OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Symbolic Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the symbolic frame
2. Apply the symbolic frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

I held an internal role within the grocery store chain. During my tenure at Winn-
Dixie, I was a cashier from May 2001 to September 2003. My job was to provide a
positive customer experience with fair, friendly, and courteous service. At Winn-Dixie,
my daily duties consisted of processing grocery sales on a cash register by scanning
items, itemizing and totaling customers' purchases. I also helped resolve customer issues
and answer product questions. I would also bag purchases if needed. When I first started
working at Winn-Dixie as a cashier, the current management team would use overtime
pay as a tool to promote employees to take on more hours at work.

It was not uncommon for most employees to make additional income during the months
when the opportunity to work overtime pay presented itself. This scenario was a win for
both management and employees. Winn-Dixie was always hiring people throughout the
year; it was never seasonal like other companies I had worked for. The grocery store had
a revolving door work climate. After my first year at the company, I concluded that
management was forced to get creative to keep employees on the clock longer. They
needed to keep employees on the clock longer to make up for the lack of production that
otherwise would not have gotten generated.

At the end of the day, most employees, including myself, took advantage of the overtime
pay. The following year, the economy shifted in a way where things like gas, utilities and
rent were higher. Two months into the new year, the management lead was replaced by a
transfer from the headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida. His name was Daniel Brown. Mr.
Brown was an older gentleman who decided to make changes in the first sixty days he
was in the position. One of the changes he instantly implemented was the ability to accept
tips from customers regardless of position. As the weeks went by, people continued to
volunteer to work overtime as the company was still not efficiently retaining adequate

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 staff. When the pay period had closed, and the checks were printed on the first of the
month, some of the employees were confused.

Employees that had worked overtime during that pay period were missing the overtime
column on their pay stub. A few weeks after, employees were told by management not to
come to work for days they were already scheduled to work. Mr. Brown decided to count
their overtime hours towards their 40-hour work weeks. That was the max number of
hours employees were able to work for a week. This combination of immediate change
from new management and false hope of overtime pay was a negative hit on employee
morale and retention.

2) Describe how the symbols of the organization influenced the situation.

The symbols of the organization influenced the situation by the rituals that the
organization had prior to new management arriving. Employees were used to having the
option to take advantage of overtime pay upon request. The ritual made the employees
have some sort of entitlement towards being able to make additional income due to the
previous management team making the option available to them.

The organization had a symbolic body through the old management. The old
management team had the trust of their employees at Winn-Dixie. They had gained their
trust through taking care of them during times when they needed more income. The
heroes kept everyone happy at the organization with more work and more pay. When
new management showed up, the employees were not receptive to the sudden changes.

3) Recommend how you would use organizational symbols for an alternative course of
action regarding your case.

As an alternate course of action, I would have put different rituals in addition to the old
ones. With the current rules and policies, I would have removed the old rituals in phases
while making the additional ones more effective and attractive to the employees at Winn-
Dixie. In my professional experience, people accept gradual change a lot better than
sudden change. I would have tried my hardest to enforce those new rituals to get a little
buy in from the employees.

I would have reached out to the headquarters department within Winn-Dixie and
proposed to hold a quarterly bonus incentive to a few of the hardest working employees. I
would explain to the headquarters department the current overtime pay option in place
and propose providing a quarterly bonus incentive to save the organization money. This
would go well with higher management and the current employees. Both sides of the
organization would benefit greatly.

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4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently give what you have learned
about this frame.

The symbolic frame has a lot to do with the morale and culture of an organization. As a
young cashier, I would have taken on a little more responsibility to add value to the
culture in some way. I would have changed how employees, including myself, interacted
with management. One of the things that I remember is never knowing how to address
concerns within the organization.

At the time, I did not know how to address concerns or fresh ideas within the
organization. As I think about it now, it would not have taken much time or effort to unite
with the staff to create a work climate where everyone did something that was symbolic
and rich to the culture at the organization. The symbol would have had to be something
that no one was above doing to represent equality.

References:

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Berdychowski , Bernadette “How Winn-Dixie became one of Florida’s top grocery store
chains” Tampa Bay Times, https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/2023/08/18/how-
winn-dixie-became-one-floridas-top-grocery-stores/

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2008). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and
leadership (4th ed.). Jossey-Bass.