Module Two – SNHU Pet Supply Company

Overview
Using the management skills and practices that suit your team and its objectives can help to ensure the team’s efficiency and productivity. Analyze the provided scenario to determine how management skills and practices can help support the team.

Scenario
Imagine that you are an organizational consultant for the SNHU Pet Supply Company. The director of retail operations has asked you to evaluate the reason for some of the team’s drop in productivity and make recommendations for their improvement. Further conversations with the team members and managers reveal a conflict in the way productivity and efficiency is being measured and handled.

The team members say that their managers micromanage them. Each week, the managers send out a task list for the team and expect them to fill out detailed timesheets every day to cross-reference the task list. Any deviations from the list must be explained in a separate email. Moreover, some team members feel their skill sets are not being used correctly, and that they would be better suited to do tasks that are not being assigned to them. This has led to some resentment within the team, not to mention high levels of stress to meet the managers’ demands.

The managers maintain that they have just been following the process that’s been set out for years in the company. The many unresolved issues are taking a toll on the team’s productivity and efficiency, which then feeds back into the conflict, creating a vicious circle.

Prompt: Write a brief report to the director of retail operations that explains the management skills and practices you feel will improve team productivity and efficiency, using the module reading to support your recommendations.

Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:

Overview: Provide a brief overview of the problem you have been asked to resolve, making sure to note specific areas of conflict between management approaches and employee feedback based on the provided scenario.
Management Approaches: Describe the general functions of management as well as the purpose and benefits of using established management skills and practices, making sure to use course resources to support your explanation.
Recommendations: Recommend a new management approach, consisting of a blend of management skills and practices, that you believe will help improve the team’s productivity and efficiency. Explain why you believe these approaches will be effective, and make sure to use course resources to support your recommendations.

ANSWER

Module Two-SNHU Pet Supply Company

Overview

The company is facing reduced productivity. From the employee’s point of view, they have reduced productivity because the managers keep micromanaging them. They are given a list of things that they need to achieve within the week, and they are excited to fill out detailed timesheets each day to cross-reference the task list. If an employee deviates from the list, they must explain through email what they did, thus making the employees feel like their skills are being underutilized. From the manager’s point of view, they are following a culture that has existed in the company for a long time, and there is nothing they can do about it. They believe the employees should follow the instructions given to them. However, this situation has led to the teams having resentment, and there are high levels of stress among the employees as they are pressured to meet the manager’s demands.

Management Approaches

Management is the process by which organizations pursue goals. It includes planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. Managers are given a role in the process of making decisions (Phillips & Enderby, 2021). They are required to plan the goals and the activities an organization will pursue. However, in the case of SNHU pet supply company, the managers are overplanning. They are required to give the activities for the day and the goals they expect the employees to achieve by the end of the day, but they should also give the employees the autonomy to deviate from the plan as long as by the end of the day all the goals are met. This ensures that the employees are utilizing their different skills and talents. Forcing the employees to follow a certain script is boring to employees. It also suppresses creativity, meaning that employees cannot develop new ways of doing things. Managers should only be involved in planning the goals of the organization but not micromanaging the employees.

Apart from planning, managers are also required to organize the events of the company. In this case, the management should organize but not micromanage. The management is also responsible for leading the employees (Phillips & Enderby, 2021). This means that as leaders, they have to practice effective leadership skills. The management should organize the events of the day and the goals they need to be achieved by the end of the day. They should also lead the employees towards achieving these goals. However, they should not micromanage them until the end of the day. They should let the employees find creative ways of dealing with their tasks. This will increase the productivity in the company as by letting the employees explore, they will discover new and efficient ways of doing things. If employees are micromanaged, they will underperform, they will be demotivated, and the stress levels in the company will keep increasing.

Recommendation

SNHU company is clearly faced with problems with making changes. The managers should understand that sticking to the company’s traditions is not helping the company and thus embrace new ways of doing things (DuBrin, 2022). The first thing they should do is open communication channels between the employees and the managers. Employees should have an opinion on how they do things in the company. For example, employees are complaining of being micromanaged. The managers should look for a new approach to doing things that lets the employees explore their potential. For example, they can still give them a list, but they can let them figure out how they will achieve the things in the list without following a script. Giving the employees the freedom to explore their talents will increase productivity and morale in the company as they will feel heard.

References

DuBrin, A. J. (2020). Essentials of management.

Phillips, A., & Enderby, P. (2021). The functions of management. In Developing Leadership Skills for Health and Social Care Professionals (pp. 104-113). Routledge.