Bird Dogging the Employee - Essay Example

“Bird dogging the employee”

The first problem of Ace Electricals is rewards related to motivation. Because putting the walkie-talkies together is easy, Al Abrams, the proprietor Of Ace Electricals, hires semi-unskilled labor and pays low rates. Also, because the organization had made profits each year it had been in existence and also because the workers do not complain about compensation, the proprietor of the business had assumed that all is well and will always be well and had not put in appropriate management systems to act as mechanisms to facilitate production and total company growth.
The lack of adequate compensation to staff for work done, in terms of wages, work environment, and opportunity for self-development is the cause of the general decline in employee morale, and decline in employees’ productivity which ultimately has affected the profit margin of Ace Electricals over the past six years.
The workers were doing something else like reading in the restrooms when they were supposed to work because the incentives to motivate them is either low or non-existent. This unproductive attitude of employees is very contagious. It will not only affect productivity but affects the morale of the whole workplace. And this is exactly what is happening at Ace Electricals.
To solve this problem, the management of the company needs to sit down and take a look again at their compensation system. They need to address the issue of low morale and low productivity collectively and on an individual basis. This is to find out what each employee’s problem is and what can be done collectively to rectify the situation. This will also make the employees feel that the organization cares about them as persons and not just as workers. This will also help develop the loyalty of the employees to the organization and give them a sense of belonging. A system must be created where an employee can develop himself in pursuance of company growth and development.

When people or in our case here workers feel they are been watched closely, i.e. “bird-dogging” or “slave driving”, it tends to create a lot of tension at the workplace, breeds distrust between management and workers, and tends to reinforce the “I am the boss, so you should be subservient attitude”. It does not give the employee the opportunity to think on his own and to bring out the potential in him. The employee tends to think that management does not trust him anyway so why should he/she bother? It creates a system where employees can’t share ideas with management so they can make things work better. Because people work under a tense atmosphere, productivity will be low, and as an act of protest or rebellion won’t try to achieve production targets as is the case of Ace Electricals.
The management needs to create and nurture a kind of relationship between workers and supervisors that will ensure cooperation and compliance. And to effect this, the key is communication. Effective communication between employees and management will bridge the gap between the two sides, address grievances and promote Idea sharing which can totally revolutionize the organization. But then again, it’s all about creating a reward system where the organization can take the worker to task if he is not performing to expectation.

Al Abrams needs to take a total look at his organization's management system ie from administrative through to production and delivery and make complete but relevant management changes. I think the problem here is that the technique he uses in the assembly line is obsolete. He needs to look at modern systems where the assembling could be done with fewer hands if possible. And then if it can be done, what will be the delivery rate per specified time? How will it reduce costs? How will workers be rewarded? Is it by the number of sets you assemble within a specific time?
Supervision is a key problem at Ace Electricals. If there are supervisors at the assembling department, who supervises top management staff and how is it done? Who reports to whom and on what basis? If Al Abrams wants to save his company, he needs to hire a management consultant who will do a review of the organization’s management policies in terms of reward systems, recruitment, supervision, communication, production, and training. Because an organization that wants to thrive in this competitive market and make a profit cannot adjust its production line to accommodate slow workers as Ace Electricals is doing; obviously the consequence is that, productivity will be low and costly in terms of cash and time. Read More