Managing People Group - Formation of the Group, Group Membership, and Function - Case Study Example

Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Overview of the Workplace Group 1 2.1 Background 1 2.2 Formation of the Group, Group Membership & Function 2 3. Analysis of the Group’s Dynamics 3 3.1 Roles within the CHSP Committee 3 3.2 Conflict Management 4 3.3 Group Leadership Issues 5 4. Recommendations for Improving Group Performance & Morale 6 References 8 Group Analysis Report 1. Introduction This report presents an analysis of a workplace group, specifically a cross-departmental safety committee in the UPS main package-handling and shipping facility in Taiwan. The first part of the report describes the background of the group, its membership, and its objectives. The second part of the report will look at critical factors in the group’s dynamics: the roles of group members, leadership issues, and conflict management within the group. Finally, some recommendations for improving the morale of the group and its overall performance are presented. As a point of reference, I was employed at UPS in Taiwan for 10 years and was a part of the safety committee for two years until I left the company, and so the description and assessment of the work group is largely based on personal experience. 2. Overview of the Workplace Group 2.1 Background UPS, which was founded in the US in 1907 as United Parcel Service, is the world’s largest package delivery company, with operations in 220 countries around the globe. (“About UPS”, 2011) In each of UPS’ facilities, a safety committee known as a Comprehensive Health & Safety Process (CHSP) Committee is formed under a company-wide safety programme begun in 1995. There are presently more than 3,600 CHSP Committees within UPS, involving about 30,000 of the company’s employees. (UPS Pressroom, n.d.) The main UPS facility in Taiwan is located at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport just outside Taipei, and is a major Asian hub facility for the transfer and shipment of UPS packages. The operation has five main parts; shipments received from or to be delivered to customers within Taiwan are handled by the “land-side” shipping/receiving area, where trucks and other delivery vehicles are loaded and unloaded. The main part of the facility is a large sorting operation where packages and documented and directed to the appropriate areas to continue their journey. Air shipments are received and loaded by the “air-side” ground handling operations; this part of the operation actually comprises two parts, the shipping/receiving dock located in the building itself, and the aircraft loading/unloading operation which uses specialised equipment to transfer cargo between the planes and the facility. In addition to these parts of the UPS operation, there is also a large administration staff handling customer service, human resources, and other management duties. UPS also employees several hundred delivery drivers throughout Taiwan and these are also managed by the Taoyuan facility. 2.2 Formation of the Group, Group Membership & Function The concept behind UPS CHSP Committees is that they should be directed by the non-management employees; thus, each CHSP comprises a number of representatives from among the line workers in different departments, one of whom is selected as co-chair of the committee with one representative from the facility’s management team. (UPS Pressroom, n.d.) In the UPS Taoyuan facility, the CHSP Committee consisted of 11 members: two each from the inbound and outbound sides of the sorting facility, two from the “land-side” shipping dock area, two from the “air-side” shipping dock, two from the ground operations staff, a representative from the driver’s association, one from the facility maintenance staff, and the Assistant Manager of International Freight Operations. He and one of the two ground operations representatives served as co-chairmen of the group; I was one of the outbound sorting representatives, working in what is called the “pre-load” area of the sorting facility, for the two years I served on the CHSP Committee. The CHSP Committee was a permanent group, first formed in 1999. Members to the committee were selected by their respective department heads, and served for an indefinite term; committee membership only changed when a member resigned from the company or transferred to a different facility – which happened frequently – or requested to leave the committee, which to my knowledge never happened. In all cases, the members of the CHSP Committee were senior employees with at least several years’ service with UPS. The non-management co-chairman position was chosen by election among the CHSP Committee members, and changed if that member left the facility as described above. During the two years I was part of the CHSP committee, the co-chairmen remained the same, and three other members of the committee – who had already been members when I joined – were replaced. UPS describes the function of the CHSP Committees in this way: “Committees conduct facility and equipment audits, recommend work process changes, conduct safety compliance training and perform worksite analysis. Worksite analysis is a five-step process that begins with data analysis followed by problem identification, root cause analysis, solutions, action plans and monitoring. The process is designed to assist in identifying the key issues causing employee injuries and auto accidents and develop the effective elimination activities needed to address them.” (UPS Pressroom, n.d.) That description, however, is rather more complicated than the actual work conducted by the Taoyuan committee. Each committee member was responsible for conducted an inspection of their own work area on a weekly basis, and to prepare a report of any safety issues needing attention. The entire committee would conduct a general inspection of the facility once a month, and then meet to assess whether changes were needed to procedures or equipment to improve safety. If an accident occurred, however, a report was immediately distributed to all committee members; minor incidents were reviewed at the monthly committee meetings, while more serious incidents involving injuries or damage to company property or customer shipments would require the committee to meet at the earliest opportunity. The exceptions to this, however, were accidents involving delivery vehicles, which were handled by a separate CHSP Committee among the drivers; our committee would receive an information report about these (which were fairly frequent), but generally took no action on them. Accidents involving damage to aircraft were also not usually addressed by our CHSP Committee, but by management since, as it was explained to us, airport or government aviation authorities would be involved. In any case, the outcome of the monthly CHSP Committee meeting was a number of recommended safety improvements, which were forwarded to management. Most recommendations were adopted by the management, are reflected in policy or procedure changes communicated to the workforce through memos or announcements. 3. Analysis of the Group’s Dynamics 3.1 Roles within the CHSP Committee Within the committee, each member had his own small area of responsibility as described above, along with the responsibility as part of the collective for the monthly reports and recommendations, and assessment of serious incidents. Although Belbin (1981 & 1993) identifies nine different team roles, only three of these were clearly apparent among the committee members. The management representative who served as co-chair of the committee could best be described as a “Completer,” making certain that issues were fully examined and that resulting recommendations were complete and detailed. His counterpart, the co-chairman who was a senior employee in the ground handling section, was the “Coordinator,” mediating in some disagreements – although he would defer to his management co-chairman in this quite often, as noted in the following section – and helping the committee members to interact smoothly with one another and complete the required tasks. The remainder of the group could best be described as “Teamworkers”; because of the training we had received upon being selected for the committee, the individual and group tasks and responsibilities were clearly defined and understood, and thus there was a spirit of cooperation and team support. The training had stressed that good ideas (and presumably, bad ones) would be credited to the Committee and not individuals, and thus working together was strongly encouraged and supported. There were still conflicts, as is discussed in the following section, but concern for the team’s reputation certainly moderated the committee member’s behaviour and attitudes. 3.2 Conflict Management There are two kinds of conflicts in groups. Relational conflicts are conflicts between individuals or sub-groups based on personalities. Task conflicts are conflicts about how to accomplish activities. (Bradford, et al., 2003) People react to a conflict in one of five basic ways: by avoiding it completely, by making an accommodation, by compromising, by competing, or by collaborating. (Thomas in Dunnette & Hough, 1992; Lesmeister, 1992; Rahim, et al., 1992) Depending on the context of the conflict, in a work group all these may either be appropriate responses or not; the exception is competition, which is a zero-sum relationship and does not encourage cooperation amongst the entire team. Of the other ways to handle a conflict, compromise and collaboration are the most effective, because they provide the best chance for both group and individual gain (Bradford, et al., 2003). On the other hand, there are still times when these efforts will not work; time may not allow a group to stop and work out their differences, or the members of the group may lack trust in other members, or the necessary assertiveness to resolve conflicts. (Lesmeister, 1992) Conflict amongst the members of the CHSP Committee largely took the form of disagreements about specific recommendations for safety improvements, and thus were task conflicts; relational conflicts, or “clashes of personality”, if they existed at all, were only implied in the nature of some of the disagreements. The conflicts which did occur were most noticeable when a recommendation for a particular department or work area originated with a committee member who did not work in that department; for example, if a ground operations committee member made a safety recommendation for procedures in the sorting facility. If the other members from the sorting facility assessed the recommendation as something which would adversely affect work practises, they would be resistant to the recommendation. In managing and resolving these conflicts, the nature of Chinese culture and relationships in the workplace played a big role, perhaps not always for the best. The culture is defined by, among other things, a strong deference for authority, a strong collective sense, and a keen awareness of personal relationships. (Hofstede, 1980; Robertson & Hoffman, 2000) In disagreements amongst group members, these characteristics manifested themselves in a number of ways. First, the priority would be to arrive at a mutually-acceptable solution, because failing to do so would reflect poorly on the entire team, particularly if a lack of action later resulted in some kind of problem in the facility. Second, “accommodation” was the most common response to conflict if the person disagreeing with a particular idea was senior to the one offering it; by the same token, the senior team member would try to avoid causing the other person a loss of face, usually by compromising and suggesting that the issue in question be looked at by the entire team, whereupon – more often than not – the original recommendation or something very close to it would be arrived at more or less by consensus. Finally, the two co-chairmen of the committee, and particularly the management representative, would often be put in a position of being the moderator of a disagreement in his capacity as a leader. While these approaches did help to ease tensions amongst the group and allow the committee to function as a stable unit with respect to the rest of the company, there were often times when practical points were not raised in disagreement, just because it was not in most members’ nature to “rock the boat.” This did not lead to any real problems in terms of safety management or oversight, but certainly seemed to reduce the team’s efficiency, since many recommendations for changes required follow-on recommendations later to correct for errors that should have been questioned at the outset. 3.3 Group Leadership Issues Because of the permanent nature of the group, its formation as such was an extended process of periodic restructuring of its membership, with new members occasionally joining the existing committee. This gave the committee a clear hierarchy, especially in the context of the cultural characteristics described in the previous section. At the top were the two officially-designated co-chairmen, with the remaining nine members of the committee having authority in order of their length of service; a new member joining the committee would remain the most junior until another new member joined after him. This corresponds to the initial stages of structuralisation as described Modlin and Faris (1956, cited in Tuckman, 1965, p. 76) where outside traditions, i.e., the conventional responses to authority and hierarchy, were carried into the group by new members. Described a different way, this is an example of absolutistic dependency, where a strong status hierarchy is formed and helps to reduce interpersonal conflict or competition by establishing a rigid social structure within the group. (Schroder & Harvey, 1963, cited in Tuckman, 1965, p. 76) In one respect, this helped to eliminate most issues of leadership in the CHSP Committee because the hierarchy was firmly established and everyone “knew where they stood.” But within each member’s own department, their activities in pursuit of their weekly tasks of assessing safety conditions in their work areas could sometimes meet with resistance from other employees, if the others were aware of the committee member’s “junior” status in the committee. 4. Recommendations for Improving Group Performance & Morale The CHSP Committee is a stable team with a clear hierarchy and clear tasks and objectives, and on the whole functions well. Membership in the committee is considered a bit of an honour among most UPS employees – certainly among the committee’s members – and morale is quite good. From an external perspective, there would not seem to be any problems with the CHSP Committee that need to be aggressively addressed. From the perspective of a former committee member, however, it is clear that the committee would function even more effectively if management of conflicts and differences of opinion were handled better. Part of the problem is cultural; it is difficult for a Chinese worker to openly disagree with his superior, even if he would be right to do so. Perceptions of personal relationships – in the context of ‘seniority’ on the committee – also have the same effect. As explained above, this sometimes results in real problems not being properly aired, making extra work for the committee. A solution to this which would not run counter to the team members’ cultural inclinations would be to put conflict resolution in the same clear terms as the committee’s tasks and objectives – and implicitly, the members’ relationships with each other – already are. First, group roles should be more clearly established; the concept behind the CHSP Committee, as explained during the training provided by UPS, is for a cross-functional team, but giving team members a bit more ‘authority’ over safety concerns in the areas they know best – their own departments – would encourage them to be more open about problems that should be addressed. Another solution is suggested by the ethical theory of utilitarianism, and that is simply to spell out a priority for solutions based on the greatest good that can be achieved. (Rahim, et al., 1992) Any disagreement over a proposed recommendation should be assessed based on what is best for the people directly affected first – those in a particular work area for instance. Then that solution should be tested, and modified if necessary, to achieve what is best for the entire department or operational segment, and then that solution should be tested, and modified if necessary, to achieve what is best for the entire company. Setting down this specific dispute-resolution process, in writing if necessary, will establish for team members what their objectives should be and what they can expect when differences of opinion are encountered. This might certainly extend the amount of time the committee spends on discussing and resolving differences of opinion, but since the normal procedure now often involves revisiting the same issue more than once, it would be an improvement in productivity. References “About UPS”. (2011) UPS [Internet]. Retrieved from: http://www.ups.com/content/ us/en/about/. Belbin, M. (1981) Management Teams: Why They Succeed or Fail. London: Heinemann. Belbin, M. (1993) Team Roles at Work. Oxford: Reed. Bradford, K.D., Stringfellow, A., and Weitz, B.A. (2004) “Managing Conflict to Improve the Effectiveness of Retail Networks”. Journal of Retailing, 80, pp. 181-195. Hofstede, G. (1980) Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Lesmeister, M. (1992) Leadership Development Within Groups – Managing Conflict. North Dakota State University, NDSU Extension Service, September 1992 [Internet]. Retrieved from: http://lubbock.tamu.edu/4h/documents/ ManagingConflict.pdf. Modlin, H.C., and Faris, M. (1956) “Group adaptation and integration in psychiatric team practice”. Psychiatry, 19, pp. 97-103. Rahim, M.A., Garrett, J.E., and Buntzman, G.F. (1992) Ethics of Managing Interpersonal Conflict in Organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 11, pp. 423-432. Robertson, C.J., and Hoffman, J.J. (2000) “How Different Are We? An Investigation of Confucian Values in the United States”. Journal of Managerial Issues, Spring 2000. [Internet] Entrepreneur. Retrieved from: http://www.entrepreneur.com/ tradejournals/article/61558897.html. Schroder, H.M., and Harvey, O.J. (1963) “Conceptual organization and group structure”, in O.J. Harvey (Ed.), Motivation and Social Interaction. Ronald Press, pp. 134-166. Thomas, K. (1992) “Conflict and Negotiation Processes in Organizations”, in M.D. Dunnette and M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 2nd Ed. Palo Alto, California: Consulting Psychologists Press. Tuckman, B.W. (1965) “Developmental Sequence in Small Groups”. Psychological Bulletin, 63(6), pp. 384-399. Reprinted in Group Facilitation: A Research and Applications Journal, 3, Spring 2001, pp. 67-81. UPS Pressroom. (n.d.) “UPS CHSP Committees Fact Sheet”. UPS [Internet]. Retrieved from: http://www.pressroom.ups.com/Fact+Sheets/ UPS+CHSP+Committees+Fact+Sheet. Read More