Managing Public Relations Department In Vibe Company: Solutions And Strategies

Problem identification

Discuss about the Vibe Company for Public Relations Department.

Sam Nguyen, the owner of Vibe Company, derives a sense of satisfaction when he sees his team members work, interact, and talk in the open plan office. The employees look engaged and happy with their work. Nguyen had started his company ten years ago with his two other friends. By then, he was the web designer for the company and his two other friends specialized in marketing. The progress of the company was appealing. During the ten years, Nguyen had managed to grow his workforce to 20, his customer base has expanded, and the office space had expanded to accommodate all his employees. Vibe’s workforce is divided into two; the marketing and public relations department, with Andrea in charge, and the web design department, with Rakesh in charge. The two teams, however, are independent in their operations but cases of job overlap are frequently reported when conducting jobs that require a cross-team approach.

Things were moving well in the company until the day Andrea decided to resign. Sam had problems deciding who would replace her. After analyzing the capabilities of three in-house candidates, he settled for Grant, a young man with technical skills but had problems interacting with some of the staff. Julie and Sarah were not pleased with Sam’s decision for the obvious reasons; they felt that their exceptional marketing profession, excellent relationship skills with clients and hard-work were not recognized. During the first week of the position rearrangements, the work atmosphere at Vibes was not appealing. Grant experienced a hard time managing the company, especially due to the stubbornness portrayed by Sarah and Julie. At this moment, Sam realizes that he has to make a major decision. The decision has to be wise since he does not want to lose Sarah and Julie. Sam realizes that he had made some major mistakes which resulted to unpreparedness in the event of extremities.

The theory of equity is based on motivation and argues that behaviors are influenced by equity. The Equity theory’s structure is composed of four interlocking propositions. The first proposition suggests that people will endeavor to increase their outcomes in a scenario where their outcome is equivalent to their reward minus punishment. The second proposition states that people working in a group may enhance their joint reward by creating tools that enable the equitable sharing of resources, reward any team member who portrays equitable treatment to others and punishes those who promote unfairness (Hayibor, 2012, pp. 250). According to the third proposition, people who discover that they are playing a role in the promotion of injustice, they portray a level of distress that is equivalent to the in-equitability level displayed. The fourth proposition suggests that people tend to resolve equity and eliminate distress in situations where they are faced with in-equitability. On the other hand, the theory of expectancy suggests that there is a strong relationship between rewards and the output (Nasri, and Charfeddine, 2012, pp. 168). It is evident from the case study that Sam did not follow the Equity theory when making the changes in his company. Sarah and Julie, therefore, felt concerned about the manner in which the rewards were distributed. An equitable distribution requires that every individual in a group receives a reward that is equivalent to their inputs (Renko,  Kroeck and Bullough, 2012, pp. 669). When Sarah and Julie realized that their efforts were not being acknowledged, they resulted in taking various actions which included lowering their efforts into the job and giving Grant a hard time.

Equity or Expectancy Theory

One of the management’s most challenging duties is efficiently motivating the employees. The term motivations describe the psychological processes that trigger persistence and excitement of noncompulsory aims purposed for some objective. Sam can keep Sarah and Julie engaged and motivated in the long term by applying the Drives and Needs motivational theories. The Drive approach views motivation in the perspective of biological needs. The physiological needs, for instance, hunger, acts as the driving force which makes people act by the requirements of those needs (Deci and Ryan, 2012, pp. 101). In this case, hunger will motivate a person to look for food. The drive theory asserts that people do things to redeem the feeling of balance and comfort. The Needs theories point out some internal factors that may motivate people to fulfill their needs. Sam, therefore, needs to review these ideas and identify some of the internal factors that can be restructured to motivate Sarah and Julie.

It is important for Sam no note that employees derive a feeling of dissatisfaction from lack of recognition or disapproval of efforts. A simple word of ‘thank you’ means a lot to the employees. It helps to foster a positive culture in the workplace, it encourages communication, teamwork, encouragement and so on.

The operational effectiveness and staff motivation at vibes can be increased through job design and enlargement. Job design entails the rearrangements at the work environment that are aimed at reducing employee alienation and job dissatisfaction arising from monotonous and repetitive tasks (Truxillo, Cadiz, Rineer, Zaniboni and Fraccaroli, 2012, pp. 350). Productivity in organizations is achieved through job design. Managers offer non-monetary rewards which include greater satisfaction (Latham, 2012, pp. 21). Job enlargement, job rotation, job simplification, and job enrichment are some of the techniques used in the process of job design (Wood, Van Veldhoven Croon and de Menezes, 2012, pp. 440). Job enlargement is a method of job design which involves the combination of various functions at the same level of business. It is also referred as the horizontal expansion of a job (Volmer, Spurk and Niessen, 2012, pp. 456). A company such as vibes, for instance, may not have a high count of promotion opportunities. Therefore, it may try to motivate its employees through the adoption of job enlargement (Petri and Govern, 2012, pp. 36). If Grant, the manager at the company, is currently performing two tasks and after job enlargement, three more activities are added, Grant will now be performing five tasks. This will increase the motivation of Grant, and he will work harder to complete his tasks. The new earnings after job enlargement also play a part in the motivation of employees.

How Sam can keep Julie and Sarah motivated

There are some essential factors Sam should consider when creating a succession plan. A succession plan is a formal program that corresponds to the long-term strategies of a business. It needs a comprehensive understanding of the nuances and complexities of the business’s procedures and processes, and in some way combines with other strategies such as professional development, talent acquisition, and employee engagement. Pertaining the content of the plan, it entails more than just naming replacements. Instead, the talent and potential of each candidate should be critically analyzed (Gilding, Gregory and Cosson, 2015, pp. 300). There are some key factors that need to be considered when developing a succession plan. First, there is need to identify the profile of the existing leadership positions. In other words, a clear evaluation of the aspects that make the existing leaders successful should be conducted. Some of the factors to be analyzed include their strengths and leadership capabilities, their skills, experiences, and success. Essentially, the identified profile acts as the benchmark for evaluation of potential candidates in the succession plan. The profile also serves to eliminate the bias (Griffith, 2012, pp. 900). The benchmark, however, should be revisited on a regular basis to remain cognizant and flexible of future modifications in the market, the company, and the leadership team. An annual evaluation, for instance, will enable the company to maintain a common vision of the succession plan (Durst and Wilhelm, 2012. pp. 641). A shared vision helps to expedite the plan. On the side note, it is important to point out that the potential candidates will rarely possess very requirement stated on the profile. Failure to acknowledge this may result to the inflexibility of the plan and time wastage in the process of searching for a “perfect” candidate (Kim, 2012, pp. 40). Other factors to consider include the gaps that will occur after promotion, the time taken to develop a leader and how the company will ensure open feedback and communication.

Being transparent helps to create a productive work environment. Sam should have been more open to Sarah and Julie on why he chose Grant over them. He ought to have made them understand that having a part-time manager would be risky to the business. Indeed, the customers would have thought that the company does not take them seriously. Also, the employees at Vibes will be motivated to work hard just to hear the words ‘thank you’ coming from the manager. Offering benefits beyond the basics also plays a significant role in the motivation of the employees. Life insurance and other ancillary benefits, for instance, can make Sarah and Julie forget about the managerial position and instead work hard to get these benefits. Finally, Sam should come up with a succession plan for his company. The plan would serve to eliminate cases of bias when choosing candidates. Also, it would help him identify the best candidate for the job.

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