Mufflit, Incorporated - What would you do?

“Bob, can I speak with you a moment?” Barbara asked. “Sure Barbara, come on in and have a seat. What seems to be on your mind?” Bob asked. “Well, I have an important meeting with the Mufflit Company, and I must say I am really nervous about this meeting.” “Why is that Barbara?” Barbara takes a deep breath and continues, “I was able to obtain a meeting with the plant manager, Scott and his staff about the possibility of doing some consulting work regarding their employee communication skills. Although this is not a large plant, Mufflit as an organization is global, and if I can help the senior management staff at this location see the benefits of my work, then I may have a chance of doing this work at all the Mufflit locations. An account with this much potential is a little on the scary side, if you know what I mean.” Bob gives off a little chuckle and replies, “I do understand Barbara, but let me give you a few words of wisdom. Go into this meeting being yourself, draw on your years of knowledge in this area, but above all else, be totally honest about what your findings are. You will be fine. I have all the faith in the world in your abilities.”

Mufflit, Incorporated, Somewhere, Michigan

As Barbara reaches for the handle of the front door she takes a deep breath, straightens her suit jacket, and walks in with confidence. “Hi, welcome to Mufflit, how can I help you today?” asks the receptionist. Barbara replies with a smile, “I am here to see Scott Michaels, my name is Barbara Anderson. We have a one o’clock appointment.” “One moment and I’ll see if Scott is ready” as the receptionist picks up the phone to call Scott. “Scott will be right with you.” Just then the door opens and Scott walks into the lobby. “Barbara, how nice to finally meet you, thank you for coming in” says Scott. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with me.” Barbara replies.

Scott Michaels walks Barbara to a conference room around the corner where she is greeted by the operations manger, the manufacturing manager, and the human resource manager. After introductions, Barbara and Scott sit down with his senior staff members to discuss why she is there. Barbara begins, “My Company specializes in providing consulting services to businesses that are undergoing significant changes and may be in need of some help in the area of business communications. What we have found through our many years in business is that as the economy fluctuates down, businesses are forced to make significant changes to policies and procedures in order to survive. In doing so, employee morale tends to suffer as a result of poor communication. When employee morale suffers we have found that regardless of the changes being made to the bottom line, employers loose more through decreased production rates, increased absenteeism, work stoppages, and for some employers, the threat of a union drive. It is the goal of my organization to speak with employees, find out what their feelings are about the top down communication, formulate a plan, and then work with the senior managers to improve communication. In a lot of cases this will also improve the critical thinking skills of managers, as many times communication is not completely thought out before delivering it.”

Scott asks, “where would your process begin Ms. Anderson?” “Call me Barbara, please, and my process would begin by conducting focus groups with your associates.” “My team would come in across all your shifts, and meet with small groups to get feedback as to how they feel about the flow of communication. The associates would be asked to share ideas of what could improve and to talk about what they think the strengths are regarding communication.” Barbara takes a breath and continues, “as an outside consultant, we find that employees tend to be more open with us than they would from anyone within the entire Mufflit organization, because the employees do not feel threatened or fear retaliation.” “Once, we finish the meetings, which tend to take about two to three days, and we then prepare a detailed report and will make a presentation to you, Scott, and your staff, of our findings.”

Scott begins a slow smile, “okay, you have to know what my next question will be…” Barbara chuckles and interrupts with a single word, “costs.” “That would be it,” Scott continues. “Costs are very reasonable and I am confident that you will see a return on your investment through items like improved production and reduced absenteeism.” Scott smiles, “when do we start?”

Three Weeks Later

Barbara and her team arrive at Mufflit Incorporated to begin the associate meetings, but before they begin Barbara decides that a small talk with her staff is needed.
“Thank you all for helping with this project today. As you know, Mufflit is an automotive manufacturer that has experienced some significant setbacks due to the decrease in new automobile sales. The plant that we are working with today is non-union and the senior managers here would like to keep it that way, which is part of the reason we are here. I believe that Scott and his staff have a strong desire to improve the communications across all levels of the organization, but more specifically within this plant. Please keep in mind, as you conduct the employee focus groups that employees will want to take you down paths that lead to everything that they feel is wrong with the organization, benefits, people, corporate decisions, and the list goes on. It is our responsibility to keep them on the track that we are here for which is communication. Employees can talk about bulletin boards, emails, meetings, anything that deals with communicating business practices and critical information. After we have finished all the focus groups we will reconvene at the office to make our list for the presentation to Scott and his staff next week. ”

Half Hour Later

Barbara and her team began the focus groups and found employees to be open and honest with their feelings about communications. Employees did try to move conversations to other subjects that were making them unhappy, but Barbara and her group were able to quickly get the groups back on track. The fear that employees were feeling as a result of layoffs due to the slowdown in the automotive industry was very evident in the items employees brought up during the focus group meetings. “It is the feeling of fear that makes communication so critical to companies like this,” Barbara thought. For Barbara and her team the hardest part of the process has yet to come, which is convincing Scott and his staff that change in how they handle communication is critical to the success of this plant.

Barbara’s Office

Three days after completing the focus groups at Mufflit, Barbara and her team gather in her office to go over their findings. “Team, we are here to go over each of our findings from the focus groups that were conducted at Mufflit in Somewhere.” Barbara said. “Who would like to start us out with what the common themes of their groups were?” Barbara asks. Sam volunteers to begin. “I had three focus groups of hourly associates. Each session contained no more than 12 associates. I started out feeling like I had to pull teeth to get anyone in these sessions to talk, but once the ball got rolling employees seemed eager to express their concerns. What I found was employees liked the fact that senior managers conduct monthly employee communication meetings, but that there is a fear that employees are not being told everything. Depending on where an employee works in the plant, the groups are either large or small and although there is a question and answer period, employees falling into the large group do not always feel that there is enough time to address all the concerns they have. It was identified that this is more of a concern when changes are being made to policies and procedures. Employee’s want more time to ask their questions and to feel like they are getting a fair answer.” Chris chimed in on Sam’s statement indicating that she too heard a lot of the same statements as Sam did.

“For me,” Sandy starts, “I had all of the salaried groups and the biggest concern I heard was that senior managers are making decisions without utilizing the sources available to them for input, their staff. Employees explained that several times in a row, senior managers have made decisions to make a change to a policy and then had to retract their changes or shift the effective dates because managers did not think through the ramifications of the change. These employees felt that had the senior managers talked to them they could have helped identify the issues that would be brought up by hourly associates and possibly help make the changes easier to implement.” The rest of the team were nodding their heads as a signal that they were listening and understood the concern.

The team continued to discuss these two major issues as Barbara starting formulating her presentation to Scott in her head. That meeting was to take place next week and she knew that she had to be on her game with this one.

Next Week

“Barbara, it is nice to see you again. My staff and I are anxious to hear what your findings are and what recommendations you have for us.” Scott smiled. Barbara smiled and said, “Scott, I am very excited to be here. I think we have some work to do, but I feel certain that by the time we are done you will have a plant that sets the standard in communication for all of the Mufflit Corporation.

Handshakes and warm welcomes are exchanged between Scott’s staff and Barbara as they sit down in the conference room. All are expressing excitement over what changes can come from such a positive interaction.

Barbara begins, “I would like to thank you all for this opportunity. My team and I had such a positive and rewarding experience in conducting focus groups with all of your associates. I feel you have a great team here and with a little bit of adjustment to your communication efforts, your facility will be setting a lot of standards for Mufflit global. Some might say that you will be the world class example of positive communication. Although there were more than two concerns identified through the focus groups, I believe that if we concentrate on these two concerns that we are going to discuss today, the others should fall into line. So, our agenda for today is for me to give you a brief over view of the two issues identified and then I would like for all of us to discuss what changes all of you can enact to correct them and how I can continue to support you through this process.” Barbara smiles, “unless there are any questions, let’s begin.”
As Scott and his team indicate they are ready to dive in, Barbara began, “the first item comes from your hourly staff. Employees liked the fact that monthly employee communication meetings are conducted, but there is a fear that employees are not being told everything. Depending on where an employee works in the plant, the groups are either large or small and although there is a question and answer period, employees falling into the large group do not always feel that there is enough time to address all the concerns they have. It was identified that this is more of a concern when changes are being made to policies and procedures. Employee’s want more time to ask their questions and feel like they are getting a fair answer.”
Barbara goes on with the second item, “the biggest concern we heard from the salaried group was that senior managers are making decisions without utilizing the sources available to them for input, their staff. Because of this, it is felt that management is frequently having to retract policy changes after the staff in the affected department has put in a lot of hours to make adjustments.” Your salaried group feels that if all of you were more open in communicating changes, before making announcements, they would be able to help you work through the ramifications and it may keep you from having to retract policy changes after they have been enacted.” Barbara states.

As Barbara takes a deep breath and smiles at everyone, she continues, “As you can see, I do not think this is anything that we cannot work through. So, on this flip chart”, as Barbara points to her right, “let’s brain storm what we can do to address these issues.”

What ideas would you offer to Barbara if you were part of Scott’s senior management team?

Failure to Talk - Case Study

One issue that many companies find challenging is the communication of policy changes. For this specific case study, the issue at hand will revolve around senior managers that make policy changes and announce them to the entire workforce before identifying what questions and complaints may arise out of the policy change.

Specifically, it has been found that had the senior managers in question communicated the policy changes to their departmental staff prior to making an organizational announcement there could have been a lot of issues resolved prior to the announcement rather than after the fact. By not communicating with the departmental staff these mangers have had to retract and alter policy decisions after the fact at least three times in a row. How can the departmental staff encourage managers to open about the changes that are coming so that all challenges can be identified and addressed prior to the announcement?

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