BSS064-6 Leading and Managing Organisational Resources Assignment Sample
Module code and Title: BSS064-6 Leading and Managing Organisational Resources Assignment Sample
Introduction
Leadership in an organisation is one of the key aspects that help to keep the company running profitably. In the present generation where almost every industry has become competitive due to the ease of globalisation, sustainable leadership has become a major requirement that can help these companies to maximise their performance while also ensuring that the human resources are able to achieve their objectives effectively.
One of the key aspects of sustainable leadership is the adoption of a responsible approach towards achieving the goals of WeWork and managing the resources. The following report is based on the case study of WeWork and aims to identify the organisation’s key issues and challenges that led the company to the verge of insolvency. The report would present a critical analysis of the different challenges and identify how leadership and effective resource management could have helped WeWork in order to minimise the challenges WeWork was facing in 2019.
Sustainable leadership and performance management are going to be the key focus of this report and considering the fact these were the key areas where WeWork lacked resilience.
The report would also focus on the evaluation of the key issues that the company has been facing and critically assess and identify effective resource management strategies that can possibly help in minimising the impact of the issues. Even, the report would also focus on the productivity issues of WeWork. Based on the case study of WeWork there have been multiple job cuts that have affected the company’s productivity as well as the motivation levels of the employees.
With effective people and productivity management strategies that report would identify effective ways by that WeWork could have managed to get out of the difficult situation. In this context, the role of leadership would also be taken into consideration as a major part of the company’s operations were dependent upon the leaders and the way they managed existing stakeholders.
WeWork adopted a few changes in its global business management and the effectiveness of these change management strategies would also be evaluated. This would help in identifying to what extent the new leadership of WeWork can sustain the changes and goals of WeWork to become a tech company and shift its dependency in the real estate industry.
Analysis of WeWork’s main challenges
Cash-Flow issues
The concept of cash flow is the movement of financial funds on a daily basis within organisational management (Polak et al. 2020). The reason behind the rise of cash flow problems is the amount of money that is flowing out of the company outweighs the cash that is coming in despite the company being profitable in the market. As per the case study, WeWork is facing a significant issue that is related to cash flow concerns within the management system of former CEO Adam Neumann.
For example, it has been noted that WeWork has focused on laying off more than 5000 employees that are considered to be one-third of the employees of the overall organisation. Despite the business being profitable in the market, WeWork might face a significant downfall in its overall operations due to cash flow problems.
Evidently, one of the main consequences of inadequate cash flow might be problems with investments and development potential for WeWork. However, it will also enhance the company’s financial debt element in the market, which might have a substantial influence on the brand’s overall reputation there. Additionally, it could result in longer payment delays for stakeholders, employers, and other involved parties in the business’s business operations (Alsharef et al. 2021). Unfortunately, late payments will also affect the workforce’s overall productivity and level of motivation.
The overall late payments had a significant impact on the overall performance of the company. As a result, the company might face challenges regarding low employee morale within the workplace (Hertati et al. 2020). Apart from that, WeWork might also face significant challenges regarding the shortage of funds for marketing and other significant factors that are required to run the business effectively in the competitive market. Thus, it will increase challenges regarding developing a flexible workplace that is required for better efficiency and performance of WeWork in the competitive market (Roychowdhury et al. 2019).
Resource management internally
One of the key factors that give organisational management the capacity to successfully achieve desired goals and objectives is internal resource management (Saeed et al. 2019). An ability to maximise potential, improve overall efficiency, and increase profitability in a cutthroat market may be given to organisational management through effective internal resource management. Additionally, it has also been identified that internal resource management is a crucial component of corporate operations.
According to the case study, WeWork has encountered difficulties keeping up with its internal resource management system. In order to improve performance and expand based on the technology side of the business, the firm has made the decision to combine with BowX Corp in the year 2021. However, organisational management may experience difficulties with rising project costs as a result of poor resource management.
As mentioned in the case study, it has been noted that WeWork has a significant shortage of resources. Thus, poor resource management will significantly impact the skills of the workforce that is going to result in affecting the overall effectiveness, the project cost and unnecessary budget outruns (Gile et al. 2018). Apart from that, poor resource management might also significantly impact the overall employee performance within the workplace.
It will increase the chances of unrealistic expectations over resource allocation problems that might affect the overall morale of the employees. Based on the overall factors, one of the major challenges regarding internal resource management is it might significantly impact the overall employee turnover rate within the company (Nie et al. 2018).
As per the case study, it has been found that the company has already eliminated a huge number of employees that were already a part of the company due to a shortage of financial funds on a daily cash flow issue. improper resource management might also significantly impact the retention rate of the employees within the organisation that might negatively impact the overall business and might cause it to collapse.
Lack of corporate governance policies
As per the case study, it has been found that WeWork has been focused on improving their corporate governance policies based on the challenges faced by the company due to poor daily cash flow and problems in resource management. As per the concept of global restructuring, the company is focused on developing their performance and efficiency in the global platforms (Allam et al. 2022). In the case of better efficiency, the company has focused on adapting to altering the global structure based on the corporate governance of the company.
Although there are significant advantages of global restructuring, it might also initiate major challenges to organisational management (Kleibert and Mann, 2020). In order to rebuild the trust of the employees, the company is focused on developing strategies to attract the skilled members to stay with the company to enhance the overall performance and efficiency.
The global restructuring method might also increase challenges to the company as it will require multiple hires for better talent and skills that requires a sufficient amount of financial funds, time and resources (King et al. 2022). The company will also need to focus on spending a huge time period on training and development programmes for the newly hired employees for better efficiency and aligning with the business objectives.
As there is a significant shortage of daily cash flow, the company might also play significant challenges regarding providing sufficient training to the newly hired employees for better efficiency and performance in the workplace. Despite the requirements of financial funds, the company might also need a significant number of resources for the research and development programmes for the newly hired employees (Ozkeser, 2019).
As per the case study, WeWork has been facing challenges regarding the shortage of resources which might also be considered to be a significant challenge while implementing the global restructuring method. Based on the above findings, the global restructuring method might also significantly impact the overall performance and efficiency of work in the competitive market which might also be considered to be a challenging factor.
Ineffective strategies for cost-effectiveness
Considering the case of WeWork and with respect to their daily cash flow system, WeWork has reportedly been experiencing a significant challenge. The organization’s management has opted to focus on cost-cutting because of the numerous challenges they confront on a daily basis. However, the company may also face significant challenges with the strategy by putting the concept of cost-cutting into effect (Smith et al. 2019).
One of the biggest issues preventing WeWork from implementing the cost-cutting approach is a potential resource shortage. It was determined, as indicated in the case study, that the organisation had previously suffered from a severe lack of cash as a result of a substandard cash flow system in its regular business operations. As a result, cutting costs might increase the company’s vulnerability to resource shortages, which could reduce corporate management’s overall performance.
In addition, depending on the performance of the firm, cutting costs may include letting the majority of the personnel resign in order to save financial companies (Croxson et al. 2022). The majority of the remaining workforce has already been cut loose, but by reducing expenses, the business may have further problems with a labour shortage that will harm overall efficiency and productivity.
As stated in the case study, the company’s main goal is to boost profitability by reducing costs by $1.5 billion while maintaining flat sales. The firm has experienced a huge 40% decline in overall revenue owing to the pandemic crisis despite all planning and management methods, leading them to believe that cost-cutting has had a detrimental impact on improving their overall performance. Despite all the obstacles, Mathrani intends to concentrate on the attempt to minimise costs.
Evaluation of improving resource management and enhancing productivity and performance
Resource management
Effective resource management was one of the most needed aspects in the company due to the pandemic as it not only affected the company’s plans to expand in 2020 but also led to a drop in revenue. Moreover, cash flow issues have resulted in a lack of resources (Mushkudiani et al. 2020). One of the major challenges the company has been facing linked with resources management is achieving a balance between digital and physical services offered by WeWork.
There are a few ways by which the company can maximise the management of its resources capabilities without increasing the overall cost of operations as effective rescue management itself acts as a cost-cutting tool.
Sharing the goals and objectives evenly in the team
WeWork’s inability to reconcile its retail and digital activities as a result of the organization’s limited resources also prevented it from becoming a tech giant. In this situation, evenly distributing the goals and objectives among the other teams would have significantly assisted the organisation in ensuring that the resources are used in accordance with their capabilities and effectiveness (Kaehne, 2020). In addition, sharing resources among several teams would have improved the organization’s capacity to maximise resource efficiency without raising operating expenses.
Apart from that, effective team management strategies can be taken into consideration in order to develop highly resilient productive and efficient teams. Moreover, if necessary, teams can be shuffled based on skills in order to ensure that every team is equally equipped with individuals having a certain skill set. Tuckman’s theory of team development can be taken into consideration with five stages that lead to the development of an effective team (Siregar et al. 2018). The principles of these theories can be employed in order to ensure that the newly developed teams are effective in terms of their operational capabilities as well as overall productivity.
Automation in operations
The development of multiple tools and tactics that can integrate automation in operation has been facilitated by technological advancements. WeWork may use a similar approach in crucial areas where human resources engagement is not as crucial. For instance, automating the processes for enrolling and approving membership, deploying chatbots to assist consumers with straightforward issues, keeping track of resources, and creating feedback reports (Braganza et al. 2021).
WeWork is able to automate all of these processes, freeing up human resources for other crucial jobs like the newly agreed-upon software development. The corporation may concentrate on employing skilled employees from other regions as the organisation has already implemented a hybrid working approach.
Even though this might lead to time gaps, cultural differences and communication barriers, effective HRM strategies can be implemented to optimise global team performance. Further in terms of software development, there are different areas where automation can be implemented such as debugging operations that manually require a lot of time and effort (Boute et al. 2022).
However, automated debugging software can do the tasks in a very short period of time. Thus, automation can not only increase the company’s capability to manage and balance its use of existing resources but would also help in saving a lot of time and money.
Even, automation in operations also reduces the chances of any human error that can lead to bigger problems. With the use of automation, managers can get real-time reports and alerts that can speed up overall operations and help in achieving a higher degree of scalability (Pham et al. 2020). Apart from that, the involvement of automation can effectively help in dividing tasks into different teams and ensuring that the objectives and milestones are being achieved within the given timeline that is the necessary requirement for achieving client satisfaction
Involvement of key stakeholders in meetings
Given the fact that the majority of the stakeholders in WeWork’s operations are part of the Global Fortune 500 group, they are very important to the business. Therefore, meeting the needs and wants of these stakeholders would be crucial to creating a happy and devoted customer base (Pollock et al. 2018). Additionally, having these businesses as clientele may significantly improve the company’s reputation as a successful real estate firm that also provides solutions for managing hybrid workspace.
Moreover, the identification of new trends and potential client requests would be one of the main advantages of including these stakeholders in important meetings. The involvement of stakeholders would lead to the generation of new ideas and that can significantly benefit from varied innovative perspectives.
In this context, the principles of stakeholder theory can be taken into consideration that focuses on ethical business operations by considering the requirements, demands and needs of property owners, the local community, creditors, shareholders and registered customers (Boaz et al. 2018). These are some of the key stakeholders that the company needs to focus on during their board meetings and ensure that the decisions that are made benefit the interests of these stakeholders.
Even if WeWork is unable to benefit all these stakeholders at once it would be essential to at least address their issues and recognise they are problems and ensure that they would be addressed in the near future. As a result, an effective negotiation strategy would also be needed in this context which is a key attribute of sustainable leadership (Iqbal and Ahmad, 2021).
Therefore, the leaders during the stakeholder meetings not only need to show effective emotional intelligence but also need to demonstrate negotiation capabilities in order to make sure that customers are satisfied with the response and outcomes of board meetings held by WeWork.
Improvements in productivity
As WeWork is moving forward in the post-pandemic era the need for higher productivity and the ability to communicate with target customers regarding the digital services offered by the company is a much-needed requirement.
Employee motivation
The amount of motivation that employees possess is one of the most important characteristics of a workforce product, and in this respect, the level of motivation of employees may be increased by using various incentive techniques. Employees may get incentives, bonuses, prizes, and recognition from the business for reaching a specific goal or significant milestone that WeWork has been working to reach (Siddiqui, 2019). Not only would the existence of such a reward system aid in motivating the employees to meet their goals and objectives, but it would also aid in motivating the rest of the workforce.
Discourage micromanagement
Micromanagement is one of the major aspects that reduce the productivity of a particular team as managers tend to involve themselves in every small operation and objective. This not only increases the overall workload of the managers but also leads to significant delays that can hamper the productivity of WeWork (Shuford, 2019).
As a result, the CEO and the board of directors need to discourage micro-management within the company and different teams to ensure a higher rate of productivity is achieved especially in terms of the digital services that the company is willing to offer to that target customers.
Sustainable and financial leadership
Sustainable leadership is another essential requirement that WeWork needs to focus on in the current position of the company. Sustainable leadership at every level involves managers as well as team leaders employing effective resource management capabilities while also becoming responsible for the decisions and actions. Even, sustainable leadership would also help WeWork to maximize its financial residence helping the company to achieve cost-effective operations (Iqbal and Ahmad, 2021).
One of the key aspects that can be effectively achieved with the help of sustainable leadership is maximising cost efficiency which can also be done by implementing financial strategies such as regular demand forecast pre-planned budget and increasing cash flow by making changes in operations and services. Achieving a significant level of sustainable leadership within WeWork would not only help in maximizing financial resilience but would also help the company to gain a higher level of profitability (Iqbal et al. 2020).
Hence, this would also help the organisation to maximize the value of their shares which would encourage more retail investors again helping to increase the cash flow of the company which has been a major problem for WeWork since 2019.
Recommendations
Using lean management techniques
WeWork may also use lean management techniques that will not only aid to maximise resource efficiency but will also help to reduce waste. Lean management techniques can help the business maximise its cost-effectiveness while assisting WeWork in achieving its new goals. Lean management would also allow the leaders to become more resource efficient thus allowing the company to achieve sustainable leadership at different levels of its management framework.
Managing cash flow effectively
WeWork should prioritise making sure that they have a positive daily cash flow based on the research’s general findings as well as details from the case study. As a result, WeWork’s inadequate cash flow management might be seen as the primary cause of all the negative issues the business has encountered over the years.
They will be able to handle their resources more effectively and efficiently and so improve their overall performance in the market by concentrating on enhancing their daily operating capabilities based on their financial aspects. In addition, it will provide them with the opportunity to increase their performance in the market while also giving them the capacity to increase their productivity level by raising the morale and motivation of their personnel.
Sustainable leadership in top management
Another recommendation would be to concentrate on sustainable leadership, which would enable WeWork to outperform its rivals and win over investors. Gaining the shareholders’ faith in the company’s senior management will assist enhance cash flow, which is a vital factor in improving WeWork’s value.
Achieving a higher degree of resource management capability
By concentrating on ensuring that there is proper resource management within the daily operations, all of the tough variables that have been described above, such as cash flow concerns, poor resource management, worldwide restructuring, and cost reduction for boosting profitability, will all be remedied. It may also be advised that the firm concentrate on a few specific goals and objectives in order to improve overall company growth in the future. However, the business may also put emphasis on offering staff development programmes that would allow it to inspire workers and improve their skill sets at work.
Conclusion
The findings and evaluation of WeWork in the above report have helped in identifying various aspects that have been acting as major barriers to the company’s growth and development in the real estate and tech industry. In this context, the report has effectively helped in identifying some of the key issues such as the lack of cash flow in the organisation that has been creating a financial barrier for the organisation and limiting its resource management capabilities.
Moreover, internal resource management also failed to achieve the required resilience that WeWork needed in order to minimise the losses it has been facing in 2019. Apart from that, corporate governance has also been a major issue due to that WeWork saw multiple changes in its top leadership.
Based on these issues and their evaluation the report has effectively helped in identifying some key strategies and ways through which the organisation can maximize their capability to achieve a higher level of productivity and resilience in the market. The evaluation of these strategies has also justified how their implementation can help WeWork to successfully operate in the post-pandemic period as a tech company.
References list
Allam, Z., Sharifi, A., Bibri, S.E., Jones, D.S. and Krogstie, J., (2022). The metaverse as a virtual form of smart cities: opportunities and challenges for environmental, economic, and social sustainability in urban futures. Smart Cities, 5(3), pp.771-801.
Alsharef, A., Banerjee, S., Uddin, S.J., Albert, A. and Jaselskis, E., (2021). Early impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the United States construction industry. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(4), p.1559.
Boaz, A., Hanney, S., Borst, R., O’Shea, A. and Kok, M., (2018). How to engage stakeholders in research: design principles to support improvement. Health research policy and systems, 16(1), pp.1-9.
Boute, R.N., Gijsbrechts, J. and Van Mieghem, J.A., (2022). Digital lean operations: Smart automation and artificial intelligence in financial services. In Innovative Technology at the Interface of Finance and Operations (pp. 175-188). Springer, Cham.
Braganza, A., Chen, W., Canhoto, A. and Sap, S., (2021). Gigification, job engagement and satisfaction: the moderating role of AI enabled system automation in operations management. Production Planning & Control, pp.1-14.
Croxson, K., Frost, J., Gambacorta, L. and Valletti, T., (2022). Platform-based business models and financial inclusion. BIS Papers.
Gile, P.P., Buljac-Samardzic, M. and Klundert, J.V.D., (2018). The effect of human resource management on performance in hospitals in Sub-Saharan Africa: a systematic literature review. Human resources for health, 16(1), pp.1-21.
Hertati, L., Widiyanti, M., Desfitrina, D., Syafarudin, A. and Safkaur, O., (2020). The effects of economic crisis on business finance. International journal of economics and financial issues, 10(3), p.236.
Iqbal, Q. and Ahmad, N.H., (2021). Sustainable development: The colors of sustainable leadership in learning organization. Sustainable Development, 29(1), pp.108-119.
Iqbal, Q., Ahmad, N.H. and Halim, H.A., (2020). How does sustainable leadership influence sustainable performance? Empirical evidence from selected ASEAN countries. Sage Open, 10(4), p.2158244020969394.
Kaehne, A., (2020). Sharing a vision. Do participants in integrated care programmes have the same goals and objectives?. Health Services Management Research, 33(3), pp.122-129.
King, D.R., Meglio, O., Gomez‐Mejia, L., Bauer, F. and De Massis, A., (2022). Family business restructuring: A review and research agenda. Journal of Management Studies, 59(1), pp.197-235.
Kleibert, J.M. and Mann, L., (2020). Capturing value amidst constant global restructuring? Information-technology-enabled services in India, the Philippines and Kenya. The European Journal of Development Research, 32(4), pp.1057-1079.
Mushkudiani, Z., Gechbaia, B., Gigauri, I. and Gulua, E., (2020). Global, economic and technological trends in human resource management development. Access journal, 1(1), pp.53-60.
Nie, D., Lämsä, A.M. and Pučėtaitė, R., (2018). Effects of responsible human resource management practices on female employees’ turnover intentions. Business Ethics: A European Review, 27(1), pp.29-41.
Ozkeser, B., (2019). Impact of training on employee motivation in human resources management. Procedia Computer Science, 158, pp.802-810.
Pham, B., Nunnally, E., Huff, C., Duong, N., Smit, A. and Stinskiy, A., (2020). Decentralized distribution automation system-scalability and deployment challenges. In 2020 IEEE/PES Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition (T&D) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Polak, P., Nelischer, C., Guo, H. and Robertson, D.C., (2020). “Intelligent” finance and treasury management: what we can expect. AI & SOCIETY, 35(3), pp.715-726.
Pollock, A., Campbell, P., Struthers, C., Synnot, A., Nunn, J., Hill, S., Goodare, H., Morris, J., Watts, C. and Morley, R., (2018). Stakeholder involvement in systematic reviews: a scoping review. Systematic reviews, 7(1), pp.1-26.
Roychowdhury, S., Shroff, N. and Verdi, R.S., (2019). The effects of financial reporting and disclosure on corporate investment: A review. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 68(2-3), p.101246.
Saeed, B.B., Afsar, B., Hafeez, S., Khan, I., Tahir, M. and Afridi, M.A., (2019). Promoting employee’s proenvironmental behavior through green human resource management practices. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 26(2), pp.424-438.
Shuford, J.A., (2019). Micromanagement: The enemy of staff morale. Corrections Today, 81(5), pp.36-41.
Siddiqui, D.A., (2019). Impact of motivation on employees performance in Pakistan. Rida, N. and Siddiqui, DA (2019). Impact of Motivation on Employees Performance in Pakistan. Business Management and Strategy, 10(1), pp.1-22.
Siregar, C., Pane, M.M. and Ruman, Y.S., (2018). The virtual team performance in solving teamwork conflict problems. In Proceedings of the 2018 International Conference on Distance Education and Learning (pp. 1-5).
Smith, W.L., Hillon, Y.C. and Liang, Y., (2019). Reassessing measures of sustainable firm performance: A consultant’s guide to identifying hidden costs in corporate disclosures. Business Strategy and the Environment, 28(2), pp.353-365.
Yusliza, M.Y., Norazmi, N.A., Jabbour, C.J.C., Fernando, Y., Fawehinmi, O. and Seles, B.M.R.P., (2019). Top management commitment, corporate social responsibility and green human resource management: A Malaysian study. Benchmarking: An International Journal.
Reflection
With the intent to improve my previous work I have proofread the study and changed grammatical and sentence structuring mistakes. I have also focused on the different sections and improved the sections to meet the guidelines of the assignment. Changes to the recommendations have also been made in line with WeShare to resolve the company’s existing issues with cash flow and lack of sustainable leadership the company.
Know more about UniqueSubmission’s other writing services:
Best best best..