Question

Case Study 2

Motivation:   Production Slowdown at Bendum Metal Fab, Inc.

Scenario:

When the new supervisor improves production dramatically at the expense of employee relations, the plant must face rumblings of rebellion. The incident calls for considering grievances, using authority, gaining acceptance of change, generating motivation, obtaining commitment, and linking output with job satisfaction.

Incident:

May B. Wright had been made supervisor of a production line at Bendum Metal Fabrication, Inc.(BMF). The plant manager, Sommer Flimsay, made her responsible for operating the entire production line efficiently and effectively. Wright supervised 6 forepersons and 48 assembly line workers. Her job was to keep the assembly line going at the scheduled 150 units per hour.

When Wright took the supervisor's job two months previously, the production line was losing 90 minutes of production a day. Line stoppages, maintenance problems, absenteeism, and workers stopping the line for repair were some causes of lost production. The 90-minute loss was approximately 20 percent of the daily operating schedule.

Wright reduced absenteeism and took other steps to prevent the loss of scheduled production time. She kept the main line going even when some feeder lines stopped. "The workers don't like it," said Wright. "They resent working the required 7 hours and 45 minutes a day instead of only 6 hours and 30 minutes."

The disgruntlement of the production line workers toward Wright seemed to be centered in Izzy Short and Monica-Lou Inski. The complaints against Wright were varied and included the following. Both Short and Monica-Lou said that Wright laid off workers for being two minutes late. They also said that Wright had forepersons picking up trash. Short said that Wright had threatened him with an iron bar about eight inches long and claimed that Wright was guilty of using "speed-up" tactics. Insky said she had friends in high places and would do whatever it took to get some action. As a result of these events, the two filed a formal grievance targeting Wright.

The plant manager knew that Wright was the target of increasingly vitriolic verbal protests by Short and Inski. Both were openly defiant and implied that they were ready to take matters into their own hands, especially Monica-Lou.

Confronted with this high and rising level of employee unrest, the plant manager reflected upon Wright's inability to achieve simultaneously adequate production and adequate behavioral relations with her workers. He wondered "Are these two goals necessarily incompatible? Does the problem lie with Wright, the assembly line workers, or the situation?" More importantly, Flimsay knew that prompt decisions an actions were essential to defuse the explosive situation. He particularly didn't want the press to get hold of all this and blow it all out of proportion.

While action was immediately needed to extinguish the agitation among the assembly line workers, the plant manager wished to use Wright in a positive role, and he desired to maintain the improved production rates achieved under Wright's leadership. For the longer run, he reasoned that developing specific operational policies would be essential in areas such as supervisory training, introduction of change, team building, and other areas relevant to balancing supervisory concern for task performance with concern for behavioral relationships. Implementation of these policies would be difficult, and he knew it. As the plant manager pondered his plight, his stress increased. He was uncertain where to begin. Should he call his lawyer first, or later?

Assignment:

Analyze the scenario from a motivational theory standpoint. As a personnel specialist, develop a strategy BASED ON SOUND PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY to motivate the workers to buy into the systems. Wright, not being a good manager, has contributed to her line workers' disenchantment. She did not anticipate the motivational problem she helped create. However, you, as a clever personnel specialist, can help salvage the manager and improve the line workers' morale by using your knowledge of motivational theories. You should consider the various theories such as: need, equity, expectancy, goal setting and intrinsic motivation. Which one(s) should be incorporated in your plan to help motivate (train) Wright and which one(s) should be employed to motivate the line workers?

The personnel manager, Kit Gloves, has asked you to:

1. Develop a strategy to solve this motivational problem
2. Present it to her and Sommer, the plant manager

Answer 1

Solution

The vice president grew frustrated when the manager kept resisting on agreeing on any specific goal and finally, he said that, “If you won’t give me a number, then I’m going to give you one.” The vice president, switching to a positive incentive, then added that if the recruiting manager achieves the hiring goal, he would throw a huge party at his home. Surprisingly, by the end of that year, the team exceeded the vice president’s goal and as promised, he threw a big party at his home.

A while back, the senior vice president of Microsoft Corporation was pressuring the recruitment team to increase their hiring goals to meet the needs of the business. However, the recruiting director saw that this was not possible to accomplish, told his recruiting manager to not agree to a specific number of new hires for the following year. When the meeting came, just as the recruiting manager predicted, the senior VP, who was a believer of specific and difficult goals, kept pushing the recruiting manager to give a specific number of new hires for next year.

Moreover, the supervisor should make sure that all the workers are informed of the scheduled quota and provide incentives for the assembly line workers that would be shown in the results of the survey they conducted, if they successfully attain the scheduled quota. Their fruits of labour and hard work would be of certain rewards that could help them become much more motivated in being more productive.

The group believes that the theories that should help motivate both the workers and Wright are the goal setting theory and extrinsic motivation. Using these as basis, the plant manager should create a survey for the workers to find out what would motivate them to be at their most productive.

Offering incentives like a promotion or higher salary could also be done by the plant manager for the supervisor if Wright successfully achieves the quota, does not receive complaints from her assembly line workers and treats them in an ethical manner. Furthermore, the manager could also implement a supervisory training for Wright to further develop her skills as a supervisor and team buildings to help develop a good work relationship between Wright and the workers.

However, when Wright was newly promoted, the production line was becoming very unproductive. Several problems arose like workers being absent, line stoppages, maintenance problems and whatnot, which resulted to a loss of 90 minutes of production every day, which, consequently, was equal to a decreasing 20% of the daily operating schedule as well. In order to address this problem, Wright became stricter and decided to lay off workers who were only a few minutes late and kept the main line going even when some feeder lines stopped.