Ryanair's Organisational Culture and its Impact on Performance

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Organis
ational
Behavi
our

Table of Contents
Introduction:..........................................................................................................................................2
Task 1.....................................................................................................................................................2
a) Its organisational culture and nature of power and political behaviour of its management.....2
b) How the culture have affected the feelings and behaviour of staff and ultimately performance
of Ryanair..........................................................................................................................................3
Task 2.....................................................................................................................................................5
a) Evaluate how content and process theories of motivation could be used to enable individual
and team performance and help Ryanair to succeed........................................................................5
Task 3.....................................................................................................................................................7
a) Identify and explain different types of teams which operate within Ryanair and why this
range of teams is important to the success of the organisation........................................................7
b) Using relevant team theory, such as Belbin’s team types and Tuckman group development
model, analyse what would make the teams at Ryanair more effective...........................................8
c) Evaluate how the use of the path-goal theory could improve team performance and
productivity in Ryanair.......................................................................................................................9
d) Identify and explain what you think will be main barriers to implementing a new
organisational structure in Ryanair?................................................................................................10
Conclusion:..........................................................................................................................................11
References:..........................................................................................................................................12
Introduction:
Organisational behaviour is an important field of business study as it is concerned
with the organisational structure, culture, teams, individual behaviour etc. and its
impact on the working of the organisation. It is crucial as it impact each and every
aspect of organisation be it organisational performance, employee’s reward system,
implementation of various strategies etc. the following assignment is based on the
study of the organisational structure as well as organisational culture of Ryanair.
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Ryanair is one of the low-cost and budget airlines of UK that was established in the
year 1985 by the Ryan family (Ryanair, 2014). Initially, the company did not
experience much success. However, after CEO O’Leary, the company saw huge
success and became the largest and most successful budget airline of Europe.
Task 1
a) Its organisational culture and nature of power and political behaviour of its
management.
The organisational culture serves as the organisation’s backbone and is essential for
the success of the organisation. It is the internal environment of the organisation in
which all the actions take place and is therefore critical success factor. It may be
defined as the set of rules, regulations, attitudes, beliefs and values that forms the
organisation’s principles and also make members of the organisation aware of the
manner in which work should be carried out. Culture can be divided into different
types on the basis of Handy’s Typology which are as follows:
Power Culture: Power culture may be defined as the authority and power resulting
from the position of the individual which is limited to only few in an organisation and
those few are the ones who are the final decision makers in the organisation. Power
culture does not allow organisation’s employees to express their views or ideas
(Christiansen, 2012).
Task Culture: Task culture is the organisational culture that depends on the team
work approach for getting things done so as to achieve their goals and objectives. In
this culture, the teams are made based on skills and expertise and therefore tasks
are allotted to each team in order to achieve goals (King and Lawley, 2016).
Role Culture: It is the most common culture in today’s times. Role culture is based
on the specialisation and therefore benefits as each employee is being allotted tasks
as per their expertise and hence the productivity of the organisation is bound to
increase. The role culture makes full utilisation of the skills as well as expertise of the
employees (MSG, 2018).
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Person Culture: Person culture may be defined as the organisational culture that
gives more preference to the goals of the employees on individual basis rather than
the goals of the organisation (Christiansen, 2012).
Ryanair Culture:
Ever since the establishment of Ryanair, the company has maintained the power
culture at workplace (Ryanair, 2013). During its early days of establishment, the
power remained with Tony Ryan. However, later the new CEO, O’Leary was being
given the central power and the main authorities. All the decisions used to follow the
top to down structure where the final decision was always from O’Leary. Any other
manager was not allowed to oppose his decision or suggestion. The organisational
structure of Ryanair is Flat Structure and is limited to three layers only so as to stay
away from bureaucracy (Ryabair, 2013).
The low cost strategy of Ryanair gets reflected by the culture of the organisation.
Each and every aspect of the organisation follows the cost cutting policies like the
staff of Ryanair do travel in economy class and also their stays are booked in budget
hotels only. Also the language used by O’Leary created volatile atmosphere in the
organisation where he can insult anyone anywhere and this resulted in the
increasing impatience among the employees of the organisation. Thus, all this
clearly shows that Ryanair has been following market culture even since the
company has established.
b) How the culture have affected the feelings and behaviour of staff and ultimately
performance of Ryanair.
The organisational culture do have an impact on the behaviour of the employees of
the organisation and their performance that ultimately decides the performance of
the organisation (King and Lawley, 2016). The state of power and politics within the
organisation make up the culture of the organisation and have an influence on the
employee’s performance. The organisational culture practised at Ryanair does not
value gratitude or feeling of appreciation for the hard work of their employees
(Ryanair, 2013). In order to remain the budget airline, the company applies cost-
cutting strategies everywhere. Therefore, they consider their employees as mere a
tool so as to achieve high productivity. In order to make full utilisation of their
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employees, the employees are being forced to work for long hours without break.
The policies of the organisation results in high staff turnover. The employees of the
organisation gets abused in case any mistake is made by them. The working
atmosphere is considered as volatile and the airline is famous for its rudeness
towards its employees. However, in order to retain employees, the company offers
high promotion offers as compared to any other similar airline (Javed, 2016).
The organisational culture of Ryanair has impacted its operations and other airlines
as well. The power culture as well as the market culture followed by Ryanair has
affected its operation as cost cutting strategies are being implemented in every
organisational aspect. The major stakeholders i.e. the customers can only expect a
cheap and on-time flight to their destination and nothing more and the company does
not take the responsibility if anything goes wrong (Ryanair, 2013). For Ryanair, the
most important criteria for defining success is to make money and therefore the
airline values money the most. This is the reason why Ryanair does not believe in
gratitude. The organisation’s management is dissatisfied as they are being expected
to work hard and in turn are provided with only few incentives.
However, the organisational culture of Ryanair had a positive impact on its
performance in its early days since the company brought revolution in the world of air
travel by introducing the concept of budget airlines. Ryanair became one of the most
successful as well as profitable airlines of Europe within the short period of its
operations (Ryanair, 2014). But due to the power culture and bolloxology of O’Leary
and his abusive behaviour, the performance of the airlines decreased as the airline
got infamous for its nasty and rude behaviour and was seen as a mere cheap airline.
The customers who utilise its services on continuous basis also started disliking the
same.
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Task 2
a) Evaluate how content and process theories of motivation could be used to enable
individual and team performance and help Ryanair to succeed.
In order to achieve increased efficiency and high productivity, motivation is of utmost
importance. Motivation can be defined as the art of influencing the staff members so
as to achieve greater results with their increased efficiency (Contactzilla, 2014).
There are various theories of motivation which have been classified under two
categories namely content theories and process theories. Content theories are the
motivational theories having the primary focus on “what”. They try to identify the kind
of motivation required so as to increase efficiency of organisation. On the contrary,
process theories have their main focus on “How”. They try to identify best processes
so as to increase the motivation among the employees (Cummings and Worley,
2014).
Motivation at Ryanair:
The Management at Ryanair practices autocratic control and therefore there is lack
of motivation and stress as observed among the employees (Ryanair, 2013). Low
stimulation and low morale are the conditions at Ryanair resulting from its poor
working conditions. The company does not care much about the personal
satisfaction of their employees and therefore employees are being forced to fulfil
their mechanical commitments at any cost. As per the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,
certain needs such as physiological, self-esteem and self-actualisation must be
fulfilled to influence the behaviour of employees which is considerably low at
Ryanair. As a result, the organisation lacks in creativeness, loyalty, growth as well as
innovation which hampers its performance. The poor working conditions at Ryanair
results in stressed employees and increases dissatisfaction among employees which
results in negative performance of employees out of tiredness and over pressure.
The employees at Ryanair are being over-stressed and have generally low self-
esteem. As a result, the customer service quality also hampers at Ryanair which
decreases the customer experience. This is because of the low level of job
satisfaction that is prevalent among Ryanair’s employees. According to Herzberg’s
Two Factor Theory, in order to influence the behaviour of employees, both
motivational as well as hygiene factors are significant (Contactzilla, 2014)
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. Therefore, the stress and lack of motivation in Ryanair is because of the less
motivational factors such as recognition, rewards for achievement, career growth,
more responsibilities etc. In addition to this, the Ryanair also needs to provide
hygiene factors otherwise no motivational factor will impact such as safe working
environment, elimination of poor working conditions, negative influences etc.
Therefore hygiene factors needs to be enhanced as per Herzberg Theory so as to
motivate the employees.
Another major problem that is being faced by Ryanair is high employee turnover
resulting from its low salary and negative working conditions which has less reward
system and more rigid working atmosphere (Ryanair, 2013). The organisation does
not provide its pilots and cabin crew with proper incentives and compensations. In
addition to this, the organisation also does not provide competitive rewards to its
employees so as to motivate them to perform their best. According to Vroom’s
expectancy theory, an employee gets motivated to perform best as per their ability
and capability if their performance leads them to rewards and recognition and the
value of the reward provided is high (Furnham, 2013). Therefore, less rewards with
low value and lack of recognition and appreciation at Ryanair decreases the morale
of the employees and prevent them from performing their best and ultimately leads
to employee turnover.
Therefore it is recommended that Ryanair values its employees in order to retain
them for longer period and start giving importance to their employees. The company
must understand the fact that the employees are not just the working machines and
therefore needs friendly working atmosphere as well as the support and directions
from seniors so as to work efficiently. This can be achieved through the sharing of
work and enabling job empowerment and employee engagement (Burnes, 2013).
The company can achieve greater heights of success and can become even more
powerful if it starts considering its employees as its main assets and motivate them
(Furnham, 2013).
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Task 3
a) Identify and explain different types of teams which operate within Ryanair and why
this range of teams is important to the success of the organisation.
Ryanair have different types of teams that operates within the organisation. The
various types of teams includes functional teams, problem solving teams, virtual
teams as well as project teams. These are explained as follows:
Functional Teams: The functional teams are those teams that consists of members
having the same functional expertise. The functional teams operates within Ryanair
organisation so as to achieve organisational goals which are common to both the
employees as well as the organisation (Capsim, 2015).
Problem Solving Teams: Problem solving teams as name suggests are the teams
whose members works towards providing solutions for various organisational issues
as well as problems. The problem solving teams consists of various members each
being allotted different task to provide solution with.
Project Teams: Project teams are the teams that are made up of members from
different groups and having different expertise and functionalities so as to carry out a
given project. These teams work till the project is completed and once it is done, the
team is no longer in operation (Capsim, 2015).
Virtual Teams: Virtual teams that operates within the organisation are the teams
that work towards the same organisational goals and for the same project but from
different physical locations. However, in order to communicate with each other, the
various members makes use of video calls, emails etc.
Importance of Different Types of Teams:
The various teams described above are of great importance for Ryanair. The
different teams enables the Ryanair to carryout operations successfully under
complex and difficult situations and provides different and improved ideas. The main
objective of having multiple and different types of teams at workplace is to have
different employees from different backgrounds and cultures together to perform
effectively towards same organisational goals. Working in teams increases the
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productivity as well as the efficiency of employees and provides them job satisfaction
as well. Therefore, the organisation can achieve better productivity as well as
enhanced productivity resulting from various different types of teams.
b) Using relevant team theory, such as Belbin’s team types and Tuckman group
development model, analyse what would make the teams at Ryanair more effective.
Team is referred to as the group of individuals who work together with mutual
consent towards the common organisational goals. The team and its members need
to be effective so as to increase the profitability as well as the productivity of the
organisation. In order to increase the team effectiveness, Ryanair can make use of
the Tuckman’s model which shows the path so as to enhance team performance.
The path defined by Tuckman’s model consists of following stages:
Forming Stage: During the forming stage, the leader of the team has the most
important role to play as the roles of other team members are not defined during
forming stage. Most of the team members possess positive attitude and look forward
to perform various team tasks effectively (Melmer, et.al, 2013).
Storming Stage: During this stage, members feel part of the teams and therefore
willingly accept responsibilities and tasks allotted to them. However, there might be
conflicts regarding the way suggested by the team leader as employees might want
to work their own way.
Norming Stage: During norming stage, the respect and feelings develop inside
team members and they start understanding each other in a better manner so as to
work effectively with each other to achieve organisational goals. This enables team
members to openly discuss issues and problems with each other (Melmer, et.al,
2013).
Performing Stage: The performance stage marks the final delegation and look after
of all the responsibilities and tasks allocated by leaders. During this stage, all the
members feel inclined towards organisational goals and therefore put hard efforts in
order to achieve them in an effective manner.
Adjourning Stage: Adjourning is the final stage where all the tasks allocated to
every member of the team gets completed and therefore the team needs to be
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dismissed at this stage. However, employees feel bad as they develop respect and
bond with each other (Northouse, 2013).
c) Evaluate how the use of the path-goal theory could improve team performance and
productivity in Ryanair.
For improving the performance of the team as well as organisational performance, it
is must for the leaders of the organisation to have the understanding of
organisation’s employees and the factors that can motivate them. This can be
achieved by Ryanair leaders by implementing path-goal theory that describes the
most effective manner in which employees can be motivated. The path goal theory
describes that leaders at organisation must focus on the achievement of
organisational goals, must overcome hurdles so as to achieve great results and
leaders must also employees with proper incentives based on their performance
(Francescato and Aber, 2015). Therefore, the leaders at Ryanair needs to adopt
proper style of leadership which are as follows according to path goal theory:
 Directive: Directive leaders are those who believe in providing guidance as well
as directions to employees so as to achieve organisational tasks effectively within
time allotted.
 Achievement Oriented: Achievement oriented leadership style is the one in
which leaders set high standards for their employees and show their faith in their
employees for getting the work done. This motivates the employees to do their
best (Miner, 2015).
 Participative: Participative leaders are the ones that works in mutual
coordination with their employees so as to identify employee’s personal goals as
well as organisational goals. Such leaders also encourages their employees to
present their feedbacks and suggestions.
 Supportive: Supportive leadership style refers to those where leaders are
respectful and caring towards their employees and therefore this behaviour
motivates the employees as their personal needs and goals are given preference
over organisational goals (Duggan, 2015).
Therefore from the above, it can be clearly said that path goal theory increase the
team effectiveness which in turn leads to improved productivity and enhanced team
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performance. This is being achieved by providing employees with proper guidance
as well as rewards and recognition.
d) Identify and explain what you think will be main barriers to implementing a new
organisational structure in Ryanair?
The organisational structure have a great impact on the performance of the
employees as well as the behaviour of the employees within an organisation. It
serves as the framework for the whole organisation through which information flows
to all the parts of the organisation. Therefore it is obvious that implementing a new
organisational structure will have problems. Following will be the main barriers that
can be faced by Ryanair while implementing new organisational structure:
Communication: The organisational structure within Ryanair and other
organisations is also partly responsible for enhancing proper communication within
various departments and between the departments. Therefore, implementing new
organisational structure therefore requires to re-shift the communication system
which can lead to loss of information or miscommunication within the organisation
(Benincasa, 2015).
Hierarchy: In order to run smoothly an organisation, an organisation must have a
hierarchy. However, the hierarchy as well as the various levels gets disturbed and
confused while implementing new organisational structure in Ryanair. Therefore this
can cause serious harm as this might create confusion among the staff members.
Delegation: Delegation of responsibilities and tasks becomes difficult while
implementing new organisational structure. Therefore, employees might find it
difficult to properly understand their roles and responsibilities and therefore this could
harm their productivity.
Cost: Finally, it might be expensive for Ryanair to implement a new organisational
structure. By the time, Ryanair will be able to adopt new organisational structure, its
productivity will be dropped and hence the profitability will also get affected.
Implementing a new organisational structure needs planning, time, efficient
resources and most importantly finances (Benincasa, 2015).
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Conclusion:
From the above assignment, it can be concluded that organisational behaviour is
one of the most important field of organisational studies as it impacts each and every
aspect of organisation. From the above report, it can be concluded that Ryanair
practices power culture that has a huge impact on the performance of the airline as
well as the behaviour of the employees. Being the low cost airline, the company
follows cost cutting strategies and therefore there is a high employee turnover as
employees are being dissatisfied with their job and have low morale and high stress.
The various types of teams that Ryanair has have been discussed and the use of the
Tuckman’s model to increase team effectiveness have been explained. The use of
the path goal theory for Ryanair have also been explained in detail and we have also
identified the barriers that might be faced by Ryanair while implementing new
organisational structure.
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