Employee Productivity

Employee Productivity

Basic Problem Solving Procedure Outline

Our company is a family owned, nationwide grocery store chain. We have stores in 43 different states, but recently our market share has been falling rapidly. After analyzing the symptoms, we realized that we have a severe problem with employee productivity that needs to be solved ASAP.

1. Define the problem

A. The symptoms that we see that indicate the existence of the problem include: long check-out lines, unsatisfied customers, lower sales, falling profits, lack of efficiency, and lack of info structure.

B. This is a relatively big problem that affects the whole company, and is characterized by the 20% market share decrease nationwide.

C. How can our company increase employee productivity over the course of one year?

D. We agreed to use the following definition of productivity.

The quality of being productive is the rate at which goods or services are produced, especially output per unit of labor.

2. Research and Analyze the Problem

A. Productivity.

Through our research we have found that to improve productivity we need to upgrade technology, acquire a better inventory system, improve the retention rate of our employees, design a new training program with emphasis on cross-training our employees. We also need to look into reward programs for productive employees.

B. Training

We decided that to improve training we need to concentrate on cross training the employees, establishing mentor and buddy programs, as well as reinforcement classes.

C. Employee retention

Through research we found out that to improve employee retention we may consider creating reward programs, improve our benefits packages, establishing consistence pay raises that are based on performance, and profit share bonuses.

D. Technology

We may need productivity software that measures performance of all of our employees, real time reporting software, updated equipment, self-checkout equipment for high traffic stores that need it.

E. What makes productive employees

Employees need to be recognized, appreciated, treated with respect, and valued. In training programs we need to make sure that the employees understand exactly what they were hired to do, that the employees we hire are team players that accept responsibility and do what it takes to get the job done.

3. Establish a Checklist of Criteria

A. Needs

Cost must not exceed 5 million dollars for the initial investment

Must increase employee retention by at least 20%

Must increase market share by at least 5% within the first year

Must increase customer satisfaction

Must eliminate at least 75% of the problem symptoms

B. Wants

Market share increase of 10%

Updated technology in all the stores

Increased employee job satisfaction rates

4. List Possible Alternatives

1. Using all the money on new technology in the stores, new cash registers and software, self-checkout registers, new freezers, new baking ovens, and new supplies.

2. We could concentrate on retraining our employees. Including management courses for our