Case Study 1.1 INTRODUCING WORK-LIFE BALANCE AT OXFORD MANUFACTURING
Fiona McQuarrie, University College of the Fraser Valley
Oxford Manufacturing is a company with 350 employees in a large Midwestern city. It specializes in producing custom plastic products, although it also manufactures a range of small plastic items (such as storage boxes and water bottles) that it sells to wholesale distributors. Because of the variety of products the firm produces, its workers have a wide range of skill levels and qualifications: engineers with university degrees work on design and production specifications for customized products, and assembly line workers, some of whom did not finish high school, operate machines in the production facility. The company’s plant operates 12 hours a day, seven days a week—although if a large order cannot be produced during regular hours, operating hours may be added to meet that demand.
Over the last few years, where Oxford is located, the demand for workers has begun to exceed the supply. Oxford’s owners have realized that the company can no longer afford to sit back and let potential employees find them, as was the case in the past. They also realize that the company is now increasingly competing for employees, especially skilled ones, with other manufacturing firms in the same area. These realities have led Oxford’s owners to decide that Oxford needs to be seen as a “preferred employer” if it is going to attract and retain the best employees. They have decided to make Oxford a preferred employer by emphasizing how much the company cares about employees’ work—life balance. The message communicated to potential and current employees is that Oxford wants to help them achieve a lifestyle in which work and nonwork commitments are equally important. The company has adopted a policy giving each employee five “free days” off per year to use for whatever purpose the employee desires, in addition to generous vacation and sick leave benefits. The company also has encouraged department managers to schedule workers’ shifts to accommodate the workers’ outside commitments as much as possible. The company managers feel that offering such benefits will not only attract good workers to Oxford but also help retain the ones already working there.
Peter MacNee is a manager of one of the production areas. He has received requests from two of his employees to accommodate their work schedules to their nonwork commitments.
• John Mason is an engineer whose marriage has recently ended. He is now a single parent to a daughter, age 9, and a son, age 6. His parents are helping him with child care, but they are not always available to take care of the children during the day when John is at work. In addition, John’s daughter was badly affected by her parents’ divorce; occasionally she has temper tantrums and refuses to go to school or stay with her grandparents, insisting that only her father can take care of her, These situations have occasionally resulted in John having to miss work on short notice. Peter has allowed John to use three of his five annual free days to cover these situations, even though company policy states that employees wishing to take free days must notify their supervisor two weeks before the date of the absence. John is asking to work only in the evenings because his parents are regularly available to supervise his children then. He is also offering to work unpaid overtime in exchange for formally being allowed to take his two remaining free days as needed without the required period of notification. He is willing to continue to be available for unpaid overtime if the company gives him a yearly allocation of five additional free days.
Jane Collier is a supervisor on the production line. She also participates in curling at the local recreation center. When a friend encouraged her to take up curling for fun a few years ago, she was having problems with her health and was also somewhat shy. Because she has been curling regularly, her fitness level has increased, and her health problems are no longer affecting her attendance at work. In addition, because success in curling requires working effectively as part of a team, her social and supervisory skills at work have noticeably improved. Jane’s curling team has an opportunity to join a new curling league that is more competitive than the one they currently belong to, but this will allow them to compete at regional, national, and possibly even international levels. Jane’s team has decided not only to join this league but also to start working with a coach to improve their technique. Jane is asking to be scheduled for day shifts only because of the time demands of this new level of participation and because most of her curling- related activities will take place in the evenings. She is also asking for two weeklong unpaid leaves per year to attend curling bonspiels (competitions) out of town.
Peter is not sure what to do with these requests. He knows that the company encourages employee work—life balance and expects its managers to support employees trying to manage both work and nonwork activities. He realizes that John and Jane would not have made their requests unless they felt the requested accommodations were the only way they could successfully balance their work lives with their nonwork commitments. However, there is no way he can grant both requests: The products John helps design are manufactured by the production line Jane supervises, and both of them need to be at work at the same time at least twice a week to share information about the products they are working on. He is also aware that John and Jane are talented and experienced employees, and if he turns down these requests, they will have no trouble finding comparable jobs with any of Oxford’s competitors.
As Peter is considering this dilemma, he shuffles through the pile of mail that arrived on his desk that morning. An interoffice memo catches his eye, and he pulls it out of the pile and opens it. The memo is from the three office administrators in his area. The administrators complain that they are becoming increasingly upset with their co-workers, most of whom are married and have families,
“dumping” work on them because of family crises. The memo describes several recent incidents in which co-workers received phone calls about family problems and then left for the rest of the day, asking the office administrators to cover for them and complete their work. After dealing with their co-workers’ unfinished tasks, the administrators often had to stay beyond the end of their scheduled shifts to finish their own work. The last paragraph of the memo states, “We don’t mind helping out once in a while, but not having kids or elderly parents to take care of doesn’t mean we don’t have anything to do besides work. If we have to stay late on short notice, we often have to cancel activities that are important to us. This is unfair; and if other people can’t manage their family responsibilities, they should be the ones making the adjustments, not us. We want you to address this problem immediately because it is occurring more and more frequently.”
Discussion Questions
1. How should Peter deal with John’s and Jane’s requests and the complaint from the administrators?
2. What can the organization as a whole do to address problems like these?
3. What organizational behavior issues can you identify in this case?