TASK 1
VTI Electronics is a large telecom equipment manufacturing company which manufactures medium to high range mobile handsets. The company is headquartered at 380 Bourke Street Melbourne 3000. The company has 14 flagship stores in Australia while several other retail outlets across Australia. The company has always worked based on its principles of building market share by focusing on customer experience; control all operational costs through efficient internal processes and establishing itself as socially and environmentally responsible company.
There is very high level performance expectation from managers and employees at every department and at every level of the company. The success of the company rests on its employees. The top management has always asked their managers to cater need for their employees, resulting in building an effective team. These needs could range from security to flexibility, skill development and self-actualisation. The company also has flexible approach in meeting performance targets.
Satisfying employees' needs actually leads to employees focusing more on their work and customer needs. Company also set goals in consultation with their employees. The managers are expected to lead employees by acting as a model leader with good behaviour and attributes. Managers demonstrate emotional awareness to inspire staff and promote positive team building behaviour.
You are appointed as Operations Manager of new store of the company in Highpoint Shopping Centre, Maribyrnong. You are also responsible for all sales operations. You are reporting to Store Head.
SCENARIO 1:
Towards the end of the financial year, you noticed that there has been a significant drop in sales of high end mobile handsets. You also noticed that these handsets are actually most profit making products for the company. The drop in sales is due to local and small competitors. You reported this to store head Jack and he immediately called a meeting to discuss this.
Jack was yelling on every staff member in the meeting and is unlikely of Jack's behaviour. He was even argumentative and arrogant with you and asked you to chalk out a strategy to improve revenues. You are aware that for such a large business, revenue cannot be increased immediately and sales, marketing and promotion related decision are taken by head office.
You are sensing the depressed environment after the meeting and few good performing employees are even thinking of leaving the company. Few managers have responded by pushing unreasonable sales demands onto their sales staff.
You are now feeling pressure to act against planned budget and pressurise others to significantly increase their performance, despite others are already showing good performances.
You know that Jack's behaviour was disrespectful to all the managers. It created unnecessary job security concerns and undermined trust. You are experiencing a negative effect throughout the store affecting staff performances. You are blaming Jack for making situation worse with poor leadership and poor emotional awareness.
TASK:
- What do you think is the best way to respond to Jack's behaviour?
- How would you serve as a role model and demonstrates positive leadership?
- Describe principles of emotional intelligence
- If you would have been in Jack's position, how you would have acted and communicated?
- What could have been the impact of Jack's behaviour on staff performance?
SCENARIO 2:
An employee Mike has sought a meeting with you to discuss about a female colleague. In the meeting Mike says that although the sales team is a very cohesive, but newly hired female staff named Ana is rubbing people the wrong way. She neither participates in drinks or other social occasions, nor involves herself in normal, day-to-day conversations about family, popular movies or culture.
The team thinks that she doesn't like other team members and is quite upset about it. You are aware that for a sales team, it is important to be connected with other team members. When you feel this connection, you know you're able to rely on them - to relieve you when you need some personal time, feed you information as you need it and help you serve customers.
You know that Ana is very skilled staff with good customer skills and product knowledge; however being a foreign-born, conservative, religious woman, she is having trouble relating to the other team members. She cannot participate in many team-bonding opportunities like out-of-hours parties, alcohol or confusing cultural references. She wanted herself to be accepted as a team member, but she started feeling disgraced and known as an unfriendly person.
TASK:
- When working within a diverse workforce, give 2 examples of possible misinterpretation of colleague's expression or behaviour.
- What would be your response to Mike in regard to cultural misinterpretation he has?
- How would you raise cultural awareness in the team? List any 4.
- List any 4 effective communication strategies you will adopt to avoid cultural misunderstandings.
TASK 2
The scenarios are in reference to the case study provided in Assessment Task 1. Read the case study first for better understanding of scenarios
SCENARIO 1:
You are looking at the profile of one of your team member Bill. After looking into the profile you find that this employee is a bit of concern for you You noticed that his performance is very good and he demonstrate complete professionalism. He has never failed in achieving his performance and sales targets. He is very knowledgeable about the products and its attributes. He also demonstrates very high skill levels in customer service.
However, he never respond to team training, neither attended any training sessions conducted for improving team morale. While other team members feels energetic, enthusiastic and motivated after team building sessions, Bill seems to be emotionally drained while interacting with other team members. You have received a feedback from team members that they would rather like to work individually, but are not willing to work with Bill. Work with Bill is like suffocation for other team members. You feel really frustrated.
- How will you control your emotions?
- How will you identify what Bill is feeling? (HINT: Principles of emotional intelligence)
- Give any FOUR examples (with a very short brief) each of learning styles; Personality types; and Communication styles.
- What learning type and personality style you think is best suited for Bill?
- Which communication style you would use to communicate with Bill regarding your response?
- How would you adjust your response so that your needs (emotional needs, team cohesiveness needs) are satisfied?
- How would you adjust your response so that Bill's needs (emotional needs, performing within a team environment) are satisfied?
SUNARIO 2:
As discussed in Scenario 1 of Assessment Task I, there has been a significant drop in sales of high end mobile handsets. This is because of local and small competitors. There was a broad discussion about this situation in company head office and senior management reaches to a conclusion that some action should be taken to mitigate the issue.
The management decided to increase performance and sales targets for some employees and scrap some team cohesion training session This will lead to increase in sales while reducing some overhead costs. Each manager was given the responsibility of implementation of decision within their respective departments. While implementing this decision, it is important to consider the emotional impact on staff and impact of WHS. This is mainly because of measuring the impact on team performance towards achieving the goals.
TASK:
- What could be the negative impacts on business when considering emotionally affected people?
- How considering emotional impact of decision-making could lead to better decision-making and
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- List FOUR steps of decision making that takes 'emotional impact' into account. (HINT (from case study): increased targets, scrapping training sessions)
- Discuss SIX possible policies, legislations related to the case study and given scenario. (HINT: Privacy law, Equal Opportunity, Anti-discrimination, Ethical principles)
- According to the case study, why WHS legislation is considered as an important legislation.
TASK 3
Your employee Ross is a star performer of your sales team. He consistently achieves targets and has excellent customer service ratings. He has been looked as a model employee in recent times.
You have noticed that Mark is preoccupied with something, which has resulted in downward line in overall team performance. Team has stopped relying on his expertise when it comes to help in serving customers. This in turn is negatively affecting work climate. New employees are feeling disliked and disrespected. They also feel that the company does not possess teamwork values. Newer employees feel hesitant on relying on seniors, skilled staff and even doubt their own capabilities. This situation can have adverse impact not only on team sales performance, but also on other metrics.
You have not been pro-active enough in understanding Mark's motivation and strength and in providing leadership development opportunities. When you had other problems (personal and professional), you overlooked Mark. You discussed with Mark about some training in emotional intelligence like self-awareness. You discussed with Mark about his commitment and goal-driven approach and told him that he has the potential of becoming a future leader.
You have recent received performance and appraisal card for Mark, which is stated below. You have underlined the under-performance. You want to conduct a session with Mark to enhance his performance and get the team performance back on track.
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PERFORMANCE AND APPRAISAL CARD - MARK SMITH (Employee ID: VTISMKMELS55)
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Description
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Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
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Target
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Actual
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Financial
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- Revenue generated - personal sales
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$ 25,000
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$ 31,000
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- Revenue generated - other sales
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$ 25,000
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$ 8,000
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Customer Focus
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8/10 = 80%
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8.5/10 = 85%
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W10 = 80%
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9/10 = 90%
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8/10 = 80%
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4/10 = 40%
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Internal
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- Report on sales and expenses
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10/10 =100%
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10/10 =100%
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Processes
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Employees
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- Training and other social sessions
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50 hours
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4 hours
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- Personal and professional development
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50 hours
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8 hours
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- Manager evaluation on overall
performance
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8/10 = 80%
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4/10 = 40%
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TASK:
- Make a report by asking Mark to describe his own performances, personal situation, and obstacles to performance.
Vocational Training institute RTO 41111, CRICOS 03487C Version 1
- Ask Mark about what he feels related to team cohesiveness feelings, job satisfaction and job security?
- Display your model emotional intelligence through empathy and learning skills.
- Make a table of Mark's strength and weaknesses related to emotional intelligence. You should focus more on his strength and try to make his weakness as future opportunity for professional and personal development.
- Make a report on Mark's goals and performance gaps. You should either use GROW model or FUEL model of coaching. (HINT: GROW: Goal, Reality, Options, Way forward.... FUEL: Frame the situation, Understand current state; Explore opportunities, Lay out success plan)
- Ensure you focus more on future options and strategies to obtain desired outcome.