Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in Good Times and Bad

OL 500 Milestone One

Case Study

“Engstrom auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in Good Times and Bad”

Khanh Nguyen

Southern New Hampshire University

During this case study, we will look closer into Engstrom Auto problems and to be more specific HR problems. According to Ben’s observation, most of the issues with production decline directly or indirectly link to work force. However, during the entire reading, I found no evidence of a change in HR personnel. Why had Engstrom not bring in newer HR employees to more effectively to talk and explain new concepts, sitting down one by one addressing issues with workers who voice the loudest objections or suspicions? As a matter of facts, those could be the ones who were spreading rumors and dissatisfaction among the workers. The second problem is the worker’s attitude toward their work and co-workers. We did see the example between a machine worker and a mechanic. If a mechanic in that scenario was trying as hard as possible to stretch out his work, why was he hired in the first place? And if this mechanic was that obvious about his intention for Ben to notice, why had any action taken to fix it rather than for it to be suggested as an idea by other workers to be fixed later with a tool cart? Engstrom needs to hire effective work force, keep the productive individuals and eliminate the non-productive ones. Third it was a bad idea to fire 46 out of 255 employees all at one. That was almost 20% of the workers suddenly disappeared and it added up tremendously to the training cost as well as creating distrust between management and workforce not to mention these workers had not receive any kind of bonus or compensation in the last 7 months. Fourth major concern is the unions as if they were “laying in wait” for the managers to make mistakes and “wanted to hurt management financially on grievances” (Newstrom, 544). No change and improvement can be made with this kind of union before making peace with them. These are ways to negotiate with unions like wage increasing, delaying tactics, etc. but if you can calm them down, they can reduce or even redirect worker’s attention to a different matter. And last, we have morale problem with increasing in distance between management and workers. Surely weekly meeting could help but putting a group of hot headed workers in one place to talk to them from a stage did not seem effective. As a matter of fact, it is good for the company if management and employee can close this distance by attending companywide activities like sports or training sessions altogether. If not, the employees will only have negative views about their superiors “not working as hard as we are.” (Newstrom, 541)

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