Rainyday Insurance Adjusters Company

Summary

Rainyday Insurance Adjusters is a medium sized company with 135 employees and seven managers. They process the claims of policy holders who have experienced various misfortunes. To accommodate the increase in customers, Rainyday expanded its office in the current building and upgrade all its equipment to make the company more efficient and to allow workers to process claims more quickly. Since installation the new computer, Rainyday have been having problems like errors have increased, productivity has gone down, high voluntary turnover and conflict among employees. The company also have problem to choosing the suitable training programme for the employees. The employees is having problem to use new computer especially the older employees. The manager, Paula offer to send everyone to the local high school to take computer class that would teach them how to use the computer and the software. But, the employees did not seem more excited about the idea. Besides that, the older employees have conflict with the newer employees. The entire problem must be solved quickly because Rainyday will face too many complaints from customers and will facing others problem more.

1. What do you see as the major problems at Rainyday Insurance Adjusters Company?
The major problem of that company is conflict among the employees, errors has increased and productivity has gone down, and increasingly voluntary turnover and to plan the suitable training program. Since installation off the computers, Rainyday has facing conflict among the senior employees and newer employees. Some of the older or senior employees don’t know the clue how to use the new computer and when the newer employees want to teach them, they don’t want and show off. Instead, when the newer employees has problem, the senior employees don’t want to teach them.
Besides that, since the installation new computer, errors have increased and productivity has gone down. The older employees and some of newer employees facing the problem to use that computer quickly and efficient. They have been nothing but trouble, the employees need to spend half of our time only to printing out the forms and then need to go back and correct errors on them. This situation cans causing the general work, and the processing of claims to late, and at the end, productivity has gone done.
Rainyday is also facing the high voluntary turnover. Since Rainyday got new computer, that too much problem are happen. The older employees and some of the newer employees need to learn new things, need to attend class, facing too much trouble with the new computer at the same time need to work faster because they are getting behind. Furthermore, the newer employees have conflict with the older employees, no one to teach them. Majority of the employees are not happy, not enjoy with their work. This situation will make the employees stress and decide to quit joining the other. So, at the end, the voluntary turnover will be increase.
The company also have problem to plan the suitable training program to the employees so that they can use the new computer quickly. The employees having problem to use new computer especially the older employees. The manager, Paula offer to send everyone to the local high school to take computer class that would teach them how to use the computer and the software. But, the employees did not seem more excited about the idea.

2. What are the causes of those problems?
In order to make the company become more efficient and to allow workers to process claims more quickly, the company have taken immediate action such as upgraded the computer to facilitate speedier turnaround and higher capacity from claims processors. However, since the installation of the new computers, the firm has experienced increase voluntary turnover, decreased productivity, increased errors among claims processors and conflict between the more tenured and newer employees. All the causes for those problems are discussed as per below: * Errors among claims processors
Claims processing errors can come from variety of sources but most of the caused is come from the employee activity itself. One of the reasons that may rise is that they did not understand the specific actions that caused the error to begin with. Other than that, employees also are not properly trained on how to use the new computer.

* Conflict between employees
In Rainyday Insurance Adjusters Company, there are a conflict between tenure employee and newer employee. The cause of this problem can be related to the no co-operations among the employees. Newer employees’ feels dissatisfied when they did not get helped from the senior employees. The feelings of jealousy to the newer employees are one of the reasons that can create conflict in the working environment. A tenure employee may refuse to break old habits and adjust to new set of guidelines. Some employees that are older do not like change because they like to keep things familiar and the same.

* Decreased productivity
Since the company installed the new computer, most of the employees having problem such as decreasing in the productivity. This is because they did not know on how to use the computer and software. Most of them, they resist to change since they refuse to involved in the change process. Even though, they had been offered to attend the class computer at the local high school, but they still did not want to attend the class because they need to get into the class with a bunch of teenagers.

* Increased voluntary turnover
There are a lot of employees who quit the job since the new computer installation. This is because of several causes that may affect the voluntary turnover such as resist to learn new computer software. Most of the tenure employees thought that training is intimidating to them. Other than that, there is no co-operation and having conflict among employees. This cause is the reasons why there increased in voluntary turnover.

3. What steps should be taken to better understand the performance problems at Rainyday? That is, what would you do to conduct a more through needs assessment to better pinpoint the problem?

There have several steps that should take in order to better understand the performance problems at Rainyday. First step that should be taken is interview a larger sample of both newer and older employees. As a consultant at Rainyday Insurance Adjusters Company, I should taking initiative to interview both newer and elder employees on what they do not satisfied on using the new installation equipment in their organization. By doing this thing I believe that, all the problems that facing by the employees at Rainyday Insurance Adjusters Company will find the solution.

Second step that I need to be considered is to develop a comprehensive survey based on findings from the interviews. I should pinpoint all the problems faced by the employees and try to make research for the problems arise. Besides, I need to pay attention to employee’s satisfaction and facilitated focus on groups helps in order to develop employees’ skill in using new system approach. By develop this survey I need to find comprehensive research by focusing on organization goals and objective. What actually the Rainyday Insurance Adjusters Company want to achieve and how get things done. Next, try developing communication plan in the organization. I also need to focus on comprehensive communication plan to support each stage of the survey. In the absence of communication plan employees might not recognize the important of the process or see the connection between survey finding and follow – up actions. Collect data at the right way in the right time is also a comprehensive survey that needs to be applied.

Third is summarizing the finding from the interviews and surveys to determine the full scope of issues and problems. As consultant at Rainyday Insurance Adjusters Company I need to make summarize on finding based on my comprehensive survey before. After doing summarize finding I can recognize the main problems that occurred in the organization. Then I will come out with the solution of the problems occurred. For example, Rainyday was experience with voluntary turnover among claims processors as well as decreased productivity and increased error. So by doing these three steps Rainyday are able to find the problem rise in their organization.

4. Provide several suggestions for addressing the problems in the claims department at Rainyday.

After had done some analysis on the case happen in Rainyday, we have detected some problems in the claims department. In order to improve and solve the problems in the claims department at the company, we have come out with several suggestions. It includes the action plan for short term and also for the long term.

Therefore, in the short-term, which is within the next month the company should take several actions. It is such as inquiring all employees what type of support that they need in order to use the new computers. If the company knows what can help their employees, so then the problem can be solved easily. It is because when knowing the problem faces by the employees, it helps in overcoming it. The other thing is pairing the senior employees with newer employees so that each other can get the benefit from the collaboration itself. They can teach the other on how to work with the computers. Instead of that, they can share the idea and knowledge in order to complete the tasks. So, it is important to solve the conflict between the younger employees and the elders. They should communicate well and try to accept each other opinion and ability. So, the interpersonal skills are very important to be applied in the department.

Other than that, company can provide some in-house training. In-house training is a training program for learning opportunities which is developed by the organization in which they are used. Training may be required to be provided to employees for industry performance and safety standards or continuing education requirements. However, training may be offered to maintain the competitiveness of the organization. In this case, some of the employees refuse to take the computer class which will teach them on how to use the computers and software. The reason is because they did not want go to school and be in class with the teenagers. So they decided to learn by themselves. So, by providing the in house training, they can learn on that course among the colleagues. It also will save the time because it is provided in the organization itself.

Besides that, in longer term which means in the next six months, the company itself needs to incorporate into the performance appraisal and compensation system each of the employee’s performance. Therefore by mentoring the performance, they will be more motivated to complete their task and it also will increase the productivity. By giving a good compensation to them, it somehow can increase the spirit to learn and do their best in order to achieve company targets. The other thing is incorporate into the performance appraisal and reward systems measurement of errors using the new computers. Therefore, if they are the measurement of errors using those systems, we can find the types of error that normally involved while completing the claims forms. After had determine the major errors, the department can put an extra focus regarding that errors. Therefore we can reduce the numbers of errors in the future.

The other thing is include a representative sample of employees into organizational changes. These representatives will then be taught to learn on how to operate the computers and using that system. If they can adapt with the new culture and changes, so it can be as prove that the new changes also can be adapt by the others. It just that how is the way they accept that changes. Instead of that, the employees itself must motivate themselves in order to be parallel with the change of time and technology. Therefore, with the recommendation that have been suggested, perhaps it can help to assist the department to be more competitive and at the same time can increase the productivity.