The Effect of Team Work on Organizational Productivity
The Effect of Team Work on Organizational Productivity
Chapter One of The Effect of Team Work on Organizational Productivity
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Teamwork is as old as mankind, and as such many organizations use the term ‘team’ in either one sense or the other i.e such as in the production, marketing processes, etc. Examples are management team, production team or an entire organization can be referred as a team.
Cook (1998) claimed that there is a growing consensus among scholars in the world that organizations may be getting works done through individuals, but his super achievement lies in the attainment of set goals through teams (teamwork). It is a well known fact that teamwork is not only the foundation of all successful managements, but the means of improving overall results in organizational productivity.
Wage (1997) described Teamwork as an idea of working together in a group to achieve the same goals and objectives for the good of the service users and organizations in order to deliver a good quality of service (productivity). Ruth (2007) claimed that employees teamwork is seen as constituting a larger group of people than what job position describes, the essence of teamwork is that workload is reduced and broken into pieces of work for everyone to take part. Alan (2003) defined teamwork as a grouping of professionals whose members work intensely on a specific, common goal using their positive synergy, individual and mutual accountability, and complementary skills. Employees take baby steps toward accomplishing key action items and nothing important is finished. Team work is the ability to work together towards a common vision. It is a fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. Collective action is widely recognized as a positive force for teamwork in any organization or institution to succeed. Teams enable individuals to empower themselves and to increase benefits from cooperative work engaged on as a group. Getting together with others also can allow individuals to better understand the importance of teamwork and how the organizations operate as well as promote the culture of teamwork success.
Davis (2007) claimed that employers always stress the need for employing those (Employees) that can be able to work with a team. And they (Employers) generally talk of teamwork when they want to emphasize the need to various talents possessed by different employees. The organizations however, coordinate the employees into different teams, such as management team, production team, etc. This is purposely to tap from the abilities of respective human resources employed by an organization.
Organization according Caroline (2008) is a social entity that is goal directed, deliberately structured activity systems with a preamble boundary.
Alan (2008) claimed that productivity is the rate at which an employer, company or country produces goods, and the amount, produced, compared with how much time, work and money is needed to produce them.
This therefore, shows that, this study will concentrate specifically on the use of the term ‘teamwork’ which involves reshaping the way work is carried out. This includes organizing employees into teams based on a distinct product, each team performing a particular task. These teams are given a high degree of responsibility and are expected to work with flexibility.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Every organization, either large or small, struggles to acquire productivity so as to achieve success and maintain a valuable image in this present world of organizational competitions. And it is the wish of organizations to see the input they use (resources) and the output (goods and services produced) they have at the end.
The population of workers in an organization may be very large and yet that organization achieving a very low productivity and with no improvement in their products. Could this occur as a result of absence of teamwork in such organizations. And if it is, then, there are other organizations that have teams and yet achieve little or no productivity at all. It may be as a result of the following problems:
- Lack of Teamwork in the Organization: That is the failure of an organization to coordinate works into work groups in order to tap from the respective human resources the organization possesses.
- Poor Leadership Styles in the Organization: It may be as a result of the leadership style of the organization possibly not favorable to teamwork.
- Poor Leadership of the Work Teams: Different work teams may exist, but lacking the persons with the team leading acumen to lead them.
- Lack of Motivation of the Workforce: The way in which organizations reward their workforce may also lead to low organizational productivity even when their staff work in teams.
- Prevailing Conditions that hinder growth in an Organization: The conditions permanently occurring in an organization (lack of picking-up of innovative ideas) like the absence of designing motivational programs, educational growth, bonuses, job rotation and the use of old technologies, etc, may be the cause of low organizational productivity.