Disney Corporation, Research Paper Example

Today’s Disneyland is vastly different from the Disneyland of few decades ago due to the addition of new parks, parades, conventions, shows, and special events etc. As an organization grows, it becomes more difficult to manage operations efficiently due to the growing complexity of the organization as well as the scale of operations. The potential costs include lower employee morale, higher costs, and delays. In order to maintain its standards and ensure efficient control over operations, the management developed a new process to evaluate creative proposals(Lynch, 2001). The evaluation process has three key principles which are as follows:

• A pitch should include related information required to make a strategic business decision and all ideas are evaluated using the same criteria.
• Decision-making checkpoints ensure proper and detailed planning.
• Specific goals are developed and accountability is assigned to particular stakeholders for meeting budget and time constraints.

Disney understands that it is not always easy to evaluate the performance of thousands of employees, especially when the performance is often difficult to quantify, thus, it uses a variety of methods to motivate employees to do their best. For example, big-screen monitors hang in the laundry rooms and display the loading speed at which individual employees load the items into a laundry machine(Fastenberg, 2011).Disney also makes sure that employees are rewarded as soon as possible to keep the employees motivated. This is why managers and cast members reward subordinates and co-workers on a daily basis (Ligos, 2009).

The management understands that it is difficult to change an individual’s personality to suit the organizational culture. This is why the recruiters ensure that individuals are hired whose personalities are a good fit to the organizational culture and who are people oriented (Nelson, 1999). This makes it easier to maintain higher customer service standards for which the company is known for. Similarly, the new hires are trained by staff members instead of specialized trainers so that new employees have a realistic preview of their responsibilities and work environment. This also helps prevent surprises and maintain high performance standards by new employees.

Since the company empowers individual employees to motivate and monitor each other’s progress, it also helps maintain consistent performance standards. By ensuring that managers interact with all of their subordinates on regular basis (Nelson, 1999), the company ensures that managers stay up-to-date on the progress of their subordinates and take corrective actions where necessary. The emphasis on regular interaction among employees as well as employees and managers make it possible to quickly detect problems.

Disney’s management has both strengths and weaknesses. The management’s emphasis on empowering employees keeps employees motivated and encourages employees to contribute innovative ideas to improve operations. In addition, it also helps improve employee retention rates and morale. But the management’s emphasis on workplace relationships may also result in higher emphasis on being likable as compared to performance. A study by the company indeed found that some of the high-performing individuals were not very popular among colleagues while one of the most popular individuals was last on overall performance (Donini, 1997).

References

Disney Institute. (n.d.). Disney’s Approach to Creativity and Innovation. Retrieved October 20, 2012, from http://www.disneyinstitutecollateral.com/files/PDP/CreativityInnovation_Extended.pdf

Donini, J. (1997, October 6). Performance appraisals: 4 steps to better results. Retrieved October 22, 2012, from http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/1997/10/06/focus6.html?page=all

Fastenberg, D. (2011, October 19). Disney Uses ‘Electronic Whip’ To Push Employee Performance. Retrieved October 22, 2012, from http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/10/19/disney-uses-electronic-whip-to-push-employee-performance/

Hernandez, C. (2008, July 3). Disney: The Magic Business Kingdom. Retrieved October 20, 2012, from http://voices.yahoo.com/disney-magic-business-kingdom-1606157.html?cat=3

Ligos, M. (2009). How Mickey Makes Magic. Successful Promotions, 42 (5), pp. 44-47.

Lynch, L. (2001). Sustaining innovation: Walt disney instilled how. T + D, pp. 44-49. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/

Nelson, B. (1999, July 1). Motivation Matters: Disney’s Magic? Recognition. Retrieved October 20, 2012, from http://meetingsnet.com/corporate-meetings/motivation-matters-disneys-magic-recognition