SITUATION ANALYSIS
RWH, a firm that provides taxation and audit services to their clients was collaboratively formed by Chris Richard, Genna Wood and Lauren Hulme. The firm’s mission was focused on providing services of such improved quality to their clients that help them to shape the methods of internal control. The firm’s main focus was teamwork that was essential for a firm in achieving the desired goal or subjected mission. The firm’s main focus was to meet the deadlines at any cost as the firm was on the mission of continuous improvement. Team appraisals were the key at the end in RWH that were based on the mission, objectives and rules of the firm. In 2007 with the beginning of the North American financial crisis, RWH finds it hard to search for new clients along with sustaining the one’s they already have. At this point the company started the audit of SPECTOR, which was a construction firm, but was not one of their premium clients. Genna Wood took the responsibility of leading the team for this task and designed the team that was accompanied with the sufficient knowledge of the client due to their experience with the company. The team working on this project was unsure of meeting the deadline due to the changes in the market situation and the business of SPECTOR. This issue was accompanied by some other relevant issues that involved incomplete and late submission of information from the client and the irrational attitude of the team members. The team lacked leadership, and the leadership was not providing sufficient assistance to motivate the team to ensure the completion of work on their assigned deadline. This situation was frustrating the members of the team as the team was lacking effective communication and meeting the deadline was looking unlikely.
PROBLEM DIAGNOSIS
In the past RWH audit team was clear about meeting the deadline as stated in the company’s mission and performed accordingly in the past with SPECTOR but meeting the deadline this time was looking unlikely due to many reasons. The first core reason was the preparation for the project, which was incomplete from the firm’s side due to incomplete information from the client. The next was the firing of a few senior employees of the firm that was a concerning factor for other team members as their morale went down and were having questions about their job security. Other main reasons included lack of commitment and absence of strong leadership that caused the team to fall apart. Leadership plays an important role in ensuring job satisfaction to the team members, thus increasing their morale as explained by Yun and Cox (Seokhwa Yun, 2007). The senior associate, Michael was of the view that the leadership did not play its role properly in empowering the team members and also to ensure commitment of every member and neglected the core issues that were arising during the course which lead to discomfort among the team members. Effective communication was missing between the team members, especially the junior associates and the leadership. Communication is vital in collaborative environments and can become a core competency of any firm (Esther Suter, 2009). The team lacked motivation, and the task seemed unrealistic to achieve. By the termination of few senior employees, the achievement of the task seemed duller as few members in the team were dependent on the support of those members. The senior associate was seriously thinking about the possible ways that can help him to ensure the completion of the task along with sustaining the client.
ALTERNATIVES
Alternative # 1: The firm should extend the deadline in order to complete the audit with perfection and provide the client reduction in fee. This will hurt the profit margin of the company as the company is already witnessing a decrease in revenues, but the loss will be for a short run. This approach will guide the company to provide quality in their performance and will also help in sustaining the client, which is important for the firm in the current scenario as they are already losing clients. The approach disadvantage is for a short period, but the advantage it offers is in the long run.
Alternative # 2: The firm can also increase the number of team members by adding members who are doing no task at the office. The involvement of the new members will help in doing the task in somewhat near to the deadline or if managed and guided properly within the assigned deadline. This effort will also help in analyzing the productivity of new team members and their effectiveness in teamwork. The measure will be on the urgent basis, and the new members may lack the sufficient client and situational knowledge which will require extra time. In order to..................
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