Les’ Management Challenge at See-Me Sheffield (SMS)

Remember to use the assessment grid to help you plan your assessment and then use it again to check that you’ve delivered on what you were asked to do. 

Word Count

The essay should be 3,500 words in length.  This word limit relates to the word count given by the word counters in Microsoft Word and must be included on your cover page.  When your work is 10% over the word limit, markers will stop reading your work. Essays submitted with less than the minimum word count (90% of 3500) are highly unlikely to contain sufficient depth to demonstrate learning at this level.

Here is some information to help you understand what is included in your word count:

a)    appendices should not be included in word count – this includes all information related to the topics under consideration.  It should not contain small pictures, models, graphics and tables.  They should be appropriately included in the text.  If you use your appendices to extend your essay word count then these will be included in the word count.  

b)    tables should not be included in word count if these are used to present quantitative data, but should be included if they are constructed using words.

c)    quotations and citations should be included in word count.

d)    the references section and any bibliography should not be included in the word count.

e)    abstracts and executive summaries should be included in the word count (so don’t use them!).

Submitting your work

You should submit your work to BOTH the Blackboard site and Turnitin before 3pm on the deadline day (local time).

Online submission (Blackboard)

The submission point will be available on the Blackboard site for this module where you need to upload your work. This is the version that will be marked. 

Turnitin submission

The Turnitin tool is available on the Blackboard site for this module.

You can upload your work as many times as necessary to Turnitin to check your work, prior to the deadline.

You will need to upload your final version to the Turnitin submission point by the submission deadline. Both the online submission version and the Turnitin version must match.

Assessment:  Individual case study

Read the case study below.  Individually, write a 3,500 word essay (+/- 10%) that critically answers the questions asked at the bottom of the case study. 

Case Study: Les’ management challenge

Disclaimer – this case study and the workplaces and characters within it are entirely fictional and have no link to any real organisations with the same or similar sounding names.

Both of the main roles (Les and Sam) have been written as female, however you can choose your own gender and pronouns for these individuals and use them in your writing.

Diagram showing See-Me (Sheffield) company structure.

See-Me Sheffield, (known as SMS) is a small, but rapidly growing, marketing company that is wholy owned by its German parent company whose values are Integrity, Innovation, Compassion, Excellence in Execution and Inclusion.

SMS has been operating for almost 10 years and employs around one hundred people in Sheffield, UK.  The majority of SMS’s customers are small and medium sized enterprises from across a variety of industries.  They are all seeking prompt and expert marketing support with development of their online and physical profiles. Business is good, probably too good. With the pandemic fading away companies are keen to get their brand back in the spotlight, this has put huge pressure on everyone in SMS as the work keeps pouring in.

Les has been recruited directly from university into her first line management role.  She secured the job because she had completed a sandwich year on placement where she worked for a large US based marketing corporation as a brand executive.  Les was attracted to the company based of its scale (she could have a large influence on outcomes) and in particular its values of integrity, innovation and compassion (she can't remember the others) but now she's not so sure she made a wise decision.

Les oversees three teams which each specialise in a particular form of marketing; the Social Media team (looking after all things online, Tik Tok, Facebook etc.); the Printed team (who look after marketing in physical media, such as magazines and newspapers) and the Billboard team who look after a mixture of large physical billboards attached to buildings as well as smaller electronic billboards that you find on bus shelters. None of the teams works well with the others, preferring to remain in their silo.

The Social Media team– Its team members are all under 30 years of age and no-one has been there longer than two years. Turnover of staff is very high, with leavers frequently saying better pay, and lack of prestigious clients forced them to leave. Stress was also an issue, with clients always expecting their promotions to go viral. Maria had been off for two months now, initially with covid and now anxiety, and the Human Resources (HR) department had told Les to “get on top of it”, but she isn’t sure what to do.

Les constantly needs to recruit for the Social Media team as the current process is not working. SMS advertises jobs on a national website and the majority of applicants are from London, who then frequently turn the down the job offer when they find out the pay scales and that they would have to move to Sheffield for their role, despite much of the work being undertaken online. Two people had left last week, and they were already understaffed anyway causing the existing team to complain about being over-worked (or lazy as Les saw it – the American team she had worked in previously would make sure the job was done even it meant staying late AND they each had more clients). She quite enjoys the recruitment part of her role (when she has the time) as it gives her an excuse to be nosey about candidates, looking on social media for inappropriate behaviour, or if they listed an obscure hobby or shared compromising photographs. She hadn’t completed her “unconscious bias” training yet, as she did not think it was relevant.

The Printed team – Almost all of the Printed team has been there since the company was formed. They are all male, with an average age of over 50 and they are often referred to as the “oldies” or “dinosaurs” by the Social Media team. They are the happiest team and content to keep doing what they have always done but don’t like to be stretched to achieve more and are very resistant to change. They’ve started to call Les ‘her highness’ suggesting that Les hasn’t the experience but acts like royalty and demands obedience.

The Billboard team – The Billboard team is a mixture of ages/genders and the most international of the teams, with staff from all over Europe. The German parent company had recently moved 10 employees from France into this team rather than make them redundant, but this had now caused a rift between existing staff (who do not speak French) and the new employees (who do speak fluent English) but were also very happy to remain as an independent group solely speaking French. Les knew she needed to do something about how the Billboard team worked together. Frankly, right now they didn’t really work together at all.

Zach from the Billboard team had commissioned a billboard opposite a school advertising a fast-food outlet, knowing full well that it was inappropriate (and potentially not compliant with advertising standards). It had caused a huge number of complaints and was front page news on the local paper, but the attention on the brand was fantastic, achieving much more than he could have done within the budget, so he thought it had been very successful. Sam (Les' boss) has said that Zach has done a great job and should be praised. Les however is wondering where the company's value of integrity is in this decision, and she worries that congratulating Zach will set a precedent for poor behaviour across the team. On top of this, the recognition seems to have caused Zach to abandon his duties, he now focuses on just 2 rather than his 20 clients and has been turning up late for work. Les is unsure what to do with Zach.

Nihal (from the Social media team) had spoken to her last week about career development and asked Les what he could do to move into a management position. Les (secretly) knew that he had applied for her job as Tracey from HR had told her. Nihal had wanted to investigate and discuss the options open to him but Les saw this as a threat to her leadership, so had simply told him a list of (impossible) tasks that had sent him away despondent.

The three teams were physically separated in different parts of the building as well as psychologically, thinking each was the best. It was not uncommon for beautifully designed “fake” posters to appear in different parts of the building ridiculing another team. Les thought it was probably Zach (Billboard) and Bob (Social Media) but doesn’t know what to do. If only they could all get along!

The Social Media team consumed all of Les’ development budget as it was obviously very important to keep the most technical team up to date with the latest knowledge. The Billboard team had asked for further training but Les told them to talk to the Social Media team and learn from them. The Printed team don’t think they need any development, but they are currently missing opportunities to collaborate with the other teams to generate more revenue. They continue to have their 10am whole team coffee breaks “to share knowledge and potential new opportunities” as they had frequently told Les. She just saw it as an excuse to gossip and has plans to stamp it out – it is such a waste of time! She has already drafted the email that told them from next week, it would be a disciplinary issue. She was sure she was right and didn’t need to talk to her manager and certainly not the team in advance of her official communication.

Les has carried out performance appraisals for the Social Media and Billboard teams (she left the Printed team to get on with it and set themselves some ‘useful team targets’). HR dictates the process and the forms that must be completed by Les. Everyone had been given the targets from senior management to “be 10% more effective” and “reduce costs by 5%” but Les wasn’t exactly sure what that meant so she ignored it. She struggled to understand the company values when “Integrity” felt more like “Do as I say, rather than as I do” given the tacit approval of Zach’s billboard campaign and following a recent scandal concerning office expenses. 

Pay was always a contentious topic and the recent pay-review had not been received well, further widening the gulf of hostility between the three teams. Les has given the largest pay award to the Social Media team (“we need to recruit more people”), some to the Billboard team (“they should be thankful that they still have jobs”) and a very small award to the Printed team (“they’ve all bought their own homes so don’t need it”). Les was keen to see how she could improve retention using other incentives and has persuaded Sam that the company join the “Cycle to work” scheme that provides cheaper bicycles for staff to then ride to work. She also wants to get free gym membership as she knows a healthy work force is more productive and that everyone enjoys going to the gym.  She sees these as great ideas as they are based around being environmentally friendly and keeping fit, which are subjects she personally feels very passionate about.

Sam is very compassionate but Les doesn’t think she is very effective, and is far too soft – why would she congratulate Zach rather than discipline him for his poor choices? Every time Les goes to Sam with an issue, Sam would always ask her questions “What is the situation?”, “What could you do?”, “What should you do?” rather than telling her the answer, which she found incredibly frustrating. Once, Les had stormed out of a meeting with Sam, shouting “Just tell me the answer!”.  Les doesn’t feel like she had a clear direction from Sam, she is aware that Sam has targets, but they are not formally shared. Sam hasn’t identified any development for Les as part of Les’ performance appraisal discussion – instead she asked Les to identify what she thinks she needs – “how would I know what I need, except a new boss?” thinks Les.  Sam originally came from the Printed team, and she loved being the only woman there, and still makes time to join them occasionally for their ‘coffee break’ which Les thinks just undermines her efforts to get the Printed team more focused on generating output and revenue for the business. Sam has also set some diversity targets for recruitment in both the Printed and Social Media teams, as they are not very inclusive. Les finds this really frustrating as it is difficult getting anyone to apply, regardless of worrying about whether they bring something different to the team.

Les needed to get ready for her cross-team meeting. She dreads these, even though there is only 3 other people - an elected representative from each team. Somehow, she needed all the teams to agree on certain topics and thought that by having a representative from each team, it would work, having fewer voices at the table, but it always seems to just turn into a shouting match, where she has to shout the loudest to be heard.

Les had spent the last 2 hours trying to work out why people just wouldn’t do what they were told.  It is now lunch time, she leans back in her chair, sighs aloud and with no-one around, flicks onto the job adverts website.

Case study assessment task

The essay should be 3,500 words (plus or minus 10%).

Using HIGH QUALITY * research and APPROPRIATE^ organisational case studies, answer all the following questions in your individual essay (there are more notes on how to do this below – so keep reading):

Case Study questions

There are three questions that all have to be answered.

1. Critically analyse the case study situation and apply theory in the identification of the key issues and challenges that Les is facing in her job.  (We suggest this should need around 25% of your word count – you can use examples from across the case study to answer this question).

1. Provide justified and critically-argued actions (using theory and organisational examples) that address the following:

1. How Les, the line manager, could improve the performance of the people in her teams in your three chosen topic areas – one from each theme.  (We suggest this should need around 25% of your word count).

We have identified the themes in the schedule of study.  Simply put you need to choose one topic from each of the following:

• One from ‘The Context’ theme

a)    Devolving HR to Line Managers and the role of a Line Manager

b)    Talent management, acquisition (recruitment and selection) and development (learning and development)

c)    Psychological contract including Justice/Equity/Fairness and ethical working 

d)    Diversity and Inclusion

e)    The International Manager and Cross-Cultural Management

• One from ‘The Individual’ theme

a)    Coaching and the line manager as coach

b)    Performance management and appraisal

c)    Managing underperformance

d)    Absence management

e)    Employee health and wellbeing

• One from ‘The Team’ theme

a)    Leadership and management skills including Emotional Intelligence

b)    Followership and Teamwork

c)    Decision making in teams

d)    Employee engagement, emotional wellbeing and teams

e)    Supporting team cohesion and collaborations (including managing conflict)

1. How Sam (Les’ manager), could improve her relationship with Les and support Les in her first line management role.  What do you see are Sam’s strengths when it comes to team leadership and where do you think Sam could change to improve her line management?  (We suggest this should need around 20% of your word count – you can use examples from across the case study to answer this question).