Human resources management is a rather complicated matter of studying, but every student of this course realizes the importance of the knowledge got during it for the further development of his or her future career. The state in which the resources management is in a certain company predetermines the success and the level of the market competitiveness of this company, that is why companies all over the world are interested in the recruitment of skillful staff managers who can improve their work (Bennet, p. 49).
The current paper is discussing the experience of the Volvo Plant in Uddevalla, Sweden as the brightest example of how the improved management can take the company’s competitiveness in the market to a higher level. We are going to discuss the main principles used in the work of the Volvo Plant, see how effective they were and if they are possible to implement at other companies in the sphere of car assembly.
To begin with, let us state that the experiences of the Uddevalla Volvo Plant have taught many lessons to the management of the Volvo Company itself, other car-producing companies, and scientists that deal with the questions of people’s behavior and motivation. One of the greatest lessons was the ability of a skillful manager to change the situation in an enterprise that seemed to be embraced by stagnation.
In the late 1980s – early 1990s, the plant in Uddevalla was experiencing problems with the competitiveness of its goods in the market and with the efficiency of the production process and the management established the team system that was developed to overcome the crisis. It seemed to give results only at the initial stages of its implementation, but by 1992, the stagnation showed that the chosen program was not effective (Sloan, p. 37).
Only after this, the Volvo management appointed the new manager for that plant who showed how to improve the situation. He changed the organization of the production process and the whole hierarchy of the plant to make it less complicated and more understandable for the staff.
Thus, the best lesson in people’s motivation was taught as far as at once after the new plan implementation, the staff expressed their support to the new manager and his policies: “Previously, we had only felt pressure from management to reach our targets. Now we really got support and did many things, often small improvements we had never bothered to do” (Sloan, p. 37).
The lessons that can be studied from the practices of the Uddevalla plant are numerous and mainly display the importance of motivation for the increase of work efficiency in routine work. The manager of the plant under consideration managed to make the work interesting and useful for the workers themselves as they not only fulfilled their functions but also could develop their k knowledge and skills in the field of car assembly using working with different partners from different teams and exchanging the experience they had (Ozaki, p. 37).
Another important lesson to be studied from the Volvo example is that the productivity of the work is dependant upon the relations between the management and the staff of the company. If the staff feel the support and cooperation from the side of the management, the work becomes more efficient (Meyer, p. 63).
All this proves the effectiveness of the holistic and reflective principles used by the new management of the Uddevalla Volvo Plant (Sikula, p. 419). The essence of these principles must also be considered as a useful lesson in people’s motivation, as far as the holistic idea is based upon the importance of the whole but focuses on the interdependence of its integral constituents, while the reflective principles are the ideas that formulate the skills of a worker as the combination of his or her mental and manual abilities.
Thus, one more lesson in motivation is that attention should be paid to the needs and likes of the staff to motivate people showing them that the company is interested in them (Sloan, p. 37).
Nevertheless, the success of the plan implemented at the Volvo plant is not sure to succeed in some large-scale companies such as Ford, Chrysler, or General Motors. This doubt can be explained by the fact that the Swedish experience was tested only at a single plant with its limited number of employees and certain funding that were easy to control (Ford, p. 61).
If the same plan would be put into mass practice at numerous plants of the above-mentioned companies, the special standard of control should be implemented that will allow saying that in all plants the plan is carried out properly (Capelli, p. 205).
Besides, it would be difficult to change the structure of the company like Ford or Chrysler, as far as the company is international and its organization was formed during long years, while its changes can lead to instability in the company’s work (Jo, p. 165).
For instance, if General Motors would like to implement the idea invented by the manager of the Uddevalla plant, they would have to find the person whom they can undoubtedly trust with the assignment but there is no guarantee that one person is physically able to control in his or her scope the events at numerous plants all over the world (Cimini, p. 41). That is why I consider that the Volvo experiences can be implemented at the larger companies but not at the modern level of their development.
Moreover, the Uddevalla Plant itself was closed in 1993 as the result of Volvo’s decision to concentrate all the production of cars in the largest plant in Gothenburg. But many analysts said that the reason for that was that the executive management of Volvo was not satisfied with the policies of the new director of the Uddevalla plant even despite the evident increase in the efficiency of the production process and market competitiveness of the plant products.
Analysts also supposed that if the old team system together with the use of scientific data and modern technology were implemented, then the plant would be still working. I do not support this point of view because it is not typical of large and ambitious companies to stop their progress by themselves. Volvo executive management might have considered that one plant would be enough for the funding that was available for that moment. So, I do not think that the plant would still be at work if the changes were not made by its new management (Strach, p. 4).
Neither the design of jobs could be the cause of the closure of the plant. While historically the work in the sphere assembly is considered to be routine, at the Uddevalla plant the job was organized in a way that allowed making it as less routine as possible.
Using the variables of scope and depth of the job, the work at the Uddevalla plant can be characterized as skillful work that demanded considerable qualification and learning skills. Workers at the plant were not limited by the need to only fulfill their direct functions; they worked in different teams that allowed them to develop their skills and preserve the interest in the work by learning and implementing the new methods of their new co-workers (Sloan, p. 37).
To conclude, we managed to see the experience of the Volvo Uddevalla Plant, consider its causes and effects, as well the possibility of the same system being implemented at the companies of a larger scale. The case study that we have considered provided us with substantial information that allows us to assess the practice of Volvo as positive, but as the one that is currently impossible to implement in other companies.
References
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