From conducting the Management Interview with Lois Kennedy, I was constructed that there would be an official change of the Management Leadership Styles. Lois confessed to have been a more Autocratic Manager prior to the re-organisation: with a one-way communication flow from the top of the hierarchical structure to the bottom. Therefore there was no communication between staff and management, however Lois did opt for changing her Leadership style to become a more Democratic Manager, therefore to enhanced communication and information flow between Management and staff from gaining thoughts and ideas from staff members instead of passing down ideas and not gaining a response.
Although, included within the employee questionnaire, the employees felt that improved communication would prove a good strategy to further favour the re-organisation. I feel that Management did not effectively succeed with the change-over and possibly left it too late to employ a more democratic belief, however I do believe with time communication will become effective and should be communicated through the use of face-to-face conversions and Team Briefings which include to be a more effective way of communication within a business.
Hierarchy of the business I feel that a possible problem within the business causing problems with communications could be the Hierarchy of the business. A tall structure held within the Finance Department meant that internal communication within the business as information could be lost or mixed up easily. There were too many layers of hierarchy in the business; therefore, to improve communication they need a flatter structure. Therefore, by delayering as part of the re-organisation would improve communication. A flatter structure will not only improve communications within the business, it will also shorten the chain of command, giving managers a larger workforce to delegate to, therefore widening the span of control.
Span of control Another factor which should be taken into account, is the span of control, because it is argued that the span of control should be between three and six because there should be tight managerial control from the top of the business, and there are physical and mental limitations to any manager’s ability to control people and activities. With the firm having a wide span of control the business is likely to incur more costs involved with supervision because there is more responsibility for managers due to the delayering of the business, therefore a narrow span of control would be more efficient.
Retraining staff Another strategy brought forward by the employees was the idea of increased training to be provided; due to the fact, many employees have little or no experience with I.T skills. By employing a longer period of training, the staff will become more motivated as they would then obtain a greater sense of responsibility towards the business. Primarily, the training methods used by the firm were between off the job training and on-the-job training with mainly members of staff obtaining off-the-job training (82%), which I feel however does benefit the employees but I would recommend the firm to provide more on-the-job training as I feel this would be a more beneficial exercise for the employees as they would then know what is expected of them with first hand experience with the newly proposed computerised system.
Frequent Updating of the system. Again, another method brought forward by the employees of Emerson ; Son’s Ltd. Nothing stands still in computing- sometimes it seems as though no sooner have you bought a brand new PC to run your software than a new, better software version comes out that requires an even more powerful processor and twice as much memory to run it. To compete against rival competitors the system must be upgraded every few years, as the firm does not want to become old fashioned and be able to achieve opportunities when they arrive and not miss them. However, this will prove a great expense to the firm as again the entire employee base will have to be re-trained, and problems could arise as to whether the software and the new hardware will be compatible, to which could cause immense problems and could prove costly.
Improved communication. Management communicated the idea of the re-organisation within the Finance Department with both verbal and written communication, which employees felt to have been poorly communicated. I feel with a more Democratic Management style, Lois the manager of the Finance Department will effectively improve communication and allow employees to have their say to provide their own thoughts and ideas. In addition, I feel more verbal communication will be needed, as several members of the employee base were uncertain of the re-organisation that had been taken place.
At the end of this investigation, I have concluded that it would prove that the reorganisation was a success. The strategies in place to help achieve the objectives behind the re-organisation were researched thoroughly, however a few problems did arise, however it is evitable for a firm to re-organise and not endure a few problems along the way. If I had to repeat, this investigation there may be some things I would have approached differently. I feel that looking in hindsight there were several measures that I may have taken in order to make my results were more conclusive and accurate.
Probably the main area in my investigation that lacked enough detail would be my primary research including the questionnaires and the management interview. I feel that my primary data would have been more representative if I had more people fill in a questionnaire. Another problem that the people who did fill out my questionnaires did not specify their chose of reasoning which was a draw back to my questionnaires as I was unable to successfully evaluate each question. Another factor that added to my results not to be accurate was that I was unable to achieve information about Emerson & Son’s on their website which I did address in my methodology section.
