CF&F and Organizational Change Strategy
CASE SCENARIO: Custom Food and Feed Corporation (CF&F)is
a major manufacturer and marketer of food and animal feed ingredients. Over the
past 10 years, there have been several major investigations and allegations of
company mismanagement. In question is CF&F’s compliance with federal and
state regulatory regulations (safety, environment and quality), Federal and
State Labor Laws, and Equal Employment Opportunity guidelines. In the light of
recent negative publicity and to regain and maintain the company’s market
share, a new CEO was appointed by the Board of Directors. The CEO has insisted
that the president of the company look into the recent allegations and make
recommendations for changes in company management practices in resource management.
The president has outlined the CEO concerns for change and has tasked the Vice
President of Human Resources to analyze the current company culture and to give
recommendations to him for change. The Vice President of Human Resources has
decided to use the Tech Division for this corporate analysis.
The Tech Division is the newest division, being 12-years
old. This division has grown from a single product to seven products. The Tech
Division is a non-union facility which has a staff of 92 managers and 300
hourly employees. This division uses fermentation technology to convert
dextrose (sugar)into a variety of food and feed ingredients. This division
operates 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Following are major
results of the study:
There is no real concern for safety, environmental and/or
quality controls. Tech’s managers use an authoritarian approach to managing
human resources. This approach over the years has built many barriers between
the hourly employees and management and there has been some talk of unionizing.
The plant manager’s responsibility is to make all the daily production
decisions. His staff of production supervisors is to monitor the production
cycle and report to him for direction.
Frontline Supervisors have been promoted from within the
company. There was no apparent consideration to who would be promoted and no
guidance and training was given to them. There is a history of nepotism that
runs throughout the culture of this division. Up until now, the Corporate Human
Resource department has been responsible for all of the Human Resource
activities for each of its divisions. The Vice President of Human Resources has
convinced the president of the company that the first change is to put a Human
Resource Manager (HRM) in the Tech division. The president agreed. You are the
newly hired Human Resource Manager for the Tech Division. Your responsibility
is to diagnosis the present culture, develop strategies for implementing a plan
for change, and implement the plan. The Vice President of Human Resources has
pointed out that you will face many challenges and a strong resistance from
different levels of management not to change the established culture.
The project which is currently needing assistance:
CYBRARY PROJECT: You have been working for CF&F for the
past 5 months as the Human Resource Manager. Your company has recently had a
large turnover of upper management and has hired a number of new middle
management persons from other companies. It has also integrated a few engineers
freshly out of college to help optimize production and lower cost.
Historically, Frontline Supervisors have been promoted from within the company
and without any management development training. Eighty-five percent of your
hourly employees have been with the company 5+ years.
In past few months you have heard from some of the hourly
employees that management has not been keeping their promises concerning
employee training and promotion. Some of the employees even fear for their jobs
if they complain about the work environment. Employees are also concerned that
management is not adhering to company polices, yet forcing the employees to
follow company policies. Employees feel resentment over this.
Because of the overwhelming production schedule, you feel
that Frontline Supervisors are not training employees properly and they leave a
lot of the decision- make up to the hourly employees. Some of the employees are
coming to you and voicing concerns that because of the lack of communication,
professional development and leadership from management, they are concerned for
their personal safety.
As you start to investigate the allegations from the hourly
employees, you find out that Frontline Supervisors are not happy, either. Their
concerns are that no one from upper management will back them up when it comes
to making technical or managerial decisions.
Using the Cybrary and internet, develop a detailed plan that
will increase communications, training, professional development and teamwork
across all functional areas of your division.
The plan should include the following:
1. A complete diagnosis of the problem.
2. Developed strategies that will guide management in their
decision-making process regarding plan implementation.
3. A clear plan regarding how you will advise management on
direction and focus as they implement the plan.
4. Remember to consider that every member of the CF&F
team should embrace the plan for change. Include the indicators or trends will
you could track to tell management if the plan is/will be successful.
Which diagnostic model would work here?
— The Analytical Model- Differentiation Integration Model
— The Emergent-Group Behavior Model
— The Management Consulting Model
— The Socio-technical Systems Model
— Cause Maps and Social Network Analysis Model
— The Force-Field Analysis Model
It was stated to use the Cybrary (which is the online
library) and the internet. The websites found at the cybrary for this phase
were the following:
http://www.joe.org/joe/1999april/tt1.html
http://leadershipcenter.osu.edu/Publications/Leadership_Moments/LM_2001/Building%20a%20Collaborative%20Team%20Environment.doc
