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Module – 2, Group Functions.

The major external factors to be mindful of.

1. Organizational Culture

Your team is a subset of a larger organization. This organization has its unique cultures,
procedures, and policies that affect what happens in your unit. You may be a great project
manager, but if there are negative practices in the organization as a whole, they can affect
your team’s productivity.

For example, where the overall culture of a company encourages friendliness and
professionalism in top management’s conduct with staff, customers, and suppliers, it
encourages an environment of productivity, increased feedback, and progress. On the other
hand, a negative and punitive culture leads to employee dissatisfaction, high employee churn,
and absenteeism. This is the reality as confirmed by several studies including this one by the
Harvard Business Review.

Other common aspects of a company culture that can have a major impact on your team are
poor incentives and remuneration, unrealistic workloads, poor communication, and a lot of
unnecessary administrative tasks at every step. Identifying and understanding these issues
will help you manage the situation as best as you can.

2. Availability of Talent

Workforce shortages are becoming a challenge in several industries including engineering,

If you operate in an industry that is experiencing talent gaps, it can have a significant effect
on your entire team in the following ways:

• Qualified team members frequently leaving your company to seek better opportunities
elsewhere.

• Project delays due to a longer recruiting process.

• Increased risk of employing less qualified staff than intended.

• Spending time to train new entries from scratch.

In such situations, you may need to put in some extra effort to fill the available positions. For
instance, you could try leveraging your professional network to solicit referrals, or to find
suitable candidates to headhunt. Also, you can partner with colleges to identify potential
talent or do some paid promotion on sites like LinkedIn which have a large pool of job
seekers with different levels of experience.

3. Workplace Environment

The workplace environment has a major effect on the performance and productivity of any
employee as team morale and health can be directly affected (either positively or negatively)
by the workplace environment.

Factors like temperature, air quality, lighting, cleanliness, hygiene, and noise in the office
will certainly affect their ability to focus on the tasks at hand and deliver the required results.

Take temperature, for instance. Numerous studies have repeatedly demonstrated the effect of
indoor temperature on task performance in an office environment. The recommended
temperature range for ideal workplace conditions is between 23-26°C (summertime) and 20-
23.5°C (during winter). Of course, individual preferences will differ, but the general idea is to
provide “thermal comfort.” That is, people wearing a normal amount of clothing should feel
neither too cold nor too warm.

Temperature is just one of many factors. No one wants to work in a dark, dingy, and dirty
office, and one of the best ways to avoid being preoccupied with the physical conditions in
your facility is to employ the services of a facility manager.

They are trained to implement and run maintenance systems to support well-functioning
buildings. Part of that is making sure that systems like the HVAC, lighting, plumbing, etc, all
function without unplanned interruption. They also often use CMMS software that allows
anyone in the office to quickly submit a work request if something isn’t working properly.
They just need to visit a URL, describe the problem, and click submit.
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At the end of the day, it is not hard to understand that your team stands a better chance of
delivering superior work when they are physically comfortable.

4. Tools and Resources

It’s one thing to require superior work from staff but do you know if they have what they
need to get the job done? Most of our work today happens with the aid of machines and
gadgets. If your team doesn’t have the tools and equipment required for their respective jobs,
it will negatively impact overall performance.

And it’s not enough to ask if your team has the tools and resources at its disposal. It’s also
important to audit the condition and suitability of these tools at intervals because outdated
and clunky tools are almost as bad as none at all.

Here are a few key things you can check:

• Physical tools such as machines, instruments, spare parts, and consumable supplies.

• Safety protocols, work procedure manuals, job aids, and record-keeping tools.

• Internet connectivity, computers, and communication systems.

• The quality of your software solutions.

I want to give special attention to software solutions. For example, you surely use project
management software. What if your provider had server issues and you couldn’t access your
projects? What if they made a significant workflow update that isn’t necessarily a move in
the right direction or if it just takes a lot of time for your team to get accustomed to new
options? What if there is simply a better option on the market that can save you more time on
everyday tasks?

An average office worker uses a lot of apps in their job. Being on the lookout for better
alternatives is never a bad idea.

5. Market Trends and Forces

Whatever industry you operate in, your activities are influenced by certain market forces and
trends. They include new technology, government policies, economic conditions, consumer
demand and supply, etc.
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For example, new regulations may require that you make significant changes to your team’s
workflow. Or improvements in technology may require that you deploy more modern and
agile methodologies, tools, and techniques all within a specified period.

The effect on your team is that work will need to be done differently moving forward. To
thrive under these conditions, it’s important that you build an agile workforce that can
quickly adapt to new changes