Business
Overview
Managing individual behavior encompasses understanding of the three important factors such as personality, perception, and learning. These three factors vary on every individual and for an organization to create an environment where a diversity of individuals co-exist in perfect harmony benefits the organization in terms of sustained productivity and greater performance outcome. Such capability of an organization in managing a diversity of individuals in one setting is a considerable success on its own. The context of managing individual behavior also reflect the organization’s values as a whole in which the encompassing organizational goals can drive employees to be more passionate at what they do. An example of an organization that demonstrates the described qualities is the Quicken Loans.
The company is based in Detroit with more than 15,000 team members and 97% of which agrees that the company is the best place to work in (reviews.greatplacetowork.com, 2015). For the past 13 year’s the company was ranked 30 in Fortune magazine’s Top 100 best companies to work for. The objective of this discussion is to determine the company’s key goals and objectives that drive employees efforts. Furthermore, the company’s corporate values and goals towards its employees, customers, and stakeholders will be examined to determine what motives job satisfaction of the people that works in Quicken Loans. Lastly, a proposition will be provided at the end of the discussion that other organizations can adopt to achieve the same success as that of the Quicken Loans.
Quicken Loans Key Goals and Values
Understanding how the people working in Quicken Loans perceive their workplace as the best place to build a career begins with the familiarity of the company’s goals and values. First, Quicken Loans builds its business on passion, drive, opportunity, people, and innovation. It is considered as one of the best companies in the United States in terms of employee performance rating creating business through innovation and consumer satisfaction. Quicken Loans is now the second largest retail home mortgage company in the country reinventing the mortgage industry into a technology driven industry that puts the mortgage process at the customer’s fingertips (glassdoor.com, 2015). Now, what is about the company that makes it so desirable for its employees is about its organizational values and goals.
Part of the company’s core values is not only to deliver the best mortgage experience for its clients, but also to create a better community where individuals, employees, and organizations are being involved in transforming the cities where they live and work and call such principle as ISMs (quickenloans.org, n.d.). On the business side, the company delivers the promise of realistic expectations through technology and considers people at the center of everything that they do (quickenloans.com, n.d.). In a statement by one of the employees in the company, Quicken Loans is supports creativity and passion where new ideas grow and reach marketing channels, which encourages other employees to do the same. The work – life balance is critical even for the higher management because the leadership believes that people matters for its business and the employees are the biggest contributor to its success (glassdoor.com, 2015).
In terms of disadvantage about working in Quicken Loans, it is apparent that the company is leveraging on its people’s capability to deliver results, which is driven by consistently being passionate and energetic, therefore, anyone who are not used to such work environment may find themselves unfit for Quicken Loans. Primarily, the goal of the company is to ensure that the customers are being guided accordingly in their mortgage decisions, and relies on their employees to deliver the best customer service experience to deliver customer expectations in the soonest possible time. This goal adds pressure to any employee considering that the end result of the customer’s decision about their mortgage loan depends on the capability of the employees in performing their duties.
Analysis
Analyzing how the company’s corporate values and goals towards the customers, employees, and the business affect the motivation and job satisfaction of the people working in Quicken Loans can be attributed to the five dimensions of the job characteristics model. The concept of the job characteristics model was developed by organizational psychologist Greg Oldham and Richard Hackman (oxfordreference.com, 2014). The level of job satisfaction of the Quicken Loans employees are influenced by skills variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. In terms of skills variety or the range of the tasks performed by the employees, 97% of the employees agree that the tasks given them an opportunity to challenge themselves (reviews.greatplacetowork.com, 2015). This aspect enables the employees to find new things to discover and not limit themselves to the basics of their job description. For example, a mortgage banker assigned to negotiate between the client and the bank is not limited to the negotiation tasks, but also ensures that the client are well assisted during the process by doing follow ups and providing realistic advice. Regarding the task identity, employees of Quicken Loans are encouraged by the management to experience what it means to be in another job position apart from their initial assignment. For example, the company has created the Tour of Duty Program in which the veteran employees are being tasked to assist in hiring other veterans like themselves. If a veteran is a customer service agent, they will be given the chance to have the corporate experience while performing their active duty positions.
On the subject of task significance, employees of Quicken Loans are assured of their contribution to the company in several ways. The company ascertains that even an intern knows the value of what he/she is doing for the company through strong training programs to immerse the employees about the significance of the job that they are performing. In addition, assuring the employee’s understanding of significance of their task was fostered by a reward system such as free trips, which is being used by the company as a gesture for saying thanks for the job well done. Part of the company’s strategy in keeping a high job satisfaction rate can be attributed to the fourth dimension of job characteristics model, which is autonomy. Complying with the requirements of the job is imperative in becoming an effective employee. However, autonomy is also necessary in fostering creativity.
In Quicken Loans, employees are encouraged to bring fresh ideas and perspective and allow them to execute their idea to make an impact. Being passionate and having a strong sense of curiosity within their professional boundaries drives employees to exercise their autonomy to do things and discover new inches of improvement that will not only benefit the company, but also towards their professional growth. Lastly, feedback is necessary in order to communicate to the employees how they did and what areas need improvement. This is where dividing the employees into teams becomes important. Each teams are given a set of goals and at the end of each period, teams are given the opportunity to talk about their performance and for the team leader to provide motivation to do better and to encourage bigger achievements.
Proposition
Based on what has been discussed about Quicken Loans, other organizations can learn from the company in terms of handling their people. In this regard, propositions such as strengthening the presence of teamwork within the workplace should be considered. Not all organizations can adopt the teamwork model in establishing a high job satisfaction rate because the business model may not be appropriate for a teamwork system. However, there are several ways in which a teamwork model can be beneficial to the organization in general. In performance management, clearly establishing and communicating the organizational goals creates the right direction for the employees in performing their duties, which in return sets clear expectations for both the employees and the management (opm.gov, n.d.).
It is apparent that the job characteristics model requires that the employees are aware of the significance of their task, skills, task identity, feedback, and autonomy. In this regard, setting up teamwork system will allow the employees to express their opinions about their work and at the same time the team leader can convey the areas on where the team members should work on. In addition, teamwork system requires a short team meeting before and after the shift. This will allow the team members to get insights about the goals that they need to achieve during the day of work, setting expectations, and addressing concerns that could affect the overall performance of the team. Furthermore, teamwork system encourages competition with other teams and the right value of reward will boost motivation of every team to perform above expectations, which in return will creates a neutral advantage that both the employees and the organization can benefit from.
Conclusion
Managing individual behavior in the workplace is an important task for the organization in ensuring that employees are highly satisfied with their jobs. There could be individual differences between personalities, but organizations can optimize such diversity in the workplace by aligning the organizational goals and values with the emerging culture within the organization in order satisfy the employees and for the business to succeed.
References
glassdoor.com,. (2015). Working at Quicken Loans. Glassdoor. Retrieved 24 March 2016, from https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Quicken-Loans-EI_IE7856.11,24.htm
opm.gov,. Organizational Goals Can Be Powerful Energizers. U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Retrieved 24 March 2016, from https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/performance-management/performance-management-cycle/planning/organizational-goals-can-be-powerful-energizers/
oxfordreference.com,. (2014). Job Characteristics Model - Oxford Reference. Oxfordreference.com. Retrieved 24 March 2016, from http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100021207
quickenloans.com,. About Us | Quicken Loans. Quickenloans.com. Retrieved 24 March 2016, from http://www.quickenloans.com/about
quickenloans.org,. Quicken Loans in Your Community | Engineered to Amaze. Quicken Loans in the Community. Retrieved 24 March 2016, from http://www.quickenloans.org/
