Unit 4 Written Assignment Breakthrough Improvement Plan – Case Study of a Local Processing Plant R PDF

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Unit 4 Written Assignment ...

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Breakthrough Communication Improvement Plan – Case Study of a Local Processing Plant

Organisation: Processing Plant According to Carl and Duck (2004), “a person is more likely to be influenced by messages that stimulate discussion between the individual and his or her groups of significant others or associates’’(26). From the case study presented, some of the problem areas across the organization include: 

Low quality of mail sortation resulting in mis-sorted, mis-delivered, and missequenced mail.

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Delayed delivery and mail returns were unacceptably high

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Machine performance was substandard and overtime usage was high

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Employee performance was not being addressed for fear of union shop intervention

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Customer complaints continue to rise.

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The current performance of 93% was below the breakthrough goal of 98%.

Improvement Plan/Decisions made by the Leadership Team 

Summoned a team meeting with the leadership of the organization in a bid to come up with solutions to tackle identified performance issues.

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Set a performance goal from the delivery point sequence quality to 98%

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Conduct a quarterly contest for all floor operations staff with the floor manager implementing instructions for the program kick-off.

From this case study, the following are some of the communication issues identified:

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There is a lack of communication on a company-wide level. The organization operates a bureaucratic system; as such decision-making

is restricted to only the leadership team and does not trickle down to other members of the team. 

The organization has not identified a channel of communication that works across all departments (for example, adoption of technology for better team collaboration).

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Decisions are made without input or listening to other key stakeholders that will facilitate the desired business outcome or results.

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Communication planning and implementation strategies are missing in this organization.

What communication channels were bypassed?

For effective communication to take place, an organization must adopt the word of mouth strategy and mediated or online communication strategy. The word of mouth strategy involves having a face to face meeting across the organization or selecting key representatives in a focus group to brainstorm solutions to all identified problems within the organization while a mediated or online communication strategy will involve emails to all employees, administering a survey or questionnaire requesting for suggestions to achieve set business goals.

How would you implement such an improvement plan?

On a personal note, looking at the case study presented, there are cultural issues across the organization, as everyone is not operating on the same level due to varying access to information. While there is nothing wrong with adopting a bureaucratic process, information collection and dissemination strategies have to be adopted.

Adopt a change champion or persons with strong ties that have a great deal of influence across the organization to propagate the performance expectations and drive change. For an organization to thrive, employees must feel like their contributions matter. The employer must motivate them to continue to put in the best work since they are an integral part of the organization.

Provide suggestions for effective program implementation.

In order for the program to be effectively implemented, the organization must assess all stakeholders who will both drive the change or benefit from the change program. The floor manager, maintenance manager and other unit leads must be given an opportunity to dialogue and present unique challenges that affect them and subordinates directly. Once the need has been clearly identified, the next step is to get everyone in the organization to attend a brainstorming session assuming they all work from one location, otherwise the use of emails to communicate the problem areas will be adopted as well as surveys to collect suggestions for improvement from a process point of view i.e. how not to sort, challenges with current mail sorting approach, use of letters/memos and performance appraisal forms to communicate new standards of performance across all roles. Develop a framework together with the floor manager and maintenance manager on how best to motivate improved employee behavior by adopting different motivational workplace strategies that matter most to each employee across the organization.

In conclusion, the culture of the organization may need to evolve to foster a more open and collaborative approach to getting things done. Without effective communication, every individual within an organization acts in silos and eventually the business suffers.

References: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2t4bv7.5?seq=13#metadata_info_tab_contents Laegaard, J. & Bindslev, M. (2006). Organizational theory, 1st ed.

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