Unit 4 Written Assignment, University of the People
Breakthrough Improvement Plan Case
At a local processing plant, supervisors and employees were facing low quality of mail sortation resulting in mis-sorted, mis-delivered, and mis-sequenced mail. Delivery was being delayed and mail returns were unacceptably high. Machine performance was substandard and overtime usage was high. Employee performance was not being addressed for fear of union shop intervention. Customer complaints continue to rise. The current performance of 93% was below the breakthrough goal of 98%. The plant manager summoned the leadership team to discuss possible solutions to this ongoing problem.
Out of the meeting, the leadership team agreed to an improvement plan to raise the delivery point sequence quality to 98%. A quarterly contest was immediately started with the floor manager receiving the implementation instructions during the program kick-off. None of the floor management staff was included in the planning. Employees were unaware of the program details. Maintenance was not informed. After the first quarter, the quality remained at 93%, and in some weeks even had declined. Customer complaints persisted and employee motivation was evidently lacking.
- Describe the communication issues in the case.
- What communication channels were bypassed?
- How would you implement such an improvement plan?
- Provide suggestions for effective program implementation.
Grade: 85/90 (546 words)
- Describe the communication issues in the case.
The four main communication issues in the case are as follows.
- Due to the fear of union shop intervention, the plant manager did not point out the obvious issues regarding the plant's performance to its employees. As Skinner's reinforcement theory, "there is a tendency that behavior which is rewarded will be repeated – and that behavior, which is punished, will be avoided"(Laegaard & Bindslev, 2006).
- The employees and the floor managers did not report the issues that happened in the plant to their bosses. The floor managers also overlooked and failed the report the issues to the plant manager.
- The plant manager and the leadership team did not make opportunities to hear the plant's situations from the floor managers and employees before deciding on the goal and the implementation instructions.
- Due to the short notice from the plant manager, the floor manager and employees didn't have enough time to understand the details. They couldn't prepare for implementation and maintenance.
All of these four problems can be described in words: inappropriate communications.
- What communication channels were bypassed?
The communication channels of lower levels and higher levels were missing. As a result, only the plant manager and the leadership team made the new plan.
- How would you implement such an improvement plan?
Before starting the implementation, I explain the situation of the plant and the new plan to employees. I ask some of the employees to join in making the new plan. After the implementation, I will check if everything is going well or not. I will explain more details of my suggestions in the next paragraph.
- Provide suggestions for effective program implementation.
I will set 4 steps to implement the program effectively.
[1st Step] Explaining the low-performance situations to the floor managers and employees. At this point, it must be face-to-face communication or video conference because addressing negative topics is a complicated matter. When this topic is conveyed by written communication, the employees could misunderstand the plant manager's real intention. Nonverbal signals can increase trust, clarity, and rapport when the signs match up with the words said. (Segal, 2019) Next, tell them the new program will be implemented from which date, and ask them to provide information regarding the problems and suggestions from their perspective.
[2nd Step] Correcting information from employees to define the bottlenecks of the problems. The plant manager and the leadership team should correct information from both the floor managers and employees to correctly determine the problem. It is called upward communication. It allows the managers to be informed about "what workers are doing, what their problems are, what suggestions they have for improvements, and how they feel about the organization and their jobs" (Robbins, 2005).
[3rd Step] Make a plan with the floor managers and employees.
Include the floor managers in the planning team. Especially, ask the floor managers to check the feasibility of the schedule and the performance goal. Too high goal demotivates employees.
[4th Step] After starting the implementation, ask or take a survey to employees whether there are problems or not. It is a well known PDCA(Plan-Do-Check-Act) framework. Ask employees and the floor manager regarding issues of the implementation plan. Base on the hearing, change some of the programs.
References
Laegaard, J. & Bindslev, M. (2006). Organizational theory (1st ed). Ventus Publishing & Bookboon.com.
Robbins, S. P. (2005). Organizational behavior (11th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Segal, J., Smith, M., Robinson, L. & Boose, G. (2019). Nonverbal communication. HelpGuide. http://www.helpguide.org/articles/relationships/nonverbal-communication.htm
