Over the last three years I have had the honor of managing several interesting people. As an Area Manager for Jackson Hewitt Tax Services, I spent a great deal of time working with franchise owners, general managers and tax preparers. There were times when it was both overwhelming and rewarding. As a part of the management team, I felt that anything could be accomplished. But, how quickly that can change. The area that I managed consisted of nine stores. My team consisted of 25 people who were to be able to prepare a certain amount of tax returns per store. I had to provide training for the new and returning employees. With the start of any new beginning, people are excited and ready to make their goals. Training classes are always successful. The issues always begin when tax season starts. The tax preparers are anxious to start and feel they can complete the most complicated returns. The problem started when the preparers began to lose their motivation and start calling out from work or quitting. The decrease in moral started when the general manager implemented different requirements for doing routine procedures that what was learned in the training class. The employees felt that the changes were too demanding and the threat of losing their jobs was just too much.
The changes resulted in the employees not correctly preparing returns that were the sign and saved promotion. The employees were not clear on how to enter a paystub without processing the return. Also, approximately 50 of the company’s tax preparers were responsible for including tax preparer identification numbers on all client paperwork. The preparers were delaying the completion of their clients’ tax returns. The reporting errors were resulting in a huge penalty fine from the Internal Revenue Service. Preparers were asked to submit complete and accurate returns by 10:00 on the next business morning following the call. Tax returns were being delayed an average of one week. Longer delays occurred during very busy periods.
Bass (1985) argued that transformational leadership motivates employees to overcome their self-absorption and to put effort into their given goals and tasks. I believe this type of leadership increases my employees’ commitment to the company. As a transformational leader, I was able to provide positive feedback, encouraged them to make an extra effort and to be more creative in dealing with complex tax returns. This type of leadership allows for the employee to focus on the mission, objective and strategies of Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. This type of leadership allowed me to engage with my team and create a connection that improved their motivation and moral. As long as I continue to be confident that my team will successfully meet their goals, I will be able to keep them motivated with my attitude. The main goal that I need to keep in mind as a leader is to be attentive to needs of my team.
Authentic leadership lets me be myself with my team. I have a very strong personality and even stronger morals. Management requires an individual to be strong and aware of the limits that are set before them. When I used the authentic style of leadership I was able to communicate on a level that my team understood. The results I wanted was for my team to be enthusiastic about the tax season. In order to get my point across, I had a meeting to let my team voice their concerns and opinions on how they think we should handle the change. The results that were important was for the team to get their end of year bonus. My job was to get them there. I connected with my team by advising them that when I was in their same position, I was motivated by knowing that I would get a decent bonus check when tax season ended. Kruse (2013) stated communicating in a direct manner is critical to successful outcomes, but it is done with compassion; directness without compassion is cruel.
Reporting errors had to be corrected by hand in all offices. Errors were noticeable in about 60 percent of all tax returns. Prior to the request for help, two unsuccessful attempts had been made to solve the problem. The general manager had asked all regional managers to speed up and clean up the returns. A very brief and unacceptable improvement lasted about one month and performance rapidly decayed again. Just after the problem repeated itself, a computer based system exchanged paper forms. Instead of training, job aids for the new system had been distributed to the tax preparers. Again, errors decreased and return submission was timely for about a month, then the system reverted again. Now the tax preparers were becoming cynical, angry and resistant to future attempts to solve the problem (Clark, 1998).
The two most central internal performance processes in all human beings are the knowledge and motivation system. These two systems must cooperate effectively for work to be accomplished. Knowledge provides the direction, strategies and tactics for achieving goals. Motivation provides the energy needed to achieve goals. Ruthankoon & Ogunlana (2003) states that the hygiene factors are the job context factors. These factors include company policy, supervision, work conditions, relationship with peers, salary, personal life, relationship with subordinates, status, and job security.
Intentionally managing directorial change is perilous to executing innovative programs and advantages. This leads to the success of any company. Organizational change is not always successful. The reason is because management does not realize how changes affect the employees in an organization. As an organizational leader I must identify the need for change and converse it throughout the organization. I must also engage my team at all levels of the organization by involving them in the change strategy. As a manager I must actively involve the team in what the change is about. This will help ensure that the team accepts the changes.
The tax service company is affected by the lack of their employees’ motivation. There will be clients that will complain because they have paid for a service that has not completed. The clients will complain to the Internal Revenue Service and they will impose penalties and fines on the tax service company. These penalties can go up to $25,000 or more. This can be a factor that will cause the company to have a bad tax season. The inaccurate tax returns could also be a huge factor in how the Internal Revenue Service views this company.
The tax preparers had three motivation problems that were preventing their commitment to filing accurate and timely tax returns First, they believed their task assessment resulted in a belief that barriers existed when the volume of clients increased. Second, a few of the preparers were angry because they observed that they were being asked to do someone else’s job and that in high volume periods, they could not complete forms and to customer service requests. Most had no value of any kind for the form completion task.
In conclusion, different beliefs, values, emotional patterns and expectations characterize the growing diversity in our workforce. Management and teams show evidence that as long as commitments are made they will achieve the goals set before them. Teams are only as effective as the manager is strong.
Reference
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Kruse, K., 2013. What Is Authentic Leadership?. [Online] Available at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse [Accessed 14 March 2016].
Leach, F.J. & Westbrook, J.D. (2000). Motivation and Job Satisfaction in One Government
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4; pg. 3-9.
Ruthankoon, R. & Ogunlana, S.O. (2003). Testing Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory in the Thai
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