Motivating in Good Times and Bad
2.2 Final Project Milestone 1
Overview
A dark cloud was hovering over the economy during mid-2007, a small supplier named Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant based out of Indiana found itself grappling for survival in the midst of a serious economic crisis. The fate of 209 employees working for the plant hung in the air. Things went from bad to worse when the plant manager had to lay off 46 employees in a desperate bid to save the plant. There was so much turbulence in the plant that the production rate fell down and products were not being delivered on time to valued customers. Engstrom is no stranger to crisis; a few years ago the plant witnessed a similar issue and was able to break …show more content…
The plant was under tremendous pressure to perform better in order to stay afloat else face a possible lockdown. The strains in the plant were similar to the trends found in any organization which was in knee deep crisis. After digging deep into the history of the plant we find that the previous Plant manager was not able to handle the transition from obsolete technology to newer technologies in a professional manner and thus resulted in jeopardizing the plants future. He then resigned and a new one by the name Ron Bent was hired to pull the plant out of the mess. A challenging task to turnaround the Plant was staring at Bent’s eyes when he assumed …show more content…
The employees considered the bonus as a regular part of their pay as they got accustomed to it for many years and when it stopped they revolted. Bent himself doubted the credibility of the plan he implemented (Beer, M., & Collins, E. 2008).
The Turnaround Plan
As we drill down to identify some of the root causes of what exactly transpired in the Plant which lead to its downfall we find some astonishing facts as how certain core organizational issues were ignored.
Communication being the main issue was completely ignored by the management and they did not use a proper communication channel which lead to the employees suspecting the management to play with them. Had the management involved the employees in the decision making process, they would have avoided the employees revolting back on the changing ratios of the Scanlon Plan.
An organization’s most important assets are its employees, so it is important to keep the employees happy and their morale’s high. This can be achieved through Motivation. Motivation helps employee’s morale to be high and the organization can achieve better production rates. The Scanlon Plan can be made more adaptable to the changing financial health of the organization in order to maintain continuity as its basic human tendency to revolt against