Ancol Ltd's Jonquiere

Background

Paul Simard, manager of Ancol Ltd's Jonquiere , Quebec plant observed that relations between employees and management were strained. Based on a recent executive seminar he attended on building trust in the workplace, he made the decision to remove all time clocks from the plant.

Initially employees appreciated the gesture and felt the action was seen as a sign of respect. Two months after the removal of the time clocks, the following problems started to appear:

• 5% of the employees started to show up late, leave early or take extended lunch breaks.

• Other employees started to find the situation unfair and absenteeism level rise to a noticeable effect on plant's productivity.

• Employees' relationship with supervisors deteriorated as employees resented the reprimands.

• Without time cards, payroll had difficulty deducting pay for the absences.

• The number of grievances doubled over six months which was time consuming for both union officials and supervisors.

Analysis

Samar took action to address the problem he observed since his employment with Ancol's Jonquiere plant. However, without further investigation, he assumed the strained relationship between employees and management was due to time clocks. He then immediately applied the knowledge he obtained from the executive seminar assuming it is an effective solution. Organizational behavior analysis should be done by systematic research providing that it is evidence-based, not because of their popularity due to marketing.

One of the perspectives of an effective organization is to have a high-performance work practices. However, it really depends on how each employee performs or behaves in the plant.

Counterproductive work behaviors are something a plant should avoid. Without time clocks, it was easier for employees to have work avoidance issues. Those people who did not work full hours created a sense of unfairness and stress to those who did work full hours. In general, employees who experience job dissatisfaction or work related stress are more likely to be absent or late for work. Therefore, an increase in absenteeism was expected. As a result, when the potential of human capital was not fully utilized, productivity of the plant decreased.

Potential of human capital can also be underutilized when employees are not competent to their works. Supervisors were not trained with appropriate human resource management knowledge. It was obvious by taking away their time to do something they were good at to do something there were not trained for, efficiency declined.

By satisfying stakeholders of the plant is another perspective of being effective. Unfortunately,