Tire Lima Factory Plant. High turnover rate, Job dissatisfaction, staffing concerns, lack of training and education from the plant's line foreman were a few main issues.
The line foremen supervised 12 hour shifts and were responsible for a wide range of day to day operations. Their responsibilities include, management of hourly waged unionized workers, solving payroll issues, scheduling, approving vacation request and checking timeshares.The foreman lacks control by not being able to set and enforce work standards due to onion interference, and lack of support from upper management. There is almost no training given to the line foreman and many of the people holding this position lack formal, college educations.
There are some big problems in Lima. Among the most urgent to be solved in order to reduce turnover and increase Job satisfaction are to mend the schism between workers, middle management and executive management, and to develop a system of communication that fairly addresses quotas, complaints, suggestions for improvement and morale.In order to begin this process, it is imperative that Executive management recruits middle management and the hourly workers in developing a communicating a purpose of why they are all there working and why they work together in the way they do. Hourly workers need a clear understanding, in objective terms of what their Job contributes to the company. Middle management needs to take the responsibility of advocate for the hourly workers purpose and have a system by which this can be communicated to upper management.Line foreman then must develop and implement an objective way system to communicate to hourly errors how close they came to achieving their purpose within the company & what specifically could be done differently.
Line foreman also need to have the authority to implement consequences when individual workers behavior goes against their common purpose. In other words, the entire plant needs to be on the same page of where they are going each shift, each day, each quarter and each year.They need to understand why it is important and exactly what they need to do to get there. It is vital that upper or executive management bring their workers and their frontline experience and suggestions into their decision making process. I also suggest that the yearly expense the plant acquires from turnover, be matched in a training budget.
Line foreman needed training not only in manufacturing processes, but also in communication skills. The current sink or swim policy is only making matters worse and increasing the gap between workers and management.Finally, the employee appraisal system is a waste of time and resources as it don't provide useful information on how to develop workers in order to increase production, profit or Job satisfaction. If an appraisal system is going to be used, it needs to be more specific ND aligned to shared purpose of the company so workers can use it to learn how to do their Job better, not as a punishment device.
Introduction Lima Tire plant was faced with the challenges of rising cost of oil which affected raw material costs and extreme global competition.In 2000 the Lima plant invested $100 million in an expansion effort which consisted of technology upgrades and updated equipment. These modernization efforts increased capacity and the plant took on more work as a result of another plant closing in Greenville South Carolina. The Lima Tire plant moved to 24 hour production. They switched from smaller shifts to a reduced number of longer shifts thus decreasing the headcount.
Ashley Wall was one who came from Driveway plant and her mission was to reduce the amount of turnover at Lima in her new Human Resource Management Position. Was the Union the problem or solution to the problem? Skinner & Beckman, 2008). The Problem Most of the line foremen employed at Driveway were manufacturing foreman with degrees. Successful managers were promoted but the backfill to Former resulted in undereducated candidate pool so management wanted to overhaul the candidate LOL by bringing in more qualified external candidates (Skinner & Beckman, 2008).
Former for the Lima Tire plant had a very stressful Job dealing with the frequent pull from different sides of upper management, often receiving verbal abuses and strict punishments for not meeting goals. Former were also responsible for adhering and following unions policies and procedures.Former negotiated work standards with union officials. They were in charge of calling upon the union stewards when grievances were filed but they were never kept informed of outcomes thus keeping them outside of the loop of communication. The disconnect here was that foreman were held responsible for upholding the Union's rules but held no authority under the union rules. Foreman held an unfortunate position with the company.
They were disliked by hourly employees and some management so their isolation accounted for most of the dissatisfaction and turnover within the company (Skinner & Beckman, 2008).Surveys were conducted about were the dissatisfaction stemmed from. Most employees felt that foreman couldn't handle their staff nor could they work with unions. Foremen were also thought to have negative attitudes and unproductive management styles. Foremen were asked about their level of satisfaction and most found dissatisfaction in the amount of training they had for their positions, the other supervisors, the working conditions and advancement opportunities (Skinner & Beckman, 2008).
Resolution The Lima Tire plant has an obvious issue of it's Foremen communicating with and aligning efforts with the Union. There are two options that the plant should consider but only one offers the best solution. The first option is that Foremen should learn to take control over the Union procedures. They don't necessarily have to know everything that happens in grievance meetings but they could take more prominent role in making decisions and disciplining employees.They should also make efforts to establish a better relationship with the Union stewards and employees (Skinner & The second option is for the Lima Tire Plant to remove the presence of the Unions altogether. Many companies have taken this approach because they felt they lacked the control they needed for their own business and employees.
The TEAM approach is used to keep an organization free of Unions. TEAM stands for Training, Education, accessibility, and modernization (Hyman, Jackson, Grants & 2009).Training is for management to learn how to address employees expressing interest in Joining unions. Management should be trained on teaching employees the realistic affects that Unions have on organizations.
The affects include the costs of Union fees, their propensity towards following rules over fairness and admonishment workplace flexibility (Hyman, Jackson, Grants & 2009). The education of employees involves the knowledge mentions before but also the careful separation of the ideal that management is against unions but rather management's ability to solve issues without Unions.Accessibility involves getting employees involved in upper management's decision making. This freedom of idea expression should remove the want for someone to be on their side, such as a union. Modernization accounts for the ever changing perception and needs for Unions.
In order to keep employees and management involved with each other, open lines of communication should be publicized and facts about Unions should be made apparent to every employee. The open-door policy should be kept around.This policy ivies employees the facts about Unions and then they can make their own decision to Join or not (Skinner & Beckman, 2008). Conclusion Unions were established during a time in history when employee rights were non- existent and workplaces lacked respect. In modern times there are rule and regulations established by the government that remove the need for Unions. There are other techniques available to management to solve common workplace dissatisfaction and turnover.
In situations where employee rights are violated, there are certain legal options available.References Skinner, W. & Beckman, H. (2008). The Driveway Tire Company: Job Dissatisfaction and High Turnover at the Lima Tire Plant.
Harvard Business Publishing. June. UP(3-12). Http://voices. Yahoo. Com/case-study-lima-union-free-way-be-8301485.
HTML Sagas Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the Problem - Evelyn Sanders 1 In the video Ashley and John identified the issues at Driveway Tire Company as being low morale among workers, the rising cost of raw materials and line foremen turnover rate.I did identify the same issues as Ashley and John did in the Driveway case, however, I did identify to other issues not identified by Ashley and John. One organization issue is that one plant manager is not enough personnel to properly oversee a plant of 9000 hourly workers. I also see a 12 hour shift and the calling in sick by workers as an indication of burnout by workers. It was a mistake not to identify the long worker hours of employees as a possible issue.
Ashley is on track with identifying the three main issues at Driveway.These are obvious and stated issues (Howard Business Review 2008). Ashley is also on the right track because she had done some research using Good to Great as a bases for ideas on confronting the issues before her. She is also confronting the brutal facts about the issues Driveway is facing no matter how difficult they are to face. The key aspects of the situation at Driveway have been included in Ashley conversation with John, with additional thoughts about what other data needs to be gathered to help analyze the issues she is facing.To analyze the key issues at Driveway, and come up with an action plan, Ashley should use employee exit interviews as a data collection meaner, face-to-face employee interviews, or employee surveys, look at Job description of line roomer and line workers to see if they are in conflict with what each group see as their Job.
Ashley might consider contacting former line foremen who would not fear any repercussions from what they say about the company, to get their input. The rationale for the stated data collection meaner is to get information from those who know what and what have not gone on at the plant.The workers in the situation are the.. Gaining a Deeper Understanding Human Resource Director, Ashley Wall, with 10 years of experience at Driveway Tire Company, has decided to conduct a thorough analysis of the line foremen Job satisfaction problem within a short frame of time and devise a plan of action to correct it.
Using an action research approach to understand the problem from different viewpoints, Ashley is determined to solve the problem as soon as possible by uncovering key issues at the plant using formal and informal documentation.According to Patton (2002), "to have an understanding of the nature of the problem by those involved will allow human beings to more effectively control their environment" (p. 217). This is to say that as a participant in the problem being tidied, personal insights and experiences can be interjected with a sense of urgency to get any problem under control.
As it relates to the Driveway Tire Plant, this essay will discuss: (1) Any key issues with shortcomings; (2) Recommendations for a possible solution; and (3) Data sources and collection to better understand the nature of the Job dissatisfaction problem.Key Issues and Mistakes The exemplars used as examples of the flywheel and doom loop imaging in Collins' book, "Good to Great" found their success in continuing to push hard at what they were doing with each momentous turn powering the next. The Driveway Company could be described using this descriptor by their driving efforts for maximum expenditure of effort of their line foremen and employees.The mandatory 12-hour shifts with 2 breaks and only a half hour for meals for the foremen and employees was the company's way of driving a continuous operation and substantially fixing their costs of remaining in business (Skinner & Beckman, 2008, p. 2).
However, an adjustment of the. In this case, there were many problems within the Driveway Tire Factory Plant. The plant had undergone a $100 million expansion and modernization in 2000 that included updated technology and manufacturing equipment.These modernization efforts increased capacity and the plant took on more work as a result of another plant closing. The Driveway Tire plant moved to a 24 hour production. They switched from smaller shifts to a reduced number of longer shifts thus decreasing the headcount.
Key Background Issues union interference, and lack of support from upper management. Most of the line foremen employed at the factory were manufacturing foreman with degrees. Successful managers were promoted but the backfill to Foremen resulted in
