Managing In Orgs Assignment Question and requirement
It considers how organisations work or don’t work for the people who work in them, and invites you to reflect on the issues that cause the biggest problems, as well as the greatest successes.

Reading and other resources
The first of these are generic books about management and organisations. They generally contain very similar material, and the same material is usually found in more specific textbooks with titles like ‘managing in the health service’ or ‘managing in social care/work’. You will need to read extensively for the module, so make a start with the generic texts, then move on to more specialised books and articles.
Clegg, S, Kornberger, M & Pitsis, T (2008) Managing & Organizations, Sage
If you cannot get this book, try Mullins, L, Management and Organizational Behaviour.
Flynn, N (2002) Public Sector Management
Martin J, (2009), Human Resource Management, London, Sage
Or other up to date book on the same topic
Additional reading
Blyton, P & J Jenkins (2007) Key Concepts in Work, London, Sage
Cunliffe A (2009) A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying management, Sage
Edgell, Stephen (2006) The Sociology of work; Continuity and change in paid and unpaid work Sage
Grey, Chris (2009) A very short, fairly interesting and reasonably cheap book about studying organisations, (2nd Edition) Sage
Lawton, A & Rose A (1999) Public Services Management Harlow, Financial Times/Prentice Hall
Mooney, Gerry (ed) (2004) Work: Personal Lives and Social Policy Open University/Policy Press
Peck, E & Dickinson, H (2008) ‘Managing and Leading in Inter-Agency Settings’, Policy Press/Community Care.
Walshe, K & Smith (2007) J ‘Healthcare Management’, OU

Journals and the business press:
• British Journal of Social Work
• Critical Social Policy
• Health Service Journal
• Journal of Interprofessional Care
• Journal of Management Studies
• Journal of Organizational Change Management
• People Management
• Public Administration

Another useful source is the business press and more practitioner focused magazines:
Management Today, People Management, Inside Housing and the business sections of daily newspapers.
The Guardian has a good housing section and also has two ‘reader’s questions’ about workplace problems every week, answered by Ask Jeremy – but also by other readers.
A useful source of up to date briefings is by subscribing to the daily housing news e-mail bulletin from Housingnet. this is the sign up link http://www.housingnet.co.uk/sixtysignup/
You will be expected to read academic journal articles!
As the assignment has to be completed by the end of term, every teaching session will include relevant material, supported by Moodle.

Managing In Orgs Assignment
Assignments to use the font ARIAL 12pt and line spacing to be 1.5 spaced throughout. You may use page numbers, but not include anything else as a header or footer.
Only use the plainest formatting, break it into paragraphs – but no fancy headings or subheadings and if you use a table, keep it simple but clear and readable.
Add a cover sheet, which just has your student number and nothing else.
Broad Assessment Criteria
35% for your ability to analyse the relationship between theoretical concepts of human behaviour in the workplace, and the practical reality of management in the current economic and social contexts. You will need to relate your thinking to the details of the case study and not just produce a theoretical paper.
35% for your ability to apply organisational theory to understand management problems and develop solutions. This is where you demonstrate your understanding o how theory can be applied in practice to the problems of the Case Study.
30% for your ability to demonstrate commitment to enabling others to succeed. The quality of your comments and guidance in marking another student’s paper will count towards the mark. You also can demonstrate your understanding of the topics.

Managing in Organisations Assignment Case Study
For this assignment you should imagine that you are the Manager of a Social Care and Sheltered Housing Co-operative [“HAPPY DAYS”] situated in a diverse inner city area of south Wales. You have a good degree and several years’ experience. Your mother and father migrated to the UK from West Africa when they were both in their twenties. You and your siblings were born in the UK. You have school age children.
The co-operative employs you [the manager] and ten other members of staff as follows:
• An accounts assistant who maintains all financial records, including the domiciliary care charges for service users and rents from the sheltered housing complex, PAYE and payment of maintenance bills
• Six domiciliary care workers who visit service users in their own homes, some in the sheltered complex and others in the wider community. They include older people and disabled younger adults.
• Two caretakers who keep the complex clean and tidy, and carry out non-specialist maintenance
• A housing assistant who acts as a first point of contact for tenants, orders simple repairs and ensures records are up to date
Your own managers are an elected management committee of 10 people drawn from the tenants, local councillors and the service users. You see the Chair of the committee, a local councillor, most days, and have a regular meeting with the whole committee at least once a month. You have no influence over who is elected to the committee, although you do have a duty to advise them and keep them informed about the work of the co-operative.
There are performance indicators for all areas of the co-operative’s work, and in general, you have been meeting or exceeding these. Recently things have started to change:
• The make-up of the management committee has changed, and a new Chair has been elected. The new Chair is a local UKIP councillor, prominent BREXIT campaigner and opponent of immigration.
• Meetings with the committee have become dominated by complaints from tenants and service users about the staff, their poor ‘attitude’ and their unsatisfactory work. The only staff member who appears exempt from criticism is one of the domiciliary care workers, Lesley, who is the only Welsh born employee. The committee chair has suggested that Lesley be appointed ‘Senior Domiciliary Care worker’, given extra pay, and tasked with “whipping the others into shape or giving them the boot”.
• The staff team, which had always got on well together, have started squabbling, and the some of the domiciliary care workers are openly looking for other jobs. The accounts assistant has been taking a lot of time off sick, and this is having an impact on the finances of the organisation.
• You have a good relationship with an agency that provides holiday and sickness cover if needed. At the last committee meeting, you were asked to find a different agency, “where everyone speaks proper English’.
• You take your children to school every morning, and usually start work at about 9.30. Because all the committee meetings take place in the evening, you save the hours and take them in the school holidays as extra leave. You have supported other members of staff so that they are also able to work round their caring responsibilities. This arrangement is now being questioned, with the committee saying that they would like everyone there from 9-5 each day, even if they have evening calls.
This case study is designed to reflect the common management difficulty of being stuck between the people who are managing you, and the people you are managing. Your job as manager is to try to restore a happy and productive workplace and to ensure that performance remains good. With this in mind, please write a report analysing and evaluating the management problems and produce a working action plan to deal with them.
You should consider the following:
• The feelings and emotions that are aroused by the current situation, and how they might affect the way people respond to the demands of work. What can you do as a manager to address these issues?
• The management tools and techniques that you have to keep your staff motivated during a difficult period.
• The potential legal and management practice issues raised by the case study.
• The sources of information and support that are available to you in your dealings with the committee.
The aim of the assignment is for you to use theories of management and organisational behaviour, and apply them to a real life situation. This means that to get top marks you need to use both theoretical and practice material.

The word limit for this assignment is 1,700 words, to include both the report and the action plan. You should aim for roughly 1,300 words in the report and 400 for the action plan.

Managing in Organisations
A suggestion for planning the assignment [only a suggestion!]
Report on the Problems
Please note: this section have to be in a report format

 Cover: The Major problems The emotional effects The performance effects The Legal issues
 Priority order [needs explaining]

Major Problems
Emotional Effects?
Effects on Performance?
Legal Issues?
Theories that are relevant Any good practice guidance?
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How to write a report – some guidance
What is a report?

A report is a systematic, well organised document which defines and analyses a subject or problem, and which may include:
• the record of a sequence of events
• interpretation of the significance of these events or facts
• evaluation of the facts or results of research presented
• discussion of the outcomes of a decision or course of action
• conclusions
• recommendations

Report Writing Brief Guide leaflet – Durham File (please can you look at this guide if possible?).
Action Plan
The action plan for this assignment can be set like the example below:
Major Problems Action Why [Good practice? /theory? ] Who? Time scale? Outcome?

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Managing In Organization Assignment

Introduction
Management refers to the organization and the coordination of its operations to achieve defined goals and objectives. Management deals with the arrangement and organization of human resource, machines, materials and money to meet certain objectives. Managers are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that all the resources are organized effectively for maximum productivity. However, the integration of resources is a complex system that requires a lot of skills and knowledge. Therefore, the main aim of this report is to assess the various management problems that managers face on their daily duties. The report uses a case study of various management issues to identify the main problems associated with management and also gives a description of the action plan. Finally, this report gives an action plan used to handle each of the management problems identified.
Management Problems
The opportunities for workplace problems have intensified with continual diversity in organizations. Managers and small business owners typically face some conflicts like the team, employee or organization-wide problems. The common cause of the organizational problems may be because of lack of flowing open communications or use of a wrong corporate structure (Simons, 2013, p.23). Many organizations have intensified the problems by avoiding the disclosure of an apparent succession of command paths. Individual employee conflicts can be personality problems, personal trauma, company structure or supervisor oriented issues.

Teams must dedicate to working towards an agreed objective to realize high performances. The team is likely to become non-functional when members experience any level of disconnect between them (McClelland, 2013, p.79). Issues of disagreement often arise from management or organization communicational breakdowns that tend to confuse and alter team and common personal goals. When facing team issues, the managers should diagnose the possible causes keenly and take immediate corrective actions to avoid the occurrence of more severe breakdowns in performance.

A manager should also not assume organizational-wide problems. If the manager does not take immediate corrective actions, simple team or employee issues are likely to expand and affect the entire organization (McClelland, 2013, p.34). If all the avoidance actions fail to eliminate the problems, the manager should be ready to take more vivid corrective measures. For instance, a case study where the team that always gets well together start squabbling and some of the care workers begin sourcing other opportunities. When responsibilities are split, shared or unclearly defined it most likely that a disaster will arise. “Two in a box” type of management in most cases does not work and, therefore, it is wise that organizational functions are divided discreetly.

In the workplace, the chances are that the workload of employees will escalate at particular times compared to ordinary circumstances (Gustafson, 2012, p.9). In the case study, Lesley who is the only Welsh-born employee has been appointed as a Senior Domiciliary Care Worker and given an extra pay. She has been tasked with the responsibility of whipping the others into shape or giving them the boot when they trip (Prior, Amanna and Hammond, 2015, p.1336). The latter is an example of the benefits one get when they open up to the manager or boss about their shortcomings in the organization. Explaining everything to a leader or a manager is helpful as he or she may not be attuned to the context that faces the employees. The employees then may be involved in designing the best corrective measures that will offer a sustainable solution.

When the boss quits or resigns, problems may arise in the organization. For instance, a boss who promoted certain employees and increased their salaries without clear criterion in place, the particular employees may face transparency problems under a new management. The new management may not share visions or objectives previously set by the previous boss (Badaracco, 2013, p.144). In the case study of the make-up management committee, which has changed, and a new chair appointed. In the short-term, the best thing to do in this case is to pitch in and keep helping the department to run smoothly because this can position one well in the organization by typically enhancing his or her reputation in the organization. So while there is nothing wrong with buffing up one’s resume and putting sensors into the network, it wise that to wait and see how things unfold before making any radical move like resigning from the current job (Badaracco, 2013, p.144). It is appropriate to try acting helpful to the new manager when he or she starts and reserves the judgment on his or her competence and style until that point that he or she settles. After all, a majority of employees will not like to be judged permanently based on the first few weeks in a new job.

Another management problem may be running into conflict with a difficult co-worker. The manager could strive to be nice and diligent in the execution and delivering of his or services with utmost professionalism. However, a co-worker may be difficult and rigid and every conversation initiated ends up in a strife and possible conflict. In the case study, meetings conducted by the manager have become dominated by complaints from tenants and service users about some of the staff having a poor attitude and their unsatisfactory work (Nelson and Quick, 2012, p.56). The managers will spend most of the working time trying to solve and address the conflicts brought about by the co-worker to maintain harmonious relationship within the organization thereby safeguarding the quality of output. Reducing or eliminating the manager demands that the manager should be sober and rational to understand both quarters where the problems originate. Difficult co-workers’ behaviors, however, may be about them, and this makes it easier to tackle the problems caused. There are inputs that those particular co-workers give that the manager should as a way of motivation compliment or even award. In the case study, an example is issued of the accounts assistant who has been taking a lot of time off sick, and this is having an impact on the finances of the organization. The latter is an example of the difficult co-workers, and proper measures should be taken to contain their characters within an organizational level (Grey and Chris, 2009, p.67).

Everyone is human and is susceptible to mistakes. Nevertheless, when the mistake is of high profile and costly, it becomes tough to face a boss. Moreover, in case the manager is the source of the problem, meeting the co-workers with such magnitude of a mistake may be tricky (Cunliffe, 2009, p.90). The worst step to take as an employee may be to fail to undertake the responsibilities as required.

Getting a bad performance review at work can be devastating. Negative evaluation amid offering self-satisfactory services always discourages employees and may compromise the quality of performance in the subsequent times. The issue worsens when there are official communications circulated via emails regarding the same in the previous weeks (Edgell and Stephen, 2006, p.28). In many cases, people always become focused on defending themselves hence forgetting to listen entirely to whatever they are being told to do differently. No manager will ever be perfect, and it is good that one should always pay attention to signs that problems may be infusing. A good manager will work towards ensuring that a bad performance review is not a surprise by giving regular feedback during the year (Yilmaz et al., 2013, p.79). For instance, when the boss starts micromanaging an individual’s work and begins to send critical feedback in writing, he or she might be having serious apprehensions about the performance.

It is evident that an organization faces different management problems and a proper action plan must be put into effect to eradicate occurrence of the problems again. Therefore, the management has a role of determining the causes of the problems to design the best and most effective ways of solving them (Simons, 2013, p.27). In cases where there are no clear triggers, the assumption made may result from confusing and insufficient communications. For example, in a decentralized organization, the employees may feel that it is compulsory to answer to multiple supervisors in case the command chain is not clearly communicated.

Action plan
When team members do not dedicate towards working on a set objective, the team leaders should play the role of fostering cohesiveness and offering constant feedback among their respective members. About assumption of organization wide problems, the concerned manager should seek for possible causes of the team problems and through open discussion with the members, he or she should be able to reach the required conclusion. The solution should be long term to prevent future occurrence of the same mistake.

When workload of employees is escalating, the employees should talk openly to their managers about the increased workloads before it leads to decreased productivity. The best way to tackle such a circumstance is explaining to the manager how the increased workload has become unmanageable and making suggestions on the right strategies to employ to handle it (Clampitt, 2012, p.70). In the case where a new boss has been appointed upon resignation of the former boss, the workers should not develop a negative attitude when working with the new boss. The new boss could just be as good as the old boss or even far much better. The mentality that one cannot work with the new manager should therefore not hinder a healthy relationship.

When the manager is dealing with difficult co-workers, it is advisable that the manager must remain neutral without taking sides to bring a lasting solution to the conflict (Aitamaa et al., 2015, p.334). The manager should not be rigid not to recognize the extra efforts put in place by other employees. The compliments and the close relationships kept help the management to engage and encourage the employees to form part of the team designing remedies in the events of conflicts (Nelson and Quick, 2012, p.58).

When a co-worker causes a high profile mistake to the organization, the employees can team up and send representatives to engage the managers for long lasting solutions to the problems. In the process, the representatives should explain to the manager on the various steps they are planning to employ to moderate the damage. They should also inform the manager on the mechanisms in place to avoid occurrences of a similar problem in the future (Cunliffe, 2009, p.90).

In case, a worker gets a bad performance review at work, understanding the concerns of the manager about whatever one needs to do concerning the issue is crucial and yields a good outcome (Yilmaz, Vriesacker, Hal and Mortelmans, 2013, p.78). First, when this happens do not panic and get defensive. One should demonstrate signs of incorporating the feedback into actions by doing or undertaking the subsequent tasks as directed and advised.

In summary, management is one of the major tasks in an organization that requires leadership skills and other conflict resolution skills apart from the technical knowledge used in giving out the deliverables. A manager should have leadership skills to be in a position to deal with the challenges he or she is likely to face during his or her routine duties at the workplaces including solving disputes. Balancing the interests of the company, the board of directors and that of the employees is one major problem that managers face while performing their daily duties and they must devise ways of dealing with such problems. Conflict of interest, for example, is one of the initial management issues that often put managers in awkward positions not knowing whose interest to prioritize. However, a manager should have the necessary skills to tackle any problem to maintain high-quality output within the organization.

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