The ways that AbeBooks can use the three components of creativity - Case Study Example

? EMPLOYEE TURNOVER By: Table of contents Table of contents 2 0 Introduction 3 2. 0 of the case 3 3.1 Company values 6 3. 2 Motivation 7 3.3 Teamwork 8 4. 0 Conclusion 9 References 10 1.0 Introduction AbeBooks has consistently been listed among the top 100 employers by Macleans Magazine starting from 2003 to 2008. Despite this impressive rating, AbeBooks has is experiencing a high turnover on its employees of late. The manager of Email and Online Marketing, Antonio Frias explains that this two heads from this department have left within a period of one month (Kelleher, 2009, p. 1). Moreover, another exit of Christine; Affiliates Manager in the Online Marketing team is eminent. If Christine resigns, all the three positions in this department would have been turned over within a month. This demonstrates that there is something that is not working well in the management of the company. Furthermore, high rates of employee are linked to lower performance evidenced by decreased profitability and customer service (Ton and Huckman, 2008, p. 56). It is therefore critical to identify the causes of high employee turnover and propose strategies that can to reverse this trend. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to identify the values of the company and evaluate whether they contribute to employee high turnover rate. It will also seek to evaluate whether motivation of the employees and teamwork in the organization is a cause of the turnover. Lastly, the paper will discuss ways that AbeBooks can use the three components of creativity to an opportunity that will appeal to Christine to reconsider her decision of moving out of the company. 2. 0 Description of the case AbeBooks was emerged from Timeless Books founded by Cathy (Kelleher, 2009, p. 2). Timeless Books generally stocked second-hand books but Cathy realized that people were coming to into the store and requested from books that were not in the store. Consequently she put up an advert in a business magazine where she listed about hundred books that she intended to purchase from other book sellers. Following her advert, she received many replies on the selection of the books available (Kelleher, 2009, p. 2). However, she was faced by a problem of sorting out these replies and after sharing her concerns with husband, he proposed developing an online database to which listed booksellers and their books in well defined format. In 1995, AbeBooks was company started and enjoyed massive growth through the years. After seeing the company during its initial years, Cathy and Rick exited in 2001 and a new CEO was hired. In 2003, the last of the founders, Keith and Vivian left (Kelleher, 2009, p. 3). By 2009, AbeBooks had 135 employees and offices in Germany and Canada. The growth of the company has been fuelled by the increasing online inventory and increased numbers of customers and booksellers. In addition, AbeBooks has made acquisition of other companies which has enhanced its growth. Bent was replaced by Hannes in 2003 who formerly worked with the senior management at Dusseldorf in Germany (Kelleher, 2009, p. 4). Kelleher explains that ‘‘AbeBooks business model can be described as both business to business and business to customer’’. AbeBooks makes profits by marketing services to booksellers and offering a secure platform for ecommerce (Kelleher, 2009, p. 4). At AbeBooks, the marketing department primary goal is to attract as many buyers to the website and manage the customer’s experience when making purchases. The duty of Online Marketing team is to increase traffic to the site and the Interactive marketing team is charged with the responsibility of managing the buyers’ experience. Before Antonio took over the leadership of Online Marketing employees, the department was headed by Sebastian Eberley who is a strategist who always adopted a practical approach and was up-to-date with development of effective ecommerce (Kelleher, 2009, p. 5). On the other hand Antonio has a friendly, straight and adopts a positive approach sin managing the employees under him (Kelleher, 2009, p. 6). Before Tim who was an Online Marketer left the company, he came to Antonio and explained that he had been invited to switch over to a local technology company which was offering a 35 percent pay rise. He was seeking to know if AbeBooks could match this offer. After discussions with the managers at the HR department, Antonio reported that the salary was not feasible. The salary being offered was more than the market values for a similar position in addition to the fact that the rise would create inequalities in the company. Furthermore an evaluation of Tim’s past performance showed that he was not an effective manager and therefore they conclude to allow him to go to the competitor. A week after Tim’s exit and as the company was seeking for a replacement, Peter; an Email Marketing specialist came to Antonio in a dilemma. His girlfriend was moving back to England and they wanted to go together. In contrast to Tim, Peter had demonstrated strong performance and had great potential of growth and especially following the company’s acquisition by Amazon. As AbeBooks placed advert to recruit an Email specialist, there were dozen applicants some being private consultants. However, hiring of such individual would be conflict of interest since the companies in the industry compete on innovation. Just before the two vacant positions could be filled, Christine informed Antonio that she was dissatisfied with her position and requested to be given more creative work. Moreover, she wanted to work for four days of a week. Christine had been in the same position since 2006 and had always raised concerns on whether this is the position she wanted hold. Antonio had been able to appeal Christine by giving her roles in coming up with the content for the website and creating the company’s newsletter. However, this was time Antonio felt like the company was running out of options to make Christine’s position more creative. 3.0 Description of the results 3.1 Company values From the case study and going through the company’s website, it is evident that the company is committed to upholding customer service as one of its main value. According to Kelleher (2009, p. 1) Cathy after noting that the customers were coming to the company and failing to get the books they require, she decided to consult with her husband on how to improve this. The greatest driving force behind the company’s developing of an online database is to ensure that customer received the greatest value when making purchases. The company collects allows its customers to choose their subjects, manage their budget and have fun (‘’Basic Guide to Book Collecting’’). Moreover, the company offers to refund money to the customer incase the deliver is not done within thirty days. Customer service is described as a sequence of activities undertaken to ensure customer satisfaction (Turban, et al., 2002, p. 12). The other value evident from the case study for AbeBooks is that the company is committed to ensuring that it pays its employees in accordance to market value and upholding equity among the employees. When Tim requested for a pay rise, the human resource department looked at his current terms and concluded that they were in accordance with the market value for his position (Kelleher, 2009, p. 6). Moreover, the department found out that if they awarded him a pay rise it would lead to inequalities in the organization. Inequality can lead to dissatisfaction among other workers. The next value noted from the case study and AbeBooks company website is that the company has a value of hiring a diverse workforce. Kelleher (2009, p. 1) explains that the company has over ten multinational employees. This shows that the company is an equal employer. The fourth value of the company is innovation in the products it offers. The company offers unique selection for its customers such rare books. Moreover, the company uses innovative ways to motivate its staff, where there is a staff blog and use the social networks to reach out to its customers such as Facebook and twitter. The other value upheld by the company is value for performance. Before the company can hire a new employee it has to be certain that the employee would add value to the company. Kelleher (2009, p. 6) explains that the Online Marketing team has to calculate the Expected Revenue share which represents the total amount of revenue generated following spending of an extra dollar. 3. 2 Motivation AbeBooks strives to motivate its staff by ensuring that they are rewarded according to the prevailing market values. In this case the company, the company strives to offer competitive remuneration to the workers. In the case of Christine, the company requires to adopt the motivation model developed by Abraham Maslow. Maslow model of hierarchy of needs holds that individuals are always motivated to satisfy various kinds of needs (Langton, Robbins and Judge, 2009). Some needs are usually more pressing than others and individuals strive to fulfill the pressing needs. The needs identified in the law include self-actualization, esteem, belonging, safety and physiological. In the case of Christine, she wants achieve self-actualization and consequently the company should give her a more challenging position. The other motivation model applicable to Christine is the Frederick Herzberg. The first way to motivation is by preventing dissatisfaction at the work place and the other motivator is one which results in satisfaction in a job. Antonio used this model where he tried to introduce new aspects that would make Christine not become dissatisfied where she was given the role of creating materials for websites and a company’s newsletter (Kelleher, 2009, p. 8). These were aimed at reducing her dissatisfaction. 3.3 Teamwork Teamwork is a critical component for the success of any company. At AbeBooks it is evident that there is team work since any time an employee wanted to leave they would come to Antonio who is there leader and share their concerns. In case of Peter, Antonio counseled him about the importance of developing his career. Moreover, Antonio has been working in collaboration with the human resource team to handle employee issues. When Antonio learnt that Christine is dissatisfied with her position, he discussed it with the Human Resource department and developed new roles for her. This is in accordance to John Adair model of teamwork which states that any team to respond to its leadership, they should be well defined tasks and performance of the task relates to the needs of a team and persons within the team (Castka, Sharp and Bamber, 2003, p. 33). In the company employee always seek for guidance from their leaders. 3.4 Creativity There are various components of creativity which include personality, behavior and attitude (McIntyre, Hite & Rickard, 2003, p. 143). These components can be applied to appeal Christine to remain at AbeBooks. Christine personality is that she is willing to get into something more challenging and wants to change her current position. Consequently, Antonio can switch her to another position which gives her more challenges and she will remain in the organization. Moreover, Christine has an attitude that she can comfortably work in a dynamic environment and therefore if she is given a challenging position she work hard to achieve the targets of the position. The other component of creativity evident in Christine is that she has a good behavior. Even though she felt discontented with the position, she discusses this with the leader. Moreover, when new roles where introduced she was satisfied and worked well. Therefore in case new duties are developed for her she can still remain. 4. 0 Conclusion High employee turnover impacts negatively on the company’s profitability and customer service. However, it critical that companies continue to uphold positive values and evaluate them continuously to ensure they do not lead to employee loss. Furthermore, companies must devise ways to ensure that their employees are always motivated. Creativity is one of the strategies that can be used to reverse a trend of high employee turnover as monotony leads to dissatisfaction among employees. References ‘‘Basic Guide to Book Collecting’’ viewed 7th, March, 2012 Castka, P., Sharp, J.M. & Bamber, C.J. 2003, "Assessing teamwork development to improve organizational performance", Measuring Business Excellence, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 29-36. Kelleher, A. 2009, ‘‘Taking a Page from AbeBooks: The Evolution of a Team’’ BC Institute of Technology pp. 1-18 Langton,N., Robbins, P. and Judge, T. 2009, ‘‘Organizational Behaviour: Concepts, Controversies, Applications, Fifth Canadian Edition with MyOBLab’’ Pearson Education Canada; 5th edition. McIntyre, F.S., Hite, R.E. & Rickard, M.K. 2003, "Individual characteristics and creativity in the marketing classroom: Exploratory insights", Journal of Marketing Education, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 143-149. Ton, Z. and Huckman, S., 2008, ‘’Managing the impact of employee turnover on performance: the role of process conformance’’, Organization Science 19(1), pp. 56–68. Turban, E. et al 2002, ‘’Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective’’. Prentice Hall, pp. 12. Read More