Using management skills and practices that suit your team and its objectives can help to ensure the team’s efficiency and productivity. Analyze the scenario provided to determine how management skills and practices can help support the team.
Scenario
Imagine that you are an organizational consultant for the SNHU Pet Supply Company. The director of retail operations has asked you to evaluate why there has been a drop in the team's productivity. You are to make recommendations for their improvement. Further conversations with the team members and managers reveal a conflict in the way productivity and efficiency are being measured and handled.
The team members say that their managers micromanage them. Each week, the managers send out a task list for the team and expect them to fill out detailed timesheets every day to cross-reference the task list. Any deviations from the list must be explained in a separate email. Moreover, some team members feel their skill sets are not being used correctly and that they would be better suited to do tasks that are not being assigned to them. This process has led to some resentment within the team and high levels of stress to meet the managers’ demands.
The managers maintain that they have just been following the process set out in the company for years. The many unresolved issues are taking a toll on the team’s productivity and efficiency, which then feeds back into the conflict, creating a vicious circle.