OB223 Case Study Report :
Agribusiness Pioneer Pty Ltd
Agribusiness Pioneer Pty Ltd is a leading consultant company in the Agribusiness sector. The organisation has a reputation for wanting to attract new talent and has grown with tremendous popularity in the last decade. Founded in 2010, the company has learnt to diversify and is now a key player in the Queensland space for Agribusiness. The company has its head office in Brisbane with many satellite offices located around regional Queensland.
With a workforce of 500 people and working across various locations, the organisation still has a rich history of wanting to lead and innovate in its chosen space of agriculture. The previous CEO, Mr Smith who had led the company towards this success, retired in March 2019. After an intense search Mr Lobo was chosen to be the new CEO. The company stated that it wanted now to graduate to not only be a pioneer in QLD but to capture the national market with an opportunity to also go international.
Mr Lobo had a history of managing large firms and has successfully helped them achieve various visions. The new vision while a challenging one was something that would help propel and establish a new beginning for the company. Mr Lobo was quick to realise that this was only going to be possible with ensuring a great workforce that not only believed the vision but were keen to be part of this growth.
During his first month in charge Mr Lobo realises that the company while being so niche in its area has a large attrition rate. Mr Lobo requested that the HR department provide him with a report of the tenure within the organisation. The following data table was provided to him:
Management Team Breakdown:
| Name | Position | Tenure |
| Mr Lobo | CEO | 1 month |
| Dr Singh | CFO | 5 years |
| Dr Rangel | Innovation Manager | 6 years |
| Ms Duch | PR Manager | 2 years |
| Mr Brown | HR Manager | 3 years |
| Mr Smith | Senior Supervisor Consultant | 3 years |
| Mr Hunt | Junior Supervisor Consultant | 2 years |
| Mr Simms | Junior Supervisor Consultant | 2 years |
Number of Consultants employed and tenure within the organisation:
| Number | Position | Tenure |
| 1 | Consultant | 5 years |
| 1 | Consultant | 4 years |
| 2 | Consultant | 3 years |
| 4 | Consultant | 2 years |
| 50 | Consultant | 1 year |
| 80 | Consultant | 9 months |
| 50 | Consultant | 8 months |
| 190 | Consultant | 6 months |
| 117 | Consultant | 3 months |
Mr Lobo on receiving the report is shocked to see that valuable talent was not even retained for the most of 1 year. Success is built on knowledge retention and this report showcased an alarming statistic of losing it. He requested further report as to why people were leaving the organisation and the HR department furnished the following data for the last 2 years:
| Attrition Number | Reason for Leaving | Tenure at the time of Leaving |
| 90 | Frustrated with work role | 6 months |
| 50 | No growth prospect | 1 year |
| 120 | Role was not clear | 3 months |
| 80 | Lack of support | 1 year |
| 5 | Personal reasons | 5 years |
| 3 | Better opportunity | 3 years |
Mr Lobo was now very certain that there was a massive change needed within the organisation. These statistics were certain to ensure that not only would the company not be able to meet their vision and mission but become quite untenable in the long run.
Mr Lobo decided to undertake a review into the organisational culture and see how these issues could be addressed. His review into the culture identified quite an array of information and listed below is an overview of the same:
- Graduates were easily attracted to the organisation and the PR strategy was helping source new potential easily.
- Lack of induction into what work was entailed by consultants was making it difficult to understand what each consultant had to do.
- Consultants were told to buddy with one another as they chose so that at a minimum there were 2 people that worked with each other.
- Most of the time friends would buddy together and hence people would feel like they were not required or unwanted, forcing isolation and creating frustration.
- Most consultants left under a year of working as they were getting frustrated or underutilised.
- Lack of accountability was making people deflect issues and the large spread of satellite offices with limited access to the head office made matters worse.
- Senior consultants always chose their friends or people who can do the bulk of work while avoiding doing larger amounts of work.
- People were using tenure to push new employees to undertake more work and they took credit when things worked well.
- There was no induction for new recruits into the organisation making it difficult for them to understand how they contributed to the organisations mission and vision.
- Supervisors were overused and hence limited the personal interactions that happened within smaller groups.
- Supervisors were never out in the field and hence were uncertain of issues that consultants faced in the field with clients.
- Passion for new recruits were not harnessed leading to frustration and role ambiguity added more stress.
- All staff were paid better than market price so, people were not feeling the financial pressure.
- Most staff were unsure of what the organisation did for clients and hence it was difficult to assess what they were all contributing towards.
Given this Mr Lobo decided that it was time to make everyone feel a part of the team and contribute. He knew that if people were going to be feeling valued and part of the larger organisation, there had to be a change and it needed to be done quickly, but how was the big question.
He knew that if he broke the consultants into more effective teams and brought in more responsibility, the dynamics would be quite different and effective, but how he was not sure.
Staff performance was also not the highest and he knew a large factor was because people had extremely limited clarity in knowing what was happening within the organisation. How could he change them to feel more empowered?
Lastly, he thought of the organisational structure and support, did the management team provide enough support. He knew deep down this was not enough support but what could he do to make people take more accountability.
Mr Lobo, knew that these were difficult questions and the best way forward was to bring an Organisational Behaviour Expert who can help identify concerns, areas of improvement and suggest a method to help maximise job performance while also ensuring that people were valued and were part of the team. The company needed this change, and Mr Lobo has great faith in the organisational behaviour expert and is looking forward to reading their report and recommendations.
Questions:
Based on the scenario above, you are required to provide a written report (maximum 1750 words) addressing the following 4 questions:
- What are the advantages of teamwork and team building, how would it support job performance? Recommend team style/s that would be required for this success?
- Should there be a consideration for a new job design, better goal setting and working conditions.
- How can the organisation better motivate and empower its staff towards helping them achieve the mission and vision?
- What can the management team do to provide more support and help employees feel more involved and part of the entire organisation?
You are required to use your learning from this unit and support your decisions with literature (minimum 5 articles) outlining what actions need to be undertaken and their benefit that may be perceived. It would be beneficial if you provide a time frame for implementation of your recommendations too. Read your Assessment Rubric to understand minimum requirements.
Use your theories from Organisational Behaviour to understand the organisation and recommend suitable changes to ensure that the company can achieve it mission and vision.
Your report needs to be structured with the following:
- Times New Roman 12pt font to be used
- Cover Page (List your student name, student number, unit name, unit code, lecturer name)
- Contents
- Executive Summary
- Introduction
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- References (must be APA style)
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