Vodafone Hutchison Australia: Organizational Behavior and Leadership

This report provides an analysis of organizational behavior and leadership within Vodafone Hutchison Australia, focusing on micro-level aspects such as employee motivation and its impact on organizational achievements. It identifies issues within the company related to employee motivation, innovation, and customer service, and discusses the application of motivation theories like Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Herzberg's two-factor theory to address these challenges. The report also highlights the importance of effective leadership in risk management and suggests alternatives such as trust-building, incentives, and the adoption of a total quality management approach. Furthermore, it recommends the implementation of open innovation models like the Quadruple Helix model to foster teamwork and collaboration, ultimately aiming to improve employee engagement and productivity at Vodafone Hutchison Australia.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
Organizational Behavior and Leadership
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note

1ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
Introduction
Organizational behavior is the scientific study of the behavior of the human being within the
structure of the organization (Wilson, 2018). However, it should be understood at two levels, one
at the micro level and other at the macro level. The micro level analysis of the organizational
behavior discusses about the individual human behavior and their impact in the organizational
achievements. However, at the macro level it is the understanding of the behavior of the
organization, how they adapt to the market situation and their strategic management. This paper
will analyze the various micro level analysis of the organizational behavior within the context of
the Vodafone Hutchison Australia.
Hutchison telecommunications (Australia) is private limited company, which has fifty
percent share with Vodafone Australia (Vodafone Australia, 2018). This merger was a result of
the joint venture of 2009.The Hutchison Australia and Vodafone Australia brought together their
consumer base under one umbrella. Presently, it has over 5 million users alone in Australia and
its annual revenue is over $3.4 billion (Vodafone Australia, 2018). This merger had not only
brought together two big companies of the country, it also brought their global expertise, scale
and innovative technologies together.
Organizational behavior issues of Vodafone Hutchison Australia
At the individual level of analysis, organizational behavior includes the study of the motivation
factor among the employees of the company.
Motivation factor: Managers achieve the organizational goals by guidance and leadership to the
employees. Motivation is the reason for an individual’s action towards achieving certain goals.
Motivation and satisfaction of the employees are positively related to the productivity of the

2ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
company.(Aithal & kumar, 2016). The role of the manager is to ensure proper decision-making,
leadership and negotiation with the employees. It is found that transformational leadership has a
positive impact on the motivation of the employees (Ahmad et al, 2014). Hence, the employees
feel motivated if the manager is able to inspire them at work. However, the motivating
employees are not the same as it was in past. In case of Vodafone Australia, the employee
motivation is weak as there is less commitment to innovation and adaptation. There are number
of complaints being lodged against the company’s customer service (Rajeswari et al, 2017).
There are complaints by people that the company does not solve the network related issues
immediately, rather it takes hours even days often to solve their service issues (Annystudio.com,
2018). This is an issue not with the organization rather with the work culture that the company
poses. The company should ensure that the grievances of people are solved with a short span of
time, which requires the active mindset of the employees to resolve the issues regularly.
According to Maslow’s theory of motivation, there various needs of the employees, which
motivates them to work, namely the psychological needs, safety, need, social needs and self-
actualization needs(Healy, 2016).
There are certain problems associated with the Vodafone Australia’s operations. Firstly,
it lacks an innovative method of employee motivation. Unlike the other telecom companies of
Australia like Optus, this company does not focus on employee motivation to a large extent. The
company fails to give to its employees the “feel-good” factor .Companies as Optus help the
employees with payroll giving and business-supported volunteering (Optus, 2018). There are
evidences that due to the lack of motivating measures the employees tend to remain less
committed at work.

3ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
Secondly, there is a need to create little fun within the work environment of the company
for the engagement of the employees. It helps building positive relationships within the
employees of the company. The Vodafone Australia lacks any such fun method of employee
engagement like companies like those that Telstra has adopted.
Thirdly, the company does not acknowledge the importance of thanking their employees
for their effort. There is a need to create positivity among the minds of the employees and builds
up more commitment for future effort. This positivity could work as a boon for the future
productivity of the company.
Theories of motivation and its application:
There are number of motivation theories given by the scholar that could be adopted to
change the company’s working style. The theorist Maslow proposes the first theory. According
to Maslow’s theory of motivation, there are various needs of the employees that motivates them
to work, namely the psychological needs, safety, need, social needs and self-actualization needs
(Healy, 2016). This theory is known as the “hierarchy need theory”, that says that people feel
motivated due to fulfillment of certain needs. If these needs are fulfilled people feel extremely
motivated towards their work (Johnson et al, 2018). The company should adopt this approach to
ensure that the employees are enough motivated to their work which can inspire them to be more
productive (Ganta, 2014).The Vodafone Australia should adopt a method similar to this so that
the company can achieve an overall growth of the employees and the employees feel motivated
at work. The company can adopt certain psychological factors like fun programs or it can
increase incentives to make them feel safe. Various methods of motivating factors could be
adopted looking at the situation of the company. The methods of motivating the employees have
been discussed at the later part of the essay.

4ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
An alternative to the Maslow’s theory, there is the “motivation hygiene theory”. The motivation
hygiene theory is also called the two factors theory propagated by Herzberg, mentions that there
two set of factors that determines the job satisfaction of the employees in a workplace (Herzberg,
2017). These factors include responsibility, achievement, recognition and most importantly the
opportunities for growth and advancement of the employees. Telecommunication companies like
Telstra and Optus in Australia, focuses more on the motivation factors of the employees when
work pressure increases because this is the time when the employee motivation decreases.
However, Vodafone Hutchison lacks this understanding of the importance of incentives.
Companies like Vodafone should ensure that the employees get their tax return benefits at time,
which will work as incentives for work (Ganta, 2014).
Challenges of the Vodafone Hutchison:
The company lacks an innovative mode of working. Other telecommunication companies
in Australia like Optus has adopted methods for making the work culture more enjoyable.
However, this company lacks such an environment that can boost the employee’s morale and
productivity at the same time. Hence, there is a need to develop a motivated work culture within
the company.
Vodafone Australia also suffered from telecommunication issues, which led to large
number of customers opting for other telecom services. The root of the problem is the employee
productivity and adoption of proper technology. Because of this, the telecom industries of
Australia are able to make their hold stronger in the telecom market of the country.
However, the problem not only lies in motivation, there is also presence of lack of
motivational leaders at the work place. The company lacks efficient leadership that can be

5ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
utilized for proper risk management. The leaders at Vodafone Australia lacks a proper
mechanism for risk calculation and their timely mitigation. Companies like Optus has adopted a
“proactive risk management system” that helps to build understanding between the employees
and the leaders regarding the risk issues of the company. A proper risk calculation along with
efficient leadership would create employee preparedness for such risk situations.
A proper leadership with efficient skill of organizational development can act a catalyst
for change in its employees (Miner, 2015). During the 2013 “Vodafail” movement in Australia,
the company lost over a million customer due to poor management of the company’s service.
The company’s leadership under the then CEO was difficult to analyse (Annystudio.com, 2018).
The company suffered setback due to its approach towards the other players in the market. The
company made less effort to bring the lost customers in the market because there are other
powerful companies like Telstra and Optus. Moreover, the company failed to create enough
employee motivation in order to come out of that situation. Mostly it took a negative attitude
towards the challenging situation. There is need for a strong leader for Vodafone at this moment
when it is already struggling to establish itself as a major competitor in the market. According to
Landis et al (2014), for effective management of the risk situation by utilizing the talent of the
people is only possible when strong leaders are operating at the head of the organization. With a
lack of effective leadership, the employees would develop a negative attitude towards their work
and face lack of motivation to work. Hence, a research and detailed analysis of the organizational
behavior is important.
Probable alternatives:
The company should adopt a robust motivation system which will incorporate methods
like trust building, incentives for every achievement, setting up smaller weekly goals, focusing

6ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
on individual than the entire team and creating positivity within the employees(Inc.com, 2018).
For adopting this system, the company can adopt the Maslow’s model of motivation (Refer to
appendix A). The company should adopt this approach to ensure that the employees are enough
motivated to their work which can inspire them to be more productive.
It can ensure that the company hire leaders who has knowledge about the transactional
leadership (Antonakis et al, 2014). A transactional leader would use tools like ratings, incentives,
rewards and appreciation to motivate the employees.
Recommendations:
Vodafone Hutchison should adopt what is known as the “total Quality management”
(Hoffer et al 2015). This is a principle of management that ensures quality management of the
service rendered and at the same time develops the overall organizational processes. This will
inspire the employees of the company to think about what they do and become involved in the
organizational decisions. It is about rethinking and reengineering the designs already adopted by
the company.
The company should adopt method like “Ping pong” which are adopted by other
companies that proved to be fruitful and it helped increasing productivity of then employees.
Vodafone Hutchison Australia has to adopt the “open Innovation” paradigm that helps to
build a comprehensive technology and innovation base by adopting the internal and external
ideas. Under the Open innovation model, the company can adopt the “Quadruple Helix” model
(Parveen et al, 2015). This model is particularly used and verified in telecom companies of
Pakistan, which showed positive result (Parveen et al, 2015). According this model encourages
the sharing of ideas, help building teamwork and collaboration. Through this application, the

7ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
company can better judge the issues arising out of poor technology and service because it gives
an insight into the positive relation between culture and commitment towards innovation
(Parveen et al, 2015).
At the individual level, it can be suggested that the Board of Director at the company
number of women should be increased. An equal gender balance in its workforce would help
create a positive mindset among the employees. This can act as a motivating factor for the
employees of the company.
Conclusion:
Organizational behavior is the study of the individual and the organizational behavior at
the micro and macro level. This is extremely helpful in understanding the different nuances of
the working of the organization so that the organizational goals could be achieved with greater
rate of success. An efficient working of the company based on the study of the organizational
behavior, which will ensure the success of the company. It is important to understand the attitude
of the employees of a company so that an effective leadership can be employed.
Through the analysis of the company’s organizational behavior it could be summed up
that the company has better management of its micro level factors, that are motivation,
leadership, incentives, perception, human resource etc. However, the company lacks some of the
important things required for its micro level management. The company fails to understand the
market demands and delays in their proper implementation and adoption methods. By the time
it adopts the required infrustrure, some other major players of the market already fulfils the gaps.
The company should focus more on the macro level issues like the productivity, service, quality

8ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
and judge its position with other companies. It should try focusing more on its organizational
behavior outside, at the market place than its domestic concerns of employees behavior.

9ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
Appendix A
Figure: Maslow’s theory of motivation
Source: (Created by the author)
Psychological
needs Safety needs
Social needs
Self-
actualization
needs

10ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND LEADERSHIP
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