The Metric Division Case - Midterm Case

Currently, there are three vacant posts in the division – that of a top engineer, junior engineer and intermediate technologist. This means that the remaining staff has to take on more work for the division to keep up with its responsibilities. They are being forced to work long hours, which is apparently interfering with their personal lives. For instance, Bob is unable to spend as much time as he would like with his family, whereas Ryan is unable to enjoy his time with friends at a local club after work. On top of this, the management wants them to work even harder by requesting them to take on more projects. In the end, the staff is not only feeling over-used, but also under-appreciated. The circumstances are even affecting the quality of work that employees are willing to do out of their own volition.

As a supervisor, one must communicate clearly and correctly to avoid misunderstandings and frustrations. When problems are identified with the productivity of the staff and the issues continues, the problems should be addressed at the August staff meeting. Some of the purposes for holding meetings are to explain protocols or anything that involves change. Having the staff together as a group helps with problem solving. With staff meetings, there should always be an opportunity to teach, train, demonstrate, or explain tasks and procedures. (McConnell, 2014, pg. 544).

Team has to agree on the methods to which conflicts can be resolved within the group, this has to be addressed as soon as possible to enhance team cohesion and progress team effort towards achieving its goals.

o “Deciding issues through management teams had led people to identify too much with their staff roles, instead of with the company’s operations.” (p. 13) To solve this problem, “ops” groups were implemented in order to break the staff down into smaller groups.

Unfortunately, one problem I noticed was the breakdown in communication between all levels of the team. The pattern of communication I noticed was closed and limited to only a small portion of the team as a whole. With such a large building, this is something that needs to be addressed immediately. Opening the lines of communication within the department will strengthen the relationship each member has with their leader. This builds trust and will improve

The natural and the rational perspectives ignored the element of the external environment with the assumption that organizations existed as closed systems. On the contrary, the Open systems approach incorporates the aspect of the external factors that have an effect on the organization (Hardy, 1983, p. 341). The open systems perspective depict that organizations exist as a jumbled collection of interrelated systems linked by activities of the participants that are brought together by various institutional environments (Scott, 2003).

Meeting with staff, providing the opportunity to discuss concerns, ascertain motivation and build relationships between management and workers. Collect and analyse performance figures and observe trends, (for example absence levels, retention, production or customer service). Use staff satisfaction surveys to determine the mood of employees. Promptly analyse responses to identify areas requiring action.

To resolve this problem, Firstly I will analyze gaps in system in terms of cost allocation, revenue sharing , transfer price and create a strategy to address gaps, motivate teams across divisions to work towards company objectives.

Group member cohesiveness was absent from the group meeting for several reasons, but the primary reasons were due to the fact that the group members did not have a common description of value or structure to the discussion. Each member viewed their own area of involvement within the organization as being more valuable than any other area, and it was this exclusion of other valuable traits that lead the group to begin to clash in such a

“Assigning team leaders that are both task and relationship-oriented” - Emma is not leading or driving a productive meeting; shift members around to work collaboratively;

Tuckman proposes that groups develop via five stages; forming, storming, norming, performing and finally adjourning (Archee, Gurney, & Mohan, 2013a). The first stage, known as forming, involves clarifying the task and purpose of the group, and identifying boundaries of both the task and interpersonal behaviour (Archee et al., 2013a). For the presentation task we were randomly allocated into groups. This worried me greatly as I have struggled in the past with group members who do not contribute equally or see the task as important as other group members. To avoid this problem, the group collectively determined and agreed upon a number of ground rules. For example, we decided that all group members were expected to contribute equally to the presentation, all group members were expected to attend and contribute at all group meetings, and all group members would adhere to agreed upon deadlines. Having failed to do this in previous group assignments, this clarification stage

It was clear from that point forward there were large personalities in the group, which caused friction between the group members. By the third group meeting on Moodle, one of the group members decided to leave as they felt that no conflicts should be occurring during the planning stage. The remaining four group members were confused by the departure, as many group projects will often experience conflicts, as it is part of the process (Liu & Tsai, 2008). On reflection, during the beginning stages of the group’s decision-making process our group had similar ideas and opinions and within the first online group chat; a target group was agreed

At one point or another, everyone has been placed in a group of people and assigned a task that needed to be accomplished. Many of these groups are simply that, a group. The task that many fail to see as the number one objective of the group is to foster a teamwork by actually transforming the group to a cohesive team. The idea sounds fairly simple and transparent, "If everyone works together, we have a team!" This could not be farther from the truth. Teamwork is not merely the ability to work together to get from point A to B. The Overhead Reduction Task Force is a case that exhibits this strong need to build a team in order to be the most effective in achieving goals. The group that has been

OD – Organizational Development is clearly the main focus here at DuPont. Tom had a vision to improve the organizational standards at DuPont not focusing on any problems that may have been present. The projected outcome for DuPont’s organizational structure was improving for the better of the company and the employees. Tom wanted to development to increase productivity for the company and its employees which would allow to company to be in a better stable place in the near future. Tom was building a strong foundation for the company which would benefit everyone involved. Tom

Levin (2005) suggests that the idea of a team is to share the same objectives. This may not always be the case if team members have never met before and are not fully clear of the task set. This can lead to confusion between members and may mean that some team members are unwilling to be told by their peers what to do. This is an example on ineffective team work.