Medium-sized business of four assembly plants spread

Assignment Help Operation Management

Reference no: EM132244290

And then came Charlie

You are the head of Human Resources for Multiverse Corp., a medium-sized business of four assembly plants spread around the mid-Atlantic states. They have 1200 employees; about 900 of them work on the assembly line in the four plants and the other 300 are in sales, quality, engineering, and finance. Charlie was hired from outside of Multiverse Corp. about six months ago. He took over as President from Billy who was asked to retire by the company’s Board. Billy had been President for 10 years and worked for Multiverse for 15 years before that. He knew everyone and was well loved.

In good times and bad, Billy had always made it a habit to visit each plant and personally deliver any important news that affected the company directly to the employees and answer any questions. When Charlie took over, Billy had only one piece of advice, “Charlie the three fastest forms of communication ever invented are telephone, television, and tell-a-plant. I swear rumors move around this company faster than you can imagine. When something happens you need to move quickly to stay ahead of it because word spreads like wildfire.” And with that Billy left.

Charlie was hired to shake things up and modernize a bit. Multiverse was not keeping up with the competition and things needed to change. Charlie put together a team of four other executives – from finance, operations, and sales. They locked themselves away in a conference room and within six months Charlie’s team had made some decisions. He planned to cut everyone’s pay by 10% but put in place bonuses so that everyone could earn that back and more if they hit performance targets, he was going to increase the size of the sales force, and ask engineering to find ways to streamline production. It was Charlie’s hope to double the volume of business that Multiverse was doing within two years.

When the plan was ready Charlie prepared an email detailing the specifics of the new plan and called you into his office to look it over before it was sent out the door. After reading the email, you look at Charlie and ask, “Should I start setting up town hall meetings for you in each of the plants?” “Not necessary”, replied Charlie, “I think all of the objectives are pretty clear and we just don’t have time for that sort of thing anymore”. Charlie hit the send button.

Of course, the email went to only the 300 people in sales, quality, engineering, and finance. The assembly works have no computers. That left it up to the plant managers and line supervisors to tell the other 900 what was going on. Things fell apart quickly. A rumor made its way across the company that big layoffs were coming. At one plant there was talk of a strike. Productivity dropped by 25% within a week. Your phone has been ringing off the hook since 10 minutes after Charlie hit the send button.

After a week of chaos, you decide you need to help Charlie understand what went wrong. Taking a deep breadth you knock on Charlie’s door, “Boss we need to talk”...

Identification of the core issue

Application of one or more theories or concepts from class to explain the issue

Your recommendation based on your application of the theory to the core issue

Reference no: EM132244290

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