Gap Analysis: Riordan Manufacturing

Gap Analysis: Riordan Manufacturing

Riordan Manufacturing is a global plastics producer employing 550 people with projected annual earnings of $46 million. The company has three manufacturing units based in Georgia, Michigan and China. The corporate headquarters are located in San Jose, California, and this where most of the R&D is conducted.

Riordan employs people from various demographic groups, who signify distinct perspectives on rewards and motivation, the parameters being work environment and paychecks.

Riordan has undergone extensive strategic changes due to slacking sales and profits, in the areas of manufacturing and marketing. Customer-relationship management (CRM) system has been adopted, which has changed the entire sales process. Apart from CRM, from the manufacturing perspective, Riordan has also implemented the Six Sigma quality approach and is now ISO9000 certified.

Unfortunately for Riordan, the employee survey indicates negative results in terms of employee job satisfaction, mostly from the compensation and benefits aspect. Apparently, all the departments like R&D, Sales and IT have their own issues in terms of employee dissatisfaction.

At this point the services of Human Capital Consulting from Santa Clara, an external agency, have been availed to come up with an action plan.

Situation Analysis

Issue and Opportunity Identification

Riordan’s adoption of new strategy in the way it manufactures and markets its products is highly justified and called for considering the ever changing industry expectations and demand, which is now more customer oriented. At the same time new issues have cropped up for Riordan. A recent employee survey indicates high level of dissatisfaction among employees mostly with regards to compensation and benefits. Also, with the adoption of the new CRM approach, the sales process has undergone a change, in terms of services now being offered by teams instead of individuals. The compensation plan has to align with this new system in order to give due recognition to the efforts being put in by the employees now working as teams. The R&D department has also lost some of its key employees in a span of few months, which is not a good sign considering future product commitments. The IT department also has issues with the compensation not being at par with the industry average.

Riordan has always been good to its employees and historically the employee turnover has been below industry average. The fact that an employee survey was conducted warranties the fact that the company does care about the welfare of its employees. The report of the survey is negative but has come in at a good time, and gives Riordan an opportunity to develop an action plan to take care of the issues. The hiring of an external HR Consultant is a step in the right direction.

Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas

Riordan incorporates the stakeholder perspectives in its approach towards solving the current employee problems. The hiring of Human Capital Consulting to conduct a thorough study of the employee issues