Discuss about the Effective Library Information Centre Management.
Jan had been recently appointed as the CEO of SweDigi, a Swedish company which operates as a sub-contractor to the digital music Industry. Jan had a glorious past and tasted success in the initial years of his professional journey, thus was given the responsibility of improving the financial health of the company. Jan proactively thought of launching a new product in the media industry, to regain the lost market share; however things did not seem to work in his favour. The resignation of marketing manager, high turnover in the company, increasing threats by production manager to leave the company and the decreasing sales are some of the major challenges being faced by Jan. The team at SweDigi has accused Jan of not working with the team and taking own decisions without involving the team.
Jan in his early 40s tasted success by selling of his earlier venture at a good profit margin, the exceptional skills displayed by Jan at such an early age is the reason why the management decided to bring him on board as the CEO. It was further noticed that the strategy of Jan which involves launching a new product in the media industry is not taking a dream run. People don’t trust Jan; do not believe in his vision and think of him as an autocratic leader. Hence, the importance of people management drops in, people management is the ability of the leader or the manager to lead and motivate his people from front, make a relationship with them which is standing on the pillars of communication, teamwork, goal setting and performance appraisals (Armstrong, 2016). People are by far the most valued resource an organization have, people at any given point in time have the ability to make or break the organization, thus special attention has to be given to the workforce, as they are the major contributors of the success of the organization(Goetsch, 2014)
Unable to devote time- Jan being appointed as a new CEO has a lot of responsibilities on its shoulders, his responsibilities lies towards the management, shareholders, clients, employees and even to himself. In such a scenario with a lot of newness around, at times the CEO is unable to give the required attention to the employee which lowers their morale to work for the company and the CEO (Bolden, 2016).
Negative feedback-Another problem which makes it difficult to manage people is the inability of the employees to handle and appreciate the rationale behind negative feedback. There are many employees who do not take the negative feedback as the feedback for their improvement; they do the other way round. They start feeling that the management does not like them hence giving them negative feedback, leading to resistance, apathy and conflicts among the teams (Kong & Ko, 2017).
Different personalities-In the present days when the entire world has become a global village, workforce diversity is inevitable. Every person is unique from the other; it involves different style of motivation, communication and builds a connection. In cases when everybody is treated and motivated on the same pedestal, employees loose the faith in the management, as management totally failed to understand their pain points and address them effectively (Hoffman & Tadelis, 2018).
Employees with bad attitudes- In every organization there are certain people who are miscreants and disturb the harmony of the teams and the organization. Such people have bad attitudes and they are negative about the management and the leadership at any given point in time. Such people are really difficult to manage and the biggest threat to the decorum of the organization (Daft & Marcic, 2016).
Team conflicts-Conflicts is definitely not bad In an organization, on the contrary conflicts help to identify difficulties in the organization, which the leadership can further take into account and work on eliminating them. However, not all conflict is good, Peer conflicts are one of the worst conflicts in an organization which deeply hampers the progress and the growth of the organization, and it unnecessarily creates negativity in the team and affects productivity (Thompson, 2015).
Resistance to Change- Change is inevitable and the only constant in this evolving world, however people in organization resist change. They resist change because they fear the unknown and they have no idea what the change will do to them. Hence the first natural reaction is to oppose the change. Hence, change is another factor which makes it difficult to manage people (Certo, 2015).
Organizational problems- In the case study of SewDigi, the company was facing troubles due to its declining sales figures, which was a big concern for the employees. Every employee knew the trouble company is going though and was reluctant to stay in the company. Even after getting Jan on board as the CEO, the problem of sales did not stopped and the employees started acting out of their fear causing troubles for Jan and the organization (Goetsch & Davis, 2014).
Hence, it can be concluded by stating that People management is one of the toughest skills to master because of the varying personalities of the people, their attitude, culture, perception and motivation. Each person has to be treated uniquely and should be empowered to bring sustainability and success for the organization. Empowering the employees give them tremendous confidence in the leadership as they start realizing the feeling that the leadership values their contribution.
In the context of the case of SewDigi, Jan has to focus on two things to get the things back on track; he has to lend his attention towards the skills of people management and change management to bring prosperity back in the organization.
Short Term Measures
The short term measures are pertaining to managing the employees effectively; this will help Jan in preparing the employees for the Change management which would be a long term measure for SewDigi.
The goal to bring the organization back on track and get the product to be launched in the market is by effectively managing people. People can be managed effectively by giving them credit, empowering them, acknowledging their feedback and listen to their grievances.
Setting goals and objectives- The first and foremost thing which the organization has to do is set goals and objectives for its employees. The goals and objectives of the employees have to be aligned with that of the organization. The goals can be set according to SMART framework tool; the framework is hugely popular in organization for setting clear goals. The exercise of goal setting helps the individual to assess his performance and set milestones for themselves. A balanced scorecard can also be used for setting the objectives in sync with customer, financial, operation and internal processes of the organization. The exercise in itself is helpful in making employees feel confident about them, and build a feeling of trust and faith towards the organization (Rajagopalan, 2016).
Openness in communication-Out of many things which employees expect from their employers, one of the important things is openness in communication. Employees value the managers who are vocal in their communication and convey the plans or the strategic vision of the organization and shares with the employees. Change management is a tough process, but if the employees are made clear about the purpose of the change management, the grapevine and resistance around the same gets reduced, thus making the implementation simpler for the organization (Li, Jiang & Lin, 2014).
Making time for the employees- Human resource is by far the value asset of the organization; hence time has to be devoted towards their professional and personal issues. One has to really take interest in their problems; good times and create an environment of sustained productivity. Enhanced productivity can only be achieved if the employer take time out for their employees and value their significant contribution to the organization (Webb, 2017).
Recognize achievement and value their contributions- Everyone likes to be praised for their work in the organization, it is a kind of motivation for the employees. Irrespective of the salaries they earn, they value appraisal and acknowledgement in front of the team. This drives them to work harder in the organization and aides them to achieve their goals (Stainsby & Gandhi, 2016).
Employee empowerment- Employee empowerment is rapidly becoming increasing popular across organizations; employers have understood the importance of empowering the employees. Empowering employees makes them understand their contributions are valued hence the organization is appreciating their efforts towards the organization. Empowering employees is one of the biggest ways to manage people effectively (Bryson, 2017).
Motivation-Organizations at times fail to understand the rationale and the need to motivate employees, they do not understand that motivation from the employers drive them to achieve the goals of the organization (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). Another thing which management has to understand before motivating employees is that people have different needs, and hence they need different levels of motivation. Maslow’s hierarchy need clearly state that one has to be motivated according to his latent need (Luthans & Doh, 2018)
Jan has to follow the above ways to manage his team, and in no time the situation will take a paradigm shift and the product launch can be back on track. Change management is another aspect on which Jan has to focus in order to launch the product on time and implement necessary changes in the system.
In order to ensure the utilization of the production unit, Jan has to make some changes in the current operational procedures. These changes in the longer run would ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of the operational process.
In the simplest terms change management can be understood as the systematic approach of dealing with the transformation of an organization goals, process or technologies (Rossemann, 2015). In the case of SewDigi, Jan is facing problem with the production plant of the company and also the employees, thus requires change to be implemented the way technology is used and also to ensure that the people are in sync with the change. A number of models can be used by Jan in order to implement change in the organization.
Lewin in his model has split up the change process into three steps; Unfreeze, change and Refreeze, the model is hugely popular in implementing change process in the organization.
This is the first step of ensuring the success of change process, in this step, the management has to ensure that they unfreeze the current process, and analyse how currently things are done. This will help them in identifying the gaps in the current process and practices, and improvement can be definitely made after analysing the same (Doppelt, 2017). In the case of SewDigi, the production plant is not equipped to support the production of the new product. Hence, Jan has to identify what improvements have to be made in the current process, adoption of new technology or increasing the manpower to bring the product launch on track. The process of unfreezing is also applied to the natural perceptions of the people towards change; hence the team has to be prepared before moving to the actual change process. The team which is currently working in the production plants has to be communicated openly, explain them the benefits for the organization and them as the result of bringing change. This way the company can ensure smooth implementation of change process without much of a resistance (Hayes, 2014).
This is the step just after informing the people about the change, why it is necessary and what will be done as the change process (Cameron & Green, 2015). According to the case study, the production plant in unable to work according to its production capacity, causing difficulty in producing as many products Jan expected. This is also affecting the company’s reputation immensely. Thus, the company has to expand its production by getting a new place with another team especially for the new product. This way the existing team will not get hampered, moreover the new team will have the required skill set to execute the production of the new product. Another change which Jan has to bring in the organization is by lending training support to the sales team, they are facing difficulties in finding prospective client; hence, Jan has to ensure that they follow the entire sales process which will help them in better prospection of the client base. Marketing efforts will also be have to speed up, and revolve around the execution of new product. The marketing team has to focus on creating awareness about the new product to the existing customer base to increase the awareness in and around the product, benefitting the sales team to work on the leads given by the marketing department.
Once the change is implemented, Jan has to ensure that the new change is refreeze, else the entire purpose of bringing the change will be futile. Continuous reviews, feedback, regular check on the results of the change process will be pivotal in identifying the execution and the Key result areas of the change. It will also help in identifying scope of improvement, which could further help in improving the production capacity.
Thus, it can be said with absolute surety, implementing the change process and managing people effectively will definitely help Jan in getting the product launch back on track, the sales training and the efforts of marketing department will aid the sales team to push the sales.
Jan who has recently joined the organization is a young leader who tasted success in his early days; he has been assigned the responsibility of reinventing the company SewDigi and take company to the path of business sustainability. Jan has to ensure that the business keeps growing according to the vision of the company and creates revolutionary products to push the envelope of production of digital products for the music industry.
Another problem at hand is the distrust employees have been showing in the leadership of Jan, people don’t trust Jan and consider him as working alone without involving anyone in the process. Major positions are getting vacated in the company, deepening troubles for Jan.
The leadership style which is highly advised for Jan is Participative style of leadership; this particular style will help the newly joined Jan to establish trust and faith amongst the employees, eventually leading to the fulfilment of organization goals.
Participative leadership which is also known as the democratic leadership involves and consults employees and consider their ideas in making decisions together for the company. It has been pointed out in the case study that Jan does not work with the team , hence following the participative leadership will ensure that the employees views are considered while making decisions. Participative leadership is also a great leadership style when the change has to be implemented in the company; employees easily accept change because they are involved in bringing the change management. Thus the leadership style will ensure less or no resistance for implementing a new change in the business organization. Jan is new to the system and is completely unaware of how things have been working in the past; he is new to the system and will definitely take time adapting to the practices or culture of the organization. In such situation, Jan has to ensure that he sits down with his team, the oldest employees in the organization and understand how the company works, what is the culture followed by the organization. This will in turn help him in adapting to the process and culture of companies and most certainly will send a feeling of empowerment to the employees.
Participative leadership comes handy in the cases where the tasks are non-routine or are highly structured, where the relationships are non-authoritarian and the subordinate’s locus of control is internal. In such cases, when the leader has a team to consult with, who can support him with valuable advice and feedback; it is both win- win for the employees and the organization.
Hence, the prime rationale behind adapting the participative style of leadership of Jan is to build a relationship of trust and faith with its employees, understand their concerns and make them a part of a big change. SewDigi has to certainly do a lot to push its numbers, with enough competition already in the market, the task is not easy. But, if one ensures that its team is standing resolute behind him, any situation can be turned around in just a small amount of time. Successful organization has the inherent habit of involving their employees, they believe in decentralization, they give authority to the employees to take certain decision, and in such scenarios the business sustainability is assured.
Handing full authority to Jan and let him follow his vision- Jan was a successful entrepreneur before joining SewDIgi, also an engineer, he has all the skill sets required to be a CEO and great technical knowledge makes him the ideal candidate for the job. Management has to ensure that they give him full autonomy to conduct business in accordance with his vision. A CEO can best understand the steps required to take the business towards sustainability, thus giving Jan full authority will help him in making better strategic choice which would lead to profitability for the organization.
Give time to Jan to settle down in the company- It is extremely difficult for the employees and also the new CEO to adjust in a failing company, a lot of changes have to be made, policies have to be changed, trust has to be built and relationships have to be built with the employees. All the above takes time, hence the management has to be patient with Jan, give him his time to settle down, command respect as the CEO from the employees by taking positive actions towards the growth of the organization and the employees. Jan has been brought in the company to turnaround the situation, to use his expertise and experience to better tap the growing market and the evolving needs of the customers. Jan has proved his worth by building great company in the past, tackling the situation of recession and emerging strongly for him. Jan needs time in SewDigi without the lenses of the management at all time, they should not expect him to change the situation of the company in just a few days. Thus, giving him time to settle will help him to function without pressure and create positive synergies in the organization.
References
Armstrong, M (2016). Armstrong’s Handbook of Management and Leadership for Hr: Developing Effective People Skills for Better Leadership and Management. Kogan Page Publishers.
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S (2014). Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Binder, J (2016). Global project management: communication, collaboration and management across borders. Routledge.
Bolden, R (2016). Leadership, management and organisational development. In Gower handbook of leadership and management development (pp. 143-158). Routledge.
Bratton, J. and Gold, J (2017). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Bryson, J (2017). Effective library and information centre management. Routledge.
Burke, W.W (2017). Organization change: Theory and practice. Sage Publications.
Cameron, E. and Green, M (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Certo, S (2015). Supervision: Concepts and skill-building. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Daft, R.L. and Marcic, D (2016). Understanding management. Nelson Education.
Doppelt, B (2017). Leading change toward sustainability: A change-management guide for business, government and civil society. Routledge.
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B (2014). Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Hayes, J (2014). The theory and practice of change management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Hoffman, M. and Tadelis, S (2018). People Management Skills, Employee Attrition, and Manager Rewards: An Empirical Analysis (No. w24360). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Kong, E. and Ko, S (2017), December. A Team Exercise as a Teaching Tool for Online Students: Learning for Knowledge Sharing, Team Skills and Resource Management. In 14th International Conference on Intellectual Capital Knowledge Management & Organisational Learning: ICICKM 2017 (p. 139).
Li, H., Jiang, Y.F. and Lin, C.C (2014). Factors associated with self-management by people undergoing hemodialysis: a descriptive study. International journal of nursing studies, 51(2), pp.208-216.
Luthans, F. and Doh, J.P (2018). International management: Culture, strategy, and behavior. McGraw-Hill.
Rajagopalan, S (2016). TONES: a reference framework for identifying skills and competencies and grooming talent to transform middle management through the field of project management. International Journal of Markets and Business Systems, 2(1), pp.3-24.
Rosemann, M (2015). The six core elements of business process management. In Handbook on business process management 1 (pp. 105-122). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Stainsby, K. and Gandhi, H (2016). Develop your interpersonal and self-management skills: A practical resource for healthcare administrative and clerical staff. CRC Press.
Thompson, N (2015). People skills. Palgrave Macmillan.
Webb, S.P (2017). Knowledge management: Linchpin of change. Routledge.
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Contact Essay is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Essay Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, in case there is anything you find not to be clear, you may always call us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download