Job Behaviors & Moral
Yasmin Rodgers
4341 Lakefield Mews Drive
Richmond, Va. 23231
Rodgers_Yasmin@yahoo.com
678-472-1088
GM591
Leadership and Organizational Behavior
Professor Joseph Plumley
October 9, 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Executive Summary…………………………………………………………..3 II. Background of Branch Banking & Trust Company ……………….………..3-5 III. Discussion of Current Business Issues…………………………………….....5-8 IV. Proposed Solution…………………………………………………………….9-11 V. Recommendations For The Executive Committee……………………………11-13 VI. References……………………………………………………………….…..14

Executive Summary

Thru my research and writing, my plan is to create the preliminary steps and outline for BB&T to become one of the companies admired by others and to work on a long-term goal of making BB&T into company with a low turnover rate. The TCO A objective that I will be utilizing within my study of BB&T is as follows: Given that people make the difference in how well organizations perform, assess how an understanding of organizational behavior concepts and theories is a useful knowledge base for career success and for improving an organization's effectiveness.

Background Of Branch Banking & Trust Company
“BB&T Corporation, headquartered in Winston-Salem, N.C., is among the nation's top financial-holding companies with $157 billion in assets and market capitalization of $19.1 billion, as of March 31, 2011. Its bank subsidiaries operate approximately 1,800 financial centers in the Carolinas, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, Maryland, Florida, Alabama, Indiana, Texas and Washington, D.C. Market share rankings in deposits: No. 1 in West Virginia; No. 3 in the Carolinas and Virginia; No. 4 in Kentucky; No. 5 in Alabama, Florida and Georgia; No. 6 in Tennessee; No. 7 in Maryland and Washington, D.C. (June 30, 2010 FDIC Deposits, SNL). BB&T's operating strategy distinguishes it from other financial holding companies. BB&T's banking subsidiaries are organized as a group of community banks, each with a regional president, which allows decisions to be made locally, close to the client. This also makes BB&T's client service more responsive, reliable and empathetic. Since 1995, BB&T has completed the acquisition of more than 35 community banks and thrifts, more than 85 insurance agencies, and 32 non-bank financial services companies. This acquisition strategy has contributed significantly to BB&T's success.” (e.g., “BB&T Bank,” n.d, para.1).
“In a rapidly changing and unpredictable world, individuals and organizations need a clear set of fundamental principles to guide their actions. At BB&T they know that the content of their business will, and should, experience constant change. Change is necessary for progress. However, the context, their vision, mission and values, are unchanging because these principles are based on basic truths.” (e.g., “BB&T Bank,” n.d, para.1).
“BB&T is a mission-driven organization with a clearly defined set of values. They encourage their employees to have a strong sense of purpose, a high level of self-esteem and the capacity to think clearly and logically.” (e.g., “BB&T Bank,” n.d, para.1). They also believe that competitive advantage is largely in the minds of our employees as represented by their capacity to turn rational ideas into action towards the accomplishment of their mission.” (e.g., “BB&T Bank,” n.d, para.1).
Cost Cutting activities are very strong within the company of BB&T. I have been there for nearly ten years and have seen areas within the company close down. There have also been job losses due to the cut backs. In many departments there is pressure to achieve goals in a market that is on a decline. With this added pressure there has been a noticeable turnover ratio within the branches. On a daily basis my colleagues that have been with BB&T for many years and the majority have a very negative attitude towards BB&T. The moral is also affecting the productivity of the other employees that have just started with BB&T. There is also a constant discussion of how it used to be before all the pressure and stressful environment.
In order to be a part of BB&T culture and company, you must be the best of the best. The individuals that work for this great company are strong, independent thinkers and innovative thinkers. That is the type of company I have grown to love throughout the years. This company has the opportunity to be a great company where employees are appreciated and have a great work environment. With these problems being addressed productivity will increase and turnover will decrease.

See Attachment below:

Discussion of Current Business Issues
The nature of the problem is the constant pressure to increase sales. There is also added stress to the work environment due to the employee moral being down. On a daily basis my colleagues that have been with BB&T for many years and the majority have a very negative attitude towards BB&T. The moral is also affecting the productivity of the other employees that have just started with BB&T. The extent of the problem is that the clients are noticing the problems within the company. There are noticeable staffing issues. There are several branches that are running without Financial Center Leaders. “If you watch or read the news, you’ll regularly find reports on the job satisfaction of workers. You’ll also find lots of job satisfaction studies in the academic literature. The results don’t always agree, but they usually fall within a common range. We can generally conclude that the majority of American workers are at least somewhat satisfied with their jobs, with a recent survey placing this figure at about 65 percent even during a time of economic downturn. But, job satisfaction has been declining for a dozen years or more. It also tends to be higher in small firms and lower in large ones; it tends to be lower among the youngest workers. And, job satisfaction and overall life satisfaction tend to run together. When workers in a global study were asked to report on common job satisfaction or “morale” problems, they identified pay dissatisfaction, number of hours worked, not getting enough holiday or personal time off, lack of flexibility in working hours, and time spent commuting to and from work.” (Schermerhorn,Hunt,Osborn,Uhl-Bien,2010,p20).
“There is a strong relationship between job satisfaction and physical withdrawal behaviors like absenteeism and turnover. Workers who are more satisfied with their jobs are absent less often than those who are dissatisfied. And satisfied workers are more likely to remain with their present employers, while dissatisfied workers are more likely to quit or at least be on the lookout for other jobs. Withdrawal through absenteeism and turnover can be very costly in terms of lost experience, and the expenses for recruiting and training of replacements. In fact, one study found that up or down changes in retention rates result in magnified changes to corporate earnings”. (Schermerhorn,Hunt,Osborn,Uhl-Bien,2010,p22)
“When OB scholars talk about “spillover” effects, they are often referring to how what happens to us at home can affect our work attitudes and behaviors, and how the same holds true as work experiences influence how we feel and behave at home. Research finds that people with higher daily job satisfaction show more positive after-work home affect. In a study that measured spouse or significant other evaluations, more positive at-home affect scores were reported on days when workers experienced higher job satisfaction. Issues of the job satisfaction and at-home affect link are especially significant as workers in today’s high-tech and always-connected world struggle with work-life balance.” (Schermerhorn,Hunt,Osborn,Uhl-Bien,2010,p23). “There is considerable debate on the issue of causality in the satisfaction–performance relationship, with three different positions being advanced. The first is that job satisfaction causes performance; “a happy worker is a productive worker.” The second is that performance causes job satisfaction. The third is that job satisfaction and performance are intertwined, influencing one another, and mutually affected by other factors such as the availability of rewards.” (Schermerhorn,Hunt,Osborn,Uhl-Bien,2010,p24). “Too much stress can overload and break down a person’s physical and mental systems, resulting in absenteeism, turnover, errors, accidents, dissatisfaction, reduced performance, unethical behavior, and even illness. Stanford scholar and consultant Jeffrey Pfeffer calls those organizations that create excessive stress for their members “toxic workplaces.” A toxic company implicitly says this to its employees: “We’re going to put you in an environment where you have to work in a style and at a pace that is not sustainable. We want you to come in here and burn yourself out. Then you can leave.” (Schermerhorn,Hunt,Osborn,Uhl-Bien,2010,p23).
“As is well known, stress can have a bad impact on a person’s health. It is a potential source of both anxiety and frustration, which can harm the body’s physiological and psychological well-being over time. Health problems associated with distress include heart attacks, strokes, hypertension, migraine headache, ulcers, substance abuse, overeating, depression, and muscle aches. Managers and team leaders should be alert to signs of excessive distress in themselves and their co-workers. Key symptoms are changes from normal patterns—changes from regular attendance to absenteeism, from punctuality to tardiness, from diligent work to careless work, from a positive attitude to a negative attitude, from openness to change to resistance to change, or from cooperation to hostility.” (Schermerhorn,Hunt,Osborn,Uhl-Bien,2010,p23).
Management plays a large part as to why the moral of the team may be lacking. This is greatly changed by understanding the different levels of morality based on management styles.
“The immoral manager doesn’t subscribe to any ethical principles, making decisions and acting in any situation to simply gain best personal advantage. This manager essentially chooses to behave unethically. One might describe in this way disgraced executives like Bernard Madoff and others whose unethical acts make headlines. The amoral manager, by contrast, fails to consider the ethics of a decision or behavior. This manager acts unethically at times, but does so unintentionally. Common forms of unintentional ethics lapses that we all must guard against include prejudice that derives from unconscious stereotypes and attitudes, showing bias based on in-group favoritism, claiming too much personal credit for one’s performance contributions, and giving preferential treatment to those who can benefit you.37 Finally, the moral manager is one who incorporates ethics principles and goals into his or her personal behavior. For this manager, ethical behavior is a goal, a standard, and even a matter of routine; ethical reasoning is part of every decision, not just an occasional afterthought.” (Schermerhorn,Hunt,Osborn,Uhl-Bien,2010,p60).
“Leaders can and do move the ethics centers of gravity in organizations. But they must accept that in their behavior and example rests the capacity to do this with great good or great harm. This is intended as an encouraging message but one that requires great personal and organizational commitment and discipline to fully enact. Corporate leaders who focus on ethics mindfulness should gain change momentum; they should find that the virtuous shift in ethical tendencies is not just a concept but an achievable goal.” (Schermerhorn, Dinehart, 2004,p 62-63). “There is too much at stake for this ethics leadership agenda to be denied. Recent experience with a troubled economy has taught citizens that business is an essential part of the social fabric. They are also recognizing, perhaps belatedly, that when business fails ethically, we all fail. Rebuilding the ethical character of our institutions and regaining public confidence in them are realizable aspirations. Real progress, however, can be made only when the initiatives for ethics change come from within the firm and from its leaders.” (Schermerhorn, Dinehart, 2004,p57). “Writing in this journal in 1999, Michael Hitt and Duane Ireland defined strategic leadership as “a person’s ability to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility, think strategically, and work with others to initiate changes that will create a viable future for the organization.” We believe that for business executives the strategic leadership responsibility for “initiating changes” has to include the goals of creating and sustaining ethical climates within which employees act ethically as a matter of routine. We also recognize that in fulfilling this responsibility, executives face the same leadership challenges as in any large-scale organizational change program. Borrowing from John Kotter’s work on transformational change, we suggest that successful ethics change initiatives will require that leaders: (1) create a sense of urgency to break any sense of complacency; (2) take action to center momentum for change within the membership; and, (3) anchor changes in the organization’s culture to make them sustainable.” (Schermerhorn, Dinehart, 2004,p57).
There is also a large concern geared towards job cuts and layoffs. “The banks' declining profit growth tells you we are likely to see sizeable redundancies soon in the largest banks. In a small way, some lay-offs have already begun. n one researcher's opinion, white-collar job losses are feeding into seemingly well-off suburbs that are already experiencing ''recession-level'' unemployment growth. On the forth coming redundancies, no bank is issuing press releases with the headline ''You're fired!'' but, behind the scenes; the realization has set in that the banking game's major growth engine isn't coming back any time soon. And there are plenty of weasel words that tell you what's coming: cost reductions; targeting duplications; removing inefficiencies, and so on, and so on.
Westpac appears to be taking an early lead in its preparations, although I am strenuously assured there are no across-the-board targets for job cuts, yet. For slightly different reasons, Macquarie is also on a path of jettisoning staff. The previously announced death of its real estate banking division means a steady trickle of staff are headed towards the door.All the major banks are likely to be drawing up similar plans for redundancies. Earlier this year, UBS banking analyst Jonathan Mott forecast a sustained period of borrowers pulling their heads in. When borrowers no longer back up the truck for the biggest loan they can afford, the banks take it in the neck. From an average in recent years of 14 per cent annual credit growth, Mott tipped a fall to 6 per cent credit growth this year, 5 per cent the next year and 4 per cent the year after that. The flow-on effect for banks is considerable. Profit growth that knocked the lights out - last year's 23.5 per cent growth from lows during the global financial crisis - is forecast to fall to anemic growth of low single digits. For the banks' chief executives there is no dodging the fact that profit growth will have to be gussied up by throwing some previously valued workers overboard. And that leads us back to the slightly nauseating sensation experienced by workers at their desks, and their spouses in coffee shops, as they consider the mortgage, the children's school bills and calculate the likely redundancy payout. Their uneasiness can only be compounded by early signs of a white-collar recession in some suburbs hitherto considered well-off.” (S.Washington, 2011)

Proposed Solutions
“Many theories attempt to explain why employees resist change even when it is obvious that change is necessary for an organization's survival. Resistance to change can be averted via:
Commitment: From the CEO to the janitor, every employee must be committed to the change plan. That commitment begins at the top; hence the organization's leadership must be especially attuned to successful implementation. One naysayer on the leadership team can ruin the entire process.
A change mandate: Change cannot be a choice. With gentle respect it must be made clear that change is not an option, it is a requirement.
Input: Anyone who will be affected by the impending changes must be given the opportunity to voice his or her opinion in a respectful and collegial setting.
Accountability: Every person affected by the change program must be held responsible for implementing his or her individual change activity. Not meeting that responsibility must carry consequences.
Rewards and celebration: Successful implementation should be acknowledged via compensation and/or recognition. The organization as a whole should commemorate the successful implementation of the change program as well.
Evaluation: Examining the success of the implementation at planned intervals is a strategic decision designed to gauge success over time and make corrections for unanticipated consequences.”(Ezine Articles, 2006.) Overlooking any one of the items above reduces the chance of successfully implementing a change program.
“It’s appropriate that “setting a clear and challenging direction” is at the top of the list. Whatever the purpose or tasks, the foundation for any high performing team is a set of members who believe in team goals and are motivated to work hard to accomplish them. Indeed, an essential criterion of a high-performance team is that the members feel “collectively accountable” for moving together in what Hackman calls “a compelling direction” toward a goal. Yet, he points out that in “most” teams, members don’t agree on the goal and don’t share an understanding of what the team is supposed to accomplish.”
“Everyone who will be affected by the change process must participate in its implementation, which begins with, soliciting ideas and input in the earliest planning stages. Once identified, there are several strategies that can be used to overcome resistance to change within the organization. In order to maintain stability, all individuals must be treated with respect as they may have valuable knowledge to contribute and doing anything less may create even more resistance.” (Schermerhorn,Hunt,Osborn,Uhl-Bien,2010,p3).
Must Have” Contributions by Team Leaders: * Setting a clear and challenging direction * Keeping goals and expectations clear * Communicating high standards * Creating a sense of urgency * Ensuring members have the right skills * Establishing rules for behavior * Modeling expected behaviors * Creating early “successes” * Introducing useful information * Helping members spend time together * Giving positive feedback
At all stages of the change process, it is advisable to seek areas for agreement. Later these commonalities can be leveraged to encourage the opposition to join the team. It is also important to acknowledge and fully understand the nature of the resistance. This feedback will form the basis for strategies to deal with that resistance. When the majority of the organization is on board it is certainly worthwhile to hear and address the concerns of a few holdouts, which perpetuates the goal of maximum buy-in. Finally, resistance can be overcome by making sure that the change effort is communicated effectively in a multi-dimensional format. Adult learning theory supports the need to propagate messages that are seen, heard, and felt. By seeking consensus, acknowledging feedback, and communicating effectively, organizations can meet resistance successfully. Nevertheless, there will be individuals who cannot function in a changed organization. These men and women will always feel that the relationship ("personal compact") with the employer has been broken.” (Ezine Articles, 2006.)

Recommendations for the New Committee
In order to begin the restructure of BB&T bank’s employee appreciation implementation, the company will need to change its corporate methodology of employee and positive work environment. By incorporating this new implementation they will need to educate the employees on the new process. The organization will also need to share the same vision and structure. Every employee that will be trained on this new program will be on a need to know and how the new structure will make their pursuit for new business a lot more streamlined. The efficiency of this new process will also ensure a brighter future for the company’s longevity in today’s market. Within this spectrum there will be a lot of energy around ensuring that the drivers and leaders understand the new system of employee relations to a proficient level. “On the organizational side, there is an increased emphasis today on employee assistance programs designed to provide help for employees who are experiencing personal problems and the stress associated with them. Common examples include special referrals on situations involving spousal abuse, substance abuse, financial difficulties, and legal problems. In such cases, the employer is trying to at least make sure that the employee with a personal problem has access to information and advice on how to get the guidance and perhaps even treatment needed to best deal with it.
Organizations that build positive work environments and make significant investments in their employees are best positioned to realize the benefits of their full talents and work potential. As Pfeffer says, “All that separates you from your competitors are the skills, knowledge, commitment, and abilities of the people who work for you.” Organizations that treat people right will get high returns.” That, in essence, is what the study of organizational behavior is all about.” (Schermerhorn,Hunt,Osborn,Uhl-Bien,2010,p27).
Virtual meetings and telecommuting will also allow employees to work closer to home and balance their work and personal lives more efficiently. Traditional office environments will shrink or disappear and freelancers from other countries will become a larger portion of the global economy. In order for BB&T bank to position itself above its competitors, it must continue to strive to deliver on bringing a superior work environment standard. The new employee relations improvement plan will give BB&T the positive work environment because it will decrease the amount of employees not able to work to the optimal performance. BB&T recognizes the importance of achieving and maintaining a balance between your career and your personal life. BB&T understands that their employees have needs beyond the workplace, which is why they currently offer the following benefits: * Short-Term Absence Pay * Holidays * Vacation * Paid Time Off for Jury Duty | * Parental Involvement in Schools * Scholarship Program * Employee Assistance Program * Banking Benefits |
“Crucial to creating the sense of urgency regarding ethical business behavior is an accurate appreciation of the full costs of ethical failures. Yet many of these costs appear nowhere in an annual report, on the balance sheet, or in the income statement, even though they are real and, in extreme cases, are of such significance that they can literally destroy the company.” After becoming CEO and chairperson of Alcoa in 1987, Paul O’Neill said: “I went to Alcoa with a burning fire . . . to demonstrate that it is possible for a truly great organization to be values based without any reservations.” (Schermerhorn, Dinehart, 2004,p57).

VII. References

1.) BB&T Company information. (n.d.). In BB&T online website. Retrieved from 1. http://bbt.mediaroom.com/index.php

2.) Strategies for Overcoming Resistance to Organizational Change. (2007) EZine Articles.com. Retrieved from http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Clanzenetta_Brown

3.) J.R.Schermerhorn, Jr., J.G. Hunt , R.N.Osborn and M.Uhl-Bien. (2010) Organizational Behavior: Introducing Organizational Behavior Today. 1.10

5.) T.Thomas, J.R. Schermerhorn Jr., and J.W. Dinehart, “Strategic Leadership of Ethical Behavior in Business,” Academy of Management Executive, 18, May 2004, pp. 56-66.

6.) S. Washington, Kings in Counting Houses Costing Jobs. (2011) The Sydney Morning Herald. swashington@smh.com.au