Case Study: Yakkatech Inc.

Management and Organizational Behavior (ADW 613)

Case Study: YakkaTech Inc.

1. What symptom(s) in this case suggest that something has gone wrong?

There are a few symptoms in YakkaTech which suggest that there is something that has gone wrong. Firstly, employee dissatisfaction was evident from the survey (formal and informal) done. The comments from employee generally was they felt their job is monotonous, they felt disconnected from the consequences of their work, a continuous unresolved conflict between departments and stress from serving dissatisfied client. Some employee was overheard that they like to work elsewhere but could not afford to leave the company.

Secondly, the productivity and quality of customer service was below par and well below expectation. As the customer service business increases nearly double over the years, the complaints increases regarding the quality of service provided. There has been comments from the customers stating that employees seems indifferent to their problems, slow response to problems whenever the issue requires the involvement of more than one department. Clients had to continually educate the customer service employee on the details of their unique IT systems infrastructure. There have been some incidents where employees are careless in solving problems or did not bother to forward the complaint ticket to the relevant department.

Thirdly, employee resignations has increased above industry average and employee referral have become rare events, whereas at one time represents a significant source of qualified job applicants.

2. What are the main causes of these symptoms?

Employee dissatisfaction may be due to several reasons. Taking the cue from their comments, the cause could be due to a lack of core job characteristics. Without skill variety, tasks identity and significance, the employee does not feel meaningfulness in their job thus the outcome would be a lack of...