees to choose what they do and leaders are good examples to their members. In successful teams, members have roles like encouragers, clarifiers, harmonizers, idea-generators, standard setters, ignition keys and detail specialists. The teamwork approach leads to organizational success, and it is being embraced more and more. Leaders are putting members into groups to work on certain projects like strategic planning, work issues, and technology issues (Jalal, 2017). Leaders should instill teamwork as a virtue and create high performing teams including virtual teams. Alignment of values leads to strong brands. The organizations, which have the strongest brands, have the strongest internal cultures. A brand performs strongly if there is a sense of recognition between its employees and customers. Customers like to identify with organizations with strong brands. Such organizations also have strong logos, which represent reliability, high quality, and trust. Consumers also associate strong brands as being contributors to their ways of living (Jalal, 2017). A strong brand also represents the fact that they can go beyond their core business and dedicate themselves to consumers. How a companys values can play an important role in attracting and retaining top employees Organizations have to ensure that they have strong values so as to attract the right kind of employees. Employees are nowadays compared to customers; companies need to consider them as volunteers and not workers. Technologies have shifted, and it has led to growth in social media. Transparency about workplaces has been increased due to this, and potential employees are able to get information about companies before they even go for an interview or apply for a position. Sites like glass door and linked in provide plenty of information about an organizations culture and values (Breaugh, 2017). Organizations with top company cultures are highlighted, and this enables them to attract and retain more employees. Organizations like Forbes recognize companies with top cultures every year. Work environments have changed over the years and have become quite complex. Employees are putting in more hours in work and are also connected to their jobs through latest technologies. Teams are greatly d iverse and issues like being flexible, empowered, developed, and mobile is playing a huge role in company culture. In the case study of Patagonia, we see that the organization takes time in hiring employees with the right skills. They employee people who have a passion for caring for the environment. This is due to the fact that the company practices sustainability and comes up with environmentally friendly apparel. What motivates employees has also changed as most of them focus on their purpose, mission and work-life balance. Very many factors lead to employee engagement including working environment, organizational leadership, and job design. Many employees are motivated by the passion for their work hence leaders must strive to create conducive and enjoyable working environments. The employees at Patagonia focus on work, family, and health, rather than work and status. The leaders have created a conducive working environment and employees can schedule their work to fit their lifestyle. Organizations, which have high employee engagement, are able to hire more easily, give better customer service, have low turnover rates and grow at a quick rate. Patagonia receives about 900 resumes for every vacancy. The organization has created a good name hence many people want to be employed by them. Employees are highly engaged, and Patagonias turnover rate is only 4% per annum. An organization with a high retention culture has a well-defined direction and purpose. The employees of such organizations have individual goals, which are aligned to the organizational strategy. This leads to the attraction of the right skills by the company and retention of the same. Employees at Patagonia are fully aware of roles and responsibilities. Their goals are aligned to those of the organization, and the organization's leaders have developed an honest approach to doing everything. Organizations that retain employees have flexibility in schedules of work and have numerous benefits for their employees. Employees usually stick to employers that guarantee flexibility and enable work-life balance. Patagonias employees are allowed to schedule their work as fits them best. Communication happens in an open manner when the organization instills good values. Employees want to work in places where they are free to express themselves and the ideas that they have. Communication should be open both upwards and downwards. Good communication also leads to great teamwork and allows constructive criticism to take place. This leads to attraction and retention of the right employees as no one wants to work where they are unable to air out their views. At Patagonia, there is open communication hence creating openness. Employees are therefore able to share ideas freely, and leaders can correct employees without them feeling that they are being harassed. A high retention culture leads to effective performance appraisals. Performance issues in a company can lead to very high turnover rates. Organizations that perform appraisals unfairly or to the dissatisfaction of employees have disgruntled staff and leads to performance going down. An organization that creates effective performance appraisals leads to high employee retention as they get a sense of belonging and this leads to higher productivity (Pinder, 2014). Employees can also be attracted and retained by issuing competitive wages. A high retention culture organization values its employees enough to pay them well and offer adequate benefits and perks. Employees are attracted and retained by such companies, as they feel appreciated. Patagonia has come up with a child development center for its employees hence they feel safe knowing that their children are being taken care of well as they work. Training and development of employees are important for a high retention organization. This enables employees to be constantly updated and develop their skills. Employees feel like they are in control of their jobs. It also ensures that employees are happy as they feel that the organization cares enough about their careers to continuously train and develop them (Mowday, Porter, Steers, 2013). Patagonia organizes 60-day internships for its employees at environmental organizations. Employees who want to become activists after this are free to leave. Employees are highly skilled as the organization takes time on orientation. Deepen the provided case study on Patagonia with extra research on the company and company leadership Patagonia has had great leadership since its inception in 1957 when the founder was selling climbing equipment out of his car. The company deals with climbing equipment and apparel and has been able to make annual revenues of over $400 million (Manning Curtis, 2015). They are leading in environmental efforts and are known for being unique in their processes and getting the best out of their employees. They have for many years been market leaders in their industry and have an unmatched retention rate of employees. Due to great leadership, they have a 4% annual turnover rate. The company greatly focuses on environmental and social matters and has an honest approach towards their customers. The culture of asking customers whether they need to purchase certain apparel has led to loyalty creation for both customers and employees. They hire employees who have a passion for environmental issues, and after one year, they offer them sixty-day internships in environmental companies (Manning Curtis, 2015). The company has created a culture of trust and employees allowed to come up with their schedules of work hence leading to flexibility. Employees at Patagonia are driven by work, health and family and the organization have come up with a child development center where employees can leave their kids while at work. This has enabled employees to have a healthy balance between work and life. The company has an innovative culture as it comes up with environmentally friendly apparel (Manning Curtis, 2015). Due to great and unique leadership, the company has been named one of the best organizations to work for by Fortune. According to themanagement at Patagonia, a leader is a person with vision and motivated employees towards a common goal. The leaders at the company initiate change and take risks. The company has for the longest time focused on sustainable apparel and is now divesting to agriculture. Through great leadership, the company has been able to move into another line of business successfully. At Patagonia, they believe that a leader can come from any level (Petrie, 2016). This means that they believe in their employees and nurture them into leadership. Employees are also expected to speak up and challenge leadership if they feel that there are issues that they need to raise. The company has a flat organizational structure. The leadership describes it as a network of people. The top leaders like the CEO can communicate directly to an employee in an entry-level role. There are no reporting relationships or hierarchies, as they believe that the best ideas come from employees. They believe in having the right person doing the work and that people do not need to report to too many managers as long as they are doing their role. The Patagonia leaders choose the managers and employees with the right skills and then set a vision. The vision is discussed with the team, and the leader lets the manager leads the way in guiding the team to achieve the vision by letting them do their work. Managers are considered as mentors and resources that give the employees coaching and direction and ensure that employee work is aligned to organizational strategies (Petrie, 2016). Managers also ensure that resources are allocated adequately. Managers ensure that employees know their roles and responsibilities and then let them work independently. A culture of independence is cultivated. Hence, employees work with minimum supervision. The leaders at Patagonia come up with the main organizational vision and then guide the team into reaching it by putting particular timeframes. They then leave employees to perform their roles and make smaller decisions required to achieve organizational goals. The company has a culture of flexible job scheduling so long as employees perform. They allow employees to have healthy work-life balance and focus on hiring independent people who love outdoors and care for the environment. The company no longer has annual performance ratings; hence, managers act as coaches and resource allocators rather than judges. No meetings are scheduled over lunch hour so to allow employees to do their [personal activities. Paternity leaves are also in place, and virtual working is allowed. Hiring is a key procedure at Patagonia. The leaders take their time to find the right people for the job and vacancies can remain unfilled for up to one year. Orientation and onboarding are done over a period of one hour so as to ensure new employees integrate into the organization's culture whose motto is 'Let my people go surfing.' Due to its unique culture, the company had experienced double-digit growth even when other industry players were not growing (Petrie, 2016). Employees are highly engaged, and retention rate is high. They have a long list of potential employees who would like to be employed by the organization. Explain what values are important at Patagonia, how they are used to try and attract a certain type of employee, and whether or not this is successful Various values are important at Patagonia. The first one is focused on environmental and social issues. The company's major focus is on sustainability, and they make environmental friendly apparel. They also hire employees who have a passion for the environment and contribute 1% of sales for environmental activities (Manning Curtis, 2015). There is also environmental internship for all new recruits. This has been a successful strategy for the organization as they attract employees who understand them and who align themselves with the organization's environmental values. Another value at Patagonia is honesty. The companys leaders are honest to customers and employees, and this has brought about loyalty (Manning Curtis, 2015). Customer loyalty has led to a successful organization. The company has been able to attract and retain employees who are honest due to the brand that has been created. Patagonia also focuses on flexibility. The company cares about its employees work and life balance hence has been able to allow them to create their working schedules so long as work is completed as required (Manning Curtis, 2015). They have even put up a child development center for their employees. This has enabled the company to attract independent workers who need very minimal supervision. Innovation Culture is a key part of Patagonia. The company constantly comes up with environmentally friendly products, and this is a reflection of its leadership and employees. The organization allows employees to be creative (Manning Curtis, 2015). They have been able to attract the most skilled employees due to this value. References Bourne, H., Jenkins, M. (2013). Organizational values: A dynamic perspective.Organization Studies,34(4), 495-514. Breaugh, J. A. (2017). The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Recruitment, Selection and Employee Retention, 12. Cohen, A. (2015). Culture, Values, and Organizational Fairness. InFairness in the Workplace(pp. 191-215). Palgrave Macmillan UK. Jalal, A. (2017). Impacts of Organizational Culture on Leaderships Decision-Making.Journal of Advances inManagement Sciences Information Systems,3, 1-8. Manning, G., Curtis, K. (2015).The art of leadership. Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Mowday, R. T., Porter, L. W., Steers, R. M. (2013).EmployeeOrganization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. Academic Press. Mueller, K., Straatmann, T. (2014). Organizational values. InEncyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research(pp. 4525-4531). Springer Netherlands. Petrie, K. (2016).Patagonia Inc.s Sustainable Supply Chain Initiatives and Their Contribution to Company Brand(Doctoral dissertation). Pinder, C. C. (2014).Work motivation in organizational behavior. Psychology Press.