Managerial Position Challenges and Team Performances at See-Me Sheffield (SMS)

Case Study: Les’ Management Challenge
Topic Areas:
The Context: Diversity and Inclusion
The Individual: Employee Health and Wellbeing
The Team: Supporting Team Cohesions and Collaborations, including managing conflicts
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Introduction
See-Me (Sheffield) (SMS) is a marketing company owned by a German parent company whose values include innovation, integrity, excellence in execution and inclusion, and compassion. SMS is facing many key issues emanating from the managers and the employees. The case study presents several key issues surrounding Les; the line manager, Sam; her boss, and the employee teams from the social media, printed, and billboard departments. The essay analyzes the entire case study while applying key management theory to identify important managerial position challenges. It also addresses how team performances could be improved in three main topic areas from different themes. These include the context theme: diversity and inclusion. The individual theme: is employee health and wellbeing, and the team theme: supporting team cohesion and collaboration, including conflict management. Recommendations on how Sam could improve her relationship with Les, the line manager, are given. Further, Sam's strengths and room for improvement are highlighted to provide a clear picture of the necessary measures needed to improve performance and productivity. Finally, a reflection on personal learning from the module is given, articulating relevant theories to illustrate the discussion.
Question 1: Case Study Issues
In her management role, Les faces several issues and challenges, especially in managing the employees. One of the major issues highlighted is a high staff turnover rate, which the staff have justified as being motivated by poor pay and low clientele. Additionally, the staff are highly stressed, as seen in Maria's case, who is now suffering anxiety attacks. Job satisfaction is also low, with some employees complaining that they are overworked since they are understaffed. Les also experiences problem in the recruitment process, which is among the critical roles for her position. She seems to just not find the right candidates to fill in the different positions available. The way the positions are advertisement appears to be problematic, where the company advertises on national job searching websites. The applicants that are mostly attracted to these adverts are from London, which results to a significant geographical distance, between the candidates who are qualified, and their ability to relocate to the company. The applicants who have applied to fill in the social media jobs are from London, and are not willing to relocate to Sheffield at this point. Les fails to consider the ease of letting some of the employees from the social media department work remotely, while most of the tasks in that department can be accomplished remotely. Allowing remote working would considerably increase the number of qualified individuals who would want to work in the company.
Les, the line manager, is unable to help the teams resolve their conflicts and create a more collaborative environment. The three ...