Essay: Topic 2

“John Lewis Partnership Groups and Influence of Internal Communication”

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1. Introduction

Communication is one of the major characteristics of a human being that helps to interact with others. Simultaneously, internal communication is the major aspect of every organisation that plays a major role in the transmission of several data between the people of the organisation and the parts of the company. Internal communications ensure linked and knowledgeable workers to have a mutual sense of organisational priorities, principles to the direction (Salaman and Storey, 2016). Internal communications are crucial in order to keep staff up to date with the latest activities of an organisation, create a voice of administrative body and confidence in combating rumours and promote direct, seamless contact between various departments. The layout of the organisation defines the mode of contact and regulates distribution and quality of knowledge within a company. “John Lewis Partnership Group” is renowned for the organisational framework that allows it to communicate more with the staff and to maintain a more substantial degree of loyalty to its workers. In this article, John Lewis would look at the various reasons for workplace happiness from other businesses.

2. Discussion

Communication can be described merely as a knowledge and facts exchanging mechanism. According to Ravazzani (2016), the recipient, sender or encoder, network, converter and recipient are the four fundamental communications components. ‘Sound’ creates difficulty in the contact cycle. Specific forms of contacts are especially verbal, non-verbal (interpersonal), written contact, visual interaction, etc. In order to fulfil organisational tasks, an enterprise requires all such kinds of correspondence. Institutional interaction process in terms of organisational communication approach can be split into two major segments such as internal communication system, and external communication approach. External contact concerns only the leaders of the company and plays a significant part in the involvement of workers.

Several options are required to be included in order to render communication efficient. In that case, the content of the message must be reliable, transparent and complete with a proper quantity of information. There must be consistency, accessibility and clarification. The participants both will be transparent and truthful (sender and receiver of the statement) (Uysal, 2016). The messaging will fit correctly and also include the emotional link to the company’s purpose, objective and aim. A successful internal communication framework teaches staff, creates productive forums for meetings, dialogue and input and helps members build a positive corporate culture.

On the other hand, Kang and Sung (2017) have stated that the commitment of employees can be described as an excitement for the job. Commitment is none more than a worker’s intensity of commitment or dedication toward the business and job role. Most companies have concluded that employee commitment helps companies to produce high quality work, achieve significant comparative benefits, inspire workers to make additional contributions, become more innovative and develop more rapidly. Worker participation provides a range of advantages, including increased user loyalty, competitiveness and efficiency and recruitment of workers. Within this context, Bailey et al. (2017) argued that an organisation is capable of acquiring successful employee engagement, while a successful internal communication takes place between the employees and the organisation. In that case, employee engagement is interconnected with internal organisational communication.

Based on the above contextual statement, Ruck, Welch and Menara (2017) opined that the human relation principle must be discussed in order better to explain the correlation between contact and workers participation. The philosophy started to be established in 1920. Growth of production is the critical priority of increasing company at that period, which is one of the significant aspects of the industrial revolution. However, the principle of human relationships implies that each participant wishes to be a substantial component of a supporting group or community in practice. Furthermore, Hiršová, Komárková and Pirožek (2018) have conducted that when companies pay special attention to and inspire workers to engage in corporate procedures, they may find like their efforts and know-how are of benefit to the corporation. This attitude encourages employees to generate their efficiency and to express their thoughts and viewpoints in the company. That strategy is adopted by a variety of companies including “John Lewis partnership group”, which aims to improve internal communication in the organisational decisions process, inspire workers and share the income with them while increasing employee engagement and satisfaction.

“John Lewis Partnership Group” is a non-traded business firm which was established in 1929 in the market of UK. The organisation manages a range of companies including “Waitrose and Partners Supermarket”, “departmental shops”, “retail companies”, banks and financial institutions. John Lewis is known for his corporate philosophy of staff shareholding. The “John Lewis Partnership Venture” was founded in conjunction with the ‘Stakeholder Strategy’, which argues that administration is owned by its workers, known as the John Lewis partners, and shares some of its benefit with them. Because workers are incredibly valuable to this organisation, they are motivated to share their thoughts and viewpoints on the product. Based on a report released in the Democratic Review, “John Lewis Partnership Group” is a corporate paradigm for organisational representation for all political groups in the United Kingdom. After the foundation in 1929, employee engagement has been the core goal for this organisation. In this case, Mucedola (2015) has stated that the company is considered as a middle class, non-expert company. In the constitution of John Lewis, there are several numbers of goals listed.

Figure: 1. Charles Handy Organisational Culture Structure

(Source: Handy, 2012)

John Lewis’ corporate culture is distinctive; it focuses primarily on many aspects, including honesty, trust, participation and dedication. The workplace involvement element allows John Lewis to improve an employee’s positive work experiences. According to Kang and Sung (2017), there are four forms of corporate cultures to be seen included person culture, task culture, role culture and power culture.  The role culture is based on the employees’ expertise, knowledge and competence regarding the sales, procurement of projects, brand management and legal management. Based on these factors, the employees are employed within the organisation and promoted job roles according to their expertise.

John Lewis’s leadership model is the parliamentary management type. John Lewis claims that they do not believe in distancing and actively holding their shareholders in terms of employees. The partnership council frequently accepts representatives representing both companies and agencies chosen by successful electoral processes, including the Alliance Board, elections to the Board of 82 stakeholders including employees. Democratic leadership provides some benefits, such as allowing workers or group members to accept decisions and assign roles equally. This strategy empowers an individual and brings the company good outcomes. According to the Salaman and Storey (2016), other organisational groups should monitor the John Lewis approach, as the employee operated organisations are easily attained a higher level of sales growth despite having lower profitability in comparison to conventional ownership. John Lewis has generated more robust job prospects in the recession time and sustained a steady pace of income growth.

A survey was carried out to collect some basic information. A few questions about internal coordination and personnel involvement were posed adopting a survey process. A total of 30 respondents were chosen. 8 employees among them are staffs of the John Lewis Partnership Group, and the remaining 22 were working by other firms. A random sampling chose these participants. The first concern of the survey was what will get the companies more active. The outcome of the question was excessively clear.

Table: 1. Factors that Influence Employee Engagement and Numbers of Respondents

(Source: As Created by Author)

The below figure (Figure: 2) indicates that 62% of employees feel that they can engage with the organisation if they get a minimum profit share of the organisation. Accordingly, 21% of employees stated that if they are offered adequate training, they can engage with the organisation immensely. Furthermore, 10% of the employees look for vacations and other health-related benefits from the organisation. Just 7% of employees feel that they can engage with the organisation if they get a good increment of wages and rewards for their hard works.

Figure: 2. Influencing Factors that Engage Employees with Organisations

(Source: As Created by Author)

The respondents were asked another question in order to acknowledge what kinds of managers they are willing to work with. In that case, three factors have taken into consideration those are stated below in table 2.

Table: 2. Characteristics of an Adequate Manager that Influence Employees

(Source: As Created by Author)

The below figure (Figure: 3) displays that 67% of employees want to work with those managers who communicate with the employees concerning each and every organisational operation. On the other hand, 20% of employees are influenced by those managers, who are capable of resolving every kind of potential and existing conflicts and consequences within the organisation. However, only 13% of employees are engaging with the managerial role, who assign the task to every employee with great responsibility.

Figure: 3. Managerial Characteristics that Influence Employees in Organisations

(Source: As Created by Author)

The last question which was asked to the respondents about the most significant aspect that an employee should have during their employment in an organisation. Based on the opinions of the respondents, three characteristics have been highlighted in table 3.

Table: 3. Characteristics of Employees

(Source: As Created by Author)

Figure. 4 indicates that based on the survey question, 50% of employees have similar thought that an employee should have engagement and admiration approach within an organisation. On the other hand, 30% of employees’ thought that an employee should have the willingness to learn several operational jobs. However, 20% of employees have stated that they think an employee should have focused on more money-making.

Figure: 4. Characteristics of an Employee that should have in an Organisation

(Source: As Created by Author)

On the basis of the above analysis, it has been found that organisations should ensure that they strive to represent each of their employees’ long-term interests. Such workers appear to be even more loyal to the company and work well. Job performance and satisfaction are often closely linked to employee involvement. Based on this, Bailey et al. (2017) opined that a worker’s degree of engagement relies on the worker’s level of satisfaction. Every individual, even workers, has certain requirements. Such specifications of the employees can be separated into five categories. The elements require basic necessities like food, housing etc. functional requirements. Security requirements are secondary, like individual health and safety, health policy, work etc. John Lewis’s workers are less comfortable than people employed at many organisations with the traditional corporate framework and are a member of a company.

Figure: 5. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

(Source: Cherry, 2013)

The hierarchy of needs indicates affection and connection. Each person needs to become a member of organisations, and this is what John Lewis gives its workers. The next stage addresses the requirements to support, the environment, equality, appreciation and power of workers. John Lewis’ inclusive management system offers workers the ability to determine for themselves and helps them feel involved in the statement-making phase (Mucedola, 2015). John Lewis Partnership Group’s managers are well trained to learn and promote employees to interact in an effective manner, which tends to make their workers honoured and appreciated. The last stage of the framework addresses the necessity for self-improvement, and John Lewis serves this requirement by coordinating and allowing workers to take control of their development and results.

3. Conclusion

The discussion mentioned earlier suggests that the behaviour to its workers is what distinguishes john Lewis from other organisations. John Lewis insists that workers be valued, viewed as a worthy friend to the business and meet their interests first, as compared to traditional management systems. This strategy benefited this company, as workers enjoy their identity and have a desire to please the John Lewis clients, to produce more reliable revenue.

References

Bailey, C., Madden, A., Alfes, K. and Fletcher, L., (2017). The meaning, antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement: A narrative synthesis. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), pp.31-53.

Cherry, K., (2013). The five levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. How Maslow’s Famous Hierarchy Explains Huma Motivation.

Handy, C., (2012). The age of unreason. Random House.

Hiršová, M., Komárková, L. and Pirožek, P., (2018). The Prediction of Financial Performance in Dependence on the Type of Organisational Culture. Trends Economics and Management, 12(32), pp.63-74.

Kang, M. and Sung, M., (2017). How symmetrical employee communication leads to employee engagement and positive employee communication behaviors. Journal of Communication Management.

Mucedola, M.S., (2015). Depression, suicide, and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: A preventive approach. Journal of Health Education Teaching Techniques, 2(3).

Ravazzani, S., (2016). Exploring internal crisis communication in multicultural environments. Corporate Communications: An International Journal.

Ruck, K., Welch, M. and Menara, B., (2017). Employee voice: an antecedent to organisational engagement?. Public Relations Review, 43(5), pp.904-914.

Salaman, G. and Storey, J., (2016). A Better Way of Doing Business?: Lessons from the John Lewis Partnership. Oxford University Press.

Uysal, N., (2016). Social collaboration in intranets: The impact of social exchange and group norms on internal communication. International Journal of Business Communication, 53(2), pp.181-199.