Another set of problems raised by the Chief Executive include “low productivity and quality” along with “poor staff morale. ” These two variables are correlated based on the “tendency [of the Unit’s manager] to concentrate more on ensuring that clients of the company are happy rather than employees whom he expects to adapt constantly to accommodate client needs” resulting in low employee morale.
This problem definition implies that the manager is a “pusher” or “butt kicker” to use some colloquial terms. If so, it also implies that the concerned manager is ignorant of the principle of “interdependency” mentioned above. In a “process approach to management”—one of the eight quality management principles of ISO 9000:2000 Standard (ISO, 2000)—a process is seen as a series of steps or a network of interconnected steps. Take, for instance, four successive steps and mark each with emerging business opportunities at ibm case analysis.
To illustrate the point of “interdependency” in a process, step A supplies something to step B, and step B supplies something to step C, and step C supplies something to step D. If the manager of these four-step process takes care only of step D and does not allocate equal attention and care to steps A, B, and C, then a problem is sure to emerge, if not sooner then later. This principle applies in an “employee morale” issue present in cross-functional business processes in which employees operate certain process steps.
When the CE cited the problems on “increasing costs and increasing competition in the types of products and services” she disclosed her greatest fear about what she perceived as poor performance in one of the major earners of her organisation. Although the Chief Executive did not specify which “cost” she referred to—e. g. , operating cost, administrative cost, or direct service cost—it seems that she was correlating employee salary with low outputs or productivity. Another fear of the CE is what she observed as “increasing” number of competitors of Workwell.
In this particular instance, she still does not show appreciation of the value of “customer loyalty” associated with “customer satisfaction. ” She rather sees customers as mere recipients or buyers of products and/or services—but that is wrong. It is much costlier to look for a new customer than to maintain an existing one. Now, the Chief Executive has felt uneasy with what she sees as a “growing concern that clients are complaining about the quality of service more often and there are too many delays in delivering to emerging business opportunities at ibm case analysis.
” In this case, the morale issue, among other related issues, has undermined the performance of the employees consequently affecting their level of productivity. The serious implication of this is that their outputs—products and services—have landed and continue to land on the hands of the clients without apparent conscious efforts from the Unit’s management to prevent the situation from worsening further. Senior management can see what is happing but it does not know what to do about the situation; hence, the concerns and worries of the Chief Executive!
The cause of the “delays” or slow delivery cycle time is attributed to “perception that there may be redundancies when the new technology takes over the work of the less skilled staff. ” Some effective ways of dispelling rumor are through “open communication,” “open door policy,” “sincere dialogue” between labor and management—either face to face or through memo. Do the reverse and you will create a rabid rumor mill in an organisation that may even force a company’s loyal employees to flee (see Scholtes, 1998).
