Organisational Behaviour—Consulting Assignment

Addressing Organisational Problems at Tech Lab, Inc.

Overview

Your assignment is to use data and your knowledge of organisational behaviour to inform a series of recommendations to Tech Lab, who have hired you as an outside consultant to address two major problems plaguing their company. You will be assessed in terms of your ability to (a) present a professional report, (b) draw upon the organisational behaviour literature to provide evidence-based recommendations, (c) use data to inform your decisions, and (d) use creativity in developing and presenting these recommendations to enhance the extent to which Tech Lab is likely to use them. Particular emphasis will be placed on (b). The marking criteria are shown below.

Identifying Top Talent

In your meetings with Tech Lab, they have voiced concerns that they cannot seem to hire the right people for the job. They are concerned that their recent hires seem talented in the beginning but ultimately turn out to be mediocre performers, who either quit or have to be let go for poor performance. Tech Lab keeps track of the applicant data they collect prior to making a hiring decision and want to know if they can improve their employee selection decision-making in the future (see Tech Lab hiring data.sav datafile in Moodle). The current hiring process calls for applicants to meet education standards (a university degree or better), undergo on-site interviews (with three different managers), and complete an online cultural values test that assesses whether applicants personal values match the Tech Labs values. Tech Lab is planning to hire a large number of new data scientists using their current protocol, but wants to know how they can improve it. The job description for the data scientist role is attached (see Appendix A: Data Scientist job description).

Your job is to recommend ways Tech Lab can improve their broken hiring system. In your recommendation, it is essential that you (a) provide guidance as to which procedures Tech Lab should keep (if any) and which procedures they should drop (if any), and (b) suggest other procedures that would improve their talent selection/hiring process. Your recommendations should be supported by evidence from the organisational behaviour literature (and your own analyses of the data provided). Guidance on data analysis is also attached (see Appendix B: Tips on Using Multiple Regression and ANOVA).

Improving Satisfaction and Motivation

Tech Lab has also set a company goal to improve satisfaction and motivation across its five main departments: accounting, human resources, research and development, consulting, and sales. An outside company recently conducted an employee satisfaction survey of Tech Labs employees, but the outside company did not analyse the data (see Tech Lab employee satisfaction data.sav in Moodle) or provide Tech Lab with results and insights on what to do to improve employee satisfaction and motivation. The survey asked employees to rate their satisfaction with their job overall, their coworkers, their supervisors, the job environment, and their pay and benefits. They have asked you to look at these data and offer a set of actionable recommendations as to what they should do to improve employee satisfaction and retention. It is essential that you (a) identify the departments and aspects of the job with the lowest levels of satisfaction, and (b) explain what specific steps can be taken to improve satisfaction and motivation across the company. Your recommendations should be supported by evidence from the organisational behaviour literature (and your own analyses of the data provided). Guidance on data analysis is also attached (see Appendix B: Tips on Using Multiple Regression and ANOVA).

Things to Remember when Developing Your Recommendations

• Your report should include the following:
• A professional-looking title page
• An executive summary (not counted in the word total)
• Key recommendations (not to exceed 1,000 words):
• Explain why you are recommending a course of action
• Provide evidence for your recommendations
• Refrain from making changes that are not improvements
• Any relevant tables, charts, or analyses (not counted in the word total)
• References pageall references should follow APA style guidelines: https://

Please note that the text below in Section Fsaying that you will be marked down for incorrect analysesdoes not apply to this assignment. While every effort should be made to conduct the correct analyses, this is not a statistics course and you will not be marked down for performing incorrect analyses. However, you are expected to do as much with the data as you can, given the knowledge and resources at your disposal. The important thing is being able to make defensible recommendations that show knowledge of class material based on the analyses conducted.

The marking rubric can be found at the end of this document. Please familiarize yourself with the rubric and read the attached notes carefully.

This assessment contributes towards the achievement of the following stated module Learning Outcomes as highlighted below:

• Use theory and evidence to inform their decisions at work.
• Understand their own leadership styles and assess their own personal development.
• Critique and offer useful alternatives to dubious management practices.
• Understand and apply findings from organisational behaviour to common workplace issues, such as how to motivate employees.
• Use data to enrich and inform their leadership decision-making.