BU7039 Understanding and Managing People Assignment Sample 2023

Introduction

The report is focused on analysing various leadership and management approaches that can be utilised to improve the management of people in the workplace. The case study has been provided and leadership and management approaches will be discussed in context with the case of C&C. It will initially discuss the way leadership and management approaches affect employee performance, therefore; organisational performance. It will be followed by explaining the leadership and management approaches utilised by C&C along with explaining the leadership approaches they should adopt. It will then focus on explaining learning and development for leaders and managers at C&C. Lastly, the reflection will be developed about my learning’s from the task.

Overview of the problem at C&C

Coffee & Cake (C&C) is a privately owned company having sixty other branches all around the UK. There can be seen issues like sales decline, issues of unpaid debts, and financial downturn in the organisation. Further, the market competitiveness is also increasing which enhances the pressure on organisational performance. Covid-19 has also imposed significant pressure on the organisation. The primary reason behind all those issues is the poor management of people in the organisation that was responsible for increasing staff turnover and decreasing the employee’s work performance. The report will discuss ways to resolve the problems effectively.

How Leadership and management approaches affect the performance of people and organisation

From the case scenario of Coffee & Cake (C&C), it can be demonstrated that their leadership and management team are facing issues related to the way they manage people at their organisation. According to Eliyana and Ma’arif, (2019) nowadays, leadership believes that the expectations of individuals working have shifted drastically and low motivation and encouragement at the workplace can affect their performance to a great extent. There can be seen an enormous shift in leadership and management approaches in comparison with the traditional leadership due to enormous changes that can be observed.

As per several pieces of research, it has been seen that leaders have a substantial impact on the employee’s performance that directly affects the organisational performance. On the other hand, managers are highly responsible for assuring team success, developing a positive work culture, and resolving the issues faced in the organisation or between employees (Albrecht et. al. 2018). The sudden shift in market demands is responsible for impacting the leaders and manager performance that has increased the turnover rate. It results in decreasing the productivity and profitability of the organisation. In the modern world, the leadership and management approach used by the organisation affect employee performance diversely. It has been found that no single leadership approach is suitable for every situation.

Furthermore, effective leadership is the primary aspect of building a positive organisational culture that influences employees’ performance and productivity. It can be observed that C&C has a negative organisational culture where managers and leaders bully their employees and some employees stated that being friends with senior managers will save the individuals from humiliation. The partiality in organisational culture decreases the encouragement and motivation level of employees that are highly responsible for reducing the employee’s productivity (Al Khajeh, 2018). However, positive organisational culture is must for improvising the productivity of employees as it develops a culture where discrimination and inequality are not accepted. Leaders can strengthen positive values while simultaneously holding the individual accountable.

As per Baig et. al. (2021) the strategies and behaviours of leaders and managers extremely impact the productivity and performance of the team, therefore; the entire organisation. It can be seen in the organisation that managers that influence employees’ strengths and unite employees for achieving team goals would likely achieve more positive outcomes in comparison with the managers that don’t address feedback or offer little support to their employees. The management style utilised by managers majorly affects the level of employee engagement. As per the Gallup research, managers are accountable for 70% of employee engagement and influence their engagement and productivity at the workplace. Further, it is not sure that one kind of management style will work effectively with the different work environments so managers have to choose the style keeping the working environment and situations in mind.

The behaviour and style chosen by leaders highly affect employee behaviour. For instance, leaders have to communicate and resolve employees’ issues adequately so they can trust their leaders and work effectively. In many cases, leaders and managers only focus on organisational goals rather than focusing on employees’ issues and challenges they are facing at the workplace (Dastane, 2020). It is must for leaders to understand that employees are an essential asset for the organisation and their performance highly impact the organisational performance. It is depicted that leaders must focus on keeping their employees motivated and encouraged so they can decrease the staff turnover rate. In the case of C&C, employees’ training and issues were not given much importance and that resulted in the increased turnover rate of staff and less customer satisfaction due to poor performance of employees.

Moreover, leaders’ approach to offering training and learning to their employees also plays a critical role in improvising their skills, talents, and knowledge that will directly affect their work performance. It is the responsibility of leaders to analyse the loopholes and weaknesses in their team and employees so adequate training and guidance can be offered. Providing them with training will develop them personally as well as professionally and it will also improve their level of motivation at work (Katsaros et. al. 2020). On the other hand, leaders have to focus on skilled and talented employees and focus on their work so they can be rewarded and offered bonuses as per their performance at work. In this case, it can be observed that C&C is paying similar to unskilled and highly skilled employees and they are also not offering them incentives and rewards for overtime of valuable work. It is the factor that can decrease the motivation level of employees and can affect their performance due to decreased motivation. As opined by Antony, (2018) in some cases, it is the responsibility of leaders to provide employees with incentives and rewards to make them believe their hard work is appreciated.

It can be observed that leaders have to adapt to the leadership approach as per the skills and talents of their employees. For example, leaders have to follow an autocratic approach when guiding a team of unskilled or newly-joined employees, whereas; this leadership approach will not go well with highly skilled employees. In this case, they must follow a transformational, democratic or participative leadership approach that allows employees to take part in the decision-making process and present their opinions freely and openly without the fear of judgement (Northouse, 2012). From the entire analysis, it can be stated that leadership and management highly affect the performance of employees, therefore; affecting organisational performance as well.

Leadership and management approach at C&C

Coffee & Cafe (C&C) is a primarily owned company that runs around cafes at sixty different locations all around the UK. The company sells different coffees, sandwiches, cakes, and other beverages. They are currently facing some problems due to various factors like market competitiveness, sales decline, unpaid debts, and Covid-19 issues. The primary factor reasonable for this poor performance at the C&C is poor management of people from the past some time. The leadership and management approach utilised by C&C is not effective and is unable to manage people. Looking at their issues and employee and customer reviews, it can be predicted that they follow traditional leadership approaches that are not working in today’s market-changing environment (Harris and Jones, 2018). Further, there can be seen increased staff turnover rate at C&C and it is must for the new leadership and management team to resolve the issues.

Authoritarian leadership approach: Authoritarian leadership is also called autocratic leadership and is a management style that offers the power of decision-making to the manager and leaders without the involvement of team members (Du et. al. 2020). The leadership style doesn’t ask employees about their opinions and suggestions while taking any decision related to the organisation. It can affect the performance of employees. As per the case of C&C, it can be observed that leaders and managers don’t listen to their employees and humiliate them in front of everyone. It is the most prominent factor responsible for decreasing the level of employee motivation at C&C. Other than that, the employee reviews predict that they are not heard and their issues are not resolved at the organisation, therefore; it decreases their level of encouragement to work with their full potential at the cafe.

Furthermore, following this leadership approach has different shortcomings and excessive use of this leadership style is highly responsible for decreasing the motivation level and increasing aggression among group members. It decreases the level of innovative and creative skills among group members as they have to perform as ordered or asked by their leaders or senior managers. However, the leadership style can be highly beneficial when leaders have to manage employees that are not skilled or new to the organisation (Shen et. al. 2019). But in the case of C&C, low-skilled and highly skilled employees are treated similarly leaves no difference between the employees and decreasing their motivation and encouragement level to great extent.

Laissez-Faire Management style: Laissez-Faire managers monitor the team tasks but follow a hands-off approach and they expect their team to perform the task with high excellence without checking in with their employees. In this style, the team doesn’t have any guidance from their managers and it can affect the work performance of employees (Rassa and Emeagwali, 2020). It is the least neglected management style as employees feel abandoned without any vision or guidance. In the case of C&C, managers and leaders utilise this approach and don’t connect with their employees. It can be observed in the employee reviews at Glassdoor. For example, senior managers don’t even listen to their employee’s issues and challenges, and they are being bullied or humiliated by them most of the time. The training and development of staff are very poor and they just assign them a task without asking about their queries. The satisfaction level of employees at C&C is very poor and low. It is because their managers are not even concerned about the happening in-between employees.

Furthermore, they are not even concerned about resolving the payroll issues and start blaming each other without considering the issue. Shifts done by employees are too long and the same wage is offered to lazy and skilled employees. It decreases the level of satisfaction. As per Hunt and Fitzgerald, (2018) although, the management style can be used with the employees that are highly skilled and don’t require any guidance utilising it with the new and unskilled employees affects the organisational performance to great extent.

Hard HRM: As per the people management at C&C, it can be seen that they are following a hard HRM approach. Hard HRM is a staff management style that treated employees and workers as a resource that can be controlled for achieving profits and competitiveness. In today’s competitive world, the expectations of employees from the organisation are also increased, and using this management approach will result in increased staff turnover (Goyal and Patwardhan, 2020). It is because no employee wants to get treated as similar to machines. The primary focus of this approach is to get the task done by the employees for achieving organisational goals.

In the case of C&C, the managers and leaders treat employees as some resources and ask them to work for a long shift of 8-9 hours every day without even giving a 30-minute break. Other than that, employees at C&C do not even get bonuses and incentives for overtime and no training is offered to them for offering better quality service to customers. Looking at these issues with managing people, it is clear that their leaders and managers follow Hard HRM which is not satisfactory in today’s market-changing world (GADO and ÜLGEN, 2018). As per the case study, these are the leadership and management approaches followed by C&C for managing people and it is highly responsible for the poor performance and financial failure of the cafe.

New approach for leading and managing people at C&C

From the above discussion, it is clear that there is an essential requirement of changing the leadership and management approaches at C&C. It is because the approach they are utilising is decreasing the motivational level of employees and it is the reason for their financial downturn. Concerning this, some new leadership and management approaches that can help C&C in managing people are discussed below:

Democratic leadership style: Democratic leadership style is also called a participative leadership approach and as the name suggests it is a leadership approach allowing all the employees and team members to take part in the decision-making process. It offers every individual an opportunity to participate and put their suggestions freely and openly (Woods, 2020). It focuses on enhancing equality among groups and the free flow of ideas can be seen. The primary characteristic of democratic leaders is that it allows employees to share their ideas, employees feel more engaged and creativity is rewarded or encouraged. Good democratic leaders have some specific traits like intelligence, creativity, competence, fairness, courage, and honesty (Bayne, 2019). The primary reason for approaching this leadership style in context with C&C is that it will allow highly skilled employees that are working hard can come out of their shells and present their ideas and opinions.

Furthermore, based on some customer reviews it can be observed that customers are not satisfied with their services and review badly about the service. By utilising this leadership approach the management team can communicate with employees and staff about the major issues their organisation is facing and reasons for poor quality service. It would help the management in knowing about the primary reason behind their negative reviews. According to Al Khajeh, (2018) a democratic leadership style is much needed in today’s changing world as the demands of customers in the food industry are fluctuating and the market competitiveness is increasing. Communicating with employees and staff will help C&C to know about customer demands and it will help the team in bringing innovation and change as per requirements. Involving employees and staff in the decision-making process will not only make them feel motivated and encouraged but also make them feel that their opinions and suggestions are heard. In this way, they can improvise the motivation level and enhance the workability of the employees.

Soft HRM approach: When it comes to managing people, it is must that organisation adopts a soft HRM approach. It is an employee management system where employees are treated as an essential resource for the organisation and its growth, and the organisation also focuses on developing their skills and rewarding them for their work (Cregan et. al. 2021). Utilising this approach will help C&C to treat employees adequately and help them in completing their work. It can be observed that C&C asks employees to work for 8-9 hours continuously per day without any break. It is not acceptable and it decreases their motivation level. For increasing the motivation level of employees the organisation must take care of their desires and demands as well. In today’s changing environment, employees don’t want to work with a company that doesn’t appreciate their efforts and work. In the case of C&C, they treat lazy and hard-working employees similarly and even pay the same wages. It is not acceptable.

Concerning this, the C&C must follow the soft HRM approach as it will help them in implementing strategies to treat employees effectively. Payroll at C&C is the major issue and it is responsible for increasing the staff turnover. For this purpose, they have to pay employees based on their abilities, skills, and working hours. Other than that, they must offer those rewards, incentives, and bonuses if they are working overtime, or help organisations in achieving goals and objectives (Muthuku, 2020). Along with that, they must offer training and development to the employees that are lazy and underskilled. They must offer training to skilled employees as well so they can work on improving their skills to achieve their desires as well. Utilising soft HRM will help in decreasing the staff turnover and helps in retaining employees.

Situational leadership theory: The theory suggests that no single leadership style suits different situations. It focuses on the leader’s capability to adopt leadership style as the demand of the situation (Thompson and Glasø, 2018).

The leadership theory suggests four leadership styles as per the maturity levels of employees.

The above table suggests that leaders need to adapt style as per the maturity level of employees. For example, C&C must adopt a telling (S1) leadership style with the new and lazy employees, whereas; they can utilise participating (S3) or delegating (S4) leadership style if employees are hard-working and highly skilled (Hakim et. al. 2021). From the leadership style, they are choosing they can also offer rewards and benefits to them to improve their motivation level and enhance employee retention.

Learning and development for leaders and managers at C&C

Looking at the leadership and management at C&C, it can be said that there is an essential requirement of developing leadership capabilities so they can resolve the ongoing issues at the organisation. Based on the case study, it can be seen that there is poor management of people and employees are facing several issues that need to be addressed. In context with this, employees are facing issues with their payroll, they are being humiliated and bullied by some senior managers, the undertrained staff is working and poor people management. Concerning these issues, there is a requirement of learning and development for leaders and managers.

Leaders and managers must learn about performance management and payroll management at the organisation. This learning and development process is suggested looking at the issues of employees about poor payroll, long working hours, no bonus and each level of employees are paid same. It can be observed that in the changing world, employees want that their efforts and work are considered and they are praised accordingly. In such a case, it is must that leaders and managers have adequate performance management knowledge so they can monitor and control employees’ performance (Tseng and Levy, 2019). At C&C, there has been an issue that both lazy and hard-working employees are paid the same. With the help of performance management knowledge, leaders would be able to identify the employees that are performing well and employees that are not meeting the performance criteria. It will help them in analysing the employee’s skills and the efforts that will help them in offering incentives, bonuses, and other benefits. Further, it will also guide them about employees lacking skills as per requirements and they can offer them training as per their weaknesses or loopholes.

Furthermore, paying employees as per their skills and work would help leaders and managers in retaining valuable employees. Performance management will also help leaders in analysing the employees that are valuable asset to the organisation and retaining them is essential (Franco‐Santos and Otley, 2018). Along with that, managing performance of employees would also help manager and leaders in analysing the skills and talents of hard working employees and by providing them with training, guidance and coaching they can optimise their skills. Working on the skills and talents of employees will also help in improving their level of motivation and satisfaction.

As per the issues at C&C, leaders, and managers must learn about some leadership traits so they can treat employees with respect. Many employees stated that senior manager’s bully or humiliate employees that are not acceptable (Sharma, 2018). It is must that leaders and managers at C&C must gain knowledge about the way of treating employees. It would help the organisation in stopping the bullying and humiliation of employees by senior managers and make them feel valued and respected. Nevertheless, managers and leaders at C&C are not concerned about listening to employees’ issues and it is not good for organisational health. In some cases, senior managers don’t accept their mistakes and blame others. Instead of blaming others, they must learn about resolving the issue. Many of the employees have complaint about payroll issues at C&C to their senior managers but it hasn’t been solved yet. As opined by Pereira et. al. (2021) the leaders and managers should have effective communication and listening ability so they can hear out the employment problems and resolve them adequately.

Moreover, leaders and managers should be developed utilising Maslow’s need hierarchy. It will help them in knowing about the factors that keep their employee motivated and satisfied with the workplace environment. Maslow has segregated it into 5 hierarchical levels that include physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualisation needs (Hopper, 2020). It states that the most basic need of an individual is to offer them a healthy workplace environment. Further, they must be offered job security and other benefits for their safety needs. For fulfilling, love and belonging needs, it is must to have social interaction at the workplace. In context with esteem needs, their efforts and work need to be appreciated and valued. At last, self-actualisation needs is all about helping and supporting them to meet their desires. According to Fallatah and Syed, (2018) following Maslow’s need hierarchy in an organisation, the motivation level of employees can be improved which will help in employee retention and decreased staff turnover.

Utilising the learning and development process described above will help C&C in developing the leaders and managers. It would further help them in analysing the issues faced by employees at the organisation and instead of ignoring them they have to solve them. Other than that, employees will be heard and praised as per their skills and talents. Learning performance management will help leaders and managers in analysing the strengths and weaknesses of employees and offer them training accordingly. These all help in improving the leadership and management skills of C&C along with retaining valuable employees and achieving financial growth.

Self-reflection

Working on this topic and module has helped me in enhancing my skills and knowledge about leadership and management to a great extent. I have analysed that leadership and management play a critical role in organisational development and employee performance. The case study provided by the module has also helped me in improving the knowledge of critically analysing theories with the case. Initially, I have analysed that various leadership and management approaches are used by the organisation as per their goals and objectives. The mission of every organisation is to utilise the management approach that helps in improving the employee’s performance, therefore; organisational performance. I have demonstrated that traditional leadership approaches are not effective when it comes to today’s changing environment. As the traditional leadership style primarily focuses on assigning the task to employees without asking for their employment.

Furthermore, the major understanding of leadership that I have gained from this module was that no single leadership style suits the working environment; it is must that leaders choose the leadership style depending on the situation (Daniëls et. al. 2019). I have also learned about various leadership theories and models that helped me in enhancing my knowledge about managing people in an organisation. The case was useful in analysing that treating the employee with respect is must for improving their motivational level. Other than that, paying them as per their strengths and skills also plays a critical role in improving their productivity and performance. However, employees will work effectively if their encouraged and motivated, and for keeping them motivated I have learned about Maslow’s need hierarchy that helps in meeting the five levels of needs of any individual.

Gibbs reflective cycle

Conclusion

It has been concluded from the entire analysis that leadership and management play a crucial role in people management at an organisation and impact their performance. Currently, leadership and management approaches followed by C&C are authoritarian, laissez-faire, and hard HRM approach. These styles are not proven effective to manage people at the workplace and decrease their level of motivation. Further, looking at the situation it has been recommended that they must adopt democratic, situational, and soft HRM approaches to resolve the employment issues at their workplace. They must offer learning and development to their leaders and managers so they can resolve issues like payroll problems, employee disrespect, increased staff turnover, and retain employees.

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