Case Study Engstrom Auto Mirror

In May 2007, the Engstrom Auto Mirrors plant was facing the crisis. The business was doing badly and the sales had started to decline in 2005. Thus, there was a steep reduction in plant productivity and employee morale was all time low. The company used Scanlon Plan as an incentive for staff. The core element or foundation of the plan was concept of participative management, where management and staff together will decide the bonuses based on revenues for that year.

The intent of this milestone is to analyze the case study entitled “Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in Good Times and Bad”. Throughout the case study numerous known organizational issues were presented. Human behavior theories are connected with reasonably information to explain the numerous root causes related to the issues from a human conduct point of view. By investigating these causes I will acknowledge the breakdown with tenacious research proof. I went into depth with my examination of three noteworthy issues, lack of motivation, Individual moral, and inadequate communication between management and employees. The resulting impact of each of these root causes is clarified with the support of human behavior theories. The theories ultimately gave reasons for why people behave the way they do in an organizational setting.

Production line workers are the employees who are usually doing their work by hand or in this day and age, running the machine or equipment to make the products. In this particular case, Canada Chemicals Corporation utilizes their production employees by producing industrial chemicals. These production worker’s jobs are a lot more complete then other production level workers employees as they usually have plenty of skill, knowledge and experience, and have high educational background. In order to reverse recent challenges with production and sales, I have composed a compensation package for these employees that will motivate them intrinsically, and focus on rewards that are extrinsic.

During May 2007, the Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant faces a low employee morale issue. The newly appointed manager, Ron Bent, sees a decline in work place productivity and culture throughout his recent years of working at the plant. When Bent joined the company, it was facing a similar issue of low morale. He then decided to introduce the Scalon Plan, an incentive program for the employees, to raise morale. The program was successful when it was first introduced but ran into problems time after. Bent was faced with many challenges with the Scalon Plan that caused him to ask many

Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant is facing an internal crisis which primarily is a motivational problem. Ron Bent, the manager, and Joe Haley the assistant has seen workplace culture and productivity decline over the years. Ron joined the company when it was going through a similar issue in the past. He came and implemented an employee incentive program which is general across the United States. The incentive program called Scanlon Plan was originally very effective in employee motivation and increasing productivity at Engstrom, but it is now failing.

The Scanlon Plan can be used as a major catalyst to turnaround the plant by emphasizing more on productivity. The more they work the faster they roll towards their bonuses; this magical spell is a win-win situation for both the employees and the management. The management can cruise steadily over the wave of bonus motivated productivity and the employees can reap the benefits from the high production rate in terms of bonuses. The plan can be redrawn and a slight change can be made by making the entire plan revolve around the concept of productivity. When productivity assumes a prime position in the plan, employees will strive hard

The manager’s retaliatory approach to lower the loss percentage was not a motivational factor for the employees at all when he changed the number of hours employees had to work to receive free food from 6 hours a day to 12 hours. Evidently the employees did not respect his authority as the change did not seem to have an effect on them nor did it give them any motivation to do better. These jobs where minimum pay jobs

In analyzing the brief case study Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in the Good times and Bad”, it was brought to light that the root of the organizational issues was that of productivity, motivation and employer dissatisfaction following the decline of the Scanlon Plan. The Scanlon Plan was an incentive system that provided bonuses to employees for their increased productivity within the plant. In the early 2000’s employee satisfaction, morale and productivity rapidly declined following the layoff of nearly 50 employees and the employees who remained were then expecting the bonuses that were incorporated into the plan without doing the

In order to appropriately recommend an incentive plan, one must first identify the main issues with operation at Howe 2 ski. Howe 2 Ski has experience increased competition resulting in a decreased market share. Smaller market share increases the negative impact a lack of productivity and customer dissatisfaction has on Howe 2 Ski’s profits. The decreased production of both the molders and Sales-Persons result in increased inventory and higher cost of production. Furthermore, Howe has attempted to establish an incentive pay program that has served to be ineffective and has fostered low morale within the organization.

Low morale among employees in any company eventually leads to decreased profits with other factors of the business decreasing along the way. “And US Airways employees, who have seen their pay cut by more than 20 percent and their health insurance and pension plans shrink, are certainly an unhappy lot” (Claudia H. Deutsch). In order to increase profits, the airline has decreased pay and took away some of the earned vacation. “Company executives say they are taking steps that will improve working conditions and profitability” (Claudia H. Deutsch). Many employees were calling in sick which the company believed would eventually lead to poor customer service.

It is clearly that the company is experiencing some growth; however, the management needs to find a solution to solve the arising issue where their employees are lacking of motivation in their job. However, the executive team’s decision to raise pay rates for its customer service staff and the vested profit-sharing plan does not improve the employees’ work performance or customers’ satisfaction.

There is an older incentive (Scanlon) plan put in place which worked very well for this company and its employees, helping them to rise up from an unproductive state in the 1990’s. Now that it has been in place for quite some time, it is getting stale. No bonuses have been given in months. The employees are not satisfied with the management of the

Instead of jumping to different achievement goals as problems arise, the visions and beliefs should have been determined first and that would help shape the overall goal of the company. While working towards goals such as profitability and growth, the visions and beliefs help keep employees in line and to some extent control the minimum expectations of the development of products, thus possibly lessen or avoid problems that did arise. The incentive scheme were not properly designed to take into account effects of employee actions and the impact it would have on the company as a whole and other stakeholders. It should some what reflect and reiterate these visions instead of promoting and motivating employees to be self interested in their own affairs and achieving the targets at “all costs”. All in all, there were minimal controls and checks in place, it was more of a one way push towards the goals and not looking back

Our task for the Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant case analysis was to identify the main problems of the company as well as it’s managers’ decisions and to find reasonable solutions by taking into account roots from where they have been appearing. This case is extremely relevant because it looks at organizational behavior everyday problems and analyses issues of building relationships with employees. All our assumption will be based on Organizational Behavior theoretical background in order to find solutions and alternatives for the particular company’s case. The main aim was to figure out how to increase company’s productivity, employees’ motivation and management strategy.

The Engstrom Auto Mirror plant is located in Richmond, Indiana and employs around 200 or more people. The plant has been going through some changes over the last few years and has seen a decline in employee motivation. The focus today will be to determine some of the root causes of the problems facing the plant from an organizational view and a human behavior issue. The bottom line is determining how to solve the issues the company is facing and move forward. Some of the questions that will need to be answered is, “why is motivation at an all-time low, is the Scanlon plan benefiting everyone in the company and can the plan be revamped with