Group and Team Behavior Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Group and Team Behavior - Essay Example Being the largest employer of the United States with almost 1.4 million workforces together with 600,000 worldwide, Wal-Mart plays an exemplary role as a high performance organization, comprising self directed teams (Thomson, 2009). The benefits that such teams bring to the organization are manifold. Workers get themselves involved in duties like scheduling work activities, ordering materials, collaborating with cross functional teams, like IBM, to introduce product innovations and making assessments. It enables employees to feel challenged as they develop a strong sense of identity with the organization. Minimum supervision is provided, therefore members are jointly held accountable for any conflict situation (Daft, 2007, p.298). Better training of cashiers and monitoring the utilization process help to increase productivity rates up to 10-12% (Johnson & Bradford, 2002). In order to support and encourage these teams, Wal-Mart has been able to create a sound corporate culture. In its organizational strategy, employees start to receive training from the orientation day following weekly meetings. Managers’ performance in the organization is assessed on the basis of their ability to comprehend culture. Those employees who show a firm dedication to the company are rewarded (Hart, 2006, p.389-390). Wal-Mart has devised a system that deals with creating promotion opportunities. Without yielding any gender discrimination, the organization has developed a formal mentoring program that encourages minorities and women who wish to seek managerial positions (Hart, 2006, p.389). In the year 2003, an Office of Diversity was established, by Wal-Mart, to provide diversity training to all managerial levels of workforce. Company officers were held accountable to ensure individuals are meeting set goals with the penalty that the company bonuses might be