Management Qualification Case Study Essay

Dear Amanda, as you know so many start-up small businesses like yours and often run in to the trouble of mismanagement because of so many assumptions based on establishing the business mission, vision statements; human resource management; lack of employee motivation; lack of properly defined working standards for employees and other outcomes measurable; not taking any concern of negative information about the organization especially from the clients which costs the organizations image and remaining too busy to pay attention to the establishment of problem solutions, lack of equity among employees and lack of proper follow up on the employees work. All these are consolidated in the four functions of management which are organizing, planning, controlling and directing. As the manager of Smith accounting and Tax service business, you I acknowledge the fact that you had the right qualifications and had a good start as you identified an opportunity to expand your business and did just like that of (Gronkiewicz, & Churchill, 2006). Your work is commendable however, the most important part of overseeing the business is what you put aside with the aim of acquiring more clients and make more returns. Planning is quite important for any business regardless if it is large or small. This is because all functions associated with management fall under planning and lack of planning is planning to fail (Guzzle, 2011). On one part of the business, the management was good because upon realizing that and expansion opportunity was available you seized the opportunity and announced  interviews for qualified professionals which was quite successful. However, the fact that Lisa was responsible for the interviews is quite a failure. This is because it is clear from your case that Lisa had not qualifications in the field of accounting and taxation. She may have been quite alright in picking the best and most competent employees from their application documents but this does not mean that your presence should not have made a difference (Rane, 2007).This clearly indicates that even though your company knew what they wanted to seize the expansion opportunity, there was lack of human resource planning which is clearly evident in the underestimation of the job description, job design, selection and recruitment. It is true Lisa had worked with you for some time and was doing great but there was no reason for the owner of the business to have little or no time for new employees during their interviews yet she is the one who knew what she needed most (Buzzle, 2011). The success of the interviews was yet another source of planning because, dear Amanda you came to believe that Lisa was competent enough to handle duties requiring your attention even without. This made your schedule too tight for responsibilities that you and only you could handle hence poor time management that found you too busy to have valuable time to provide guidance and management direction concerning the works of the other of your employees (Rane, 2007). I am glad you identified your failure before it was too late as with right planning of your time as the manager, and with such a dedicated assistance such as Lisa, planning your time to suit all your responsibilities with little or no delegation of powers is quite essential.Amanda, you and me agree that your business wants to go places in the future, but with the presence of conflicting interests and always delegated duties, chances are that the business will fail and the future remain doomed (Frankiewicz, & Churchill, 2006). So what is right to bring your business back on feet is to ensure that you deal with the present problems one after the other and promise your clients to expect even better services in future. Reassure your employees that their trust in your services is not in vain and  that you will work towards that by implementing proper time management leaving time even for emergency matters that may call for your attention even away from the day’s schedule. After the business is up, ensure you implement proper human resource planning, job design and description, selection and recruitment processes. Be there and let the new employees get to know who they will be working for and what is expected of them (Rane, 2007). Probably Lisa lacked the knowledge to tell them what was expected of them and which made even you to assume that you were dealing with intellectuals who understood their job well and would always give their best. Amanda, remember that planning for all businesses is ongoing. The reasons for my arguments are because the external and internal factors affecting your business aren’t constant. For instance in your case, it was only after four months in business that Lisa started receiving calls from unsatisfied clients (Frankiewicz, & Churchill, 2006). Despite the fact that these clients held the future of your business, you chose to ignore them and left Lisa to maneuver her way out in dealing with them. Clearly, Lisa isn’t qualified in that field and as a manager you delegated duties and locations to your newly employed accountants which mean Lisa was carrying the burden of another employee. Having received such calls from clients meant that you as the manager had to call an urgent meeting with the employee responsible and deal with the problem from that point on. However, you chose to depend on the mission and motto of the organization assuming that the zeal it brought to you was th e same given to everyone else (Rane, 2007). In such a case Amanda, a manager must always offer directions to the employees after assessing their work and performance. It is true that new clients were forthcoming as can be seen from the range of returns brought in by the employees, 100-175. However, the quality of services was way too far from what a business in need of a larger market share and a competitive advantage was after (Buzzle, 2011). Including directions in your management is important in a number of ways. First, all employees are prone to deviating from the business goals and objectives probably due to the pressure that comes with the work they are to do. However, this does not  mean you leave them to themselves to solve such problems. Instead, as a manager, there is need for constant provision of guidance and instructions geared towards achievement of the organizations goals and objectives. Lisa, your role as a manager should be offering directions and instructions and that is what is wanted. For Amanda who was your acquaintance at the initiation of the business, good work is always rewarded. However, the other new employees, despite working hard and bringing commendable results within the first taxation year, no rewards have been offered to them. Employee motivation is quite essential in employee performance (Rane, 2007). This is because having great qualifications for the job doesn’t mean that the client must always offer their best. Something must be done to make them feel as the most important part of the organization without the efforts of which the organization would not be where it is. Amanda, adopting directions or leadership in your management will provide influence to the employees as well as mould their behavior towards the attainment of the organizations goals and objectives. Additionally, this will serve as a guide to the employees towards the attainment of personal and career goals. Influencing the employees through employee motivation may include provision of incentives and other benefits and rewards to hard working employees (Frankiewicz, & Churchill, 2006). Additionally Amanda, with effective communications, the relationship between you and the employees is bond to improve for the better and this will work effectively in problem solving as problems will be discovered on time, discussed and efficient solutions achieved for the same. Your leadership efforts are appreciated in incorporating the Monday mornings for meetings to discuss individual progress. However, you leave out an important point of requiring knowing the challenges and the different problems being faced by the individuals in their working places. This s important in identifying areas of concern that affects all employees including yourself and searching for solutions to make your services of better quality and reliable. As a manager, you lacked control of your organization. Amanda this allows me to point out several occasions such experiences happened (Marcic, & Daft, 2010). For instance, despite employees being aware of their duties and responsibilities, you failed to provide them with standards. For companies such as yours where one is recognized by the number of new clients they bring in, it is easy for the employees to forget the other performance requirements like quality, timely and satisfactory services (Rane, 2007). This is what happened in your case as well, it was only after about four months of operations the newly acquired clients started complaining of poor services. Instead of depending on their qualifications, you should have insisted on an evaluation and job performance reporting session that would have provided the details of one’s work and how they meet organizations goals and objectives. This way you could have kept track of the performance of each employee for guidance and directions. Lastly Amanda, as a manager you should have been the best organizer for the company. By organization it means that everything should be done for a reason and everything done must be accounted for (Marcic, & Daft, 2010). Allocating employees to different locations was one step to organization but much needed to be done in terms of matching the input resources to the outcomes in terms of consumer satisfaction and company’s returns (Frankiewicz, & Churchill, 2006). Your workplace for one wasn’t organized since everything was left as the role of Lisa your assistance. This would have been probably the source of low motivation amongst employees to meet the organizations objectives in their services. I recommend that you as a manager handle all the personnel and resources in the most profitable way to your organization.This way, you gain respect, employees feel responsible for their actions and the workplace becomes something everyone longs to be in (Rane, 2007). bibliography Buzzle, (2011). Management concepts. Buzzle.com. retrieved on 14 Oct 2011 from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/management-concepts-the-four-functions-of-management.html. Frankiewicz, C., & Churchill, C., (2006). Managing for improved