Running head: MANAGEMENT OF PROFESSIONALS COURSE PROJECT

Management of Professionals Course Project Management of Professional MAN5255 November 24, 2012

MANAGEMENT OF PROFESSIONALS COURSE PROJECT Abstract

In the following course project students were asked to describe a workplace organization, the department, indicate a critical problem within the company to include how the organization determined it to be an issue, discuss the process used in gathering data, the criteria for analyzing the problem identified, and finally make recommendations to improve the department. I will explore the following topics in this paper: leadership issues, motivation issues, and the recruitment and selection process. Finally I will discuss the results along with recommended solutions or improvement to the organization.

MANAGEMENT OF PROFESSIONALS COURSE PROJECT Management of Professionals Course Project The company is a retail industry organization staffing about 275 employees with 19

departments 1 Store Manager, 2 Co-Managers, 9 Assistant Managers, and 1 HR Coordinator. For this paper I will focus on the General Merchandise departments and the Assistant Manager Role within the organization. In the problem identification phase there were 3 prominent issues that my company faced. The problems identified with the organization are low morale that caused high turnover. This was a direct reflection of poor recruiting and selection practices by the hiring managers. The departments also struggled with poor management that caused leadership issues. Further, the store had communication issues. Some of the contributing factors to these problems were one way communication, an unhealthy workplace culture, over worked employees, under staffed stores, overworked employees, low scores on customer surveys, poor leadership, and improper hiring processes resulting in high turnover. The data collection methods used to gather the facts that identified these problems were the results from customer surveys, the use of the Grass Roots employee survey data, direct observation of employee misbehaviors, exit interviews, Red Hat Investigation data, and the review of statistical reports such as the Managers Forecast, The HR Workbench, Hiring & Training data, Turnover Analysis data, Payroll data, Inventory data, and employee personnel files. Analysis procedures used in this course project were both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. For example the grass roots survey is conducted anonymously and online in which employees log in and answers a series of questions that yields a score card for the management team, the work culture, and training, resources, and tools categories. The exit interviews in which

MANAGEMENT OF PROFESSIONALS COURSE PROJECT employees that have turned in a two week notice are given a questionnaire to find out what their

honest feedback about why they are leaving provides insight into trends to address and change to improve hiring and retention. Our Voice of the Customer automated survey randomly polls customers to find out about their recent shopping experience gives us areas of opportunity to improve our customer satisfaction ratings. These methods for analyzing data are purposeful for finding out in depth what employees and customer think of the organization. By studying peoples perceptions we can correlate attitudes, personality, values, and norms to better manage behaviors and redirect disobedience. The quantitative data analysis is more viewing the numerical form of information and is easily compartmentalized to adapt to all levels of comprehension to educate leaders on how to make informed decisions. Examples of quantitative data are the workbench and managers forecast software that tracks data and presents it in a report form for leadership meetings. The use of Excel to track employee turnover, hiring and training plan data are all summaries of Based on the identified problems, the following sections will reveal the findings of the research. The typical recruitment strategy involves developing a job description, partnering with the hiring manager to confirm needs, expectations, and logistics of the position, posting the position through community outreach venues and electronic job boards, running ads, gathering candidates, screening resumes for qualifications, prescreen questionnaire for top selected candidates from the resume pool, schedule interviews for the top selected prescreened candidates, and finally selection. The problem we identified is we were losing a high percentage of employees within the first 90 days as much as 22%. One of the concerns our staff had was looking at who all is involved in the hiring process and ultimately who makes the recommendation to offer apposition to a candidate. The other deficiency was the feedback from

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managers that we wanted to shift the focus from hiring to fill a seat to quality hiring. Further, the poor hiring practices further contributed to low retention, an increased cost in hiring and training, as well as loss of productivity and performance. Communication issues centered on managers not giving proper feedback to frontline employees about their expectations about performance. For example, there were a few of the managers that because of past employee complaints were concerned about communicating with certain employees who were older or tenured because of the possibility of getting a complaint filed against them. The store operated under non written norms that had existed probably as long as the Store Manager had been there which about 12 years. It seemed like it was just engrained but unspoken that you walked on egg shells with certain employees and dealt with the aftermath of employee conflict. It really affected performance and the ability of the manager to be able to effectively hold employees accountable as well as give honest constructive feedback. We had other managers that were more vocal but lacked the proper balance of two way Communication. These managers were perceived as authoritarian and employees felt they could not speak up for fear they would be fired. The end result was decent performance but more out of fear they would lose their job. It also caused alienation, low morale, and high turnover as some employees would find other jobs or just quit without notice. The store constantly struggled with being short staffed and hiring every single month due to high turnover reaching up to 50% at one point. Consequently these two leaders were termed for coercing employees to work off the clock and for several other policy violations. There were other managers who were responsible for properly training new hires during the orientation period. One in particular was not effective because he was inconsistent by not following the corporate approved training manual. He also was observe red on several

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occasions, displaying unprofessional behavior in things she shared with the new hire classes, and overall was not a good fit as a trainer for the onboarding process. It lead to employees being let go for policy violations or job abandonment due to not understanding the expectation of the job they were hired to do. The leadership issue was an in depth and costly problem as well. One of the issues escalated to a corporate complaint. It stated that some employees were asked to work off the clock and therefore were not being properly compensated during rotations by 2 of our Assistant Managers. This corporate complaint launched an investigation, and the store got an EEOC violation charge for violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. In the investigation it was founded to be factual information and 3 leaders lost their jobs as a result. It is currently in legal litigation as it was a direct violation of The Fair Labor Standards Act along with other citations and violations the company received. Employees now have an organization that advocates for the rights of women working for this company to ensure they have a safe and healthy work environment. The recommendations for improvement gives some baseline suggestions on what I think could help the organization from my perspective. A recruiting strategy that is less mechanical, implementation focused, and open to change. In addition, we need to revisit our policies and procedures on the recruitment selection process and develop a well-planned and logical procedure with training for managers to understand how to hire for quality. Increased communication about the hiring needs from the Hiring Manager, HR Coordinator, and Store Manager would force open dialogue about the problems we are having with bad hires. A focus toward best practices for the selection process that concentrates on hiring the best suited candidates. Invest more in planning and logical processing of policies and procedures for

MANAGEMENT OF PROFESSIONALS COURSE PROJECT guidance, compliance, and consistency. More training refreshers could improve the understanding and evaluation of information presented in the pre-employment testing, background checks, drug screens, and reference checks process so the selection process could select the best fit for the position. The communication process could improve by training leaders and all employees with policy sign off contracts about best practices for open communication for managers. Increase meetings for both group and one on one to with employees direct supervisor to provide proper feedback and support. This would also benefit the mid-year and end of year employee performance appraisal program. Looking at the leadership issues is really a case study as to what can happen when the

wrong people are put in authority. I believe it is critical to provide the right fit for the Trainer so a comprehensive, professional orientation can be delivered with time for Q & A sessions and assessments to gauge each employees level of understanding there is also leading by example as managers conduct themselves to provide a role model for their employees. In conclusion the problems discussed were tremendous and required much more intervention than my position or expertise could provide. The culture was very much oppressed and employees were just not happy. I sought another position myself as it became such a high pressure job and our frontline employees were so over worked because we practically forced the high performers to churn until they burned out. The low performers overcrowded the top ones and we did not have an incentive to offer those until their year-end review. It seemed like the low morale, us against them work culture, and poor management was beyond the helping at the local level. These changes are possible but would require an extensive amount of overhauling and resources from Corporate.

MANAGEMENT OF PROFESSIONALS COURSE PROJECT References Ivancevich, J.M., Konopaske, R., & Matteson, M.T. (2008). Organizational Behavior and Management, 9th edition. New York, NY. McGraw-Hill. How does low employee morale affect an organization, and what can a communicator do to overcome it? (2010). Communication World, 27(2), 13-13. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/210238804?accountid=40833 Adubato, S. (2009). Leadership teams must address communication issues. NJBIZ, 22(36), 1515. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/228578917?accountid=40833

Frazier, Mya (2005, April 18). Wal-Mart under attack: But should it fight back? Advertising Age; Midwest region edition, (16), 12, Retrieved from http://elibrary.bigchalk.com McShulskis, E. (1996). Are you understaffed? HRMagazine, 41(4), 17-17. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/205041264?accountid=40833 Schaeffer, J. (2010). The root causes of low employee morale: Focusing on communication can fix them. SuperVision, 71(4), 3-4. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/195609273?accountid=40833 Burand, C. (2003). Management is often the source of low agency morale. American Agent & Broker, 75(12), 8-10. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/194901329?accountid=40833 Soltis, B. (2011). Overworked & understaffed. Credit Union Magazine, 77(4), 22-26. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/863489697?accountid=40833

MANAGEMENT OF PROFESSIONALS COURSE PROJECT Wal-Mart associates and national groups that advocate for women to announce partnership to create better working conditions for women at Wal-Mart. (2011, Oct 04). Business Wire. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/900856454?accountid=40833