The Slade Company

The clocking problem

Despite apparent success of Slade Company, the manufacturer faces problems in the plating department. The production Manager, Ralph Porter, is concerned about dishonesty among employees, abusing the clocking system for logging in the work hours. The typical workweek in the department is 60 hours, with the first 40 hours paid on a straight time basis while additional hours were paid 50% higher (100% higher for week-end work). Classic days are worked from 7.00 to 7.00 pm. Since the supervisors left around 5.00, an employee could stay late and punch-out for everyone. And this is exactly what is happening within the main company groups. How can this be possible?

The causes

To understand the causes of the problem, we first need to understand the existing culture in the Slade Company, where different groups were formed, characterised by different behaviour patterns. Sarto's group is united, with cultural bounds and common social activities. They share the same working conditions, show solidarity and organized a punch-out rotation, where one member of the group stays late for the others. They operate as a coherent team to increase their productivity during the peak hours, allowing them to maintain a satisfying production output and auto-manage their working hours. Nonetheless, these practices can result in a lack of motivation and a feeling of unfairness for the employees out of this system and of its benefits in terms of revenues.

Clark acts as and informal leader on his group, which follows Sarto's main group and behaviours. However Clark's group does not have Sarto's strong bounds, even if to my sense it aspires to. Aside from these two groups, we observe small groups without any clear organization. I would classify them as neutral (women group) or followers. Aside from this group, two outsiders, Pearson and Herman, distinguish by their atypical behaviour. Pearson is a hardworking individual, respected by all. Herman rather acts like a free rider, with a low productivity. He does not follow any of the group's typical behaviour, and often leaves work as soon as his cousin, the supervisor, leaves. This "bad apple" results in the demotivation of the other employees.

However the problem is not the group themselves; they can result in higher motivation and better team-working. A higher degree of moral awareness is required: the employees don't know they face an ethical dilemma; they just rely on the social group consensus to guide their behaviour without engaging in a moral judgment process. This reliance also implies a social pressure on the group members: if one initiates a moral judgment process, and start to think that the