Synopsis
Agrigreen incorporation which is located in the western United States deals with the manufacture of various farm fertilizers. The Agrigreen’s appointed Tad Pierson as a project engineer in one of its plants. The incorporation has charged him with the responsibility of overseeing the operations of the plant’s surveying team. Having worked with the team before, he is awake to some of the conflicts and performance problems that may appear within the team.
The increased frequency and degree of the problems in the team have left Tad concerned with the performance standards of the team, the production calendar, and employee dissatisfaction. Tad Pierson hopes to get a long-lasting solution to the problems that the group is facing. The company employs surveyors to oversee the quality of performance by the employees and ensure that the safety standards of all the projects are properly met. Before the creation of the surveying department, Agrigreen used part-time project engineers also known as drafting recruits.
The importance of the surveying team led to the official creation of the department with Howard Line Berry as the leading surveyor. He was appointed to the position after receiving the necessary education which was proved by the certification from a local college. It is important that the position of the leading surveyor was occupied by a professional with the necessary skills and good experience, this is important for the surveyor to get a good reputation and respect among the workers.
The post of lead surveyor was created to aid Silverton who was the project engineer at that time. Based on his educational qualification and high salary it became apparent that he was overqualified to offer surveying services. Howard’s tenure was filled with various mishaps and friction with fellow employees and supervisors. In his employment term, he had five managers and three survey assistants, all of whom had experienced some form of friction with him with the exemption of Adams who had taken up most of Howard’s ill friction behaviors.
Howard’s performance had been questioned as it had various production and safety issues. For instance, his error on location fixing led to the complete demolition of a mill’s foundation. This situation destroyed his reputation within the organization. Howard also had endless confrontations and conflicts with members of the engineering team and company managers. One of his assistants Mel Cutler, who had been appointed into the organization several years before, noticed Howard’s shortcoming in regards to taking notes.
This was five years following his appointment to the post of surveyor assistant. Since then, the work experiences of the employees have turned into a nightmare. He also noticed that it took so much longer for Howard to snack during the break that it would violate the company’s reporting and departure time. Mel took every opportunity that presented itself to take on a part-time job to avoid Howard. Mel usually listened to various discussions that did ridicule Howard’s inappropriate habits. Vince Adams who was appointed to replace him as Howard’s assistant has taken up some of these bad habits too.
Howard Lineberry seemed to be different from all the previous people who occupied the same position with all of his management’s moves. He believed that they were unfair to him and assumed his presence in the organization. He was barely involved in projects, the engineers preferring to do the surveys by themselves. The employees of the plant received Tad Pierson’s appointment into the plant with much enthusiasm. They hoped that it was time Howard had been laid off and his place assigned to someone else who was well capable of performing as a lead surveyor. Pierson had noticed the plant’s employee problems that he wished to rectify.
Finding of the fact
The first issue in the organization is the reduced quality of work produced by Howard. Howard had proved to be an inefficient surveyor from the point he had made a wrong location for the mill, his note-taking skills had also been questioned by Cutler. He did not deliver the production processes on time due to his time management problems. This led to the increased cost of production for the firm. The second issue in the case study was the lack of motivation amongst the employees.
For Howard to feel this degree of dissatisfaction and lack of enthusiasm, it was a case of shortcomings in the organization’s culture. The organization lacked a culture of motivating their employees even after making errors. Instead, for this organization, the best that could be done was excluding Howard from plant activities.
The third issue was related to the organizational structure. The hiring and placement of new employees were in complete disregard of proper hiring procedures that should see the existent employees promoted. This method of hiring new employees to as high as a management position may have the advantage of securing the best talent in the market but could also tend to lead to employees, already in the organization, feeling ignored.
Recommendations
The recommendations to the issues raised above could be observed in the study of organizational behavior. Organizational behavior is categorized into two, micro-organizational, and macro-organizational behaviors (Huczynski & Buchanan, 2007). Micro-organizational behavior looks into the personal dynamics of the employees in the organization. Macro-organizational behavior looks into the general structure of an organization and its contribution to the behaviors of the employees (Hosfede, 2001).
Recommendation one
The reduced productivity by Howard may be a case of incompetence or as a result of individual traits such as laziness or the lack of proper judgment. Howard’s case of the wrong location is a clear presentation of the variation in perception amongst individuals. It appeared right to him but wrong to the engineers. This led to the demolition of the mill’s foundation. Perception refers to the way individuals interpret the environment (Huczyski, 2007).
The employees of the plant should try and understand that there exist differences in the way people perform their duties. Such an understanding could enable individuals to relate better with Howard. Eighteen years in the organization meant that he had some skills to offer the organization. The project engineer could avert this seeming lack of productivity by encouraging teamwork. Howard’s department could be integrated with other departments in the organization. This would lead to a synchronized way of doing work. Besides improved overall productivity, Howard would be understood better, a situation that would lead to work enthusiasm on his part. Proper training on the job should be done to synchronize these perceptions (Huczyski, 2007).
Recommendation 2
A feeling of dissatisfaction among the organization’s employees is a demonstration of some level of lack of motivation amongst them. Motivation is a force that tunes human behavior to achieve a set of objectives. The laxity in Howard’s work may be averted by providing him/her with incentives. Incentives may not necessarily be in the form of increased payment but psychological incentives. This means that the psychological needs of the employees should be met through recognition, the feeling of a sense of recognition, career development, and being a part of greater responsibility (Hosfede, 2001).
Recommendation 3
The organization should make structural adjustments. Structural failure acts as a catalyst to greater dissatisfaction amongst the employees. The recruitment of employees should be based on merit. Employees who are already in the organization should be appointed to the new projects instead of recruiting new employees every time a vacancy is created. For eighteen years, Howard had been in the same position. He had seen many graduates recruited to take up roles way above him, most of which he felt that he was well qualified to hold (Hosfede, 2001).
Howard may have had the feeling that the young graduates were being favored. If the hiring of young talent is necessary, it should be done transparently. The chain of command in the organization should also be adhered to. Howard was in some cases forced to report to the different managers from that that he had been assigned (Hosfede, 2001).
Organizational behavior is broad and it merely entails looking into how individuals perceive activities in the organization and work towards their harmonization. Emphasis should not only be laid on remuneration but the psychological needs of the employee should be met. The organizational structure of the organization should seek to encourage greater productivity and personal development (Hosfede, 2001).
References
Hosfede, G. (2001). Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations. New York: Sage Publications.
Huczynski, A. A., & Buchanan, D. A. (2007). Organizational behavior. Harlow: Pearson Education Centre.