Kerrie Peterson works for a Fortune 500 company named Access. She is currently a General Manager (GM), over the corporate leading business unit. Each GM was asked to cut back their operating cost and Kerrie agreed to set her goal to 15 percent, during a quarterly financial review planning session. She was confident about meeting the 15 percent goal, but the challenge was getting her senior manager on board with the ideal. Kerrie called a meeting for her senior management team, to inform them of the changes. Kerrie stressed the fact that by their department being the largest department they must join this effort, in order to meet the goal for the greater good of the company, (Lester & Parnell, 2007, Case E). As general manager, Kerrie…show more content… Kerrie wanted to rectify these problems amongst others issues, and take a positive spin, by developing a design to boost employee morale. She did this by redesigning AMs roles, so that non-valuable time would not be spent on administrative work. She wanted the shift of the roles to be more like consultants, instead of customer service reps. Meaning she wanted "to make the job more rewarding and less frustrating than the current role of the A.M.", (Lester & Parnell, 2007, Case E, p. 16). She wanted to show that this design was not developed by management, but by peers of the employees, therefore, having a voice from those who understand their needs. This will show also that they have the backing and support of the senior management. When it came to addressing the interim survey, Kerrie decide to focus on establishing trust and devise a better methods of communicating with employees, (Lester & Parnell, 2007, Case E).
The company that Kerrie works for has more of a horizontal structure. Meaning they have fewer hierarchies. This allows each department or unit to more efficiently resolve the issues faster for their customers. They would not have to wait for corporate approval or approval to implement plans. The drawback for the structure is that most companies who implement this
