Identifying the current problems at Talk Team UK

Task 1

‘Talk Team UK’ is a London-based telephone banking company. The company has been performing badly for a long period of time. Its profit margin continues to fall and it has a large turnover of staff.

You have been hired for your business expertise. Your task is to identify current problems at the company and propose solutions that will motivate staff to stay at the company and perform their tasks effectively.

The following problems have been identified:

• Most staff are paid £6.50 per hour (minimum wage). Staff are often required to work overtime, but are not paid for this extra work. There are rumours amongst staff that some employees are on a higher salary than the rest of their team, even though they perform the same tasks as their colleagues and have been at the company for the same length of time

• The company offers very little in the way of training.

• Promotions are rare, with the company generally choosing to hire better-qualified candidates from outside the company for higher-level positions

• The management rarely communicates with employees.  Some employees do not know the names of their colleagues. Staff meetings are held once a year and employees have reported feeling ‘ignored’ and ‘undervalued’ during these meetings.

• Staff find it difficult to meet project deadlines and there is always a delay in handover of deliverables. It was observed that they leave the work too late and there is a final panic towards the end and the last few hectic hours often marred by errors.

Question:

Discuss changes you would make at ‘Talk Team UK’ in order to resolve above work based problems (clearly highlighting the appropriate communication and time management strategies).

Task 2

Create a Current CV and Cover Letter:

–    Submit a current, word-processed CV listing your skills, education and work experience.

–    Your CV must be no longer that two pages in length

–    Your CV must be correctly formatted

–    You must also submit a correctly formatted cover letter written in response to an existing job description – please, attach the job description to your task

In the dynamic marketing it is required to have the internal structure and culture of the organization competent enough to match up with the changing requirements of the external world. Each and every company must focus upon the work life balance of the employees (Koys, 2001) to keep them satisfied and happy with their jobs which in turn would provide beneficial outcomes for the company. The needs and benefits of the employees must be prioritized in order to expect good profits out of timely and quality delivery (Podsakoff, 1996) of work done.

Talk Team London have been facing some of the very crucial internal disturbances in the company which is having a direct impact over the sales and profits of the company. The internal structure of the whole organization have been disturbed and influenced negatively for the employees. The company have ignored the interest of the employees and is just focusing upon result orientation.

Potential solutions to motivate staff and improve company performance

The need of the hour is ponder upon the current structure and culture of the organization and take up remedial actions to smoothen the internal structure (Byham, 1998) for keeping the company at pace with the competent world and expect higher profits out of work done. First and foremost the problem identified is regarding the pay given to the employees which is considered to be minimum for the work they are doing for the company. The pay structure of the employee should be corrected and reformulated in order to pay wisely for the work employees are doing for the company. Even if the company is not having much profit, correcting the salaries of the employees and making it reasonable would motivate them to work more for the company thereby repaying the less profits in the long run. The overtime work taken from the staff should be divided evenly within the whole staff without any bias and must be on a rotational theme with each passing day. There must be an additional amount of payment specified for the extra hours of work done. This payment should be included in the principal and basic payment provided to the employees. The Board of Directors of the company must arrange a meeting to formulate the pay scale of the employee and must pre set the overtime charges. This extra payment should be delivered to the employees at a reasonable time.

The segregation and differentiation of the payment for the employees must be made based over the position they are holding in the company the work they are doing for the company, the hours they spend working and the experience or skills they hold which are matched up with the job requirements. There should be equal pay given for the same work done by any of the employee. For solution of this posed problem, the company must decide a specific payment given for a specific job role regardless of the employee employed in that position. This must be pre set by the top management of the company. In some cases there may be corruption going on within the office domains and hence the top management must appoint a special monitoring team to look into the payment affairs made by the company. There can be monthly reports generated and delivered to the top management for checking up the actions going on in the company. These reports would help the management to have an insight into the functions and operations going on in the company and would also help in stopping up the unethical practices going inside the organization.

Training and development are crucial aspects that must be leveraged to the employees before starting up their jobs. If there are some loopholes in the process of training then it is observed that the new recruits are not able to perform as per the expected standards (Noe, 2002) leading to lesser profits and lower level of motivation for the employees. Hence, the root for the job must be formed upon the foundations of training sessions (Whitely, 1991) given to the employees. A special budget and plan must be set by the management for the purpose of training providing experts for the sessions who can guide the employees in a better way by giving them practical lessons and theoretical insights (Hesketh, 2000) into the type of work expected from them. Training should also be given to the employees when there is introduction of some new technology (Ford, 1984) or type of work introduced in the organization so as to make the employees feel comfortable working with it and give out excellent outputs or results.

Salary reform and fair payment

When it comes to promotion, the company must give equal chances to each and every suitable and worthy employee to compete for the higher level position in the company. In addition to considering highly qualified employees from outside, the company should also consider highly skilled employees from within the organization to fill up higher positions. This would be mutually beneficial for both the company and the employee as that person would be familiar with the culture and structure of the company and would fill up the job title in a better way (Tannenbaum, 1991) without the requirement of extra training. Promotions become necessary at some of point to break the monotony of the work routine and motivate the employees to work better for the company. It generates a feeling of mutual trust and dependency which helps creating more profits for the company. Hence, promotions for internal employees must be planned after certain time lag.

An open means of communication is the driving force and the engine fuel (Rogers, 1976) for any company and hence, there must be open communication between the management and the employees. The time lag between the meetings must be reduced for open discussions (Kraut, 1990). Team meetings must be carried out every fortnightly leading up to staff meetings every month. These meetings would serve as catalysts to solve some of the great problems (Dessein, 2002) occurring within the organization and the team leaders would be able to solve these problems and make the team come back to the normal working pace. Meetings are sources for innovation and creativity where every individual can brainstorm ideas (Mohr, 1990) to be put into the project without the fear of being judged or biased in front of anybody. The team leader has an important role to play as he must pay heed to every possible suggestion and must act wisely to integrate the whole team into one unit and inspire them to work hard for the project in a creative manner (Valackiene, 2010). These meetings would open up the lines of communication and would foster a healthy environment in the company which would further encourage the employees (Broms, 1983) to give their best as input in the projects. The employees who started feeling ignored must be made as active participants in the meetings to infuse energy (Cummings, 2014) in their routine and motivate them to work as active team members and comply with the deadlines.

Errors in the quality of work, delayed work, extended deadlines or intensive work hours depict an unhealthy culture in the company which must be changed for a better production and profit. The work must be managed according to the time and the employees must dedicate required hours for the project which should be on extra pay. The deadline of the projects must have a considerable extra time so that the projects are not delayed for the end clients. The team leader must produce a milestone sheet which must comply with the strict deadlines (Grunig, 2013) mentioned for each module of the project. Each of the task should be independently given to the employees with a specific deadline having a two day margin and flexibility to work upon the module as per their wish. This flexibility should include the working hours or working place.

Improved training

There must be efficient communication and time management strategies implemented in the operational domain of the work done in the company. The top management must take entire control for the initial time to revive and revitalize the energy and vigor of the company and make it stand up again the market with its competencies. The communication plan must be formulated keeping in mind the work and timings required for completion of the projects and hence each and every team must decide a suitable day for the meeting with every team collaborating for setting up one meeting in a month for the entire office. There must be complaint handling system made with the company’s intranet where any employee can post a query, complaint or views regarding any unethical task going on in the office. There can be arrangement of some online portal over the intranet for sharing of the views by the employees. The changes have to be incorporated at a slower pace and hence first and foremost opening up communication should be the prime role of the company which should be put into practice as soon as possible. Thereafter, the need is to reformulate the payment pattern and think about the promotion strategies for the employees.

With adoption of innovative strategies, it can be observed that the profits of the company would enhance with more employee satisfaction and less degree of turnover rate.

Respected Sir,

Please find my CV enclosed in the application for the position of marketing and management professional in your esteemed institution. If you are are seeking to add up an element to you talent pool and augment the leadership team with accomplished executive known for imbibing breakthrough results, please closely consider my enclosed application for the same.

Presently, employed in a reputed firm, I have handled all phases of strategic management including marketing initiatives. I am proficient in brand creation, acquisition strategies, lead generation, profiling, customer segmentation, planning and training.

The nature of my degree course have made me prepared for the job position requiring a great deal of independent research and self motivation. I am a conscientious person who pays attention to the details and leads with innovation. I am a quick learner with flexible nature of work who can infuse the team with creative ideas.

Given the opportunity, I am confident enough to showcase my ability to achieve some of the mind boggling and ground breaking results for the company. Thank you for taking time to consider my application.

Sincerely,

NAME

ADDRESS

Email

Date

My vision is to take the job of a marketing manager onto a higher level by learning innovative methodologies and implementing them in the most creative forms in the industry. I envision to attain a reputable position in the company and to leverage the best of my skills for the job along with learning some of the great practical concepts of management by the esteemed skilled team of employees.

• Presently employed in XYZ, I have been efficiently acting a source of success for the company by presenting foundational degree of management skills and enhancing the marketing context of the company. I have handled the tasks of brand management, leadership management, training professional, market analyst, and other roles as demanded by the nature of my job.
• Job Experience
• I did internships in esteemed companies to refine my skill set and enrich my knowledge bank with the essentials required in this job. The internships gave me a an insight into the real form of industry and helped me a lot to gain an inside outlook for the management trends of the market,

• Highest Degree
• Second Highest Degree
• School

• Global Business: Experienced in business dealings at a global level.
• Business Development: Established well in the domain of joint marketing and business development relationships with some of the high tech leaders in the market.
• Marketing: Experienced in all the aspects and dimensions of global marketing strategies, product management, marketing communications, pricing strategies.
• Distribution Strategies: Experienced in creating global distribution strategies based on two tier channel architecture distribution model.
• Mergers and Acquisitions: Performed leads in mergers of the company.

• I am fond of reading fictional and non fictional texts in my free time.
• I like playing keyboard and guitar for leisure.
• I am good at swimming and cricket with deep interests in the games.
• Proficient in three languages required at a global level work.

References

1. Koys, D. J. (2001). The effects of employee satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover on organizational effectiveness: A unitâ€Âlevel, longitudinal study. Personnel psychology, 54(1), 101-114.

2. Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., & Bommer, W. H. (1996). Transformational leader behaviors and substitutes for leadership as determinants of employee satisfaction, commitment, trust, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Journal of management, 22(2), 259-298.

3. Byham, W. C., & Cox, J. (1998). Zapp!: The lightning of empowerment: How to improve quality, productivity, and employee satisfaction. Ballantine Publishing Group.

4. Noe, R. A., Greenberger, D. B., & Wang, S. (2002). Mentoring: What we know and where we might go. Research in personnel and human resources management, 21, 129-174.

5. Whitely, W., Dougherty, T. W., & Dreher, G. F. (1991). Relationship of career mentoring and socioeconomic origin to managers’ and professionals’ early career progress. Academy of management journal, 34(2), 331-350.

6. Hesketh, A. J. (2000). Recruiting an elite? Employers’ perceptions of graduate education and training. Journal of education and work, 13(3), 245-271.

7. Ford, J. K., & Wroten, S. P. (1984). Introducing new methods for conducting training evaluation and for linking training evaluation to program redesign.Personnel Psychology, 37(4), 651-665.

8. Tannenbaum, S. I., Mathieu, J. E., Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J. A. (1991). Meeting trainees’ expectations: The influence of training fulfillment on the development of commitment, self-efficacy, and motivation. Journal of applied psychology, 76(6), 759.

9. Rogers, E. M., & Agarwala-Rogers, R. (1976). Communication in organizations.

10. Kraut, R. E., Fish, R. S., Root, R. W., & Chalfonte, B. L. (1990). Informal communication in organizations: Form, function, and technology. In Human reactions to technology: Claremont symposium on applied social psychology(pp. 145-199).

11. Dessein, W. (2002). Authority and communication in organizations. The Review of Economic Studies, 69(4), 811-838.

12. Mohr, J., & Nevin, J. R. (1990). Communication strategies in marketing channels: A theoretical perspective. The Journal of Marketing, 36-51.

13. Valackiene, A. (2010). Efficient corporate communication: decisions in crisis management. Inzinerine Ekonomika-Engineering Economics, 21(1), 99-110.

14. Broms, H., & Gahmberg, H. (1983). Communication to self in organizations and cultures. Administrative Science Quarterly, 482-495.

15. Cummings, T., & Worley, C. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage learning.

16. Grunig, J. E., & Dozier, D. M. (2003). Excellent public relations and effective organizations: A study of communication management in three countries. Routledge.