organizational behavior wl

The Shiftless Worker?
Charlie McManus, with a troubled look on his face, sat back in his chair and gazed out the window of his office past the plant to the surrounding mountains. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and he had hoped to be able to duck out by mid-afternoon and be somewhere far up Foster's Creek by 4:30 or so. He would rather be worrying some brook trout instead of worrying about the implications of a situation developing out in Area 7.
He could not quite put his finger on it, but there seemed to be something going on out there. Reports of the failure of operators to complete all the necessary checks on their shifts and some indications of minor grumblings among the work force had him wondering if everything was all right in the area. As the manager of Department B, he was thinking about whether or not he should try to get better information about what, if anything, was going on, and intervene in some way or just let things ride unless something more definite came up. He continued to review in his mind the company and the situation with which he was dealing.

The Company
Lost River Processing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary plant of a large conglomerate, processes ore mined in the nearby mountains into an intermediate product serving as input material for a broad range of industrial processes. The plant's production output is sold to other plants owned by the parent conglomerate, as well as to outside purchasers.
The particular mineral business in which the company engages is highly competitive, with a number of strong competitors located around the country. Since the end product produced by all these plants has the basic characteristics of a commodity, it is important to strive to be a low-cost producer, especially under the current industry condition of overcapacity of production facilities. It is also important to maintain high quality standards because quality is a major factor in securing and maintaining highly sought sole-supplier relationships with customers, which are becoming more common in the industry.
The plant, located in Ashley Springs, Wyoming (population 4,500), has been an institution in the community for over 40 years, employing approximately 500 workers in operations that continue around the clock. Most employees are from the surrounding rural, largely agricultural region. Many have grown up on farms and ranches in the area and still farm during their off time and on weekends. They tend to be a hard-working, independent, self-motivated work force in general, although there are some exceptions.
The plant has been nonunion for many years, and remaining so is an important objective of management. The chief advantage of the nonunion status as viewed by management is their flexibility to make changes as needed and as technological developments demand, without protracted negotiations or costly concessions to a union. In seeking to continue its nonunion status, the company attempts to follow enlightened human resource practices and strives to maintain benefits and grant annual wage and salary increases comparable to those achieved by unions in directly competing firms in the area.
The plant manager for the last several years has been a very capable, yet friendly, unassuming, down-to-earth individual who relates very well with and has the respect of the work force.
For the past two or three years, the company has been cautiously restructuring its work force and adopting some new management practices in line with a decision to eliminate some layers of supervision and push decision-making farther down in the organization. These moves are one response to the need for continually reducing costs in order to remain competitive.
Over the longer range, the plant is planning to move progressively toward an operation run on the concept of self-managed groups. Because the work force tends to have low turnover and be well trained and responsible, management feels this move is well founded and offers the potential for real savings.
The plant organization is structured (as shown in Figure 1) with operators in each area responsible to shift supervisors, who in turn report to department managers. The various department managers report to the superintendent in their functional area, who reports to the plant manager, the highest position at the plant site.

Area 7
Area 7 is one of the processing areas falling under the supervision of the manager of Department B, Charlie McManus. The area is worked by several crews assigned to assure coverage on an around-the-clock basis. The crews on each shift report to a shift supervisor, and the crews and supervisors rotate shifts monthly.
The supervisors are senior workers who have moved up to the position. Most have had eight or more years of experience in the plant before moving into their supervisory positions. As a result they are very knowledgeable about plant operations in their areas and also know all their fellow workers quite well.
There were, however, a few exceptions to this internal progression from experienced worker to supervisor within the plant. The parent corporation had operated a similar plant in South Carolina for many years. Increasing pressures to lower costs, combined with overcapacity in the industry, made continued operation of the old plant uneconomic, and it was eventually closed a little over a year ago.
When the plant was closed, some supervisors who were not able to take early retirement or move to other nearby plants were offered transfers to the Wyoming plant. Four eventually elected to transfer and had arrived at the plant about one year ago. They were then placed in supervisory positions roughly equivalent to the positions they had held in South Carolina. Three of them were assigned to Department B under Charlie McManus.
These new supervisors from the East had worked in an environment quite different from the Ashley Springs plant, with a quite different work force. The South Carolina plant had employed a racially diverse work force of relatively uneducated, predominantly rural people and had a turnover rate that was moderate to high by Ashley Springs standards. These workers were not highly trained and their supervisors tended to manage them quite closely. As a result, these supervisors had learned to be quite directive and spent a fair amount of their time making sure that their workers did what they had been assigned. These supervisors had subsequently brought these supervisory tendencies and practices with them to the West.

John Williams, Supervisor
John Williams, who was among the transferred supervisors, is one of the shift supervisors in Area 7, responsible for several crews of operators involved in production work in that part of the plant. Among other duties, one of his crews is responsible for making sure that certain pumps are functioning properly, that several bins collecting by-products produced during the process are emptied on schedule, and that the work area is kept clean.
John has been complaining to his manager Charlie, even asking for help on one occasion, that one of the operators on one of his crews, Mark Olson, has not been performing the job as well as John would like. Over the past several months, according to John, this worker has on occasion either simply failed to perform, or performed very poorly, several of his job responsibilities.
For example, the settling pond pumps are supposed to be checked every four hours, and certain readings written down. John mentioned that when assigned to this task, Mark does not check them this often and often fails to record the readings as required.
On the third shift, an operator is responsible for emptying the bins of coke and silica, which are produced as by-products, by performing a procedure called vactoring. On the second shift, the dryer bins are serviced in the same way. When assigned as the operator on these shift, Mark reportedly often fails to place the appropriate bins as they should be.
Part of each operator's assigned responsibility is a clean-up area. As the supervisor, John usually has to call Mark's attention to his clean-up area before the monthly inspection.
John reported he has tried talking with Mark about his performance several times, but it hasn't seemed to make any difference. He recognizes that Mark is one of the more intelligent employees among his crew of operators. As such, John is certain Mark is capable of performing well, if he chooses to do the job right. John expressed his concern to Charlie that Mark "always seems to find new ways to screw up on and just seems to forget to do certain aspects of his job assignments."
John indicated that Mark had also told him during one of the talks they have had that he doesn't really like his job very much and has been looking around for either a transfer within the plant or for some other opportunity outside the company.

Mark Olson
As he tried to keep track of all employees in his department, Charlie had been following Mark Olson's progress with the company since he was hired. Mark had been working for the company for several years, and by most indications, it seemed to Charlie, it had generally been a good experience for him. In the course of their infrequent, informal chats, Mark had never given Charlie any indication that he was dissatisfied with his job, and until recently, his performance had always been rated quite highly. The job has no doubt become somewhat routine for Mark now that he has learned all the tasks performed by the crew, and shift work is not particularly enjoyable. These are conditions however, that everybody comes to terms with eventually. At the same time, the pay, the working conditions, and the company are pretty good.
One thing that has been bothering Mark--and some others, according to scuttlebutt Charlie has picked up in the department--has been the attitude of the new supervisors the company transferred in from back East. The crews' attitude is that these new people seem to have taken over the department, and all the day-to-day operations are being run by these "out of towners." "They treat us like a bunch of slaves, don't let us make decisions, and treat us like we're stupid" was one comment overheard in the shower room a few weeks ago.
Mark appeared to Charlie to be one example of an operator who has not been performing the job as well as he is capable of doing, perhaps partly in response to the attitude of these supervisors. Over the past several months, according to his supervisor, Mark has on occasion simply failed to perform, or performed poorly, several of his job responsibilities. Mark admitted to a friend, who mentioned it to Charlie, that he purposely chose random tasks to "forget" to do. "I'm acting like this to drive them crazy, and just waiting for a job bid," Mark told his friend in the human resource department.
Charlie ended his reverie and arose from the chair. He was still not sure if he was dealing with any real issue or just the usual griping and interpersonal problems heard among the crews. Still, these problems and comments seemed to be arising more frequently than before in Department B. He was concerned about young Mark Olson, for whom he had great hopes in the company.
Charlie wondered what should be done about the situation. In line with the downward delegation of authority in the plant, he generally did not intervene in cases of problem employees, but rather left resolution of such situations up to his supervisors. But in this case, he wondered if the supervisor might be part of the problem. He wasn't sure of just what he was dealing with here and didn't know if he should intervene in some way or not.
It was now 4:00, and Charlie headed out the door for the parking lot and his waiting pickup, gassed up and ready to go with his fly rod and some new Montana nymphs he was itching to try. He had decided to put in some good thinking time before tomorrow, when he would return with his decision.