Your research paper is based on the following scenario:
You have just taken over as a Shift Supervisor at Fast Fleet Shoes Manufacturing and have a team of 30 under you. Your educational and training level is exactly what you have today.
Your teams rotate shifts every 3 weeks and there are two shifts, morning, 0700-3:30 PM and evening, 3PM to 11:30PM. You have the flexibility to move people around shifts, and you stay on the same shift, with overlap (i.e. your hours are 9-6). Two co-leads take over when you are not there and stay on shifts with their workers.
The previous supervisor was let go for cause, failure to meet quotas and leadership inability. The department’s morale is very low and there is a great deal of pressure for your shift to perform.
On top of this, there is a problem with some of your employees, one is always late and the other calls in sick frequently (you can decide what factors lead to their absenteeism). The previous supervisor never did anything about this and everyone knew it was an issue. One of your co-leads has brought it to your attention and wants to know when you are going to fix it.
You also have an employee that has been there for 14 years and has never been promoted to co-lead or supervisor. He came to you and wants to know why? He is an older worker and knows what he is doing, however, one of your co-leads told you that some of the younger workers grumble that he is too slow and can’t learn new technology. He also stated that unless he gets the opportunity to move up, he’ll quit and make sure that management knows you never gave him a chance.
Finally, there is a brand new worker, a single mother, who is super sharp and a very hard worker. She told you on your first day there how much she loves working at the company and wants to progress upward. However, childcare is an issue and sometimes she needs to leave early. Currently no one does any work from home (your organization has not embraced it as a culture), however, in her position (she is inventory control) she feels she can perform this just as effectively from home several days a week and ask you if this is possible? What is your response?
You are to develop a solution to present to each of your co-leads on how to start fixing some of these issues. Make the paper informative, with some of the techniques and terms that we have addressed thus far in the course that deal with new supervisors. This about the terms leaders vs. managers, counseling, feedback, types of leaders, SMART objectives, SWOT, generational differences, Theory X and Y, MBWA, and favoritism. These terms are not all-inclusive and you are welcome to add others to support your solutions.
This can be a narrative paper, informative paper, a letter (albeit a long one) or a talking paper. You can use the first person to discuss what you think needs to be done. You can also assign tasks or take tasks away from co-leaders.
Your supervisor, co-leads, and workers can have fictional names, you can add in additional issues or factors and most of all, have fun and be creative in developing this workplace. Your co-leads can be good or bad at their job, you can decide how little or much you want to delegate to them as well as how much reporting back to you is needed.
Think about these challenges you will face as a new supervisor. You may want to break this into fixing immediate problems, a six-month goal, and one-year goal.
Category: Management
Leaders influence Inclusivity
How leaders influence Inclusivity and Diversity in the workforce
Organizational issues associated with “dirty data”
Reading discusses the organizational issues associated with “dirty data” and offers recommendations for four ways to overcome common data prep barriers.
For this discussion, assume you work for a small company (100 employees) that is quickly growing (both in terms of revenue and number of employees). As the organization is growing, issues with “dirty data” are beginning to arise – for all the reasons mentioned in the reading.
As a tech-savvy data analyst, you can see that something must be done to keep dirty data from becoming a problem for the company as it grows. You’ve been granted an audience with the CIO to make the case for putting sound data preparation practices in place. In making the case, you want to explain why such practices are important, and also offer some recommendations for next steps. What will you say? Use the reading to help you make your case. Outside references are also acceptable (please link to them in your response).
First impressions of the ERP SIM game
SAP is one of the top enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools. SAP is a global leader in business cloud software products for companies in industry specific markets. SAP builds complete industry suites in the cloud and efficiently deploys technology that puts the user experience first, leverages data science, and integrates easily into existing systems. Organizations worldwide rely on SAP to help overcome market disruptions and achieve business-wide digital transformation helping them manage their business processes.
Manage a fictitious organization’s Logistics by performing the following functions in the simulated game environment:
• Change prices of products
• Schedule product shipments
• Adjust amounts of products to be shipped
• Time permitting – material procurement
Questions: Your responses must be a minimum of 2 pages (12 point, Calibri/Times New Roman/Arial, 1 ½ spaces) answering the three questions below.
1) What are your first impressions of the ERP SIM game?
2) Based on the simulation experience, what differences in company valuation did you see after each round of simulation?
3)How do you think an enterprise system could transform an organization’s logistics?
Negotiation
Negotiation is a concept that takes place quite often, in our daily lives. We use various skills to which we are accustomed, and whether we realize it or not, we determine ways to enhance these abilities.
For this assignment, you are asked to write a seven page paper addressing your approach to negotiation (the title and reference page will not count towards page count). Please ensure that you address each of the following sections. Each section will need to be labeled with the use of subtitles. You will need to be thorough in explaining your negotiation style.
Introduction
Define negotiation
Attitudes regarding negotiation
What is your attitude about negotiation?
Approaches to negotiation
What approaches do you take when negotiating?
Differences in personal and professional approaches to negotiation
Explain whether your approaches are the same or different in your personal and professional life.
How the different team dysfunctions can impact a project
Compose a 500 word essay explain the evolution of a team including the five possible dysfunctions teams may experience, and what management and leadership techniques might be used to encourage and grow the project team by answering the following:
· Discuss how the different team dysfunctions can impact a project and eventually strategy implementation.
· Explain which management and leadership skills play a key role in the development and implementation of a strategic project. Include at least three examples.
· Discuss how a Christian worldview perspective might affect your leadership style and how you might deal with team dysfunctions.
Best strategies for dealing with distractions.
Present best strategies for dealing with distractions. You will be expected to deliver a polished, concise overview of the topic. You are welcome to use information from this week’s readings or other outside resources as appropriate.
In this activity, you will work within a virtual group setting to create a presentation on ways to deal with distractions. Please review the Unit 6 Learning Resources and read the following items:
The Value of Teamwork
Creating Team Success
Concentration and Distraction
Research the best strategies for dealing with distractions and select five of the best to present.
These can relate to the types of distractions you’ll read about this week, but make sure to focus on the solutions rather than the problems (i.e. the types of distractions).
Conflict Management
Explain how the team will deal with conflict. What steps will you take to manage internal team conflict? What is the escalation process you’ll follow? Be detailed. This would benefit from a step-by-step process.
The next part of the plan will divvy up the research, slide development, and editing for clarity and accuracy. Remember to include every step of the process for idea development through submission. Be sure to consider your timeline (for example, the team members submitting research need to be done before the one who is responsible for submitting the final project). Depending on the task, some team members may have more than one responsibility.
Conflict Management
Explain how the team will deal with conflict. What steps will you take to manage internal team conflict? What is the escalation process you’ll follow? Be detailed. This would benefit from a step-by-step process.
The next part of the plan will divvy up the research, slide development, and editing for clarity and accuracy. Remember to include every step of the process for idea development through submission. Be sure to consider your timeline (for example, the team members submitting research need to be done before the one who is responsible for submitting the final project). Depending on the task, some team members may have more than one responsibility.
Practical applications of hypothesis testing
Examine practical applications of hypothesis testing. Make sure to read the chapter on hypothesis testing before posting. Without understanding the methodology and how to write the null hypothesis and the alternative hypothesis, you will not be able to complete this discussion.
Successful management is about making decisions to bring about desired change. A manager who has a specific objective will execute an action, hoping that the result will be the achievement of that objective. However, due to the multitude of factors that are in play in any real-life situation, it is difficult to tell if the desired outcome has been achieved or if the new numbers are only due to randomness.
For example, a sales manager implements a bonus system and sees the sales figures go up by 3% in the next month. She claims success, but was this really due to the bonus system or could the increase be the result of random fluctuations, something that would have happened anyway? Can the manager confidently claim that there has been a significant change, something that could not be the result of random fluctuations?
Another example may be where HR is worried there may be a difference between the salaries of men versus women that may need to be corrected. Is the difference between average salaries of the two genders significant, or could it be due to coincidence? Can someone claim there is discrimination at work?
Hypothesis testing settles such questions by analyzing statistical data and is key to managing intelligently. Without these answers, you cannot be sure if the actions you are taking are working out or whether things really are the way you think they are. If you do not know these, how can you know what to do?
For this discussion, describe a key question or claim that may drive important actions from your work, as in the examples above. Follow the template below and answer all questions (using the template below is part of the requirements- you will lose points if you do not follow the template and skip portions of what is being asked):
Describe the key question: What is the key question/claim that needs to be settled? What are the actions being considered based on the possible answers? (For example, the question for the sales manager is whether the bonus system is effective, and the actions are whether to continue the bonus system or not. HR’s question is whether there is discrimination and the action will be adjusting salaries or not.) Without hypothesis testing, how is management deciding on the answer to the question?
What is the variable? How would you set up the hypothesis test? First, pick an appropriate variable to measure the element in question (Note that this must be specific and measurable (countable)). Then, state what the null and alternative hypotheses would be and what kind of a test you would use.
Describe the data you would use: What do you need and where would it come from? Does it need to be collected or does it already exist?
How would you explain to management the significance of this test? How would you convince them that using this is necessary? What would be the drawback of not using a hypothesis test in this situation?