Improving Workforce Productivity in Philips - Case Study Example

Improving Workforce Productivity Your Name: Lecture’s Name: Class Name: Date Assignment Due: Improving Workforce Productivity Organizations constantly seek to improve their performance through the use of such efforts like organization development, quality improvement, training, reengineering, performance technology and human resource management. The management executives are faced with conflicting demands in the execution of these activities. Having served in my new position as a Human Resources and employment Relations Director of the high-tech manufacturing plant in Manila, I would not like the company to face the challenges that occurred at Philips and led to its reduced productivity some years back. This problem based learning examines the problems that occurred at such as unsettled workforce with low morale, poor labour relations, inadequate quality control, increased labour turnover, and increased labour and capital charges. It further discusses how the lessons learnt from the job and work design at Philips can be used to increase the productivity of the workers. Inadequate quality control is the main issue that I will not like to occur in my organization due to the detrimental effects it has on organizational performance. According to Reeves & Bednar (1994), poor quality products waste materials and time, and customer dissatisfaction as a result of decreased sales. As a Human Resources and Employment Relations Director, I should motivate and encourage the workforce so that they produce products that conform to the set of predetermined standards. Together with the management team, we should be dedicated to manage and work in a way that builds excellence in every facet of the company’s production and operations. The poor quality at Philips was associated to ineffective production planning, inefficient control systems and poor production methods (Kriegler & Stendal, 1982). The work environment in the old production system was boring, unchallenging with inordinately tedious and repetitious work that resulted to worker dissatisfaction. In avoiding such a situation, we should commit our employees and provide them with better ways of doing things, just like in the new system at Philips, in order to improve quality and achieve greater efficiency. The implementation of the massive restructuring program can also assist in the improvement of the workforce productivity. In fostering efficient manufacturing system, we should implement the use of monitoring tools and techniques that will contribute to the quality control of the manufacturing process. Well designed methods and processes assists to improve the employee satisfaction (Anderson, Fornell & Rust, 1997). The second challenge that Philips faced was unsettled workforce with low morale. The environment and work structure in the old production lines was a source of employee dissatisfaction leading to their reduced morale. Mason, Ark & Wagner (1994) acknowledges that the quality and involvement of the employees play an important role in the improvement of the the manufacturing process. Thus, it is necessary to have a settled workforce with increased motivation in ensuring the achievement of the organization’s objectives. In my position, I should put efforts of improving the employees’ motivation by reavaluating and changing the current work environment. The restructuring of work environment at philips increased the employee involvement which, in turn, led to increased job satisfaction. According to Kriegler & Stendal (1982), the formed teams operated with a high degree of autonomy; they were allowed to remodel their workplace, design new machineries and innovative production processes, monitor and control their production efficieny and quality. Such an approach of creating productive teams that are highly involved in their work can be useful in our manufacturing plant since it fosters a health social interaction that increases their participation. The strong social ties created within the organization improves the workers attitude towards work. Cummings & Worley (2009) adds that employee involvement can also be enhanced through good perfomance appraisals and rewards, good leadership and job redesign. In my position, I will highly involve the workers as they perfom their tasks in order to foster the organizational productivity. The third challenge highlighted in tbe Philips case is poor labour relations. The organizational structure in the old system allowed little social interactions with no freedom of moving about. Such a situation can not allow high productivity of the organization, and thus, by all costs I should ensure it does no happen in the new high-tech manufacturing plant in Manila. According to Datta, Guthrie & Wright (2005), it is the duty of the management team to establish a labour relations policy that gives a behavioural framework on how activities should be run in an organization. It should include all types of procedures and structures that should be followed as well as determines how the organizational members should relate to one another in all aspects of their labour relations. I should be focused on maintaining a good relationship with the employees, their labour unions, and generally ensure there is maintained discipline within the organization. This can greatly assist in avoiding such frequent frictions that occurred between workers at philips some years back. The job restructuring in the new system that included the formation of self-contained production teams led to the improvement of their labour relations (Ittner & Larcker, 1997). Similarly, our manufacturing plant should form small production teams among the workforce to improve their interactions and relationships hence resulting into an increased productivity. I should also foster the workers responsibility by creating a sense of self commitment for the organization so as to improve their work perfomance. The case study of Philips gives a clear insight on the importance of job restructuring in organizational performance. The implementation of the new system created of a safer, cleaner and comfortable work environment that resulted in the improved performance. Cooke (1989) says that job restructuring is one of the ways that can assist in the improvement of the firm’s productivity. An organization can restructure its operations through various forms such as job simplification, job enlargement, job enrichment or job rotation (Ittner & Larcker, 1997). Job simplification involves the breaking down of job tasks into smaller parts while job enlargement involves the combining of various tasks and alloting them to an individual. Also, job rotation is a design through which an employee is rotated from perfoming one task to another within the organization after a given period, and job enrichment involves the assigning of an individual with a task that incorporates the various skills that he has. As an HR/ER Director of the new-tech manufacturing industry, I will focus on job enrichment just as Philips did by training their team members on multiple skills to enable them do a variety of activities that require the skills. Another good alternative to this is job rotation which reduces the monotony of doing the same task all the time. From the case study, I learn the importance of restructuring the manufacturing process in increasing the productivity of the workers of the organization. It also indicates that the restructured work environment can foster product quality and allow flexibility in production making the organization to be highly responsive to any market fluctuation. I should therefore ensure that the various job tasks are split and assigned to particular teams where they can apply a wide range of skills and abilities that they have. This helps to reduce boredom caused by the repetitious work. In addition, it can foster imaginativeness and innovation in the organization. According to Dostie & Jayaraman (2008), technological advancements and innovations can be included in the work methods and procedures by adjusting the manufacturing system in the efforts of trying to increase productivity. The new assembly system incorporated some innovations and at the end led to the production of different television models within shorter time duration. Frequent modifications and innovations can also help my organization achieve high productivity regardless of the amount it may cost us. I should devise innovative production processes that the workers find comfortable to deal with. Our organization should abandon the traditional organizational structure and focus on a new structure with efficient problem solving methods and improved workplace communication in order to improve productivity. In my position as a HR/ ER Director in the new high-tech manufacturing plant, I should establish a good understanding of the human relations so as to avoid the occurance of the issues that arose at philips many years ago. The key initiatives that I take should be aimed at improving the employee motivation, involvement so as to provide a challenging work environment that will increase their morale and thus improving the quality production for improved perfomance. There is need to restructure the work environment by developing production teams, improving labour relations, redesigning the job activities through job simplification, job rotation, job enlargemment and job enrichment as well as increasing the satisfaction levels of the employees. References Anderson, E., Fornell, C & Rust, R. (1997). Customer Satisfaction, Productivity, and Profitability: Differences between Goods and Services. Marketing Science Journal. 16 (2), 129-145 Cooke, W. (1989). Improving Productivity and Quality Through Collaboration Industrial Relations. A Journal of Economy and Society, 28(2), 299-319. Cummings, T. & Worley, C. (2009). Organization development & change (9th ed). New Jersey: Cengage Learning Datta, D., Guthrie, J. &Wright, P. (2005). Human Resource Management and Labor Productivity: Does Industry Matter? The Academy of Management Journal, 48(1), 135-145. Dostie, B. & Jayaraman, R. (2008). Organizational Redesign, Information Technologies and Workplace Productivity. IZA Discussion Paper no. 3612, 1-43 Ittner, C & Larcker, D. (1997). Quality Strategy, Strategic Control Systems, and Organizational Performance. Journal of Accounting, Organizations and Society 22 (3-4), 293-314. Kriegler, R. & Stendal, G. (1982). Classics in Australian Management- Managing through Crisis Mason,G., Ark, B. & Wagner, K. (1994). Productivity, Product Quality and Workforce Skills National Institute Economic Review, 147(1), 62-83. Reeves, C. & Bednar, D. (1994). Defining Quality: Alternatives and Implications. The Academy of Management Review, 19 (3), 419-444 Read More