THE DONOR SERVICES DEPARTMENT CASE

Overview

The case is the description of the poor management and its effect on the job design and motivation of

translators. A space in the supervision created an atmosphere that resulted in less productivity. A poor

leadership effected the climate of the office.

1. What was Joanna’s diagnosis of the situation in the donor services department?

 All employees feel proud in working in the agency, they are fully devoted to the goals of the

organization

 Employees focus on their individual work that is assigned to them, they do not pay attention to the

whole department.

 There is no team spirit and cooperation in the workers. Unequal distribution of work makes workers

frustrated and stresses those results in low productivity and morale.

 Work process is so complicated and there is lack of proper attention.

 Productivity is very low.

 Lacks variety in work. Jobs are tedious and uninteresting.

 Management has set negative norms instead of positive norms.

2. What should Joanna recommend to Sam?

Following are the recommendations:

 Hire experienced manager from the outer source that has best management skills.

 On the bases of geography, design the work. This will solve the problem of unequal distribution of

work.

 Assign various task to eliminate the boreness of work.

 Make each translator responsible for the geographical region assigned to him or her.
 Provide Elena with a job that does not focus her weakness but shows her strengths.

 Develop such norms that promotes respect towards each other. Develop climate of work place

interesting to avoid unpleasant behaviors of employees towards work.

 Develop departmental goals to motivate employees and encourage teamwork.

 Hold meeting in two months to make staff informed.

 Reorganize the office to make it attractive and interesting.

 Make the work process simple to efficiently use human resource.

3. Describe managerial styles and their impact?

The managers in the above case study are responsible for some of tasks. Elena do the paper work, Jose

and Sam only focus those jobs that are interesting to them. This behavior is not effective and productive

in the work place. Morale is low because of lack of interest in the work of translator. Managers are not

much concerned of the tasks and the clients. Joanna has a good focus on the work of management. She

has given a proper structure and removed the hindrances during a job. She is anxious about the needs

and feelings of the people working and that come for work. She empowers the employees besides

having cultural limitations. She empowers employees through impact, self-determination, meaning

and competence. The negative thing that was in the management was that she believed that employees

would accept anything that is suggested by her and Sam.

4. How can motivation be improved in the department?

Many people were hired for the job, which was the error of the job design. Motivation problem were

caused because of the irregular flow of the work. Motivation can be improved by the application of

expectancy theory of motivation. Goal setting is an efficient tool to improve the motivation. Employees

can be motivated by:

 Assign various tasks that involves variety of skills.

 Make translators responsible for their regions work process to make their jobs evocative.
  Elaborate the significance of task like how much important the customer service is for the

donor and as well as the recipients.

 Provide a period for completion of work.

 Regular feedback of the employees is a best tool for motivation. They come to know about

progress of their work and they will work more diligently.

 The interaction of translator with donors and the representatives of the community will make

their work more enriched.

5. How should Juana be handled?

Juana has never confronted the authority of Joanna. She should be made to use her strengths for

positive force in the work place. She should show her ability to deal with people. She can be handled

by promoting her to any supervisory position. She can be given proper training to manage the place.

By changing her attitude, she can be the most praised leader in the workplace. By utilizing her talent

and providing effective training all difficulties will be removed.

6. What are the cultural factors that influence this case?

Cultural factors have a very crucial impact as different people have different needs and behaviors with

respect to their culture. Central Americans are more concerned about the fulfillment of their social

needs at the work place. In contrast American like quiet place to work, that do not have lot of

distractions. People shake hands. This gesture is very important. Latin Americans focus on external

controls and gossips are source of social control. The employees prefer the decisions that are made by

their superiors for them. The leadership style is autocratic. The dependence of decision-making shows

less participation. It does not represents low intelligence of the employees but their less exposure to

make and take part in decision-making.