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Task:
CASE STUDY : QUALITY TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICES
Based on Dwyer and Hopgood: Management Strategies and Skills page 485
Quality Telecommunication Services has been operating in Sydney since 1995 and provides telephone-related services to it business clients. It employs over 120 people in Australia. Harry Woodland is the marketing manager who looks after the business clients in Sydney. He is supported by six sales executives. Kim Wong has been working with the organisation for the past six years. She migrated to Australia ten years ago and has university qualifications. She has worked hard to acquire necessary skills to succeed in her profession. She is the oldest employee in the team of sales executives and has won different awards for excellent performance. However, she feels that she is not being treated fairly by her seniors and is being
ignored. She sees no prospects of moving upwards in the organisation.
Rob Dunn is another member of Harry's team. They get along well and Kim feels that Harry gives preference to Rob over others-Rob acts as marketing manager when Harry is on leave. During their weekly meetings, Rob's suggestions are taken seriously and mentioned in the minutes of the meeting whereas Kim does not get due credit for her ideas and they are barely ever mentioned in the minutes. Her attempts to discuss the matters are either ignored by Harry or given no attention with little opportunity to discuss further.
Kim feels that Harry has a very stereotypical view of her as an immigrant from Asia. She knows that he had never travelled overseas and has not interacted much with other Asian people. When it comes to dealing with new customers from an Asian background, Kim is the automatic choice for Harry. Kim thinks that she is treated unfairly due to her Asian background. She considers this as an ethical dilemma and doesn't know what to do. She feels uneasy complaining against her manager to the senior management as she has never done this before. Her peers
have encouraged her to take the matter further. She decided to report it to the human resources department and Harry has been invited to discuss the matter.
Quality Telecommunication Services has never had such a problem and management was of the opinion that there were no ethical issues. The human resources department also informed the CEO that the company does not have
any written documentation addressing ethical issues.
Source: Amar Sood, Ultimo and Nav Sood, Sydney Institute.
Task: Scope workforce diversity
At the meeting between the HR Manager, Elizabeth and Sales Manager, Harry, it became clear that Harry had been demonstrating unconscious bias in his team leadership role. He felt, however, that he had not been deliberately discriminating against Kim and was unsure of what he should do next to rectify the situation. He was anxious to retain Kim’s skills in the team, and to improve team cohesion and performance, by taking whatever steps were necessary. The HR Manager acknowledged that there had been no attention paid to diversity issues in the workplace and that, having spoken to other employees in the organisation, it was clear that some employees from “non-Caucasian” cultural backgrounds, as well as some female employees, felt that the company was not treating all employees fairly in a number of areas.
Following these discussions, Elizabeth held a meeting with her CEO and her HR Assistant, James, regarding Diversity Management. The CEO had indicated that he had been reading some articles on the benefits of good Diversity Management recently, was very supportive of this initiative and wanted to introduce better practices from the top down
Elizabeth said that diversity means that in the workplace there is a wide variety of distinct groups and that this was particularly so in Australia with a workforce which is one of the most multicultural in the world. She continued by indicating that variety in the workplace related to such factors as culture, ethnic background, race, age, gender, sexual orientation and religion. It struck the CEO that this was true, but that he and many of his work colleagues looked at "the workforce" as one big homogeneous group with the same interests like barbecues, sports and the beach.This was really a myth-the workforce is more like a patchwork quilt of different groups with distinct values, beliefs and interests.
Elizabeth pointed out that managing diversity effectively meant recognising, understanding and valuing differences between people. It also meant making sure that all employees had the opportunity to reach their full potential and that there are a variety of ways of seeing the world and solving problems. Having said all of this, Elizabeth told James she wanted him to produce a list of some possible practical measures and programs that could be introduced to promote diversity and improve employee inclusion.
Imagine that you are the HR Assistant, James. Your task is to scope the potential Diversity needs of the organisation by proposing a range of measures to address the issues, such as staff surveys, developing a working group to identify measures that could be taken, and preparing a communications and education plan to help introduce cultural change to the organisation and better manage Diversity in the workplace.
Your brief is to address any many diversity issues as possible, at all levels of management, in the initial report so that the senior management group can then prioritise areas for direct action in its next strategic business plan. This will include researching the issue and the attitudes of employees, and examining current policies, procedures and work practices to see if they needed to be modified.
You will need also need to consider ways to educate the workforce on the issues as well as how to identify and reduce the potential barriers to integrating diversity into workforce practices. Your report should be around-1000-2000 words.