Milestone 2
"Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in Good Times and Bad,"
Erin O'Reilly
Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant, a formerly successful manufacturing plant since 1948, has
developed detrimental organizational flaws. These flaws have contributed to poor employee
motivation, performance and productivity across the plant leading to more costly short term fixes
and need to be remedied from a human behavioral aspect. By exploring the root causes of the
flaws then it can be both corrected in the present and prevented from reoccurring in the future.
The creation of the "Scanlon Bonus Plan (Beer, 2008) was the initial triggering event
that created the cracks within the organization. While designed to be a reward system for
employees to perform and exceed the standards set for them, employees began to expect the
bonuses as part of their standard compensation package for the bare minimum of work. This
contributed to the plan deteriorating and employees mistrusting the management/employer. With
the level of trust reaching low levels the morale, motivation and sense of united team dissipated
and this resulted in the production levels being greatly devastated and of subpar standards
Motivation of the employees dropped to a level where average routine daily tasks were
not being completed or completed to substandard levels that caused dangerous quality levels that
led to additional costs for supplies and expedited products from other facilities. "Motivation is
also a complex combination of psychological forces that either attract an employee or push an
employee to disengage. When an employee feels rewarded (either monetarily or with verbal
recognition), it is a powerful force to repeat the behavior that caused the desired reaction. The
three drivers include achievement motivation, affiliation motivation, and power" (Newstrom,
2015). In this case the achievements of the bonuses were no longer affective and the power the
employees felt in being able to unite to better improve the workplace had deteriorated with the
Milestone 2
"Engstrom Auto Mirror Plant: Motivating in Good Times and Bad,"
Erin O'Reilly
committees. The employees were being viewed by the plant manager using a Theory X approach
once the Scanlon plan no longer produced results.
Introduced broadly by Douglas McGregor in the 1960's, Theory X and Theory Y talk
about two different viewpoints on how organizations function. Theory X is an authoritarian style
and Theory Y is a more participative style. Theory X style "managers assume that workers are
lazy, will avoid responsibility, and prefer to just get by. Theory X assumptions believe that
workers must be controlled and threatened with punishment"(Arslan 2013). Comparatively
"Theory Y managers as those that hold assumptions that workers care about the organization,
will seek responsibility, and exercise self-control" (Arslan 2013). Since the plant management
believe the employees are lazy and that simple rewards like praise would motivational, the
management almost forced to coerce, control, and threaten employees to obtain satisfactory
performance (Newstrom, 2015). This behavior on behalf of management would need to be
changed to a more Theory Y approach to better rectify the situation and put th