a. What were the causes of the problems with the frozen food company? A company

Question

a.     What were the causes of the problems with the frozen food company?

A company based in London owned a frozen food factory in north-west England. Over a period of years, the factory developed a reputation for poor employee relations and low productivity. Whenever production deadlines were not met, or whenever there was a collective dispute or grievance, the head office in London always responded by threatening to close the factory down. This process went on for a period of 12 years. The first time the threats were made, they were taken seriously, and productivity improved for a period of years. However, the problems continued and the company's response remained the same, and so people began not to take the threats seriously. The collective view of the workforce was summarized as; 'One day you will probably close us down anyway, because that is clearly your attitude towards us; the threat therefore has no potency. In the meantime, it is clear that you are treating us with disrespect and contempt.' Until the announcement of the factory closure was made, nobody from the head office with any authority went up to see the problem for themselves. No meaningful communication took place. Everything was carried out by telephone, fax or memorandum. This all took place at a time when the frozen food industry was growing at a rate of 11 per cent per annum. Power distance because power was loeated far away from the factory, the staff themselves had no ability to influence their own destiny; crucial decisions were taken without reference to their contribution. Uncertainty avoidance: eventually, the presence and repetition of the threats became a 'certainty'; the staff also created their own 'certainty' by moving to the assumption that they would be closed down anyway. Individualism-collectivism: the staff were dealt with by head office as a collective; no attention was paid to individual needs, wants, hopes, fears and aspirations. Masculinity-femininity. the company exhibited all of the adversarial and confrontational 'masculine' traits, rather than assessing the situation from the point of view of the end result required, and engaging a collective and inclusive consensus.

Explanation / Answer

The causes of the problem was that management didn’t have direct communication with the employees, everything was done via e-mail or fax and managers never visited the food factory.

It is difficult to fix problems when you are not actually there or at least some presence of management there because there are things you cannot understand just from a report.

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