An Investigation into the Effect of Teamwork Practices at Sainsbury’s Sydenham-London

Team can be defined as a group of individuals who work collectively to achieve the same purposes and goals to provide an excellent quality of services. Teamwork has the ability to enable the members of the team to have a higher level of emotional security, self-confidence and the ability to plan and decide with others positively. Also, it helps in creating a healthy work environment with workable agendas, creative activities, positive strategies and values. On the other hand, the absence of teamwork’s concepts and strategies can lead to occupational failure, disappointment, low morale and poor productivity which threatens the entity of the organisation. The employees who work in an organisation that does not have a strong concept of teamwork, usually fail to deliver the expected results and to achieve the goals and visions of that organisation.

The presence of teamwork concept is a necessary rule to help the employees in working together towards common aims and goals creatively. The work performance of the team is higher than individual performance when the work requires a broader scope of knowledge, judgement and opinion. The advantage of teamwork is significant productivity growth in the spheres that require creative solving of different tasks, a high degree of adaptability and operational management (Vašková, 2007).

The aim of this research is to investigate how teamwork has improved the working practices of team members at Sainsbury’s Sydenham-London.

1. How has teamwork effect contributed to team performance at Sainsbury’s Sydenham- London?

2. What is the relationship between teamwork effect and performance at Sainsbury’s Sydenham- London?

1. To assess how has teamwork effect contributed to team performance at Sainsbury’s Sydenham- London.

2. To compare and contrast the relationship between teamwork effect and performance at Sainsbury’s Sydenham- London.

The impact of teamwork on employees? occupational performance has been a major topic of many researches done by academics and practitioners in the previous years (Jones et al, 2007). The reason behind this attention is the fact that the practical concept of teamwork has a strong influence on the performance of any organisation and the employees who work in it. Teamwork was defined and deliberated by some researchers as an essential occupational skill that is necessary to accomplish and achieve the visions, goals, plans and objectives of the organisation and to activate and enhance the performances of the workers there. There are several causes and reasons that clarify and highlight the link between teamwork and the level and quality of the performance in workplace. Jones et al (2007) state that understanding the impact of teamwork on performance is important because teamwork is viewed by some researchers as one of the key driving force for improving a firm’s performance. Team members enhance the skills, knowledge and abilities while working in team (Froebel and Marchington, 2005). Researchers and experts indicate that effective behaviours and concepts related to teamwork can increase the level of improvement of employees? performance and their productivity as well as enhancing the ability of solving conflicts and facing the urgent and sudden challenges at work.

Research Questions

Teamwork can be accurately defined as a group of individuals who work cooperatively to achieve a specific task or goal. This skill has become appreciated that many large organisations have designed special tests to determine the abilities of their employees to work on teams. Therefore, teamwork ability became an essential skill that every worker must have in order to be accepted in the job. The idea or concept of teams has been applied many centuries ago during the establishment and development of human civilization, that is why it is a very valuable and important concept in any occupational and developmental process. Teamwork is a precise organisational measure that shows many different features in all types of organisations including non – profit (Mulika,2010). Conti and Kleiner (2003) reported that teams offer greater participation,

challenges and feelings of accomplishment. Some companies have started to apply team-based strategy in their work performance to maintain the productivity of their workers and to emphasise on the importance of working together as one united entity to achieve the objectives and goals of the organisation in the best way possible. Team-based strategy means a basic method followed by the members of an organisation to work in teams to finish the required tasks.

As a result of such strategies applied in workplaces, the managers of such organisations are clarifying the significance of teamwork and its ability to create a better work environment for the workers and increase the level of creativity, productivity and the success of the entire entity. Cohen (1999) says that teams are replacing individuals as the basic building blocks of organisation. In this century, the teamwork skill has been taught as an essential educational concept at schools, so that students learn the proper strategies to develop professional skills as part of their educational process. The important professional skills such as solving conflicts, communication, collaboration and positive interaction skills are noticeably being defined by managers as an important requirement for the work environment. So, the employers and managers are always looking for individuals who can collaborate and work on teams as a critical skill in every working environment.

1. The most important methodological choice researchers make is based on the distinction between qualitative and quantitative

2. data. This research used quantitative and qualitative data to analyse this research (Hussey and Hussey, 1997).

Qualitative research supports an in-depth understanding of the situation investigated and due to time constraints, it generally involves a small sample of participants. For this reason, the findings are limited to the sample studied and cannot be generalised to other contexts or to the wider population. Popular methods based on qualitative data include semi-structured or unstructured interviews, participant observations and document analysis. Qualitative analysis is generally more time-consuming than quantitative analysis. The student conducted an exploratory interview for the Team Leader of Sainsbury’s Sydenham, London. The student used a Dictaphone to record the interview which lasted for about 30 minutes (Saunders et. al, 2003; Easterby-Smith et al, 2002).

Research Objectives

A primary data source is an original data source, that is, one in which the data are collected first hand by the researcher for a specific research purpose or project. Primary data can be collected in a number of ways. However, the most common techniques are self-administered surveys, interviews, field observation, and experiments. Primary data collection is quite expensive and time consuming compared to secondary data collection. Notwithstanding, primary data collection may be the only suitable method for some types of research (Saunders et. al, 2003; Easterby-Smith et al, 2002). The student used the following primary data sources for this research:

• Face to face interview
• Questionnaire survey
• Observation

Secondary data is the data that has already been collected through primary sources and made readily available for researchers to use for their own research. It is a type of data that has already been collected in the past. A researcher may have collected the data for a particular project, then made it available to be used by another researcher. The data may also have been collected for general use with no specific research purpose like in the case of the national census. A data classified as secondary for a particular research may be said to be primary for another research. This is the case when a data is being reused, making it a primary data for the first research and secondary data for the second research it is being used for (Saunders et. al, 2003; Easterby-Smith et al, 2002). The student collected the following secondary data for this research:

• Textbooks
• Journals
• Newspapers
• Diaries

According to figure 1, 70% of the respondents seemed to agree that teamwork cohesion helps them to improve on their performance, with 17% strongly agreeing to this. 13% neither agreed nor disagreed. No respondents disagreed nor strongly disagreed to this statement. Even though majority of the respondents seemed to be in agreement with the statement, some felt that nothing much was done by Sainsbury’s Sydenham - London towards improving staff within their team to work harder.

From the above analysis it is obvious that most team members within Sainsbury’s Sydenham - London are aware that teamwork cohesion will help them in identifying their strengths and weaknesses, and help them in building on their strengths and improving on their weaknesses, thereby helping them to boost their self-esteem and improve on their overall performance, hence finishing high in work commitment.

The question of what one can expect from a cohesive group has been addressed much more often that the question of what causes cohesion. It is interesting to note that what caused the cohesion to occur in Sainsbury’s Sydenham London could also be a partial determinant of how the team behaves, according to the column graph above. For instance, a team that comes together to face a common enemy could experience the downsides of cohesion: groupthink or changes to commitment of traditional values. On the other hand, Sainsbury’s Sydenham teams that are cohesive because they enjoy their task or the people whom they work with are more likely to have positive team outcomes.

Teamwork should be adapted in every organisation whether that is public sector or private sector through which it will increase their productivity and efficiency. It is essential for Sainsbury’s Sydenham - London to create an environment where employees cooperate with each other and are satisfied with their jobs. This will help them to consume their full capabilities for better organisational performance. In the light of the above results and discussions, the researcher suggests that Sainsbury’s Sydenham - London needs to provide teamwork tasks, empower their employees and provide better quality team training for enhanced organisational productivity (Standifer et.al, 2015).

The second element outlines team behaviour rules where team members determine and set their boundaries for acceptable behaviour to maintain team common values. They need to set norms for communication that will encourage openness, trust and support. Good communication skills can help teams in reaching mutually satisfying solutions to problems and conflicts. The teamwork literature suggested rules and processes for problem solving such as the six-step procedure to increase team productivity (Sundstrom et. al, 1990).

 Conclusion

In conclusion it can be seen that the attributes derived from the literature seem to be key factors that need to be considered throughout the team life cycle to ensure successful teamwork. The survey findings revealed that the higher performing teams at Sainsbury’s Sydenham – London implemented most of the attributes identified in the research as opposed to those teams who did not consider or implement these attributes to achieve project outcomes (Belbin, 2000). However, none of the teams in the presented outstanding performance and this could be attributed to the general lack of knowledge in teamwork processes. This is aligned with the literature review and confirms the needs for team members to address the team development phases clearly as well as determine and agree on procedures for each phase to achieve team success. The team success factors were identified and addressed through the team life cycle model found to be essential for teamwork success (Biech, 2000).