The Banbury
Castle
Consultancy report
Commissioned by M. Graham
April 14, 2022
Ben J. Smit
Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development
The Waters Consultancy Group
Emmy de Boer
4868544
Tutor: Giso van
,Executive summary
Within Banbury Castle are found issues dealing with leadership and employees’
motivation. This consultancy report will look in-depth into the problems of the company to
discover the underlying problems. In this report can be found a talent management
analysis where the issues of leadership and employees’ motivation will be explained.
Banbury castles’ director is struggling with trusting the employees and giving them
freedom within the company. There is a strict hierarchy and employees' needs are
considered unimportant to the director. The director is not focused on building long-
lasting relationships due to having a task-oriented mindset, which means there are only
worries about finding a solution for meeting company goals. This causes a wide variety of
misunderstandings due to a lack of communication between all staff members of Banbury.
This all together including the inflexibility of the director creates a poor working
environment which is decreasing employee satisfaction and performance.
A possible solution can be to become more flexible with the leadership style. This
automatically makes it easier to lean a bit more toward the relation-oriented leadership
style, which will make the communication within the team simpler. This possible solution
would create a better work environment which is a win-win situation for the director and
his employees in long term. Additionally, it is recommended to hold performance
interviews with the staff members will help to keep the employees satisfied and
challenged.
2
, Introduction
For many years, Water Consultancy Company (WCC) has gained great experience in the
field of Human Resource Management and service provision. The company’s reputation is
built on the excellent advice which is given to service-providing businesses (Blackboard,
Banbury Castle, n.d.). Within this consultancy report will be introduced the challenges
and opportunities that are present when managing talents and satisfaction in a service
operation, in the case of The Banbury Castle. These concepts will impact effective TM
management and service provision in a real HRM setting.
The Banbury Castle is a UK-based family-owned business that caters to the wedding
parties market. Due to the fact that the maintenance costs of the castle are very high,
Lord Henry (father of Lady Heather), opened the castle to the public towards the end of
the seventies and started offering guided tours. Moreover, in 1990 M. Graham took over
the business from his father-in-law. Within the company can be seen that it is not going as
expected and that the director M. Graham and the Banbury employees have other ideas
about what would be best for the company. This has led to absenteeism, staff turnover
and low productivity. Therefore, this consultancy report indicates to answer the main
question to create an understanding of the issues of the Banbury workforce: Problem
statement: “How can employee motivation be improved through transformational
leadership to improve employee commitment at the Banbury Castle?”
To understand the relationship between leadership, human resources and service
provision there are different steps used. Within the first chapter can be found a talent
management analysis including the issues dealing with leadership and employee
motivation. Within this first subchapter about leadership can be found three issues.
Firstly, trust issues with the theory on leadership styles by Lewis. Secondly, task-oriented
mindset including the Managerial Grid by Blake and Mouton. Lastly, the lack of
communication with the communication model of Schulz. Within the second subchapter
about employee motivation can be found two issues. The poor working environment
including the 5 levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is discussed first. Second, the topic
of inflexibility with Alderfer’s theory of motivation and Herzberg’s Motivation Theory. The
third chapter provides the conclusion followed by the recommendation within chapter
four.
3
Castle
Consultancy report
Commissioned by M. Graham
April 14, 2022
Ben J. Smit
Chartered Institute of Personnel and
Development
The Waters Consultancy Group
Emmy de Boer
4868544
Tutor: Giso van
,Executive summary
Within Banbury Castle are found issues dealing with leadership and employees’
motivation. This consultancy report will look in-depth into the problems of the company to
discover the underlying problems. In this report can be found a talent management
analysis where the issues of leadership and employees’ motivation will be explained.
Banbury castles’ director is struggling with trusting the employees and giving them
freedom within the company. There is a strict hierarchy and employees' needs are
considered unimportant to the director. The director is not focused on building long-
lasting relationships due to having a task-oriented mindset, which means there are only
worries about finding a solution for meeting company goals. This causes a wide variety of
misunderstandings due to a lack of communication between all staff members of Banbury.
This all together including the inflexibility of the director creates a poor working
environment which is decreasing employee satisfaction and performance.
A possible solution can be to become more flexible with the leadership style. This
automatically makes it easier to lean a bit more toward the relation-oriented leadership
style, which will make the communication within the team simpler. This possible solution
would create a better work environment which is a win-win situation for the director and
his employees in long term. Additionally, it is recommended to hold performance
interviews with the staff members will help to keep the employees satisfied and
challenged.
2
, Introduction
For many years, Water Consultancy Company (WCC) has gained great experience in the
field of Human Resource Management and service provision. The company’s reputation is
built on the excellent advice which is given to service-providing businesses (Blackboard,
Banbury Castle, n.d.). Within this consultancy report will be introduced the challenges
and opportunities that are present when managing talents and satisfaction in a service
operation, in the case of The Banbury Castle. These concepts will impact effective TM
management and service provision in a real HRM setting.
The Banbury Castle is a UK-based family-owned business that caters to the wedding
parties market. Due to the fact that the maintenance costs of the castle are very high,
Lord Henry (father of Lady Heather), opened the castle to the public towards the end of
the seventies and started offering guided tours. Moreover, in 1990 M. Graham took over
the business from his father-in-law. Within the company can be seen that it is not going as
expected and that the director M. Graham and the Banbury employees have other ideas
about what would be best for the company. This has led to absenteeism, staff turnover
and low productivity. Therefore, this consultancy report indicates to answer the main
question to create an understanding of the issues of the Banbury workforce: Problem
statement: “How can employee motivation be improved through transformational
leadership to improve employee commitment at the Banbury Castle?”
To understand the relationship between leadership, human resources and service
provision there are different steps used. Within the first chapter can be found a talent
management analysis including the issues dealing with leadership and employee
motivation. Within this first subchapter about leadership can be found three issues.
Firstly, trust issues with the theory on leadership styles by Lewis. Secondly, task-oriented
mindset including the Managerial Grid by Blake and Mouton. Lastly, the lack of
communication with the communication model of Schulz. Within the second subchapter
about employee motivation can be found two issues. The poor working environment
including the 5 levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs is discussed first. Second, the topic
of inflexibility with Alderfer’s theory of motivation and Herzberg’s Motivation Theory. The
third chapter provides the conclusion followed by the recommendation within chapter
four.
3
