Organizational Development and Change of Dryburgh Footwear Company - Case Study Example

Running head: Organizational Development and Change Name Course Lecturer Date Background Dryburgh Footwear Company was one of the operating business units of Imperial Enterprises. The company was established in 1950s initially as a family business and it prospered between 1950 and 1960s as a result of erected high tariffs. Imperial Enterprises purchased the business in 1971 despite its financial difficulties, the company gave healthy returns. Dryburgh produces a wide range of men’s and women’s casual shoes and wears, and children’s shoe and boots. The company copies design from costly European shoes and produce them at a reduced low price for various retail outlet including Fosseys, Venture Stores and Target. It has a production centre in one of the Melbourne’s suburbs, Niddrie (Deery, 1995). The company has about 500 employees who are distributed in various functional departments; that is, administrative, sales, clerical and managerial functions place. The company is headed by a General Manager; and there is a management in place whose main role is to make decision affecting the running and operation of the company. Majority of the employees are women between the age of 30-33 years, who are relatively unskilled and have young children. Dryburgh essentially operates on a two shift production; that is, approximately 400-day shift and 60 on the afternoon shift (Deery, 1995). The production work is primarily divided into five areas cutting, machining, injection and cement making, cleaning, finishing and warehousing. Cutting or clicking involves cutting out synthetic material or leather for upper part of a shoe, machining involved stitching together material using sewing machine while cementing and injection primarily involves attaching shoes to the appropriate components. After this, the shoes are taken to the warehouse ready for delivery to the customers (Deery, 1995). Introducing Change In the recent times, the company has been undergoing some difficulties in relation to high turnover and absenteeism of employees. Of interesting to note is the fact that the management paid little attention to the problems. The Personal Officer, Bill Brown had noticed with much concern that absenteeism and high turnover impaired the output performance of the company. He noted that absenteeism costs the organization directly and indirectly. For instance, directly costs included the pay that sick employees were given when absent while indirect costs involved lost of production, disruption of work flows, reduced rework or reduced quality, lower employee productivity, redirection and additional training. From this, the personal officer estimated that the company lost approximately $ 700,000 annually (Deery, 1995). Indeed, this is a grave issue given that it the company barely recorded profits in the recent years and the return on investment was low. As such, the management is reluctant to invest in the advanced technology reducing the company competitive advantage and therefore, reaping little benefits from the large market. It is also important to note that as a result of high turnover and absenteeism, employees were shifted from one production area to another; plugging hole in daily operations( Deery, 1995). The above problem was accompanied with employer-employee conflicts. Under this, the employees feel that the management consider them as payroll number, resources that should be exploited and cost to be reduced. In addition, they argue that the union is too weak to address their problems. On the other hand, the supervisors spend more time in handling machine problems rather than address issues affecting the employees and assist them. Another reason that led to high turnover and absenteeism was the introduction of a new operating system that brought division among the employees. Most employees working under the convection system asserted that the rest of the employees under the JIT line were well treated compared to them (Deery, 1995). Notably, it is quite clear from the case study that the management may be the main cause of the noted conflict. However, it is important to note that not every perceived problem may be directly caused by the management but it may indirectly result to the amplification of the problem. From this perspective, in order to have an appropriate approach to change, it is important that the management commits itself to ensure that the problems the organization is facing are addressed. Indeed, this is significant given that as per the management theory that the senior managers are responsible of adopting main policy that will govern a particular organization. In addition, organization theorists assert that organizational leaders greatly influence on an organizational culture. As such, approaching the change from a management point will assist in eradicating the problems facing the organization (Deery, 1995). As indicated in the case study, the management and supervisory factors are not well equipped to handle the problem at hand. Indeed, given that both factors contribute to the establishment of job satisfaction, there is a need for supervisory and management training. Not only does management and supervisory factors play a big role in job satisfaction but also it assist in development of work team cohesion, participatory and consultative decision management strategies, valuing importance employees and stipulation of feedback in the workplace. Still, supervisory practices that result to open expression of views, opinions and problem solving participatory result to reduction of ambiguity, stress and role conflict. This kind of training is an important strategy that influences management and supervisory style. The training will indeed include role of managers and supervisors in following up absenteeism, knowledge procedures and policies, support and recognition distressed employees, keeping clear contact with the employees and receiving their feedback positively (Ryu & Lee, 2012). Other training matters that should be put into consideration include various ways that supervisors should handle information on attendance, support and acknowledge the management, mechanisms of rewarding and recognising good work performance among the employees, acknowledging attendance behaviour in the workplace and ways of establishing clear procedures and policies that will be developed in the organization. Of important to note is the fact that there is a need for the supervisors and management to involve the employees in forming some key shared objectives. Indeed, this is significant given that in the organization employees believe that the employers have low opinion of them; that is, they are resources that need to be utilised. Therefore, in relation to the training, there is a necessity of workshops and benchmarking activities that the supervisors and the management that they need to undergo in order to gain skills that are much needed in curing the chronic problems. As Jabri (2012) asserts this is important especially among the supervisors given that they have direct contacts with employees. As such, they should clearly play their role in making the people working under them feel that they are important in the company and that their contributions is highly valued. In addition to the above, the management should also do the same to the supervisors. Indeed, this is significant due to the fact that the employees felt that the supervisors were competent but were working under pressure as indicated in the questionnaires. With the appropriate recognition, good attendance behaviour is high likely to be perceived. On the other hand, inattention or lack of concern may lead to the increase rate of leave taking. In addition to the above, the necessity of a step by step program that is related to problem solving approach cannot be overemphasized. This is significant in relation to addressing absenteeism among the employees. The program is significant given that the supervisors may not be in a position, and to some extent it is not a desirable position to offer some solution to personal issues that lead to leave taking. The programs should therefore, create a clear access to appropriate counselling when need be. This may call for external counselling if the organization is not able to incur extra cost on the same. As expected, some situations may call for disciplinary and warning actions. In such cases, these actions should be taken into consideration after trying the problem solving approaches. It is important that such policies to be integrated in the attendance management strategy which would result to structural issues that may lead to reduction of absenteeism and high turnover. It is also important for the management to consider the fact that incentives, penalties and rewards play a major role in absence management and high turnover. The aforementioned devices vary from unambiguous reward including financial gain or clear penalties including dismissal. Notably, despite the fact that these kinds of rewards and disincentives are underestimated, their use provides direct impact on the employees (Jabri, 2012). In order to establish and develop the above approaches, it is important to create readiness for the above interventions. This is quite significant given that change does not take place at once; it is a process that the organization should be ready to face. In addition, dramatic changes have an effect on the employees and their supervisors. Change management strategies that involve informative and participatory approaches may have impact on absenteeism and turnover. One way of creating readiness is through obtaining information on the working condition in the organization. This may be done by various concerned managers, supervisors or employees. Under this, a report on the failure on the organization performance compared to the competitors may be availed to the managers in relation to need of change. Communication is paramount in any changing organization as it raises the level of understanding among the employees and other involved stakeholders. As such, there is a need to handle communication plans appropriately. Of important to note is the fact that a two way communication process is significant in order to ensure that the management is able to communicate its change strategies to the employees and at the same time obtain feedback from them. This is quite important so the management may know how the message has been received. The initial communication plan should offer an effective mechanism to uncover any potential resistance to the planned change. Indeed, in most cases the employees are likely to react passively and actively towards the change strategies. In regard to this, it is important for the affected personnel to understand the impact of these changes so as that they may be engaged in further communication (Jabri, 2012). Another way of handling communication is by ensuring that the appropriate channels are used to communicate information to the right audience. In this case, the supervisors have direct contact with the employees and as such, they are the most appropriate level to communicate with them effectively. Furthermore, they seem to have good working relationship with the employees (Jabri, 2012). In order to handle communication effectively, there is need to consider consistency. As such, the information should be crafted in such a way that the concerned do not get mixed information destroying credibility. Therefore, a communication plan should be crafted in a way that it will ensure continuity. In relation to this, the management should show commitment to the changes so as to cement their call for change among the supervisors and employees (Jabri, 2012). Indeed, introducing change is quite important; however, there is a need to evaluate in order to understand the outcome. This primarily involves relating the designed changes to the objectives and original strategy. Lack of evaluation will be difficult for the management to assess the effect of the process. In this case, key performance indicators (KPIs) are appropriate in evaluating the changes. Under this, various part so the organization will be monitored in order to assess whether they are fulfilling the objective of the organization. Various indicators that will be used include employees’ behaviour towards absenteeism and turnover. In addition to this, production output will be compared with the output data before the introduction of the change (Jabri, 2012). Indeed, given the problems that the organization is facing there is a need to carry out changes so as that the company may gain competitive advantage in the industry. As such, the management should at the forefront to enhance the change. References Ryu, S & Lee Y (2012) Examining the role of management in turnover; a contingency approach, Texas Jabri, M (2012) Managing organizational change, Melbourne: Palgrave Deery, J (1995)Absenteeism and employee turnover: Dryburgh Footwear Company; in Organizational change strategies; case studies of human resources and industrial relation issues, ed. Patrickson, M Bamber, G & Bamber, J, Longman: Melbourne 21: 240-250 Read More