Case Study: Organisational Culture and Learning at Sanitarium

This case study examines Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing, a health food company, and its approach to organisational culture, change management, and learning. The analysis delves into Sanitarium's core values, adaptability, and positive workplace culture, highlighting its successful response to market changes, particularly the 'snackification' trend. The study explores internal and external factors impacting outcomes, such as management's role in fostering a healthy work environment and the influence of market dynamics. It details Sanitarium's learning mechanisms, including various training programs and employee feedback systems. Recommendations are provided for continued success, emphasizing employee engagement and the importance of maintaining flexibility and responsiveness to future changes. The case study underscores the importance of a strong organisational culture, effective change management, and continuous learning for sustained success. This analysis is contributed by a student and published on Desklib, a platform offering AI-based study tools for students.

ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING CASE STUDY

Table of Contents
1.0 Organisational culture................................................................................................................3
2.0 Change effort.............................................................................................................................5
3.0 Factors impacting outcomes......................................................................................................7
4.0 Learning mechanism..................................................................................................................9
4.1 Evaluation of learning mechanism........................................................................................9
4.2 Recommendations................................................................................................................10
References:....................................................................................................................................11
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1.0 Organisational culture
It has been discovered from the provided case study that Sanitarium Health & Wellbeing is a
health food company in the Australian market. The brand has usually pioneered to the
introduction of ready to eat cereals, vegetarian products and peanut butter in the breakfast
segment. From the very onset, the brand has focused on producing healthy and nutritious
products that can enhance the healthy living style of the people. In the opinion of Elsmore
(2017), it can be stated that organisations that produce stable or any preservative food shall keep
place its quality as the first priority. This is what the company has kept in mind and believe in the
mission of spreading the community with the message of health and hope for the better living
style. The organisational culture of the chosen brand revolves around its five core value,
courage, care, integrity, humility and passion. It is evident from the information highlighted in
the provided case study that even the shoppers could relate with the positive culture of the brand
and appreciate its vision of inspiring, leading and resourcing the genuine experience of healthy
and happy living in the community.
The organisation culture of the brand also centres on adaptability as per changes required in the
market. For example, the brand had once expanded its reach to the beverage and snacks, where
people changed their consumption pattern and looked for products that could be grabbed quickly.
The brand had been efficient in continuing similar beliefs even after changing its food pattern.
Moreover, it believes in following the similar lifestyle within the organisational culture as well.
Therefore, the management of the brand always maintain a positive workplace culture within the
organisation and give high preferences to its employees in terms of work, compensation, healthy
living, work-life balance, etc. Furthermore, the Sanitarium also maintains a culture where the
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employees are given required support to evolve and develop in future. The employees are backed
with proper on job training and other effective measures to rise alongside the organisation.
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2.0 Change effort
It has been identified that the company has been decently flexible in terms of changing its
business model and product lines too. Considering the statement of Waddell et al. (2016), it has
been noted that it is specifically important for every organisation to change with the passage of
time. As the consumption pattern of consumers changes over time, therefore, the business that
can cope up with the changing trend would survive the challenging situations (Bolden, 2016).
This has been the case with the chosen organisation, the brand was usually dealing with the
cereals products, however, and the consumers had changed their consumption patter all of a
sudden. This has imposed a challenging circumstance before the organisation. However, the
management of the brand had been evidently efficient in terms of understanding the changing
consumption pattern of consumers and addressing it effectively. In 2012, the brand has
experienced the greatest change, where it had to adapt to rising trend of "snackification” of the
sector. Herein, people were not ready to sit down for breakfast and grab a food on the way out
the door. The brand has successfully implemented necessary changes to best meet the sudden
changing trends of the market. With the change, Sanitarium was specifically dealing with
beverage products like “Up&Go” and “So Good” than cereals. Nevertheless, despite external
pressures and changes, the bran has stuck to its mission of creating value in community, which
had been highly appreciated by both the external and internal members.
Alongside the change, the brand has been successful in maintaining its internal workforce by
getting their support positively. It has been recognised from the case study that it usually
followed a participative culture, where employees were discussed about the change initiatives
and they were involved in the decision-making process as well. This effective encouraged
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employees to stick to the organisation and support its changed patterns rather than resisting
(Georgalis et al. 2015). Hence, the employee turnover rate has been extremely low, where
employees show a positive interest in serve Sanitarium with a long run intention.
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3.0 Factors impacting outcomes
Internal factor
The management of the brand has been able to manage a positive and healthy working culture,
which relatively impacted on the outcome of organisational change initiatives and learning
principles. According to Lee et al. (2016), workplace culture creates a major influence on
organisational principles and the final result. It works as a mutual process between managers and
employees. Both need to be compatible with one another in understanding and addressing each
others’ needs (Block, 2016).
The employees need to identify the efforts employers or managers are making to retain them,
based on which employees showcase their hard work and dedications. For example, Sanitarium
has established an online performance and development system named iGro, to ease the
communication pattern between employees and managers. Using this platform, both parties have
exchanged their perceptions in terms of performance goals, required behaviours and
developmental planning. The most important factor the organisation follows is maintaining
transparency, where employees were informed of every single strategy the management would
be taking in the upcoming future and its purpose behind. Hence, the ethics and principles the
management of Sanitarium wanted to follow within the workplace have been widely appreciated
and supported by its internal resources. This has also resulted in its retention figure, where
Sanitarium’s employee turnover rate has been around 1% per year. It indicates the fact that
Sanitarium has recruited the right people in the right culture.
External factor
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In a similar manner, the external factor also creates a strong influence on the final outcome o
organisational cultures and principles (Gifford & Nilsson, 2014). Herein, the market changes at a
rapid pace with the passage of time (Fernandez-Feijoo et al. 2014). Therefore, the brands are
often getting exposed to uncertain vulnerabilities and challenges. This has been the case with
Sanitarium, where the brand had altered its product lines to meet the changing market trends.
However, the brand has been extremely efficient in holding its exact mission, principles and
beliefs even after getting external pressures. This has also influenced the external parties and
customers to understand the positive intention of the organisation and stick by it with a long-term
intention. The brand’s health and well-being efforts have been awarded the Best Employer of
Choice award in the year 2014. This can be an encouragement for the brad to continue its
existing principles at future.
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4.0 Learning mechanism
The management of the brand made a strong effort in creating a great place to work. It has made
study efforts in gathering staff feedback to create effective strategies and implementing planned
initiatives (Duffield & Whitty, 2015). The initiative it has taken “truly value our people” has
been its foremost priority and this can be highly appreciated in the industry as well. To ensure
the fact that its staff are retained effectively, the brand has called for a suite of measures,
including various e-learning programs, off-site training, on the job training, retreats, workshops,
webinars and peer coaching. The employees are also given the opportunity to review their
salaries at the tenure of very 6 and 12 months. This has certainly created value on employees’
lives and they had been able to comprehend and related to the strong initiatives the management
is making for their developments.
4.1 Evaluation of learning mechanism
The management of the brand has always demonstrated his dedication towards building the right
culture that celebrates and respect the value for each staff and their hard work. It has been
identified that Sanitarium has also approached its cultural change and evolvement following
systematic manner by using biannual surveys of its full-time employees (Duffield & Whitty,
2016). This has effectively helped the brand to identify the areas where employees are being
lagged behind and the future efforts they seek to form the brand. Based on which, the above-
stated learning program is designed, which effectively engaged its employees in a learning
process at any given time and place. It has introduced web-based, on the job and off the job
training, which means the brand has kept its spectrum wide in terms of training employees at a
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given place from where they can attend the most accessible training platform. This has effective
for individuals as well as a team (Sujan & Furniss, 2015).
4.2 Recommendations
By far, the brand has been efficient in terms of handling its learning and change process. The
employees were given the right attention they require to retain their motivation at workplace.
The brand has included all possible training measures necessitated for employee development. In
the upcoming future, it needs to retain the specific abruptness, flexibility and spirit to ensure high
employee retention having correct expertise (Haase et al. 2015). The management needs to
conduct frequent engagement session, where employees would be given the change to peak free
with regards to organisational culture, product lines, business models, internal operation and
their compensation as well (Owens & Hekman, 2016). Survey always fails to justify employees
precise expressions and feeling, thus, engagement session would allow them to speak freely
(Beech et al. 2017). Relatively, managers can count on their body language and gestures as well,
which would be more effective (Navimipour & Zareie, 2015).
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References:
Beech,N., MacIntosh, R., Krust, P., Kannan, S., & Dadich,A. (2017). Managing change:
Enquiry and action (Australasian ed.), Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press.
Block, P. (2016). The empowered manager: Positive political skills at work. John Wiley & Sons.
Bolden, R. (2016). Leadership, management and organisational development. In Gower
handbook of leadership and management development (pp. 143-158). Routledge.
Duffield, S. M., & Whitty, S. J. (2016). Application of the systemic lessons learned knowledge
model for organisational learning through projects. International Journal of Project
Management, 34(7), 1280-1293.
Duffield, S., & Whitty, S. J. (2015). Developing a systemic lessons learned knowledge model for
organisational learning through projects. International journal of project management, 33(2),
311-324.
Elsmore, P. (2017). Organisational Culture: Organisational Change?: Organisational Change?.
Routledge.
Fernandez-Feijoo, B., Romero, S., & Ruiz, S. (2014). Commitment to corporate social
responsibility measured through global reporting initiative reporting: Factors affecting the
behaviour of companies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 81, 244-254.
Georgalis, J., Samaratunge, R., Kimberley, N., & Lu, Y. (2015). Change process characteristics
and resistance to organisational change: The role of employee perceptions of justice. Australian
Journal of Management, 40(1), 89-113.
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Gifford, R., & Nilsson, A. (2014). Personal and social factors that influence pro‐environmental
concern and behaviour: A review. International Journal of Psychology, 49(3), 141-157.
Haase, H., Franco, M., & Félix, M. (2015). Organisational learning and intrapreneurship:
evidence of interrelated concepts. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(8), 906-
926.
Lee, B. K., Seo, D. K., Lee, J. T., Lee, A. R., Jeon, H. N., & Han, D. U. (2016). Impact of work
environment and work-related stress on turnover intention in physical therapists. Journal of
physical therapy science, 28(8), 2358-2361.
Navimipour, N. J., & Zareie, B. (2015). A model for assessing the impact of e-learning systems
on employees’ satisfaction. Computers in Human Behavior, 53, 475-485.
Owens, B. P., & Hekman, D. R. (2016). How does leader humility influence team performance?
Exploring the mechanisms of contagion and collective promotion focus. Academy of
Management Journal, 59(3), 1088-1111.
Sujan, M., & Furniss, D. (2015). Organisational reporting and learning systems: Innovating
inside and outside of the box. Clinical Risk, 21(1), 7-12.
Waddell, D., Creed, A., Cummings, T., & Worley, C. (2016). Organisational change:
Development and transformation. Cengage AU.
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