The Treadway Tire CompanyEssay Preview: The Treadway Tire CompanyReport this essayThe IssueThe Treadway Tire Company, a major supplier of tires to the large OEM manufacturers, has eight manufacturing plants and the Lima tire plant was one them. Ashley Wall, the Director of Human Resources at the Lima plant was on a mission to complete a thorough analysis of why the Lima Tire plant had a turnover rate for foreman which was higher than any other plant in the division – of a total of 50 foremen there were 23 turnovers in a year.
The issue is to determine what factors are contributing to the high turnover rate for foreman at the Lima Plant and to find a way to develop effective practices to retain their foremen.
AnalysisTo understand why the turnover was high we should look at what factors are contributing to turnover. Job satisfaction, or in this case job dissatisfaction is one of the large factors.
The following exhibit from the text, shows some of the factors that determine job satisfaction, and the relationship between these factors and the foremen is explained in detail below.
The plant was experiencing differing generational values. An example of such is how the general supervisor and area manager felt that foreman should not be “hand-held” and that “you have to take control to survive on the plant floor”, “let them know who is the boss”. This management style was outdated and did not reflect the leadership style preferences of the millennials who made up the majority of the foreman and the hourly employees [I am assuming here that the foreman and hourly employees are generally under 40 years of age placing them in the millennial generation].
When the foreman fail to meet the production targets – they are chastised, but even when they do meet their targets, there is no reward or praise. According to discrepancy theory not performing well causes anxiety and regret, as does, the lack of praise upon doing well. It is what seems as a lose-lose scenario for the foremen, causing feelings of dejection and disappointment, disengagement and dissatisfaction. The foremen’s tasks were to ensure there were no technical issues that would stop production during their shift. Additionally, the foremen carried out many administrative tasks, such as payroll, hiring and dealing with union issues. With all the demands and responsibilities they handled, it is evident that productivity could not be the main focus. The management team wanted to see results but the foreman were too busy trying to stay on top of the admin tasks, and the equipment problems and dealing with the hourly staff to focus on increasing production.
Additionally, the foremen were facing “severe tongue lashings” for not meeting forecast level of performance and the negative moods and heightened emotions brought on by these actions toward the foremen were spreading as they were then lashing out at the hourly workers and were not being reasonable with them. This emotional contagion was contributing to job dissatisfaction.
Procedural fairness was lacking at the Lima plant, the general supervisor performed annual performance reviews for the foreman and judged the foreman on two factors, “ability to meet or exceed forecasts, and how they manage and train their hourly workers”. Conversely, it was also indicated that “as long as you meet targets without aggravating the union or management too much, you’re fine”. This somewhat inconsistent and subjective criteria for a performance review process and can not be perceived as fair, and appears biased. The unfair reviews were contributing to the turnover and it was estimated that 13 of the 23 that left did not do so voluntarily i.e. were let go do to poor reviews or other disciplinary issues. Furthermore, promotions were not done in a consistent manner and the foreman were growing frustrated by a major slowdown in the ability to move up the ranks. New college graduates were being selected for supervisor roles over foremen, even though the most successful general supervisors and area managers had risen from the foreman ranks..
In addition to job satisfaction, employee commitment to an organization plays a role in turnover.If all forms of commitment reduce turnover , you want to foster the link between an employee and the organization. The foreman are lacking in organizational commitment to the Lima Plant and Treadway Tire.
A sense of obligation to Treadway Tire was in low supply at the Lima Plant. The benefits to foster and build normative commitment such as training to enhance skills was cut due to cost cutting measures and the attempt at creating socialization to enhance loyalty were falling short of the mark. [It would not be surprising if many of the foreman didn’t buy Treadway Tires].
The cost cutting measures were causing other issues. When a company goes through changes in a workplace, it can shift an employee’s commitment to the company. Additionally, changes that are made in the organization’s best interest but that are detrimental to employees’ wellbeing are most likely to damage affective commitment (text pg.151), the type of commitment that is based on your identification and involvement with an organization. Unsurprisingly, changes are rampant at the Lima Plant. The plant was changed to be operational 24hrs a day and the foremen as well as the hourly staff work 12 hour shifts for 3 days on, 3 days off. The 24 hour operation allows for increased production and the 12 hour shifts keep the number of employees down which is great for the Lima Plant’s bottom line, but it puts more pressure on the foremen and staff. The changes were proving to be detrimental to the foremen who are trying to keep the production going while dealing with operational issues from the previous
The Lima Plant in Lima, Mexico
The last significant change to the Lima Plant was seen in 1995 and at that time the company had a very large workforce and at the end of the day was operating on a schedule. Although it is very popular with our readers, the change wasn’t done in order to make sure that the employees would be able to make up to 20k for work. It seems very easy to explain to a simple manager or other corporate boss that a change from one shift to another may not lead to an increase in productivity but to bring down output. However, while the management did push for a new system to make sure all employees were able to perform on production schedule and to let them continue to run the facility as normal, the company did the opposite. As the CEO, it was his top priority to manage the facility as he saw the many, many hours that employees had to put away in order to make a more effective company. The changes began immediately, after the plant was set up but began a few days before that when the management stopped the change, as their goal was to keep at least 18K and allow workers to get paid even more so that the time spent not work was not only paid for but increased enough to meet the company’s financial liabilities from when the CEO took over with a bonus. If these changes caused any problems to the workers in the Lima plant, it would have at one time caused the worker to think that he or she was getting screwed or be treated harshly for coming to the same conclusion as the others. Since then, over the years, the manager and the CEO of the Lima plant have both brought the same issue to the attention of managers and employers alike as well.
When the Lima plant was initially announced to the public and the press, many people were skeptical as to where the news was coming from. In reality, it looked like an accident and the operator was trying to avoid blame by making a point. Yet as the company looked at the facts, they realized that the new rules were not implemented and they started an internal investigation to determine what was causing the employees problems. During this internal discussion, staff realized that it was not the employee but the company that was causing their problems, and that even if we can blame it, there is no way to fix it. The main issues that led them to start an internal investigation were a lack of money to hire staff and the fact that only 8% of the employees in the Lima plant made it to the new schedule when the first shift started. After a lot of discussions by management, the Lima plant was eventually started but for the employees, the lack of money to hire staff and the fact that only 8% of the employees reached the new schedule means that it is impossible to fix these issues. In spite of the fact that at least 2 employee employees were assigned to the plant, the company’s employees continued to have problems. They continued to work longer hours when they were sick and even when they came to work early to start the season. The fact that their work schedule changed during the summer months with the new schedule did not allow them to fully understand the business problems they faced. They continued wasting money and even the money they had to pay to be able to do it, they still missed a lot of free time because they were not able to pay for time off during the weekend.
In January 2016 after two failed attempts since the start of the year, things were very close from their beginning. While they were working in the same facilities in the other buildings, and were paying their rent, they were not allowed to work while on the same day as the shift started. One of the biggest problems they faced was the fact that the Lima Plant workers worked a full day. The staff would work only half hours for the shift, which meant that if the staff was late for work, they would be sick and they were just wasting money while on holiday. As the managers and their employees worked at