Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence 9th Edition by James Evans,William Lindsay

Exercise 11

Christina worked at a retail store in a shopping mall. Her manager made the job quite stressful. She never had the schedule for the next week completed on time, so Christina and other employees were never able to plan adequately. They would say, "Well, if the manager doesn't do her work right, why should I?" When switching shifts that required working with the manager, the manager was usually texting on the phone and paid little attention to customers, but she would not let the employees use their phones while they were working. As a result, most employees used their phones when the manager was not around and did little selling. The manager also paid little attention to inventory management, resulting in stress between employees and customers, as many items which a customer requested could not be found even though the computer indicated they were available. Work hours were often recorded incorrectly, resulting in errors in paychecks. Employee turnover was very high and sales were low. After a while, the manager was replaced. The new manager improved inventory control using frequent counts to over 99 percent accuracy; had the schedule completed two weeks ahead of time; took care of paycheck errors quickly and ensured that they were almost always correct; and showed gratitude to employees for their work. Employees were able to reach their quotas more easily and sales increased. Christina noted: "I was happy to come to work then, which caused me to be happy, friendly, and wanting to do my job more correctly."
How does Christina's experience relate to the concepts in this chapter? Thoroughly explain the implications and relationships to the various theories we described.