Webster Industries - How Should Carter Go About Deciding Who Should Be Terminated? Which Criteria Should He Follow? Why?

Webster Industries Case Analysis

How should Carter go about deciding who should be terminated? Which criteria should he follow? Why?

Before creating a termination framework, Webster Industries, as an entity, should be understood. Firstly, roughly half of the working population of Clearwater – a town of 35,000 – work at Webster [1]. Secondly, Webster’s culture of paternalism, loyalty to employees, community goodwill, and open-door culture has fostered a relationship that resembles a united family rather than a rigid corporation. As taken away from the Paul McGinley case, trust is vital within groups as it builds shared values and promotes healthy embracement of conflict [2]. As opposed to the case, where individuals were brought together for a very brief period, Webster is a company where trust and shared values have developed and strengthened over time. Like a family facing a crisis, everyone should be involved in the decision making process since this is not necessarily a management issue but rather a social issue. Given the small scale of the town and the large proportion of those who are employed by Webster, a poor handling of the situation can extend to mistrust and strife within the community. Similar to Martha Rinaldi, Carter should realize that he has a good relationship with his superior, having been Abe’s assistant for two years [1][3]. Carter should first leverage this relationship and the open-door culture to appeal the termination criteria. Furthermore, team decisions are more accurate and produce more solutions; termination guidelines drafted by an individual (e.g. Webster) are likely to neglect some key points [4]. Next, in line with company’s culture of trust, Carter should summon the 289 managers, present the situation to them, and explicitly identify that the issue is not exclusive to management but to everyone. As a follow-up, the 289 managers should elect a committee of 10-15 representative managers who will generate the criteria by which all 289 managers will be judged. This would be reviewed and approved by Carter, the three other production managers, Brown, and Stevens. It’s important for Carter to include Brown and the 4th production manager because they too are part of the process and may have valuable insight. Holding onto his own opinion of them may create a Keller-Brodsky case wherein the other two are in fact insightful and excellent workers despite this view not being projected from Carter’s perspective [5]. Once approved, a new committee of representative managers will use PAS data and additional information acquired from supervisors to measure the managers against the stated criteria. The list of 43 managers would then be sent to Carter and his committee for review, feedback, and approval. By using a diverse set of groups in the decision making process, individual biases can be neutralized since the system 2 of different individuals can spot biases generated by another’s system 1 [6]. Also, through the use of data and the different points of view of committee members, availability bias can be partially hedged when judging each manager. Once a list of 43 managers to be terminated has been mutually agreed upon, it will be presented to the President. Finally, despite the unpleasant situation, Webster can prove its commitment, and gratitude to the terminated employees. Carter can again approach Abe and propose for the company to finance and develop a center where terminated workers (both now and in the future) can receive formal career support in their pursuit to find a new job. Given the company’s history of goodwill, this action would solidify Webster’s culture of paternalism and collectivism.