Case Study: Your Role - you are ‘Dan' the Operations Manager

Hannah had been working with Adaptive Leisure for 12 months as the Administration Manager when Stacey was appointed as the manager of the Youth Development Program. For the first 6 months they were best of friends, getting along really well, having lunch together and co-ordinating the activities between the two roles efficiently. They shared the same small office, so it was important that they could work well together.

Dan was the Operations Manager of Adaptive Leisure and their immediate supervisor. Both girls respected him and his management style as he gave them a lot of freedom in making decisions, encouraged a team work environment and supported them if they lacked skills or knowledge.

Adaptive Leisure was also going through a facilities upgrade which meant that Hannah would move into a new larger office that would also put her more accessible to clients. At the time when the upgrade commenced the work environment became chaotic and all staff were under a great deal of pressure. During this period there was a falling out between Hannah and Stacey which created a tense and stressful environment.

Stacey tried to deal with the situation, but it was difficult as she had no idea on what the cause of the conflict was. The situation was now impacting on all the staff and nobody wanted to be anywhere near the two girls if they were working at the same time. The tension was oppressive and therefore impacting on the teams work performance. After three months Stacey approached Dan to try and resolve the situation and get his support.

Analysis:

You have never experienced this type of situation before and value both Hannah and Stacey as they are valued staff. You want to handle the situation to get the best outcome so decide to do some research and analyse the best approach before dealing with the situation. You should consider the following:

- The role of upper management supporting middle managers.
- How management decisions can impact on efficiency and effectiveness.
- The importance of leading and controlling in times of conflict.
- Approaches to managing staff in periods of change.

Presentation:

Your analysis should include the following:

- Introduction: and synopsis of the situation, identifying the key challenges.
- Research: A thorough research of the literature in the topic area.
- Analysis: Critical evaluation of the literature and application to the case study.
- Conclusion: and recommendations on how the situation could be best managed.

You must use a minimum of 10 references:
- Text books: The prescribed text and at least 3 other text books
- 5 different academic journal articles
- 1 other source of your choice: Blog, newspaper, magazine or other Internet source
- No more than 1 reference may be general Internet based sources.
- Wikipedia is not to be used and does not count as an academic reference.