Thank you for providing a detailed case highlights your issues. I understand that you are having issues in managing staff, clients are not pleased with the services provided, work pressure and other issues which needs to be rapidly resolved. Before I proceed, it is important for you to understand that managing an organization entails fulfilling the four essential function of management – planning, organizing, leading and controlling (Dubrin, 2012).
There are several points which you should work on. First, it is absolutely necessary to develop and share a mission statement. A mission statement is one which conveys to the employees, clients and the entire globe the reason for it to exist. It conveys the activities, value and purposes for establishing a business venture. You need to clearly think of a suitable mission statement for the firm.
Amanda, the resources needs to be organized efficiently. Resources also include aptly organizing the employees in the firm. Organizing is an essential management function and you need to ensure that resources are well organized. Organizing helps in developing specialization, clarifying authority to concerned personnel, well defined job structure and activities, effectively administering over the firm, augments coordination and leads to diversification and growth of the firm. You should ensure that resources are adequately used and for this purpose it is necessary to act as a guide and mentor to your employees. The Monday meetings are an extremely good start, but Amanda, you did not bother to speak to your employees about certain issues they may be facing in their work. This is a crucial point which you have to ensure. You need to determine certain weaknesses or problem areas and accordingly work to rectify them (Nothhaft, 2010).
The case study further highlights, that you entrusted Lisa to interview and select candidates who would serve as accountants. However, it is the duty of the leader to ensure that the right candidates have been selected to perform a task to the best of abilities. You need to understand the significance of training, recruitment and job description and design. These four are an integral part of personnel management and it is necessary that you manage personnel optimally. For this purpose, it is necessary to screen candidates on your own. You may entrust your staff to carry out the initial selection process, but the final interview should be conducted by you. Also adequate planning needs to be involved to determine areas which require personnel, frame their job responsibilities, determine their evaluation structure and if necessary, impart training to them. It is essential to plan these in ahead and only then go for the recruitment and selection of the best candidates.
Motivation is extremely important to drive employee performance and ascertain organizational success. It helps in augmenting employee efficiency, ensures job satisfaction, creates friendly associations with employees, brings in manpower stability and leads to attaining overall organizational success. Amanda, you have mentioned praising and rewarding Lisa for her activities and this has helped to motivate her to perform better. However, you also need to motivate the other three accountants to perform well. This can be attained by listening to their issues, taking possible suggestions and accordingly resolving the problems. The Monday meetings can be an excellent arena for motivating the personnel. Here, you should praise and reward people for their hard work and efficiency and support the notion of team work and team building, encourage employee engagement and thereby ensuring optimum levels of performance from personnel.
It is also necessary conduct performance reviews of your staff from time to time. This is extremely important as it will help you to understand certain areas in which your staffs excel and other weak areas on which they need to work (Ferreira & Otley, 2009). The performance reviews conducted should be based on a face to face discussion wherein you should praise an employee for her excellent work and at the same time point out areas where the employee needs to improve. Specific and relevant feedbacks should be given. Certain standards of performing a task should be determined after careful discussion with the staff. Also the performance review meetings should try to find out other manners in which final outcomes may be measured. Overall the performance evaluation helps you to understand the manner in which your staff is managing work.
Amanda, it is necessary to understand the importance of corporate reputation and try to woo in clients. Despite the fact, that you overheard customers complaining to Lisa, you let Lisa to continue speaking to them. It is clearly evident that Lisa is not capable of adequately handling the customers. In this case, it is your sole responsibility to speak to the clients, find out their issues and try to quickly resolve them. Your top priority is to keep customers satisfied with the service provided by your firm.
It has been noticed that on several occasions, you have delayed taking any concrete steps despite the issue warranting your immediate attention. This has led to adverse organizational outcomes. One of the important management functions is leadership. Amanda, you should act as a leader; mentor and guide the staff and motivate them to perform better. On the other hand, you should ensure that the clients are satisfied and accordingly ensure that the service provided is excellent. You should act as an effective leader and display the characteristics of intellectual stimulation, individual consideration, idealized influence and inspirational motivation. You should maintain excellent rapport with the staff and ensure that issues are brought to you. You should accordingly try to resolve them quickly. Leadership as a management function helps in integrating the other three functions of planning, organizing and controlling.
Amanda, you also need to know the importance of the control function of management. Controlling helps in ensuring that the predetermined objectives are attained and the organization achieves optimum levels of performance. First, you need to find out the major areas where the control function needs to be exercised. You need to control your resources including your staff. This is the area in which the control function works in integration with the organizing function of management. The next step involves in establishing certain benchmarks for objectives and performance. The planning function of management ensures setting mission and objectives and the control function helps in establishing certain standards which may be levied to find out whether the set goals have been achieved. The next step involves in measuring the outcomes of the organization depending on the set benchmarks. Last, Amanda, you have to assess the actual performance level with the selected benchmarks. Accordingly you need to revisit the goals and objectives if the organization performance has deviated from the set path. Control system in management helps in goal setting, assessing, feedback and regulating systems and processes to get desired information and find out whether organizational structure and strategy are in alignment and working effectively and efficiently (Poskela & Martinsuo, 2009).
Amanda, it is essential to understand that managing is a leadership function and involves in integrating complete control over organizing, planning and leading functions. As a leader, you need to adequately hone your time management skills and resolve issues. Optimal performance should be rewarded and coercive action may be taken for poor performance levels. As a start up venture, it is essential that all matters of control are entrusted to you so as to enhance performance in the organization.
References:
Dubrin, A.J. (2012). Essentials of Management. U.S.A.: Centage Learning.
Ferreiram, A. & Otley, D. (2009). The design and use of performance management systems: an extended framework for analysis. Management Accounting Research, 20(4), 263 – 282.
Nothhaft, H. (2012). Communication management as a second-order management function: Roles and functions of the communication executive – results from a shadowing study. Journal of Communication Management, 14(2), 127 – 140.
Poskela, J. & Martinsuo, M. (2009). Management control and strategic renewal in the front end of innovation. The Journal of Product Innovation Management, 26(6), 671 – 684.
