Question

CASE Study (management of organization behavior) :

Soltis & Sons is a management consulting firm that is attempting to grow its business by targeting small businesses that are run by women or immigrants. In pursuing this strategy, the company has hired employees of other cultures whose first language is not English. Many of these employees are under 30 and they do not have college degrees. While this effort is leading to a workforce that mirrors the clients, the company finds that employees and managers are experiencing difficulties communicating with one another. This leads to misunderstandings and a decrease in productivity and customer satisfaction. For example, if a manager gives instructions about completing a certain task to an employee who fails to fully comprehend the instructions, the employee may make mistakes.

The director of Human Resources is considering whether or not to offer some type of training, yet none has been offered to date. She thinks some employees may be

impacted by negative stereotypes associated with a lack of work experience with people from different cultures. She also noted that some work teams do not like to be

supervised by younger people of color. A few employees quit over this issue and management is trying to decide what to do.

Using the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach and the Organizing Framework, how can Soltis & Sons address the problem?

Step 1: Define the problem. What are the gaps between the desired outcomes and the current state?

Step 2: Identify causes of the problem. Remember, the diversity climate is an important situation factor. There are also relevant processes across the individual

level (perception, attributions, and psychological safety), the group/team level (group/team dynamics), and the organizational level (options to manage diversity).

These inputs and processes have critical outcomes.

Step 3: Make recommendations for solving the problem. What options does Soltis & Sons have?

Word count : more than 600 words( total of 3 steps ) .

Please help me !! It's important . Thank You.

Answer 1

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With reference to the above case study, the following will be the proposed solutions:

Step 1: Define the problem. What are the gaps between the desired outcomes and the current state?

Soltis & Sons are facing challenges related to the management of a culturally and professionally diverse workforce. The desired outcome would be complete harmony, clear communication, collaboration and cooperation amongst employees, high retention rate at all levels to ensure best possible service to end client. The current state is that of disharmony, increased attrition, continuous internal conflicts and broken chains of communication

Step 2: Identify the causes of the problem.

The diversity climate is an important situation factor. There are also relevant processes across the individual level (perception, attributions, and psychological safety), the group/team level (group/team dynamics), and the organizational level (options to manage diversity).These inputs and processes have critical outcomes.

The primary cause of problem include:

(i) Lack of proper induction and training on change: The middle-level management should have been inducted and trained on the reason, significance for introducing a cultural diversity within the organisation.

(ii) Lack of participation of cross-functional teams in goal setting and hiring decisions: The cross-functional teams seem to have little involvement in the recruitment of new staff. Plus, they seem to be unaware and rather excluded during the goal-setting exercise.

(iii) Misalignment in the organisation versus individual goals: The organisation goals and individual goals seem to differ in this situation. There is little or no commonality that is established.

(iv) Individual personal bias, perceptions: As pointed out in the case study, many employees particularly reporting managers, tenured people in the organisation are not comfortable to work with/under people of color or people younger to them with much lesser work experience and qualifications.

(v) Existing groups, power centers: Many employees seem to be operating from existing comfort zones of used to working with the same people over time. Often colleagues befriend each other beyond work. There are barriers built to anyone new trying to enter such a dynamic.

Step 3: Make recommendations for solving the problem. What options does Soltis & Sons have?

(i) Mitigating language barriers by recruiting translators or offering language training to existing employees. Some existing employees may actually find it lucrative to learn an additional language without having to spend any money. Removing language barriers shall help employees communicate more frequently and freely with one another.

(ii) Introduce principles of compassion and Non-Violent Communication: Employees should be engaged and introduced to principles of compassion and non-violent communication particularly in a diverse setting. There could be group activities and workshops planned with a mix of members from different cultural backgrounds.

(iii) Involve employees in decision making and goal setting, if not possible to do so retrospectively- Induct employees on the goal- why is it important, remind them that client service is of utmost importance.

(iv) Cultural Exchange Program: An intra-organisation cultural exchange program could be organised to help people learn about each other's cultures, practices and share positive experiences.