Umpqua Bank: Dysfunctional Operations Management System Leads to Confusion - Essay Sample

Introduction

In the service industry, lack of organization and confusion not only causes a bad reputation but also reduces a company's productivity. Confusion and disorganization at Umpqua Bank exist because of several reasons associated with the operational management of the organization. Firstly, the bank has a dysfunctional operations management system. As a result, there is confusion about how processes ought to run in the organization. Managers are supposed to establish job and process workflows to ensure that each employee is aware of their duties and responsibility (Baldwin, Bommer, & Rubin, 2008). For example, workers should be aware of their authority and job description to reduce confusion when dealing with complex tasks. Noticeably, each process should be smoothened to ensure that there are minimal challenges while serving clients. Currently, the organization lacks clear ways of handling processes, which might be contributing to demotivation and confusion between departments. Lack of proper communication and flow of information may contribute to the bank's lack of available resources and failure to provide customers with vital information. For instance, the bank manager does not know how to navigate the system to find customers' information. Proper communication and smooth flow of information in a company ensure that people access needed information promptly in the right manner.

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Additionally, authorities in the bank are restricted from making any organizational changes in the absence of top management. As a result, there lacks anybody to solve the problem. Centralized organizational structures are rigid to change and contribute to ineffectiveness in a company. Centralized structures also hinder information accessibility and flow, slowing essential services (Baldwin et al., 2008). Firms should be flexible to ensure that they can adapt to changes and trends in the industry effectively. Junior managers should have adequate authority to manage and change processes as they seem to fit in their departments to maneuver challenges.

Clues About the Organization and the Problem

The organization lacks onboard training, which hinders progress in operations management. Employee onboarding training is a vital process that assimilates new hires into an organization and teaches them how things work. Every firm's processes are unique; therefore, new employees need to be inducted and trained on how to fit in their job description albeit they are experts in the fields. An organization that fails to conduct an onboarding training often have disoriented workers with minimal job satisfaction. According to Carucci (2020), onboarding training helps new employees become productive quickly, shapes their attitude towards the company, and enhances job satisfaction. Job satisfaction influences customer retention and minimizes turnover rates. In the case of Umpqua bank, workers are having problems in delivering services since they were not induced properly to their jobs. The bank's human resource department should be responsible for ensuring that all new hires are oriented adequately to facilitate their efficiency and productivity.

Moreover, the organization lacks effective team building in such a way that its employees are not quite integrated. Modern approaches to management such as the quantum and complexity theory stress the interconnectedness of processes in an organization (Odor, 2018). The models stress that no process runs independently since they are interrelated (Odor, 2018). Hence, there is a need for workers to learn how to manage interprofessional collaboration and work in teams. Lack of integration in an organization contributes to problems such as lack of information flow, which are evident in Umpqua bank (Baldwin et al., 2008). The bank should enhance team building activities to create interpersonal relationships among employees. As a result, it will promote teamwork, which will increase productivity and reduce confusion in service delivery.

References

Baldwin, T.T., Bommer, H. W., & Rubin, R. S. (2008). Managing organizational behavior; What great managers know and do (second edition). McGraw-Hill Irwin, New York.

Carucci, R. (2020). To retain new hires, spend more time onboarding them. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/12/to-retain-new-hires-spend-more-time-onboarding-them

Odor, H. (2018). Knowledge management-an extension of organisational learning. Global Journal of Management and Business Research, 18(5), pp. 1-4. https://journalofbusiness.org/index.php/GJMBR/article/view/2509