College Sandstorm Products 8/16 Case Background Leo Henkelman has been servicing in Sandstorm products for the last 13 years. He has climbed up the corporate ladder starting from the bottom as a paint runner to the present day position of mill operator. However, in the recent times, he has been thinking of quitting the job. Most of the operators including Leo had been facing frustration on account of pressures from customers to increase the quality and their feeling of being powerless to change anything. The company had also been facing financial problems with its cash flow being negative for 3 years out of the last five.

Management Problem

“The absence of motivation factors combined with power imbalance at Sandstorm Products has led to resentment and job dissatisfaction amongst mill operators.”

Mill operators at Sandstorm believe that they do not have enough power in their hands to change anything in the organization. They believe that they can improve the products and the services of the company but their suggestions are continually ignored by the employees working in the labs. This combined with the ever increasing demands of the customers has been leading to frustration amongst the mill operators. This frustration is the root cause why mill operators are looking to quit the company. At the same time, the attitude of the lab employees of not incorporating suggestions from the mill operators is resulting in the loss of quality conscious customers. This in turn is affecting the cash flows of the company. Hence this problem needs to be addressed.

Theory/Model

N.R.F Maier (1955) defined job performance of an employee as the product of his ability and motivation. While the ability of the employee can be gauged by the academic history and the experience. motivation for a job is dependent on various factors both internal and external to the workplace. In order to be a successful business enterprise, it is necessary that a company management makes sure that the internal factors motivate employees to do their best. In order to motivate its employees, the company needs to understand the hierarchy of need (psychological, safety, social, esteem or self-actualization) (Maslow, 1943) at which the employees are working

Recommendations

In order to improve the motivation levels of the mill operators it is necessary that they shall be encouraged to come up with new ideas of improving formulas on the basis of customer feedback. At the same time, a process shall be made in place to ensure that the formula suggested by the mill operators is tested by the employees at the laboratory. If a particular formula is found out to be good by lab tests and is accepted by the quality conscious customers, the mill operator shall be rewarded suitably. This will enable the fulfillment of the self-actualization need of the mill operators. This will also give them a feeling of having a say in the decision making process. This will remove prejudices of any power imbalance between the lab and mill operators from the minds of mill operators. The end result will be high motivation levels of mill operators, better quality products for the customers and hence better cash flows.

References

Mair, N.R.F. Jr. (1955). Psychology in Industry. Boston, Mass: Houghton Mifflin

Maslow, A.H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation.