Part 11: Fix it time! Or, the end of the story! Again, look back on everything that is known about Bill's, and the situations that Patrick faced....

Part 11: Fix it time! Or, the end of the story! 

Again, look back on everything that is known about Bill's, and the situations that Patrick faced. 

1. Before epilog: Based upon the information contained in OD Module 2, what level/s of intervention is/are needed at Bills? 
2. Before epilog: What interventions do you think would be most appropriate and why?
3. After epilog: What is your initial reaction to the epilog?
4. After epilog: In looking at what Patrick has done, how would have you responded similarly? Differently? How and why?

Epilog:

This case actually took place between mid-2011 and early 2012. While some of the details have been changed or modified, much of the case is very real. Patrick is a real person, and made some real decisions; some of them good, some not-so-good. Here is what Patrick actually did: 

1. Patrick fired Troy, put in new maintainance manager (Jamaal) with positive attitude. He put 2 new layers of hierarchy into the maintenance department to give maintenance employees more room for growth/promotion as well as more oversight. He also created a very specific set of goals for the maintenance department that were linked to the goals of the organization. Maintenance employees' raises were dependent upon reaching those goals. Within a week of replacing Troy with Jamaal and developing the new goals, overall machine downtime was reduced by 28%, and further reduced by 51% within a month.
2. Patrick closed all 3 R&D facilities and moved willing employees to a location in a leased space 2 miles away (he wanted R&D to be inside of the factory, but there was not enough space to house them). While the overall result was positive and it reduced communication problems, they lost several design engineers in the process (those who were not willing to move to a new location) and thus lost a great deal of company knowledge. But, the financial cost savings were significant and immediate.
3. The hourly employees were really angry—they felt that every time they began to work harder (overtime on Sunday, following Patrick's new machine attendance rules) they were "rewarded" by losing their jobs and/or their overtime. Because the plant paid lower wages than many others in the area, compensation was a constant issue. Patrick could not offer a pay raise, but did promise that in the future when productivity increased, he would NOT lay-off or other means of reducing head-count of wages. He also offered one more break per day, so long as the breaks were taken at staggered times, so that all machines could continue to run. This was how a walk-out was averted. 
4. Patrick fired two key supervisors who had been known to be especially difficult to work with, and replaced them with known leaders at the hourly level. 
5. Patrick had supervisors attempt to place people back on work schedules that better matched their original work schedule (to ease the burden of the lay-off on their personal lives).
6. Patrick started requiring full safety gear for all employees—no exceptions. Breaking this rule was cause for immediate termination.
7. Patrick implemented a maintenance program that included hourly employees doing some of the preventive maintenance on equipment themselves. This change required a significant investment in training, and broadened the responsibilities of hourly employees (job design/enhancement!).  It also reduced the burden on the maintenance department to figure the machine maintance. This made a huge (positive) difference in machine up-times.
8. Patrick instituted monthly town hall meetings in which he discussed a general overview of the financials of the company with all employees. In order to accommodate all shifts, he performed 3 town hall meetings on the same day; one for each shift. He performed them himself, in an effort to have more direct communications with hourly employees.
9. Bill is still not making contact, but all of his duties have been reassigned so as to reduce the impact of his absence on the organization. There is little that Patrick can perform about that situation.

1 Running head: MANAGEMENT OF LABOR ANALYSIS Management of Labor AnalysisStudent’s NameInstitution 2 MANAGEMENT OF LABOR ANALYSISManagement of Labor AnalysisLevels of interventions at Bills...