When a Good Organisational Culture isn't Enough

Ex-Thomas Cook staff across England are working for free to help holidaymakers to salvage their trips. Employees who lost their jobs when the travel firm collapsed have set up pop-up shops to help customers fill in claim forms or rebook holidays.

It is pretty amazing, this level of irrational (i.e., not self-serving) dedication that TC employees display in a time when they face crisis themselves. This clearly points out to a very strong Organisational Culture anchored in customer-care and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (see brief explanation of OCB below).

"Former branch manager Donna Jones said staff were working for free "out of our love for our customers."" In any customer-service driven organisation, this type of dedication would be valuable as much as customers are. That these type of quiet-heroic behaviours were displayed by Thomas Cook rank-and-file employees speaks volumes to the success of the company to build a strong and effective organisational culture. Such culture, especially in a large organisation, is built over time and it is likely that is an outcome of decades of leadership. Organisational Culture is the predominant internal factor that affects how well an organisation

The tragic element of the story is that in the case of Thomas Cook, a strong culture and dedicated employees were not enough to save the company. This corroborates my analysis of the causes of failure and confirms that the major causes of company's failure were to be found in the top leadership who failed to effectively attend to external factors (a strategy that responds to changes in customers' behaviours and global economic and socio-political forces). Any company that hires Thomas Cook employees is making a good bet on acquiring high quality human resources.

Organisational Citizenship Behaviour refers to actions taken by employees that, while beneficial and may be even crucial for the effectiveness and success of a company, are not required by employees' official job description and go beyond their work role. There is a wide range of OCBs; for example, helping new team members integrate better, helping colleagues with their tasks, and speaking favourably about the organisation to outsiders. Studies identified nearly 30 types of OCB and management scholars classified them into seven categories: helping behaviours, sportsmanship, organizational loyalty, organizational compliance, individual initiative, civic virtue, and self development. In spite of the fact that the OCB has been studied since the early 1980s, many managers and leaders are not aware of it, don't realise how much it contributes to company's success and, crucially, do not know how to encourage OCB among their employees.

Quotes are from: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-49878197