Title: The Effects of Performance Measurement on a Delivery Company: A Case Study
Abstract: CASE DESCRIPTION The primary subject matter of this case concerns the challenges faced by a delivery company that uses technological tools to measure individual performance. Topics such as performance measurement, accuracy, employee motivation, and safety concerns are all explored in the case. secondary issues include corporate culture, organizational structure, effects of incentives, and labor-management relations. The case has a difficulty level of 4-5, and is appropriate for senior-level undergraduates or first-year graduate students. It is designed to be taught in 2-3 class hours and is expected to require approximately two hours of outside preparation by students. CASE SYNOPSIS The case examines how a delivery company uses incentives as a motivational technique to get drivers to work faster. This technique seems to work early on for one driver, Mike, until he hurts his ankle. This leads the reader to the next issue, safety, and how WDS handles a work environment in which injuries are common. The case explores the downsides of the drive to improve financial performance by increasing workloads and pushing productivity improvements. The reader is able to get a clear understanding of how a delivery company operates and the type of management structure that is in place. The challenge of motivating employees and managers to continually increase performance is clear throughout the case. The unique problems of encouraging employee motivation in a unionized work environment arise at the end of this case. This case is designed to stimulate discussion about performance measurement, motivation, and safety issues in organizations. Although this case focuses on the package delivery industry and the unique characteristics thereof, the challenges that the organization encounters related to the issues of tracking performance and heightening employee motivation are general enough to fit many business situations. INSTRUCTORS' NOTES Recommendations for Teaching Approaches This case was written for undergraduate and graduate students who are currently taking a human resource management, organizational behavior, organizational theory, or operations management course. Instructors of a human resource class could use this case to review decisionmaking issues regarding workplace safety, motivation, and performance measurement. Organizational behavior and organizational theory instructors can use this case to examine how the organizational hierarchy of a delivery company works and how different types of employees (managers vs. workers) interact with each other. Instructors can also use this case to engage students in discussions related to leadership, team building, motivation, and goal setting. The case can enhance student learning as to how these theories might be applied toward workers to make them motivated and perform their jobs more efficiently and safely. The major objectives of this case are as follows: 1. To help students gain a better understanding of the effects that performance measurement can have on employee motivation. 2. To demonstrate to students the unanticipated consequences of instituting a performance measurement system. 3. To expose students to accidents that can occur in the workplace and the procedures which need to be followed when analyzing injury rates. 4. To provide a tool so students can examine the different types of management theory. 5. To prepare students to anticipate the inevitable changes that permeate the day-to-day operations (affecting both management and workers) of a company that has recently gone public. 6. To allow students to develop solutions to the major issues presented in the case study and to generate class discussion with the case study's questions. 7. To expose students to the possible benefits of using teams in the workplace. Students are encouraged to research characteristics of the package delivery industry, theories of motivation, workplace safety, and incentive systems before reading the case. …
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-05-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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