Management Of Australian Financial Advisory Firm DEF With Virtual Team

Operational Aspects

Discuss about the Management Of An Australian Financial Advisory Firm.

The report aims at focusing on the aspect of management in the context of an Australian Financial Advisory firm known as DEF. Three financial advisers established the company in the year 1994. The firm now has close to 300 staffs and offices along the Australian east coast and a partner firm network throughout the country. The firm provides specialist advice, financial planning and retirement seminars on superannuation, retirement, divorce, corporate and aged care.  The firm posses the vision of enriching the client by authorizing them in taking important life decisions depending on the advice provided by the financial experts of the firm. The report tries to analyze the firm’s decision for setting up a newer division in the context of planning, organizing, leading and controlling. The newer division of the firm is focused on providing innovative service to the clients by offering financial advice over the phone. In addition, the firm has considered three options for operation of the advice line that includes virtual team; self managed team based in Australia and global overseas team. The report tries to provide an insight into the type of the team that would suit DEF.

Financial Planning Advice Division Goals

Political:

Australia represents a safe destination for the purpose of the investment for the financial service industry since the country is progressive, open and stable thereby providing them with certainty and confidence (Kremer and Symmons 2015).

Economic:

The service sector dominates Australia due to the ease of doing business and hence the financial service industry is no different (Robbins et al. 2013). The lower unemployment, continued inflation, low public debt, stable and stronger financial system, constant growth and open market acts as a boost for the financial sector.

Social:

Australia has become a land of diverse people with an increased education level than before (Williams 2017).  Thus, the national culture also acts as an impetus to the financial service industry. 

Technological:

The technological factors that affects the financial service industry includes activities related to the research and development, incentives related to technology and the speed of the technological changes This is because; technology helps in reducing the cost, improving quality and thereby leads to innovation(Robbins et al. 2013).

Environmental:

The general move towards the protection of environment and adoption of the environmental friendly products is affecting the financial service sector through the change of the demand patterns and by creation of newer business opportunities( Sadgrove 2016)

Human Resource Aspects

Legal

The legal system of Australia depends on the fundamental belief in rule of the law, judicial independence and justice where all people provided equal treatment. This leads to the creation of a positive work ambience for the financial sector.

Based on the comparison, the preferred team option for DEF is the virtual team since there exist a sense of trust due to the adoption of open culture, meaningful communication and positivity in the attitude of working (Majchrzak et al. 2014).

Strategies of Building Effectiveness and Cohesion of the Virtual Team

The effectiveness and cohesion of the virtual team is achieved through (Daspit et al. 2013):

1. Clearly defining the responsibilities and roles
2. Setting specific goals for the team
3. Putting forward creative ways for the team in knowing each other
4. Commitment of an effective communication charter

Strategies for Management of Communication of the Virtual Team

The strategies of communication management of virtual teams include (Binder 2016):

1. By building trust amongst the team members and allowing the trust for growing with clear expectation
2. Through scheduling the communication on a regular basis
3. Adoption of the communication means that saves time
4. By establishing the rules of responsiveness

Recommendations of Virtual Team Structure/ Design:

Specialization:

Virtual team represents group of people who work on interdependent and geographically distributed tasks while conducting the core work through electronic medium(Germain and McGuire 2014). Thus, hiring a specialist will lead to virtual certainty, as generalist might have to struggle on the things that need a different thinking mode.

Centralization:

As virtual teams are gradually becoming a rule for the organization, they can make decisions through computer-mediated communication (CMC) process (Carley and Prietula 2014)

Formalization:

There should be preparation of visuals and agenda for conduction of a virtual meeting and a plan for interactivity and building time for relationships (Diamantini, Potena and Stort 2013). There should be identification of the team roles and development of the ground rules that includes respect, transparency, trust, confidentiality and candor. The etiquette of being present at on call is considered good practice.

Structure:

 The new division would be organic. This is because an organic is a very flexible structure that can adapt well to the changes.

Hierarchy of Managers/ Supervisors:

Managers or supervisors play a vital role within a virtual team by maintaining team togetherness but also by keeping members motivated (Hoch and Kozlowski 2014). Therefore, the managers of the virtual teams effectively manage expectations by clearly defining requirements to the team members.

Recommendation of Leadership Style

The recommended best leadership style suited for a virtual team is transformational leadership. This because of the following reasons:

1. Here the leaders listens to the needs of the team members, share the risks with the team members and consistently conducts actions with underlying principles, values and ethics.
2. These leaders help in stimulating and motivating a great team spirit
3. These leaders also helps stimulates the members to be creative and innovative
4. Helps in individual development of the team members

Strategies for Reward and Recognition for Virtual Team

The strategies include:

1. Providing opportunities to the employees: This helps the employees in earning opportunities for the expanded training and responsibilities
2. Magnifying the Process of Recognition: This is done by publicizing the accomplishment of the employee across the multiple forums through team meetings, dashboards and newsletters of the company.
3. Offering Financial Incentives: This type of recognition and reward motivates the employees in putting their best efforts.
4. Facilitation of Peer-to-Peer Recognition: This is undertaken by engaging the millennial and the newer generation of the flexible workers.
5. Embracing Gratification: This helps in generating a friendly competition through rewards for reaching the higher performance standards

Strategies for Motivation for the Virtual Team

The strategies of motivation of the virtual team supported by the motivation theories include:

1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: The theory represents description of needs that helps in motivating the human behavior (Lester 2013). According to the theory, there are five types of basic human needs related to psychological, safety, esteem, social and the self-actualization.
2. Mc Clelland Need for Achievement, Affiliation and Power: This represents a motivational model explaining the how needs for power, achievement and affiliation influences the actions of the people from the managerial context (Heckhausen 2013).
3. Hertzberg Two-Factor Theory: This theory puts forward that there exists certain factors in the workplace that leads to the job satisfaction along with the existence of separate set of the factors that causes job dissatisfaction(Ek and Mukuru 2013).

Importance of Communication and Interpersonal Skills 

Organizations rely on communication that is defined as exchange of the messages, ideas or information via the speech, writing or signal. Absence of communication stops the functionality of the organization (Koprowska 2014). Interpersonal skills on the other hand refer to the ability of the employee in getting along with the others while getting the job done.

Financial Aspects

 Recommendation of Processes for Consultation and Negotiation with Management and Team Members

The processes for consultation and negotiation with management and team member include:

1. Promotion of a nuanced understanding of other side
2. Identification of unique expertise and knowledge
3. Through welcoming of Disagreement

Recommendation Processes for Handling Conflict and Dispute Resolution

The process of handling conflict and dispute resolution includes:

1. Process of Negotiation: Refers to the back and forth communication between parties for resolving conflict.
2. Process of Mediation: This method enables both the parties in reaching mutually accepted norms.
3. Process of Arbitration: In this process, an impartial person provides decision in disputed matters.
4. Process of Litigation: The process involves courts and justice system in resolution of the legal queries

Importance of the Control Function

Controlling refers to management function that possesses great importance and value in business organization for ensuring that the actual state of affairs of the business is in terms of what’s expected (Robbins et al. 2013).

Control and Measure of Team Members in Virtual Team

These include:

1. Developing and using a plan for communications management and team along with operating agreements.
2. Slowing down before speeding up which helps in understanding all the cultures and environments that a person is working in
3. Selection of the appropriate technologies for the team interactions
4. Creation of virtual presence and personality through the exploration of the strengths, weaknesses and the natural tendencies
5. By being a great host which enables creation of places where the team can meet for unplanned interactions.
6. Running team meetings which are effective through use of the techniques for management of meetings and creation and forced engagement of frequent interactions

Conclusion:

The report thus provides an insight into the planning, organization, leading and controlling of the expanded business of DEF with a virtual team structure. The report also put forward an analysis on why the virtual team is more effective for the company.

References:

Binder, J., 2016. Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.

Carley, K.M. and Prietula, M.J., 2014. The” virtual design team”: Simulating how organization structure and information processing tools affect team performance. In Computational organization theory (pp. 19-36). Psychology Press.

Daspit, J., Justice Tillman, C., Boyd, N.G. and Mckee, V., 2013. Cross-functional team effectiveness: An examination of internal team environment, shared leadership, and cohesion influences. Team Performance Management: An International Journal, 19(1/2), pp.34-56.

Diamantini, C., Potena, D. and Storti, E., 2013, June. A logic-based formalization of KPIs for virtual enterprises. In International Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering (pp. 274-285). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

EK, K. and Mukuru, E., 2013. Effect of motivation on employee performance in public middle level Technical Training Institutions in Kenya. International Journal of Advances in Management and Economics, 2(4), pp.73-82.

Germain, M.L. and McGuire, D., 2014. The role of swift trust in virtual teams and implications for human resource development. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 16(3), pp.356-370.

Heckhausen, H., 2013. The anatomy of achievement motivation (Vol. 1). Academic press.

Hoch, J.E. and Kozlowski, S.W., 2014. Leading virtual teams: Hierarchical leadership, structural supports, and shared team leadership. Journal of applied psychology, 99(3), p.390.

Koprowska, J., 2014. Communication and interpersonal skills in social work. Learning Matters.

Kremer, P.D. and Symmons, M.A., 2015. Mass timber construction as an alternative to concrete and steel in the Australia building industry: a PESTEL evaluation of the potential. International Wood Products Journal, 6(3), pp.138-147.

Lester, D., 2013. Measuring Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Psychological Reports, 113(1), pp.15-17.

Majchrzak, A., Rice, R., King, N., Malhotra, A. and Ba, S., 2014. Computer-mediated inter-organizational knowledge-sharing: Insights from a virtual team innovating using a collaborative tool.

Robbins, S., De Cenzo, D., Coulter, M. and Woods, M., 2013. Management: the essentials. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Sadgrove, K., 2016. The complete guide to business risk management. Routledge.

Williams, D., 2017. Marketing Plan for Australian Catholic University (ACU) 2018. Improvement of ACU’s branding and enrollment.

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