500 words solution for a Business course's final group paper (1 topic)

COMM 292A Final Written Report

Team Project: All in day’s Work

Team Name: Super Solver Squad

Team Members:

Freeman, Graham (10119144)

Gao, Huayi (Kristen, 10122043)

Zhang, Xinyue (Rebecca, 10122622)

Guo, Entong (Ino, 10119915)

Chen, Wei-Siang (Nicole, 10119027)

Table of contents:

· Abstract/Executive Summary…………………………………………………..3

· Introduction………………………………………………………………………..4

· Content …………………………………………………………………………….

1)Issues - Motivation and Satisfaction

- Communication and Conflicts

- Organizational Culture

2) Causes

3)Alternative/Possible Solutions with advantages and disadvantages

- issue1

- issue2

- issue3

4) Preferred Solutions and Justifications

Recommendation and Implement of Preferred Solution

· Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………..

· References…………………………………………………………………………..

· Appendices………………………………………………………………………….

Abstract/Executive Summary:

Introduction:

Bev’s Brewery is a chain of brew pubs located in Metro Vancouver. Stan, the Operations Manager at Bev’s Brewery, has noticed that Customer satisfaction survey levels, and employee job interest and motivation have been dropping over the past year at every location and is seeking help to resolve the problems within the organization. The owners of the company, Bev and Dave Kumar, opened the first brew pub in Surrey, BC in 2014. Originally the work environment at Bev’s Brewery was friendly and everyone working there felt like a family. Bev and Dave had a very people-oriented approach to leadership, doing their best to be there for their employees. Over the past five years the business has grown rapidly and now has locations in Vancouver and Chilliwack as well as a head office next to the Surrey brew pub. The Surrey location has many Indian employees, Vancouver’s employees are largely of Asian and European background, and in Chilliwack there is a more diverse team including numerous workers with Scandinavian ancestry. With the rapid growth of the company the work environment has become busy and sometimes Stan has trouble keeping track of all the employees because there is no published company organization chart due to the rapid growth of the business. In order to focus more on the supply of quality beer products, marketing, planning, and expansion, Bev and Dave allowed Stan and the brew managers, Tess Chan and Ben Rand, to be given the freedom to run their locations independently with little supervision. In the past year Stan has been dealing with conflict between the Vancouver location, run by Tess, and the Surrey location, run by Stan. Stan and Tess have a poor relationship and Ben, the manager in Chilliwack, keeps to himself and talks very little. Stan assumes that all must be going well, and he assumes that Tess and Ben share his belief that it doesn’t matter where you’re from as long as you do your work well. Stan has also been receiving complaints from older employees at all three locations that some of the newer workers were on their phones when they should have been providing customer service. Stan doesn’t take the issue of employees spending too much time on cell phones very seriously because he thinks cell phones are useful. Stan is overwhelmed but chooses not to tell Bev and Dave about the problems within the company, partly due to them having mentioned they were considering hiring a new Operations Manager.

Issue 1:

The company has been facing declining customer satisfaction levels, and the job interest and motivation of employees is falling in all three locations. These two problems go hand in hand; if employees aren’t interested or motivated, they won’t be able to provide satisfactory customer service.

Causes

The causes of these problems are the conflict between some of the older and new employees and between the Vancouver and Surrey brew pubs, the poor leadership of the brew managers, and the disorganization within the company. Older employees at all three locations have been complaining to Stan that some of the new employees have been using their cell phones while working, when they should be focusing on providing customer service. Conflict like this will cause older employees to be unhappy at work and will affect their motivation. Employees focusing on their phones instead of customers will also explain some of the customer dissatisfaction. The conflict between the Surrey and Vancouver locations stems from the employees at Vancouver believing that Surrey is receiving better service and attention; this has caused a degree of job dissatisfaction in Vancouver. Leadership ability is crucial to ensure employees remain interested in their work and motivated to do it. The managers at Bev’s Brewery have become too task-oriented, expecting employees to work effectively and complete their work as the business has grown and become busier (McShane, Steen and Tasa, 2018, p.305). They are failing to provide an enjoyable work environment and are not listening to employees as well as they should. Stan demonstrates this by not taking the complaints of employees seriously. Because of its rapid growth, the company has become very disorganized. There is no published organization chart and because of this there has been no way to keep track of employees. Because of this, employees have stopped receiving raises and training sessions. Employees are not receiving a reward for their hard work and this impacts their motivation. Because there have not been training sessions, the quality of their work and customer service has been falling.

Related Theories

The two forms of managerial leadership are task-oriented and people-oriented leadership. According to this theory an effective manager enables employees to both improve their performance and well-being (McShane, Steen and Tasa, 2018, p.304). The brew managers at Bev’s Brewery have not balanced their leadership behaviour, focusing too much on task-orientation. The path-goal leadership theory expands upon managerial leadership with four different leadership behaviours: directive, supportive, participative, and achievement oriented (McShane, Steen and Tasa, 2018, p.307, 308). The personal attributes perspective of leadership states that an effective leader possesses certain character traits, these are personality, self-concept, leadership motivation, drive, integrity, knowledge of the business, cognitive and practical intelligence, and emotional intelligence (McShane, Steen and Tasa, 2018, p.312, 313). Stan showed a lack of integrity when he did not reveal to Bev and Dave there were problems within the company and Ben’s introversion demonstrates a personality not suited for leadership.

Solutions

-update policies, including those regarding the use of cell phones while at work

-major reorganization of the business, this will allow for raises and training, employees will feel like their efforts are being rewarded.

-Hiring a brew manager at Surrey location so Stan can focus more on his duties as Operations Manager, this would ease the conflict between Surrey and Vancouver since Stan may not favour Surrey if he’s not running the pub.

-Leadership training for the brew managers so they can better meet the needs of employees

Issue: Communication.

There is a severe lack of communication between the members of the management team of Bev’s Brewery.

Causes

The causes for this absence of communication are the poor communication skills possessed by the brew managers, the conflict between Stan and Tess, and the distribution of power within the company. Managers do not have human relation skills that they do not know how to lead, motivate, communicate and build and maintain relationships with their subordinates. It is important for managers to possess adequate communication skills, something the managers at Bev’s Brewery are lacking. Instead of attempting to speak with Tess in person to resolve an issue, Stan decided it best to send her an email. Ben Rand keeps to himself too much and says very little. Because of this, others may think he’s doing well even if he encounters difficulties. Stan and Tess dislike each other for reasons we are not fully aware of, but it could be in part due to the disagreement regarding Surrey receiving better service and attention than Vancouver, their poor relationship will have discouraged both of them from sharing information with each other. The freedom given to the Brew Pub managers to run their locations has led to them not communicating with each other as much as they should in order to share information and make changes. While Stan, being the Operations Manager, wants operations to be successful in all three locations, he may be biased to ensure the brew pub he manages, Surrey, to come first. Similarly, Tess and Ben will be only interested in the success of their locations, because of this they will not feel incentivized to share information with one another.

Related Theories

The organizational learning perspective states that for an organization to be effective it must acquire, share, use, and store valuable information (McShane, Steen, and Tasa, 2018, p.8). This is relevant to the issue because communication is essential to do these things. Task interdependence and team composition tells us the importance for team members to share materials, information, or expertise so that all members can do their jobs well(McShane, Steen, and Tasa, 2018, p.196,198). The members of the management team at Bev’s Brewery are independent and do not share with each other. Bev’s Brewery has a degree of decentralization as the authority to make formal decisions is held largely by the brew managers at each location (McShane, Steen, and Tasa, 2018, p.328). This is relevant to the independence of the managers. Bev’s Brewery has an organic organizational structure; there is a wide span of control, high decentralization, and low formalization as each location can be run how its manager sees fit (McShane, Steen, and Tasa, 2018, p.330).The departmentalization of Bev’s Brewery is a geographical divisional structure, one of the limitations of this structure is its reduced ability and sometimes motivation for knowledge to be shared with other divisions (McShane, Steen, and Tasa, 2018, p.334).

Solutions:

1. hold meetings regularly like once a month for managers to share information, report how their branches' doing and problems that need to be solved.

2. Bonus / rewards for well being employees (salaries/ promotions)

3. Team building activities

4. Reduce the independence of the brew managers, requiring them to communicate more with Stan and the Owners

Problem 3: Organizational Culture

Another problem that Bev’s Brewery company has been facing is that the company culture has been gradually deteriorating across all of its brew pubs, which causes operational problems. The organization does not have a strengthening culture function to build an influential culture, such as a lack of social glue; this would lead to a decline in organizational performance and employee well-being.

Causes

There are two main reasons which lead to a decline in organizational culture strengthening. First, the values and assumptions have shifted away from what Bev and Dave Kumar had originally encouraged. The motivation that inspired Bev and Dave to establish the brew pub was appreciating their father’s hobby when they were growing up (All in a Day’s Work, p.1). Hence, working with family loves in Bev’s Brewery is the shared value that they are always trying to bring into the organizational dominant culture. However, Bev and Dave prefer to be “Theory Y” managers that allow the branch managers to operate their own branches independently but neglect to have connections with each other (All in a Day’s Work, p.2). This makes the company culture, which is working like a family in Bev’s Brewery, become hard to reach. Second, the subcultures in each location conflict with the dominant culture. Three branches attract different cultural backgrounds of employees who speak in different languages and working styles. Therefore, conflicting subcultures lead to the lack of cultural strengthening with the organization. It also increases the difficulty levels of carrying out the company culture.

Related Theories

A family doesn’t mean to have blood relations, but it’s a group of people who can perform as a unit. Working with family loves in the company means to understand, consider, and act in concert with each other. Stan, who was the first brew manager of the company, loved the atmosphere of friendly and felt like a family in Bev’s Brewery before. Bev and Dave pride themselves on being people-oriented and “being there to support others to be their best” (All in a Day’s Work, p.2). However, with the rapid expansion of the business and the increasing friction between branches, it seems the culture has begun to shift towards being outcome oriented rather team orientations. The owners have focused on expansion instead of their employees. They ignore the importance of emphasizing and maintaining the shared value in a company. Therefore, with high expectations in expanding and growing the company quickly, weakening in organizational culture causes those emerging operational problems among branch managers.

Conflicting subcultures cause the lack of cultural strengthening with the organization means that this company lacks the functions of strong cultures, such as control system, social glue, and sense-making. Organization’s control system influences the form of the organizational culture which can be misunderstood of employees’ job description and it would bring employees to different perspectives of organizational values. Take Bev’s Brewery for instance. Stan, the first hired manager in this company, starts spending more time fixing people’s problems than fixing operating problems, such as the relationship between two locations (All in a Day’s Work, p.2). Moreover, the employees might be less productive because Bev’s Brewery company doesn’t have the social glue, which “bonds people together” and makes the employees from different branches feel like they belong to this organization (McShane, Steen and Tasa, 2018, p.399). However, sense-making can help employees know about their job positions’ objectives more clearly and be more participate in their jobs. For example, a stronger company culture makes the employee “understand what is expected of them” (McShane, Steen and Tasa, 2018, p.400). So, even though there are conflicting subcultures in different branches, the company can be functioned well and operated productively as long as the sense-making of the corporate culture is strong, clear and definite enough.

Solutions:

1. Hire more people who are from different countries (people oriented)

2. Make a list of rules which let employees know how is organization going (build a strong function to strengthen the organizational culture)

Conclusion:

References:

Appendices: