The Roles and Responsibilities of Top Middle and First-Line Managers - Case Study Example

The roles and responsibilities of Top, Middle and First-line managers Student Name: Institution: Date: Table of Contents Company background/description 2 Survey results 3 Analysis/Discussion 6 Company’s strengths 6 Weaknesses 8 Recommendation 8 Challenges faced 9 Lessons learnt 10 Appendix 13 Appendix 1: Survey Form 13 Company background/description Deloitte Company is the Australian partnership of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and its subsidiaries. It is one of the leading professional services firms in Australia which offers audit, consulting, tax and financial advisory services to over 6000 people found in 16 offices across country. The expertise that spans the company’s industry sectors includes automotive, financial services, technology, media and telecommunications, consumer business and government services. The mission of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited is to establish and explore the new opportunities related to large changes not included on the senior management agenda but important to the company. It has a vision to be the leading and inspiring company to work with particularly for its clients, people and community. The main principles driving its culture are continuously grow and improve, empower and trust, play to win by thinking globally, talk straight and recruit and retain competent people. The company focuses on creation of value and growth, a direction that has positioned it as an employer and driver of choice for enhancing innovative human resources initiatives. Deloitte is also dedicated to enabling its clients and own people excel. From its commitment to growth, people and client service, company decided to expand its client base as well as maintain its workforce intact throughout downtown. Therefore, Deloitte continues to position itself for sustainable performance by expanding its business through acquisitions and venturing in new products and services. For detailed information, the company’s website can be visited at www.deloitte.com.au. Survey results Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited’s business has to a very large extent aligned employee behaviors with its stated company values and direction. The company aim to instill in its people a deep sense of individual responsibility to ensure that they demonstrate the required ethical business practices throughout their accomplishments. Specifically, Deloitte’s employees adhere to its Code of Ethical Conduct that clearly reflects the company’s commitment to its clients. Furthermore, the Codes entrenches a deep sense of individual responsibility in its people by reminding them on the significance of certain skills to ethical decision-making. Deloitte ensures ethical conduct by providing every new employee with a copy of its Code of Ethical Conduct and promotes e-learning on ethics (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, 2005). To a large extent, Deloitte promotes a distributed leadership because its individuals and work teams accept their responsibilities for operational decision-making and performance improvement. From the company’s reports, it can be noted that good corporate citizenship is applied in everything that employees accomplish at Deloitte. The company’s responsible business strategy clearly reflects all its aspects of operations in term of client service, supply chain as well as employee relations. Basically, Deloitte’s responsible business program focuses on four major aspects the people agenda (its people and regulators), community and social agenda (its suppliers, people and local communities), green agenda (its people, suppliers, government and market), quality and risk agenda (its people, clients, regulators, government and market). The company is to a large extent involved in the integration of efforts through its Innovation Zone program that is structured to encourage individuals with viable ideas Deloitte (Touche Tohmatshu Limited, 2007). Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu is out-front as it can be seen that it is business is largely involved in determining industry standards and practices. As a leading professional service provider and based on its global corporate policy statement, all its member firms contributes more to public policy, business and society across the world. Delivering objective and insightful advice is one of the Company’s most fundamental responsible business commitments. In addition, the company is up-front in ensuring high standards of integrity and openness in everything they do. The reports show that Deloitte strives for the highest standards of ethical behavior by respecting human dignity. Deloitte business is good at implementing ideas and strategies. The company focuses on a “Back your own stable” to build its foundations for success. The company fosters speed and promotes a high level of agility to effectively implement its ideas and strategies. Therefore, the Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu in Australia is keen to win and maintain its competitive edge (Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu, 2007). In Deloitte business, employees strive to improve customer value creation. Therefore, employees at Deloitte are aware of how their individual efforts contribute to the company’s business success. Deloitte’s Australian leadership views innovation as efforts beyond the skin-deep cosmetic focus on marketing. It has been reported that Giam Swiegers, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) working in collaboration with the company’s Consulting Managing Partner-Gerhard Vorster as well as the leadership team, have largely involved in various innovation activities for Deloitte. They have worked hard to ensure that innovation becomes a pathway through which greater creativity and integration are closely applied in their market performance with all their clients (Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, 2005). Analysis/Discussion Company’s strengths Deloitte business is effective in implementing ideas and strategies. The company focuses on a “Back your own stable” to build its foundations for success. The company fosters speed and promotes a high level of agility to effectively implement its ideas and strategies. Therefore, the Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu in Australia is keen to win and maintain its competitive edge. It is important to note that Deloitte recognizes the significance of creating and sustaining innovation in achieving their ambitious or developmental plans. This implies that it is through company’s efforts in developing their unique innovations and growth capabilities in various firms that they have managed to create new businesses and provide various services. In order to increase its innovation and growth capabilities, Deloitte has increased its employee engagement and loyalty with majority of its people participating in their innovation program. In so doing, the company has seen a return of more than 350% on their investment (Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu, 2007). This clearly shows that Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu Limited’s strategy is innovating from the inside out. In order to perform more efficiently and effectively, different types of managers have to be employed. This includes the first-line managers, middle managers and senior managers. Basically, the first-line managers work at the base level and they are responsible for day-to-day supervision of the non-managerial employees. Middle managers are responsible for providing the best approaches to handling human and other resources so as achieve the organizational goals. In contrast to first-line managers and middle managers, senior managers are responsible for the performance of the entire departments in an organization (Druskat & Wheeler, 2003). It is relevant to point out that Deloitte’s Innovation Zone program is well structured to enhance support and development for all employees. This encourages all employees who can provide innovative ideas regarding how to improve the company’s internal processes, service delivery to their clients, new products and services that can be launched in the global market. Therefore, it cannot be doubted that Deloitte brand is well-known for its thought leadership that focuses on innovation. Generally, Deloitte’s competitive market edge is sustainably achieved because of various factors working in favor of the company’s realizing its growth. It seems that the capability of them to retain its global consulting arm has uniquely positioned Deloitte among the different accounting services firms particularly in Australia. This can be advocated for as the main strength enabling the company to offer a fully integrated service that takes into account broader as well as cross-disciplined solutions to different client issues. The management of Deloitte Company is aware that innovation cannot be limited to products and services but believe that contemporary business models do not adequately and effectively address the issue of sustainability. Therefore, the company has adopted transformational business model innovation to enable it take the full benefits of sustainability within the marketplace (Manufacturers Association and Deloitte Development LLC, 2009). Weaknesses To a weak extent, Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu Limited balances the short-term and medium term issues and requirements. Basically, the company’s mission is to establish and explore new opportunities related to large changes that are not stated on the senior management agenda though important. However, on limited occasions that the company takes into account the significance of short-term action as well as day-to-day working environment of their executives. Although the company conducts original research and creates substantive points in which to venture for its new corporate growth, to a moderate extent everybody in Deloitte business is involved in the learning program. Recommendation It is crucial for Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu Limited to take a continuous learning focus so as to be updated on demographical, marketing, technological and geographical changes that affect its edge of competitive landscape. Such changes inevitably strike at the operational and managerial heart of every business. In order to develop more of its internal capabilities, Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu Limited should focus on balancing its short-term and medium term issues and requirements rather than just establishing and exploring new opportunities related to large changes that are not stated on the senior management agenda. Developing internal capabilities will help to ensure that employees are developed and motivated to improve on their individual and organizational performance. In addition, the senior managers should encourage people or employees under their authority to participate in continuous learning or research so as to enhance the Deloitte’s new corporate growth. Challenges faced The greatest challenge faced was establishing the exact information about individual employee’s performance in achieving the objectives of the organization. In order to overcome this challenge, a strategic analysis was made to determine whether if or not the senior managers engage all employees in their innovative and decision making processes. From my own analysis, I discovered that Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu Limited provides solutions to complex issues for its clients by engaging its people through various innovative communication channels and thinking capacities. Therefore, it was necessary to conclude that a good a number of employees are encouraged to give their views on the new strategic focus that the company can take, and thus value their efforts in achieving organizational performance. However, other challenges included limited time to conduct research but I tried the best to plan how the objectives of the assignment could be achieved within the allocated time duration. It was also difficult to establish the real competitors of the company and how they perform on the global market. Therefore, I relied on the company yearly reports to analyze how the company succeeds despite the challenges it also faces not only in Australia but also in the global market. Lessons learnt Generally, Deloitte promotes a culture of empowering and trusting, talking straight, playing to win by thinking globally, continuous growing and developing, recruiting and retaining the most competent people. The most fundamental lesson learnt from Deloitte’s culture is that commitment to innovation is crucial for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. It can be noted that by focusing on innovation, a company encourages its employees to develop new ideas or products and services that can generate value for itself as well as its clients and country. Giam Swiegers, Deloitte CEO’s (2010) states that the company is proud of its good-natured culture with serious objective. He emphasizes that Deloitte is majorly involved in the business of solving very complex issues for all its clients by engaging its own people through various innovative communication channels and thinking capacities. Therefore, commitment to innovation activities is the foundation that modern companies with the intent of winning a competitive edge must develop so as to create a unique environment and be strategically positioned in the global market. It is important to note that managing a diverse workforce is a challenging task for all managers. Based on the managerial approaches of Deloitte Company, it is apparent that effective managers should be able recognize the importance of handling human resources fairly and equitably. Therefore, it is crucial for managers to utilize the performance enhancing opportunities by taking advantage of the available abilities, skills and experiences of the diverse people around them. Managers who recognize the integral role played by their diverse employees invest in developing their employees’ skills and capabilities (Cox & Blake, 1999). References Cox, T. H & Blake, S. (1999). ‘Managing Cultural Diversity: Implications for Organizational Competitiveness.’ Academy of Management Executive, 9, 49–52. Druskat, V. U & Wheeler, J. V. (2003). ‘Managing from the Boundary: The Effective Leadership of Self-Managing Work Teams.’ Academy of Management Journal 46 (3), 435–58. Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu Limited (2005). “Innovation Story: Innovating from the inside out.” Retrieved October 14, 2013 from, Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu Limited (2007). “Back your own stable: Build the foundations for success by fostering speed and agility to win and keep on winning.” Retrieved October 14, 2013 from, Grocery Manufacturers Association and Deloitte Development LLC. (2009). “Finding the green in today’s shoppers: Sustainability trends and new shopper insights.” Retrieved October 14, 2013 from, Swiegers, G. (2010). “Deloitte Company is proud of its good-natured culture with serious objective.” Retrieved October 14, 2013 from, < http://eiti.ekon.go.id/uploads/downloadfiles/2013-07-18-74_1_Final_Validators_Report_-_after_QAR.pdf > Deloitte Touche Tohmatshu Limited Australian Company’s website www.deloitte.com.au Appendix Appendix 1: Survey Form Name: Tim Richards Contact Details (Email and Tel): Tel: +61 8 9365 7248 Position: Lead Audit Partner Company: The Australian partnership of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited For each statement, please circle the number which most closely represents the extent to which this principle currently describes your company. Not at all To a weak extent To a moderate extent To a large extent To a very large extent Principle 1: Alignment Our business has aligned employee behaviors with stated company values and direction. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 2: Distributed Leadership In our business, individuals and work teams are assigned, and accept, responsibility for operational decision making and performance improvement. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 3: Integration of Effort Our business is not a functional/ hierarchical organization but a value creation/process focused organization. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 4: ‘Out-Front’ Our business takes a lead in determining industry standards and practices. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 5: ‘Up-Front’ We apply high standards of integrity and openness in everything we do. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 6: Resourcing the Medium Term Our business is able to effectively balance short-term and medium term issues and requirements. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 7: Time Based Time is a critical organisational value in our business. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 8: Bias for Action Our business is good at implementing ideas and strategies. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 9: Learning Focus Everyone in our business is involved in a learning/development program. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 10: Discipline We invest in policies, procedures and standards and apply a strong systems perspective in our business. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 11: Measurement/Reporting and Publication Our business measures and reports to our employees, the financial and non-financial performance information needed to excel. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 12: Customer Value In our business, all employees strive to enhance customer value creation. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 13: Capabilities Creation Business and organisational capabilities are defined as priority areas for development and investment. 1 2 3 4 5 Principle 14: Micro to Macro Our employees know how their individual efforts contribute to business success. 1 2 3 4 5 NB. Marked in red color means the selected extent to which the principle currently describes Deloitte Company Read More