...* Dick Spencer Case Study Introduction In this report, I mention about a case study to highlight the managerial issues faced by an organization. Spencer was a plant manager of Modrow Company, a Canadian branch of Tri-American Company. Dick did his MBA and served this company for 14 years. He started his career as a salesman. With time he continued to work successfully on different contracts and finally he was spoken of as “boy of watch”. Later he wanted to move on different career domain, so he finally transferred to the home office of organization. He was nominated as an assistant to senior vice president of production. In the following sections, we will cover the managerial issues faced by dick and his organization. We also try to provide some recommendations about managerial issues identified, researched and evaluated. Managerial Issues We identified the following managerial issues. Micromanagement According to the Wikipedia, micromanagement is a management style whereby a manager closely observes or controls the work of subordinates or employees. Micromanagement generally has a negative connotation. (Wikipedia) Rather than giving general instructions on smaller tasks and then devoting time to supervising larger concerns, the micromanager monitors and assesses every step of a business process and avoids delegation of decisions. (Wikipedia) According to the journal, “Micromanagers read your proposals, tell you to develop your prototype, and then insist on telling you...
Words: 3546 - Pages: 15
...BM102 –BUSINESS COMMUNICATION Question 1 With reference to practical examples, discuss how communication can be used to improve worker`s morale and productivity. (100) In this essay, the writer seeks to talk about communication as a motivation tool. The essay will touch on the ways in which effective communication can motivate workers to be more productive. Concrete examples with local companies are going to be given. The writer is going to touch various forms of communication, the channels that are generally used in the companies and how they can be used as a motivation tool. Before exploring ways to use communication as a productivity tool, the needs to define the meaning of productivity and morale.Klan (2004) define morale as a reflection of the attitude of an individual or team. The company can have workers with high morale or workers with low morale which can affect productivity.According to The first point the writer will look is the use of communication for information distribution between the workers and the management and between the workers themselves. The structures of most organizations allow the flow of information upward, downward, lateral and horizontal. Tracy (2013) reiterates that when management communicates vague or fuzzy expectations or no expectation, the staff is deprived of the winning feeling thereby becoming demotivated. The company needs to communicate its strategic goals and objectives, policies and company notices and all that is done through...
Words: 628 - Pages: 3
...Ballard Case Study Patricia Jones QNT 351 Jan 27th, 2014 Pete Dorsa Introduction and Problem Situation Ballard Integrated Managed Services, Inc. (BIMS) provides food, hospitality, housekeeping and physical plant services for the staff and patients at the Douglas Medical Center. Barbara Tucker, the general manager for this site, has noticed that the morale of her employees has been declining for the past several months. The expected turnover rate is 55-60% annually in this industry. This rate has increased to 64% over the last four months (BIMS Part 1). The use of sick time has increased, overall performance is poor and complaints from the hospital staff are on the rise. Barbara and her management team have not been able to determine why morale is down. The exit interviews that are currently used are not pinpointing the reasons why employees are leaving. Conclusions The data used in the survey is beneficial to the research into why employment morale has decreased for the past several months. Therefore, a questionnaire was designed to examine dependent variable which, “is the key factor that you want to explain or predict and that is affected by some other factors …scholars have emphasized productivity, absenteeism, turnover, and job satisfaction” (Robbins & Judge p. 25). BIMS is experiencing problems with several dependant variables, the focus of this paper examines turnover, which is increasing for BIMS. Each question of the survey addresses issues that require...
Words: 2062 - Pages: 9
...Marie Jackson: Renfield Farms Revitalization By: Anthony J. Mayo & Heather Beckham Group D Latoya Reed & Alma Shaw MADM 701: Organizational Behavior Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Case Summary 3 Major Issues 3 Analysis of Issues 4 Action Alternatives 7 Analysis of Alternatives 8 Recommendations 11 Implementation of Issues 12 References 13 Executive Summary Case Summary Donald Franklin, a profound farmer and businessman, founded the organic and dairy Renfield Farms in Maine in 1964. Franklin was a passionate businessman, who developed a strong business culture that cultivated continuous innovation, healthy living, and producing nutritional and wholesome food products. Due to these stimulating values, Renfield Farms grew from a local to a nationwide dairy supplier, known for its strong brands and ideals. However, after Franklin retired in 2002, the company began facing many difficulties. Renfield Farms’ successors were not as inspiring as Franklin and could not measure up to his leadership skills. Renfield Farms was obviously in bad shape due to declining sales and consumers losing trust in the company’s product brands. Something had to be done. Marie Jackson was an external hire, who was appointed as the company’s new CEO in 2013 in order to revitalize Renfield Farms’ unsatisfactory performance. Though a strong leadership with a great vision for the company, Jackson faced many oppositions, predominately overcoming employees’ resistance to change...
Words: 3372 - Pages: 14
...successful company during it 15 year existence with very high morale within the company. Employee’s worked according to management’s instructions. Employees were not allowed to be innovated and creative. All decisions were at management level. When Regency was bought out by a US Hotel chain, the general manager decided to retire early. The American based company then appointed John Becker as general manager. John has 10 years experience with the American company. John was appointed due to his previous success integrating newly acquired hotels in the US. In most previous acquisitions, Becker took over operation with poor profitability and low morale. After he implemented changes the employees morale decline, absenteeism increased, customer complaints increased, and poor ratings in the media. 1. Culture--The US based company failed to research or invested in any culture changes that might affect employees when they acquired the Regency Hotel. 2. Change--John made sweeping changes that once worked in the past for fledging acquired hotels. Becker failed to plan and implement change. He did not involve any staff in the change process nor did he have a change agent to help oversee the change process within the newly acquired hotel. John based his decisions off what was successful in the past in American style business. He failed to consider the Regency was already successful and profitable with high employee morale. 3. Communication--John empowered employees to make...
Words: 751 - Pages: 4
...organization that recognizes that there is a problem within the company that will impact their mission or health of their organization. Some organizations do not wait until they see a problem to start the organizational development process. They may begin the change when the leadership has a vision for the improvement of the organization. The organization will desire a change to make their business better. The decision to change is followed by assessing the situation in order to understand it. There are different ways to do the assessment including interviewing, surveying, and reviews. It can also be conducted by outside consultants. The next phase after the assessment is to plan an intervention and implement it. This intervention is meant to build teams for management, establish the terms of the change, and inform employees that a...
Words: 1337 - Pages: 6
...Ballard Case Study QNT 351 Jan 11th, 2014 Introduction and Problem Situation Ballard Integrated Managed Services, Inc. (BIMS) provides food, hospitality, housekeeping and physical plant services for the staff and patients at the Douglas Medical Center. Barbara Tucker, the general manager for this site, has noticed that the morale of her employees has been declining for the past several months. The expected turnover rate is 55-60% annually in this industry. This rate has increased to 64% over the last four months (BIMS Part 1). The use of sick time has increased, overall performance is poor and complaints from the hospital staff are on the rise. Barbara and her management team have not been able to determine why morale is down. The exit interviews that are currently used are not pinpointing the reasons why employees are leaving. Conclusions The data used in the survey is beneficial to the research into why employment morale has decreased for the past several months. Therefore, a questionnaire was designed to examine dependent variable which, “is the key factor that you want to explain or predict and that is affected by some other factors …scholars have emphasized productivity, absenteeism, turnover, and job satisfaction” (Robbins & Judge p. 25). BIMS is experiencing problems with several dependant variables, the focus of this paper examines turnover, which is increasing for BIMS. Each question of the survey addresses issues that require involvement from management...
Words: 1434 - Pages: 6
...Jones, Vice President of Marketing Operations; Cindy Xiong, Vice President of Advertising Operations; Bob Thomas; Vice President of Finance From: Jamie Richey, Vice President of Human Resources Subject: Roanoke Branch Update In recent months, the Roanoke office has had complaints from four of its clients and there is a feeling that the decline in customer satisfaction could be due in part to low morale among the branch’s employees. It has come to my attention that some of the graphic designers and art directors feel that they and their works are not being treated fairly and their ideas are not being taken seriously. All the while, they are being asked to work longer hours without a satisfactory work life balance, or proper compensation, either monetarily or in time. All have threatened to leave the company. We must give our immediate attention to this situation as Roanoke handles some of our biggest clients. We must also be sure the employees we hire are being treated as part of a team, and adequately trained as well as perform and overall compensation review. As an executive team, I feel it is very important to reach out to the Roanoke branch to find out what the root of the problem is before it gets worse and the entire company is affected. Here is my proposed plan of communication with the branch: * Hank Paulson – Conduct a performance survey with Roanoke’s clients to see if they have any feedback for the branch. Prepare and distribute an employee pulse survey to obtain...
Words: 756 - Pages: 4
...die. Good writing, reading, listening and speaking skills are necessary; to ensure that the goals of the organization are being accomplished. Since communication is so important, recruiters often seek individuals that have mastered this crucial skill. The art of communication is the most important skill that recruiters look for when searching for new team members. One must know how to accurately form a message, send it and it must be completely understood by the receiver. If a potential candidate is not able to convey their thoughts, feelings, or ideas they will be overlooked for the open position. This is done to protect the company’s internal and external customers from misunderstandings which can lead to stress, conflict, low productivity and customer satisfaction. The lack of effective communication causes all types of problems; some can be fixed, while others cannot. When communication is not done properly, there are several negative consequences that will result. Improper communication gives way to mistakes, which causes an organization to miss deadlines and lose money. It can also contribute to low morale among team members and management. If people are not happy; they tend to seek a better employment opportunity which leads to a high turnover rate in an organization. Poor communication also leads to low creativity and productivity. Employees that reach this state are no lower considered assets, they become liabilities. In the world in which we live, communication...
Words: 312 - Pages: 2
...even physical plant maintenance. BIMS allows companies to outsource all of their non-business operations activities from one spot. This makes things very simple for BIMS clients and it also makes BIMS a very marketable company. Unfortunately, BIMS has been feeling the pressure of low employee morale and turnover numbers have been increasing. Our team will be looking at researching why this issue is happening to BIMS. We will try to un-code data collected from an employee survey to see if we can help BIMS find a solution to this problem that is slowly crippling them. One of BIMS largest contracts is with their client, The Douglas Medical Center (DMC). BIMS provides DMC with three major services housekeeping, food service, and physical plant management. BIMS would like to solve it’s high turnover issue so that they can guarantee the retention of the DMC contract. Here are some possible research questions: Why is employee morale dropping? Is there a direct correlation between low morale level and the increasing turnover rate? Can we control the turnover rate by attempting to improve employee morale? Human resources at BIMS deployed an employee survey to try to figure out the reason morale levels were low, this may help them pinpoint the underlying issue. The instrument used for data collection was a survey. The survey was used as a data collection tool to gather information regarding employees’ opinion, attitude and overall satisfaction with the company. The data collected...
Words: 751 - Pages: 4
...acquisitions and the analysis involved in the process. Please let me know if you have questions or need further information. Yours truly, Brian Smith Enclosure Future analytical approach It is my opinion, that when dealing with future acquisitions, financial and accounting analysis is simply not enough. Therefore, it is my recommendation that an aggregate analytical approach include not just fundamental analysis, but also; corporate culture, synergy and customer analysis. Corporate Culture Analysis Future acquisitions need to carefully examine the morale and culture of the company being sought after. An overly dependent employee base that clings to its President and CEO presents a certain risk in production loss should the CEO exit the firm. As with the acquisition of Bainbridge House, morale dropped and attrition skyrocketed after Mr. Bainbridge’s passing. A high attrition rate and low morale has been shown to negatively affect production and overall efficiency. Therefore, a careful analysis needs to identify the independence and competitiveness of company employees. Synergy Analysis It is not enough to purchase a company based on fundamentals alone. If the company cultures of your firm and the firm being acquired are incompatible, valuable time will be lost looking for personnel replacements. Incompatibilities arise when the two companies have completely different goals and visions. As such, I recommend analyzing the takeover target’s mission statement...
Words: 504 - Pages: 3
...with new research, ideas, legislations and practices so that you can be the best that you can in understanding your chosen profession, provide new creative ideas, encourage and adapt to change more smoothly therefore providing a high quality service to customers and colleagues. It also enables you to feel confident and good about one self. I believe a happy person/staff equals a happy working environment. It can also lead to better job opportunities and enhances self confidence. AC 1.1 Assess the potential benefits to the organisation of developing individuals To assess the potential benefits to the organisation I chose to look at the benefit of training the Harbour casual workforce in fork-truck operation staff retention and staff morale within the workforce. The criteria I have chosen to assess the potential benefits to the organisation of developing individuals are: • Opportunities for promotion • Reduced Damage level • improved discharge rates Trained Fork-Truck operators The harbour workforce is made up of 2 distinct groups: -...
Words: 2845 - Pages: 12
...opinion. This leadership style would normally be used by an officer in the army, like Hitler, this is because they normally generally are loud and bossy also, this leadership style helps to motivate teams. They think that they are always right (which in most cases they normally are) and that they’re way is the best way. This type of leadership style could be used in a situation where the/a team needs to do something fast and successfully (For example – on the battlefield, if a team is under fire the leader shouts instructions and the team (unit) must respond quickly because everyone in that groups life’s are on the line). This style however wouldn’t work effectively in a situation where a group needs to plan something because only the leader (‘boss’) has a say and therefore some members of the group might not listen and do their own thing or they wouldn’t pay attention and maybe won’t have a clue what they need to do. This leadership style is similar to the ‘task orientated’ style because the leader is the only person who has a say on what happens and the rest of the group doesn’t, this means that they wouldn’t be a ‘team’ which could lead to low morale. However, the style is effective in most situations. In this leadership style the leader uses his/her power and tells the team/group what to do and they then learn what the ‘boss’ says to do. In my opinion the leadership...
Words: 2121 - Pages: 9
...------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Evaluating factors contributing towards low employee morale in the community services directive of Polokwane Municipality ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- A Research Proposal ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- by ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Josephine Malesheka Mathole ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Student No. 271199 ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- To be submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the ------------------------------------------------- BBA Honours degree ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- at ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- SOUTHERN BUSINESS SCHOOL ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ...
Words: 2690 - Pages: 11
...InterClean, Inc. Memo To: First Level Managers From: Lynda Broomfield, Sales Manager Date: 8/6/2012 Re: Management’s behavior With the merger of EnviroTech I will like to discuss how we are going to face the upcoming challenges of making it a smooth transition. We all must be mindful of the impact our behavior will have on morale and the productivity of our employees. Our employees are the lifeblood of InterClean and as managers we are the heart that pumps that blood. Attitude is generally reciprocated. If you show enthusiasm and determination while implementing the changes it will inspire your employees to do the same. Showing sincere admiration for your staff and an interest in their well being will motivate them to work harder. It is more important than ever now that we create an environment of employee empowerment and have open communication. Employees need to know what is expected of them and how the company is going to help them achieve success. We need to discuss the changes with them and seek their input. We should discuss the impending training strategy and how it will affect them individually and collectively as a team. People work harder because of the increased involvement and commitment that comes from having more controlled and say in their work. They work smarter because they are encouraged to build skills and competence. They work more responsibly because their employers place more responsibility in the hands of employees farther down in...
Words: 902 - Pages: 4
