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908C06 THE GARDEN DEPOT

Karin Koopmans wrote this case under the supervision of Professor Elizabeth M. A. Grasby solely to provide material for class

discussion. The authors do not intend to illustrate either effective or ineffective handling of a managerial situation. The authors may have disguised certain names and other identifying information to protect confidentiality. Ivey Management Services prohibits any form of reproduction, storage or transmittal without its written permission. Reproduction of this material is not covered under authorization by any reproduction rights organization. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, contact Ivey Publishing, Ivey Management Services, c/o Richard Ivey School of Business, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, N6A 3K7; phone (519) 661-3208; fax (519) 661-3882; e-mail [email protected] Copyright © 2007, Ivey Management Services Version: (A) 2008-01-30

―I can’t take this anymore! When is Derek going to start doing his job?‖ exclaimed Janice Bowman, after

hanging up the phone. It was an early June morning in 2007 when Bowman, office manager at the Garden

Depot (The Depot), had again dealt with a very irate customer. The phone call was one of many that

Bowman had taken during the past four months concerning the lack of communication between Derek

Sinclair, the Barrie, Ontario, store’s landscaping manager, and his customers. This call was the last straw

for Bowman, compounding her anxiety about numerous labor and organizational problems she had

witnessed in the landscaping division. Bowman knew that extensive changes needed to be made if she

were to do her job effectively while, at the same time, managing to avoid involvement in the landscaping

division’s problems.

THE GARDEN DEPOT

The Depot originated in 1985 as a small, family-owned floral company in Barrie, Ontario. As sales and

profits grew, the company began carrying a larger variety of floral, gardening and lawn-care products. In

1992, The Depot launched a lawn maintenance department to capitalize on the growing desires of

customers to have professionals take care of their lawns. Responding again to customer demand, The

Depot created a landscaping division in 1998, offering complete custom landscaping packages, waterfalls

and sprinkler systems. By 2007, The Depot operated a successful 12,000-square-foot retail store, a lawn

maintenance division and a landscaping division (see Exhibit 1 for an organizational chart).

Due to the nature of the gardening business, The Depot’s sales fluctuated with seasonal demands. It was

always a challenge to recruit and retain qualified staff, and management was often forced to downsize staff

during the winter months. During peak summer months, 80 per cent of The Depot’s employees were

students who would leave at the end of the summer to return to school in September. There was no formal

performance appraisal system at The Depot, nor any defined job responsibilities. The Depot’s owners

relied on department managers to deal with any labor issues.

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Page 2 9B08C006

JANICE BOWMAN

Janice Bowman began her career in the gardening industry in 1992, working as a general manager for one

of Garden Depot’s competitors. After 13 years of service, personal differences with management forced

Bowman to leave the company. Upon hearing of her availability, The Depot approached Bowman with an

offer in June 2005, which she accepted, to join the company immediately. Although there was no

particular opening for her, management was confident that The Depot could benefit from her 13 years of

operational knowledge in the industry. In her first few months, Bowman was asked to organize the

computer inventory system and develop a material ordering system. After the first few months, Bowman

began to work on other small projects within every division of the company, sharing her knowledge

wherever it was needed.

Bowman described herself as a dedicated worker who was happy to help co-workers whenever they

needed help. She was never one to say ―that’s not my job,‖ and she could often be seen cleaning shelves

on the retail floor. She took great pride in her job and wanted to ensure all areas of the business were

running smoothly. She described herself as highly customer-oriented and would go out of her way to

ensure customers had a positive experience with The Depot.

In March 2006, Bowman’s manager, Dave Sampson, suggested they sit down informally and discuss her

performance to date. The informal appraisal was highly positive; however, Sampson had noted that Janice

was involved in too many areas of the business, and this level of involvement was not sustainable. They

decided to loosely define her job title as ―office manager,‖ which included tasks such as inventory

management, computer system management and logistics.

Although Bowman often worked seven days a week without complaint, she was growing increasingly

frustrated with how The Depot’s landscaping division was run. Since her job relied on information

provided by this division, she deemed it her responsibility to try to solve many of the division’s issues.

She knew that if no action were taken, she would spend more hours trying to fix the division’s mistakes

and more hours taking customer complaints.

THE LANDSCAPING DIVISION

The landscaping division was responsible for designing and installing custom landscaping, including rock

walls, gardens, waterfalls and sprinkler systems. The division employed 12 landscapers, 11 of whom were

part-time summer staff. The department managed to complete approximately 50 landscaping jobs each

year, which were fewer than what was demanded, resulting in many jobs being pushed back to the

following spring if they could not be completed in the fall.

In January 2007, the manager of the landscaping division left the company to pursue other opportunities.

In a move that was viewed as questionable by many full-time employees, The Depot’s owner hired his 35-

year-old son-in-law, Derek Sinclair, as the new manager of the division. Many staff worried that The

Depot’s owner was doing his son-in-law a favor by hiring him, given that he appeared unqualified for the

position. Bowman noted some immediate problems with Sinclair’s integration into his position and with

his management capabilities.

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Page 3 9B08C006

MURRAY KING, PRESIDENT

Murray and Glenda King started the Garden Depot in 1985 based on their shared love of gardening. The

husband-and-wife team had been equally involved in growing the business until 2004, when Glenda

retired. Murray King was a ―hands-off‖ manager who trusted his division managers to run their respective

divisions appropriately. King worked at The Depot five days a week, spending most of his time in his

office. Bowman’s interaction with King had been limited to asking him questions when she needed

clarification. On more than one occasion, King would claim to know nothing about what Bowman was

asking, leading her to believe he was quite removed from many of the day-to-day activities in the business.

Bowman had observed that King spent endless hours crunching performance metrics in his office, but very

little time was spent on planning the company’s strategic direction. Bowman chose not to involve King in

any of the issues she was having with the landscaping division since he appeared to be far removed from

its operations. In fact, King had commented on more than one occasion that Sinclair was doing a superb

job and he was happy with Sinclair’s performance to date. Bowman noted that Sinclair had a strong

rapport with King and would often be in King’s office chatting casually; in fact, if Sinclair had any

concerns or problems, he took them directly to King for discussion.

DAVE SAMPSON, GENERAL MANAGER

Dave Sampson joined The Depot as its general manager in 2002 and was responsible for ensuring the

overall financial health of the company. Sampson had a good relationship with all division managers and

was well respected by all employees. Sampson spent most of his time in the retail side of the business,

wherein he managed the retail staff, ensured the store looked presentable and kept an eye on sales levels

and profitability. Despite this concentration, King had commented that Sampson was responsible for the

operating efficiency of both the landscaping and maintenance divisions.

Sampson gave his subordinates a lot of autonomy to run their own divisions and intervened only when

problems became too burdensome for managers to solve. Sampson was receptive and approachable; thus,

many employees approached him for help. Sampson and Bowman were good friends and they often spent

time discussing the company’s problems and how they might solve these problems.

DEREK SINCLAIR, LANDSCAPING MANAGER

Derek Sinclair joined The Depot as landscaping manager in late January 2007. Sinclair’s previous work

experience included being a dispatcher at a local towing company, where he claimed to learn skills such as

paying attention to details and strong customer orientation. Beyond these skills, Sinclair had no prior

experience in the retail, construction or landscaping environments, and he had no previous management

experience. As a manager at The Depot, Sinclair’s responsibilities covered four key categories:

organizing and deploying landscapers to job sites, dealing with customers and responding to customer

concerns, invoicing completed landscaping jobs and traveling to clients’ homes to quote 1 jobs.

1 Quoting involved meeting the customers at their homes to discuss their landscaping goals and providing these customers

with a cost estimate of the job.

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Page 4 9B08C006

EARLY PROBLEMS

Within a few weeks, Bowman noticed many of Sinclair’s limitations in his role. First, because he lacked

any experience in landscaping, Sinclair was unable to answer specific customer questions when they

called, which often led him to avoid answering the phones altogether. Bowman also noted that many jobs

were not priced according to the cost of the materials being used; she suspected that Sinclair was not

accurately quoting jobs since he was unsure which materials would have to be used. Whenever Bowman

approached Sinclair’s desk, she noticed numerous incomplete invoices scattered over it, some with dates

many weeks old. This meant that clients were not getting billed for landscaping work that had been

completed. Bowman sympathized with Sinclair, so she had approached him at the end of February to offer

help with the invoicing responsibilities. Sinclair appeared relieved and was happy that Bowman had come

to his aid.

By the end of March, Bowman had taken over the majority of Sinclair’s invoicing duties, in addition to her

own job responsibilities. While her initial offer was to help alleviate some of Sinclair’s load, Bowman

soon found that Sinclair was sending her every single invoice and was not completing any of the work

himself. After four weeks, Bowman had become frustrated. She had spent four Saturdays catching up on

the invoicing, while noting that Sinclair had not worked a single weekend since his employment with The

Depot.

Bowman approached Sampson about the situation:

Dave, I feel like I’m being used. It has become clear that I am doing all of Derek’s work

on top of my own. I am simply running out of time to get everything done. I’m spending

all my weekends here to catch up on his work!

Sampson agreed that this was not Bowman’s responsibility, so he approached Sinclair and told him that he

would need to find a way to manage the invoicing on his own. Bowman felt relieved that Sinclair would

be reclaiming this work, and she could return to concentrating on her primary inventory management

responsibilities; however, it wasn’t long until continuing problems in the landscaping department

resurfaced.

INVENTORY CONCERNS Job Slips Bowman was solely responsible for ensuring that parts and supplies arrived in a timely fashion and were in

ample supply when required by the landscaping division. Stock-outs were costly to the company since it

could hold up a client’s job for numerous days until additional supplies could be ordered. In order to

account properly for the flow of goods, the landscaping division was responsible for forwarding customer

invoices and job slips to Bowman. A job slip was a list of all supplies and materials used at a job site in

order to accurately charge clients for the material cost of their landscaping (see Exhibit 2 for a sample job

slip.) Bowman would then take the supplies used on each job out of the computerized inventory system

and reorder supplies if necessary. She also ensured that payments were received from customers. Not long

after Sinclair had resumed his invoicing responsibilities, Bowman began to note that the customers’

invoices were still grossly underpriced on the job slips, since the listed materials were not the actual

materials used on the job.

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Page 5 9B08C006

Bowman was also struggling to keep track of the materials that had been used on each customer’s job. She

was constantly receiving job slips that were clearly missing materials that would have had to be used,

given the nature of the job being invoiced. For example, if a customer had received a sprinkler system for

a 1,000-square-foot yard, a minimum of six sprinkler heads would have had to be used. Bowman would

receive a job slip listing three sprinkler heads and hardly any plumbing supplies. She assumed that the

landscaping staff was either too lazy to account for each and every material item used or they didn’t know

what parts they were using and could not describe them on job slips. To alleviate this problem, Bowman

prepared detailed binders with pictures and product codes for all materials used on a job site and gave a

binder to each of the 12 landscapers. Despite all of these efforts, Bowman still noticed inconsistencies on

the job slips and was forced to track down the landscapers to clarify which materials had been used.

Bowman finally decided to approach Sinclair about the issue.

Bowman: ―Derek, you need to go over each job slip with staff and ensure that they are complete. I’ve

found many parts missing off these slips, and I don’t trust that customers are getting billed accordingly. I

simply can’t spend time chasing every worker around to make sure the job slips are correct. I suspect we

are losing a lot of money on these jobs.‖

Sinclair: ―Is it really a big deal? A dollar here and there isn’t going to affect the company. The parts used

on these jobs are not expensive.‖

Bowman: ―Well, I suspect that we are talking about more than a few dollars. Even so, if I can’t keep track

of how many parts we have in inventory, I’ll never know when to reorder them. It’s too costly to run out

of parts.‖

Sinclair: ―All right, Janice. I will make a stronger effort to review the slips and keep the inventory on

track. If it takes me reviewing each and every one at the end of the day, I’ll do it.‖

Although Sinclair’s promise sounded sincere, Bowman noted that when the landscapers returned to The

Depot at 6 p.m. after completing their jobs, Sinclair had already left for the day and the job slips were not

reviewed.

John Campbell When walking by Sinclair’s desk, Bowman was surprised to see John Campbell, a part-time student

landscaper, at the computer entering new invoices. Campbell explained that Sinclair had told him that he

was now responsible for invoicing duties and that he was not sure how to do them. Bowman could not

believe that Sinclair had shifted this responsibility to someone with no invoicing experience, and she

suddenly realized that the past weeks’ invoices were most likely not accurate. Bowman told Campbell not

to hesitate to ask her if he had any questions. In the four weeks that passed, Campbell never approached

Bowman with any questions, so she believed she had no choice but to fix the invoices herself. Though

displeased with this arrangement, Bowman chose not to complain to anyone, and she continued to fix

invoices on her own.

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This document is authorized for use only by Dawn Shaw in WCM-610 Intro to Org Conflict 18TW2 taught by SNHU INSTRUCTOR, Southern New Hampshire University from Sep 2018 to Mar 2019.

Page 6 9B08C006

OTHER CONCERNS Sinclair’s Leadership

Bowman knew she was not the only one questioning Sinclair’s ability. Bowman’s son, Marcus, had

recently joined the landscaping staff on a part-time basis and had daily interaction with Sinclair. With 12

years of previous experience in the garden industry, Marcus knew all aspects of landscape planning and

building. After one month working under Sinclair’s leadership, Marcus commented:

I’ve never seen a landscaping department run so poorly. Derek is completely useless at all

aspects of his job. He has no time-management skills or concept of how to schedule

landscaping jobs in a time-effective manner. He lacks a customer focus and often avoids

taking customer calls. Everything Derek does is reactive, always waiting for customer

complaints rather than taking action to provide good service. I’m sick of showing up at

customers’ houses and getting yelled at for Derek’s incompetence.

Bowman wondered whether other staff members felt the same way. She was concerned about the impact

Sinclair’s leadership may be having on staff morale.

Customer Complaints

Bowman was getting increasingly anxious about the large number of customer complaints she was

receiving. When a customer called the store looking for a specific person, they could either leave a

voicemail for the requested person if he or she was not available, or they would be given the opportunity to

speak with someone else. Bowman was well known and well liked by many of The Depot’s regular

customers and, thus, was often asked for on the phone by name. Unfortunately, the majority of the calls

Bowman was taking lately were customer complaints about how Sinclair had not returned his calls or how

their invoices were not similar to the quote provided by Sinclair. Bowman often sympathized with

customers, commenting:

It’s just not fair to the customers. All they want are updates on when they can expect their

landscaping job to be completed, and Derek doesn’t bother to call them back. It really

doesn’t take a lot of effort to keep customers happy — it’s all about communication. I

find myself promising customers that I will personally follow up with them after speaking

with Derek, which only adds to my workload. I’m tired of getting yelled at for

circumstances not under my control, and I feel guilty working for a company that treats

customers so poorly.

Bowman was unsure whether she should approach Sinclair about these concerns and, if she did, whether

she could trust that he would change.

Staff Problems

Bowman’s concerns about the landscaping division and Sinclair’s management style were exacerbated by

the strange behavior of one of the landscapers, Jayme Strong. Jayme joined The Depot’s staff as a full-

time landscaper in April 2007. He had two years’ previous experience with another landscaping company,

and he appeared to get along well with the other staff. Strong was expected to work approximately eight

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Page 7 9B08C006

hours a day, five days per week. When Bowman received the employee time cards, 2 she noticed that

Strong’s assigned jobs took longer than comparable jobs on other employees’ timecards (see Exhibit 3 for

a sample time card.)

One day, Bowman was speaking with a long-time customer, Mr. Gladwell, who had purchased some rocks

and garden supplies to create his own landscaped garden. At numerous points in the conversation, Mr.

Gladwell mentioned how Strong had arranged the flowerbeds and installed things so beautifully.

Knowing that the customer had not paid for any installation services from The Depot lately, Bowman

approached Sinclair:

Bowman: ―Derek, I just had an odd conversation with Mr. Gladwell, who mentioned that Jayme had

installed some of his flowerbeds. Didn’t he only purchase materials from us?‖

Sinclair: ―Oh yes … Well, Jayme just did some of the install for him while he was in the area. It’s not a

big deal really. We made enough money off of selling him the materials anyways. Who cares?‖

Bowman simply shrugged and walked away, appalled that Sinclair would let Strong do volunteer work on

company time. She wondered whether Strong had masked this work at Mr. Gladwell’s in his time cards by

extending his reported time on other jobs. She was concerned that other customers may have been

overcharged for hours that Strong was not actually working there. Furthermore, was Strong charging Mr.

Gladwell for his work and keeping the money himself?

Bowman began to think Strong was not only dishonest recording his time cards but also potentially

stealing goods from the company. In early April, right around the time Strong joined the staff, Bowman

was baffled when a sprinkler system, which was in stock according to the computerized inventory, was

nowhere to be found. A few weeks later, The Depot’s bookkeeper approached Bowman with an

interesting story. She mentioned that friends of hers had a new state-of-the-art sprinkler system installed,

which they gushed was a ―bargain deal.‖ They mentioned that they bought the system from a young man

named ―Jayme‖ who had also been kind enough to install it for them at a very cheap rate. Bowman

thought this was very suspicious but she had no proof to confirm what she thought to be true — that Strong

was working on personal jobs on company time and stealing supplies to do them.

Bowman had mentioned these odd occurrences to Sinclair, but he never expressed as much concern as

Bowman. Although Bowman knew that Sinclair was Strong’s boss, Sinclair appeared to have no desire to

discipline Strong in any way or to further investigate these mysterious situations. Bowman was finding it

difficult to ignore behavior that could have devastating effects on the company’s financial position and

reputation.

THE FINAL STRAW

After hanging up with yet another irate customer, Bowman was exasperated. This was not the first

complaint she had to deal with concerning Sinclair and his refusal to return customers’ calls or to keep

them informed about the progress of their landscaping job. In Bowman’s view, the landscaping division

was completely disorganized, and she was not confident that Sinclair was interested in keeping things

under control. Bowman feared that soon customers would be going elsewhere and the longevity of

company would be in question. She knew something would have to change if she was going to continue

working at The Depot, but she did not know where to start. 2 Employees were required to fill out time cards. The time cards detailed which jobs they worked on and for how long.

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Page 8 9B08C006

Exhibit 1

ORGANIZATIONAL CHART

Retail

Division

Lawn

Maintenance

Division

Landscaping

Division

Administration

Office

General Manager

Dave Sampson

Owner /President

Murray King

Retail staff

(6)

Manager

Sue Jenkins

Landscapers (12)

including

Jayme Strong

Manager

Derek Sinclair

Laborers

(3)

Manager

Jim Chambers

Bookkeeper

Nancy Coss

Office Manager

Janice Bowman

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Page 9 9B08C006

Exhibit 2

SAMPLE JOB SLIP

Customer Name: M. Jones Job #: 006 Date Job Completed: April 16, 2007

Flowers/Shrubbery Rock/Stone Plumbing/Fittings Misc.

Quantity/Description

2 Potted Gardenias ____ 5 Elbow fittings 4 A+ 4lb Soil

8 Rose buds ____ 6 Bronze Sprinklers ____

____ ____ ____ ____

____ ____ ____ ____

____ ____ ____ ____

____ ____ ____ ____

10 ____ 11 4 Total

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Page 10 9B08C006

Exhibit 3

SAMPLE TIME SHEET

Employee Name: K. Roberts Employee #: 002 Time period: April 1/07 – April 7/07

Date Customer Name (hrs) Hours

Mon 01 Simpson (4), Cobb (2), Gyll (2) 6

Tues 02 Sanders (3), Walsh (2), Cobb (2), Leighton (1) 8

Wed 03 Gyll (2), Warner (1), Walsh (3), Cobb (2) 8

Thurs 04 Leighton (5), Simpson (2) 7

Fri 05 Warner (4), Gyll (1), Simpson (3) 8

Sat 06 Day Off

Sun 07 Day off

Weekly Total Hours 37

X K. Roberts

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