Columbia Custom Carpentry - Case Study Example

1.0 Turnover at Columbus Custom Carpentry

Columbus Custom Carpentry (CCC) is encountering a turnover in the recent years because in the past, the company has replaced the higher-paid employees with the new recruits; who are usually paid less than the experienced ones (excerpted from the case study). The main motive of the company behind this turnover practice was to maximize productivity and minimize cost (Ton & Huckman, 2008). However, this strategy did not turn out fruitful, as the attrition rate of the new recruits has gone up. Due to this turnover practice of the company, the experienced executives started to resign from it as well (excerpted from the case study). The management of the organization wanted to cut cost by hiring new employees at low wages and replace them with the high salaried experienced candidates, but this inefficient pay structure of the organization eventually paved the way for high employee turnover resulting in HR issues. Employees lay the foundation of the overall operational activities of a company, thus high turnover rate will gradually result in less competency. Therefore, the company’s remuneration structure is the sole reason behind the increasing trover of the organization (Ton & Huckman, 2008).

2.0 Overpayment of Assembly Technicians

The key responsibility areas (KRAs) of the assembly technicians in CCC is to provide support to the entire supply chain. The job responsibilities of the manufacturing or assembly technicians are to collect, load, ship and receive warehouse commodities. It can be highlighted that the task of the technicians or forklift operators is intricate and involves an extensive use of intellect and technical knowledge. Columbus Custom Carpentry acknowledges the contribution of its assembly technicians, thus compensates with salaries ranging from $28,500- $38,875, depending on experience and designation (excerpted from the spreadsheet). Nevertheless, as per the job responsibilities of the assembly technicians, they are being overpaid because although their job profiles involve a lot of intellect, there is less or no physical exertion. It has been learnt from the case study that the technician receives the products and drops them wherever they want and in case the commodity is damaged, the warehouse executives are held responsible. Therefore, as per the job profile of the technicians, they are being overpaid (Filatotchev & Allcock, 2010).

3.0 Underpayment of Craters

The case study has revealed the fact that the craters deployed in the company need to undertake a lot of physical labor, as their job profile demands it. Crating may not involve a lot of automated machine, but requires great manual labor, making the job profile both exhausting and difficult. It has been learnt from the case study that the forklift operators or the technicians do not show any interest in executing crating task, indicating the difficulty of the jib profile. Putting nails in crook results in damage of the product, indicating that the craters need to execute their task very minutely. Therefore, as per the labor the craters put in, they are being underpaid and their salary ranges between $20,800- $32,000 (excerpted from spreadsheet). This is quite less as compared to the remuneration scale of the assembly technicians.

The job profile of the craters involves many sub tasks that need a lot of manual labor, but if the custom handwork portion were eradicated from their job profile, it would reduce the workload of them. The works associated with the jig system, which involve great physical labor, are executed by the craters; therefore, if the handwork aspect of the work were eliminated, their work would become relatively convenient. However, this does not necessarily imply that it would justify the payments they are receiving. This is because technicians use their cognitive abilities to do their work and craters use physical labor to accomplish the assigned tasks. Therefore, the pay scale of the craters needs to be near the salary drawn by the assembly technicians in case the company cannot pay the same salary (Lee, 2009).

4.0 Alignment of CFO with an Accounting Managers

The case study has highlighted that the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Mike Cooney has shed light on the fact that in order to gain a competitive advantage in the market, Columbus Custom Carpentry needs to focus on efficiency of operations. Moreover, the CFO further suggested on striking a balance between product cost and proliferation of business models, as it is the only way through which the company can establish a strong position in the market. The officer further highlighted on the issue related to the employee turnover and other HR issues. Theses information indicates that the best alignment of CFO’s position would be with a director in the organization. This is because; presently the organization needs strategic direction across all its departments, thus the CFO can be a proficient leader and important member of senior management. He can further act as the integrator and navigator of the company and show the correct direction to the organization as a whole (Hiebl, Gartner, & Duller, 2017).

5.0 Differences in Payment

The pay structure in Columbus Custom Carpentry is moderately structured and does not have many differences. It is one of the important HR policies of the company not to practice or promote any kind of discriminatory behavior, thus there is no difference in the payment approach of the company. The pay structure of the corporation indicates that some of the departments are overpaid, while some are underpaid. However, inside the departments, the payment procedure does not have any discrepancy (excerpted from the case study).

The basis of setting the remuneration scale of the employees depends on the kind of work profiles of the personnel, length of services and their performance. In some of the divisions, the female are paid more than the male staff; like in case of processing department, a female machine operator, Nikki Messer (36 years) is paid more than a male operator, Brain Auer (48 years). This proves that the company does discriminate based on gender (excerpted from spreadsheet). It is obvious that the personnel employed in the executive and managerial position are compensated with high salary because they are serving the company for the longest period thus have been promoted to senior positions. This also proves that the company remunerate its employees based on their length of services. The case has revealed that the company pays more to one department (assembly technicians) and less to another (craters) because of the differences in their working approach. Nevertheless, the organization does not discriminate the employees based on other basis like race or ethnicity (Clements & Izan, 2008).

6.0 Rectification of Key Issues

The case has helped in understanding that the major issues of Columbus Custom Carpentry mainly arise from internal challenges. The grave issues that are being encountered by the company are high employee attrition rate, lack of proper communication among departments, inconsistency of compensation structure. All these challenges altogether are negatively affecting the profit margin of the organization and employee morale and both of these are harmful for the future of the enterprise. This is because reduced employee morale will gradually determine the efficiency of the executives and quality of the products.

In order to mitigate all the aforementioned issues, it is very important that the members of the upper echelon draw their attention on executing an extensive analysis of all the job profiles of their organization. This assessment will provide the foundation for making certain adjustments in the existing pay system, which will result in less discrepancy. The company needs to make certain adjustments in the pay scale. This is because it will help in establishing an egalitarian culture within the organization. Apart from this, the differences of pay structure based on the employees working approach is incorrectly executed by the company due to which, one of the departments is overpaid while another one is underpaid. This demoralizes the employees deployed in the underpaid department, while the executives of the overpaid division are taking their job for granted. Therefore, in order bring a change in this ambiguous remuneration structure, the company needs to revise its compensation policies and basis of salary determination so that proper pay can be ensured across all the levels of the hierarchy. This will eventually reduce inter-departmental conflict and differences and help in building an effective communication channel (Boxall & Purcell, 2011).

Improved communication among the personnel of all the department will establish peace and harmony and a productive working culture. Better workplace relation will result in better product quality, thereby improving the competitive position of the company in the steep market rivalry (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). In addition to this, concrete job descriptions and enhanced rapport between the management and the executives will have a deep impact on the intrinsic understanding. This improved understanding will eventually pave the way for enhanced employee motivation (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). At present, the CFO of the company acts only as a financial office, however he can be re-positioned as the director so that better support can b lent to other areas of the organization as well. In the company, all the departments are interconnected, thus, the CFO can take charge of other departments as well.

The company encounters with a grave issue of high employee turnover, because of its ineffective approach of replacing high salaried experienced employees with low salary novice recruits. This approach needs to be revised by the company as to concentrate more on retaining the exiting experienced employees as they have the potential to act as catalyst to the success of the company. The pay scale of the new recruits is less, but the cost involved in training them is quite high, thus it is not cogent of the management to replace the old employees with new ones (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). The experinced employees, who draw high salary, have the potentiality to return back more than they are fetching from the company. This is because, they have experience, skills and expertise and they are well aware and accustomed with the work procedure and approach of the company. Therefore their working tactics will be much more advanced than that of the new workforce (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). Hence, the organization needs to focus on retaining the old and experienced employees so that they contribute in the growth and success of the company. Moreover, with growing experience, the old employees have gained lot of expertise, which they can impart to the new recruits. Thus, replacing them is not rational rather putting the new employees under the experienced executives will be much more logical as they will learn the tip and tricks of a particular work profile in this way (Boxall & Purcell, 2011).