Organizational Behavior

Currently FAB Sweets Limited, a manufacturer of high quality sweets, is experiencing a significant drop in production and employee moral. The problems include a high level of labor turnover (both management and employee), high levels of scrap, and an inability to meet production targets. As of result, employee motivation, job satisfaction, and performance are at an all time low.

Based on Victor Vroom’s motivational theories, there are specific things that motivate people to perform certain tasks. It is clear through the study of such theories, that FAB Sweets needs to be revamped. Expectancy Theory is a motivation theory that suggests employees are more likely to be motivated when they believe that their efforts will result in not only a successful performance, but also in desired rewards and outcomes. Currently, at FAB Sweets there are no such rewards. Therefore, the employees have no incentive to perform. By making a few improvements such as, altering the compensation structure, adding variety to daily tasks, and improving the overall working environment, department moral should improve.

Using the Expectancy Theory, we will address many of the key problems at FAB Sweets and explore potential short term solutions that could help achieve long term results. In any industry, a high labor turnover is detrimental, and FAB Sweets is no exception. One of the first problems is the current training time. Because the training lasts two years, employees are leaving before they are completely trained. This then leads to the need to hire new novice employees and begin the training process all over again. In addition, this lack of skilled employees adds even more pressure to the trained employees who are left behind. This cycle of turnover merely aggravates an already negative environment and creates even more animosity among the team.

There are several ways that the HB department can motivate their employees and hopefully decrease the turnover rate. One way is to offer a different pay structure for the more difficult tasks. At FAB Sweets,

By using a motivational tactic, the HB department can implement an employment bonus program. After being employed for a certain amount of months, they will receive a raise and then at the completion of training they will receive another merit raise in their pay check. If the employees know at the end of training they will be making more money, that is incentive to stay on the job. The manager’s incentive program could work in a similar way, but instead of the compensation after training, they will receive performance bonuses based on meeting target production levels. The production levels continue to fall below target, a good reason for this is too many untrained employees performing tasks that they are not trained to do. Hopefully by improving employee compensation and management the production problem will start to fix itself.

Once the staff is completely up to speed they will still need to be motivated to continue to outperform other groups. Instead of giving monetary rewards, gift certificates and prizes can be handed out to outstanding performers or teams. This will give the workers something to strive for daily or weekly. In addition, as a way to encourage solidarity, if the team meets or exceeds their daily target they will be allowed to go home early that day for a job well done. Individuals will help their fellow co worker in order to get the tasks