Wholesale Grocers: Self-Managed Teams

Why is Cohen worrying about his organization?

Cohen is worrying about his organisation because of the following reasons:-

• C&S was acquiring new customers continuously which generated greater volume of work

• Existing operations of the warehouse was getting inefficient to fulfil the needs of all its customers

• The workforce kept growing & the number of hours employees worked plus the volume of work also kept increasing. It resulted in a rise in operational costs. Further, C&S operated in a highly competitive environment which prohibited them from raising prices. The net effect was shrinking margins

• Quality control & customer relationship management was suffering

• Coordination between increased number of employees was becoming an issue which led to further hiring of more supervisors. This eventually resulted in wastage of time in verifying the accuracy of orders before they were being shipped to customers

• Increase in the size of workforce led to an overcrowded workspace, congestion of aisles & material not being placed at appropriate places, all of which was increasing the difficulty of employees to fulfil orders

• Safety of employees was becoming a issue because of more number of accidents

• There was high employee burn out due to increased work hours which made them prone to injury

• There was an overall dropping in the morale of employees because of aforementioned reasons leading to high annualized turnover rates & absenteeism

• There was lack of time for proper training of new employees which had a ripple effect of inefficient performance of these new employees thereby adding to the overall unproductivity of operations

• There was no accountability of employees & mistakes made within the organisation was untraceable

• Paperwork was at an all time high leading to greater inefficiency & delay in order fulfilment

What assumptions is Cohen making about Organizational Effectiveness and Operational Excellence? Analyse.

The following assumptions are being made by Cohen by Organizational Effectiveness & Operational excellence:-

1. If management provided employees with the opportunity to become more involved in their work & to have more control over how they did their work, then they would be more satisfied & more productive and feel a greater sense of pride in their accomplishments

2. Increased employee involvement goes hand in hand with improved operational performance

3.