Understanding the dynamic of power and influence as it relates to teams will allow you to determine the appropriate decision-making approaches for various team structures that you will encounter in the workplace. Team motivation is a key aspect of successful teams. This assessment is designed to help you discover common reasons team members lose motivation and help you find resolutions to those motivational challenges.
Group Conflict
Scenario
Imagine that two small manufacturing businesses in Chicago, IL, operated in direct competition with each other for 20 years. Due to recent changes in economic conditions, the two businesses combined in a horizontal merger. When the businesses merged, 20% of the workforce at each company was let go. The combined employees now work together in a new building.
The transition has not been a smooth one. Much of the remaining workforce is unmotivated to make personal changes to fit into the new business. Many employees are unclear about the direction the new organization is taking and the specific goals that need to be met. Communication among employees is also strained; employees resist working with people who were previously their competitors. There is very little information sharing and a lack of cooperation among employees. You have been called in to assess the situation and make recommendations to help motivate employees as members of the new business.
Step one (to prepare for the project plan write up, this is not submitted):
Before writing your project plan, complete the following:
Based on the scenario provided, determine 2 or 3 reasons the employees are not motivated in the new work environment. These reasons should be founded on concepts covered in the text.
Determine your rationale regarding why these factors are affecting the employees.
Locate at least 3 articles in the University Library that address your identified reasons. Use the information in these articles to create solutions to the business’s problems. These articles should be cited and referenced in your written project plan. If you have issues accessing the library, using a source like Google Scholar to find articles is also acceptable. The library resources link for the week also contains sources that would work well for the assignment.
Note: These are preparation steps only and should not be included in the final write up. They are just to help guide your final project plan outlined below.
Step two (project plan write up -this is the portion that is submitted):
After completing the above steps, prepare a 1,050- to 1,400-word project plan that includes an executive summary at the beginning that details a strategy to improve employee motivation in the new work environment.
Include the additional information in your project plan (after the beginning executive summary):
Recommendations for improving employee motivation that clearly relate to the scenario (make sure to tie this into research that you found in step 1). These should be separate from your team building recommendations.
Recommendations for team-building activities that clearly show how they would work in the scenario that you were given. (This would be another good place to include research. Is there anything that you found that shows why/how certain activities will be successful? ) These should be different recommendations from those provided above.
Major milestones in the project plan for what will be implemented and how it aligns with the recommendations (Make sure to tie this back to the recommendations that you had in terms of employee motivation and team building – what will it look like to implement your plan?)
Explanation of how the progress will be evaluated (What will you be looking for in terms of success? How will you be able to determine that? What research can you bring in that shows how the evaluation process works? How will you tie this back into your recommendation ideas?)
Cite the sources that you used in your summary using APA formatting requirements, make sure that you have corresponding references for your citations. As this is a professional assignment, the first person (I/me) statements should not be used. Using we is considered more professional.
Format your assignment according to APA guidelines, including double-spacing and having both a title and a reference page.