Construction Products Company Major Problems - Case Study Example

Case Study Report: Construction Products Company Name Course Name and Code Instructor’s Name Date Executive summary Construction Products Company deals with production of building g blocks in Brisbane as a subsidiary of Metrivac Company. The firm faces various problems. The major problems of the firm concerns change management, lack of reward and motivation system and lack of training. Change management at the firm can be resolved by involving all the concerned parties in this case supervisors and managers. Engaging employees can improve reward and motivation system at the firm. Lack of training can be resolved by organizing for both internal training and external trainings for employees to gain new knowledge and skills for performing their duties. When these are implemented successful, the firm will be able to stem high employee turnover and increase its performance in terms of profitability. Table of Contents Executive summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Problem identification and analysis 4 Statement of major problems 8 Generation and evaluation of a range of alternative solutions 9 Recommendations 11 Implementation 12 References 13 Problem identification and analysis There are several problems facing the firm. First, the firm has a problem with change management (Beerel, 2009). Even though the current managing director in consultation with VIkram has initiated change at the firm: the style of implementation is not well managed (Schweyer, 2010). It seems they are implementing the change without consulting other stakeholders in the firm. Other managers as reported are used to autocratic kind of leadership while the new changes being introduced require participative management (Cameron & Green, 2009). As a result, other managers feel that Vikram does not know how to make decisions and does not know how to manage. Vikram is also treated suspiciously by his peers because of the changes he is trying to initiate with the managing director. Thus, there seems to be resistance to change. The firm needs to have better ways of initiating and managing change in order for it to be acceptable to everyone. Another problem facing the firm concerns employee reward system. Reward systems need to be tied on the measurement of employee performance (Green, 2007). If the measurement of performance is not tied to reward schemes, most employees find no reason to improve their performance. Development of an appropriate organizational reward system is one of the best motivational factors (Schweyer, 2010). This is because a reward system affects employee motivation and job satisfaction. Motivation is influenced by reward system through the perceived value of the rewards and their contingency on performance (Pugh, 2007). On the other hand, job satisfaction is affected by reward system via making the employee contented and comfortable as a result of the rewards received (Cameron & Green, 2009). Thus if the reward system is not well designed employees may not be motivated or be satisfied with their job which can culminate in increased employee turnover at the firm. Construction Products Company seems to have problem with both the measurement of performance and reward system. There is no clear measurement system that workers at the firm can follow to the later (Goncalves, 2007). The firm also has problem with reward schemes and management of competition across teams (Anderson & Anderson, 2010). As reported in the case Sandra says she is disappointed by the lack of verbal recognition of her performance by her superiors (Schweyer, 2010). The pay at the firm also does not motivate workers as much as it should. For instance, Sandra feels she is being underpaid (Green, 2007). This is also the case for production personnel (Pugh, 2007). It is reported that the managing director even though walks frequently through the factory; he rarely talks to production personnel (Cameron & Green, 2009). This seems to make the production personnel to feel neglected (Anderson & Anderson, 2010). This could have contributed to high employee turnover in the production personnel. As mentioned there seem to be poor management of competition among departments as illustrated by Vikram who says he has received resentment from other departments such as operational and engineering because they feel suspicious of his association with the current managing director (Green, 2007). The reward system is not also all inclusive as noted by Aaron who says that fork lift drivers are not included in the bonus system and hence they try to verbally confront production personnel and sabotage their work by throwing foreign materials into the batching system, which often results in fracturing of moulds (Cameron & Green, 2009). This is an indication of poor management of competition among different groups within the firm. Employees in any firm expect to be engaged in the running of the firm. Different employees are motivated differently within an organization (Schweyer, 2010). The way executive leaders of the firm are motivated is not the same way a firm will motivate its frontline workers (Pugh, 2007). Thus, there is a variation in how employees are engaged within a firm (Anderson & Anderson, 2010). This helps in increasing the level of enthusiasm, confidence, motivation and satisfaction of employees and the contribution of the employees in terms of their skills and talent to the attainment of business goals and objectives (Cameron & Green, 2009). Firms engage employees at different levels differently in order to help in retaining their talented workforce. This is because some of the highly talented core employees of the firm are crucial to future survival of the firm. . It is noted that even though Aaron is reasonably satisfied with his pay, which comes with some bonuses due to his hard working money, is no longer an incentive as it used to be. This is an indication that money only can not motivate one to work hard (Anderson & Anderson, 2010). Aaron notes that his satisfaction comes partly from his workgroup. However, the high employee turnover presents many problems because new employees come with problem of lack of coordination (Green, 2007). It seems that the management do not oriented new employees to the firm. Aaron complains that the management does not care about helping people to do a better job. This implies that promotions at the work hardly come and this seems to de-motivate many employees who often resort to quitting. The Construction Products Company also has a problem with training its workers. Workplace training and development are essential for achieving the goals of an organization. It provides employees with new knowledge and skills to perform their duties (Schweyer, 2010). Training and development may be used to improve the performance deficiencies of employees based on skills, knowledge and abilities required to carry out certain duties (Green, 2007). For employees to be motivated by the training programs in organizations, they should be made accountable for the knowledge and skills that they acquire during the training (Schweyer, 2010). To avoid reverting to old ways of performing tasks, employees need to be supported through the process of learning and post learning process (Beerel, 2009). This is because training involves modification of behaviour that constitutes change, which is often difficult to embrace, and thus great dedication of effort and time is required. In addition, prior to training of employees managers should be consulted for them to be able to encourage the employees to apply the skills learnt in the training program. Training constitutes strategic framework of an organization (Cameron & Green, 2009). The training develops the capability of employees within an organization to perform their duties better or even take up more complex tasks within the organization. Thus, any business enterprise, which encourages and trains its employees, acquires an overall competitive advantage over other firms, which lack such training activities (Cameron & Green, 2009). This is because the human resource of the organization is highly developed by continuous training programs and hence is better placed to deal with the complex business environment, which is characterized by many challenges (Schweyer, 2010). No training seems to take place at the firm. Aaron states that the firm does not care about helping people to do a better job. This is an indication that not training takes place and hence people are not motivated to do their jobs (Green, 2007). The fact that Aaron has been at the firm for long and has been hard working but has never been promoted is an indication that there is no training and development of employees to learn new skills that could enable them to hold a different position (Pugh, 2007). In addition, if training could have been taking place at the firm, production personnel could be having new skills and knowledge of carrying out their duties efficiently and faster. Thus, lack of training could be contributing to high turnover of employees especially in the production personnel (Beerel, 2009). As seen the morale of working at Construction Products Company is very low and this could be alleviated by workplace training. Statement of major problems The major problems confronting Construction Products Company are lack of reward and motivation system; poor change management and lack of training and development (Cameron & Green, 2009). Lack or poor reward and motivation system could be the reason for sabotage, high employee turnover and confrontation between employees from different sectors of the firm. Poor management of change could be the reason why many at the firm especially the management feel that Vikram does not know his job (Schweyer, 2010). Proper management of change cannot be successful if only two individuals are the ones championing for it. It needs every one to be involved for it to be successful with no or little resistance (Green, 2007). This poor change management is making some managers to stick to old autocratic leadership styles, which are hurting the firm by contributing to high employee turnover and absenteeism seen at the firm especially among production personnel as reported by Aaron. Lack of training and development of workers makes it difficult to promote hard working employees such as Aaron and this makes them to be de-motivated in carrying out their duties (Cameron & Green, 2009). In addition, it makes it difficult for workers to gain new skills of carrying out their duties more efficiently and faster (Schweyer, 2010). This costs the firm a lot because production per person is highly reduced. Since it is everyone’s wish to develop his/her career, a firm that does not invest in its people through training and development often looses its talented labour hence impacting negatively on its productivity and performance in general as many resources are wasted in recruitment of new workers (Cameron & Green, 2009). Thus, lack of training at Construction Products Company could explain the high employee turnover being experienced. Generation and evaluation of a range of alternative solutions Change management problem can be resolved through recognizing that change begins in individuals’ brain. Once this is recognized those anticipating to implement change at Construction Products Company ought to involve the appropriate people. This will reduce any cases of resistance especially from the management (Schweyer, 2010). Since Vikram and managing director have already initiated change without involving other people the only way to win them over will be to talk to other managers and explain the need to employ participative leadership style rather than autocratic one (Green, 2007). While talking to them they should avoid any unnecessary debates where some of the targeted managers may take a hardliner stance that may make it impossible to implement change (Cameron & Green, 2009). Alternatively, the managing director may try talking to supervisors of the firm and urge them to involve workers in decision making process (Pugh, 2007). This will help change to emanate from bottom up where the few managers who might try to resist change might be forced to either quit or follow the suit and change. However, involving the managers and not the low cadre employees especially the supervisors may end up bringing divisions at the firm and the supervisors may end up sabotaging the whole process (Cameron & Green, 2009). On the other hand involving the supervisors may force the managers in charge of supervisors to sabotage the plan by being harsh or even threaten to fire those who do not heed their advice (Schweyer, 2010). This is because the firm’s culture is where the leadership embraced is autocratic. The problem related to reward and motivation can be alleviated by implementing performance appraisal system at Construction Products Company. This is a structural formal interaction between employees and their supervisors, which will allow examination and discussion of work performance of the employee (Green, 2007). This will help in identification of weaknesses and strengths in addition to opportunities for improvement and skills development (Cameron & Green, 2009). The results of appraisal can then be used either directly or indirectly to determine the rewards granted to individual employee. The poor performers could be counselled in order to help in improving their performance. Those who persist in underperformance can be either be demoted, dismissed or decrease heir pay (Pugh, 2007). However, the validity and reliability of performance appraisal process has been an area of contention among managers. It has been argued by some that the process of performance appraisal is greatly flawed that dependency on it may de-motivate employees instead of motivating them (Cameron & Green, 2009). Others argue that performance appraisal when used for determination of rewards and promotion results in distortion of its main function of promoting development value. Alternatively, the management can encourage employee engagement and involvement in order to streamline its reward system (Schweyer, 2010). As noted above different employees are motivated differently within an organization. Thus, there is need to vary how employees are engaged within Construction Products Company. This will help in increasing the level of enthusiasm, confidence, motivation and satisfaction of employees and the contribution of the employees in terms of their skills and talent to the attainment of business goals and objectives of Construction Products Company (Schweyer, 2010). By engaging employees at different levels, Construction Products Company will be able to retain their talented workforce and stem the high employee turnover. However, engaging employees may seem to some managers are an avenue of loosing their power as seen in the case where other managers feel that Vikram is not doing his work. Training and development issues at Construction Products Company can be resolved by having either internal training or external training. In internal training employees can be trained by professionals from within and external sources within their firm (Green, 2007). This can help employees to gain new skills and knowledge to carry out their duties effectively and efficiently (Cameron & Green, 2009). However, such training will imply that almost all training be done at the same time and this can be costly to the firm as work may stall for the purpose of training. External training implies that Construction Products Company will allow some of its workers to attend external seminars and workshops to gain new skills and knowledge on how to carry out their duties (Schweyer, 2010). This is advantageous because in such training new and efficient methods are usually discussed and these can be adopted by Construction Products Company. However, sponsorship of attending such seminars and workshops could be expensive to the firm if not well managed (Pugh, 2007). Recommendations We recommend involving both managers and supervisors in implementation of change. This will avoid conflicts between supervisors and their managers. This will also help to gain acceptability of change and reduce any resistance to change at Construction Products Company. We also recommend that employee engagement be used to reward and motivate employees. This is because the use of performance appraisal to promote and reward may not stem the high turnover of employees at the Construction Products Company the way employee engagement could. Finally, we recommend that a mix of external and internal training of employees be initiated at the firm. Such training need to be organised by the management based on the needs of the firm. This will help exploit the skills and knowledge within the firm and at the same time allow the employees to gain new skills, which are not currently available at the firm. Implementation To implement change first those intending to implement it should plan for it (Green, 2007). This should be followed by holding discussions with the concerned groups and explaining the benefits of change. Finally, change need to be initiated slowly as adjustments are made to ensure that it is not abrupt. To engage employees, this will follow both bottoms up and bottoms down methodology. In the bottoms up method, employees will be required to hold small group meetings to identify their needs and concerns, which will be aired to the management through their representatives (Goncalves, 2007). The bottoms down the management will take the initiative of knowing the concerns of the employees and provide some alternative solutions that can be discussed in their presence. Training will need to start with identification of the training needs of the employees and the firm. Once this is established, the firm’s management will start with internal training to address some of these needs (Goncalves, 2007). This will be followed with a survey of various workshops and seminars that are within reach that the management can sponsor some employees to attend. References Anderson, D., & Anderson, L. (2010). Beyond Change Management: Advanced Strategies for Today's Transformational Leaders, 2nd Ed. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Beerel, A. (2009). Leadership and Change Management. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2009). Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change, 2nd Ed. London: Kogan Page Publishers Goncalves, M. (2007). Change management: concepts and practice. London: ASME Press. Green, M. (2007). Change management masterclass: a step by step guide to successful change management. London: Kogan Page Publishers Pugh, L. (2007). Change management in information services, 2nd Ed. London: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Schweyer, A. (2010). Talent Management Systems: Best Practices in Technology Solutions for Recruitment, Retention and Workforce Planning. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Read More