SEMINAR ON THE EFFECT OF TEAMWORK ON ORGANIZATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY

1.1 Introduction

Team work is the ability to work together towards a common vision. Teamwork is a fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results. Teams enable individuals to empower themselves and to increase benefits from cooperative work engaged on as a group (Husain, 2011). Teamwork is usually an integral part of the workplace. Basic teamwork involves everyone working together to support the organization and complex forms of teamwork could involve work teams chosen to complete a project by working closely. Teamwork enhances productivity through joint and collective effort. Allowing team members to bring their specific education and training to a project or a work task, which maximizes the variety of work the team can accomplish as well as the number of tasks completed without additional research. It is true that more minds can sometimes work better than a single one (Okoh, 2006).

As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitation of the study and Definition of terms.

1.2 Background of 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. Teams as part of everyone’s life and as part of organizational building is often view as a group (a collection of people) who interact to achieve a common goal but an effective, well-functioning team is much more than this (Murray 2000). It has been found that it dramatically affects organizational performance. Some managers have credited teams with helping them to achieve incredible results.

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.

Team work is the ability to work together towards a common vision. Teamwork 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 organization operate as well as promote the culture of teamwork success. Without teamwork houses take long to build, government collapse and companies are outshined by their competitors in the market and lastly without teamwork people lose their inspiration (Husain, 2011).

According to Takuya (2009), there is nothing like one size fits all type of concept at play when handling different types of team structures for specific goals in mind. Deep thought and consideration is required to identify, assemble and also convince the team members to work together on a variety of assignments.

Some teams are like a shadow in the background, they are always there but not very visible, yet most essential to run day to day operations of the organization. These teams for most part handle finance, sales and marketing and are deemed to be the functional leg of the entire organization. Such teams usually work under broad guidelines and policies formulated by the top executives of the corporation and it runs more or less smoothly without much fuss and noise.

Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Effect of Teamwork on Organizational Productivity.

1.3 Statement of Problems

Investigation revealed that 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. 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:

1. 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.
2. Poor Leadership Styles in the Organization: It may be as a result of the leadership style of the organization possibly not favorable to teamwork.
3. Poor Leadership of the Work Teams: Different work teams may exist, but lacking the persons with the team leading acumen to lead them.
4. 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 works in teams.
5. 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.

1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study

The aim of the study is to investigate the Effect of Teamwork on Organizational Productivity. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:

1. To investigate the ways leadership styles used by the organizations affect organizational productivity;
2. To find out the effect of poor leadership on work teams leadership;
3. To investigate the benefits of motivation to the workforce;
4. To find out the effect of teamwork on organizational productivity; and
5. To find out the prevailing conditions that hinder growth to organizational productivity.

1.5 Research Questions

The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:

• Does leadership style of an organization affect teamwork?
• Does team’s poor leadership style affect their output?
• In what ways does teamwork affect on organizational productivity?
• What are the benefits of motivation on organizational productivity?
• What are the prevailing conditions that hinder the growth of organizational productivity?

1.6 Research Hypothesis

In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.

Hypothesis One

• H0: Leadership style of an organization does not affect team work productivity in an organization
• H1: Leadership style of an organization affects team work productivity in an organization

Hypothesis Two

• H0: Team’s poor leadership style does not affect the productivity of an organization
• H1: Team’s poor leadership style affects the productivity of an organization

1.7 Significance of Study

It is very much important to maintain the healthy advantages of productivity as a result of its importance to organizations. And teamwork is the best tool which can be used in helping us to achieve it (organizational productivity).

Looking at the important role that teamwork can play, to enable organizations achieve this, this study will be very significant to organizations, employers and employees, students, managers and future researchers.

1. Organizations: Organizations can take the provided information in this study to use it for saving them from their competitive advantage and improving their productivity and the important role teamwork can play in helping organizations to achieve productivity.
2. Employers and Employees: They can use it to develop and establish firm ideas that will bring about further development in the way and manner employers and employees can achieve the needed goals and objectives.
3. Managers: Practicing managers can make adjustments in their roles and leadership towards the attainment of the organizational productivity by introducing teamwork in organizations.
4. Students: This will serve as a guide and reference material to students who intend to carry out a research, read or write more on this topic.
5. Future Researchers: Those who will make or carry out a research in future will find it useful in meeting their goals.

1.8 Scope of Study

The scope of the research is focused on the Effect of Teamwork on Organizational Productivity using Eleyo B2D Resturant in Idiroko Ipokia Local Government Area of Ogun State as a case study.

Through the above mentioned organizations, the study will look at lack of teamwork in an organization, leadership style in an organization, poor leadership of the teams, lack of motivation of the workforce, and prevailing conditions in organizations.

1.9 Limitations of the Study

During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:

1. Time Constraint:The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
2. Establishment Policies:Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this research work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this establishment to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
3. Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
4. Frequent power failure:This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
5. Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

1.10 Definitions of Terms

Team:

A team is a formal group of members who interact at a high level and work together intensely to achieve a common group goal. When teams are effective, they draw on the abilities and experiences of their members to accomplish things that could not be achieved by individuals working separately or by other kinds of work group (Jones et al, 2008). Teams are especially appropriate for conducting tasks that are high in complexity and have many interdependent subtasks.

Group:

A group is a set of two or more people who interact with each other to achieve certain goals or meet certain needs. A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team. Teams normally have members with complementary skills and generate synergy through a coordinated effort which allows each member to maximize his or her strengths and minimize his or her weaknesses.

Teamwork:

It is the interdependent components of performance required to effectively coordinate the performance of multiple individual; as such, teamwork is the broader concept of team performance which also includes individual-level task work.

Productivity:

It is the effective and efficient use of all resources. Resources include time, people knowledge, information, finance, equipment, space, energy, materials.

Performance:

It is the accomplishment of a given task measured against preset known standards of accuracy, completeness, cost, and speed.

Organization:

It is a social entity, such as an institution or an association that has a collective goal and is linked to an external environment.