BARTON’S COACHING AND TOURING SERVICES: A CASE STUDY
Introduction
The at least forty year old service excellence of Barton’s seems like unbeatable. However, too much focus on that service excellence did not exclusively gave the company huge amount of success. Rather, it is one of the catalysts of an emerging human resource problem in the aspect of recruitment and retention. The managers focusing on customer satisfaction and overlooked the value of people behind the process made former a blurred and impossible aspiration to pur. Truly, labor and capital relationship is important if a firm is to aspire long-term profit and business prosperity.
Presented in this paper is a situation occurred at Barton that shook every head of managers including the visionary and cooperative governance of the general manager – recruitment and retention loopholes. The major causes that resulted to this organizational inconvenience are identified and discuss along with the symptoms that emerge as the consequences of these causes. To follow is a set of resolution that proposes how to deal with the problem at hand including the symptoms. At the end of the paper, conclusion is installed to give the key points of the essay particularly the proposed recommendation.
To come up with the findings and proposals, prominent management theories like Theory X, Y and Z are observed to assess managerial performance in managing human resource. Along with this application, the modern trends of human resource aspects are also applied to institute timeliness in evaluation.
Executive Summary
Using theories in management and contemporary landscape of human resources environment, it is found that one leader is responsible to institute important values in the firm’s management stream fro the organization to attain effectiveness in planning, organizing, controlling and evaluating the human resources. He is the catalysts of change that has the charisma and willingness to reach down the ladder of firm’s hierarchy. He is the one to be followed, serve as a role model for other managers and inspiration to employees to work hard and serve the company wholeheartedly. He is willing to listen and act with utmost effort to employees grievances and be able to guide them in times when new methods are unfamiliar to them. With this, every problem could be resolved in a participative and responsible way beneficial to both managers and employees.
The Recruitment-Retention Loophole and the Macro Problems
At the end of and informal conversation about the resignation of a few-month old operations scheduler , the general manager knew that there were loopholes in the recruitment-retention process. This initial intuition became a hard fact as confirmed her version of job posting. Blame could be confined on the head of alone because she is the human resource manager or as he failed to notify his personal qualifications suitable for the challenges in operations division. Enough of the finger pointing at this point as it is also likely to blame that could undermine his supposedly visionary and democratic type of leadership. The recruitment-retention dilemma is caused by four major iss that are corporate in nature rather than solitary origin; namely, absence of employee relations strategy, weak coordination system, ineffective leadership and narrow emphasis on work analysis in favor of job analysis.
Barton will not have problems in recruitment-retention when in the first place its conditions of work and relationship with employees are as excellent as its customer service. Without strategy, commitment to a set of programs ( 2003) designed by the organization for efficient attainment of goals is not possible. Barton took this out on employee relations that caused labor’s competitiveness from technical knowledge to hard work at sub-optimal level. The absence of creating certain standards to guide in providing the essence of mentorship to the newly hired , the operations manager only ended up protecting his Theory X approach () even though there is a problem on it. Instead of realizing the inappropriateness of Theory X for new, challenging and quasi-managerial position as operations scheduler, organizational interest is undermined by face-saving that recruitment-retention only becomes an unsolved management problem cycle.
Coordination is known to be the heart of management. In Barton, the only manager who undoubtedly opens his ears to suggestion is . However, his task is largely done outside the premises of the business as he is going out to create and maintain important relationship with clients. As a result, his open door policy seemingly did not foster by his co-managers as the flat organizational structure tolerate the latter to have their own unique ways of management particularly coordinate corporate iss. In effect, the priority concern of operations division particularly on recruiting a key employee is not effectively coordinated to personnel division as he felt that the area is not of his alarm. The non-integration of key coordinating personnel resulted to slow discovery of emerging problems; hence, solution (grass) was brought when (horse) is already gone.
Leadership is more than management as it entails the employee concern factor not merely task accomplishment. If a leader could not convince that the employee and company have parallel goals, not one-sided relegated solely to the firm, retaining the labor is a frustrating task as turn-over will be the silent retaliation of the aggrieved employee. is qualified to replace Bill because he has the abilities to handle the position. However, behavioral aspect seemed to be the lacking quality of , or in the other side, the organization has the culture not suitable for training a new comer despite of the challenging position given to him. Whatever the reason is, effective leadership has its way to compromise differences of the organizational culture and employee attitudes. Recruitment-retention problem, thus, stemmed in the inability of the leaders to give adaptation period to the new comer to prevent turn-over and failure and to guide them in the early and critical stages of getting accustomed to the new environment. Short-run management hassle was eluded defeating long-term high performance quality.
’s concentration to job description when posting ads set aside factors such as maturity, dynamism and employee preference of the conditions of work which are important aspect of work analysis (1999). The management expected that will perform multi-tasking approach to work while the latter is not aware of, and as with reference to his letter, frustrated on the ambiguity of the scope of his responsibility. According to , he wanted bigger salary to compensate the bulk of the chores that necessitates him to work even in weekends. The firm would loose a valuable resource and end up searching again to add up transaction costs in its expense sheet. The question is: Why not give him or bargain the amount he thinks will motivate him to perform his dynamic duty? This is because the personnel division of erred to consider the fact that Bill has years of experience that made the operations scheduler task for him easy that demanding higher salary is too much to ask.
These four macro problems of Barton are not static in areas aggravating employee, communication, leadership or human resource function individually rather they work in harmony, sad to say, to result the ultimate recruitment and retention headache. This chain blends along with basic management functions. Starting in planning, the management’s failure to build employee relations strategy like prevention of dissatisfying a new and key recruit like made the coordination system (the organizing and control process) lax and unstable. Managers are one their own solitary planning and contingency solution formulation without consultation to either employee or co-manager. Thus, ineffective leadership (crucial to all managerial functions) emerged when coordinating foundations are deaf or assuming to be one. Minor problems will appear one’s in a while that without a major one appearing in their very faces managers will keep their door close. In effect, narrow emphasis to consider the dynamic environment and changing tends in labor attributes (evaluation) will develop that then equate a vicious cycle of recruitment and retention difficulty that Barton will continue to deal until they evaluate holistically and from the root of the problem not simply on the periphery.
The Macro Problems and their Symptoms
Limited employee relations strategy has several outcomes. This results to lack of programs to reward employees for a hard work while disciplinary action to inferior performance is largely based on superior’s personal remedy. According to , exemplified characteristics suitable for the job during the interview while regarded him as a “nice man”. With these compliments, is strongly to have both technical and behavioral characteristics. However, basing the statement of that is demanding for higher salary due to complexity of the job, the new comer felt that his months of effort is not rewarded. As personal remedy, did nothing, not even opening the demand to . The lack of pre-conceived process, while human resource seemed to have lack of initiative to survey, did not convince the two-year operation’s experience of , which he himself is a former human resource personnel, that inability to address ’s demand will result to chain of problems.
This is a good time to relate the limited program strategy to weak coordination system. As managers and employees are unequipped with some sort of standard procedures, coordination posts are not well-build. As a consequence, the managerial view of about a qualified division’s key player had not been signaled to or , which are the only two people to have face-to-face contact to . The reason of unparallel features of managerial selection standards is in itself coordination problem. should be active hiring personnel when a key position in his department, which is formerly delegated to an 18-year old experience of Bill, is at stake. However, the weak coordination system failed to interfere the selection of aggravated by the thought that had experienced exclusion and some inferiority complex as he is relatively new to the company compared to and .
Another setback chain indicative of ineffective leadership is the inability of the managers, except from the approachable , to emphasize employee and co-manager coordination that destroyed any vision from the leaders. Ineffective leadership caused to hate instead support the adjusting . Leaders serve as the light not a barricade to impede the progress of a member. Being new to the company, the ineffective leadership of did not bother to teach the new comer how to efficiently operate the Schedpac technology. If effective leadership is present, as knew the crucial contribution of the software to his division, talk would mean action and he himself should operate it as should learn from the operations manager. The expertise of , which probably precipitated mostly to managing people undermining his technical knowledge in the division, seemed not enough without the aid of Bill. As a result, mentorship would not be possible in the case of as himself did not have excellent hands-on knowledge about the operations scheduler’s tasks. More appropriately, his negative remarks to should be driven back in him such as “He never mastered the job – Schedpac or no Schedpac!’
The first two macro problems are essential to reverse Barton situation but the leadership iss are far more important in the management functions. As a result of these conditions, managers espoused an evaluation characterized by narrow emphasis on work analysis in favor of job analysis. Tasks are on top of the people. The human capital is measured on the basis of performance and results biased about their value-added contribution such as hard work and as in the case of , weekend sacrifice. The observable mistake of the management is that it demanded flexibility from but they exclusively looked his qualification through the lens of job analysis without considering Bill’s working attitudes, talents, interests and compatibility with organizational culture. Rather, the lens that should be used is work analysis wherein the expectation of that should know his tasks and contingency attached to it could be addressed. Again, coordination problem did not let managers to communicate to the rigors of the job along with the burden to comply with all the hassles without a salary increase. In effect, it was blurred during the pre- and post-employment if Barton divides the labor or simply gives cross-functional responsibilities (Korman, & Kraut, 1999). A puzzle that even managers cannot answer especially speaking in behalf of the concerned employees.
Resolving the Macro and Micro Problems
On top of the proposed solutions, the flat organizational structure should be modified by naming the General Manager as the over-all administrator similar to a Chief Executive Officer. This is a change breakthrough that will transform the forty year old strategy of Barton to modernization. The present organizational structure is effective when managers are able to use coordination and informality advantages. However, as showed by and , being flat and simple did not equate success in coordination. In their case, along with ’s unawareness of the worsening situation, such structure only seemed to create crab mentality and pride precipitation on the part of division managers instead of focusing the interest of the whole firm.
Selecting is the best and as ideal choice as he exemplified “open door policy” which means that he is concern to what people might say to his decisions. The problem, however, was that he has a field role and mostly concentrated his efforts on the outside and finding clients. Giving him the chair and room conducive to think about the inside of the organization could maximize and spill down the effects of his Theory Y () managerial attitude up to the lowest ranked employee. He could also serve as the catalyst and champion of change because he is willing to hear, unlike the introverts and . He is also familiar with the operation of the firm and knows every concern of the organization as he also conducts managerial meetings. The organizational knowledge, face value and participative type of leadership seen on could serve as the chain saw that will bring down every macro and micro problems that were identified particularly having the upper hand against fellow managers to think outside the box that they are presently doing and ultimately drop Theory X.
Action Plan
Resources Required (from the Barton)
Timing and sequence of action plan with priorities
Person(s) responsible with each action plan
1. The managers meeting will be set to open the idea
None
Avoid other managers to feel insecure
Board of Directors
2. Employee survey
Print materials; time from supported managers and work stoppage; operation loss
Go for quality and quantity with equal priority. At this point, should not participate. Director’s role is crucial
BOD; supported managers
3. Creation of employee committee to represent the whole labor force
Work stoppage to allow role realization; print materials; operation loss
Be able to select opinion leaders and convince the labor that the matter is very relevant to them
BOD; supported managers; opinion leaders
4. Meetings between managers and employee committee
Member leave to allow realization and participation; operation loss
Members could get their leave from work but operations should continue with skeleton workforce.
BOD; supported managers; opinion leaders
5. Approval about the restructuring contingencies and other session outputs by directors
Partly operation loss as members are back to work
Every aspirations and queries about the structural change is set clear to the organization
BOD; supported managers; opinion leaders
6. General Manager as CEO
Adjustment period could either give or deduct operational gains
Employees and managers should respond positively with CEO changes
The whole organization with some advice from BOD
7. Effectiveness to be measured by performance and results
Monitoring costs; acquisition of software as database
Both short-term and long-term strategies are addressed
Management
8. Contingency actions
Contingency costs
Change impact should be measured and included in the risks assessment
Auditor, Managers and CEO
As the organizational structure has obtained its stability, at some point, introduction of new and best practices in management will be end. This is because Theory X has been replaced by Theory Y and some aspects of Theory Z (). Managers are now willing to listen to employees and the organization is certain that problems have their consensual resolution through the CEO. No one is afraid to confront and speak about conflicts as organizational culture threaded on employee empowerment and managerial accountability has gradually change how the Barton plans, organize, control and evaluate organizational resources, processes and performance. Thus, follow-up recommendations are necessary to completely eradicate the macro and micro problems.
Organizational meetings should not exclusively compose by managers, in effect, it is proposed that the created employee association, not just simply driver union, would continue to join managerial meetings even those involving directors. This is to ensure that employee complaints and grievances regarding conditions of employment could have its voice. The exclusive unionism of drivers undermine isolated the rights of office employees. This association will also coordinate with human resource department. The connection will allow employees to individually consult human resource personnel regarding unit or managerial conflicts and this organizational body will serve as their department of first resort before calling the attention of association opinion leaders to bring the matter to managerial meetings.
Another, training programs should be installed, more appropriately, inside and outside the organization. As the new world of work is characterized by downsizing, work-family conflict and outsourcing of personnel ( 1999), such system will enable employees to obtain employment even though Barton became machine dependent through the use of railways or outsourcing the transportation services. Employees are confident and motivated to perform well because their commitment to the firm would not entail them to kiss the shoes of its managers because they have the essential and flexible skill to be easily absorbed by other companies. Theory X could also be prevented occurring again in the history of Barton as there is security of tenure not attached in the premises of the firm.
Further, communication systems should be informal but responsible which a case of re-adapting some features of the earlier flat structure of Barton that can be useful to future amendments of its processes and culture. As the new world of work also called for dynamic responsibilities to be performed by the workforce (999), the case of obstructed by too much uninformed and unanticipated job flexibility should be a lesson to the company. In effect, managers should be more willing to hear complaints and solve them as fast and effective as possible. Managers should also be independent to the CEO and be able to solve day-to-day operations on their own. Responsible in the sense that unethical comparisons of say, ’s claim of higher wage just like other competitors, would not be spoken to operational managers to obtain professionalism. In such sensitive is, procedural correspondence is necessary.
Action Plan
Resources Required
Timing and sequence of action plan with priorities
Person(s) responsible with each action plan
Employee Association Continuum
Union Fees; Managerial and BOD meetings overhead; Contingency costs for strikes and lock-outs
Monitoring and resolution of employee complains; The motto is “A tiny hole results to a futile tile” which emphasize on isolated but sensible complaints.
Employees and the association including the human resource division
Insider-outsider training programs
Representation allowance for employee participants; operational loss due to employee leave
Sending new and enthusiastic employees (long-term employment to the firm); Providing basic, intermediate and advance training based on competence not experience; Evaluation of lessons learned to assure learning
Human resource division; some cooperation from managers and the association
Communication system upgrade
Monitoring costs
Eradicate forms of discrimination
CEO and managers
Conclusion
Along with these recommendations, it is important to note that Barton should place emphasis to stakeholders equally as much as possible. The importance of sound employee relations is that adverse impact in the event of unbalancing of cost and benefits, employee can be a very effective balance hedging. If leaders can convince them, along listening to labor concerns, to organizational changes, the superiority of service of Barton could gain unimaginable market force. As said, there is no one good alternative to solve different firms’ situation. In effect, there is a need for strong and responsible leadership to provide the framework of contingency plans that seek polishing clues from the entire organization.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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