S-S Technology Analysis

Outline:

Introduction:

- Background information about SS-Technology (Ouijdane)

Body

I.Swot Analysis (Ouijdane)

II- Re-defining Goals (Zineb)

III-Structure of the organization (Kaoutar)

IV-Management of the teams (Ouijdane)

V-Compensation and Bonuses (Fadwa)

VI- Physical problems and Partenring Program (Suad)

Introduction:

SS-Technology has offices throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

It provides the global financial services industry with a broad range of highly

specialized software, software enabled-services and software as a service (SaaS)

solutions for operational excellence. It delivers mission-critical processing for

information management, analysis, trading, accounting, and reporting. Their clients

manage, over $26 trillion in assets and choose SS&C as their preferred vendor for

expertise.

SWOT analysis

:

After we have reading the case study, we came out with a SWOT analysis that

includes

Flat organization

Flat organization

Compensation issue

Physical space

Overcoming recession

Recession

High demand of employees

As you notice, we considered the flat organization structure as a strength and

weaknesses. We decided to keep the same organization structure but with some

modifications that will be mentioned in the report later on.

Re-defining Goals

Absence of unified clear goals and strategies

In our case study, there is a serious problem concerning the delivery of goals that the

organization should achieve, since few employees are aware of SST's goals and

strategies. Even within the top managers (Brock, Pritchard, Suttie, and Schwarz)

significant differences existed regarding SST's goals and strategies.

Therefore, it is crucial for SST to have a good mission statement since it helps the

organization to prosper and grow, also it inspires employees and guide them in

making decisions and provides a focus and direction for setting lower level objectives.

Plus, it helps know why does the organization exist?

Also it is very important for SST Company to have clear goals for many reasons:

It facilitates planning process, guideline and direction, helps employees stay focused

in getting what the organization wants to achieve, promote evaluation and control, and

inspire motivation and commitment.

Here we can say that the mission and goals of the organization wasn’t clearly stated

which resulted in ambiguity.

The owner has a goal but he couldn't communicate well with his employees who

ended up not really knowing goals of the corporation. That's why the consultant

should find a way in order to clearly state goals, mission, vision, policies, and

strategies of the organization to employees (that should be fully aware and

understanding the goal of the company and the direction where it is going). Getting

together to work through this process will help to build a coherent team and improve

communication. It will enable to communicate more effectively with current and

potential funders, and with employees.

- Brock should expose his goals to the managers and asks for their suggestions.

All have to agree on a specific mission in order to convey it to employees.

- It would be a good idea if the organization publishes employee's hand books in

which the vision, mission, goals, strategies, plans, directions, policies-

performance, responsibilities, and roles of each department are clearly stated.

- In the handbook policies should be stated for instance:

o The reporting line of ISG and PG are the mediator one and two

accordingly, employees must report to them all tasks that they are

performing and they should consult them before taking any decision

o Appropriate dressing, mutual respect, working hours, holidays and

leaves.

o Encourage people to interact outside the work environment (dinner or

sport events)

o Avoid creating hierarchy

o Reduce Turnover rate

o Improve employee satisfaction

- The handbook could be designed online which will be cost saving in terms of

paper and ink.

- Managers should conduct an orientation(seminar/ workshop) designed

specifically to explain each issue provided in the handbook and make sure that

employees fully understand the mission and the strategies they follow so they

can achieve successfully this mission. After this orientation, managers can

conduct or design focus groups.

- Same design as the previous one but we will be conducting it only on one

group (control group) and the other group will not be participating ( no

handbook no training and no orientation)

- Qualitative data collection in which they try to understand employee's needs,

interests, and understanding of the company direction now and in the future.

- Show how goals of the company are tied to the employee's interests which

may affect their motivation to perform tasks. (Bound the interest of the

employees with the interest of the company). It could be interesting if the

managers educate employees about the connection between their efforts

company success and their goals. Also, refer to Maslow's Hierarchy as a tool

for helping managers identify employee needs

- Regarding the time needed to implement the design, the orientation or the

workshop should not be distracting employees, and so it would be done after

the working time (2 hours, and twice only)

Evaluation:

Ensuring that the employee is aware of what the company is expecting him or

her to perform.

Measuring Employee's progress toward the goal by observing the results on

the control group.

Structure of the organization

Team Management:

Since the company is team-based, it is must to improve the team management

issue to ensure better outcomes for the company in general, and for the employees

specifically.

Team work can be a very productive way to share knowledge, learn, and

succeed if we managed it the right way. So in order to have an effective team there

should some guidelines, and setting in order to be effective such as: Clear goals,

unified commitment, good communication, mutual trust, effective leadership,

negotiating skills, and relevant skills.

In our case study the team work management suffers from various problems such as:

no clear goals, lack of communication, no clear tasks for each team member, and the

absence of leadership which leave a ciaos within the team

As a solution for these various problems, we propose first to have a job rotation

because it is about setting employees at the right place where they can deliver the

maximum and positive outcome. Job rotation will help the employees identify their

knowledge, skills, and attitudes which will help the team manager to help the other

team members to improve for much better results. Job rotation will help align

competencies with requirements to direct the resources when and where they are

required. When the job is rotated, the employees can better explore their interests

because sometimes they are not aware of their capacities until they are exposed to

different tasks. Moreover, since the teamwork within the company suffers from the

absence of leadership, we propose to train one of Hi Po that will be chosen, since we

don’t have enough budget, and he can deliver what he have leaned with his team. In

addition,the kind of training that we have decided to implement is ‘on the-job

training’ which will allow the employee to get the training while performing his

actual job. . On-the-job training typically includes verbal and written instruction,

demonstration and observation, and hands-on practice and imitation. In addition, the

on-the-job training process involves one employee—usually a supervisor or an

experienced employee—passing knowledge and skills on to a novice employee. In

order to have a productive training, each Hi-Po in each team will gather in a meeting,

In order for each one of them to come out with the best strategy for their teams

because each of them will be dealing with different employees, but the trainings

should complete each other to come out with the best outcomes. Finally, concerning

the issue of who the team leaders should report, we decided to choose Vivienne Ojala

because she is good project manager, and she have the ability to build confidence with

customer which gives her a good idea about what customer prefer so she can report to

the employees so they can make the necessary modification to satisfy the customer;

therefore, we think it is a must to report to Vivienne Ojala and because she left and

came back she must have a meeting with the employees so she can explain to them

her role and how she can help them in their project, and build confidence with the

employee for better outcomes.

To insure a good satisfaction of the employees in their team, they have to choose their

leader in order to feel relaxed while working, which will add more motivation, and

better outcomes.

COMPENSATION ISSUE:

S-S technologies suffer from compensations an issue that arises from interviews. No

policies regarding bonus or merit pay and both Brock and Pritchard are wondering

what are those policies that should be adopted and how should it be develop. SST was

a part of Sutherland-Schultz , after the recession it couldn’t afford anymore to pay

bonuses . Now that SST stands on its own and to end the uncertainty and

disappointment caused by a random system, there is an opportunity to tie bonuses

directly to the company’s performance

Through the bonus system, they want to achieve the following goals

To develop a cooperative, team spirit

To not reward weak performance

To foster cooperation between TSG and PG and limit interpersonal

competition

To provide extra reward for unique contribution.

How to Structure a Bonus Plan for S-S technologies?

Before you promise anything, determine your financial obligations, then base the

bonus on profit or revenue. You could also tie the bonus to a financial goal, such as

achieving a certain level of revenue, or a non-financial goal, such as attracting a set

number of clients.

Individual’s compensation

The individual’s compensation must be based on criteria that can be measurable,

allowing the employer to give fair compensation for each individual:

The employer can compensate their employers depending on PERFORMANCE,

where the employee can use the MERIT PAY as a mean reward for more productive

employees for their increased contributions to the organization, but also with an eye to

retain the best employees in a company. This process can be shaped depending on

profiles. In fact, Merit pay helps an employer differentiate between the performances

of high and low performing employees and reward the performance of the higher

performers.

However we looked for some drawbacks of merit pay, from the employer's

standpoint, is that it can quickly become expensive. However the company can set

guidelines on the number of employees that will receive the top rating.

The compensation can also be based on new learned skills; in fact, an employee after

training is transferring new skills into his job. So with this adding value the employee

can be compensating on that. Also the EXPERIENCE, where a 20 years’ employee

experience must be compensate differently (especially if we are talking about HIGH

POTENTIAL employees in leading positions) compared to a newly graduate

employee. In addition, inexperienced candidate perform their job with addition

training in parallel which is time consuming and more money put in to it while

experienced one are performing their job without any f theses.

Also as other criteria we can state the SENORITY, because compensations differ

from senior employees than fresher. Because of their seniority and because of their

years of experiences in the same company, they are valued with large compensation in

other to fit into key positions for succession planning.

Another criterion that must be taken into consideration is POTENTIAL, and this

compensation is especially for young employees, where they are rewarded for their

potential.

For the team : It is very difficult to compensate each individual in a team, so the

compensation will be Performance oriented on an equally basis. However each

individual in a team will be compensate differently depending on his profile, Position

and Potential.

For example if

Peter Roeser

Ian Suttie Team

Colleen Richmond.

Then they will be compensate depending on their achievements as a group and their

performance (equally compensate). However, If Peter has a higher position and a

higher profile with a higher potential he will be rewarded on that too. Different

profiles mean different compensations.

For the performance based compensation the team would be compensated according

to their rate of performance. Which team performed the best? Which team performed

the worst? Accordingly, the compensation will be attributed depending on well they

performed.

The company can also implement another compensation plan that is directly tied to

reward’s preferences (For either individual or teams) by designing a customized

internal platform. Each individual in the company can go and access to this designed

page online where they can choose from the reward he or she could like to get.

This platform is categorizing the status of each person; the value of rewards is

automatically linked with the status.

If their status is LOW in the company:

Then they will be having rewards according to their status for example

- Tickets to restaurants

- A monetary compensation: 150-300 dollars

- Christmas Bonus ( a free Christmas tree )

- Ticket to concerts

- 10 session Spa & Massage

If their status is in THE MIDDLE:

Monetary compensation: 400-800 dollars

A stay in a 4 star hotel

A free membership in a Sport& Spa center.

If their status is HIGH:

Monetary compensation: 1000-2000 dollars

A week destination in a 5 star Hotel with family

An access VIP to a festival

Physical Space

Need Assessment:

As it is stated in the case, the company is facing a small physical space that creates

uncomfortable sphere to work in. What makes this issue more serious is that the

company is expecting to have addition employees soon.

Designing:

To address this issue, two simple but effective solutions can be raised, the first one is

to go for virtual offices and the second one is to develop the flexible work schedule.

Talking about the first solution, the manager can choose one department whose

employees will be sent to work at home using the internet. There is also a possibility

that the manager sets days per week to meet with those employees within the

company; in fact, going for such step can help in resolving the small space in the

company at the same time increase the life-work balance that will contribute to

motivate the employees and increase their satisfaction. Some would argue to go for

such change gradually and not radically, and that also makes sense, and based on such

argument manager can introduces some elements of the virtual office to the real work

done in the company till employees all feel they are doing well with such system.

When they reach to the point where they show self-efficacy with dealing with

different software "basic software that build up the virtual office" for example, using

the customer data base to track the customers and smoothly communicate with them,

then the manager can move to the real application of virtual office in which

employees can master their work and master the new technique they will be working

with easily. Using the virtual office can result in a great number of advantages that

end up in having successful employees and powerful company. By using the virtual

offices, the company can save a huge amount of money that can be invested in

development programs or can get to the company saving coasts. Changing the work to

be more flexible is one of the virtual office advantages also, the employee in this case

is having control over the time he or she prefers to work and by so the quality of the

work itself can be positively influenced, employees would be working at home,

saving traveling coasts, and balancing their family and work life. However, the

manager should be aware of the drawback regarding the same technology and try to

avoid them, one simple example of the virtual office disadvantages is that both

employees and the company can be isolated for sometimes especially with the

employee who will be sometimes missing an important news about what is happening

in the company or new job vacancy offered within the company.

The second solution to deal with the physical space the company suffers from is to

develop the flexible working schedule that will help to provide free space in a way

that the space itself will be operated either for twenty four hours or by different time

slot. The employees will be compromising their working days in a way that will

ensure that their productivity would be the same if not increased and their motivation

toward work increase since they will be controlling when and where to perform the

task they are asked to do. In fact, the company is already conducting such technique

but the point is that the working schedule is to be changed and be considered to be

helping both the employees and the company space.

Implementation

To apply the first solution suggested above, the manager should as explained above

introduce the virtual office aspect to the company and that is to go for gradual change

that guarantees the effectiveness of the change rather than going for radical change in

on time that might face lot of problems within the employees. So, the first step can

include a new system within the company in which all employees will be sending

their work reports electronically to the mail system software instead of face to face

interaction. After a while od applying such design, another system will be introduced

and suggested to be used instead of the previous or the traditional way employees

used to perform their work and so. At the end of those new additions, it will be

obvious that there is a great number of employees who will be mastering those new

systems and are satisfied to work with which will be an indicator to go for full-

change work system, here is the point where the manager will be choosing a

department whose employees will be fully working by the virtual office system.

Furthermore, the application of the second suggestion (Flexible working schedule)

won't really take long time because the company already is conducting it but they will

need to develop it more to address up the issue it faces. Simply the schedule will be

presenting the different time slots employees in each department will start and end

their work as well as providing the shifts that will be either during the weekend or

during the week at night.

Hence, virtual office and flexible working schedule are two methods to deal with

space issue in the company; they both also can play a great role in motivating and

enhancing employee's working and family life.

Evaluation

Despite the method selected to be applied, the manager can evaluate the method

effectiveness by relying on specific variables or indicators. Employee's motivation

should be fostered since he or she now is having more control over the working time

and place. Another variable would be focused on is productivity, making sure that

changing the time or the place of the employees won't affect negatively on the

productivity weather if it is quality or quantity based.

Partnering program

Another serious problem facing the company is the partnership or retaining the high

potential employees within the company. The case clearly states that the high

potential employees in the company are leaving the company frequently for other

counter offers, those who exist are not feeling that they are empowered enough or not

having strong commitment to the company.

Design

To retain the potential employees, it is very important to well understand the reasons

they are not happy or satisfied with working with the company, it could one simple

aspect that is causing all those negative reactions. So, the first suggestion to address

up this issue is to look for related factors that led those employees to be like that,

conducting exit interviews for those leaving the company can be helpful in a way that

will reveal the truth (employees honesty won't affect anything he or she is leaving the

company anyway). In fact, those interviews are direct and they locate to the major

reasons that forced the HiPo employee to leave the company, it could be the culture of

the company that is not matching the employee's personality, the management style,

the work responsibilities and tasks which are not matching employee's expectations,

etc.

The second suggestion to go for is to provide gains haring program especially

targeting those employees, this option will be accomplishing success and

effectiveness since the company structure is now a team based design which ensure

that this program is linked to the structure. Gain sharing program will be helping

those employees to foster their commitment, belongingness, and motivation; those

employees will be participating in this program by deciding on developing an area or

aspect within the company (with management approval) and implement their

knowledge and skills to this program. Simple examples can be developing or

designing a new attendance system, providing new variables to be taken into

consideration while appraising employees, and so. If the program those employees

participated in succeeded, then they will be sharing its revenues with the company,

yet if it did not work as expected then their contract with the company will be

renewed. Getting in those programs let the employees feel that they are participating

in major changes in the company in addition to the saving coast they can have.

In some cases, high potential employees are more focusing into nonmonetary benefits,

but more into recognition that referring to the Maslow hierarchy of needs enhance

their self-esteem. Tis again related to the first point mentioned above about looking

for the reasons why those employees are not feeling energized, usually titles let's say

are motivating those employees and let them psychologically feeling better.