BU7039 - Understanding and Leadership Managing People Assignment

Assignment Task

The new leadership team at C&C (case study) have asked for your assistance to conduct thorough analysis of the challenges that the business is facing. They would like you to provide an evidenced-based essay to help them to prepare for discussions at the next Board Meeting.

Case study

Coffee and Cake (C&C) is a privately owned company that runs an established chain of cafes in sixty locations around the UK. Most are located on high streets and in shopping centres, but there are also units located in large railway stations and some airports. The company sells a wide variety of speciality coffees, cakes, sandwiches and other beverages. It markets itself as a sustainable business with high standards of business ethics, which the business is committed to.

Throughout the Twentieth Century there was a single C&C coffee house located prominently in Central London. This was then taken over by a by a company that was keen to profit from the fast growth in the UK’s coffee shop market. Much money was invested in building the chain and for several years good profits were made. After 2015 though, problems started to arise. Sales began to slump in a number of locations as competition from ambitious independents and other coffee shop chains became more intense. Issues arose concerning unpaid debts and the A: Assessment Details Module Title Understanding and Managing People Module Code BU7039 Module Leader Dr Andy McCarroll Component Number Assignment 1 of 1 Assessment Type, Word Count & Weighting Individual essay and reflection (100% - 4,000 words) Submission Deadline 02 Apr 2024 Submission Instructions Online through Turnitin - Word document only Feedback Return Date Approx 4 weeks post submission 2 company started to struggle financially. By the time of the Covid pandemic it was in serious financial difficulty and in danger of becoming insolvent. In 2021 the company was sold to a consortium of four former C&C managers with finance largely provided by a venture capital fund. In 2022 the aim of the new leadership and management team is to expand and open more stores nationwide. However, they first need to ensure that C&C meets stakeholder expectations, reclaims its reputation and returns to profitability in the next two years.

To enable these aims the leadership have made the following commitments to be achieved over the next 3 years:

• Pay greater consideration to diversity and inclusion in everything they do, at all levels of the business and across departments.
• Grow and develop employees at all levels and provide opportunities for progression.
• Role model an inclusive work environment in our stores, a place where every employee feels empowered and consideration of every person’s wellbeing is demonstrated.
• Listen, check in with teams and act on feedback with the key objective of making C&C a more collaborative, open minded and inspiring place to work.

A policy or written statement in itself is not enough and we know that engaging with all levels of our business is absolutely critical if we are to deliver on our promises and have an positive and lasting intrinsic impact on our teams and employees of the future.

The leadership team recognise that to achieve their aims, they first need to:

•  Assess the current situation and the challenges in the hospitality labour market
• Examine the current approach to leading and managing people and the impact this has had on employees
• Establish a preferred approach to leading and managing people and the benefits this will have
• Identify the learning and development needs to enable the new approach to managing people

To do this, the leaders particularly want to address the poor management of people which has been a major problem for some time. Their main concerns are that staff turnover was running at over 100% in 2019 and employee engagement levels have been very poor in several coffee shops for some years. Both ‘employee turnover’ and ‘employee engagement’ have significant implications for the business which is causing considerable concern for the leaders, and if not addressed their ambitions for the next 3 years are at risk. Evidence of these matters is found on the Glassdoor website where hundreds of current and former employees have written troubling reviews of their experiences working for the company. Overall ratings have been below 3 out of 5, which is considerably lower than the scores typically achieved by C&C’s major competitors.

Questions

1. Construct an evidenced-based discussion to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the challenges present in the current operating environment for the UK hospitality sector and how approaches to leading and managing people impact on people and organisational performance within the sector and the case study organisation.

2. Using your analysis in question 1, critically evaluate the existing and a potentially new approach to leading and managing people at C&C, the impact on the retention and performance of employees, and as a result the performance of the business.

3. Using your analysis in question 2, demonstrate your approach to identifying the key learning and development requirements for the managers at C&C – this should incorporate your perspective on the learning and development cycle. Then, critically assess a range of learning and development interventions to help leaders and managers to retain and engage valuable employees and drive business success.

4. Reflecting on your learning and experience throughout this module, and using a reflective model, critically assess your response which should include the following, this is the template for question 4 of your assessment.

(i) Which session was of particular interest to you? How did this session challenge your thinking?

(ii) How did this session and/or any other concept help you to develop the discussion in your assessment?

(iii) Discuss your engagement with study skills support, include the content of the support activity, how you responded, and how you applied this to your assignment, provide evidence.

(iv) From your reflection and performance in this module, identify what you will do differently in the next module to continuously develop your academic performance.

Your Essay Must Respond To The Context Of Each Assessment Question.

1. The leadership team believe that the world of work has changed over recent years in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit and the current economic pressures. For example, expectations of work have changed the way businesses operate, the economy has provided opportunities for some businesses whilst for others they are struggling to survive, social issues and ethical practices seem to be receiving more attention, placing pressure on organisations to operate in fair and ethical ways. The leadership also believe that expectations of employees have shifted, and traditional approaches to leading and managing people are being questioned. They are concerned that some sectors will experience a shortage of high-quality workers and they want to avoid this. Instead, C&C want to attract and retain high performing people to help drive their aims over the next three years.

2. The management team at C&C acknowledge that the way they lead and manage people needs to change. They are conscious that staff turnover is high which is likely to be affecting the quality of customer service and profitability. The leaders want to build a team that is motivated, engaged with their work and committed to the organisation. To make sure they make the appropriate choice, they have asked for a critical evaluation of the current approach AND a potential new approach leading and managing people.

3. Leaders and managers will require learning and development interventions to support the organisational aims over the next 3 years. To enable appropriate choices to be made, the leaders would justified, evidenced-based suggestions on how learning and development interventions can support the shift from the existing approach to leading and managing people to the proposed new approach.

4. This question requires you to reflect on your own experience during the module, you are expected to:

• Assess your engagement with the module and the learning
• Based on the sessions you engaged in, discuss the most significant session for you
• Identify how you will apply this in the future to advance your career.

Identify practical ways in how YOU can improve your learning in future sessions.

• How has your knowledge and learning experience on the module informed your thinking on the module.
• Consider ways in which the understanding of yourself, and the practice of leading and managing people has changed or developed. 
• Consider how you gained the learning, the processes of learning and to what extent you engaged with the learning materials and sessions.
• How have you used academic skills support that is available to you e.g. Draft Coach, LIS, the ASK Team, feedback from other assessments and/or your PAT.
• Has further reflection helped you to develop a deeper understanding of your learning experience to help improve this in the future? What could you do differently in the future to improve your learning experience?

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