Reference no: EM132179881

You are a supervisor in Elegant Garments Manufacturing. Employees have fallen into the habit of coming to work, signing in and then going to breakfast, at least ½ to ¾ of an hour is lost per employee. Most of the employees get to work by public transportation and do not have time to get breakfast before leaving home.   As supervisors you are all under a good deal of pressure from the business owners to do something about it.   Privately you all acknowledged the organization has a real problem, but in fact nothing has been done about it.

Rather, you all schedule yourselves in your offices during the first hour of the day, under the guise of using that hour for planning the next day’s work. Each supervisor intuitively sensed that to take action would be unpopular, and would bring criticism from both supervisory colleagues and from employees for trying to win points with management. The situation is further complicated by the fact that some employees have work-related justification for being away from their primary work area and in contact with employees in different sections.

Fifteen supervisors report to three managers. A group of you get together and decided to look at the problem, as morale seems to be affected and production figures are beginning to dip and that might affect the annual bonus payment plan.