Understanding The Work Environment Assignment Sample

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1.0 Introduction

The work environment helps guide an organisation's work culture and stakeholder engagement. This is why Amazon's superiors strive to provide equal support to all employees working for the company. Popular news agencies, such as Amazon and the BBC, are working hard to control discrimination in their work culture. Also in the case of the non-profit circus, Cancer Research United Kingdom is currently supporting employees by improving the work culture. This report will highlight the work culture of these companies as well as some theoretical information.

1.1 Background information

In this study, Amazon was selected as the private company which is currently one of the most popular online retail companies. The company's organisational structure and revenue structure depend on multiple retail sectors (Amazon, 2021).

BBC has been selected as a public company and the company is currently known as one of the most popular international broadcasting channels. The company's revenue depends entirely on the different advertising sources in the structure. Employees can work in full detail as the organisational structure of this company becomes much more independent (BBC, 2019).

Cancer Research UK is a non-profit organisation and the company's organisational structure is run entirely by the government. Donations from the government and other private sectors build the company's revenue structure (Cancer Research UK, 2019).

1.2 Aim of the report

• To discuss the organisational goals and working environment of these companies

• To identify some sociological issues related to organisations
• To critically analyse TWO forms of social identity
• To know some organisational theories, concepts, and policies related to this topic

2.0 Discussion

2.1 Discussion of the organisation’s main purpose and goals

The main purpose of Amazon's management team as a private company is to build awareness with online marketing to grow the target market. Moreover, the mission of the company is to increase the profit margin and in this case, the company is trying to enrich its work culture (Amazon, 2021). Employee engagement directly contributes to the improvement of the company's work culture (Aeschbacher and Addor, 2018).

The main purpose of the BBC's management team is to analyse in detail all the goodies in the area and bring them to the public, and the company's main objective is to expand its broadcasting channel to increase the target audience (BBC, 2019). The more the company's broadcasting channel expands, the more advertising partners will collaborate with this organisation, And that will create the possibility of increasing the company's profit margin.

On the other hand, in Cancer Research UK, one of the purposes and missions of the company is to find out the cure for cancer by doing research on cancer (Cancer Research UK, 2019). The company's revenue structure depends entirely on donations from the private sector and the government. All of the company's revenue and donations are paid for the salary and research of the employees to follow from the non-profit structure of the company.

2.2 The Organisation’s value and ethical practices

Amazon’s ethical behaviours

Amazon's management team maintains the physical well-being of employees and other stakeholders by following the Work Health and Safety Policy (Amazon, 2021). Proper responsibility towards the employees by the company helps to motivate the employees (Verger et al., 2021). 

Also, Amazon's management team does not support any bad behaviour with its customers, employees and suppliers, and in order to control this, the company collects feedback from all these parties and helps to solve the problem accordingly. Developing a strategy by getting feedback from a variety of sources helps to sustain the company's work culture (Arvidson, 2018).

BBC’s ethical behaviours

The BBC's stakeholders are most supportive of Ethical and Environmental Practices (BBC, 2019). Since this organisation covers political news of different countries, if content quality is an issue in this case, it can create a bad situation in the country. In the case of ethical and environmental practice, it is a sustainable policy to thoroughly examine the positive and negative aspects of people, country and society (Young et al., 2021).

The BBC has also reported that the company is much more aware of the rights of employees, and in this case, if any mistake is caught, it is solved.

Cancer Research UK’s ethical practices

All stakeholders in this organisation are committed to the Ethical, Sustainable and Responsible Standards (Cancer Research UK, 2019). This standard is important for the organisation to ensure that scientists and medical members perform their duties well. When all the stakeholders in the organisation's culture perform their duties well, it helps the company to achieve its goals (Chen and Cheng, 2018).

In addition, the members of this organisation follow the Continual Improvement Policy because with this policy all the members try their best to innovate their research and work culture (Cancer Research UK, 2019). For all of these ethical practices, the company is not having too much trouble researching deadly diseases like cancer.

2.3 Relevant public policy and legislation, depending on the sector

Policy and standard of Amazon

Amazon's management team follows a special standard to make workplaces and cultures much more sustainable, such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration Standard (OSHA) (Amazon, 2021). This standard states that employees should not be subjected to any kind of abuse of gender, religion, language, or dress in the workplace (Peng, 2018). By following this standard, Amazon's superiors are delivering a kind of super-talented environment to employees.

Policy and standard of BBC

A special standard is followed by the BBC's management team to make workplace culture more self-reliant, such as Non-retaliation Policy (BBC, 2019). One of the objectives of this policy is to ensure that employees are always active in their responsibility and discipline (Laallam et al., 2020). Due to this policy, the employees of the company should check it thoroughly before raising any topic, which has helped to create a sustainable image of the organisation.

Policy and Standard of Cancer Research UK

The management team of this organisation follows special legislation to be humane towards the employees, such as Work Health and Safety legislation (Cancer Research UK, 2019). With the help of this legislation, security is provided to the stakeholders in the workplace, at the same time, there is an attempt to keep employees away from mental and nutritional hazards (Garg et al., 2018).

2.4 TWO forms of identity

Two Forms of Identity is a method that gives equal opportunity and respect to all employees in the workplace, and in this case, the employees are not discriminated against on the basis of religion, language, gender, or physical criteria (Greer et al., 2020). 

Amazon’s approaches in that case

As mentioned in the corporate report, amazon team members don't like any kind of gender inequality in the work culture, and in this case, Amazon's management team is trying to equalise the number of men and women in the company (Amazon, 2021). The less gender in the workplace, the more likely it is that the company will send a positive message to society, and this helps a lot in increasing the brand value of the company in the market (Battisti, 2019). 

The above statistics indicate that most of the employees working in Amazon are male (around 80%) and very few are female employees (around 20%). This suggests that there is a lot of gender bias on Amazon, although it has been touted as an improvement by Amazon.

BBC’s approaches in that case

As mentioned in the corporate report of BBC, the company currently employs 64% male employees and 36% female employees (BBC, 2019). As mentioned by Ortega-Rodríguez et al., (2020), employees' respect for the organisation, which gives equal opportunities to men and women, is greatly enhanced in the organisational culture, and this has a much more positive effect on the company's performance.

However, BBC’s recruitment team is currently working on a project to increase the number of male and female employees to 50-50 (BBC, 2019). The company's team members believe that this approach will greatly improve the company's work culture in the future.

Cancer Research UK’s approaches in that case

The organisation employs a large number of male employees for research, but the number of women is negligible. However, in this case, the work of the researcher is to recruit child-friendly candidates who have the proper knowledge and practical skills about cancer, and in this case, the number of male employees has increased as more male candidates are researching this topic (Cancer Research UK, 2019).

However, some members of the organisation say they plan to increase the number of female employees as much as possible, and this issue is said to be implemented in the next few years (Cancer Research UK, 2019). 

2.5 Discuss some key theories on that topic

Multiple theoretical approaches are followed to make the workplace sustainable, such as

Marx’s Division of Labour Theory

Two things have been emphasised in this theory, such as

Labour socialisation and capital ownership

This theory suggests that Labour needs to be treated well and given independence (Johns, 2019). This theory emphasises the need to provide appropriate work culture support to enhance the skills and competencies of the employees. Employee Engagement, Employee Training, and Motivational, Physical and Mental Support are important in Labour Socialism (Aeschbacher and Addor, 2018). Labour Socialism also emphasizes the importance of eliminating gender and race discrimination among employees in the workplace.

On the other hand, in the case of capital ownership, issues like employee promotion, financial support and salary increments have been given more importance (Verger et al., 2021). This theory states that employees have a greater right to receive a salary from the company after fulfilling their responsibilities, and in this case, in addition to satisfying the customer, the issue of satisfying the employees is also given more importance. It is equally important to develop a strategy by collecting feedback from the employees, to solve the problems of the employees.

Establishment of socialisation mode of production and centralised development of production

According to this theory, the most important thing in a company's production is to give them all kinds of support. As mentioned by Arvidson (2018), employees are more likely to make errors on the side of production, and in this case, if the employees get the support of the management team immediately, they will be able to solve their mistakes very quickly. Therefore, this issue has been given much more importance through this theory.

It is also argued that the issue of centralised production systems contributes greatly to the improvement of work culture. For example, in Cancer Research UK, the medical employees of this organisation receive orders from their direct superiors and have no management in between. This allows employees to understand the importance of their position and makes it much easier for employees to understand the company's objectives.

The Invisible Hand by Smith

A number of factors are being emphasised in this theory for the improvement of work culture, such as

Force

This factor suggests that the CEO of the company can easily use force to control the workplace because the CEO of the company has every right to make any workplace-related decision and implement it (Young et al., 2021). In this case, if the CEO thinks that the employees have a problem with some of the problems in their work culture, they can forcefully solve it. 

Bosses

In many cases, the leaders of the organisation only inform others, and the responsibility of handling that strategy is given to the employees, which is not a very good thing (Chen and Cheng, 2018). For example, compared to other companies or organisations, the leaders of the BBC work side by side with all the employees (BBC, 2019). The leaders of the company come forward and it actually helps to motivate the employees.

Media

This theory suggests that taking strategic decisions based on feedback from employees reduces the company's risk factor (Peng, 2018). This theory suggests that since employees are directly involved in the company's production, their feedback is invaluable. Collecting feedback from employees helps the company leaders understand the actual situation of the company, which helps in taking a strategic approach.

Bankers

Through this factor, it has been reported that if the performance of the employees improves then it is very important to give their reward and due because it helps in motivating the employees as well as increasing the career opportunities of the employees (Laallam et al., 2020). For example, Amazon's management team has arranged promotions and rewards for employees (Amazon, 2021).

Religious leaders

Religious leaders are those who do not disagree with the religion of employees or other stakeholders. As noted by Garg et al., (2018), religious leaders consider their business to be the greatest religion and do not want to discriminate here. This kind of mentality helps a company's work environment improve a lot, and all of these factors have been observed in the above companies.

iii. Weber’s hierarchy and bureaucracy theory

Through this theory, company leaders emphasise multiple work culture-related policies and standards, and at the same time it is very important to improve the career opportunities of the employees (Greer et al., 2020). For example, in Cancer Research UK, the higher authorities of the organisation follow the work health and safety standards for the convenience of the employees (Cancer Research UK, 2019).

On the other hand, the BBC's management team also follows a non-retaliation policy that helps maintain discipline in the work culture, and at the same time, it helps a lot in maintaining career opportunities (BBC, 2019). This is how Amazon members focus on Employee Skills and Knowledge Improvement by following a certain standard, such as OSHA (Amazon, 2021).

3.0 Conclusion

After discussing the above entire study, it can be concluded that the most important thing for improvement in work culture is to provide full support to the employees. This is because if employees are properly supported, they will be much more motivated to adapt to new skills and knowledge. 

This study discusses the work culture of companies in three different sectors, such as Amazon (Private sector), BBC (Public sector), and Cancer Research UK (Non-profit sector). This research shows that all these sectors are improving the work culture by following different policies or standards, such as non-retaliation policy, OSHA standards, and work health and safety standards. All these companies and organisations are providing an environmentally friendly environment through these policies or standards, and as a result, all the employees in these companies are able to fulfil their responsibilities very well, and as a result, the positive effect of good performance of the employees is coming back to haunt the performance of the company.

Also through this research, some of the theoretical information provided some suggestions that there is a need to support employers. In this case, the CEO of the company is able to inform the direct employees and understand the employees in the objective of the company. It is also known that employees' respect for the organisation, which gives equal opportunities to men and women, is greatly enhanced in the organisational culture, and this has a much more positive effect on the company's performance.

Reference list

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Arvidson, M. (2018). Change and tensions in non-profit organizations: Beyond the isomorphism trajectory. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 29(5), 898-910.

Battisti, S. (2019). Digital social entrepreneurs as bridges in public–private partnerships. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 10(2), 135-158.

bbc (2019). Annual Reports. Available at http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/annualreport/2019-20.pdf Accessed on 15.4.2022

cancer research UK (2019). Sustainability Report. Available at https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/our-organisation/corporate-responsibility Accessed on 15.4.2022

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