CARTER CLEANING COMPANY

CASE STUDY
T
HE HIGH-PERFORMANCE WORK SYSTEM
As a person who keeps up with the business press, Jennifer Carter is
familiar with the benefits of programs such as total quality
management and high-performance work systems.
Jack, her father, actually installed a total quality program of sorts at
Carter, and it has been in place for about 5 years. This program takes
the form of employee meetings. Jack holds employee meetings
periodically, but particularly when there is a serious problem in a store-
such as poor-quality work or machine breakdowns. When problems like
these arise, instead of trying to diagnose them himself or with Jennifer,
he contacts all the employees in that store and meets with them when
the store closes. Hourly employees get extra pay for these meetings.
The meetings have been useful in helping Jack to identify and rectify
several problems. For example, in one store all the fine white blouses
were coming out looking dingy. It turned out that the cleaner/spotter
had been ignoring the company rule that required cleaning ("boiling
down") the perchloroethylene cleaning fluid before washing items like
these. As a result, these fine white blouses were being washed in
cleaning fluid that had residue from other, earlier washes.
Jennifer now wonders whether these employee meetings should be
expanded to give the employees an even bigger role in managing the
Carter stores quality. "We cant be everywhere watching everything all
the time," she said to her father. "Yes, but these people only earn about
$
8 to
$
15 per hour. Will they really want to act like mini-managers?" he
replied.
QUESTIONS

Would you recommend that the Carters expand their
quality program? If so, specifically what form should it
take?

Assume the Carters want to institute a high-performance
work system as a test program in one of their stores. Write
a one-page outline summarizing important HR practices
you think they should focus on.
ANSWER NO 01
Meeting with the employees directly is a good way to get the accurate
feedback from them in order to increase the involvement of the
employees in an organization.
There can be many opportunities for the Carter company for improving
the level of their quality program. For instance,

Giving training to the employees so that they can become aware
of the basic values, standards and methods and procedures of an
organization etc.

Also adopting efficient compensation system that will enable
company to draw attention aslo providing suitable salaries and
benefits.
ANSWER NO 02
IMPORTANT HR PRACTICES

Provide an outlet for employee to use their special skill sets and
abilities.

Promote more productive workers with feedback through
evaluation of job performancec.

Enrich job satisfaction through promotions, incentives and
rewards.

Put in place a strong leader that believes in the mission of the
company.

Insure that the team have what is need to meet each goal and
reward them.

Encouraging managers to be more transparent with employees,
making them more knowledgeable

The Flood Written and copyrighted by Gary Dessler, Ph.D. In August...

The Flood

Written and copyrighted by Gary Dessler, Ph.D.

In August 2017, hurricane Maria hit Miami, Florida, and the Optima Air Filter Company.
Many employees' homes were devastated. Optima found that it had to hire almost three
completely new crews, one for each shift. The problem was that the "old-timers" had
known their jobs so well that no one had ever bothered to draw up job descriptions for
them. When about 30 new employees began taking their places, there was general
confusion about what they should do and how they should do it.

The flood quickly became old news to the firm's out-of-state customers, who wanted
filters, not excuses. Phil Mann, the firm's president, was at his wits' end. He had about
30 new employees, 10 old-timers, and his original factory supervisor, Maybelline. He
decided to meet with Linda Lowe, a consultant from the local university's business
school. She immediately had the old-timers fill out a job questionnaire that listed all their
duties. Arguments ensued almost at once: Both Phil and Maybelline thought the old-
timers were exaggerating to make themselves look more important, and the old-timers
insisted that the lists faithfully reflected their duties. Meanwhile, the customers clamored
for their filters.

Questions.
1. Should Phil and Linda ignore the old-timers' protests and write the job
descriptions as they see fit? Why? Why not? How would you go about resolving
the differences? 
2. Ignore their protests and develop new job descriptions. 
3. To retain the spirit and morale of the old-timers and resolving the conflict views.
4. Step-by-step explanation
5. Ignore their protests and develop new job descriptions.
By following the description demands of the employees, the complacency
problem will arise in this organization as they will feel indispensable thus the
difficulty in making administrative decisions such as firing employees on deviation
from the code of ethics established by the company. This usually happens when
employees feel that the management places more value on them. 
6.  
7. The company is led with objectives, missions, and visions. It is from these needs
that the company should develop a set of duties and responsibilities that are
required for the company to be afloat in its competitive working environment. The
company should set these objectives to the employees such that individual
brilliance and creativity be added to the work as it could be the case with the
perceived veterans (old-timers). 
8.
To retain the spirit and morale of the old-timers and resolving the conflict views,
old-timers should be leadership position and tasked with training the new
employees. By doing this, the management will have achieved fairness in
employees' mix of diversity based on skills and the time of stay in the company
such that the old-timers are set to work with the first-timers this could be in the
ratio of 1:3 (old to new). 
9.  
10. The development of new job descriptions less of strict adherence to old timers'
proposals would reduce the activity of the old-timers requiring the new employees
to be subservient to their instructions under the guise of being experienced. But
by giving old-timers such auxiliary functions, they feel recognized thus giving their
best to the company.