Student Details ( Student should fill the content)

Name Kanapaddala Gamage Chiran Nimanka

Batch No 24
Student ID (University ID and Cardiff Met ID : 20243948 ICBT ID :
ICBT ID) CL/CARDIFFMB/24/208
Scheduled unit details
Unit code MBA 7000
Unit title People and Organisations
Assignment Details
Nature of the Assessment Assignment 2 -WRIT 2
Topic of the Case Study GIVEN
Learning Outcomes covered YES
Word count 2800 words
Due date / Time 31st August 2022
Declaration
I certify that the attached material is my original work. No other person’s work or ideas have
been used without acknowledgement. Except where I have clearly stated that I have used some
of this material elsewhere, I have not presented it for examination / assessment in any other
course or unit at this or any other institution
Signature Date
Result (Assessor use only)
Marks by 1st Name & Signature of the 1st Agreed
Assessor Assessor Mark
Marks by IV: Name & Signature of the IV
For Office use only (hard copy assignments)
Receipt Received by
date

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Assignment Type & Title:
For student use: Critical feedback on the individual progression towards achieving the
assignment outcomes

For 1st Assessor use: Assessment feedback

Strengths

Weaknesses

Name & Signature of the Date

Assessor : :

Comments by the IV

Date
Name & Signature of the IV:
:

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Executive Summary
The complication and the rapid expansion of the Covid 19 by end of 2019 has compelled
organization to absorb new way of operating in this challenging context not only the organization
but also the employees need to adopt to different situations rather than reporting to his physical
work place and work.
The repot will critically identify the challenges the organization and the employee facing in the
context and has done a situational analysis and has described how the MBSL can use the
opportunity to change the process of they were doing over the years by going step by step of the
Kurt Lewin change management model further it has done a cultural analysis via Hofstede’s six
dimensions to understand about the current culture of the organization.
Finally the report is proposing a work from home policy where both parties can be satisfied and
in a way the organization objectives are met in the long run and keep most of the stake holders
satisfied.

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Contents

1. Introduction to the organization...................................................................................................8

2. Challenges faced by Employees in WFH....................................................................................9
2.1 Lack of work life balance.......................................................................................................9
2.2Increased work stress and decline of job satisfaction.............................................................9
2.3Challenge of developing work discipline and skills to work independently........................10
3. Challenges faced by the organization in WFH..........................................................................10
3.1Challenge of creating unnecessary sub cultures...................................................................10
3.2Cost of isolated staff.............................................................................................................10
3.3Technical Barriers.................................................................................................................10
3.4 Information Security............................................................................................................11
4. Situation Analysis......................................................................................................................11
4.1Cultural over view.................................................................................................................11
4.2 Kurt Levin model.................................................................................................................12
4.2.1Unfreeze.........................................................................................................................12
4.2.2Change............................................................................................................................13
4.2.3Refreezing......................................................................................................................13
4.3Herzberg Model....................................................................................................................14
5. Recommendation to overcome challenges by enforcing a work from home policy.................15
5.1Purpose of the policy.............................................................................................................15
5.2 Eligibility.............................................................................................................................15
5.3Procedures to follow to overcome the issues from employees point of view.......................15
5.3.1Establish work life balance.............................................................................................15
5.3.2Avoid work stress and increase job satisfaction.............................................................16
5.3.3Developing work discipline and skills to work independently......................................16
6. Organization’s Point of View....................................................................................................16
6.1Avoid creating unnecessary sub cultures..............................................................................16
6.2Cost of isolated staff.............................................................................................................16
6.3Technical Barriers.................................................................................................................17
6.4Information Security.............................................................................................................17
6.5Communication.....................................................................................................................17
7. Compensation............................................................................................................................17

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8. KPI.............................................................................................................................................18
9. Review.......................................................................................................................................18
10. Conclusion...............................................................................................................................18
11. Bibliography............................................................................................................................19

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1. Introduction to the organization

Merchant Bank Of Sri Lanka & Finance PLC a subsidiary finance company of Bank of Ceylon is
a leading financial service provider and being country’s first pioneer in trade finance and
investment banking. MBSL is a listed company in Colombo stock exchange and is a finance
company licensed by central bank of Sri Lanka. MBSL is providing innovative financial service
via a wide range of investment and lending solutions along with the corporate advisory service &
margin trading over the last four decades via fourty nine branches island wide (Merchant Bank
of Sri Lanka & Finance PLC, 2022).
MBSL has a work force of 1000 employees under the MBSL shelter. MBSL is a service
providing organization to the nation and it is quite challenging to give the promised service to its
customer during the pandemic as the service quality always in associated with human touch in
services.
Out of 1000 employees most of the employees been allocated to branches but in order to ensure a
smooth operation of the branch network work head office need to fully function as supporting
divisions. Employee distribution is as follows.
Head Office Branches
250 750

Department wise employee strength

Number of
Division employees
Finance 25
HR 15
Central Credit
Division 20
Credit Administration 25
IT 25
Support Service 7
Corporate Division
Credit 8
Fixed Deposit
Division 15
Central Recovery
Division 67
Treasury 5
Marketing Division 6
Region 1 Office 8
Region 2 Office 4

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 Call center 12
General
Administration 8
Total 250
(Internal Sources)
Due to the new normal method implemented to avoid spreading COVID 19 MBSL is exposed to
new challenging work conditions and the report will discuss the two aspect of it from the
organization point of view and the employee point of view.
The report will go through a critical analysis of the situation and propose to enforce a WFH
policy to overcome the narrow approaches of WFH model.

2. Challenges faced by Employees in WFH

By its meaning the work from home is defining as when an employee can full fill job
responsibilities without a physical attendance (Ambikapathy and Ali, 2022). The challenges and
the issues face in WFH the model (Houghton, 2020) can be review in two aspects they are both
from the employee and the organization aspect.

2.1 Lack of work life balance

Work life balance has been more crucial in a situation like this as every human being is under
pressure due to the pandemic. Though it says that the WFH model delivers more performances
reduce (Heras et al., 2020) the work-family imbalance (Irawanto, Novianti and Roz, 2021) most
of the employees didn’t had a suitable non disturbing environment to work at home most of them
were used to work from home on a corner of their visitors room or a corner of their dining table.
Since the employee’s children also been asked to participate studies online the some employees
has to take part and get the control over the day to day home routing while working due to this
employees had no clear boundaries between work and personal life(Irawanto, Novianti and Roz,
2021).
2.2Increased work stress and decline of job satisfaction

Imbalance of work life lead to an over loaded (P. Robbins and A. Judge,2013) and highly stress
(Sutarto, Wardaningsih and Putri,2022) employee. Strat of the pandemic been asked to WFH no
one had an idea about but been a service providing organization and customers expect the same
service they previously had also the MBSL does not want to compromise the service to
customers people who start to WFH didn’t had the adequate recourse such as system, speed
connection etc. even for a simple inquiry specially the frontline people had to talk to someone in
the office and get the information to deal with the customer. The difference between demands for
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work with the available resources was high and this leads to a decline of job satisfaction and
negativity (Irawanto, Novianti and Roz,2021).

2.3Challenge of developing work discipline and skills to work independently

Employees who are working in the WHF model has to develop their soft skills as no coworkers
to help him in his difficult tasks MBSL is a place which is having a helping hand culture in
frontline. If customer service desk of an employee over loaded with work they used to help the
coworker by preparing his reports help in handling his customers but in WHF all these are
impossible the employee has to work independently.

3. Challenges faced by the organization in WFH

3.1Challenge of creating unnecessary sub cultures

MBSL has its culture, own values and norms practice over the years after amalgamating with
different companies and a culture driven the organization performance. Also the employees been
in the culture for a time, WFH models leads the employees isolated or to reduce the social
interaction and that may let the sub cultures to arise which may occur negatively on organization
performance (Liwanag, 2022). As an example isolated employees came up with certain
unofficial social media group and kind of unrest arise.

3.2Cost of isolated staff

MBSL is an organization with having about 1000 employees even been adopted to WFH all staff
members cannot be use in this model as an example how can a teller perform his or her duties
from home. How can a cash collector collect his dues from his assign portfolio. Even though
these employees are been isolated the organization have to bear the cost of them without
contribution from them in this difficult times.

3.3Technical Barriers

The organization have to incur a high cost on providing laptops and related equipment to carry
out the daily business remotely even though the people who lives far without proper coverage of
internet didn’t gave the full expected output. Aslo some people didn’t had the technical

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capability of handling the situation efficiently and effectively neither the organization had no
time to train systematically them to perform their duties.
Apart from the challenges MBSL had experienced benefit out of WHF as the operation cost been
reduce due to low usage of electricity water a and the overtime cost heavily.
3.4 Information Security

MBSL is a finance institute and highly responsible about the customer’s information. By giving
the system access via personal laptops and personal wifi networks there is a risk of exposing data
to third parties.

4. Situation Analysis

4.1Cultural over view

Hofstede’s six dimensions of organization culture been used to evaluate current situation and the
below graph reflect where each dimension stand on.

Been a subsidiary of Bank of Ceylon, employee of MBSL feels that they are stronger than other
finance companies in Sri Lanka and well protected by mother Company, and under any
circumstances the mother bank will protect MBSl.
The culture (Linstead, Fulop and Lilley, 2009) itself has lot of structure and decision making
power (P. Robbins and A. Judge, 2013) routed to a single point so that most of the employees are
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demotivated they fell undervalued and always try to perform only the daily function no
innovative thinking even they had they are reluctant to come up and say as the culture itself don’t
encourage them so the MBSL culture is identified as a hierarchy culture (Heinz, 2022).
In a nut shell majority of staff is reluctant to change even in a highly competitive position in the
industry, what staff feels is that as they are performing the daily duties with organization process
policies and procedures it is sufficient to sustain in the long run of the business.

4.2 Kurt Levin model

(Morrison, 2014)
Change is common in the current competitive context organization operates. Also has to adopt to
change to be in the business in the long run. The success of the change is how the organization
manage the change in terms of the business they are in and the people involved with. Kurt Lewin
has introduced a three step model for a change management process. It separate the entire
process into three steps.
Unfreeze Change Refreeze
4.2.1Unfreeze

The first step and the organization is preparing to accept the change. In this stage the
management need to convey that why a change management process is needed. At the MBSL

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context, current business operating model is no longer valid, business can’t run in the ordinary
process and the industry is practicing new normal ways of doing things (Burnes, 2004)
MBSL operating in a highly competitive industry (Registered Finance Leasing Establishments,
2022) as a non-banking financial institution. Whether the organization like or not MBSL have to
adopt with the situation, MBSL has to unfreeze its old practices with WFH model unless they
will be not in the business anymore.MBSL will not be able to run its operation in the highly
competitive market with its competitors. Covid 19 pandemic has given a start to a significant
transformation across the organization by adhering to WFH.Kurt Lewins model says that
objective during the unfreezing stage is to educate the employee, utilizing the situation
management can educate employee about how important the change to stay in the market.
So that people of MBSL will feel why a change is needed the idea can be more empowered with
a formal way of communication figure out the current down fall of business revenue for the last
few month due to pandemic.
MBSL compelled to adopt the new WFH model as there is no such a way to operate due to the
current pandemic situation.
MBSL employees been practicing the same procedures over a time they are reluctant to change
(Akmal Memon, Shah and Khoso, 2021) but the pandemic itself has given the opportunity to
start the unfreezing form the existing culture and the processes by adopting WFH.Since the
MBSL has get the opportunity, the company can go accordingly with the next steps of change
and the refreezing.
This is the most difficult stage when it comes to MBSL as it has to deal with several workers
unions and most of the leaders of these unions are old employees who have practice the old way
of doing things in the industry.
4.2.2Change

The change stage is the tier people start to adopt the change in. Since they understood that the
old way of doing thing is no more generating result in the current context they try for new
normal (Burnes, 2004) the WFH model will be little accepted and start practicing.
Due to understanding that old ways of doing things no longer working people will use new
way,ideas will be shared and the new policy can be introduced in this stage(Burnes, 2004).
In MBSL context these were the periods that firstly the WFH introduced people work
accordingly with a little reluctant but when see the result coming they start embracing.

4.2.3Refreezing

This is the stage that employee feel comfort about the change and they are fully adopted to the
situation and embrace the new normal.

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In this stage management need to give the support to anchor changes for the long run for the
organization culture by giving the additional support like creating a rewarding system, establish a
proper feedback system implement KPI to assess the process success etc.
At the MBSL leader can assess the work of WFH employees and give a small reward to motivate
the others and through a feedback system they can identify what support people need to anchor
the change.

4.3Herzberg Model

(Nickerson, 2021)

Herzburg two factory theory says that in adequate presence of hygiene factors employees are not
dissatisfied neither not motivated in the above (Robbins and Judge,n.d.). In MBSL employees
are not given good working condition no proper guidance in the first instance at WFH.
Employees were over loaded. Further they were in the uncertainty of their annual bonus
increments promotion which means that both hygiene and motivation factors absent for the said
situation (Robbins and Judge, n.d.) which has lead the work force to a dissatisfaction.
Motivation factors like recognition is not in place in the WHF model as each of them works at
individually at their own premises also due to the certain conditions such as loss of business
growth and business expansion due to COVID 19 people also not much sure about the their next
promotion which directly lead them to a dissatisfaction.

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5. Recommendation to overcome challenges by enforcing a work from home policy

5.1Purpose of the policy

The objective of the following policy is to ensure give a better understanding of WHF model and
to carry out employees’ duties and responsibilities whenever it’s possible to perform from home
without compromising the customer service while ensuring a smooth operation within the
organization while minimizing the negativity of WFH.

5.2 Eligibility

Employees who do not need direct customer interaction are eligible to work from
home.Employees who perform duties with direct customer interaction such as tellers marketing
officers, recovery officers and front desk officers are excluded from the model.
The branch manager or the department head can decide to operate with a minimum staff and to
carry out daily operation and let others to work from home. As an example if a branch is having
two tellers branch manager can decide to run the operation with a single cashier and utilize the
other teller in other job function such as a for a call center etc.

5.3Procedures to follow to overcome the issues from employees point of view

5.3.1Establish work life balance

Each department head or the branch manager need to communicate clearly who will WFH in
before the week begin to the human resource and to the IT department that will ensure the
necessary system approvals and access been given on time.
The IT department will identify the access for each user accordingly to the company IT policy
and approval will be given. If new access to be given prior approval will be taken form
authorities for the same.
Since the organization to operate the from 8.30 am to 5.00pm employees who work from need to
log in to the system 8.30am and login time to the system will be taken as the attending time to
work and the log off time as the work off time. This will be highly monitored and the employees
are discouraged to work after 5.00pm and the login access will be restricted to 8.30 am – 5.00
pm. If any employee need an additional time to work it should get approved by HR.

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This ensure the work life balance of employee as organization use its normal business hours even
in remote working so that employee can have their time with the family.

5.3.2Avoid work stress and increase job satisfaction

Branch manager or the department head need a proper allocation of work among the WFH
employees so that it will reduce the work load of a single employee. Job rotation is accepted but
the manager need to pre evaluate the employee before assign the task.
Objective of the arrangement is to ensure smooth functioning of the customer service without
creating over load unsatisfied employee.

5.3.3Developing work discipline and skills to work independently

Work login and log off time should be monitored by each unit head and relevant branch manager
should act as the coworker of the WFH employees as and when needed.
A direct communication channel will be established to communicate in a situation like this. It is
the manager’s responsibility to identify each workers capabilities and to be prepared with.
This should be done in early stage when allocating the task in each week.

6. Organization’s Point of View

6.1Avoid creating unnecessary sub cultures

A clear communication of organization expectations from remote workers should send beginning
of each week and a token of appreciation will be send after evaluating weekly progress.
This will communicate among coworkers and keep it as a motivation factor among employees so
it will keep the employee focus on delivering expected outcome which clearly defined by
organization.
Multiple channel will act as touch points (Murphy, 2022) with remote workers such as
immediate manger, regional manager, human resource department etc each touch points should
be established with clear communication.

6.2Cost of isolated staff

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Branch managers are empowered with decision making in handling branch human resources.
Employees should not be isolated without an output to the organization. Capability should
identified and need to place where he fitted in the WFH.

6.3Technical Barriers

A technical support team should standby to help the WFH employees. There may be knowledge
gaps of employees.

6.4Information Security

Confidentiality of information is high priority. Accesses will be give via VPN to the company
servers and network and the user machine will be compiled with organization windows update
policy before connecting to VPN also the PAM accesses will be enabled.
VPN must always use only during office hours. Any breach of organization information security
policy will lead to immediate disciplinary action.




 ! 
6.5Communication

A proper communication channel need to be established for WFH employees. Below equipment
will provide.
A lap top / Internet connection/ required software and hard ware to keep the communication up
to standard.
A working progress need to communicate in each day end to the relevant authority.

7. Compensation

No additional allowances will be paid for WFH employees other than the previous
compensation. Monthly data charges will be bared by the organization.

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8. KPI
Employee satisfaction will be key KPI of the model and will measure using the feedback of the
staff.
Employee turnover during the period also a key KPI to assess the model success. A separate
question will be added to evaluate the correlation of the WFH and the employee turn over to the
exit interviews.

9. Review

Policy will be reviewed after a six month and necessary modification will be implement after
evaluation.

10. Conclusion

COVID 19 pandemic has led many industries to adopt to WFH.Almost all the employers and the
workers face new challenges in adopting the model and the situation of the banks and financial
organizations is critical in the current pandemic conditions. Both the organization and the
employee faces new challenges in fulfilling their own roles in organizations.
It is essential to identify the narrow approaches of the WFH model from both ends and sort in
order for a healthy long run of the business by ensuring the job satisfaction of employees. Also
the pandemic can be utilize as an opportunity to get a start of a change management process as
the pandemic itself given the chance to unfreeze whether the organization like or not.
The above study focus on the both employee and the employers challenges in WFH and it has
recommended a WFH policy to overcome the issues in the current context.

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