Introductory research methods

Running head: MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 1

Management Problems

Arthur Barnes Jr.

Husson University

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 2

Abstract

The study that is processed is about FedEX and what they bring to the table for the

employees. The background goes over an organization known as FedEX and goes more into

depth on the situation. The problem is that FedEX is not accepting the right workers into their

organization, they have been known for accepting anyone without seeing the kind of worker they

truly are which can potentially hurt the cohesiveness of the company. There are many questions

why they do this process but it is in their scope of expertise to know who they need to fill the job

correctly. There are many frameworks and methods that can be used on this experiment however

there are limitations that are present when going about the study. Time is one of them and it is

also the workstation that people work at since everyone that works in the factory are in different

spots. The results are very interesting when going through each person that was being evaluated

and most of them have the same mindset for the company. FedEX is not a bad place to work at

however there are some alternatives that could be addressed to improve the work conditions that

are in place. The purpose of this study is to show the improvements that FedEX in order to keep

their hard working employees. This job is here to test the mental stability of the workers in

addition to give them the financial guidance in return.

Background

Management problems are a big thing in the workplace and recently it has been an issue

at FedEX. In recent studies they say that “To support the circular economy ideas, advertising and

pricing principles are introduced and applied.” (Dusan H. 2020). The way it is looked upon in the

workplace is giving them a reason to do the work in this case it would be for money. If the

pricing didn’t play a part in the economy then there wouldn’t be any workers or people that

would do the job. Now the job consists of rough work hours such as working at 2 or 3 in the

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 3

morning. This recent study says “This is a systems problem, not a time-management problem.”

(Privett N. 2021). The hours are not like your average work schedule however the system, being

FedEX is not only making the hours earlier but the workload is hard labor. For this specific job

people have to want to wake up early in the morning and do some heavy lifting and some people

are not willing to do that. Some people get the job but take the job for granted which in this case

FedEX will not lay off the people that don’t show up or do their work because they need

workers. In this research “Topics discussed include discussing with the employee about

performance and behavioral problems and if there is need for correction, written warning to be

given to employees from the management level in case the problem persists, and before decision

of terminating the employee, it should be discussed with the human resource (HR) department.”

(HR Specialist, 2016). At FedEX there are no performance evaluations, you can choose whether

to work hard or slack off and there would be no penalization towards that individual. This makes

the work day much more of a hassle. However when dealing with large groups of workers it can

be really difficult to lay off those that don’t work.

Problem

The problem in this situation is that the management is not doing the appropriate duty

and that is to not boss people around but guide them to where it is teamwork. It takes a team to

get a job done and in order for that to happen people need to be on the same page if not then the

goal will not be accomplished. Even the smallest things can make a difference such as not calling

in if something happens and you can’t make it to work, not working hard and taking stuff lightly.

Those are the kind of things that divide companies. There is an approach that managers can go

about however each employee is different so it depends on the situation and how well you know

your client.

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 4

Research question

What are things that motivate employees? What can managers do to improve the

company so that employees buy in? Do they need to start evaluating the orientation more

closely? How can one be a great leader?

Study Scope

While working for FedEX for 10 months now you get to know a little more about the ins

and outs of the organization. My biggest concern is the way things are handled as people start

their shifts. My scope of practice is the tower right now and that is putting the packages down the

right shoot however everyone has their own job they need to do in order to finish their job.

People may finish their specific job but some like to take longer brakes and slack off which

makes the job harder on everyone else. Because of this kind of action hard working people tend

to quit the job before a month of training. This indicates that the managers really don’t care for

the employees because they know they could find someone else who wants the job and it's an

early morning shift.

Research method

The approach that I think can work best for the situation at FedEX is a qualitative

approach. The reason for this is because they have all the employees they need to get the job

done and if they have some quit the jobs they can always find more so quantitative is out of the

question. However out of all the workers they have only a select few produce a good work ethic

which is what the organization needs. Too many people are going outside of their boundaries,

these kinds of people make the day much more difficult when it comes to the end. This can cause

chaos throughout the work session and if they produce good quality work then the work would

be more easier on the body. In terms of the type I would say it is more on the lines of descriptive

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 5

because when explaining things to someone at FedEX you have to be really specific on what you

want them to do. At least in my general job title people tend to not care about their job or didn’t

finish school so they end up at the factory. This is what makes it frustrating because when the

manager tells an employee how to do the job they do the complete opposite of what the

managers did and then the manager gets mad because they are not doing their job correctly when

in reality they put the wrong person in that position.

Theoretical Framework

The hypothesis of all of this is I think if the managers put the right people where they are

supposed to and reward people that are doing the right thing then people would want to stay and

work sessions will be more efficient. The variables in this kind of research are the employees and

in order to know what you are dealing with you have to evaluate how they are at work. I know in

this situation the work session is early in the morning so in order to take it a step further is to

create that relationship with the employees so that they feel like they are wanted and involved. It

doesn’t have to be a long conversation either it can be something casual to build them up. There

are many ways to go about it but what I have noticed is that doing the little things is what people

really see. So even if it is something small of just saying good morning to someone or holding

the door for someone can really make a difference in the workplace.

Research Design

The population of my study consists of 50 people, usually the number changes

depending on the day that people work. However everyone is in attendance on monday because

monday is our busiest day when it comes to loading the trucks for the day. The population

demographic is a bunch of exhausted individuals getting through the day so they can go back to

sleep when the work session is over. Everyone is exhausted and cranky when the workload is

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 6

overwhelming so it is a very intense work environment. There are some people who try to make

the job more entertaining by joking around but when it's that early some people are just not in the

mood. The sampling that I would be using is a Non Profitability method and more specific a

Convenience sample. The reason for this is everyone is trying to get the job done and leave due

to the fact that the start time is really early in the morning. So in order to collect my data I would

need to select people who are conveniently working with me on that day. I get a new person

working with me everyday so I will be able to slowly gather my research while the work session

is in place. Each person has their own constructs and variables so I will be determining how they

act throughout the whole work session while also evaluating how well they do the job. This will

give me a sense of what emotions they are feeling and how much they care about the job. The

type of data collection that I will be using is a lot of observations, seeing how they react to the

work that is presented to them and how they resolve it. Then in the process of that I will be

sliding in a little bit of interviewing to get a sense of who they are and how much they enjoy the

job. I will do it moderately so it doesn’t hinder them from getting their work done. So the plan is

to walk into work, go to my station and see who I am working with and put the experiment into

action. Collect what I retained for the day and then do it again the next day.

Results

So for results, what I did was take essentially a month to analyze and take note of the

people that work with me in the tower. Since I am doing a Convenience sample in that month I

had 24 people work with me in the tower. There would be some days where they would work the

whole session with me but other times they could be replaced by another worker during the work

session. The data analysis method that I used was Diagnostic Analysis, this was due to the fact

that I would be observing how the person that I am working with is feeling throughout the work

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 7

session and diagnose what they could be thinking about. From the data collected most of the

people that I worked with were more frustrated than others however they all had the same thing

in common when it came to the job itself. When going through the gathering process it wasn’t

hard to see what emotions each individual displayed. This could be due to the early morning

sessions which really messes with the mindset of the employee. However I took that into account

for each person and the results were still unanimous on people not liking the job. The other thing

that I had to include was if they did the job correctly regardless if they hated it or not. Out of the

24 people there were 6 of them that could do the job correctly in the tower.

Conclusion

In conclusion the data recorded was as expected from the people that work in the factory.

Relating that to the framework would be putting the people that can do the job correctly in those

positions. So those 6 people should be in the tower no matter what and then the others should be

reserved in case someone can’t make it. The problem with FedEX is that they will send anyone

up in the tower and they will have no clue on what is going on. So this is where the Diagnostic

Analysis comes into play when evaluating the staff members that you have in attendance. This

also gives the opportunity to build that relationship with your employees. Some enjoy working at

the tower but they are just not capable of keeping up with the pace of the packages so for a

managers perspective they would need to let them know what they can improve on and if they

get better at that position then they should earn the spot. The theoretical framework is different

from the philosophies that FedEX has put into place. Unfortunately they have to put people in

certain workstations because there are some people who are just awful at every station they are

at. So to make sure they are not in the way they have to put them in the spots that are rewarding

which is unfair for those that do work hard.

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 8

Recommendations

To start they need a better orientation when picking potential employees. When going

through the work sessions and seeing the workers not doing the right thing that the managers ask

or when they take too many breaks it begs the questions how they got the job. There is no real

interview process when applying for FedEX because they are willing to take anyone. Which is

not a good thing when seeing what kind of worker they truly are. There needs to be more

evaluations that are accurate. Many times they will go through a session and won’t take the time

to evaluate why the day went longer or why this person is having trouble? So being able to assess

each employee to see where they fit into the program. Lastly is creating that friendly atmosphere,

for managers they don’t have to have a full on conversation with their employees all the time but

a simple greeting can help that person that is going through a rough time. It's already an early

morning job and people will struggle from time to time so being able to show some kind of

greeting while also being there for them when they need it can improve the work environment.

Limitations

The study missed when not evaluating all the people in the factory, this was because

when going through the job you still need to be productive so that the work session doesn’t take

up a lot of time and also it was more convenient having the people that I work with in the tower.

So when evaluating those 24 people I still missed out on potentially 30 other employees due to

the work conditions. Other limitations are how long the work sessions are so instead of it being a

9am to 5pm job it's no more than 6 hours of work if not less. The amount of labor keeps

increasing but the hours will still be shortened which will give the employees more frustration.

So to go further in this research it would be best to take more than a month to get results and find

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 9

more ways to try and get the evaluations of the other employees that may make a difference in

the company.

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 10

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 11

Reference Page

Privett, Natalie; Guerrier, Shanice. American Journal of Public Health. Jan2021, Vol. 111 Issue 1,

p145-149. 5p. DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2020.305967.

Hrabec, Dušan; Kůdela, Jakub; Šomplák, Radovan; Nevrlý, Vlastimír; Popela, Pavel. Central

European Journal of Operations Research. Dec2020, Vol. 28 Issue 4, p1441-1458. 18p.

DOI: 10.1007/s10100-019-00626-z.

HR Specialist: Pennsylvania Employment Law. Nov2016, Vol. 11 Issue 11, p4-4. 2/3p.

Nichols, Ralph G. Management of Personnel Quarterly. Winter1962, Vol. 1 Issue 2,

p2-10. 9p. DOI: 10.1002/hrm.3930010202.

Data module #1: What is Research Data?: Types of research data. (n.d.). Retrieved March 29,

2021, from

https://libguides.macalester.edu/c.php?g=527786%2F&p=3608643#:~:text=Data%20m

%20be%20grouped%20into,experimental%2C%20simulation%2C%20and%20derived.

McCombes, S. (2021, February 25). Sampling methods: Types and techniques explained.

Retrieved March 29, 2021, from

https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/sampling-methods/

MANAGEMENT PROBLEMS 12