W09 Group Project

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1 Group 1 W09 Group Project: Doohickeys Problem Brigham Young University – Idaho BUS 270: Human Resource Management Group 1 Colton Anderson, Trever Baird, Caleb Barnes, Cole Jenson, Craig Romrell, and Justin Schroder November 11, 2023

2 Group 1 Introduction Doohickeys U Need, Inc is a small private company that manufactures small accessory- like products. As a small company, they have never had a human resource (HR) expert to assist in growing concerns throughout the company. I have been brought to analyze and assist in all HR concerns. In this report, I will address three major issues that I have seen during my time at Doohickeys, Inc. These three problems are compensation and benefits, workplace safety, and motivation. All of these problems play an important role in career development, training, motivation, safety, compensation, and benefits at Doohickeys. I will address each problem with four possible solutions for each. These solutions will assist in resolving the HR concerns that have arisen. Problem 1: Compensation and Benefits A main and significant problem at Doohickeys U Need Inc. is a lack of representation for compensation and benefits. This issue needs to be addressed and given high consideration. The reason for this is that if there is no set standard for compensation and benefits, then there will be a lack of motivation within the organization, and it is extremely unappealing to those potential prospects looking for work at Doohickeys U Need Inc. There are several examples of problems within Doohickeys U Need Inc. when it comes to the benefits and compensation plans. The first example being that the company does not provide any type of incentive pay plans or benefit features. The most that is offered is to pay for 25% of health insurance. While they claim to have a “one size fits all” package, this is not an accurate statement because they don’t provide matching 401k, stock participation, pensions, or any type of variable incentive pay plans. The second problem is that there is a consistent complaint from employees about the lack of overtime pay. The employees even have to sign a contract agreeing to no overtime pay. The president of the company doesn’t see a problem with this contract and thinks that employees just need to “work harder” if they feel a need to justify overtime pay. There are clearly some serious issues when it comes to compensation and benefits, this problem is setting up failure for Doohickey U Need Inc. which is why it needs to be resolved. Solution 1: Improve Benefit Options Doohickeys U Need Inc. only offers to pay for 25% of health insurance, which is nowhere near enough for an employee’s wellbeing and security. If the company provided more options, then it makes workers become more motivated and productive, allow them to stay healthy, and it would be more attractive to future employees looking into a career at Doohickeys. The resources to implement this option are already available, they just need to be further developed and applied. Solution 2: Provide Overtime Pay To ask employees to work over their 40-hour work week with no overtime compensation is unreasonable and unrealistic. Making employees work more than the standard 40 hours with no compensation will result in exhausted and overwhelmed employees who won’t have the

3 Group 1 motive or incentive to work hard. Having an incentive, such as overtime pay, will increase the product turnover rate. This will lead to a more constructive and positive attitude when it comes to working longer hours. Implementing overtime pay would not require much time or consideration, making this a smooth solution and transition. Solution 3: Communication Skills Training The managers and company president clearly do not share the same goals and views as their employees. Implementing training on communication would help the workplace learn to communicate and work with each other. This would benefit everyone involved, even those who don’t have a problem would still be able to grow and learn from this. The workers think that they should get more pay and benefits, while the managers and president believe they just need to learn to work harder. Understanding how to communicate would create a plan to compromise and leave everyone content. Offering this program could be achieved through several learning sessions as well as providing training from communication and HR specialists. Solution 4: Implement Company Incentives Doohickeys U Need Inc. could greatly benefit from offering more incentives. Incentives could make a significant difference in the output and productivity of workers. Different incentives, such as paid time off, benefits, or other variable incentive pay plans could increase the efficiency of workers and their ability to be managed. Company incentives would not require very many additional resources and could be offered to employees in a reasonable amount of time. Problem 2: Workplace Safety Another Continual problem that needs to be recognized within the company of Doohickey is the workplace safety. On my “self-guided” tour I noticed a few things that brought a great deal of concern to me. The first being that many of the workers look tired and unmotivated. This could and I believe will eventually lead to injuries to employees due to lack of caution. Another safety issue that alarmed me is the un-organized and cluttered workplace for the employees. On my tour I noticed that an employee cut her finger on a random sharp object within the workplace and instead of properly taking care of it she just wrapped it in a handkerchief. Not only is that unsanitary but it goes to show that there is a lack of confidence in the management to help her with the cut. Resulting in a real tell-tale of their workplace safety procedures. Another issue to be discussed would be that the only tracker of workplace injuries is a cheap black board that reads, “679 days since last injury”. These are clear violations of workplace safety and need to be addressed quick. In a workplace it is important to have safety systems in place to minimize injuries. The systems will keep workers safe and able to focus on the work that is needed. Without having safety systems, we can end up being less efficient as we run into problems with major accidents. The workers may end up being slower as well and less focused on the tasks needed to be done. We can become more efficient as we put safety as a priority and let workers know that there is

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4 Group 1 help and ways that they can benefit from staying safe or reporting accidents. If we give workers reason to keep focus on safely getting tasks done, they can keep from causing major accidents. Having clear safety and injury protocols in place will keep the employees safe and will also protect the employer from injury lawsuits. Knowing that we have the guidelines from OSHA can help us keep from getting lawsuits from workers. With workman’s compensation, employees are taken care of and there will not be any major dings in or reputation. We can lose the business that we have if we do not get on top of our inefficiencies in manufacturing. The more lawsuits that are potentially coming from workers, we can get into trouble with business as well as potential for growth. As we want to expand, we need to find ways to keep our workers safe. Properly maintaining a safe workplace will keep us from losing workers and downsizing due to inefficiencies. We need to make sure we have the proper guidelines and benefits in place for accidents in order to keep our manufacturing processes from slowing down. If managers are not aware of safety hazards, they will not know about what OSHA violations need to be fixed. It is important to help our manufacture workers informed on the importance of reporting incidents because the managers will be able to improve the places that are failing in our manufacturing process. Managers also need to know about injuries so they can be aware of workman’s comp hours and days off needed due to injuries. We can help our workers improve efficiency when we give them the proper benefits to recover and find reason to come back to work. Solution 1: Create a Workplace Safety Procedures Document This is a document that should be created by the company leadership that contains the following measures. Ways to properly handle the machinery, what to do in case of an emergency, procedures following being injured while on the job. Finally, there should be set standards for how the workplace should be organized and a check off list to go through with the supervisors at the end of each shift. By having this document every employee will be on the same page for the standards of safety which will help the company or employees in any case that is dealing with workplace safety. Solution 2: Monthly Safety Training/Drills By implementing workplace safety training the supervisors and management would be able to make sure that each and every single employee is up to date on the procedures for safety. If they find that there is an employee(s) that are not up to date, this is where the quality training will come in handy to help each employee be prepared and safe. The drills are necessary to be able to test employees randomly (like a drug test if you will) and perform tests to see if they are following the workplace safety procedures even when they aren’t directly being watched by the supervisors. Solution 3: Workplace Cleanliness Check Having the supervisors check the workplaces at the end of every shift will not only improve production proficiency it will improve safety. Have the supervisors go over the checklist that should be developed with the crew members at the end of the shift and if there is something

5 Group 1 out of line have them/help them fix it and get everything into order. According to the Admin at Trivent Safety Consulting, some benefits of having safety inspections and audits include finding workplace hazards, listening to concerns of workers and supervisors, inspect safety equipment to make sure they are working, and most importantly, to comply with OSHA regulations. (Admin, 2021) These benefits greatly outweigh not doing regular workplace cleanliness checks. Solution 4: Safety Incentives/Regular Breaks This should be rewarded for the employees that follow safety. Having rewards will boost the morale and ultimately boost their willingness to be safe. Another thing is to have regularly scheduled breaks (more than they now have) so that employees have time to rest and don’t get burnt out. A company that takes care of their employees is a company that is successful. Problem 3: Motivation Motivation is critical in any for-profit business. Employees are expected to perform a task that will generate revenue for the business. The company pays their salary with the expectation that the culmination of the labor of all the employees will generate a profit. As such, not only is it critical that employees perform well in their respective tasks, but also the profitability of the company as a whole is dependent on the performance of the employees. Thus, motivated employees generate more profit for the business, and should be sought after. Doohickeys U Need struggles in many departments that boost employee morale and motivation. Staff turnover is near 50% on the manufacturing floor, and their unmotivated attitude is well known in the corporate circles. Certain solutions—like communication, increased pay and incentives, employee empowerment, and recognition and promotions – can improve the motivation problem found within the workforce of the company and generate a happier, healthier, and more profitable workforce. Solution 1: Communication The manufacturing staff at Doohickeys has a stunning lack of communication from direct management and corporate. They are unaware of the strengths, weaknesses, schedule, and stressors Doohickeys is under. This creates a feeling of detachment from the company as a whole and removes any emotion they may feel from the job. A job becomes, simply, just a job; they show up to work every day unenthusiastic and ready to leave for home before their shift has even started. Communicating information to the lower staff greatly increases their desire to work and be the best that they can be. They feel trusted and worth something. They feel like part of a team, rather than just a number on an expense report. They feel like their value as an employee is being recognized. Communication also boosts productivity via a greater understanding of what is going on. Employees on the lowest level know ahead of time what they should be preparing for, and what they can do now to help the company in the future. If corporate relays information that the company is going through a difficult time financially, they may be better at cutting costs and being careful not to waste material. If corporate communicates a time of prosperity, employees may turn their focus to producing as many items as possible. They are more motivated to do what is best for the company, because they feel that the company has trust in them; so, they have trust in the company.

6 Group 1 Solution 2: Increased Pay and Incentives Paying a higher rate can seem counterintuitive to someone who does not understand the value of an employee. Doohickeys U Need currently pays $8.50 an hour, though they do not pay overtime. While $8.50 an hour may be average or even slightly above, refusing to pay overtime when it is legally mandatory is not only wrong, but also a great way to demotivate employees. They feel that their sacrifices are not only not rewarded, but also disregarded. Such an act of refusing to pay what’s rightfully theirs will turn away your hardest workers and promote laziness. When an employee works over 40 hours in one week and is being paid only $8.50 instead of the overtime pay of $12.75, they will not work as hard as they can. They will think, if the company refuses to give me 100% of my pay, why should I give them 100% of my effort? Such a line of thinking will extend beyond those 40+ hour weeks and will saturate the workforce as a whole. If they feel like they are not getting paid what they deserve, they will not work to their greatest ability. Paying the salary of an employee has an exponential relationship. If you bump their salary up 5%, you may see a 10% increase in productivity. The more willing you are to pay them, the more willing they will be to work hard and give the company all that they can. Incentives are a great way to increase the pay of an employee, and directly use it to bolster motivation and productivity. Employees should be given goals to achieve both as an individual and as a team they work in, which are correlated with bonuses and pay increases. Individual goals should be created by an employee and his or her direct manager, while team goals should be created by department heads. An employee then has great reason to work harder for himself, and together with his team. Paying incentives to employees may seem only like an increase in labor expenditures, but it will create unity, facilitate motivation, and boost productivity. The culmination of these traits will lead to a happier and more profitable team and company. Solution 3: Employee Empowerment Human beings naturally thrive on responsibility. When you feel you have direct responsibility over something, you immediately have a stronger drive to make sure that thing is completed and completed well. Employee empowerment includes helping your employees feel responsible over their respective tasks and empowering them to be personally responsible in completing them. For example, when a worker is given the power to change and modify the environment around them, it becomes ‘theirs’. When you permit an employee to safely decorate their workplace or choose where to locate themselves, you create a feeling of personality and empowerment. When they arrive at work each morning, they feel a bolstered sense of belonging and inclusivity. They feel that they have earned their spot in the company and are an important and critical part. When you address employees, address them by their names. Assign them tasks directly that they are to complete. Let them know that they have an important role and responsibility in the company, and that they are needed. Motivate them through empowerment. Solution 4: Recognition and Promotions Doohickeys U Need has a significant lack of internal promotion. Employees need to feel that their labors are recognized and rewarded as a result. Internal promotions are a great idea

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7 Group 1 generally, as the employees that work their way up from a low level in the company to high corporate chairs have an excellent understanding of the entirety of the company and its workings. When promotions are presented as a possibility, they also feel far more motivated to complete the tasks in their purview with vigor and seek to go above and beyond. It is a simple incentive that does not require more expense in pay and creates a better leadership structure throughout the company as a whole over time. Doohickeys should immediately abandon their soft policy of hiring leadership from outside the company and recognize the achievements of their employees and allow them promotions as a result of their good work. The understanding that good work will be rewarded with better responsibilities and pay will motivate a workforce to perform and generate revenue. Critical Problem: Workplace Safety In a workplace it is important to have safety systems in place to minimize injuries. The systems will keep workers safe and able to focus on the work that is needed. Without having safety systems, we can end up being less efficient as we run into problems with major accidents. The workers may end up being slower as well and less focused on the tasks needed to be done. We can become more efficient as we put safety as a priority and let workers know that there is help and ways that they can benefit from staying safe or reporting accidents. If we give workers reason to keep focus on safely getting tasks done, they can keep from causing major accidents. Having clear safety and injury protocols in place will keep the employees safe and will also protect the employer from injury lawsuits. Knowing that we have the guidelines from OSHA can help us keep from getting lawsuits from workers. With workman’s compensation, employees are taken care of and there will not be any major dings in our reputation. We can lose the business that we have if we do not get on top of our inefficiencies in manufacturing. The more lawsuits that are potentially coming from workers, we can get into trouble with business as well as potential for growth. As we want to expand, we need to find ways to keep our workers safe. Properly maintaining a safe workplace will keep us from losing workers and downsizing due to inefficiencies. We need to make sure we have the proper guidelines and benefits in place for accidents in order to keep our manufacturing processes from slowing down. If managers are not aware of safety hazards, they will not know about what OSHA violations need to be fixed. It is important to help our manufacturing workers be informed on the importance of reporting incidents because the managers will be able to improve the places that are failing in our manufacturing process. Managers also need to know about injuries so they can be aware of workman’s comp hours and days off needed due to injuries. We can help our workers improve efficiency when we give them the proper benefits to recover and find reasons to come back to work. Finally, if we can reference Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, we can learn that if we want our employees to feel empowered, become more creative, be more motivated and find a deeper sense of meaning that will help improve their work, we have to first make sure that certain foundational needs are met first. One being safety. (Mcleod, 2023) They must feel safe. All other recommendations would become meaningless if we cannot first make sure that the basic need of safety is found here.

8 Group 1 Although it may seem as though employees may not pay attention or think they are important, creating workplace safety procedures will help reinforce the importance of safety. Using the OSHA guidelines as a foundation for the procedures enforced will help the company not violate many OSHA requirements in the workplace. For the example of our employee who cut themselves and then did nothing about that, it showed me that this is probably not a first-time problem but a potentially recurring theme about the mentality towards safety. In this and situations like it, any employee could have filed a complaint to OSHA requesting an inspection which could lead to heavy fines. (OSHA) There will be some backlash as our workers are tough individuals that sometimes have the mentality that this happens, and people get cuts. It isn’t a big deal. Understanding the severity of the fines, no matter how great, will help everyone realize that they may not think it is a big deal now, but our hope is that they will. Having a procedure will start that change. Implementing this change will take time as we will need to establish a team of managers as well as a few workers in creating the procedure. We can start by using examples or procedures used by other companies, but we will need the voice and perspective of members on the management team as well as team members in the field that will help apply them to our workplace. This will help connect a bridge with management and workers as well as help create a sense of ownership when the procedure is finally completed and implemented. We will need people on board with enforcing it and helping team members follow it when completed. You cannot fix what you do not know. The absence of a workplace safety procedure for so long leads to the idea that safety is not on the minds of our employees. This also means that training hasn’t been implemented before, so no one is up to date with safety concerns or hazards. The human body is usually good at telling us about general safety tips, but it is the out of the ordinary situations that we need to also prepare for. This is done through staying up to date on all thing’s safety. We need to appoint someone as the safety consultant who will stay informed on safety concerns and hazards, as well as looking for accidents that have occurred in other workplaces. They will then be able to use their findings in training our supervisors as well as team members. This will not only keep safety on everyone’s minds, but it will also help prevent future accidents. Learning from others is an excellent way to avoid paying for someone else’s mistakes (or accidents that could have been prevented). Now it may be hard to find someone who would be willing to add a little more work on their schedule. This may even be a new position that we pay someone to do. But we will need to find someone who is the right fit for this position. They will need to take 20 to 30 minutes at the start of each month to do the quick training. We will also need to make sure that they are quick, informative, and encouraged throughout the month. This will also require that we delay some of the work as employees will have to be on the clock and not working while receiving this training as we cannot expect them to do so off the clock. Close to the workplace safety procedure is also providing a workplace cleanliness check. Although it may sound as though this is getting too nitpicky, the cleanliness of our workplace not only prevents the potential for injury, like our female employee experienced from sharp objects being left out, but it also has many influences on the mental wellbeing of an individual. The Harvard Business Review has an article talking all about this. They explain, “ clutter can also affect us in more indirect ways. My research and that of others has shown that our physical environments significantly influence our cognition, emotions, and behavior, affecting our

9 Group 1 decision-making and relationships with others.” (Sander 2019) If we can create a quick but efficient checklist with the workplace we will see an increase in productivity, an increase in behavior, better decisions being made in the workplace, as well as a reduction in injuries. This will require all upper management to be engaged in making sure they are followed. Backlash is to be expected. It is also expected that some employees will feel as though they don’t have the time to add this to their many tasks to do throughout the day. This checklist must be created by employees on the floor. I say this because they are the ones who know their workspace and what is a frequent clutter item compared to what needs to stay out and so on. They will be the guide in showing us what is involved in the day-to-day routines, and this will help us see the potential hazards and things that the employees can take a few extra seconds to clean up or put away and when they can do this. Safety incentives have the potential to save the company/ reinforce the importance of safety, but it also could be overkill. In recommending incentives, I feel as though we should wait and see how the other solutions are taking and how much improvement we are seeing before we decide to create incentives. We are in a work environment where lots of change has not been super common and especially, not all at once. It is also an environment that requires grit and strength and so it is already going to be difficult to change the mentality around safety. Implementing too many safety solutions can either make things worse or motivate the employees. We won’t know until we start somewhere. Incentives are always an easy option for boosting morale while highlighting an important area of concern for the company. This could be anything from pizza parties while having a routine clean time once a month, to cleanest workplace reward, and so on. This will require a little bit of money on the company's part, but the benefits could be significant. This is why I mentioned holding off or implementing solutions one by one. Another option is while implementing some other solutions for workplace safety, a survey could be sent out with different ideas for incentives relating to safety and sent to the employees to see what they would like most. They could also include their own ideas of what would motivate them. That way they will be more willing to take the other solutions seriously while knowing some potential rewards are down the road. One major concern would be that if this survey is sent out, there must be a follow through. If no follow through is taken, then all workplace safety initiatives will become less meaningful. Employees might start to think that if we can’t follow through with the incentives pitched then what else are they not going to follow through with? Or it might just look like we are trying to cover our backs when that is part of it but also, we should want to ensure the protection of the employees we have already. Conclusion: During my time at Doohickeys Inc., I have seen problems that need to be corrected such as compensation and benefits, workplace safety, and motivation. Each of these problems are serious HR concerns, which is why I have made it my goal to see these problems solved. My greatest recommendations for improvement within the company include improving benefits for the employees, improving safety with policies and practice, and giving incentives to help communication. I hope that my suggestions for each have been insightful and helpful to helping this company. I look forward to working side by side in solving these problems, though it may

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10 Group 1 take some time to do so. But I know that as we work together, we can make Doohickeys Inc. a better and safer place to work.

11 Group 1 Works Cited Admin. (2021, January 15). Benefits of safety inspections audits . Trivent Safety Consulting. https://www.triventsc.com/benefits-of-safety-inspections-audits/ Mcleod, S. (2023, October 24). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory . Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html OSHA worker rights and protections . Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (n.d.). https://www.osha.gov/workers Sander, L. (2019, March 29). The case for finally cleaning your desk . Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2019/03/the-case-for-finally-cleaning-your-desk

W09 Group Project

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