Employee Cultural Differences: Impact of Age Differences

A CIVIL MEETING

PART A

1. Lack of Communication

When there is a less communication between the team, individual, employee, employer then there will be more chance of dispute in the firm.

In this case the main problem is communication. There is a less communication between Douglas Fairbrother, Jeremy Fraser, Richard Price, and Lucy. Douglas and Jeremy did not communicate with Richard they did not tell Richard to do the things in right way. They both did not have any conversation with Lucy as well.  Douglas and Jeremy did not feel comfortable with Lucy. So they both communicate each and everything with themselves only.

2. Lack Of Leadership

Leader is the main source of team. And it depends on leaders how they lead their team by different scenario by their quality of leadership skills.

In this case study, Douglas does not have good leadership qualities. Douglas is a head of the organisation, according to him his organisation is like a family. Due to lack of leadership qualities Douglas handover his all responsibilities to Richard, but Richard is not a good leader. Rather than firm Richard looking for his own advantages. He appoints Lucy as according to his perception Lucy is beneficial for the business .She has ability to attract the new clients.

3. Age difference

Age difference is also the main factor in this case study, there is a lot of age gap between the firm partners Douglas Fairbrother (53), Jeremy Fraser (48), Richard Price (40), Lucy Hawthorn-Roth (32). There is a big age gap in Douglas Fairbrother and Lucy Hawthorn. Due to age gap in both of them there thought are different. She think Douglas Fairbrother is an old fashioned and he did not want to adopt new technique in the organisation.

PART B

In the firm there are many misunderstandings and communication gap among all partners. They all think they are superior within themselves, but the fact is that they are not good for leading the firm. Their whole concentration is on proving themselves superior for the firm due to

Which differences arising between them are getting stronger day by day to avoid the differences there should be proper way to follow.

• Mutual understanding:Understanding plays an important part in organisation. Partners need to understand each other roles and responsibilities in organisation. If there is a proper understanding among all the partners then the firm run with a smooth and effective manner.

• Learning and development: Learning and development strategy focus to meet employees learning and development needs, which helps organisation to achieve their goal and fulfil their targets. It will enhance the ability and skills of each individual which helps the firm to be successful.

• Managerial Training: Training provided to managers to intend & develop their management skills this training plays an important part on manager’s management skills. In this case study in the first meeting there is an absence of management performance. Nobody is vigilant towards meeting. Douglas loosely ran the meeting, Jeremy never focuses on meeting, Richard always sees their own benefit in meeting and Lucy always used her own agenda and terms.

• Sharing Profit: Profit sharing system needs to be improved. They should find a way which is acceptable to everyone. Douglas and Jeremy needs to understand that everyone should be paid off according to their performance.

STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF PROFIT SHARING

STRENGTH:

• Introduce to performance level system.
•  Introduce incentive or bonus plans for good performance employees.
• Introduce good appraisal system that motivates staff.
• Promotion according to performance.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                WEAKNESS:

• Focuses on quantity not on quality.
• The salary of individual employees goes up but not on their performance basis.
• No comparison between efficient & inefficient employees.
• Mental and physical harassment at work or to much of office politics.

PART C

In my opinion firstly, there was a lack of leadership shown by Doug to handover his all responsibility to Richard but Richard was not fulfilling his responsibility as he thinks ”what was good for him is good for business”. Secondly, there was a lack of communication and gender difference between them. All members didn’t communicate properly and there was not proper meeting until Lucy came in the firm. Even Doug and Jeremy feel shy to communicate with Lucy. Thirdly, there is a lot of age difference between the partners. Douglas and Jeremy have different ideas as compare to Lucy. She had innovated ideas for the firm. Last but not Least there was a problem of profit share in the firm. Jeremy get same share as Richard but he always put less effort towards the firm.

For a successful organisation and to achieve their goals and objective a company should always have good thinking leaders who can overtake company from any situation and there should be proper training and development programs as well as good incentives and bonus given to the partners or employees according to their ability and performance.

PART D

(A) This given situation the problem is ethical. The words used by the manger are totally unprofessional. He said “we really need to put our noses to the grindstone to launch this new product” which is totally unprofessional and not acceptable at his level. In addition to this he said “cat’s out of bag” this is not that kind of language which should used by managers.

(B) This given situation is unethical because the corporate official is not giving answers to their questions. Their questions are regarding the layoff and office closures. Layoff is like some employees fired or terminated from the company due to poor condition of company. In this given situation the official is talking about the performance of the company and condition of stock but we are taking steps to ensure future market viability.

(C)  In this given situation the problem is legal. After several trips to Japan almost for one year Japanese and Australian partner decided to venture but in the final contract Australian partner is putting a new request to Japanese partner that CEO personally guarantee the loans this situation has not been discussed previously as this new stipulation can suffer relationship and can lead to contract cancellation.

PART D (2)

SITUATION	RECOMMENDED MEDIUM	CENTRAL IDEA	OUTLINE(DEDUCTIVE OR INDUCTIVE)
Seller to customers	By sending mail or by texting	Promoting special digital music	Inductive
To company from customer	Personally visit to store	Exchanging the placed order	Inductive
Quality manager to production manager	Face to Face meeting	Correction in production process	Inductive
Seller to customer	Face to Face meetings	Unable to provide service	Inductive
CEO to Managers	Formal Meeting	Not to continue pension plan in new employees	Deductive
Australian CEO to  New Zealand Business Partner	Emails, phone call	Delay in shipment due to inability in raw material	Inductive
Management to employees	Place notice on notice board or email	New stock plan in company	Inductive
Seller to Customer	Advertisement on website or phone call	Refund to customers who purchased faulty board laptop	Inductive
Seller to Customer	Email, advertisement on website, TV or flexi.	Increase in company price due to increase in fuel cost	Inductive
Assistant to Manager	Face expression, written form	Research on an issues	Deductive
Management to employees	Notice on notice board, email	Policies for prohibiting employees from smoking	Inductive
Technology department to customer	Face to Face	Upgrading of software	Inductive