Case Study: More Quality from Work

1. What use, if any, could the above ideas be in helping to solve the problem?

Each and every organization aims at improving their organizational performance by all means. In the past it used to pressurize the employees with different tactics so they can be forced to perform as desired by the owners or the management. But now, things have changed. The ides suggested in the case are related to the modern approaches in dealing with the employees and getting the desired results. The ideas suggest different aspects of motivating the employees to perform their best. Some of the ideas can be elaborated as following.

The workers can be motivated with positive reinforces like rewarding them when they perform with their highest capacity to achieve the organizational goals. With the help of an effective reward system, job performance can be effected positively (Organ & Near, 1995).

Negative performance should not be straight away punished. Instead an approach of helping the employees by finding out the reasons of the negative performance should be found and rectified. This will encourage the employees to move in the positive direction.

Training is another important aspect of improving job performance. On job training has been suggested to improve job performance by research (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2006). A regular assessment of the employees should be carried out and any deficiencies that can be removed with the help of trainings should be removed.

The environment that the employees work in is also of the utmost important. It is the responsibility of the management to provide an optimal working environment for their employees that take good care of their health and safety.

2. Can you build on the ideas produced in any way so as to improve them?

There is always a room for improvement in organizations. In the following, I would like to make some recommendations as to build on the ideas that were produced earlier to bring in further improvements in the job performance.

An effective involvement of the employees in the problem solving and decision making is vital to get solutions that would involve everyone and let them explore their fullest capacity. Employees should be encouraged to come to different meetings and have their say about the issues that are at hand. They should also be encouraged to give their suggestions even if they are not asked.

Effective teamwork can have a positive impact on the productivity (Melo, Cruzes & Conradi, 2013). Teamwork processes should be improved and employees should be encouraged to participate in these improvement activities. Employees should be taught to effectively communicate with each other through teamwork exercises.

Non value adding activities should be minimized to their lowest possible level. This will not only increase the throughput time but also help in decreasing the waste. Employees should be enabled to engage in brainstorming activities so as to come up with effective ideas to minimize the non-value adding activities.

Good working environment can be ensured with the help of the provision of different facilities. These facilities may be overlooked sometime which could result in a negative influence on the behavior of the employees. These different facilities consist of medical facility in the form of a medical dispensary for emergency help purposes, a cafeteria and a place where the employees can go to rest when they are on breaks.

3. Try using some of the other problem restatements to produce insights into the problem.

Following are some of the problem restatements that could help in producing insight into the problem.

Try to trust the employees inside the organization instead of bringing in people from outside on high position. Promoting your own employees might be helpful.

The working environment can be improved with the help of introduction of new technologies and training the employees on these technologies.

Give individual and team goals to the employees. Put an effective system to analyze the performance of employees in the achievement of these goals.

Improve team bonding and communication by organizing activities like games and sports that could be indoor or outdoor.