Essay: Organisational Learning At Sanitarium Health - Case Study

Sanitarium (pp. 317-320, Beech, MacIntosh, Krust, Kannan & Dadich, 2017)

Conduct a case study of the organisational learning mechanisms employed by a specific business for a particular purpose, e.g., how a service business designed and utilised organisational learning mechanisms to introduce a successful, new corporate brand.

Address the following questions in the case analysis:

1. Diagnose and analyse the organisational culture.

2. Evaluate the change effort – to what extent was the company successful or unsuccessful? Support with some research and data.

3. Examine the factors that have influenced or impacted the outcome based on organisational change and organisational learning principles?

4. Critically analyse a range of learning mechanisms, and evaluate their impact on organisational performance, effectiveness and reputation.

Diagnose and analyse the organizational culture

1. Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing (Sanitarium) produces healthy food and staple products for most of the peoples of Australia and New Zealand. It follows the Seventh-day Adventist Church and only makes very healthy foods according to the traditions of the Church. The company has five basic values for their staffs, and they are care, courage, humbleness, honesty, and desire. The company describes their organizational culture as the shared values, standards and opportunities which helps their employees to initiate their work and communicate with one another. The value proposition of the staffs incorporates culture, growth, leadership, and respect; Sanitarium concentrates on motivating a workplace culture which aims to gives the best outcomes to their consumers by the satisfaction of their employees.

It is significant for Sanitarium to live, learn and lead by values, who have worked for creating a culture of professional growth by emphasizing training from the root. The company still follows their mission, vision, and values in spite of organizational changes, and makes sure that the company could continue to encourage the corporate culture and behaviors of the expected employees (Beech & MacIntosh, 2017). Sanitarium perceives their organizational culture as the motivator of behavior. The Head of People and Culture, Peter Harnett, was primarily responsible for building a culture of honesty and performance. Under the leadership of Mr. Harnett, from the year 2010, the company had been successful to create a culture which highlights the historical values and mission of the company and continued to be firm in the competitive industry of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG).

2. Sanitarium has recently started facing huge changes in their markets due to change in lifestyles, food habits and demands of the customers.  The General Manager of Sanitarium, Todd Saunders has said in an interview in the year 2016 that the company has been operating more than 100 years, but it is facing the highest changes on this year, and it had never happened before.  The company has adopted the strategy of snacks, as people, these days do not much time to sit and eat their breakfast, and they search for something that is quick to eat. The food habits are also changing, and Sanitarium is doing their best to fulfill the demands of their customers. The company is bringing changes in the production.

 In the year 2011, the company has launched a biannual survey tool of culture by utilizing the Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI) and Organizational Effectiveness Survey (OEI).  The company has set up a new role of Culture Coach for the business, and the employees were given training to efficiently tackle the survey and support the changes in the company (Sujan & Furniss, 2015). From the year 2012, the company has become a beverage-based company instead of cereal-based firm, as it was before. The ‘Up&Go' and ‘So Good' products have taken more significance in their production. The efforts for the formation of organizational culture has paid off for the company.  In employee retention, the company has shown the remarkably low rate of turnover which is about 1% each year (Brown, 2014). This is a positive sign for the company as they have an efficient workforce and proper organizational culture. The company is proud of themselves for choosing the correct employees for the right job.

3. The leaders and managers of the company have put individual efforts to connect with the staffs. This was encouraged by many initiatives like yearly team meetings, leadership and learning teams, and briefing of the organizational culture. Sanitarium also initiated a system of online performance and development known as iGro. The aim of this system was to start and simplify the dual-communication and interactions between employees and managers (Sujan, 2015). In the year 2014, the company was given the Australian Business Awards in the category of Employer of Choice. In the last few years, the company has tried to modify their workplaces. The priority of the company was to give importance to their employees. They follow their aim by collecting feedbacks of the employees to make plans and applying initiatives.

To make sure that employees are improved and retained, the company has offered the number of initiatives like e-learning programme on employee training, off-location training, workshops, retreats, web seminars and peer teaching (Chiva, Lapiedra, Alegre & Miralles, 2018). The employees have the half-yearly and yearly analysis of their salary. The development in Sanitarium is by behaviors, professional growth, and performance of the employees.  Sanitarium sends cards on Christmas to all their staffs, identifies the milestones of service of their staffs and has programs of Employee of the Month to recognize and reward the best performer of the month. The company has shown their commitment to creating a culture which respects and rejoices the importance of all the staffs.  Sanitarium has adopted the organizational cultural change and growth in a planned way by utilizing the biannual surveys of all their full as well as part-time employees of Australia and New Zealand (Coccia & Cadario, 2014).    

4. Effectiveness – Sanitarium is using StayinFront, a top mobile provider of the world and cloud-based field power solutions, for the sales teams of Australia and New-Zealand.  It is easy to use and provides resolutions to the sales teams top carry on their operations, confirm the compliance, and record the competitive tasks while working in the store (Crane, 2017).  The mobile dashboards give on field agents with real-time observations of the performance in store, allowing them to actively recognize the opportunities and quickly find solutions to their problems.

Evaluate the change effort – to what extent was the company successful or unsuccessful? Support with some research and data

Reputation – The firm has got the Australian Business Awards in the category of Employer of Choice, HR management and Community Contribution for three consecutive years in the year 2016. For the award, the company has to present their achievements in organizational culture, leadership, and planning, development, and training, the health of the staffs, security and satisfaction, performance management, recognition and reward (Williams, Perillo & Brown, 2015). Sanitarium has incorporated their employees with their corporate targets and values of health and welfare. Sanitarium has delivered healthy breakfasts and nutrition teachings to almost 8 million children in weak societies by collaborating with the Red Cross Society of Australia for 15 years.   

Organizational Performance - The managers of Sanitarium has put individual efforts to connect with the staffs. This was encouraged by many initiatives like yearly team meetings, leadership and learning teams, and briefing of the organizational culture. Sanitarium also initiated a system of online performance and development known as iGro (Al Saifi, 2015). This system aimed to start and simplify the dual-communication and interactions between the employees and managers. The interactions by iGRo concentrate on performance, behaviors and growth strategy of the employees.

Sanitarium has been recognized as a model firm that has improved their workplaces and fully utilized the potentiality of the employees. The firm has well-organized practices which present the efficient hiring, engaging and retaining their staffs.  The priority of the company was to give importance to their employees. They follow their aim by collecting feedbacks of the employees to make plans and applying initiatives. The company has offered the number of initiatives like e-learning programme on employee training, off-location training, workshops, retreats, web seminars, and peer teaching, to make sure that employees are improved and retained (Anitha, 2016).  The employees have the half-yearly and annual analysis of their salary. The development in Sanitarium is by behaviors, professional growth, and performance of the employees.

The firm has presented their dedication in creating a culture that respects each staff of the company. Sanitarium has adopted the organizational cultural change and growth in a planned way by utilizing the biannual surveys of all their full as well as part-time employees of Australia and New Zealand. The staffs of the company are direct outcomes of strong organizational culture. The staffs of the company give several advantages to Sanitarium (Zhu, 2015). Higher output, better relations with clients and low turnover are the outcomes of engaged staffs. In employee retention, the company has shown the remarkably low rate of turnover which is about 1% each year. This is a positive sign for the company as they have an efficient workforce and proper organizational culture. The employees are motivated by the company to involve with the organizational culture and work.     

• Sanitarium has to promote more and preserve its mission, vision, and values of Adventist, to grow and manage the high-performing organizational culture. This would help them to face the challenges for the future.
• The firm has to extend its markets at the global level and access the international economies for better marketplaces. At present, the company is limited only in Australia and New Zealand.
• Sanitarium has poor management teams as proven by complaints by the employees and week relations with the worker unions (Laforet, 2016).  They have adopted some more online methods for marketing and selling their products.
• The two rival companies of Sanitarium are Kellogg’s and Kraft Foods. The company has to prepare themselves to face high competition in the industry of FMCG. They can enter into the market of soft drinks and beverages.
• The company has to concentrate more chain management of supply to decrease the production price. They have to incline less on towards charitable works and more campaigns for marketing.

References

Al Saifi, S. A. (2015). Positioning organizational culture in knowledge management research. Journal of Knowledge Management, 19(2), 164-189.

Anitha, J. (2016). Role of Organisational Culture and Employee Commitment to Employee Retention. ASBM Journal of Management, 9(1).

Beech, N., & MacIntosh, R. (2017). Managing change: Enquiry and action. Cambridge University Press.

Brown, A. (2014). Organizational paradigms and sustainability in excellence: from mechanistic approaches to learning and innovation. International Journal of Quality and Service Sciences, 6(2/3), 181-190.

Chiva, R., Lapiedra, R., Alegre, J., & Miralles, S. (2018). Organisational Learning and Knowledge Management: A Prospective Analysis Based on the Levels of Consciousness. In The Palgrave Handbook of Knowledge Management (pp. 85-103). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Coccia, M., & Cadario, E. (2014). Organisational (un) learning of public research labs in turbulent context. International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 15(2), 115-129.

Crane, A. (2017). Rhetoric and reality in the greening of organizational culture. In Greening the Boardroom (pp. 129-144). Routledge.

Laforet, S. (2016). Effects of organizational culture on organizational innovation performance in family firms. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 23(2), 379-407.

Sujan, M. (2015). An organization without a memory: a qualitative study of hospital staff perceptions on reporting and organizational learning for patient safety. Reliability engineering & system safety, 144, 45-52.

Sujan, M., & Furniss, D. (2015). Organizational reporting and learning systems: Innovating inside and outside of the box. Clinical Risk, 21(1), 7-12.

Williams, B., Perillo, S., & Brown, T. (2015). What are the factors of organizational culture in health care settings that act as barriers to the implementation of evidence-based practice? A scoping review. Nurse education today, 35(2), e34-e41.

Zhu, C. (2015). Organizational culture and technology-enhanced innovation in higher education. Technology, Pedagogy, and Education, 24(1), 65-79.