You and several of your classmates from have opened the first Philz Coffee shop in Singapore. As your first international experience in managing staff, you have had the full support of Philz Coffee to equip your store and train your employees. Philz requires that your staff be 25% US and 75% Singapore residents.
Problem -Your team has worked hard to make the store successful, and all has gone well until now. You have received some negative feedback on social media about the service. The staff has had trouble getting along and the customers are starting to feel and see this. Bottom line your staff is not working well together and is in need of some team building. Recent posts have been:
“Staff members are not friendly to each other are rude.”
“My server was really angry and not happy to work with me.”
“I heard the staff using bad language and I left because I didn’t feel comfortable with my children there.”
The great benefit that you have as a group of managers is that some of you speak the local languages of Malay and Chinese, so you will have some ability to communicate with your staff and overcome the language challenges and gain a faster understanding of the culture. This mix of workers still has many cultural and communication challenges for you to discover and overcome.
Part 1- Your Management Style
Identify the kind of management style and role that will work best in this situation and please explain why? (For example, will you simply give them a policy and command they follow it, or will you try to understand the reasons your team isn’t getting along?)
Part 2 – Solve the Problem
How will you solve the problem within your team? How will you have teamwork better together and not lose key members? Please explain how you will address this problem for both quick results and for the long term. One meeting will not be enough to solve the problem.