Introduction
The purpose of this research is to understand why my employees come to work late in the morning and late after lunch and what can be done to solve this problem. Employees at work have a tendency of coming to work late, and showing up late after their lunch break. Stopping tardiness from employees during business hours is an issue which management has been trying to solve for quite some time, and they met resistance and failure during each attempt to solve this problem.
I will attempt to solve this problem using methods and processes learned in my management class. The research will involve using the CPS stages to solve the above problem. The CPS has five different stages needed to solve potential problems. These stages are as follows: analyze the problem, redefine the problem, generate ideas, evaluate and select ideas, and implement solutions (VanGundy, 1997)
Analyzing the Problem
Analyzing the problem necessitates assembling all the pertinent data concerning the problem. This allows me to organize all the information I will need to analyze. Some of the data and excuses for tardiness by employees were as follows: Who: Employees What: Tardiness When:
Traffic, alarm clock, overslept, car broke down, ran out of gas Once I had all the data concerning the problem, I was able to analyze it in greater detail using the first three steps of the heuristic redefinition tool, since this tool helps to understand the problem in context to the whole system.
As defined by King (2002) this tool is a method of looking at a system in which a problem exists and selecting an approach to solving that problem with greater effect using the least amount of effort. This tool requires visualizing all the parts of the problem and with that I was able to see how tardiness as a single component affects the whole system. Drawing a visual aid of how the company works, allowed me to see all the different components that were affected by employee tardiness such as productivity, and quality in customer service.
Then I went through each component and asked what must be done to approach the solution, each question provided more data concerning the problem. Redefining the Problem: Once I finished analyzing the problem, I was able to redefine the problem. This stage concerns testing unwarranted assumptions about the initial perspective of the problem. Using the “Why Method” tool (VanGundy, 1997)
I was able to come up with a new problems statement. This method is processed by asking why you want to achieve the objective of the problem, and using the answer for the next restatement, and so forth, until the questions become too abstract. By applying this method I was able to come up with the following new problem statement: How does management increase employee productivity during business hours? The new problems statement addressed the original problem statement, but it did so from a different perspective.
Generating Ideas
With the new problem statement at hand I was able to generate ideas on solving that problem. I used an idea-generating tool to come up with a bunch of ideas. The classic brainstorming tool (King, 1998)[4] appeared to be the best tool needed in generating ideas, since it’s a straight forward tool which allows ample interaction between participants.
Using this requires putting together a team of people with various knowledge and experience, and having them generate ideas within the guidelines established before the session. The participants of my classical brainstorming session were all co-workers and therefore had ample experience and knowledge about the issue. The team of four co-workers was able to generate eight unique ideas which were as follows:
- Provide daily task list for employee and make sure he/she completes it before leaving for the day.
- Turn away any employee that comes late to work.
- Dock a certain amount per minute from an employee’s paycheck when he/she comes late.
- Implement a pay for performance compensation system.
- Terminate any employee who is a notorious late comer.
- Have latecomers stay back later after hours.
- Penalize employee who obtains poor evaluations.
- Have the usual late comers car pool with the early birds.
Evaluating and Selecting Ideas
With the ideas in place, I had to evaluate each idea and select the best ideas. This step consists of making any necessary improvements on the final ideas selected during the idea generation stage, and generating evaluation criteria used in weighting each idea with, this can help select the best solution to the problem. In this step I decided to use the nominal group technique (King, 1998, 144), which is a tool best used in evaluating ideas. This tool allows ideas to be ranked according to a predetermined criterion, which I did by assigning a letter to each idea and then ranking them by order of likelihood to succeed.
I was able to find two volunteers (co-workers), who were able to also rank the ideas using he same criteria I used. The total of each idea provided a weight for that idea, and the idea that had more points (weight) was the idea I selected to solve the problem. The top three ideas that had the most points were as follows:
- Provide daily task list for employee and make sure they complete it before leaving for the day
- Implement a pay for performance compensation system
- Penalize employees who obtain poor evaluations.
After deliberations and careful examination of each top idea by the group, solution number one was decided to be the best idea to resolving the problem.
Implementing Solutions
Once the final decision had been made, it now needed to be implemented as soon as possible in order to solve the problem immediately. At this stage I chose to use the process decision program chart to help the implementation of the solution. The process decision program chart (PDPC) (King, 1998, 26) is a tool which maps out conceivable events and contingencies that can occur in any implementation plan.
It in turn helps identify likely problems and feasible countermeasures in response to these problems. I used this tool with co-operation from some co-workers who have experience within the industry. The team first identified the various implementation steps, and came up with three steps needed to implement the daily task list, which were as follows:
- Generate daily task list
- Train employees
- Enforce new policy
Once the steps were identified a list of potential problems was generated for each implementation step, and reasone responses to these problems were also generated. Generate daily task list Task list might not be fully comprehended Training employees Employees might resist Enforce new policy Enforcement might cause employees to resist Finally the team evaluated all the countermeasures that could be adopted to prevent or react to the identified problem, and the most effective countermeasure was built into the implementation plan.
Conclusion
Above all, the implementation plan was a complete success. The new policy was implemented without any resistance from the employees. The new policy was explained to employees in detail, and everyone seemed to be on the same page as management which allowed for a smooth transition into the new daily task systems. Although the implementation plan was only observed for a week, during that week employees showed up to work on time and observed the task list in hopes of leaving work early. Following the observation I noticed a slight increase in productivity which was determined by an increase in work preformed and service rendered. Although it’s too early to say the problem has been solved, the CPS was a complete success and for the time being has subdued the problem.
The situation will need to be constantly monitored, and evaluated in order to determine that the problem has been solved. In conclusion management is optimistic about finally solving this problem, all thanks to my training in creative problem solving.
References
- King, Bob (1998). The Idea Edge. Methuen, MA: GoalQPC
- VanGundy, Arthur (1997). Creative Problem Solving for Managers.
- Classic Brainstorming Tool 5. Nominal Group Technique
