Managing People Assignment Sample
Introduction
Managing people is the most challenging or interesting task along with it is the comprehensive area which covers employee development, organising, and guidance. In order to develop effective performance management strategy, it is important for the managers to mediate personality conflicts between team members. The people manager focuses on each employee’s and customize their approach to fulfil their expectations and needs (Wæraas and Dahle, 2020). An effective people manager maintains appropriate balance to meet the individual requirement with consistency.
People management holds an important place in any organisation because it is very important to manage people at the right time or right place and satisfy their needs in order to encourage them. Sage is the biggest software firm who streamline their HR process and facilitate employee engagement within their firm. The present report highlights the practices of Sage’s people management. The aim of this report is to identify Sage people management related issues and challenges. Further, the objective of this report is to highlight the role of leadership or management, decision-making, corporate social responsibility, ethics, and globalisation in the people management practices of the company. Moreover, the report aims to identify and evaluate business and management problems by applying relevant theories. At last, leadership and management impact will describe how to achieve key organisational goals.
Identify issues and challenges in Sage
Sage is one of the biggest software companies in the UK who operates in 23 countries. In the last 40 years the company has operated in Newcastle and constantly earns profit. The customer counts are several million and many of them are smaller firms leveraged from its accounting or payment system (Blštáková et. al. 2020). The Chief People Officer Amanda Cusdin, worked with the firm for the last six year and she started to focus on the development of their colleagues and employees. From an HR perspective, Cusdin empowers their employees with AI and automation tools to create best value for customers. For example, she automates performance management methods which traditionally take two to three months and it is intensive exercise for the HR team. Through such innovation and adopting advanced technological tools, she succeeded in saving a lot of time and efforts of her team. Moreover, she streamlines the HR operating model and considers diversity in her team (Freels et. al. 2020). She listens to employees, develops a positive work culture and motivates innovation in the area of customer focused solutions. Due to immense efforts for employee development, Sage has increased net promoter scale of employees by 57 points as well as global attrition rate by 7% (Knies and Leisink, 2018). Hence, the people manager Cusdin has been able to establish positive correlation between employees and customer NPS and justify staff development investment.
However, these strategies got seriously affected due to Covid-19 lockdown. The company considers the advantages of flexibility and explores effective techniques as employees return to its global offices. Most of the employees want to work together but on the other hand, the company is looking to find a way for home-based, field-based, office-based, and resilient employees (Brette et. al. 2017). In order to maintain balance between both options, the leader is building an agreement at a team level where they explore some alternatives that how people will work to fulfil customer demand along with focusing on being able to adjust plans as situation changes. The company recruited around 4,000 people in the last 18 month who have to work virtually. As the company does not want to go back to a nine-to-five, five days week job. They hire people globally and they offer them flexibility to work from anywhere they want (Denning, 2018). The company offers long-term careers and increases the number of people who are freshers hence, they offer graduate roles. Additionally, the company avoids hiring the afflicting talent of its competitors.
Therefore, the main challenges are to facilitate flexibility within the firm by maintaining adequate balance between employee and firm expectation and demand. Moreover, they recruit 40% talent from internal sources hence, they cannot leverage from external experienced and skilled resources.
Understanding the role of leadership, CSR, decision-making, and globalisation
In the given case study, where Sage faces some employee or people management related issue, the role of leadership, CSR, ethics, decision-making, and globalisation, is very important (Jyoti, 2019). Below are given each factors role by apply relevant theories:
Leadership– Leaders play a vital role in the immense success of Sage as Cusdin adopts digital transformation of performance management operations, empowering their employees with AI and automation tools to ensure personal development as well as value creation for customers. Due to tireless efforts of Sage leaders, employees’ net promoter score has increased and turnover rate has decreased (Chukwusa, 2019). As per the traits of Sage leaders it can say that they follow transformational leadership theory which focuses on employee development. In the post-pandemic situation where employees want to work in global offices but leaders want to implement work from home plan, the leaders decide to hire from internal sources and freshers from externally (Rasdi and Chen, 2018). However, it may adversely affect the brand image of the company and lead them into loss.
Decision-making process- In this process the authority identifies potential aspects which can affect the company’s policies and then determine some factors in order to implement changes within the firm. It is a very important process for any company because the right decision can ensure development and a wrong decision can ruin all efforts. In the case of Sage, chief people officers, and other leaders decide to implement work from home systems and offer flexibility to new hires. They cannot meet employee demand to work from the office as the company is forced to implement a remote work culture (Shaw, 2017). In order to establish effective people management, they use Griffith’s decision-making theory where the company directs or controls people’s life within an organisation.
CSR and Ethics– Sage gets huge success due to their effective CSR strategies and strong ethics as they consider employee development along with profit generation. Under the strong ethics the company allows flexibility to their fresh hires and employees due to lockdown situations (Ali et. al. 2021). In the challenging situation of the company, their CSR policies and ethics play an important role to make them stable.
Globalisation– Sage policies and processes are directly influenced from globalisation and the activity in the global market. Due to Covid-19 pandemic, most of the countries impose lockdown and thus companies have to provide work from home facilities to their employees (Shrivastava et. al. 2018). Hence, Sage has to implement the same policy however, their employees want to work from global offices. Hence, the company’s situation is directly impacted by globalisation.
Analyse business problem
As per the given case study, Sage software company’s chief people officer Cusdin focuses on employee development and provides them automation tools to improve their customer approach. She transforms their performance management process from traditionally to automated in order to save time and efforts of their team. Hence, she ensures professional and personal development of employees and achieves collective goals. However, the company got stuck in a challenging situation due to post-lockdown where employees want to work face-to-face and the company makes work from home provisions (Sage et. al. 2019). The company recruited 4000 people over the last 18 months and provided them remote working facilities. However, it is very challenging for the company to recruit and induct new employees virtually as there are several factors which need to be addressed physically. Moreover, 40% of recruitment is done through internal sources thus, the company cannot leverage from new skills and experiences (Cassell et. al. 2017). Therefore, there are multiple problems with Sage in people management. Below are some theories and frameworks which may help the company in problem-solving.
Herbert Simon decision-making theory– It is a framework that provides a realistic view of the situation where decisions affect outcomes. The theory stated that the decision making process is the choice between alternative options (Faber, 2021). It means choosing between action or non-action. Simon suggests three stages of decision-making processes:
Figure 1: Herbet Simon’s decision-making model
- Intelligence activity stage: where problems will be identified and the leaders analyse internal or external environments to solve the problem.
- Design activity stage: In order to explore solution of the problem, the leaders analyse best suited strategies along with its pros and cons to select best options.
- Choice activity stage: After finalising the list of all options, the leaders and decision-making authority critically examine and evaluate through quantitative or qualitative analysis to select the best suited option.
Sage leaders can use Simon’s decision-making model where they list all possible options to handle the situation and find the middle way to balance employee needs and company’s choice. The suggested model enables the company to explore all potential options to handle the situation (Becker, 2021). However, the company provides flexibility to their employees to work from anywhere they want. But the model provides them a more realistic view about the situation and helps them to drag out of the situation.
Democratic leadership style– Sage leaders may use transformational leadership style where employees are equally participating in the decision-making process but sometimes employee interference is increased. Thus, the leaders should use democratic leadership where the leader makes decisions based on the input of each employee. There is equal opinion of employees in the final decision hence, the chances of resistance are low (Flick, 2017). Cusdin should ask employee’s suggestions and opinions about work culture and their preferences and on the basis of employee’s reactions, she has to make balanced decisions. As she can provide options to whether to work from the office or from home and adopt both options.
The ADKAR change management model– Sage has to change their work culture and adopt post-lockdown changes. In order to ensure effective changes, the leaders should adopt ADKAR change management model which represent:
Figure 2: ADKAR change management model
(Source- Buehring, 2021)
- Awareness– Identify the need of change
- Desire– Participate and facilitate the change-
- Knowledge– Explore various options of changes
- Ability– Analyse required skills and resources to implement change
- Reinforcement– Develop strategy to sustain the change
Cusdin should adopt this model to implement cultural changes within the firm (Buehring, 2021). It allows the leaders to evaluate all required aspects of change and implement sustainable policy in the firm.
Other than that, Sage leaders can adopt CSR framework, ethical theory, and more to handle the issue and overcome the situation effectively.
Conclusion
Leadership and management play a vital role to impact key business strategies. As per the given case study, where chief people officer Cusdin plays an important role in their employee’s personal and professional development where she facilitates advanced technology in their organisation and automates most of the manual operations to save people’s efforts, and time. As the leaders and management are key to managing people effectively by implementing effective strategies. Cusdin is also popular as a good HR manager by integrating employees and company’s goals to achieve key organisational goals. The report covers people management practices of Sage by implementing cultural changes within the organisation.
The main aim of this report is to highlight Sage people management issues and the role of leaders to handle these challenges. The report summarises that the leader suggests mid-way where they provide flexibility to their employees and recruit 4,000 employees to work remotely. Further, the management of the company is determined to hire people internally or graduate freshers rather than afflicting talent by their competitors. However, it has some disadvantages as they cannot benefit from experienced employees and their skills. Further, the company has to face virtual working disadvantages like lack of control, employee demotivation, unproductive and under-performance of employees, and more. Additionally, flexible options also do not work properly because it makes the employee irresponsible for their job.
In order to overcome from such challenges some suggestions are given with the help of different models and theories. For example, democratic leadership style suggests in this report that the leaders should use this theory to include their employees in decision-making and reduce resistance chances. Moreover, Herbert Simons decision-making theory also recommend to improve their decision-making process. At last, ADKAR model is given to facilitate effective change management in the organisation. Hence, the report concluded by discussing that Sage, has some people management related challenges and they should use these theories and models to overcome from the situation and establish positive work culture.
References
Books and Journals
Blštáková, J., Joniaková, Z., Jankelová, N., Stachová, K. and Stacho, Z., (2020). Reflection of digitalization on business values: the results of examining values of people Management in a Digital age. Sustainability, 12(12), p.5202.
Brette, O., Lazaric, N. and Vieira da Silva, V., (2017). Habit, decision-making, and rationality: comparing Thorstein Veblen and early Herbert Simon. Journal of economic issues, 51(3), pp.567-587.
Cassell, C., Cunliffe, A.L. and Grandy, G. eds., (2017). The SAGE handbook of qualitative business and management research methods. Sage.
Chukwusa, J., (2019). Perceived democratic leadership style of university librarians and library staff work attitude. Library Philosophy and Practice, pp.0_1-23.
Denning, S., (2018). The emergence of Agile people management. Strategy & Leadership.
Flick, U. ed., (2017). The Sage handbook of qualitative data collection. Sage.
Freels, T.G., Gabriel, D.B., Lester, D.B. and Simon, N.W., (2020). Risky decision-making predicts dopamine release dynamics in nucleus accumbens shell. Neuropsychopharmacology, 45(2), pp.266-275.
Jyoti, K., (2019). Green HRM–people management commitment to environmental sustainability. In proceedings of 10th international conference on digital strategies for organizational success.
Knies, E. and Leisink, P., (2018). People management in the public sector. In HRM in mission driven organizations (pp. 15-46). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Rasdi, R.M. and Chen, Y.S., (2018). People management for managing employees’ retention in the organizations. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(12), pp.499-509.
Sage, D., Pham, T.A., Babcock, H., Lukes, T., Pengo, T., Chao, J., Velmurugan, R., Herbert, A., Agrawal, A., Colabrese, S. and Wheeler, A., (2019). Super-resolution fight club: assessment of 2D and 3D single-molecule localization microscopy software. Nature methods, 16(5), pp.387-395.
Shaw, D., (2017). Managing people and learning in organisational change projects. Journal of Organizational Change Management.
Shrivastava, S., Nagdev, K. and Rajesh, A., (2018). Redefining HR using people analytics: the case of Google. Human Resource Management International Digest.
Wæraas, A. and Dahle, D.Y., (2020). When reputation management is people management: Implications for employee voice. European management journal, 38(2), pp.277-287.
Online
Becker, B., (2021). The 8 Most Common Leadership Styles & How to Find Your Own. [Online] [Available Through]: <https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/leadership-styles>
Buehring, S., (2021). ADKAR. [Online] [Available Through]:<https://www.knowledgetrain.co.uk/change-management/change-management-courses/change-management-models/adkar>
Faber, N., (2021). Herbert Simon Model on Decision Making. [Online] [Available Through]:<https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Simons-model-of-human-decision-making_fig7_281614558>
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