Solutions Development: Organizational Improvement and Strategic Actions
Previously we touched on the issues at Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant and also what their root causes were. Regardless of the size of a company or what industry you’re in, issues will always come up and you must be able to identify them and come up with a solution. Ironically what is being blamed as the cause for lack of productivity, motivation, employee-manager trust and overall culture of the organization was at one time the primary catalyst of Engstrom’s own turnaround… The Scanlon Plan (Beer & Collins, 2008, p.5). The sections below contain recommendations that Engstrom can utilize to improve not only its financial status, but its overall culture.
Replace the Scanlon
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Two of the biggest areas affected by this downfall were the motivation of the workers or the workers “motivation to contribute”, and the workers trust in management (Newsome, 2015). As what happened when Scanlon was introduced, the employee morale improved, changing to the new Engstrom plan with a more simplified format would do the same thing over time. One of the ways that management could start working on their relationship with staff is to get them more involved which would show they are comfortable with “empowering” their staff. Empowerment is any process that provides greater autonomy to employees through the sharing of relevant information and the provision of control over factors affecting job performance (Newsome, 2015). This involvement would come in the form of an organization wide monthly meeting; those who participate in the meetings would be rewarded. Empowerment would create an opportunity for workers to start making suggestions again, and they would be praised for suggestions that make improvements to their daily task. These meetings would play an important part because it would allow management to show that they are open to participation from workers. Participative managers consult with their employees, bringing them in on problems and decisions so they work together as a team (Newsome, 2015). It would be an opportunity for management and workers to discuss how to make Engstrom great again, while working to mend the trust issues that developed over time. A company cannot run successfully if management does not listen to its people; “people leave managers not companies” (Fernandez,
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.
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 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
Hinrichs’s active management of change within the factory and focus on worker satisfaction and buy-in resulted in a lot of small victories that he used to win over the workforce’s trust and respect. In the process, Hinrichs transformed the plant from one that was resistant to change to one that embraced and was excited for change.
Engstrom Auto Mirror, a successful privately owned plant since 1948 in Richmond, Indiana, reached one of their biggest productivity setbacks in May 2007. In their near 60 years of business this was the company’s second cross with unprofitability since the 90’s, when technology was surfacing and causing tension between the company and their customers. The manager at the time was unable to adjust, deciding to resign in 1998. Nearing the end of the 90’s, Ron Bent was hired as plant manager. Leading into the new millennium, his plan was to implement an employee incentive plan to increase productivity with the employees using bonuses to allow their business to continue to thrive. That was the introduction of The Scanlon Plan, it reinforced
Continuous improvements are linked to organizational change by being sure their employees have everything they need for them to excel in everyday goals. When people visit CarMax, they do not get that pressure from sale associates like other dealerships. CarMax listens to their employees, so it promotes genuine learning environment. They try to follow all the new technology to help its employees to excel in everyday goals. They make sure they focus totally on the associates needs in turn the associates can focus totally on the customers.
Engstrom should provide a space in which workforce can communicate by having managers listen to them and asking them questions. People generally know the right answers if they have the opportunity to produce them. For Engstrom creating teams and committees with members from each production department to management is important. A committee can help improve the line workers morale with ideas such as improvement for production, and meeting delivery deadlines. A committee of managers from each department within the plant who will work with plant line workers to make suggestions and improvements for employee morale and improvement. The teams formed should be from all functions and staffed with members whose talents match team tasks. Committees are
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
One of the valued but demanding customer, who had considered Engstrom as a certified supplier, was requesting a large order but Engstrom was unable to deliver on time due to the low productivity problem. The plant manager along with his assistant were already dealing with the troubling numbers when this happened. While the task was a tough bone and not easy to tackle, and there were a lot of factors needed to be taken in to consideration. The leadership started to analyze and break down the main causations other than the overall economic trend that dragged the company into the turmoil, as it turned out, it was the low, frustrated employee morale and diminished work satisfaction.
Not only were the leaders impressed by the employees insights, they took action to address all of the problems. As a result, participation increased, communication improved, relationship between employees and management improved, and access to training and development opportunities were wide-spread. But most importantly, once the original change initiatives were introduced, employees embraced the initiatives, offered insights on how to improve their outcomes, and ensured their success.
My review of the Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in Good Times and Bad case study allows me to identify certain organizational issues within the company.
Managing organizational change is the process of planning and implementing change in organizations with maximum effectiveness and minimum circumstances and resistance. Today 's business environment requires companies to undergo changes almost constantly if they are to remain competitive. In this project paper I am going to discuss organizational change in PepsiCo. I will take a closer look on management approach and forces for change. I will introduce the change, make diagnosis and discuss how the change can be implemented.
Looking at three approaches by Freeman and Cameron’s (as cited in Lam, 2014, pg.137), we will consider the changes in work design, changes in technology and change in structure. In addition we will look at what Similarly and Cascio (as cited in Lam, 2014, pg. 137) suggest for steps to restructuring. In these steps the most important action is to communicate to all employees of what is being considered and what is going to happen. Also suggested is to seek employee’s input for making change which could include a round table meeting lead by Mr. Ramon
Upon gaining insight into issues that led to an unmotivated workforce, JBL management could get better equipment, implement processes and policy changes and train staff on the changes to ensure greater productivity. Employees would be empowered to
Purpose – Through investigating the relationship among human resource management (HRM), organizational learning (OL), organizational innovation (OI), knowledge management capability (KMC), and organizational performance (OP), the aim of this paper was to find a way of improving organizational performance through learning and knowledge. Design/methodology/approach – A survey questionnaire was utilized to collect data. The population of this study included 659