Client Issue - Summary

Over the last three years, engagement scores for workgroups of marketing specialists have been trending very low. Average scores have been particularly low on workgroup collaboration (1.7 out of 5), workgroup member support (1.9 out of 5), workgroup member communication (1.8 out of 5), and workgroup member inclusion (1.5 out of 5). The average category value in all sections of the survey is 4.4 out of 5. All-in-Marketing (AIM) has hired you, an external consulting firm specializing in groups, teams, and organizational behavior, to design a new approach to work groups for marketing specialists and to create a plan for implementation of the new approach.

Client Background

AIM is a marketing, advertising, and promotions firm that provides an array of services to clients. Their model is designed in a way that they can seamlessly manage as much, or as little, marketing activities associated with their client organizations. They are headquartered in Charlotte, NC, and have office locations in New York City, Washington DC, Chicago, Boulder, San Francisco, Beijing, Tokyo, Sydney, Mumbai, London, and Berlin.

As AIM has stayed on the cusp of technological and social media advancements, they have exceled at client service, have grown in revenue, and have been increasingly profitable. AIM has been very forward thinking in their approaches, and are very open to creativity and innovation in all aspects of their workplace. Along these lines, they are very open to (or actually encourage) your team to be creative in your deliverables below.

Employee Focused

AIM has been highly responsive to their employees' requests and market changes of employee benefits. Based on engagement surveys, employees feel fairly compensated (more than competitors), pleased with benefits/retirement, and satisfied with training and development opportunities. AIM strived to provide flexible working arrangements for all employees, even pre-COVID-19 pandemic, in which employees can work from their home or the office. Due to the high percentage of employees that opt to primarily work from home, AIM has created hot desk office set-ups where employees reserve an office, meeting room, and/or desks for their office visits.

Diversity has been a core value of AIM for many years, and is included in their recruiting, selection, development, and retention processes. They have set up metrics to assess their focus on diversity and have a workforce that is much more demographically diverse than their competitors, at all levels of the organization.

Current Workgroup Structure

AIM uses a workgroup approach where between five to eight marketing specialists report to one manager. The workgroups are based on geographic location, as they often serve clients in their region. Meaning, there are one or more workgroups in each of AIM's city locations that, primarily, work with clients in that geographic area. Most client interaction occurs via web-based meetings, email, and phone calls. A separate sales team typically gains new clients and then hands them off to a marketing manager and marketing specialist. Each marketing specialist manages multiple clients and is the main point of contact for all client needs.

If a marketing specialist has questions or needs help, they generally ask their manager, who provides them insights, connections, resources, and support. Marketing specialists may receive quarterly bonuses based on the quarterly revenues from their specific clients. Or, the ones where they serve as the main point-of-contact. Marketing specialists may receive annual bonuses based on their performance and AIM's overall profits. Their performance assessments are derived from manager's ratings and feedback surveys gathered from their clients over the course of the year.

Engagement Survey Data

The engagement survey average results in the four categories (stated above) are based on an entire population of 550 marketing specialists spread across 88 workgroups. AIM has shared that the average values do not differ significantly when breaking up data by office location, region, gender, nor experience levels. AIM has shared with you all qualitative/open-ended question feedback associated with these sections of the engagement survey.

"I've been a member of my workgroup for 18-months ago and barely know anyone on my team. I rarely see any of them. When I do see them, we barely speak as we don't really know each other"

"When I started, I had the most difficult time. I came to the office, but no one from my team nor my manager was there. I ended up constantly calling her. She was great and got back to me, but I stopped coming to the office as there was no point."

"If I am overwhelmed, my manager helps me. He later shares that other team members helped with things, but I'm not even sure who helped. I've helped others too, but it's odd that we rarely interact with each other."

"Taking vacations has been tricky for me. I know my manager will take the lead on responding to my clients while I am out, but I need to get everything done in advance as I don't want extra work to fall to anyone else. Plus, I know my annual bonus is tied to clients' feedback, so I don't want to upset them in any way."

"I feel bad asking others' for help, as I know we are all managing our own clients. My quarterly bonus is tied to the revenue we earn associated with my clients, so I don't want to come up short there. Along the same lines, I know others' have their own clients, so I wouldn't want to adversely impact their quarterly bonuses either by asking for help."

"I see inclusion as leveraging the workgroup's diverse array of strengths. Perhaps my manager does that when she assigns clients. But, I don't even know what strengths others in my workgroup have."

"I love my flexibility in that I can work from wherever. But sometimes I feel like I am a contractor and not an employee."

"Well, I have met the members of my workgroup as we do have meetings where many of us come in person. But, I have no clue about who is on other workgroups---both inside my office and at other locations."

"When I have very little work, I volunteer to help others since I like being busy. My manager checks with others and rarely finds anything for me to do. He encourages me to enroll in training and development programs, which I do. That helps me, but I guess I just like helping others' as well."

Deliverables

You have been hired to deliver the following two things:

• A report for the client with your recommendation for changes to their current workgroup approach. A section of the report that guides the client on how best to implement the changes.
  • This is due by end-of-day Tuesday on week 8.
• A recorded presentation that provides the highlights of report above. You can assume the client has the report as well, if you were to refer to anything in the report.
  • This is due by end-of-day Thursday on week 8.
  • Note: Although there are many correct ways to approach this, please be sure that your proposed changes support (or align with) the client's issue (see above). This does not preclude you from offering additional insights/benefits of proposed changes, but the client would want to know your design centers around their stated/shared issue(s).