‘Consider a set of scenarios that are‘managerial dilemmas’ reflecting tension between individual needs and the requirements to be equitable whilst also meeting organisational needs. You shoulduse the discussion boards to describe the inherent challenges for managers and debate these amongst the cohort.’

Step 2

A reflective essay is then created to describe one of these critical situations and to integrate the course content in a decision-making process.

The tasks involved are:

1. Analyse a managerial issue, considering the ethical and practical nature of decision-making.
2. Contribute to a debate on the discussion boards associated with the chosen managerial dilemma.(Please provide me some topics that I can start post)
3. 3. Reflect on the nature of decision-making about people in organisations, drawing conclusions from the course content and extrapolating to your own workplace (and/or a case scenario). Outline how personal practice will change as a result of the unit.

ULO4: A prime function of this assignment is to look at the managerial paradox that people are best treated according to their individual needs but they are located in organisations where managerial practice has to take into account the organisation’s needs and try to be equitable and fair to all.

GLO1: Knowledge of People Management. To tackle this assignment well, you will need to demonstrate a strong understanding of the various principles, theories and strategies covered in the unit. (20 marks)

GLO4: Critical thinking. As this assignment potentially covers all topics of the unit, critical thinking is required to determine what theories and practices are relevant to the case scenarios, and how to apply them in complex situations. (10 marks)

GLO6:Self-management. This assignment requires you to critically reflect on the material covered in the unit and discuss key aspects of their own managerial practice that they will change or maintain as a result of the insights gained from studying this unit. (20 marks)

Scenario 1: Differences with team leaders in an organisation

Gloriana Insurance offers a range of insurance products both to individuals and corporations. It medium sized business, mostly based in Melbourne, with a contract call centre based in the Philippines. There are fiveteams in Melbourne involved in claims assessment. Ron Miller, The Director of the claims teams, is a long serving manager of the claims section, who has excellent knowledge, but has a rather autocratic style and doesn’t always trust his team leaders to make key decisions. This is somewhat problematic in the organisation as the company encourages its employees to be empowered and to make decisions in line with corporate values.

The five team leaders are Zoltan, Raj, Jennifer, Liling and Shadi, and they range in age from 28 to 44, with most in their 30s. They come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Some of the team leaders have become a little frustrated with Ron’s management style, and his lack of trust in their decision making abilities. For example, Jennifer, a 44 year old team leader, gave a team member permission to work at home for a few days due to caring responsibilities. Ron found out later and was furious, as he was not consulted about the approval. Jennifer argued with him about it and stated that she made the decision consistent with the organisation values and HR guidelines and her reasoning that it was more productive for her staff member to do work at home than taking leave. Ron told her not to do it in future and that these sort of approvals must go through him, otherwise it would set a precedent and everyone would be doing this.

Another team leader, Raj, who is 28, introduced team decision making into his team. This involved team meetings every Monday morning, and a short daily check-in meeting to look at progress. Ron observed what was going on and called in Raj to explain himself. Raj defended his actions saying that the team had become more engaged and interested, and that sharing of information amongst the team members was bringing better outcomes and productivity. Ron was really annoyed that Raj had not consulted him and told him to stop these meetings and if not he would be formally counselled for disobedience.

Raj was mortified by this, as he was only trying to improve outcomes. In discussions with some other team leaders, he realised that other team leaders also felt disempowered and that Ron did not listen to their suggestions. Jennifer told him she thought Ron was bullying them and was out of step with the values and direction of the company. Zoltan agreed with them and said he was fed up with Ron’s management style. The three of the team leaders decided to confront Ron about his autocratic style and demand a change in approach. However, the other two team leaders, Liling and Shadi, were not supportive of this as they had worked with Ron for a number years and were comfortable and used to his style. Their argument was that if they wanted to do something different, they would ask Ron for his approval. If he didn’t give approval, they dropped it because they respected his decision as the boss.

Raj was concerned that they were not united and wondered about the influence of cultural differences between the team leaders in the approaches they were taking. Zoltan thought they should consult HR first to seek advice, so contacted a friend in HR who advised him to go to Ron’s boss, the COO, if they weren’t able to get any traction with Ron in the first instance.

Using theory from this unit, reflect on your understanding of the issues in working with other people, and some of the ethical issues about alleging bullying and harassment. What is the best way to take action in this matter? How do you deal with individuals who are not following the organisation’s values and code of conduct?

Scenario 2: International competition and a drive to reduce costs

Marta Ziegler is the CEO of a medium sized manufacturing company based in Melbourne called Bonne Hi-Value. The company has a reputation for the highest quality products, but for some time, the company has been under heavy competition from cheaper manufacturers in South-East Asia. The COO of the company for the past 18 months, Dinh Tran, has global experience in manufacturing and is keen to set up a high quality production plant in Vietnam, for the company to become more competitive internationally.

Many staff in the company have become somewhat stressed about the lack of certainty in the future of their jobs, and turnover by highly skilled staff has increased dramatically in the last year. This has meant that the company has had to invest a lot of money and time in employing and training new staff, so as to retain their reputation. Marta realised that this was becoming unsustainable, and has developed a board proposal with Dinh to set up a factory in Vietnam. Their idea is not so much to close the Melbourne plant, although it may need to downsize, but to be more competitive in the global marketplace.

The most experienced team managers in Dinh’s Operations division are Angelo Distefano and Tomasz Janowski. Angelo is the most senior and experienced team manager, and is recognised as being highly competent. Tomasz is not quite as experienced, but is also seen as highly competent. In recent times, the team managers have noticed that Dinh seems to be away a lot overseas and is more focused on future planning than current operations. The team managers are under pressure to improve productivity to maintain competitiveness, but are starting to feel that Dinh is not supporting them. In the last round of performance appraisals, no bonuses were awarded to the team managers because the ambitious targets that were set by Dinh were not achieved. This led to some resentment from them, as they thought the unsettling nature of the international competitive market was the reason that productivity had not improved and turnover had increased. In fact, the team managers were continually focused on the training of new staff so that quality could be maintained, and therefore they just did not have time to look at improvements to the capabilities of existing staff, or indeed any innovative ideas to improve efficiency or products. Angelo had expressed his displeasure at Dinh’s approach and had appealed his lack of bonus to Marta, but she rejected the appeal. Tomasz was upset, but accepted the decision, given the competitive context.

The Board has now approved the business case to set up an additional plant in Vietnam, and Dinh has been chosen to head the project full-time for the next 12 months. Marta has asked Dinh which of his team managers he could recommend to fill in as COO while he is managing the project, and which staff could support him in setting up the new plant. At the same time, the Board has decided to reduce production by 30% in Melbourne over the next year. This would translate to a 35% cut in the current production workforce. Marta has thought that she would sell the project to the staff as the only path to ongoing viability of the company, and that there would be additional opportunities available for Melbourne staff to be involved in setting up the Vietnam operation. However, she really needs a good temporary replacement COO who can help support people through the downsizing. Dinh has recommended Tomasz to replace him.

Using theory from this unit, reflect on your understanding of the issues relating to communication, stress and other factors involved in implementing a significant organisational change in the organisation. What is the best way to communicate with employees and management? When do you let employees know what is going on? What do you do with individuals who are feeling anxious or who may be about to lose their jobs? How do you motivate employees in such a situation?

Scenario 3: Developing and rewarding talent in an SME

Myriad Engineering is an engineering consultancy company with around 40 employees. Myriad provides engineering services to large companies across Australia. The company is privately owned in a partnership, and the CEO is one of the five partners.

Myriad takes great pride in its expertise, as this is the major factor in the success of the company. The partners meet as a board every month, and Marcus Warner has been CEO for the last six years. The most important HR activity in the company is the acquisition and development of key talent. As the partners are now ageing and thinking of retirement, they are looking to rapidly develop key talent to take over managing the large projects.

Whilst the development of capability is a major priority and engineers are encouraged to undertake additional tertiary and other study, fast-tracking of potential talent has not previously been used. Marcus has decided that fast-tracking of talent would be a better approach to ensure there is a strong talent pipeline for future leadership positions. The program includes sponsorship to complete an MBA, funding to attend international conferences, and a direct mentoring and leadership shadowing by the CEO and two of the other partners.

In the current crop of young talented engineers in the group, Marcus identified three engineers for the fast-tracking program: Louise Oliver, James Chan, and Tom Warner. These engineers had each shown good leadership potential. Tom happened to be the nephew of CEO Marcus Warner.

The CEO did not make any general announcement about the fast-tracking program, as the partners thought it should be in-confidence, and they didn’t want anyone else to be disappointed. Marcus instructed the three chosen participants not to tell anyone else in the company that they were being treated differently.

After a while, some of the other engineers realised that Louise, James and Tom were getting better treatment and more opportunity than anyone else. This started some gossip around the company and assumptions were made about favouritism. Some employees were thinking that Tom was getting favourable treatment because of he was the CEO’s nephew. Quite a few staff had become disappointed in their CEO, and began to distrust him. A couple of project leaders started to notice a drop in enthusiasm from some team members in their work and were wondering what was going on. The usual team cohesion and focus was starting to decline and so the two project leaders reported this to the CEO.

One day, Tom overheard some of the gossip about him and was quite distressed, as he thought he was chosen on the basis of his talent and ability. Another talented engineer was quite outspoken about his belief of nepotism in the company and decided to resign in disgust. He was quickly picked up by a competitor. Eventually, Tom decided to speak to Uncle Marcus about the situation as he was becoming embarrassed by the comments and negative vibes he was getting from other staff.

Using theory from this unit, reflect on your understanding of the issues in working with people and some of the ethical issues about choosing people for special treatment, whether overtly or covertly. What is the best way to communicate development opportunities and rewards with employees and management? What do you do with individuals who are potentially disaffected by decisions?

Scenario 4: Organisation in need of change

Inexorable Finance Company is a medium sized business and is located in Australia’s five largest capital cities. The company has been successful in the past, but currently it has flat-lined in turnover with profit declining in the last three years. The board has investigated the causes of the decline in profit and thought that the management of the company had run out of ideas to improve competitiveness, so decided to replace the CEO. A new CEO has been found, Mary Millicent, who was previously a very successful executive at one of the big four banks. Mary has a reputation for being innovative and introducing successful change, and she started work at Inexorable a few weeks ago.

In Mary’s management team, there are six senior executives, all of them male. Two of the executives, George Petrakis, the COO, and Eoin Jones, the CFO, were most annoyed at the Board’s decision to select Mary for the CEO role, as they had been groomed by the previous CEO to be eventual replacements. Neither of them was interviewed for the position by the Board, however Mary was not aware of this.

Mary discussed company issues with staff in different locations and the management team and found that many staff were keen for change, but others were not so keen, with many staff seemingly satisfied with the existing direction. Mary found the senior executive team mostly cooperative, but George seemed to be quite critical at times of her ideas for the future, and she found that Eoin tended to be somewhat withdrawn and even tense when they were discussing the future of the company. She found the other members quite engaging and supportive. Mary asked the HR Director for some clues about the situation, and the full story about George and Eoin being overlooked was revealed.

Over the next few weeks, Mary brought in some independent consultants to review the culture and engagement levels of staff. The consultants found that there were significant differences in culture, with the dominant culture being quite strong and comfortable with the status quo (and potentially resistant to change), but there were pockets of people who were quite dissatisfied with the current culture and wanted change. Engagement levels of staff were not as high as benchmarked companies, so this was also a concern. The consultants explained that there seemed to be some fear of change that was quite widespread in the company.

Mary, with the support of the Board, decided to introduce some major changes to the business to bring about a cultural shift in the way the business was structured. These included introducing new organisational values around innovation and collaboration. The HR Director of the company warned Mary that there may be resistance issues in implementing change at the middle management level, either due to inertia or inability to embrace and enthuse employees about the changes. Mary believed that it was critical that the leaders needed to model the new values and to motivate employees to embrace change, and was determined to make this happen.

Using theory from this unit, reflect on your understanding of the issues in bring about cultural change and some of the ethical issues about undertaking major change in the organisation. What is the best way to communicate with employees and management? How to you deal with individuals who are disaffected or potentially resisting or ignoring change?

Description and requirements

Reflection on managerial decision making

Step 1

‘Consider a set of scenarios that are‘managerial dilemmas’ reflecting tension between individual needs and the requirements to be equitable whilst also meeting organisational needs. You shoulduse the discussion boards to describe the inherent challenges for managers and debate these amongst the cohort.’

Step 2

A reflective essay is then created to describe one of these critical situations and to integrate the course content in a decision-making process.

The tasks involved are:

1. Analyse a managerial issue, considering the ethical and practical nature of decision-making.
2. Contribute to a debate on the discussion boards associated with the chosen managerial dilemma.(Please provide me some topics that I can start post)
3. 3. Reflect on the nature of decision-making about people in organisations, drawing conclusions from the course content and extrapolating to your own workplace (and/or a case scenario). Outline how personal practice will change as a result of the unit.

Word limit:  3000 words +/- 10% (including in-text references, excluding reference list). At least ten academic references are required.

Weight (% of total mark for the unit) 50%

Unit Learning Outcome assessed

ULO4: A prime function of this assignment is to look at the managerial paradox that people are best treated according to their individual needs but they are located in organisations where managerial practice has to take into account the organisation’s needs and try to be equitable and fair to all.

GLO1: Knowledge of People Management. To tackle this assignment well, you will need to demonstrate a strong understanding of the various principles, theories and strategies covered in the unit. (20 marks)

GLO4: Critical thinking. As this assignment potentially covers all topics of the unit, critical thinking is required to determine what theories and practices are relevant to the case scenarios, and how to apply them in complex situations. (10 marks)

GLO6:Self-management. This assignment requires you to critically reflect on the material covered in the unit and discuss key aspects of their own managerial practice that they will change or maintain as a result of the insights gained from studying this unit. (20 marks)

Scenario 1: Differences with team leaders in an organisation

Gloriana Insurance offers a range of insurance products both to individuals and corporations. It medium sized business, mostly based in Melbourne, with a contract call centre based in the Philippines. There are fiveteams in Melbourne involved in claims assessment. Ron Miller, The Director of the claims teams, is a long serving manager of the claims section, who has excellent knowledge, but has a rather autocratic style and doesn’t always trust his team leaders to make key decisions. This is somewhat problematic in the organisation as the company encourages its employees to be empowered and to make decisions in line with corporate values.

The five team leaders are Zoltan, Raj, Jennifer, Liling and Shadi, and they range in age from 28 to 44, with most in their 30s. They come from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Some of the team leaders have become a little frustrated with Ron’s management style, and his lack of trust in their decision making abilities. For example, Jennifer, a 44 year old team leader, gave a team member permission to work at home for a few days due to caring responsibilities. Ron found out later and was furious, as he was not consulted about the approval. Jennifer argued with him about it and stated that she made the decision consistent with the organisation values and HR guidelines and her reasoning that it was more productive for her staff member to do work at home than taking leave. Ron told her not to do it in future and that these sort of approvals must go through him, otherwise it would set a precedent and everyone would be doing this.

Another team leader, Raj, who is 28, introduced team decision making into his team. This involved team meetings every Monday morning, and a short daily check-in meeting to look at progress. Ron observed what was going on and called in Raj to explain himself. Raj defended his actions saying that the team had become more engaged and interested, and that sharing of information amongst the team members was bringing better outcomes and productivity. Ron was really annoyed that Raj had not consulted him and told him to stop these meetings and if not he would be formally counselled for disobedience.

Raj was mortified by this, as he was only trying to improve outcomes. In discussions with some other team leaders, he realised that other team leaders also felt disempowered and that Ron did not listen to their suggestions. Jennifer told him she thought Ron was bullying them and was out of step with the values and direction of the company. Zoltan agreed with them and said he was fed up with Ron’s management style. The three of the team leaders decided to confront Ron about his autocratic style and demand a change in approach. However, the other two team leaders, Liling and Shadi, were not supportive of this as they had worked with Ron for a number years and were comfortable and used to his style. Their argument was that if they wanted to do something different, they would ask Ron for his approval. If he didn’t give approval, they dropped it because they respected his decision as the boss.

Raj was concerned that they were not united and wondered about the influence of cultural differences between the team leaders in the approaches they were taking. Zoltan thought they should consult HR first to seek advice, so contacted a friend in HR who advised him to go to Ron’s boss, the COO, if they weren’t able to get any traction with Ron in the first instance.

Using theory from this unit, reflect on your understanding of the issues in working with other people, and some of the ethical issues about alleging bullying and harassment. What is the best way to take action in this matter? How do you deal with individuals who are not following the organisation’s values and code of conduct?

Scenario 2: International competition and a drive to reduce costs

Marta Ziegler is the CEO of a medium sized manufacturing company based in Melbourne called Bonne Hi-Value. The company has a reputation for the highest quality products, but for some time, the company has been under heavy competition from cheaper manufacturers in South-East Asia. The COO of the company for the past 18 months, Dinh Tran, has global experience in manufacturing and is keen to set up a high quality production plant in Vietnam, for the company to become more competitive internationally.

Many staff in the company have become somewhat stressed about the lack of certainty in the future of their jobs, and turnover by highly skilled staff has increased dramatically in the last year. This has meant that the company has had to invest a lot of money and time in employing and training new staff, so as to retain their reputation. Marta realised that this was becoming unsustainable, and has developed a board proposal with Dinh to set up a factory in Vietnam. Their idea is not so much to close the Melbourne plant, although it may need to downsize, but to be more competitive in the global marketplace.

The most experienced team managers in Dinh’s Operations division are Angelo Distefano and Tomasz Janowski. Angelo is the most senior and experienced team manager, and is recognised as being highly competent. Tomasz is not quite as experienced, but is also seen as highly competent. In recent times, the team managers have noticed that Dinh seems to be away a lot overseas and is more focused on future planning than current operations. The team managers are under pressure to improve productivity to maintain competitiveness, but are starting to feel that Dinh is not supporting them. In the last round of performance appraisals, no bonuses were awarded to the team managers because the ambitious targets that were set by Dinh were not achieved. This led to some resentment from them, as they thought the unsettling nature of the international competitive market was the reason that productivity had not improved and turnover had increased. In fact, the team managers were continually focused on the training of new staff so that quality could be maintained, and therefore they just did not have time to look at improvements to the capabilities of existing staff, or indeed any innovative ideas to improve efficiency or products. Angelo had expressed his displeasure at Dinh’s approach and had appealed his lack of bonus to Marta, but she rejected the appeal. Tomasz was upset, but accepted the decision, given the competitive context.

The Board has now approved the business case to set up an additional plant in Vietnam, and Dinh has been chosen to head the project full-time for the next 12 months. Marta has asked Dinh which of his team managers he could recommend to fill in as COO while he is managing the project, and which staff could support him in setting up the new plant. At the same time, the Board has decided to reduce production by 30% in Melbourne over the next year. This would translate to a 35% cut in the current production workforce. Marta has thought that she would sell the project to the staff as the only path to ongoing viability of the company, and that there would be additional opportunities available for Melbourne staff to be involved in setting up the Vietnam operation. However, she really needs a good temporary replacement COO who can help support people through the downsizing. Dinh has recommended Tomasz to replace him.

Using theory from this unit, reflect on your understanding of the issues relating to communication, stress and other factors involved in implementing a significant organisational change in the organisation. What is the best way to communicate with employees and management? When do you let employees know what is going on? What do you do with individuals who are feeling anxious or who may be about to lose their jobs? How do you motivate employees in such a situation?

Scenario 3: Developing and rewarding talent in an SME

Myriad Engineering is an engineering consultancy company with around 40 employees. Myriad provides engineering services to large companies across Australia. The company is privately owned in a partnership, and the CEO is one of the five partners.

Myriad takes great pride in its expertise, as this is the major factor in the success of the company. The partners meet as a board every month, and Marcus Warner has been CEO for the last six years. The most important HR activity in the company is the acquisition and development of key talent. As the partners are now ageing and thinking of retirement, they are looking to rapidly develop key talent to take over managing the large projects.

Whilst the development of capability is a major priority and engineers are encouraged to undertake additional tertiary and other study, fast-tracking of potential talent has not previously been used. Marcus has decided that fast-tracking of talent would be a better approach to ensure there is a strong talent pipeline for future leadership positions. The program includes sponsorship to complete an MBA, funding to attend international conferences, and a direct mentoring and leadership shadowing by the CEO and two of the other partners.

In the current crop of young talented engineers in the group, Marcus identified three engineers for the fast-tracking program: Louise Oliver, James Chan, and Tom Warner. These engineers had each shown good leadership potential. Tom happened to be the nephew of CEO Marcus Warner.

The CEO did not make any general announcement about the fast-tracking program, as the partners thought it should be in-confidence, and they didn’t want anyone else to be disappointed. Marcus instructed the three chosen participants not to tell anyone else in the company that they were being treated differently.

After a while, some of the other engineers realised that Louise, James and Tom were getting better treatment and more opportunity than anyone else. This started some gossip around the company and assumptions were made about favouritism. Some employees were thinking that Tom was getting favourable treatment because of he was the CEO’s nephew. Quite a few staff had become disappointed in their CEO, and began to distrust him. A couple of project leaders started to notice a drop in enthusiasm from some team members in their work and were wondering what was going on. The usual team cohesion and focus was starting to decline and so the two project leaders reported this to the CEO.

One day, Tom overheard some of the gossip about him and was quite distressed, as he thought he was chosen on the basis of his talent and ability. Another talented engineer was quite outspoken about his belief of nepotism in the company and decided to resign in disgust. He was quickly picked up by a competitor. Eventually, Tom decided to speak to Uncle Marcus about the situation as he was becoming embarrassed by the comments and negative vibes he was getting from other staff.

Using theory from this unit, reflect on your understanding of the issues in working with people and some of the ethical issues about choosing people for special treatment, whether overtly or covertly. What is the best way to communicate development opportunities and rewards with employees and management? What do you do with individuals who are potentially disaffected by decisions?

Scenario 4: Organisation in need of change

Inexorable Finance Company is a medium sized business and is located in Australia’s five largest capital cities. The company has been successful in the past, but currently it has flat-lined in turnover with profit declining in the last three years. The board has investigated the causes of the decline in profit and thought that the management of the company had run out of ideas to improve competitiveness, so decided to replace the CEO. A new CEO has been found, Mary Millicent, who was previously a very successful executive at one of the big four banks. Mary has a reputation for being innovative and introducing successful change, and she started work at Inexorable a few weeks ago.

In Mary’s management team, there are six senior executives, all of them male. Two of the executives, George Petrakis, the COO, and Eoin Jones, the CFO, were most annoyed at the Board’s decision to select Mary for the CEO role, as they had been groomed by the previous CEO to be eventual replacements. Neither of them was interviewed for the position by the Board, however Mary was not aware of this.

Mary discussed company issues with staff in different locations and the management team and found that many staff were keen for change, but others were not so keen, with many staff seemingly satisfied with the existing direction. Mary found the senior executive team mostly cooperative, but George seemed to be quite critical at times of her ideas for the future, and she found that Eoin tended to be somewhat withdrawn and even tense when they were discussing the future of the company. She found the other members quite engaging and supportive. Mary asked the HR Director for some clues about the situation, and the full story about George and Eoin being overlooked was revealed.

Over the next few weeks, Mary brought in some independent consultants to review the culture and engagement levels of staff. The consultants found that there were significant differences in culture, with the dominant culture being quite strong and comfortable with the status quo (and potentially resistant to change), but there were pockets of people who were quite dissatisfied with the current culture and wanted change. Engagement levels of staff were not as high as benchmarked companies, so this was also a concern. The consultants explained that there seemed to be some fear of change that was quite widespread in the company.

Mary, with the support of the Board, decided to introduce some major changes to the business to bring about a cultural shift in the way the business was structured. These included introducing new organisational values around innovation and collaboration. The HR Director of the company warned Mary that there may be resistance issues in implementing change at the middle management level, either due to inertia or inability to embrace and enthuse employees about the changes. Mary believed that it was critical that the leaders needed to model the new values and to motivate employees to embrace change, and was determined to make this happen.

Using theory from this unit, reflect on your understanding of the issues in bring about cultural change and some of the ethical issues about undertaking major change in the organisation. What is the best way to communicate with employees and management? How to you deal with individuals who are disaffected or potentially resisting or ignoring change?

 
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