Question

ABC Mortgage had a major problem; HWY 40's continual construction created a nightmare for employees in the South St. Louis location on Hampton Avenue. All the employees lived outside the city and took HWY 40 for part of their daily commute. The lease was up January 9 and the Home Office decided to not renew it. Instead, the employees were moved to the Wildwood Location in the Valley.

The Hampton location had 30 employees while the Valley had only 20; however, the space in the Valley was much larger than needed for 20 employees but not large enough for 50. Office space was at a premium and most employees now find themselves working in cubes – reduced size cubes at that. Management knew that they had to reconfigure work assignments and that the entire operation had to be restructured. Some cubes have windows (previously, all Valley employees had windows); most do not. The Hampton employees were accustomed to being arranged around the office kitchen, the fax and copy machines, and the supplies area. The Valley location has a long hallway and the commons portion is at the front of the complex, some people have a hike to make copies.

It was expected that there would be dissatisfaction, however, not as much as occurred.  There is constant complaining about the facilities, the inconveniences, the people who were in the "in group" made decisions that impacted everyone, and just life in general.

Using the work of Vroom and Jago, management decided that a CI or a CII method of decision making was the right direction to go. They brought together a group of seven employees from each location to make recommendations concerning working arrangements, size of offices, and related issues.

A. Why would management have made this choice? What is the upside and the downside of their decision?

B. What Vroom-Jago strategy would you have used and why?

  

Answer 1

Answer a=

In my opinion, the management would select CII to be a better method as the company was receiving regular complaints from the staff about the facilities. This is the reason why the management should select CII method as it uses the group discussion for the solution of the problem and it can attract the opinions from various team members. The final decision will be made by the team only once they reach a conclusion. This is the best-suited method as the problem of space is being experienced by everyone. The organization came up with a group of 7 people from different locations to make some recommendations.

The negative aspect of this model I that the decision made may not represent the opinion of the entire organization as it includes only 7 individuals out of 30 employees. The other limitation is that the final decision will be made by the management only and thus it does not provide any power for the final decision making to the employees.

Answer b= In my opinion, the Group ll (G2) method can be used from the Vroom-Jago strategy as this method provides the entire group an opportunity to make the decision. The leader will present the given issue to the group, and members of the group will discuss the issue, find the alternatives and will form a consensus and this decision will be adopted by the management.

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