OVERVIEW
The Garden Depot is a family-owned floral company located in Barrie, Ontario. The Depot opened its doors in 1985 and has been growing quickly ever since. They have expanded their business by operating a successful 12,000-square-foot retail store and numerous divisions of the company. Janice Bowman got hired at The Depot in June 2005, after working for one of their competitors for 13 years. As the office manager, she is responsible for inventory, computer systems and logistics. However, due to poor workmanship of other supervisors, she has found herself doing more things around the business than what has been assigned to her.
PROBLEMS
One of the biggest problems within The Depot is the lack of leadership in the company’s day to day activities. Murray King, the CEO of The Depot, has a “hands off” management style and trusts his division managers to take on day-to-day responsibility of the company. Bowman does not involve King with problems regarding the landscaping division, because of his detachment from the company. Additionally, hiring Derek Sinclair has been problematic as he is unqualified to receive a managerial position within the landscaping industry. Bowman is overworked because of the lack of leadership within the company. She often works seven days a week dealing with customer complaints and issues within other divisions.
Furthermore, the Depot is facing accountability and internal control issues. Dave Sampson, who is responsible for ensuring operating efficiency of certain divisions, fails to make the landscaping portion of the company accountable. Management problems regarding Sinclair’s leadership have been brought to Sampson’s attention, yet they continue to resurface. Likewise, there are problems with internal controls, mainly regarding the use of inventory and job slips. Being responsible for these internal control, Bowman has noticed that jobs are being “grossly” underpriced. Though part of his duties, Sinclair has not been the one completing invoices. In addition, there are problems with organizational accountability due to the lack of formal performance appraisals and job responsibility matrices.
Finally, the landscaping division has become suboptimal. One of the full-time employees, Jayme Strong, carries out jobs for customers that Bowman has not received an invoice for. This leads Bowman to believe Strong is doing work for customers and keeping the money for himself, falsifying his time cards and potentially stealing from the company. Another issue is the amount of customer complaints regarding the landscaping division, leading Sinclair to avoid answering calls or keeping customers informed on the progress of their job. Lastly, the employment within the landscaping division has become an issue. Out of 12 employees, 11 of them are part-time causing an insufficient amount of completed jobs.
CAUSES
There is a lack of fit between people and task. This is evidenced by the activity of both Derek Sinclair and Janice Bowman. Sinclair is a poor fit for the position of landscaping manager. He does not communicate information to customers, he has no relevant landscaping experience, and he shows little concern for issues that have the potential to damage the company such as, possible theft, incorrect invoices, and an unaccountable staff. Janice Bowman, largely due to the activities of Sinclair, is overworked, performing tasks outside of her understood responsibilities.
There is a lack of fit between the landscaping division and the tasks required of them. This is evidenced by the numerous cases of incomplete or incorrect task completion. Foremost, the division is not able to complete all requested seasonal work, this is inefficient and reduces potential profit. A major factor contributing to this is the challenge to recruit and retain qualified staff. The staff the division does possess, has problems completing administrative tasks that affect the company’s financial situation. Jobs slips are filled out incorrectly, timesheet accuracy is questionable, and inventory is not properly accounted for.
There is a lack of fit between organizational procedures and the people and groups within the company. This is evidenced by the breadth of policies and procedures that either have problems or are not implemented. The company has no formal job descriptions or job appraisal system. This reduces job comprehension and internal communication among all employees. The controls for recording items used at landscaping jobs are sub-optimal. There are multiple cases of job slips (important to ensure proper billing) not being filled out correctly by the landscaping division. The time cards currently being used for landscaping jobs leave enormous room for human error.
GOALS