Organizational Change: Custom Food and Feed Corporation

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.

Problem:

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:

A complete diagnosis of the problem.

Developed strategies that will guide management in their decision-making process regarding plan implementation.
A clear plan regarding how you will advise management on direction and focus as they implement the plan.

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.

Discuss the way that various interpersonal and team techniques fit into an organization development program.

I need help getting started with the task. Thank you!