Decision Making and Problem Solving Methods

Question: Discuss about the Decision Making and Problem Solving Methods. Answer: Introduction 7-Eleven Stores Pty. Ltd., Australia is considered to be the first choice as far as convenience is concerned.7-Eleven is a private company, the ownership of which is in the hands of the Withers and Barlow family. The 7-Eleven company which is US based has the license of operating and franchising the 7-Eleven stores IN Australia. The company opened its first store in Australia in 1977 and at present over 615 stores are being operated by the company in the states of Australian Capital Territory, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and very recently it started its operations in Western Australia also. By means of these stores, 7-Eleven carries out over 185 million transactions during the course of a year which results in the generation of sales of almost $3.6 billion. Throughout the world, the company has been operating nearly 55,000 stores in 16 nations and opens almost six days in a day in some part of the world or the other (7-Eleven Stores, 2016). This report will take into account the management problems which are existing in the company in Australia. After the identification of these problems, framing of specific research questions will be done with the view of addressing problems or decisions of the management. A research program will also be designed for this purpose. Research will be carried out subsequent to the sourcing of data from secondary and primary. Thereafter an analysis of the findings will be done along with the identification of alternatives. For bringing improvements in the organizational performance, recommendations will be made. The persuasive report preparation will also be done for showing the manner in which the management can tackle the problem or the decision. Management Problem The biggest chain of convenience stores in Australia, 7-Eleven has been facing issues related to paying most of its staff wages which are as less as $10 per hour prior to tax and the own figures of the company indicate that almost two-thirds of the stores of the company have been ripping off the workers in this way. It has been revealed by the internal documents of the company that between the months of July and August in 2015, the payroll compliance was reviewed by the head office of 7-Eleven in 225 stores. As a result of this it was found out that 69 stores were facing issues in relation to the payroll. On the basis of the review of one month this is equal to one out of every four stores. These activities apparently extended beyond the case of wage frauds and included blackmails and passports as well as drivers licenses of the employees being withheld. The documents also revealed that laws are continuously being flouted and the staff is being underpaid even though they have been ca ught by Fair Work Ombudsman. Further investigations are still in progress (Ferguson et al., 2015). Research Questions What are the issues that the company is facing currently which have resulted in negative publicity for the organisation? What measures should the HR management of the company adopt in order to tackle the above issues? Designing a Research Program The framework which is chosen with the view of carrying out the study is known as the research design (Malhotra, 2011). The full plan in relation to the methods which the researchers will be using for the collection as well as the analysis of data in order to find the proper answers to the research questions will be contained in this part. Exploratory research design will be utilized in this study. The justification for using this design is that it will assist in detailed assessment of the reasons why the company has been getting negative publicity of late in Australia. This will also assist in finding out the measures which can be used by the companys HR managers in order to deal with the above issues. Research Strategy Research strategy comprises the plan for approaching the research questions (Neuman, 2004). The nature of the research strategy may be quantitative as well as qualitative. The study which is being conducted is exploratory in nature and its emphasis is on being descriptive in nature and hence qualitative research will be carried out. To give the researcher higher flexibility in the collection of data under natural settings, the design will be an emergent one (Creswell, 2003). Data Collection The instrument that was used for the collection of the data was an open ended questionnaire. There were five formal questions used for obtaining the responses from the participants who were selected for the study. Four HR managers of the company who are working across Australia were the respondents. The questionnaire was used so that good quality data could be collected and it was structures in accordance with the study so that data that was collected was relevant (Adler Clark, 2011). The questions on the issues related to business practices which are being faced by the company currently and the negative impact that it is having on it. They also included questions on the steps that the company is taking or needs to take for addressing these issues. The collected qualitative data was relevant from the perspective of the research questions. Secondary Research Data Reliable sources were utilized in order to collect secondary data for the study and then the information from the different sources was accumulated. The collection of secondary data for the study was primarily done from the various authentic websites and also the reports appearing in the different periodicals of the country. The publications as well as the academic journals which were relevant to the context of the study were also made use of in order to collect the secondary data. Data validation was done using the triangulation method. Sample for Primary Research The subset of the population that has been selected for the study forms the sample while the sample size is used to denote the number of respondents who comprise the sample (Adler Clark, 2011). For making a selection of the respondents, the method of convenience sampling was utilized and the managers were chosen on the basis of the ease with which they could be accessed by the researchers (Saunders et al., 2009). Secondary Research Reports have indicated that several franchisees of 7-Eleven in Australia have not paid the minimum entitlements that their workers have to the wages. They have also not been paid penalty rates for weekend as well as public holiday, loadings for the nightshifts and also the allowances which under awards that are applicable for a time period that are significant. Besides, employment records have not been maintained accurately and payroll records and time sheets have been fabricated to indicate that the employees have worked for lesser number of hours than they actually have. In some cases the vulnerability of the overseas students have been exploited and their visa restrictions have been used for keeping them silent. The revelations led to the revision of the business model that previously meant that the profits were shared in the ratio of 57:43 between the head office and the franchisees. In the revised models the stores get varied splits on the basis of their profits (Chung, 2016). Research also indicates that the non-compliance problem has a long history and some of them date back to the 1980s (Tham, 2016). Findings and Analysis of Primary Data HR managers of the 7-Eleven in Australia were interviewed for finding out their views on the business practices that were being followed by the franchisees of the company. The findings and the analysis were as follows Three of the four managers interviewed said that although there was a non-compliance of he federal laws with regards to minimum pay obligations and maintaining inaccurate records, it was the franchises of the company which were at fault and the company had nothing to do with the unfair practice. However, all of them were of the opinion that this issue was indeed having a negative impact and was resulting in negative publicity of the company. This, as per the four managers, the company needs to adopt measures for exercising a greater control over its franchises so that such a situation does not arise in future. The issues were being discussed at the top management level and the head office of 7-Eleven and soon the company was expected to come up with a solution to the problem and with measures that would help in controlling a further damage to its already tarnished image. Alternatives and Recommendations In light of the negative publicity that the organization has been facing, it is advisable that an audit is conducted and it should be considered that the business is unable to meet the requirements of minimum pay to its employees. The requirement for this situation is an action plan that should be put in place for rectifying the underpayments on a priority basis and to find out why the situation arose in the first place. The company needs to put in place suitable measures for ensuring that in future no such instances related to unlawful conduct occur and greater control needs to be exerted on the franchisees. It is recommended that the management reviews its business practices to resolve the issue and prevent further damage of the organizations reputation through negative publicity. The best way of combating this challenge will be avoid using the business models that are premised on the arrangements of illegal working. Additionally, the company should enter into a compliance partners hip with Fair Work Ombudsman in order to boost compliance with the federal laws related to the workplace and also review its operating model (McKeith, 2016). The company also needs to handle the complaints of its employees in a better way and keep a track of the demographics of the employees. Laws also need to be more strict for the franchisees (Colman et al., 2016). Self regulatory measures are needed in order to track down systematic non-compliance with the federal laws (The Conversation, 2016). Persuasive Report The case of 7-Eleven has highlighted the presence of non-compliance to the minimum pay obligations and maintenance of employment records by the organization which is a cause of major concern. The case is a good reminder to the HR managers regarding the need of ensuring that their business should meet the obligations of minimum pay to the employees of the organization and maintain employment records accurately. In case they fail to do these things, it can lead to a substantial amount of negative publicity like the one that 7-Eleven is experiencing currently. It might also lead to a number of sanctions for the business which might consist of civil penalties up to $54,000 for each breach along with the compensation orders for any sort of damage that might have been suffered due to the breach. Apart from this, the relevant HR managers as well as other individuals who might be having an involvement in this contravention may also be held liable personally and may be subjected to a civil pe nalty that might go up to an amount of $10,800 for every breach (Aldin, 2015). Thus, the HR managers of the company should audit their existing arrangements of pay in a careful manner in order to make sure that the obligations of minimum pay are satisfied and also the employment records are kept updated. In case of further clarities with respect to minimum entitlements which the staff needs to be provided with on the basis of the number of works that they put in, legal advice may be sought. A sustained change can take place in the behavior if 7-Eleven is able to drive it top-down. Greater control is needed over the franchisees and the company cannot wash its hands off from the mistakes that have been committed by the franchisees. Strong leadership along with strong focus is required for rebuilding a culture that will promote compliance (Australian Government, 2016). Bibliography 7-Eleven Stores, 2016. About 7-Eleven Convenience Stores. [Online] Available at: https://www.7eleven.com.au/about-us [Accessed 20 September 2016]. Adler, E.S. Clark, R., 2011. An Invitation to Social Research: How It's Done. Wadsworth Publishing. Aldin, M., 2015. LESSONS FOR HR MANAGERS FROM THE RECENT 7-ELEVEN SCANDAL. [Online] Available at: https://www.insidehr.com.au/lessons-for-hr-managers-from-the-recent-7-eleven-scandal/ [Accessed 21 September 2016]. Australian Government, 2016. Statement on 7-Eleven. Australian Government. Chung, F., 2016. Panel member says jury is out on whether 7-Eleven can survive without underpaying staff. 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