Responsibilities to the Workforce

Question:

Discuss about the “Leadership and Management”.
 

The organization BizOps plans to improve their profit margins in the coming year. This can be done only if every member of the workforce contributes towards it. The entire workforce will be given responsibilities on the basis of their ability and the nature of service they can provide. The front line staff will be given more responsibility to focus on acquiring new customers, extending business relationship with the existing customers and to bring back old customers through methods like cold calling and any more. The outlet mangers will be given the responsibility to check whether those under him are performing their duties diligently (Wilton 2013). Every member will be provided with training facilities so as to ensure efficiency of the job done. The responsibility of every person will be explained in detail as collective responsibility is the go to term in today’s world of corporate governance. The managers at the head office will have to look after the activities at the retail outlets and ensure that profitability and popularity of products improves.

Various tasks should be assigned to each team member so that at the end, the entire team manages to achieve their targets. The frontline sales teams would be given targets in terms of number of customers to acquire, the amount of business to be sourced, etc. The actual sales should then be matched with what has actually been achieved in order to realize the performance of the individual (Werner, Schuler and Jackson 2012). The outlet manager will be given the responsibility of resolving customer grievances and also to step into the role of a frontline sales person in case a prospective customer gets out of hand. Such a person will also have to look after customer perceptions regarding the outlet and the products showcased. Again, this responsibility will keep varying depending upon the kind of outlet that has been assigned. Bigger outlets will have more staff and as a result the duties can be further streamlined by assigning a particular person for a particular job. Such duties will collectively enable the organization to prosper.

The basic strategy to be used is the provision of incentives. It is known that no person will perform his duties for free. Proper compensation schemes along with an incentive for achieving the targets should also be considered for the purpose of assessment. Performance linked promotion is another aspect that can be further utilized. Improvements in the service scale are another option that motivates employees to work harder (Truss, Mankin and Kelliher 2012). For such a situation to arise, it is obvious that proper training needs to be provided to the workmen so that their efficiency improves. Sales team should be trained on how to interact with customers, understand their needs and suggest products accordingly. Though in this case on the job training is the best bet, but focus should also be on the ability to convert prospective customers into permanent customers. The officers at the higher level should concentrate more upon how they can canvass business themselves through tie ups with different business houses, advertising and high net worth customer acquisition.

Targets and Training for Teams

The most basic way to explain the importance of planning would be to find out the difference between the sales at present and the sales in future if the plans are properly executed. This difference only would act as a plus point for the team members to accept the importance of planning (Torrington 2011). Every business decision should be made on the basis of planning. There is no straight cut method of arriving at a conclusion. The action will consist of a number of steps which need to be planned and synchronized, only then will it be successful. The team members should be made to realize that profit arises from sales and sales will improve only if the members themselves improve their selling techniques (Stone 2011). Here the operational aspect comes into play, and as a result proper training needs to be provided and rules and regulations adhered to. Any decision taken would be not only for the benefit of the organization but also the members themselves as they too are a part of it. Assigning a sense of responsibility will certainly prove positive enough.

Every team member should be made to understand that being a part of the organization; they too are responsible for the development of the firm. Responsibility will only be beneficial if it comes in collectively. Every man doing his own duty just for the sake of doing so will not help in any manner (Mondy and Mondy 2014). When people work in a team, the responsibility and responsiveness of individuals improves as they become answerable to the entire team. This removes the probability of malpractices to occur.

For proper cohesion within a team, it is imperative that certain team building exercises be conducted so as to find out the level of cohesion among members. Teams should be constituted in such a manner that individual members use their ideas and concepts to take the team forward. Proper training especially for communication should be provided as it is usually the lack of it that decisions are not ratified and implemented. Only then will the decisions be in favor of the company. 

The initial step for such a process would be to create teams for particular purposes, e.g. marketing team, sales team, advertising team, etc. Each team would hence be able to focus on a particular field of expertise which they will have to improve. Each team will be set targets to achieve and points will be allotted based on achievement. These points will be helpful to the members in future regarding promotions and further career progression (Price and Price 2011). Various team building exercises may be taken up to build cohesion among members and to build a sense of belongingness to the group. Even within the group, the members will be allocated sub tasks which will have to be completed by themselves and an internal evaluation program will be established which will further enable the members to focus not only on their individual jobs but also the team cause.

Importance of Planning

Negative points will be awarded to members who fail to carry out their duties willingly or unwillingly. This will result in their performance being thoroughly monitored, and the member may even be expelled for the sole reason, non performance.

Leadership is the ability of the management of an organization in order to make sound decisions and to inspire the other employees of the organization to perform well. Leadership can be of various styles. These include – pacesetting leadership style, authoritative leadership style, affiliative leadership style, coaching leadership style, coercive leadership style and democratic leadership style (Mondy and Mondy 2012). However, among all the leadership styles, the authoritative leadership style suits the best for the particular circumstances. Therefore, it can be said that the authoritative leadership style is the particular style or technology that will help to provide feedback and encourage, value and rewards the employees or the members of the particular team. The reason behind this is that the authoritative leadership style helps the leaders to mobilize the team towards a common objective and thus this will help to highlight on the end goals. This style is suitably applicable when the team requires new vision due to changed situation. The authoritative leadership style helps to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit for the mission of the project by providing feedback and encouraging the team members. This type of leaders also provides rewards and values to an individual for encouraging them and for better performance.   

There are various strategies that can be outlined and implemented within the organization or within a specific team in order to ensure that the concerns, issues and the problems identified by the employees or the team members within the team or organization can be recognized and addressed easily. However, the most effective strategy that can be implemented to handle the situation of the firm includes seven steps. These are as follows:  

Firstly, the particular problem, issues and concerns within the specified team should be detected and then the manager of the team should analyze the reason that is responsible for the occurrence of the issue and problems (Dessler 2013).

Secondly, the manager of the team should recognize the interest of each team member of the specified team.

Thirdly, the particular team manager should prepare list regarding all the possible options that will provide solutions to all the issues and problems detected by the team members within the team.

 Fourthly, the team manager should evaluate the listed options in details.

Fifthly, after evaluating all the listed solutions to the problems and issues thoroughly, the team manager should opt for the most accurate solution for the betterment of both the team and the team members for the particular situation (Ivancevich and Konopaske 2013).   

Sixthly, the team manager has to prepare documents regarding the decided agreement.

Lastly, the team manager has to implement the correct solution within the team carefully based on the decided and new agreement that has been prepared by the process of evaluating, monitoring and contingencies.

Creating Teams for Purposes

The team manager can get ensured about his contribution to the work team whether serves as a role model for others or not and whether his contribution to work team is enhancing the image of the organization to all stakeholders or not can easily be identified. This can be identified by evaluating the following factors within the team manager for several years. These include – awareness regarding his perception, commitment to the developing people, empathy towards the team members, foresight that would help to enrich the decision making skills, listening to all the issues, problems and concerns raised by the team members and then the team manager should respond to them, as true listening erects strengths in others and lastly is persuasion, where the managers or leaders of the team should use their own talents for serving the firm and his particular team (Dessler 2013). In addition to these, the self reflection of the managers or leaders of the team, development of a clear view, demonstration of leadership and confidence, willingness to become the unique individual, interaction and communication with each individual of an organization or of the team, showing concern and respect to others, knowledgeable and well rounded and to have humility and keenness to confess his mistakes  also play an important role in ensuring the contribution of the team manager or leader to the work team as a role model for others, including the stakeholders of the firm (Dowling, Festing and Engle 2013).  

The leader of the team of the particular firm can easily facilitate the process of communication with each of the stakeholders group of the firm BizOps by the implementation of both formal and informal methods of communication. The formal methods of communication include – meetings, conference calls and also through emails, newsletters and posters (Byars and Rue 2011). On the other hand, the informal methods of communication include – the conversations in washrooms, hallway, lunch meetings, sporting events, after office diner party and voice mail. In addition to this, communication with all the stakeholders of the firm BizOps can also took place through both verbal and non-verbal methods of communication. The verbal communication can take place through both written firm (email, letter, magazine advert, newspaper) and oral form (face-to-face, telephone call, group discussion, team meeting). However, non-verbal communication includes body-language, facial expressions, tone of voice and many more (DeCenzo, Robbins and Verhulst 2013).

In order to communicate with the senior management team regarding a team performance issues, then the manager of the particular team should opt for the process of vertical communication, as through this vertical communication a two way flow of information can take place easily. In this method, superiors can easily communicate with the subordinates and the subordinates can also communicate with their superiors easily. Therefore, it can be stated that the vertical communication can be two types that are upward communication and downward communication (Bohlander and Snell 2013).  

References

Bohlander, G. and Snell, S. (2013). Principles of human resource management. Australia: South-Western/Cengage Learning.

Byars, L. and Rue, L. (2011). Human resource management. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

DeCenzo, D., Robbins, S. and Verhulst, S. (2013). Fundamentals of human resource management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Dessler, G. (2013). A framework for human resource management. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Dessler, G. (2013). Human resource management. Boston: Prentice Hall.

Dowling, P., Festing, M. and Engle, A. (2013). International human resource management. Andover: Cengage Learning.

Ivancevich, J. and Konopaske, R. (2013). Human resource management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Mondy, R. and Mondy, J. (2012). Human resource management. Boston: Prentice Hall.

Mondy, R. and Mondy, J. (2014). Human resource management. Boston: Pearson.

Price, A. and Price, A. (2011). Human resource management. Andover: Cengage Learning.

Stone, R. (2011). Human resource management. Milton, Qld.: John Wiley.

Torrington, D. (2011). Human resource management. Harlow, England: Financial Times/Prentice Hall.

Truss, C., Mankin, D. and Kelliher, C. (2012). Strategic human resource management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Werner, S., Schuler, R. and Jackson, S. (2012). Human resource management. Australia: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Wilton, N. (2013). An introduction to human resource management. London: SAGE.