About Expert


Key Topics
A report on Organisation Behavior
About the Company:
A BBB accredited company, Maine Cedar Hot Tubs, Inc. is a company that deals in the production of Cedar Tubs. This company is owned by Steve Meisner-based in Skowhegan, USA.
They produce traditional format tubs with natural Cedar surfaces on interior as well as exterior of the tub. The major focus of this company is to deliver good quality cedar hot tubs to its customers. Hydroquip and Raypak are providers of system equipment for its electric, gas and oil fired tubs.
The process of finishing a cedar hot tub starts with designing the geometry of the product with the help of CAD/CAM then after using the craftsmen to transform the materials and components into finished tubs.
This report is divided into different categories and sub-categories. Beginning with the nature of the organization and how people policies are handled within Maine Cedar Hot Tubs Inc.
After that Key aspects of the Human Resource of this company is discussed in detail. Key aspects like what are the methods being used by company to handle its workforce or what practice it follows to manage workforce conflicts and other similar factors.
The last section will detail about the report on Balanced Scorecard of this company. Along with that, the generated report card is compared with the High and Low HR management quality benchmarks.
After the research, it came out that there are many shortcomings in company policies which is discussed in detail in Section 4. Things like proper training and development and right elements to look for during selection of a candidate was lacking from the process.
Also, most of the employees used to be unaware of the evident changes taking place in the organizational structure, which was the general cause of panic because of job security and other concerns.
Organization:
Maine Cedar Hot Tubs owned by Steve Meisner, deals in the production of Cedar Tubs, based in Skowhegan, USA. BBB accredits this company. They produce traditional format tubs with natural Cedar surfaces on the interior as well as the exterior of the tub. The major focus of this company is to deliver good quality cedar hot tubs to its customers. Hydroquip and Raypak are providers of system equipment for its electric, gas and oil fired tubs.
The process of finishing a cedar hot tub starts with designing the geometry of the product with the help of CAD/CAM then after using the craftsmen to transform the materials and components into finished tubs.
Contact Person:
Steohen A. Meisner (Fax: 207-474-8470)
Location:
P.O. Box 689, Skowhegan, ME 04976, US
Currently, there are 25 permanent employees are working with this company on permanent basis, and 55 are contractual workers. Along with that 12 are part-time workers.
The employees of this company are not with current existing unions. Even they were not affiliated to any unions in the past.
There are five human resource employees in total.
From 20 permanent employees last year, three of them resigned voluntary basis while two resigned involuntarily.
1. Primary Business of the Organization:
The primary business is to produce cedar hot tubs for its customers. Along with that it also produce different tubs like Super ‘R’ Tubs (these kinds of tubs have ‘R’ factor of 25 and their completely enclosed piping and clean lines help them making it free standing installations), conventional Tubs & Spas (modern systems and controls operate these kinds of beautiful tubs. These are available in both, natural Cedar as well as cold-molded versions), Wood-fired tubs (consisting of similar features as of Japanese Ofuro, these are designed mainly for rural areas and can be used remote cabins, country homes, and lakeside retreats) and Exercise tubs (available in natural cedar and cold-molded types, these tubs come with all conventional line features).
All the cedar hot tubs of this company are fitted with Stainless Steel tension hoops and draw bolts which helps in protecting the product from corrosion and black rust stains. And the fasteners that are used in the assembly process are of Stainless Steel.
They also construct underwater wood stove with marine aluminum and only use patent pending designs. The mechanism of these kinds of tubs is unique as the thermal water flow only through the hottest part of the stove. Entry of cool water through each tube brings a unique feature to it which leaves the system when being warmed by the fire. This stove can heat 310 gallons of water in less than two hours.
They are also into designing accessories for their products like custom stainless steel stovepipes that are available in 6 and 7-inch diameter and eight feet in length. It can accommodate the stove model 25 and 35 designed by the company. They also manufacture de-icing heaters, skid mounted jet systems, filter packages. and thermal covers.
2. Capabilities that make this company competitive:
Maine Cedar Hot Tubs, Inc. is good at providing customer satisfaction through its products. There are many testimonials from satisfied customers that can be seen on the company website.
Along with that, the craftsmanship of this company is comparatively better than the competition. Particularly finishing of the product is what attracts customers most.
Their capacity to build accessories – in case any customer needs it – makes them distinct, because finding accessories gets difficult particular for critical parts of the tub this company designs. Therefore, giving customers in-house facility to get accessories from them gives them added advantage over the competition. It also saves customers’ problems of searching for any related parts on the open market, because there is no surety of that the purchased part – from outside – will function as usual with the factory made product.
3. Organization’s strategic priorities for this year:
Company’s plan is to increase the sales to at least 1.5 times more than what it achieved in the previous year. Along with that, its major focus is on hiring more talented employees into the company and retaining those who are with them.
The company is planning to bring different incentive plans to lure hard working employees and implement performance evaluation methods to understand the capabilities of employees. It will help it in tracking the performance of the employees and through this it can design future training courses to push aspirational employees to their full potential.
It is also planning to increase its sales area by introducing its products into some unknown markets this year. It will also be focusing on advertisement needs of the company to improve its brand image in the eyes of its concerned and potential customers.
The company also admits that its financials have gone a bit loose, and therefore, it is planning to bring some outside investors who can invest ample amount into the growth of this company. For this purpose, company has prepared set of presentations and future business plan that will be used attract potential investors. According to the company personnel, they are affirmative that their business plans will attract those investors who are likely to earn a better return in less investments. It is planning to pool money from various investors and not put all eggs in one basket.
4. Key HR priorities of this company:
The company – being a manufacturer of tubs – will require more workers in coming days as it is planning to expand its market. Therefore, it will be going into extensive recruitment regimen. Recruiting more capable employees is the priority of this company. Most recruits will be in two areas only; one is sales and other is manufacturing.
The key priorities are:
Along with improving the organizational culture, the company’s motto is to foster those values and norms within the company which along with the company vision and beliefs can support its functions.
It is planning to give more freedom to the employees so that can use their suitable methods to achieve their goals. It will try to implement non-structured methods to give more space for an employee to work. The company is expecting that it will help bring more out of the box thinking and workers will be able to completely their well before time by focusing on smart works rather that than shear hard work.
It is planning to bring some changes in the company that will put most of its employees on their heels and, therefore, it will be implementing training, development, personal goal setting and motivational sessions for employees to gel with the company’s growth and keep working as they are right now.
It is also planning to set performance appraisal on a quarterly basis rather than yearly and also setting up continuous training and development sessions for the employees who are lagging behind the expected potential.
5. HR as support or partner to the business?
Human Resource Department of this company is taken as business partners rather than a mere support function. Company head believes that human resource management is vital to the growth of its organization. Therefore, it has given a specific position to this department.
According to company executives, now each and every decision of HR must align with the core business strategy and as a business partner, it will be able to add value to the organization rather than processing transactions related to the employee. HR managers of this company ensure smooth flow of processes and also takes into consideration of the strategic impacts of recruited talents and firm choices. HRD now create and deliver value in conjunction with the organization’s objective.
HR managers of this company join the table during the major decision making of the company and also works as a chief advisor in structuring HR processes within the company. The most crucial factor, according to the company, is people business and therefore instead of keeping HR to just processes, it has brought it to the level of business partners.
Following are the retrieved information from the concerned person:
Recruitment:
How many people were hired last year? Ans. 8
How many qualified applicants did you have for those positions? Ans. 38
Of those hire, how many used a validated selection assessment or test? Ans. All
Of those hires, how many were filled internally? Ans. 2
Training and Development:
How many of your employees are covered by a career development or succession plan? Ans. All permanent staffs (25).
On average, how many hours of training per year do you provide for experienced employees (1year or more of service)? Ans. None (Training and Development yet to be introduced).
How many of your employees received a formal performance evaluation last year? Ans. 5 (Performance evaluation not fully implemented)
How many received feedback from multiple people (360 feedback)? Ans. Informal feedbacks were there not the structured one.
Compensation:
What is your target for total compensation (base/bonus/benefits) relative to other employers (25% - below market, 50% - at market, or 75% - above market)? Ans. 25%
How many employees last year received some form of performance-related pay (either pay raises or bonuses)? Ans. 10
What percentage of your employees are on some form of incentive-based compensation? Ans. 15
Percentage of difference in incentive pay between a low-performing and high-performing employee? Ans. 30%
Work Design:
Percentage of the workforce routinely working in a self-managed, cross-functional, or project team? Ans. 16%
HR Function:
Percentage of HR budget spent on outsourced activities (e.g. recruiting, benefits administration, payroll administration)? Ans. 45%
Based on the visible HR practices in this company and after comparison of the scorecard data with the High and Low HR management quality organizations (data inserted on Page 11*), I reached to the following conclusions:
It is good that company is preparing itself to give some leverage in the working style to the workers that will help in independent thinking and will improve output in return. It will also give way to the increase in the number of happy workers.
However, the current situation is daunting; company is failing to give loose time policy even to its high achievers which constraints them from thinking out of the box. The attitude of management - even after their vow to change the stressful culture - doesn’t seem to change in coming time and it is evident from the interviews conducted.
Most of the workers time gets wasted in indulging in useless and repetitive activities, which lead to employee burnout.
During the recruitment, candidates are judged on what salary they were earning in past company and not on their improved potential and aspirations for better job and career. These steps deter most of the good candidates from joining the company. It can be guessed from the scorecard that why only six external candidates got selected out of 38 qualified applicants.
During the implementation of new technology, the company is not doing better when handling fearful employees come into the picture. My suggestion would be to keep a free flow information between the employees and employers so that instead of being afraid of the change, they would participate in it.
Company should always give presentation in front of the employees about the expected change and how the change will be of greater good for the workers and company both. These will help employees aligning their goals with company goals and objectives. These will also prevent destructive rumors from spreading among the employees and will be quick method to prevent early panic and moral downfall.
At most instances, it has been noted that company leaves the training and development of employees upon them which will be fatal to company’s future growth. The company should take training and development as its responsibility and invest in their training looking at the need based on the changes in the position or workload.
Becker, Brian E, Mark A Huselid, and David Ulrich. The HR Scorecard. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2001. Print.
Meisner, Steohen. Human Resource Management. 2015. in person.