Problem Identification
This paper intends to talk about managerial decision making scenario where a particular issue will be discussed and accordingly a solution will be generated. The chosen organisation is Envato, Australia is a graphic and web designing company which is dedicated to deliver creative and digital assets. In order to produce unique and new contents everyday they need to hire designers and developers. They have a different section of training and development to support their future requirements of work. The organisation stimulates both the social and economic situation in a positive way by offering digital educational programmes for development of future and existing human resources. Therefore, the purpose is to follow managerial decision of problem solving levels to point out and resolve an emerged issue. In addition to that solutions will be evaluated and action plan for implementation will be mentioned as well.
Following the trend of globalization, the company possesses extended community outside Melbourne as well. Their people are from all across the world sharing and transforming ideas into reality. The company has been exploring global talents and believes that ideas deserves growth. Envato encourages creativity and offers chances to grow considering global talents as one community. Recently, the central issue has been observed regarding managing culturally diverse workforce. As a result, the concept of team work is continuously ending up as ineffective. Consequently, customers’ complaints has been increased by 10% from the previous session. For such non-cooperative workplace scenario management has primarily identified lack of communication and language barrier as major issues. Therefore, the company’s motive would be to integrate the workforce irrespective of cultural diversity and motivate them towards team work. In order to increase customer satisfaction, company needs to concentrate on training and development programme along with developing a positive working culture.
As stated in Wood et al. (2009), problem identification is as crucial as the diagnosis stage of a certain diseases. Much like a disease, if it cannot be identified correctly, solution will be inappropriate too. Therefore, understanding nature of the problem is important to resolve or reduce its affect.
As discussed in Oetzel (2017), no matter the workforce is diverse in nature or not, if the intercultural and system communication is not strong then it is difficult to deliver work as per customers’ expectation. Irrespective of industry scenario, workplace culture will improve if people start to depend on their co-workers in terms of sharing knowledge, culture and work related information. It has been understood that organisation culture is linked with managerial decisions, measures and communication procedures. The positive result indicates managers’ efficiency in terms of generating, evaluating and implementing the solution.
Tools for Defining the Problem
The following tools will be appropriate while defining the problem; such as, 5Ws analysis, SWOT analysis.
5Ws analysis is about identifying component of existing issue. It discusses central points of the problem and help to understand easily.
|
What |
Ineffective team work, increased number of unsatisfied customers |
|
Where |
Envato, Melbourne, Australia |
|
When |
During regular working hours and it is increasing consistently. |
|
Who |
Human resource and management team |
|
Why |
§ Culturally diverse workforce is facing problem while communicating due to language barrier. § Besides, lack of understanding the instructions in virtual method and lack of employee integration or engagement programs are leading towards weak teams. § Weak quality has been produced and delivered. Consequently, customers’ dissatisfaction is increasing. |
Again gathering reference from the journal of Wood et al. SWOT analysis will help to present the current workplace scenario of Envato, Australia by identifying its strengths and weakness. Opportunities will be suggested based on strengths and weakness analysis will reveal its future threats.
|
Strengths |
Weakness |
|
Ø They believe in new ideas are source of growth. Ø The organisation provides chances to fresh global talents and simplified web solutions. Ø Based on commitments towards its people both employees and customers. Ø Apart from delivering creative solutions, Envato provides web development education for social development. |
Ø There is lack of effective communication between culturally diverse employees. Ø Managers have not taken concrete step against the miscommunication which is affecting workplace culture as well. Ø Language barrier is highly present. Ø The rate of customer satisfaction has decreased. |
|
Opportunities |
Threats |
|
Ø Envato can extended their virtual mode of helping hands to new global customers’ base. Ø Along with digital development education, meetings video conference can be arranged to integrate, engage and motivate employees towards shared goals of customer satisfaction and growth. Ø Language and culture workshop, sessions to develop knowledge across cultures is necessary to get along with co-workers. |
Ø Companies with same interests can beat Envato due to lack of effective communication and managerial skill. Ø Rate of dissatisfied customers will increase in future days if the issue is not treated properly. Ø Lack of work engagement due to degrading work environment which can lead even towards voluntary turnover. |
As mentioned before, and it is evident from the SWOT analysis too that Envato is facing issues of weaker team management and increasing number of customers’ complaints due to culturally diverse workplace. Indifferent or unprofessional nature of management is indulging the situation leading towards degrading workplace environment.
Defining the problem is important in terms of generating appropriate solution. Addressing weaker team coordination as a result of ineffective leadership behaviour, managerial decisions and actions must be reviewed and they must boost employee motivation to achieve shared goals along with regaining their reputation among global base of customers. Lack of communication and team management which is a consequence of language barrier that must be resolved too by arranging employee engagement workshops and meetings. This would help in developing workplace culture and production accordingly.
The level of solution generation discusses the series of probable solutions to solve the existing issues. It will help the organisation to change from its faulty state to the preferred one. It has been observed that the root of issues are cultural diversity and rest of the issues are interrelated. A communication gap has generated due to cultural differences which is affecting team coordination. Consequently, a faulty culture is leading towards faulty performance. Solutions must be aligned with the root cause and other issues will resolved one by one due to their dependant nature. Therefore, with the help of brainstorming innovative ideas the issues will be handled. Apart from providing digital solutions to customers, solving workplace issues are necessary to sustain within a competitive business scenario.
|
Issues |
Solution 1 |
Solution 2 |
Solution 3 |
|
Language barrier and cultural diversity in workplace |
To maintain seamless communication IT infrastructure must be developed. |
Meetings must be arranged through various methods like video conferences for better interaction with virtual teams. Social media platforms can be used to increase familiarity among culturally diverse workforce. |
Workshops can be arranged along with educational programs. Training and development sessions are necessary not only for professional development; basic language education is important for understanding the instruction and behaviour of co-workers. |
|
Degrading workplace culture, weaker team performance and voluntary turnover |
Leadership behaviour must be changed towards employees to induce positive workplace culture. |
HR development sessions are required to motivate employees towards shared goals in order to boost both personal and organisational growth. |
Employee engagement must be generated by introducing employee loyalty programme. It will not only develop a positive workplace culture; consequently, will restrict voluntary turnover as well. |
|
Increasing rate of dissatisfied customers |
Customers’ satisfaction is dependent on success of effective communication plan and its implementation. |
Improved IT infrastructure and success of training and development programme will ensure efficient production. |
A team can be developed to solve and culture the customers’ complaint. It will help to generate personalised solution and regain the reputation. |
From the above analysis, it has been clearly understood that HR management could have been more effective before, as they knew cultural diversity can occur as a problematic component in terms of hustle free team work and performance. Therefore, identified central causes are as follows.
- Lack of effective communication among employees and between employees and management leading towards weaker team work and increased rate of customer complaints.
- Lack of leadership skills and vision as they failed to address such predictable workplace scenario prior to such degradation.
- Training and development programs are not addressing the cultural orientation of employees and focusing on their professionals skills only.
The following impacts are leading towards negative culture among employees and affecting efficient production.
- Cultural differences is leading towards communication gap. Indifferent nature of managers was indulgent and resulted in less engaged employees, voluntary turnover, inefficient team work lack of motivation and weak co-ordination among them.
- Customers are gradually losing their confidence over the company and looking for substitutes.
- Lack of education regarding different culture is resisting the employees to develop familiarity among co-workers.
Affinity Diagram tool will be used to evaluate the proposed solution precisely. The evaluation program as stated by Wood et al. this procedure is an effective way to recognise and treat issues that have been generated through brainstorming. It will consider the opportunities which have been analysed via SWOT analysis. After evaluating the solutions, based on the structured timeline and monetary resources of the company solutions will be executed practically in order to make effective changes within organisational culture.
|
HR management, training-development and effective leadership behaviour |
Effective communication and developing team bonding |
Measures towards customer satisfaction and boosting employee performance |
|
Managers must arrange meetings with training faculties for asking them to focus on personality development along with the professional edge. |
Weekly meetings will be conducted not only to discuss assigned responsibilities, it is important for increasing familiarity and bond among co-workers. This initiative will help to communicate, collaborate and maintain synchronisation. All these aspects are necessary to deliver efficient performance. |
A separate team can be developed to control the damage. This team will be dedicated to address and deliver personalised solution to every dissatisfied customers. |
|
Regular trainings and workshops will be arranged for employees in front of one HR manager. Managers can explain the cultural issues during sessions and they will be guided accordingly. |
In case of virtual teams video conference would be more helpful than email or social media platforms. Although, social media can be considered good medium to maintain social contact with virtual members. |
To boost the performance and deliver more efficient solution for retaining both the customers and employees recognition and reward scheme must be introduced. |
Solution Generation
While implementing generated solutions it must be remembered that it is a change management condition. Implementation programme will be successful if desired positive change comes. The implementation programme will be able to perform successfully if managers were visionary towards potential cultural conflict. Therefore, following with the implementation, management must regularly supervise operations and decisions. Accordingly, training and development sessions will be designed. Following steps will be followed to implement the changes.
- At first, identification and right diagnosis is necessary in order to change existing practice. Aligning with implementation plan company resources and capability must be checked.
- As leadership behaviour has been identified as less visionary and ineffective, managers should conduct meetings to share knowledge and follow theoretical framework to handle such situation.
- Employee interested must be valued by introducing development and reward programmes to boost their performance. Efficient and quality productivity will serve the motive of customer satisfaction.
- Regular supervision is necessary. Reports will be made on weekly basis. This will ensure honest execution of generation solution. Moreover, amendments can be made if further issues are identified.
- Meetings with training faculty regarding the change in practice will take time as new curriculum will take time to be prepared.
- The communication within workplace must be developed in order to encourage knowledge sharing and increase bonding irrespective of cultural differences. Team performance is all about co-ordination meetings are important to conduct on weekly basis at initial stage.
- Successful implementation of such programmes will be determined by collecting managerial feedback and customers’ feedback regarding employee service.
- Training and development sessions are consistent acknowledging the dynamic nature of both the market and workplace crisis.
|
Goal 1 |
Resources |
Responsible department |
Timeline |
|
Developing effective communication |
Improved IT infrastructure and appropriate leadership behaviour |
HR management and employees |
6 months |
|
Goal 2 |
Resources |
Responsible department |
Timeline |
|
Developing workplace culture |
Training and development faculty, training material both for professional and personal growth. It must address cultural aspects as well. |
Employees and training and HR development unit. |
Although, it is a continuous process still initial stage will take 2-3 months to endorse new L&D scenario. |
|
Goal 3 |
Resources |
Responsible department |
Timeline |
|
Increasing customer satisfaction |
Improved coordination among employees, developed skills of employees. |
10-12 months |
Conclusion
It can be stated that Envato’s issue of cultural conflict and weaker team collaboration has been affecting the production as well as company reputation. Resolving such issues with appropriate managerial skills and leadership abilities are necessary for accomplishing individual and organisational objectives. To conclude, it can be stated that if HR management can be successful in implementing generated solutions maintaining the action plan then both the company reputation and business sustainability can be regained.
References
Adair, W.L., Hideg, I. and Spence, J.R., 2013. The culturally intelligent team: The impact of team cultural intelligence and cultural heterogeneity on team shared values. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44(6), pp.941-962.
Akins, R., Bright, B., Brunson, T. and Wortham, W., 2013. Effective Leadership for Sustainable Development. E Journal of Organizational Learning & Leadership, 11(1).
Anitha, J., 2014. Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International journal of productivity and performance management, 63(3), p.308.
Barak, M.E.M., 2016. Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage Publications.
DuBois, M., Koch, J., Hanlon, J., Nyatuga, B. and Kerr, N., 2015. Leadership Styles of Effective Project Managers: Techniques and Traits to Lead High Performance Teams. Journal of Economic Development, Management, IT, Finance & Marketing, 7(1).
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.
Martelo, S., Barroso, C. and Cepeda, G., 2013. The use of organizational capabilities to increase customer value. Journal of Business Research, 66(10), pp.2042-2050.
Noe, R.A., Wilk, S.L., Mullen, E.J. and Wanek, J.E., 2014. Employee Development: Issues in Construct Definition and Investigation ofAntecedents. Improving Training Effectiveness in WorkOrganizations, ed. JK Ford, SWJ Kozlowski, K. Kraiger, E. Salas, and MS Teachout (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997), pp.153-189.
Oetzel, J.G., 2017. Effective intercultural workgroup communication theory. The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication, pp.1-5.
Shao, R., Rupp, D.E., Skarlicki, D.P. and Jones, K.S., 2013. Employee justice across cultures: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Management, 39(1), pp.263-301.
Truss, C., Shantz, A., Soane, E., Alfes, K. and Delbridge, R., 2013. Employee engagement, organisational performance and individual well-being: exploring the evidence, developing the theory.
Wood, R., Cogin, J., & Beckmann, J. 2009. Managerial problem solving: Frameworks, tools, techniques. Sydney: McGraw-Hill.
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