Marshall’s is a large plant in the midwestern United States that processes corn into the fructose syrup used in many soft drinks. Marshall’s is a continuous processing plant, running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. There are two major components of the plant. In the wet mill, where seventy-five employees work, the corn is soaked. Then, the soaked corn moves on to the refinery (employing eighty employees), where the soggy corn is processed into fructose syrup. Marshall’s is a computerized state-of-the-art plant, and much of the work in the wet mill and refinery consists of monitoring, maintenance, cleanup, and troubleshooting. There are also thirty staff members who work in the office and in various other support positions. All the employees except the support staff work twelve-hour shifts.

Three years ago, Marshall’s instituted a “team management” system to enhance productivity in the plant and improve worker morale. The program included two types of teams. First, work teams met on a weekly basis to consider ways of improving the work process within their own portion of the plant. In addition, the plant-wide “Marshall Team” met on a monthly basis to consider decisions about issues facing the plant as a whole, such as benefit and compensation plans, company policies, and capital equipment purchases. Each work team elected one member to serve on the Marshall Team. Management at Marshall’s regarded the teams as “consultative” bodies. That is, management used team suggestions as input but retained the right to make final decisions about all plant operations.

For the first three years of the team program, the same set of people participated heavily in team meetings and the same people tended to get elected to the Marshall Team. These go-getters took their roles very seriously and liked having a voice in company decisions. However, management at Marshall’s was becoming concerned about the people who did not participate in the team program. After evaluating the problem for a while, management decided that it was a complicated issue and that there were three kinds of employees who were not participating in the team program.

First, one group of employees complained that the program led to too many meetings and had a lot of extra busywork. This group was epitomized by Shu-Chu Lim. Shu-Chu was a hard worker and was well-respected at the plant, but she was also a nononsense kind of person. When asked about participating in work teams and the Marshall Team, she said: “I don’t have time to sit around and shoot the breeze. When I’mon the job, I want to be working, not just chitchatting and passing the time.”

A second set of workers resented the fact that they had to deal with so much of their own work situation. These employees believed that management was not providing enough input and was counting on the work teams to figure everything out. For example, consider Bill Berning. Bill had lived near the Marshall’s plant all his life and liked working there because the pay was good. However, he saw his job simply as a way to earn money that he could spend on the great love of his life: motorcycles. When management started asking him to do more and more on the job, he just clammed up. After all, he argued, management was getting paid to make the decisions, not him.

Finally, a third set of employees refused to participate because they did not think their input would be listened to. In many ways, this was the group that most disturbed higher management because many of these people had participated in team activities in the past. Harvey Nelson was a prime example. When the team management system was instituted, Harvey was very active in his area’s work team and was even elected to the Marshall Team several times. However, after a couple of years, Harvey stopped participating. When asked, Harvey said: “I thought that the team idea was great at first, but then I realized that management is just going to do what it wants regardless of what we say. I can live with autocratic managers— I just don’t want them to make me wake up early for a team meeting and then ignore what I have to say. If the teams are just window-dressing, it’s not worth it to me.”

Marshall’s wants to have a team management system that really works, and they know that they need to get more participation in order to have this happen. However, they’ve now realized that the problem is more complex than they realized at first. You have been called in as a consultant to help them fix their program. What kind of suggestions will you make?

What changes would you make in the team management system at Marshall’s that would increase participation? What changes would you make to enhance the effective use of human resources at Marshall’s? How would you institute these changes and communicate them to employees?