Riordan

Gap Analysis: Riordan Manufacturing

Riordan Manufacturing is a company that has been producing plastics globally for over 60 years founded by Michael Riordan, who is the CEO with 80% of the company's stock, and who is a firm believer of employee loyalty of the company. Some of its customers are Dept of Defense, aircraft and automotive parts, beverage and bottlers, and appliance manufacturers. The company employees 550 employees between three plants located in Michigan, China, and Georgia. The headquarters is located in California. Riordan is going through an organizational restructure due to a sales slump which has decline profits form the past two years. This has forced the CEO to make some changes within the company by creating a mission to adopt a customer-relationship management system (CRM) which will affect the sales team by changing their major responsibility of working as teams in groups instead of being individual sales representatives. The team will include a salesperson, product engineering specialist and a customer rep. The issue that rely on this mission will getting those three different department working together and accepting each other views to eliminate the sales slump and start increasing profits for the company.

Situation Analysis

Issue and Opportunity Identification

Riordan is faced with many challenges while trying to eliminate the sales slump that can affect the company as well as the employees. The first issue the company is faced with is their employees complaining about newcomers are paid more than internal promotions-it's better to leave and come back for a higher pay wage. Many of the internal employees feel as if their seniority and years of experience aren't being rewarded when the company hires external employees for their current position. The organization will need to find a solution that will wok for everyone, and will be beneficial for both employees and staff which will eliminate any misunderstandings of employees believing that the hard work of the employee is being taken for granted.

Another issue is according to the employee survey, many employees feel as if the training and advancement within Riordan is not present. Many of the employees feel as if they are "stuck" in their current position without any promises of being promoted and moved to more challenging positions within the company. The employees believe that the company is not focused on their career goals and training and development, which in return causes the employee not to be motivated by his or her job.

The employees feel as if performance reviews should be mandatory and not taken for granted. During performance reviews, the staff has a chance to discuss the employee's strength and weaknesses and areas of improvement to eventually, get promoted from within. This leads to the issue of Riordan is not recognizing good performance of their employees. The company will need to find a solution where the employee can be rewarded for their high performance and goal making through incentives both monetary and non-monetary. The organization will have to determine if they will be giving group or individual incentives for those who have reached and have exceeded their goal for the company. Lastly, the company is having an issue with placing their rewards into the company strategy. Nothing is written in stone and nothing has been agreed by the staff on what type of incentive program should be in place for the employees. At least with something documented there can be a commitment between staff and employee on what is expected for their goals and responsibility which in return will lead into bonuses and incentives.

Stakeholder Perspectives/Ethical Dilemmas

Riordan need to be aware of keeping their shareholder satisfied while reorganizing their rewards system. One of the organization's shareholders is their customer. Their customers' makes up of the aircraft and automotive part industry, the Dept of Defense, beverage and bottling makers located in Albany, Georgia and appliance makers. The employees make up most of the shareholders because the company is depending on the employees to turn the organization and increase their sales revenue. Declining of sales resulted in adopting a customer-relationship where teams will be created instead of individual sales employees. The three major demographic groups will need to work together in order for the company to improve sales. This can not be done until each demographic group can come to an agreement on rewards and motivation as a team.

End-State Vision

Riordan has began the process of creating a more diverse compensation program within the organization, also the CEO has been implementing what will benefit not only the customers but the employees as well. However, the question remains on how and when this strategy will begin for its employees. The advantages of moving forward is present, but where are the cost to begin the process? The CEO stated that the organization is in the middle of a sales slump and doesn't have additional funds to create any rewards system currently. The company strategy did not address the locations within the company so an organizational chart needs to be taken into consideration on the compensation strategy for the Pontiac and Albany location and their employees.

The staff needs to discuss the order of issues with the employees if by chance the recommendations have been approved, but put on hold until a later date due to sales slump with revenue. This may cause some loyalty issues within the company and among the employees and cause an increase in their turnover rate. I believe the company can not afford to lose any of its key employees within this market move, so the CEO along with his staff need to find a way for this strategy to be implemented as soon as possible. As soon as the employees can start being compensated for their work performed, they will in return produce high quality products, which will eliminate the sales slump and increase revenue for the company. The strategy includes creating customer focused teams and this can be done by combining all three major demographic groups together, restructuring of the rewards systems, improving overall job satisfaction in each department, and avoiding increased turnover. This is one risk that the company should depend on for the sake of the company and their loyalty to their employees.

Gap Analysis

Many things need to change within the Riordan organization. There are the baby boomers, Gen Xers and Gen Y all disagreeing with different ideas and views in regard to compensations