Phoenix Advertising, with its main headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, serves clients that include banks, insurance companies and local businesses such as restaurants and shops. You’re the vice president of human resources management at Phoenix, and you report directly to Gregory S. Forest, the president of the company. Mr. Forest advises you that in the last month, four clients have complained about the advertising work produced by the Roanoke, Virginia branch of the agency. He reminds
you that the Roanoke branch and its clients are vital to the overall success of the company.
You’ve already investigated the branch and provided a report on the problems there and your recommendations for managing them (for study units Organizing, Researching, and Illustrating Your Material and Writing the Report). Mr. Forest has reviewed that report and now wants you to present to the executive team a specific proposal developing one of the
recommendations you gave. Consider the problems outlined in the background as well as the underlying causes you
discovered and reported on previously. Three graphic designers and four copywriters have threatened to quit because their
creative contributions on projects are being rejected or revised without their input. They want to be part of a collaborative team, not to simply produce work that the art directors and account executives can alter arbitrarily. These changes to projects have also caused tension between the creative teams and account managers, causing an art director and
an account manager to leave the agency. In addition to the four clients who complained, others have not renewed their contracts
with Roanoke. Several have posted poor reviews of the Roanoke branch on social media
sites, leading to a drop in profits. In an attempt to increase revenues, the branch is accepting new clients without evaluating the effects of the new accounts on the current project workload. As a result, without notice or compensation for the additional hours, all salaried employees are required to work long hours several days each week. Employee morale and productivity are declining day by day. For your final project, you will write informal proposal that focuses on one of the recommendations you made in your informal report.
Step 1
Choose one of the problems. Use your brainstorming notes and the investigative report for the recommendations you listed to solve that problem. Brainstorm further about the reasons for and causes of that one problem by delving even further into the “whys” of that problem. As you did previously, list several questions and review the answers you’ve discovered.
Explore those answers in greater depth to determine the fundamental causes of the problem. (Think of the problem as a set of symptoms of an illness that you need to treat. What disease is causing the symptoms? What areas of the body are affected by the disease?)
Step 2
Free-write further on each recommendation you made in your investigative report for resolving this problem. Ask yourself questions about what must change, what you must make happen with the employees and departments at Roanoke to solve the problem so it won’t reoccur. Remember that your primary goal for the proposal is to revitalize the employees and departments in order to restore the Roanoke branch to full productivity. Use as a starting point any of the following that apply to the problem you’ve chosen:
n What can the executive team do to reverse the downward spiral of employee
morale and increased workload requiring overtime?
n How can the executive team help the Roanoke branch retain its current clients and
gain new ones?
n Is training needed for employees and/or managers? If so, what types of training are
required? How can the executive team accomplish training over time to minimize
impact on business?
n What can be done to streamline or reorganize the office procedures or to incorporate new technology to improve productivity? What training/support will then be needed to enable the office employees to embrace the changes and succeed?
Make sure you’ve done enough exploring in Step 1 to guide your creative efforts toward the changes you’ll make in Step 2. You want to ensure permanent change, so you must understand the exact nature of the causes in order to develop a detailed, logical solution.
Now review the people at Roanoke and across Phoenix Advertising who you’ll need to accomplish each part of plan. Your proposal must use people from within the company?don’t hire outside personnel. Create names and job titles as well as qualifications to fit your plan. Review your list of steps and for ask yourself:
n Who at Phoenix Advertising and/or the Roanoke branch has the experience, training,
and qualifications to achieve this stage of my plan? What proves he or she is the one for the particular phase?
n What exactly do I want that person to do to accomplish this step? When? How?
n Who oversees the implementation of each phase?
n What progress reports must be provided to the executive team and when?
n What’s my part in the proposed plan of action?
next step is to itemize the costs involved in accomplishing each component of your plan. You may need to research current costs of additional employees, training/motivational programs, or technology. Your figures should have some realistic basis. Remember to factor in costs such as the following:
n The number of employees involved in each phase
n The loss of employee time from completing regular obligations of current job
n Any travel or materials/workbooks needed for training
Create (appropriate) budgetary categories related to the stages of your plan. Establish an overall cost for each phase and within each phase itemize the different costs involved. Itemizing is important to provide clear support for your numbers and line items the executive team can review if the total cost for the proposal is too much for the company’s budget.
Use single spacing (unless the format requires more spacing), bold for headings, and italics for subheadings.
Introduction. Your Introduction is the only section not labeled with a heading. As your opening paragraph, it must begin with an interesting hook, contain your qualifications to prepare proposal, and summarize the general problem and the benefits of your plan.
Background. The Background section must persuade the executive team that a dire need exists. Summarize the field investigation of your chosen problem and describe the causes of that problem. Include specific numbers and percentages (facts and figures) with explanations to show how you determined each contributed to the problem. Your reasons must be based on the facts you uncovered, not the feelings of employees at the branch. End this section with a bulleted list of the key phases (stages) you’ll develop in the proposal section to solve the causes. Phrase each stage as a key action goal.
Proposal. In your Proposal section, develop the steps needed to solve the problem. Use a phrase or word for each goal you listed in the Background section and italicize it. (You’ll use the same phrases or words in the Schedule and Budget sections.) Then write (at) least one paragraph for each goal, outlining what actions are involved in that phase. Develop detailed, clear-cut solutions to the underlying issues and causes you identified in the Background section.
Schedule. Your Schedule section must use the italicized words to outline the phases
described in the Background and Proposal. Use column format.
Staffing. The Staffing section describes, in paragraph form, the specific people, their qualifications, and their assignments as related to each phase of the proposed solution.
Budget. Your budget section must itemize the primary steps of your plan. Use a table format with your own headings for each column. The first column will use the phases from the project outlined in the Proposal and Schedule sections. Be sure to show under each major phase the related costs for accomplishing it.
Request for Authorization. The Authorization section must suggest a time frame for approval of your plan. Since this section is also the last thing the executive team will read, persuasively provide assurance that your proposal will achieve your goal. Summarize the problems and describe the benefits of your plan for Roanoke branch, their clients, and Phoenix Advertising as a whole.