WeaveTech: High Performance Change

Instructions:-

Double space, New Roman. APA

-Analyze WeaveTech using the questions such as ( What are the strategic challenges and opportunities it faces, the strategic objectives set by its leadership, what performance metrics should be use and how can the legal risks associated with the plan be mitigated) Then Draft a three-Year human resources startegic and workforce plan that includes:

-A business metrics to use to measure achievement of these goals.

-A workforce plan that include: (recruitment, hiring talent management, orientation, exit strategies, etc).

-Examples of internal and external information related to the operations used to develop the workforce plan.

-Evaluate how the workforce plan complies with federal laws and regulations.

Solution

WeaveTech: High Performance Change

Organizational Profile

            WeaveTech, which was previously known as Johnson-Ware, is an apparel company which makes jackets and coats, overalls, and fire-resistant wear for the military. CVX renamed the company after acquisition. CVX tried to expand the company by venturing into other mainstream products such as sportswear. This is an important step towards the creation of a brand that defines the criteria ‘the right price is not always the least price’. (Beer & Swiercz, 2018)

Several strategies were implemented at different ages of the company by the CEOs. Total quality management (TQM) was introduced as a stratagem by Davidson to improve the quality of production by focusing on satisfying the customer and creating quality apparels whilst involving all employees actively. Performance-based pay (PBP) was also used to gauge the potential and capacity of employees while actively motivating them. Davidson applied Iverson’s management practices: few corporate staff, decentralized leadership, and performance-based pay in the entire company structure. (Beer & Swiercz, 2018)

The company now faces another strategic change that the newfangled CEO is supposed to implement. He plans to downsize the sum of managers by 20% thus he asks the VP in the Human Resources department, Frank Jennings, to indorse a precise way to downscale (Beer & Swiercz, 2018). The company is faced by tough economic times as it tries to cut cost while improving production and quality. Jennings is required to draft a proposal in a three-year plan summary with recommendations that may assist with the strategy implementation.

Challenges

The case gives information on the unspoken lifetime employment trend that has been maintained by the firm over the years, shifts in deliberated direction, and an unelaborate performance evaluation structure. Jennings encounters several ethical and legal challenges which make the verdict to cut down headcount to be extremely problematic. For instance, he wonders whether it is principled to fire the high-performing supervisors and whether the new approach is sound or relevant. He is faced with a task of presenting the proposals to the board. He received a copy of the “confidential” Five-Year Plan Summary from an affected party to remind him of the legal constraints in contracts that Friday. On Saturday, a copy of the “No Layoff” memo was emailed to him by another concerned party. This particular memo had been written by Jack Davidson, who was WeaveTech’s previous CEO, in 2005 (Beer & Swiercz, 2018). These are the demands he was to consider in his proposal.

            Internal issues that control his conclusion include the company’s approach to performance evaluation which emphasized three beliefs: fixing the system first, the hire right, and the fire fast. WeaveTech adhered to the recommendations of W. Edwards Deming, a TQM expert (Beer & Swiercz, 2018). He insisted that improvement activities should not focus on an individual worker but rather in the system itself. This is how the criteria for fixing the system first were nurtured. WeaveTech invested in the hiring process by performing background checks and heavy interviews, especially for managers. The interviews were focused on the skills and expertise of an individual. Fire fast was a criterion where WeaveTech rarely fired its employees. In the instance that a poor hire occurred, however, a bias of action was intentionally cultivated to culminate the losses. Employees were told that even though the productivity of the company depended on organizational and process design, each individual had to participate both as separately and fully to the success of the firm. Every employee was to attend training to ensure optimum productivity, depending on department and function of the entity.

Jennings’s predecessor had hired a consulting firm which designed and installed a managerial Performance Appraisal System (PAS). This system was supposed to help the managers define their goals within the organization, evaluate and review the salary levels, and review the subordinates’ performances. This system was originally applied to all managers and it revealed two things: First, quantitative performance pointers had to have been built into the system. Second, performance problems that were able to be corrected by the TQM process fell into two clusters, one of which could be addressed by PAS, and the other could not. (Beer & Swiercz, 2018)

WeaveTech products experienced a quick change, which directly impacted the customer expectations. Retraining became a very necessary tool to keep up to speed with the processes and manufacturing activities. To cover for this, the system was changed into a new form of indicator for real-time performances. Other factors that the company considered to be performance decliners were the welfare of employees such as divorces and deaths. These were the challenges which did not arise from work but still determined performance.

External factors that may have been problematic were the barriers of entry into the new market. High-performance apparels were already flying off the shelve from famous brands like Nike in the 21^st century. As the company sought to expand its horizons, competition would be stiff. Another factor was the minimum wage in the country. Although the employees were paid hourly wages, which was lower than the average, their bonuses compensated for the deficit. The trend is an uncertain one as it is subject to legislation policies.

Implemented solutions

The CEOs of WeaveTech used the SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats) and PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal issues) analysis as their tools to solve the problems that the company was facing. PESTEL analysis focuses on the external challenges while the SWOT analysis focuses on the internal problems or issues that the company is facing.

PESTEL analysis is a broad view of the business environment, it helps an organization understand the market trends from a macro perspective (Jim K. 2018).  In this analysis: Political accounts for all the forces that the government induced in the company for example taxes and tariffs; Economic is where the manager examines the whole economy and the long-term effects that may arise; Social this cover the demographic determinants and the cultural trends; Technological here the managers analyses the trends of technology in the business environment and the rate of  innovation occurrence and whether they affect the company directly or indirectly; Environmental this accounts for the climate, weather and demographic location in which the company is operating in;  Legal this helps in the management and understanding of laws and policies.

 SWOT analysis, managers understand the Strengths and Weaknesses which are the internal forces and Opportunities and Threats which are the external factors that affect the company (Jim K. 2018). Strength helps the company to overcome competition from its competitors; Weakness accounts for what the company is lacking and the faults in it for example if the performance is poor the manager finds the source and tries to eliminate the problem; Opportunities helps to identify external trends and takes advantage of them; Threats with this tool the manager is to assess obstacles that affect the company from thriving and finds ways to eliminate them. SWOT and PESTEL analysis help in decision implementation since managers evaluate their impact before they implement them, employees acquire strategic mindset, new opportunities are exploited, the company is able to maintain its customers and attract new customers and various departmental skills are brought together (Jim K. 2018).

Recommendations

A well-written action plan helps a company to thrive. An action plan is the roadmap to the objectives of every organization. An effective action plan is created through goals set using the SMART framework. Goals from SMART outline has the following characteristics; Specific a company must have a specific goal, for example, the WeaveTech company had a specific goal which was to specialize in military and heavy manufacturing industries workers clothing. Measurable a company goal should be reported according to the measure of what the target is either a weekly or monthly report (Jim K. 2018). The attainable employee needs to believe in the goals you set for a company, a doable target if it is not realistic then they might even fail to try on working on it. Relevance: the goal must relate to what the purpose of the company is. Timely: goals should have a range to which it is supposed to reach for example in WeaveTech they should be selling 75% to the military and 25% of the workers.

A company needs to involve its term, list actions, and timeline that is to be reached in a short-term goal. Employees may have information that is crucial to the company and their involvement help them feel recognized and appreciated thereby providing the relevant information to the company (Jim K. 2018). Listing actions also help in identifying the necessities for the company, for example, a company may decide to allocate its employee according to their interests or expertise or they can decide to buy a machine to make work easier. Timeline gives a timeframe by which the company should reach its target. This helps the employee to understand what they are supposed to do and before when.

            Name the person responsible for each action, for a successful project to take place there must be a responsible individual that controls all the activities and resources that are needed for the process completion (Jim K. 2018). He is the one responsible for any failures or success in the project. Follow up establishment and measurement process, the manager can decide to establish weekly follow up meetings on what has been happening or can ask the individual responsible to write a daily report and he can also find a way to track what has been implemented. Communicating the plan, creating awareness to the employee is a very important factor for the company since it provides knowledge to them on what it is required of them to do.

            The action plan should be kept alive. Every step is crucial for every company to reach its desired goal. Managers should ensure disciplines to the follow-up and measurement process by letting employees stick to them (Jim K. 2018). Every employee should be recognized by his responsibility and they should be held accountable for any failure in his position. Discussing the action plan in every meeting can also help to keep the goals and objectives of the company alive. In order to reach the target, every company should ensure all the short-term goals are achieved and with this being considered, the success will be clearly evident.

References

Gleeson, Patrick. (2018, June 29). Internal & External Factors That Affect an Organization.

Small Business – Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/internal-external-factors-affect-organization-16641.html

Woodruff, Jim. (2018, June 27). Reason to Use SWOT & PESTLE Analysis. Small Business –

Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/reason-use-swot-pestle-analysis-40810.html

Woodruff, Jim. (2018, June 28). How to Write a Business Action Plan. Small Business –

Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/write-business-action-plan-2750.html

Beer, M., & Swiercz, P. (2018). WeaveTech: High-Performance Change.

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