Question

This is a two part question for two different case. I am currently focusing on case 5

Case 4: Time for some Maintenance on Maintenance?

(consider: Chapters 6 & 7)

Date: February 19, 2012; 9:00 AM

It was a Sunday morning, and Patrick decided to make a quick visit to the plant. He knew that several people were working overtime that day, and the plant would be running at full speed—and that is was important for the hourly employees to see him there, too (for the sake of morale).   Too, earlier in the week Patrick had overheard some supervisors complaining about Maintenance; they were not keeping up and many of the machines were not working—he wanted to check it out for himself.

Patrick knew that the Maintenance Department is one of the most important departments in the factory. ‘Let’s face it,’ he thought. ‘No maintenance; no machines. No machines; no product. No product; no company.’ He knew that the Maintenance Department had to be operating effectively for the rest of the plant, and the company, to succeed.

As soon as Patrick entered, it was clear there was a problem. It was 10:00 AM (the middle of a shift), and yet there were at least 20 hourly employees milling around a machine—and it was not running. He asked the hourly employees what was going on. One employee responded: “It is down. Again. Maintenance says they need a work order, or they won’t work on it. We put one in already today. And yesterday. And the day before. Maintenance never seems to be around.” Machine #8 was known to have problems, and it was often down—but unfortunately, it was key to the production process, and no grills could be made unless Machine #8 was working.

Upon further inspection, he noticed that there were several machines that were not running. With so many machines down, Patrick knew he was in for a bumpy ride—his productivity numbers would be in the tank unless someone did something fast. He walked past the Maintained office, and noticed several people huddled in a circle, talking. As he started to walk toward them, they scattered—apparently they were not interested in talking to him.   He saw them again 20 minutes later in the break room. 40 minutes after that, they were taking smoke breaks. Machine #8 was still not working, and a member of maintenance had not arrived. He sent the whole shift home—with Machine #8 not working there was nothing for them to do. Patrick left too. Only maintenance workers were left there to work on the machinces. Patrick hoped they would accomplish something.

The following day, Patrick called a meeting with the Operations and Quality Managers, Janet and Jose. Before the meeting, he briefed them about what he had seen the day before, and then asked that they call in Troy to discuss the matter. Patrick wanted Janet and Jose to lead the meeting, and discuss the issues with Troy. Patrick believed that Troy might be more willing to “buy-in” to a problem if he was hearing it from his direct boss (see organization chart in case 1). Patrick would simply watch. Within ½ hour, Janet, Jose, Troy and Patrick were in a conference room, ready to talk. The meeting started with a little light joking, then they got down to business.

Janet: Troy, I am having some serious concerns on the Operations side that too many machines are down. I am very worried that our productivity numbers will do down….

Troy (interrupting): What do you expect me to do about it? I need more maintenance guys.

Jose: As Janet was saying, from the quality side, we can’t expect the hourly employees to make good products when their equipment is out of order—when the equipment is running, they have it at full speed, just to catch up. Too many defective parts get misses, and are shipped to the customer.

Troy: Well, if you expect anything to change, you are crazy.   This equipment is all old, and you should expect it to break down.

That statement seemed to satisfy Janet and Jose, so the meeting was adjourned. Patrick was still not satisfied.

Key Players:

Janet: Operations manager. New on the job, she started just a week before Patrick. She is adjusting to the norms and culture at Bill’s. She is under tremendous pressure to improve productivity.

Jose: Quality manager. He has been at Bill’s for 5 years, starting as a quality engineer, and working his way up. When he was first hired, he had high ideals for how Bill’s should run. But, after a few years, he realized that none of his hard work seemed to matter, so he just kind of gave up. As long as Bill’s wasn’t sued for a major quality problem or some type of liability issue, he would just go with the flow.

Troy: Maintenance Manager. He was one of the original employees at Bill’s, and had risen from the ranks within Bill’s, starting on the production line and working his way up. He had just taking on the role of Maintenance Manager a year before.

1. What is your gut reaction to this scenario?
2. What portions of chapters 6 and 7 help to describe attitude and behavior at the individual level?
3. List at least 2 areas that help to explain the attitudes and behaviors of the following: Troy, Janet, Jose, the maintenance employees, the hourly employees on Machine # 8. Hint: Look at the key terms from each chapter for clues.

Case 5: Time for some maintenance on Maintenance?

(consider viewing Chapters 8 and 9)

Date: February 19, 2012; 4:00 AM

**Please review Part 4 of the Bill’s Grills case before attempting this case.

After another exhausting day, Patrick has a few minutes to reflect back upon the exchange between Troy, Janet and Jose. Since that time, he has received two more reports of machines that have been down for more than 48 hours. Yet, Troy seems unable or unwilling to acknowledge his responsibility for the problem. Worse, Janet and Jose, who should be holding Troy accountable, seem to accept it.

Things took on an even worse turn when Patrick received a visit from the union representative. The employees from Machine #8 were angry because Patrick sent them home early Sunday, and they were threatening a “work slowdown’ because of it. In being sent home, they lost a large portion of their earnings for the week—Sunday pays double-time, and an 8 hour shift means a lot of money to them. Yet, Patrick was stuck—he couldn’t afford to pay them to work on a machine that was out of order; nor could he afford to have them carry out a work slowdown—when Machine 8 was running, he needed them at their best. Now, the union was asking questions, and Patrick needed to answer them fast, before this issue got out of control.

1. What do you think are the root causes of the problems that Patrick faces today?

2. Do you think that there are motivation problems at Bill’s? Who is affected?

3. What would you do to motivate Troy? The employees of Machine 8? Janet and Jose?

4. Use the text to identify several options for Patrick. Be sure to refer to information from chapters 8 and 9. And remember—not all people are motivated by the same things, and in the same ways.

Answer 1

1. What do you think are the root causes of the problems that Patrick faces today?

Ans : The main reason for the unrest that the management is facing is due to lack of motivation on the part of the supervisors. As can be seen from the case, both Troy and Jose are in the Company for a fairly long time. However it is seen that they have not been motivated by the management and their ideas have not been acknowledged which has resulted in low morale for the employees. This has resulted in the performance of the departments. It is also seen that there is lack of coordination between the top level management and the department heads. Lack of communication can be considered as a prime factor. The management needs to try and have a one to one discussion with the department heads and try to understand the reason for their low performance. Effective communication and motivational tools can help the management to solve the root cause of the issue and change the mindsets of the staff.

2. Do you think that there are motivation problems at Bill’s? Who is affected?

Ans : Yes there is lack of motivation seen among the department heads and the staff. As mentioned in the case theory, Jose the quality manager was a highly motivated person with lots of ideas for the development of the Company, however since his ideas were not acknowledged by the management, he had lost his interest in bringing in new ideas for development and this has lead to lack of motivation. Due to low motivation level at the department heads level, the same is passed on to the employees also, since the workers feel that there is no point in speaking to the management about the issues faced by them at the lower level and hence are not very communicative.

3. What would you do to motivate Troy? The employees of Machine 8? Janet and Jose?

Ans : To motivate Troy, Patrick needs to have a detailed discussion about the issues faced by him and the kind of support needed in his department. He also needs to analyse the reason for lack of interest on the part of the staff despite being a long term employee.

To motivate the employees, Patrick needs to assure the employees of the full support of the management and try to improve the communication between the departments. The employees need to be made to feel that their suggestions and ideas are being heard and acknowledged by the management and necessary and immediate measures are taken for the improvement of the situation.

To motivate Janet and Jose, Patrick needs to follow the one to one discussion technique and try to understand the reasons for the lack of cooperation on the part of the staff. Jose needs to be encouraged to come up with new ideas as suggestions for improvement and the same should be acknowledged and rewarded to motivate him. Since Janet is a new staff, the management needs to support her with the necessary training and improve the levels of communication between the departments to reduce the lack of communication and delay in the day to day management.

4. Use the text to identify several options for Patrick. Be sure to refer to information from chapters 8 and 9. And remember—not all people are motivated by the same things, and in the same ways

Patrick needs to first study the reasons of employee demotivation and use specific techniques as per the requirement of the staff to solve the issue. He needs to check the level of competency mapping also to check whether a particular staff and employee is satisfied in his role and has been provided with the necessary resources to perform the best of his potential. The communication between the department and the co ordination among the management and the departments should be improved to get a fair idea of the ground realties and the issues can be solved at the earliest.