Principles of Business Management and Administration

The setting

WESTMARK LOGISTICS holds a long all-hands meeting every Monday. An anonymous staff survey has just named it the single biggest waste of time in the company, and the operations manager who runs it has read the results.

Your role

You are to assume the role of an administrative associate at WESTMARK LOGISTICS.

Your task

WESTMARK LOGISTICS runs its warehouse and office teams from a single site. Every Monday morning the operations manager holds an all-hands meeting for the whole staff, where each team lead reads out last week's figures and this week's plans. The meeting often runs long, and most of the information is also posted on the staff noticeboard.

The company recently ran its first anonymous staff survey. The Monday meeting was named as the biggest waste of time in the company, and several comments described it as a place where people wait for their own turn to speak. The operations manager, who introduced the meeting, has read every comment.

The operations manager (judge) wants you to recommend what happens to the Monday meeting. Explain the concept of management and what a manager is actually responsible for delivering here, explain the factors that affect how a team is managed, explain the nature of effective verbal communication when the point is to be understood rather than heard, and demonstrate the active listening the manager will need in the conversations that follow.

Performance indicators

• Explain the concept of management.
• Explain factors that affect management.
• Explain the nature of effective verbal communications.
• Demonstrate active listening skills.

The judge will ask

1. 1.How would you give this feedback to the person who runs the meeting?
2. 2.What would you keep from the current meeting, and why?

The setting

HARROW SUPPLY has one shift supervisor opening and two internal candidates. One has been with the company far longer; the other is newer and is plainly the stronger performer on the floor. Everyone in the warehouse knows both of them.

Your role

You are to assume the role of an administrative associate at HARROW SUPPLY.

Your task

HARROW SUPPLY is a building supplies wholesaler with a busy warehouse. A shift supervisor position has opened, and two internal candidates have applied. One has worked at the company for many years, knows every customer, and is well liked. The other joined much more recently, has the strongest productivity record on the floor, and has already been informally training newer staff.

Both candidates are respected, and the whole warehouse knows they have applied. The general manager is aware that whichever way the decision goes, everyone will read it as a message about what the company values.

The general manager (judge) wants you to recommend how HARROW should decide. Discuss the nature of human resources management and what a promotion decision signals to everyone watching, explain the role of ethics in human resources management, explain the concept of management as it applies to choosing who supervises, and explain how communication styles should be adapted for the conversation with the candidate who is not chosen.

Performance indicators

• Discuss the nature of human resources management.
• Explain the role of ethics in human resources management.
• Explain the concept of management.
• Employ communication styles appropriate to target audience.

The judge will ask

1. 1.Does length of service deserve weight on its own?
2. 2.What do you say to the candidate who does not get it?

The setting

BRAMBLE & CO keeps a long employee handbook. When a scheduling dispute arose last month, neither the employee nor the supervisor could find the rule that applied, and it later turned out that two sections of the handbook contradicted each other.

Your role

You are to assume the role of an administrative associate at BRAMBLE & CO.

Your task

BRAMBLE & CO is a growing marketing agency whose employee handbook has been added to piece by piece for years. Nobody has ever reviewed it as a whole, and it is stored as a single long document that few employees have read from start to finish.

Last month an employee and their supervisor disagreed about how shift swaps should be approved. Neither could find the relevant rule, and when the office manager eventually located it, a later section of the handbook said something different. The dispute has been resolved, but the office manager is certain it will happen again.

The office manager (judge) wants you to recommend what happens to the handbook. Discuss the nature of information management for a company this size, explain how information should be stored so it can be found when it is needed, explain how staff should be able to obtain the information they need efficiently, and explain how company resources should be analysed to establish what the policy actually is.

Performance indicators

• Discuss the nature of information management.
• Store information for future use.
• Obtain needed information efficiently.
• Analyze company resources to ascertain policies and procedures.

The judge will ask

1. 1.How would you decide what belongs in the handbook at all?
2. 2.Who should own keeping it accurate, and how often?

The setting

KESTREL PRINT runs a Saturday morning shift that everyone is supposed to rotate through. In practice a few people cover most of them, resentment has started showing in the Monday handovers, and the rota has never been written down.

Your role

You are to assume the role of an administrative associate at KESTREL PRINT.

Your task

KESTREL PRINT is a commercial printer that runs a Saturday morning shift to finish urgent jobs. When the shift was introduced, everyone agreed to take turns, but the rota was never written down.

In practice, a small group of employees now covers most Saturdays, because they are the ones who say yes when asked. They have started to complain, sometimes openly during the Monday handover, and two of them have hinted that they are looking for other jobs. Others on the team say they did not realise the arrangement had become unfair.

The production supervisor (judge) wants you to recommend how Saturdays should be allocated. Explain the concept of management when a rule is being quietly ignored, explain the factors that affect how the situation got here, discuss the nature of human resources management as it applies to scheduling fairly, and explain how you would give the verbal directions that put a new rota into effect.

Performance indicators

• Explain the concept of management.
• Explain factors that affect management.
• Discuss the nature of human resources management.
• Give verbal directions.

The judge will ask

1. 1.How would you handle the few who have been covering most of them?
2. 2.What do you do if the new rota is rejected by the team?