Материал: Management-and-Organization-Behavior

Case Study

Implementing New Ideas

Industrial Hydraulics Ltd., is a public sector firm. The Assembly and test shops of the company are headed by Mr.Murthy, shop superintendent, who has one assistant superintendent Mr.Singh under him for both the shops. The two shift supervisors in test shop. Mr. Verghese and Mr.Mehta report directly to Singh. Murthy reports to factory manager and is an engineering graduate with about 15 years of service in the company. Singh, the Assistant Superintendent (27) has above five years of service in the company which he joined as a management trainee (tech.). He is popular amongst the workers and has a reputation for impartially and fair dealing on the shop floor. Mehta, the test shop supervisor (40) is an old timer in the company and is known to most of the old employees including senior officers. He has risen from the ranks and possesses ITI certificate. He is very well known to Murthy, under whom he served for a long time as a technician and later as asst. Supervisor. Verghese, the other supervisor in test sop is a young person, around 25, with a diploma in mechanical engineering and about 3 years of service in the company. He is shy, reserved and generally unknown outside his department.

The test shop is the bottleneck area of the department where a large accumulation of units, awaiting testing generally exists,. The product mix consists of about 30% of components with a short test cycle time, 45% of components with medium cycle time and 25% of components with a long cycle time. The components with high and medium cycle time have generally complex test schedules and considerable effort if required to rig up test circuits.

The production targets are given on a monthly basis and weekly output is monitored by the factory manager. No realistic assessment of assembly and test timings exist. For the past 3 months, the test shop output has been very erratic while there is surplus production of short and medium cycle components which are not immediately required in the quantities produced; there is a large back log of urgently wanted long cycle time components.

One fine morning, Murthy was summoned by the factory manager and given 10 days time to rectify the situation. He was given to understand in unequivocal terms the failure to correct the situation shall be entertained by the management. Murthy in turn, immediately asked for Singh and gave him one week to clear the back log in test shop. Singh had studied the situation for quite some time in the test shop and had tried to analyse the reasons for the erratic output. He was of the opinion that Mehta the “B” shifts supervisor was mainly responsible for the situation. He had a tendency to pick up only short cycle time components for test and never made any attempt to take long cycle time components. He was, in the opinion of Singh, deliberately avoiding difficult and urgently required components to show higher output from his shift.

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Singh presented his analysis to Murthy who showed his complete disagreement with Singh’s analysis. He found nothing wrong of”B” shift and complimented Mehta for giving high output. He strongly advised Singh to concentrate his attention of shift “A” and leave Mehta alone. Singh knew that his reasoning at this stage, either with Murthy or Mehta will not out much ice. He quietly decided to experiment with a new idea which he called the concept of ‘point performance rating’. The idea centered around giving weightage to each item in terms of number of points depending upon the degree of complexity in setting to test circuits and associated cycle time. He also intended to use this date as a sort of merit rating for individual operators.

Singh presented his scheme to the two shift supervisors. Verghese was quite receptive and as expected, there was a lot of resistance from Mehta. After a lot of discussion, Mehta offered to try the scheme for a limited period but he expressed his reservations about the success of the scheme. He wanted to approach Murthy who had proceeded on temporary duty to company had office for some urgent work. Singh overcame the resistance from workers primarily because of his reputation for fair dealing and straight forwardness. However, he informally made it known to some of the workers that constant higher accumulation or points by individuals shall indicate the efficiency and skill of the individual and may carry weightage at the time of department promotions. The scheme was informally introduced and was quite effective. Meanwhile, Murthy returned from his temporary duty and was quite impressed with Singh’s performance. He gave his blessings for the continuation of the scheme. Shortly afterwards, some departmental promotion were announced. As it happened, quite a few of the good workers from test shop were ignored for promotion. Majority of workers promoted were from assembly shops. The workers overlooked from test shops were those with a consistent high accumulation of points. The workers reacted and boycotted the Point Rating Scheme stating that if merit plays no part in deciding promotion, why should there be a merit rating scheme. Singh tried to take up the issue of promotions with Murthy but was quietly told that there is nothing wrong with promotions as senior workers have been promoted. He was advised not to get worked up about the issue. Meanwhile, some of the disgruntled workers approached the union and represented objected to the scheme and demanded its immediate withdrawal stating that no such scheme can be introduced without the union’s concurrence and the whole basis of allotting weightage is untenable. The factory manager, when approached b union office bearers expressed his ignorance about the existence of any scheme of this kind and demanded an immediate explanation from Murthy. Murthy in turn put the entire blame of Singh.

Questions

1.Identifying the problem faced by the organisation as against the symptoms seems easily in the case.

2.Generating the solution/ alternate solutions to the solution perceived by Mr.Singh.

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3.Implementing the solution, taking care of pitfalls, a young executive should avoid at different phases of implementation.

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CHAPTER – V

Lesson - 26 : MANAGING DIVERSITY

Objectives

After reading this lesson, you should be able to:

ӹAppreciate Diversity At The Work Place;

ӹUnderstand The Reasons For Work Place Diversity; And

ӹEquip Yourself With The Strategies To Manage Diversity.

Lesson Outline

ӹMeaning Of Diversity

ӹReasons For Diversity

ӹManaging Diversity In Organisations

ӹReview Questions

All around the world managing workforce diversity has taken a central stage among the contemporary human resources management issues confronting the managements regardless of the location of business. The integration of the global economy contributed by the development in transport and telecommunication facilities apart from the economic compulsions has changed the composition of workforce in many organisations. In a country like India the issue has acquired greater significance given the diversity with respect to culture, orientation and outlook of the people of different regions of the country. There is no exaggeration that one would find himself entering totally a different cultural zone for every 200 – 300 kms. of travel in an any direction in India. The same is reflected now in the business organisations also due to increased levels of literacy, job opportunities and mobility of the people. Therefore it is not uncommon to find in any work group, individuals with different cultural background and orientation work together for common goals. The emerging situation in many workplaces with respect to diversity poses a challenge to the modern manager. It is therefore imperative to clearly understand the complexities of diverse workforce and to manage the same.

Meaning of Diversity

Diversity exists in a group or organisation when its members differ from one another along one or more important dimensions. It may be noted that diversity is not an absolute phenomenon. It has to be viewed as a continuum. For instance, if everyone in a group is exactly like everyone else, there is no diversity. Similarly, if everyone in the group is completely different from the other, it implies total diversity. However, in reality these are

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