CASE STUDY: PROMOTING SAFE BEHAVIOR AT MOTHER PARKERS

By Steven L. McShane, University of Newcastle (Australia)

Most companies try to create a safe work environment, but few are as
dedicated as Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee Inc. As North America's largest
private label coffee producer, Mother Parkers infuses safety knowledge,
awareness, and engagement in every employee and contractor. "One of our
priorities here has been to provide a safe workplace to our employees," says
Adrian Khan, Mother Parkers' Senior Manager of Environmental, Health,
Safety, and Security for North America. “They make a commitment to us to
help produce great quality products, we make a commitment to them to
provide them with a safe working environment.

" To begin with, Mother Parkers creates a physically safe work

environment through well-designed barriers and cues at its award-winning
automated production facilities in Fort Worth, Texas, and Ontario, Canada.
The production floor includes physical barriers to separate people from
moving equipment . Safe walking areas are brightly marked, including specific
spots where people must stop and look both ways before crossing forklift
travel areas. At eye level next to doors are signs specifying what equipment
(shoes, eyewear, etc.) must be worn before entering the next area. Updated
lighting systems provide superior visibility and eye comfort.

Another way that Mother Parkers supports safe behavior is by investing

in employee training. Staff learn safety procedures before they are allowed to
enter the production floor. They also learn about new safety technology and
practices from community experts at special health and safety day events.

Employee involvement is an important part of safety improvement at

Mother Parkers. Employees participate in safety issues so decisions are
based on a full complement of knowledge from employees, not just from
management and outside experts. "We wanted to empower the operators to
recognize hazards in their work area, voice those concerns, and to be a part
of the solutions," says Khan, who recently won a national safety leadership
award. "When it comes down to it, they are the experts running the machines
who know exactly what the hazards are in the workplace." For example, when
the company decided to buy an ergonomic roll lifter (a machine that holds and
transports heavy rolls of metal), employees on the ergonomics team tested
many of the roll lifters on the market to determine which one was the best fit
for their application.

Mother Parkers has held numerous "ergonomic blitzes," whereby an

external consultant and production staff conduct an intensive review of health
and safety concerns in each specific work area. "We jump-started our
program by having ergonomics blitz events so that the team could "Find It'
(hazards), "Fix It (countermeasures), and Check It' (happy operators)," says
Khan. "From there, the team would have a number of short-term solutions that
could be implemented immediately, and also a list of longer-term
improvements that could be planned for.

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 A special cross-functional team developed from these "ergo blitzes,"
whose members now serve as role models for safety behavior and as
valuable sources of safety knowledge . "This creates a go-to group of
operators on the floor that their peers feel comfortable with and can go to if
they want to report an issue, "Khan observes.

Employee involvement also generates employee commitment to safety.

"There's a high level of engagement here," says a Mother Parkers production
manager: "The operators have been developing most of the procedures for
equipment operation, cleaning, quality checks, and troubleshooting. The
operators take ownership of their positions. " Mike Bate, Mother Parkers vice
president of human resources, notes that employees are more motivated to
act safely because the company pays attention to their ideas. “Our health and
safety committees are now engaged, they have plans, they have ideas,
people's voices get heard. And when they bring issues on the table, those
issues get dealt with and they get addressed and they are part of the planning
process."

Another way that Mother Parkers promotes workplace safety is by

continuously reminding everyone that safety is an important part of everyone's
job. This message occurs through ongoing safety training , employee
involvement in ergonomic risk prevention, and the presence of numerous
workplace safety cues. Reminding everyone about safety is even a daily
event. "Safety is the core of everything we do here,"explains the production
manager of Mother Parkers' award-winning RealCup operations. “We begin
our production meetings and shift handovers by talking about safety."

Safety-focused expectations also extend to contractors, all of whom

complete a safety training program before their projects begin. "We set
expectations and standards with contractors before they come on site on what
it means to be on site at Mother Parkers from a health and safety
perspective," says Mike Bate. “Before they even get approved to come on site
and work with us as a contractor (they have to] register themselves to say
they have gone through this education. So by the time they arrive ,
(contractors) understand the risks, they bring the proper protective equipment
that may be required, or they understand what they need from us to make the
workplace safe for them to work in."

Discussion Questions.
1. Apply the MARS model to explain how Mother Parkers improves safety in
the workplace.
2. What other organizational behaviour topics are generally apparent in this
description of how Mother Parkers creates a safe workplace?
3. Referring to Schwartz's Values model, which value that this company
practices. Justify your answer.

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CASE STUDY: HY DAIRIES, INC..
By Steven L. McShane, University of Newcastle (Australia)

Syd Gilman read the latest sales figures with a great deal of satisfaction. The
vice-president of marketing at Hy Dairies, Inc.., a large midwestern milk
products manufacturer, was pleased to see that the marketing campaign to
improve sagging sales of Hy's gourmet ice cream brand was working. Sales
volume and market share of the product had increased significantly over the
past two-quarters compared with the previous year.

The improved sales of Hy's gourmet ice cream could be credited to Rochelle
Beauport, who was assigned to the gourmet ice cream brand last year.
Beauport had joined Hy Dairies less than two years ago as an assistant brand
manager after leaving a similar job at a food products firm. She was one of
the few vwomen of color in marketing management at Hy Dairies and had a
promising career with the company. Gilman was pleased with Beauport's work
and tried to let her know this in the annual performance reviews. He now had
an excellent opportunity to reward her by offering the recently vacated
position of a market research coordinator. Although technically only a lateral
transfer with a modest salary increase, the marketing research coordinator job
would give Beauport broader experience in some high-profile work, which
would enhance her career with Hy Dairies. Few people were aware that
Gilman's own career had been boosted by working as marketing research
coordinator at Hy several years before.

Rochelle Beauport had also seen the latest sales figures on Hy's gourmet ice
cream and was expecting Gilman's call to meet with her that morning. Gilman
began the conversation by briefly mentioning the favorable sales figures, and
then explained that he wanted Beauport to take the marketing research
coordinator job. Beauport was shocked by the news. She enjoyed brand
management and particularly the challenge involved with controlling a product
that directly affected the company's profitability. Marketing research
coordinator was a technical support position a “back-room” job-far removed
from the company's bottom-line activities. Marketing research was not the
route to top management in most organizations, Beauport thought. She had
been sidelined.

After a long silence, Beauport managed a weak “Thank you, Mr. Gilman.” She
was too bewildered to protest. She wanted to collect her thoughts and reflect
on what she had done wrong. Also, she did not know her boss well enough to
be openly critical.

Gilman recognized Beauport's surprise, which he naturally assumed was her

positive response to hearing of this wonderful career opportunity. He, too, had
been delighted several years earlier about his temporary transfer to marketing
research to round out his marketing experience. “This move will be good for
both you and Hy Dairies,” said Gilman as he escorted Beauport from his
office.

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Beauport was preoccupied with several tasks that afternoon, but was able to
consider the day's events that evening. She was one of the top women and
few minorities in brand management at Hy Dairies and feared that she was
being sidelined because the company didn't want women or people of color in
top management. Her previous employer had made it quite clear that women
couldn't take the heat in marketing management and tended to place women
in technical support positions after a brief term in lower brand management
jobs. Obviously Syd Gilman and Hy Dairies were following the same game
plan. Gilman's comments that the coordinator job would be good for her was
just a nice way of saying that Beauport couldn't go any further in brand
management at Hy Dairies.

Beauport now faced the difficult decision of whether to confront Gilman and
try to change Hy Dairies’ sexist and possibly racist practices or to leave the
company.

Discussion Questions
1. Apply your knowledge of stereotyping and social identity theory to explain
what went wrong here.
2. What other perceptual error is apparent in this case study?
3. What can organizations do to minimize misperceptions in these types of
situations?