The Management of Ability (green River)

Introduction

There are a few differences that exist between FMC green River and FMC Aberdeen. I will first explain the background for both of these facilities. Then I will describe my analysis of the situation in regards to the management of ability, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and organizational ethics. Following that I will explain some alternatives and recommendations that I have for them. After all that is said and done I will explain how the implementation process should work. I will conclude with my own thoughts and views on the situation.

Background

The first major difference is that Aberdeen has only one customer and Green River has over 100 customers worldwide. Another difference is that Aberdeen employees 100 people compared to 1,250 and counting at Green River. Also Aberdeen is a new single plant with one product and Green River started in 1948 and has two plants already with several product lines. Along with all that Aberdeen has no union and is in the defense industry to where as Green River has a union with the United Steel Workers of America and is in the chemical industry.

Analysis of the Situation

In regards to the management of ability, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and organizational ethics some things that Dailey will have to consider at Green River are (Clawson, 2005):

1) His employees are union based and that means changes to its employee’s schedules, job descriptions, and job titles have to be negotiated and approved first before any actions can be taken.

2) His selection in employees is based on required skills instead of their abilities or personalities which would help him to understand the interpersonal skills of his new hires.

3) When it comes to monitoring, disturbance handler, negotiator, liaison versus team member his managerial roles are much more traditional.

4) For many many years his work process, procedure & policy infrastructure have been in place.

5) Interaction between his employees is prevented from the physical layout of the existing plants.

Alternatives & Recommendations

The Management Ability:

First of all Aberdeen started out with a highly selective process being very specific of what type of people they wanted to hire and Green River uses their unions to manage their ability. The key to the management ability is to make sure that employees have the abilities to perform their jobs effectively through selection, placement, and training which Aberdeen has done (George & Jones, 2005). They first made sure that they hired the right people for the position and assigned them to the tasks they could perform. They also have trained each employee in all positions also known as cross-training just in case they need someone else to fill a position of an absent person. As for Green River their management ability is reduced to a union which gives no room for ideas or personalities within the whole organization.

I am not too sure if the “family” attitude would work for Green River because it is such a big operation that it would take a lot of time and money to go through the process. I do however believe that if they would let the employees open up more and give them the authority to speak of their ideas they would be more willing to work and could build a “family” atmosphere which in turn will build moral.

Organizational Commitment:

Communication, communication, and communication is the key to organizational commitment. The organization as a whole is one “team”, what Aberdeen has done is divided up into different teams and given them the authority to schedule work hours, purchase materials and tools, planned work schedules, coordinated with other teams, evaluated team members’ performance, recommended salary increases, generated reports, and deal with virtually every problem that arose in the running of the plant. Then you have managers that come in regular clothes and work out on the warehouse floor and do whatever has to be done to get the job done. Now that is commitment. As for Green River the union puts a strain on involvement in anything.

I believe that if the union would step back a little and let more people speak their opinion on the companies procedures they would feel more involved to be committed to the company and not just to Dailey. It might even be a good idea just to get rid of the union all together to make this work.

Job Satisfaction:

According to George & Jones (2005), “Employees