Whole Foods Case Study

Managers require many skills, including conceptual skills, technical skills as well as human skills, to productively manage their employees. As a manager climbs the hierarchy of their organizations, learning soft skills becomes more important. This paper introduces the reader to a real world organization and ways in which four soft skills - organization learning, personalities, work motivation and stress - are being utilized within the organization to help them sustain a competitive advantage.

Applying concepts of organizational behavior to actual organizations helps managers to learn about its various theories. Four theories of interest that warrant additional consideration include organizational learning, personalities, work motivation

When looking for new employees, managers should search for individuals who are extroverts. According to authors Hitt, Miller and Colella, this type of person is “outgoing and derives energy from being around other people” (Hitt et al, 2015). Another attribute leaders should seek in their future employees is conscientiousness. Whole Foods try’s to cultivate an environment where team members are encouraged to set goals and work towards accomplishing their goals, therefore leaders and team members should look for candidates that have a demonstrated history of being organized, reliable, focused, and being capable of making smart choices. Whole Foods employees work as teams thus agreeableness is a characteristic that all employees need to have. Dealing in customer service is inherently stressful at times, in light of this, emotional stability is critical for team members to have in order to cope with some of the stressful situations and heavy demands that may be place upon them. At last, team member and leaders, need to be open to new experiences. In order to remain competitive, Whole Foods must remain innovative. Change does not have to be difficult, when employees are open to new ideas change is more easily

Organizations will be faced with stress on a daily basis. One model, demand-control model, suggests that work place stress is a function of both job demands and job control. According to the model when job demands are high and control is limited then the stress is at it highest. Stress induced from high demand and low control does not seem to be the case with Whole Foods due to their organizational structure. Team members are empowered to make critical decisions concerning their work. Therefore even though demands maybe high the amount of control their employees are given over their product areas causes the stress to be low. Whole Foods executives would have less stress to deal with due because mundane issues are being managed at lower levels. Another model, effort-reward imbalance model, suggests that stress is a result of the effort required by an employee as compared to the rewards an employee receives (Hitt et al, 2015). For Whole Foods high performing team members and leaders, the stress from being rewarded for performance is low. Employs are paid well and also receive bonuses when they perform exceptionally well. It is clear that Whole Foods experiences a lower stress environment compared to their competition. Their turnover rate is a negligible 7% contrasted with the industry average of 90% and