UNIVERSITY OF

NAIROBI

SCHOOL OF THE

BUILT ENVIRONMENT

DEPARTMENT OF

REAL ESTATE AND

CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

MASTER OF ARTS IN CONSTRUCTION MANAGEMENT

IMBWAGA JULLIET INGANJI

B53/87389/2016
PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT
ASSIGNMENT 1
LECTURER: PROF. P. KOBONYO
NOVEMBER, 2016

CASE ANALYSIS KENNY MALINGA

CRITICAL MANAGEMENT ISSUES PRESENTED IN THE CASE STUDY
Management as a social process is concerned with the effective and economic planning and
the regulation of the operations of an organisation to fulfil its goals and objectives. This may
be through judgement and decision making by coming up with plans using data to monitor
performance; and guidance, integration, motivation and supervision of staff carrying out the
operations within the organisation. The case study is mainly concerned with the aspect of
delivering change in terms of increasing productivity

in the company, initiated by a

supervisor, but faces critical issues in trying to implement the goal. In meeting the
organisations objectives, management functions have to be put into practice. These functions
are planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling. However, different
circumstances set in which affect the manner the management process is carried out as will be
discussed below.
Planning
Achieving the objectives of an organization requires proper planning of the actions that will
be put in place to enable it to attain these goals. There is evidence of poor planning in terms
of setting out the standards and targets of production in the company. These ought to be set
out by the top management, shared to the supervisors and down to the other staff members
for implementation. The top management was also to set up key performance indexes which
were to be used to judge productivity of workers.
Communication
Communication in an organization is critical and ought to flow from top to bottom. The chain
of communication is not well followed in such a way that is recommended. the manner in
which the worker who did not produce as expected was notified that he was not going to be
paid and was to be sent home is uncalled for in an organization. He ought to be given at least
a two week notice before the matter was going to be implemented. The management during
the case hearing did not also directly communicate on their objectives of increasing
productivity in the organization even though it was the key objective that caused the sour
between the supervisor and the worker. This therefore makes it even hard for the supervisor o
implement the strategy since the other workers would not listen to him.
Motivation
Motivation of workers is key to improving productivity and reducing conflicts in an
organization. There was lack of support from the top managerial level. When Kenny reported
the incident to the operations manager he got little response. During the hearing the manager

did not support his supervisors decision and instead reinstated the employee who displayed
insubordination to his supervisor In this case, employee motivation especially by the
supervisor likely went down after the incident. He was not backed up by the top management
during the case hearing and left to stand by his introduction of productivity improvement
strategies. This in the long run demotivated him and therefore affects the productivity in the
organization.
Staffing
The case outlines a situation where there is responsibility given to the supervisor but he lacks
authority to implement certain duties that he is supposed to carry out. Job descriptions,
specifications and standards ought to have been set out clearly by the Human Resource
manager
Controlling
This is monitoring, evaluating activities and providing corrective mechanisms. The
supervisor was given responsibilities by the manager but without authority as the standards
he was trying to set were over-ruled in the hearing.
Coordination
Co-ordination ensures proper utilization of resources in an organizational setup. This ensures
the use of least possible resources in attainment of the goals of an organisation. This ensures
optimal utilization of the available resources. It plays a key role in ensuring conflict
resolution and proper connection at varied levels of the organization. Kenny lacks support
from the human resource manager and local General Manager during varied times at the
hearings. This has a key impact on Kenny; in the context it is evident he has regrets for taking
up the supervisors job.

KM IN THE NEW UNIVERSITY SECTOR AND THE NEED SPACE

a) Assume you are a senior manager at the university. How might you justify the
decision to close down the staff common room and staff canteen?
As a senior manager I would have unorganized a joint meeting with all the staff members and
talked to them of the importance of creation of extra space due to the increased number of
students. Since there is reduced funding from the central government, it would be prudent to

close down the extra space in order to create money generating functions like hiring
conference space.
I would also have encouraged teacher student interaction by having all of them share meals in
one area so that they could freely engage together in several issues not only related to
education but also social life. I would also encourage the lecturers that the new plan was
meant enhance monitoring of lecturers as it would be easier to know the ones present and
those who are not in attendance
b) In what ways have the changes impacted on the business schools human and social
capital?
Social capital is the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular
society, enabling that society to function effectively. This is because there is lack social
networking as now staffs have been confined to small individual offices. One of the senior
lecturer, Kate, feels that there is invasion on others space when they are forced to share a
small table of four with people they didnt know. On the other hand, Sophie a senior lecturer
commented that communication has minimized as people speak less and less to each other
once they shut their office doors.
Human capital is the skills, knowledge, and experience possessed by an individual or
population, viewed in terms of their value or cost to an organization. This can be seen when
Judy a senior lecturer feels demoralized as in the past they used to have research rooms which
had journals and books and they could meet share ideas but now there is nothing.
c) What HRD interventions would you recommend to address the problems caused by
the changes? Differentiate clearly between the role of the HRD practitioner and the line
manager
HRD Human resource development is the framework for helping employees develop their
personal and organizational skills, knowledge, and abilities.The HRD Interventions that
enable workers to adapt to the changes introduced at the business school include:
Organizational developmentThis is the act of dedicatingand expanding knowledge and
effectiveness of individuals to achieve the goals of the organization and ensure the attainment
of its targets. This involves learning, knowledge management and transformation. The
organization development in an organization can takeplace in four stages namely diagnosis,
action planning, intervention and evaluation. Each stage acts as a steer to the next stage and
helps in developing the building blocks for the organizational development.

Potential appraisal
This entails future oriented appraisal. It aims at identifying and tapping into the employees
potential based on the organizational hierarchy to ensure the organization attains its goal with
usage of minimum resources. This helps indicate what can happen in future so that the whole
team effort can be guided towards achieving the organizations targets

Offering the employees performance counselling and performance interviews:

Performance Counseling refers to the help provided by a manager to his subordinates in
objectively analyzing their performance.
This is recommended since it involves talking with the employees in a way that
helps him or her solve a problem. Performance Counseling is very important for
employees to know the level of their performance and the area in which they need to
improve. It helps the employee as well as the organization to identify weaknesses and then to
formulate strategies to improve the performance.
Quality of work life: This indicates the experience an individual has based on the task in
question. In instances where the offices entail open plan offices; it should involve clear
demarcation of zones for the supervisors and employees. Their mix up could lead to
uneasiness since the employees would feel constantly supervised leading to tension which
may result into poor performance.
Empowering employees to act. It is concerned with the consolidation and stabilization of
changes made so that they become part and parcel of the organizations normal and everyday
performance such that they will not require special arrangement to implement. This also
encourages them to maintain the implementation of the change process. This can be through
reinforcing new behaviour through feedback, and reward system, training the employees and
managers to monitor the change constantly and seek to improve upon them. Diffusing the
successful aspects of the change process throughout the organisation.
Facilitating ownership of the change process and its outcomes. The organisation should
have engaged the members of the university so as to plan for the changes. This would involve
making them aware of the changes, the need for the changes, and collectively finding ways of
planning and implementation of the changes. Establishing change goals and designing
appropriate actions to achieve them would key matters to note during the planning.
d) Difference between HRD Practitioners and Line managers

A HRD practitioner is an initiator of human capital. He or she is commonly viewed as a

leader.Toolmaker, evaluator, and change agent.The three main forms that HRD practitioners
perform in organizations

include;

internal part-time

consultants, internalfull-time

practitioners, or as external short-term consultants and sets structures for organization in line
with policies
Line managersare managers to whom individuals or teams directly report to. They have the
responsibility to higher level of management as opposed to the individuals or teams.
Supervises task being executed in line with the organization policies