BSS064-06 Leading & Managing Organisational Resources Assignment Sample

Module code and Title: BSS064-06 Leading & Managing Organisational Resources Assignment Sample

Introduction

Organisational overview

WeWork is a leading workspace specifically spaces for offices providing organisations with 700 devoted stores across the world with a mission towards flexible work culture (WeWork.com. 2022). The company founded in the year of 2010 has put the employee’s well-being, professional and entrepreneurial approach and togetherness in the mission for better performance.

The revenue of this company managed to grow as opposed to the net loss of $504 million for the groups in the United States of America noting the improvement or development. WeWork recessed 5000 workers for the issues in the cash flow system that is showing the company’s effort towards the advanced financial situation. Global membership of this foundation is near about 527,000 which denote the strong base of WeWork in the global market.

Corporate governance

Maintenance of the corporate governance of this company was quite critical and time-consuming. The current Chief Executive Officer Sandeep Matherani took proper and adequate steps such as the layoffs of extra employees for financial sustainability. This company had a devastating fall after the scandalous Initial Public Offering scenario and investor issues over the business model regarding the factor of governance and ethical challenges (Markovich and Meagher, 2021).

Sandeep Matherani tried to reconstruct the reputation or the image of the enterprise with the press and media to control the damage or the adversary. Apart from these, the CEO of this company has a plan of cutting and making the revenue flat by the reduction of the $1.5 billion amount for the financial loss caused by Covid-19 convincing the key employees to stagnate.

Leadership

WeWork has faced different challenges with the approach of leadership that were notably worse and less productive for the productivity of the company. The idiotic steps taken by the former CEO, Adam Neumann have resulted in faults in the leadership approach such as the fall of the IPO and the investor’s reluctance with the business framework that was causing substantial losses (Pendergraft, 2021).

The Stepping down of Adam Neumann from the chair of CEO happened just after the inconveniences, dated 24th September as per the case study. After the joining of Artie Minson and Sebastian Gunningham as the co-CEOs, Finally Sandeep Matherani took the charge of the organisation as the CEO facing the difficulties of cash runout and proximal bankruptcy and tried to resolve the factors through the real-estate circumference of the business.

Analysis of the main challenges of WeWork

Challenges of Corporate Governance

The key challenge towards the corporate governance challenge of this organisation was to re-establish the wicked financial system after the detainment of the IPO spite making structural changes which were extremely weak (Westbrook, 2020). An association named Softbank has taken the responsibility of the company to restore the investment scenario and IPO, however, that was also troublesome and failed due to some drawbacks (Refer to Appendix 1).

Moreover, the net loss of this organisation met the high in the year 2021 amounting to $ 4,632 million which may be observed as an enormous financial loss for the company. On the other hand, WeWork also generated $2,570 million in revenue in the same year which denotes the major downfall from the years 2019 and 2020 and happened because of the pandemic outbreak (Statista.com. 2022).

Current CEOs have seen the frustrating and exhausted approaches of the employees which were raised from the false hope that has been given to the latter revolving around the profitability and valuation of the company. WeWork thought that there are multiple faults in the business structure and that is the reason behind the large and effective losses that may hamper the profitability of the company (Cheldi, 2021).

The controversies revolving around the purchases of the trademark have also been identified as another corporate governance challenge for the company. Along with these, improper corporate culture, and governance strategies that are giving birth to questions and lowering the anticipation of the final projects have led the company toward more challenges or issues (Satish, 2021). CEO Sandeep Matherani had to cease the number of employees for the management of financial downfalls and somehow brought up another subsequent challenge for the corporate governance scenario.

On the contrary, this may be considered an impactful attempt for the overall equilibrium of the firm consolidated with the overcoming of the economic challenges. Presently, the concentration of the CEO is to re-establish the recognition of the company and regaining of trustworthiness among the employees which is also challenging. Besides this, the lost reputation of the individual employees towards the friend circle and family about the job in WeWork is also being observed as one of the many challenges that the company is recently going through.

Declined sustainability in the cost structure, existence of properties that are not profitable, unexpected failure of revenues and probable insolvency were the principal challenges faced by the company that may not be eradicated quickly within a short time span along with the challenges such as personal biases and ethical concerns.

Figure 1: Revenue and Net loss graph of WeWork (Source: Statista.com. 2022)

The challenging scenario of Leadership

The approach of leadership was the most affected area of WeWork from the time of Adam Neumann, the previous CEO of this firm. The past CEO was seen amidst controversial viewpoints and harsh criticisms for the wrong mode of leadership that caused harm for the profitability of the company. The egoistic narrative of Adam Neumann as a leader is the reason behind the vast fall of WeWork amalgamated with various losses and challenges. (Refer to Appendix 2).

The forcibly of the past CEO on the visionary approach than the emphasis on practical and realistic applications also resulted in a challenging leadership viewpoint. The lack of engaging potential capital investors has impacted WeWork with losses and burning of cash which is also a challenge towards sustainable leadership.

The principal crisis that the mentioned firm encountered was the collapse of the IPO that showed the fiasco of Adam Neumann as a leader yielding in resignation (Borgenicht, 2020. During the transition period of the withdrawal and appointment of the initial and present CEO respectively, this organisation faced the structural change from a work-space provider to a real-estate business.

Sandeep Matherani needed to bring a broad change in the whole structure of the organisation for rapid design productivity and profitability. An appropriate leader needs to balance both the social and financial or commercial challenges for an organisation at the time of adequate changes (Jackson et al., 2018). The recent CEO of WeWork was also challenged as a leader by the agitation amongst the employees for the reputational and economical downfall.

Furthermore, directing this enterprise towards growth and development is also among the different challenges that have been confronted by the chief executive officer. WeWork was running towards the challenge of insolvency or liquidation at the tough time of the assignment of Sandeep Matherani as the leader. The deficit of digital or virtual and physical structure has given one of the key challenges towards the leaders and CEO of WeWork for further business movements.

The falling quality of the executive judgement is also a challenge thrown towards the leadership control of the giant provider of workspace that is WeWork. Disintegrate within the employees and the agitate approach that is rising from the grievances of the employees concerning the wrong hope of becoming rich is also intensifying the co-related challenges. The company is also being driven by the challenges of the unforeseen fallout of Covid-19, the turbulent market situation and stakeholder issues that may intervene in the progress of the business operations of WeWork.

The internal Resource management challenge

This organisation is facing perilous challenges regarding the deficiency of the coordination between virtual and physical resources (Thecasecentre.org. 2022). On a broader note, the challenge linked to the resource management of this company is mainly coming from Human Resource Management (HRM). The merging of WeWork with the Special Purpose Acquisition Company of BowX and the appearance of the company as a public one have extracted the urgency of the balance of internal resources.

SPAC is a strong substitute for companies willing to trade without going through the difficult process of IPO transactions (Kurganova, 2022). The firm WeWork has failed to attract enough talent required for the proper technological and digital innovations. Elaborately, an organisation has to possess talented employees for the successful outcome of competitive advantages along with optimised management of resources (Adebola, 2019).

Due to the shortage of accurate and suitable talents, the organisation is unable to upgrade the resources and properties that are mostly required for the growth of the company to surpass past hardships. Additionally. The company of WeWork is not at all elevated with the effective line of communication sourced from adverse cultural sides of corporations that are resisting the pertinent HRM process.

Limitations in the business peripherals of real estate, not enough provisions for external consumers are playing influential roles as the hurdles of bona fide resource management. The upcoming phase of growth and development is being stopped for the insufficient resourcing for the public valuation of the company representing one more challenge. In addition, WeWork has been challenged to implement strategic decisions for executing the growth as a result of the unavailability of befitting talents and human resources.

WeWork is also suffering from a deficit of enhanced performance that indicates flaws within the internal resource management. The behavioural traits of employee innovation are closely linked with the dimensions of the right and justified HRM for any organisation (Ogbonnaya, 2019). Support towards the core of the real estate business of this company has also gone static followed by the shortfall of the internal resource management system.

The impact of the worldwide pandemic, Covid -19 is also present in the success of the resource management of this work space-providing company. The challenges in parity of the virtual technology and physical resources are stopping the company from adopting the hybrid work culture that was most important for the attainment at the time of the pandemic. The turnover of HR employees from the workplace is referencing the erroneous and poor HR management of the workspace giant WeWork.

Evaluation of resource management improvement and enhancement of performing productivity

Improving the performance and productivity management at WeWork

Performance management

The procedure that compasses the identification, measurement and development of individual and singular performances simultaneously with a team for the objective of procuring strategic goals is termed performance management (Aguinis, 2019). WeWork needs to follow five steps of the performance management framework with the help of sustainable leadership in setting performance goals. Then the company has to monitor the quality and accuracy of the group-oriented and independent performances.

The more WeWork has to do is the development and advancement of the capacity within which the performances will be made and how much will be required to provide the space for the right performances. By the provision of learning experiences and development towards the training programmes which will be purposeful for the progression of the performances, the organisation may bring excellence in performing.

The next step will be ardently required for WeWork to evaluate the performance and attract the talents to mitigate the challenge of talent resourcing and involvement by applying the scorecards. Finally, this company needs to reward or pay the highest achieving performances for the recognition and appreciation towards the work and to encourage a positive attitude for solving the turnover challenges.

Figure 2: Performance management model of WeWork (Source: Aguinis, 2019)

Operation management

The group of activities or managerial efforts that converts the value into the form of goods and services for the generation of inputs and outputs is defined as Operation Management. WeWork needs to work on operation management for the appropriate conductance of the production process of goods and services. Operation management deals with the betterment of the interface of the workplace, supply chain management and inventory controls of an organisation behind the positive productivity of an organisation (Gupta and Ladhe, 2017).

The Enterprise of WeWork needs to centralise the operational management for the disciplined outlook of scheduling and managerial quality for the optimization of productivity. The firm has to foreground operation management for better product quality along with managing the latter. Designation of the process and capacities for the organisation may also be done right if the foundation opts for the method of operation management conjugated with total maximisation in quality and management.

The organisation needs to procure operational management for the succession of productivity through the assessment of the quality of leadership and implementation and Organisation and commitment for the accomplishment of managing process. The workplace-providing business requires the serving of a strategic layout towards the consumers and counting that WeWork has to apply operational management for this factor. This venture has to grow the productivity ratio and that is why operation management is needed.

Figure 3: Operation management model of WeWork (Source: Gupta and Ladhe, 2017)

Business Analytics and Data-Driven Decision-Making

WeWork corporation has to escalate the system of knowledge management to flourish the decision-making procedure by giving a large number of probable alternatives and legitimate information. The Knowledge Management System (KMS) is intertwined with the evolution of Information Technology which is relevant for decision-making in the business arena (Shahmoradi et al., 2017).

Business analytics and the data-driven method is an essential technique that needs to be utilised by this company for retaining employees and building responsive workforces. The concatenation of social and individual knowledge management will also have to be perceived for the robust decision-making for the accomplished executions of business operations by WeWork.

The steps of the definition of the objectives and needed information, data collection preceded by analysis, and presentation of the information with terminating process of data-driven decision making with success in the interpretations of information into decisions are also needed to be followed by WeWork. Employees of WeWork need to acquire enriched skills in IT with the help of proper knowledge management in data-driven business analytics that may quicken the positive outcome in the decision-making for the success of the business process.

This company also needs to take the support of Business Intelligence (BI) for the perfection in the knowledge management system and decision-making towards the achievement of the business goals combined with the assertive results of growing consumers, deepening the insights and creativity of up-to-date business models that are useful for the business amplification.

Managing change at WeWork

Power and politics within resource management

Power and politics are part of an organisation and exploitation of power and politics enhance conflict among the organisation according to the case study exploitation of power affect the resource management at WeWork. On the other hand, power is not restricted to the management of a company because there are various kinds of power such as legitimate power, reward power, expert power, and coercive power and so on.

It may be stated that power is highly important within an organisation to govern the whole work process by optimising the conflict or issues among the employees and power provides support to boost the responsibilities of the leaders (Refer to Appendix 3). Powers, (2019) articulated in the research that power has both positive and negative impacts whereas power provides support to achieve the organisational goal of an organisation.

According to the case study, politics is part of WeWork and in the future utilisation of political behaviour in a positive way may help to overcome the challenges of the organisation. Within the changing process managing political dynamics is crucial and building stability in power offers great scope to meaningful politics within the organisation along with effective leadership. There are different types of influences such as inspiration appeal, exchange, consultation, pressure, tactics, approving, rational persuasion and many more which helps to manage the political behaviour of the employees within WeWork.

Manage the change process

Due to several reasons such as lack of leadership, IPO issues, lack of management, limited resource pool, and many others, WeWork is going through an effective process. During the changing process the implementation of the Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement (ADKAR) change management model may provide support to mitigate the issues related to change.

There are three stages in the ADKAR change management model which include current, transition and future, there is a current chaotic state and creating awareness regarding the change enhances desire among the employees. Karambelkar and Bhattacharya, (2017) stated in their research that the ADKAR model of change management helps to overcome the process of change through a holistic approach through consecutive steps.

Transition refers to the process of going through the change whereas knowledge of upcoming change and the potentiality of WeWork may boost the changing process. Apart from that, the stage of the model is the future and the regaining situation or position of the company depicts the last stage and, in the future, it helps in growth and development successfully.

Figure 4: ADKAR Change management model (Source: Karambelkar and Bhattacharya, 2017)

Organisational culture

Organisational culture is another crucial element within an organisation and organisational culture includes different categories such as climate, observed behavioural regularities, habits of thinking, formal philosophies and many more. Edgar Schein proposed a model of culture which includes three levels such as artefacts, creation, and basic assumption and so on which helps to modify the culture of an organisation.

Considering research, it may be stated that the organisational culture of Schein has three components in which espoused value includes the belief of a social group which is especially articulated by the leaders (Wagstaff and Wylie, 2018). The development of culture needs social interaction as well as continuity of interaction and community to boost the iteration among employees and management in an effective manner.

Along with that, WeWork needs to focus internationally to overcome the challenges of organisational culture and there are different perspectives of culture such as integrationist, fragmentation and differentiation. On the other hand, setting a proper goal is also part of organisational culture and it helps to improve the motivation of the employees during change and achieving goals brings satisfaction among employees (Odor, 2018).

Figure 5: Culture model of Edgar Schein (Source: Odor, 2018)

Conclusion

From the above conclusion, it may be stated that WeWork is a company based in America which provides flexible workspace and the present CEO of the company is Sandeep Mathrani. The company has gone through several issues such as lack of leadership, corporate governance, internal resource management and many more which affect the reputation of the company.

Failure in the IPO is one of the biggest drawbacks of the company and it negatively influences the relationship with the stakeholders of the company, and the leadership of the former CEO of the company has proved a complete failure. In the current scenario, the company is going through tough phases due to a lack of enough resources such as human resources, financial resources and so on. According to research, bringing change or overcoming a crisis related to change is one of the challenging tasks for companies whereas communication plays a crucial role in change management (Storm and Borgman, 2020).

There are several limitations which are present within the business process and Sandeep Mathrani continually tries to incorporate innovative challenges to improve the business process. WeWork needs to focus on performance management, and operation management to manage the changing process whereas business analytics as well as data-driven decision-making boost the change in an effective manner.

WeWork may implement the ADKAR model of change management which provides an extensive range of support to overcome challenges by following consecutive steps. Implementation of a change management model provides support to overcome the issues during change and due to complexity, the effectiveness of the challenge models should be understood by leaders of the organisation (Teczke et al., 2017).

Recommendations

Short term Recommendations

WeWork should implement motivational activities such as training programmes which boost the performance of the employees and enhance the engagement of the employees within the work process.
The company should focus on digital marketing as it helps to reach the business to more consumers and helps to mitigate resource issues.
The company has to incorporate gamification as it helps to motivate the employees in remote work culture through performance appraisal

There are some recommendations which may help the company in the future to improve its performance of the company and retain the development through the suggested ways. During the change, employees felt de-motivated and for this reason, training programmes help the company to increase the involvement of the employees as well as provide desirable motivation.

Aziz et al., (2017) stated in the research that gamification is recognised as one of the finest motivational tools and it helps to reduce the work pressure on the employees whereas it may affect the mental well-being of the employees at the same time. Financial resources are important in this stage of the company and therefore, the company needs to focus on digital marketing which helps the company to reach more consumers.

Midterm (1-3 years) Recommendations

WeWork needs to appoint a financial expert to boost the financial condition of the company and provide a future opportunity to introduce an IPO of the company
The company needs to hire experienced employees in HRM because there is a limited resource in the company and to improve growth the company has to manage the talent of the company.
The company needs to implement a Key Performance Index (KPI) to monitor the improvement of the performance of the employees for the long term.
WeWork should focus on the latest version of the technology as considering the case study focuses on transforming the real estate company into the technological company.

Reference

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