The following Case Studies are actual situations that happened to real people, although the names and companies have been changed for data protection.  The business benefits described below were achieved by using the Performance Toolkit and Development Guide to resolve the situations below.  You will find some detail on what solutions were applied.

 

Overwhelmed by Work

Business Benefits of Solution

• Improvements to Customer Service
• Faster problem solving, saving time and effort
• Effective structuring of teams and allocation of Team Leaders
• Effective delegation to improve productivity and develop skills.

The Situation

David was a manager in a large company trying to manage 60 people in two separate teams without any team leaders to support him.  He was struggling to cope even though he was working over 50 hours a week and taking work home over the weekend.  Some of his staff complained that he never had time for them and that he didn’t return their calls.  Some even said he didn’t care *** for them.

Poor Communication

Business Benefits

• Key projects prioritised and resources allocated effectively resulting in reduction of budget overspend.
• Time and effort saved by stopping doing projects that were not meeting business goals.
• Internal promotion instead of external hiring, saving £35,000 in recruitment costs.

The Situation

Richard was managing a team of 3 Sales Support people in a company that dealt with fairly complicated software packages. Richard really liked the business language that the company used to describe long-term vision, mission statements and strategies and took every opportunity to get his team and colleagues to listen to it.  Richard believed that it was very important to understand the big picture so that business decisions could be taken to fit in with long-term goals as well as short-term.  The trouble was, when Richard used this kind of language, his team just couldn’t understand what he meant!

More than my Job’s worth

Business Benefits

• Sales invoicing value increased by reducing backlog of order queries.
• Cash flow improved.
• Better teamwork.
  

The Situation

Sarah and Jo worked together in the Accounts Department of a large Engineering firm, or rather they were supposed to.  Sarah and Jo both looked after Sales Orders, Sales Invoices and Credit Control.  In fact Sarah and Jo were always complaining about each other, blaming problems on the other person ‘not doing what they said they would’ or making mistakes.  They refused to cooperate or cover for each other, ‘That’s not my job’, and as a result the cash flow into the firm started to slip, as outstanding queries on paperwork just didn’t get resolved. The atmosphere in the Accounts Department was uncomfortable as Sarah and Jo sniped at each other and tried to get other colleagues involved in their disputes.

The Aggressive Manager

Business Benefits

• Cost of deliveries reduced.
• Number of outstanding customer queries reduced.
• Penalties for late or incorrect deliveries reduced.

The Situation

Tom was the Sales Director of company selling equipment through a nationwide network of agents and regional Sales teams.  He was very successful and under his leadership revenues grew year on year.  He was promoted to Managing Director of the company.
Tom had always been short-tempered but his energies and frustrations had been directed into winning business and beating the competition.   As MD he had to start taking responsibility for functional departments that were not customer facing and soon found himself showing his frustration with staff who ‘didn’t seem to get the point they were there to provide customer service.’  When customers contacted the company with queries or complaints he was quick to apportion blame, without investigating what had happened. He began to send strongly worded emails (in CAPITALS), raise his voice in the office and did not encourage the different departments to work together to find a better process or solution that would prevent further problems.

People started to follow his example and soon started to accuse others or send extra emails to protect themselves.  People had to spend longer in the office simply to keep up with their day-to-day work and customers picked up on the poor atmosphere in the company.  Some staff left and there were outstanding vacancies, which meant that those left had even more to do.  People were unwilling to help new staff.