Case Study: Ancol Corporation

Paul Sims was delighted when Ancol Corporation offered him the job of manager at its Lexington,
Kentucky plant Sims was happy enough managing a small metal stamping plant with another company but
the in!itation to apply for the plant manager job at one of the leading metal fabrication companies was
irresistible Although the Lexington plant was the smallest of Ancol"s #$ operations, the plant manager
position was a !aluable first step in a promising career
%ne of Sims"first obser!ations at Ancol"s Lexington plant was that relations between employees and
management were strained &aking a page from a recent executi!e seminar he had attended on building trust
in the workplace, Sims ordered the remo!al of all time clocks from the plant 'nstead, the plant would assume
that employees had put in their full shift &his symbolic gesture, he belie!ed, would establish a new le!el of
credibility and strengthen relations between management and employees at the site
'nitially, the ($) production employees at the Lexington plant appreciated their new freedom &hey
felt respected and saw this gesture as a sign of positi!e change from the new plant manager &wo months
later* howe!er, problems started to appear A few people began showing up late, lea!ing early, or taking
extended lunch breaks Although this represented only about $ percent of the employees, others found the
situation unfair +oreo!er, the increased absenteeism le!els were beginning to ha!e a noticeable effect on
plant producti!ity &he problem had to be managed
Sims asked super!isors to obser!e and record when the employees came or went and to discuss
attendance problems with those abusing their pri!ileges ,ut the super!isors had no pre!ious experience
keeping attendance and many lacked the necessary interpersonal skills to discuss the matter with subordinates
-mployees resented the reprimands, so relations with super!isors deteriorated &he additional responsibility
of keeping track of attendance also made it difficult for super!isors to complete their other responsibilities
After just a few months, Ancol found it necessary to add another super!isor position and reduce the number of
employees assigned to each super!isor
,ut the problems did not end there .ithout time clocks, the payroll department could not deduct pay
for the amount of time that employees were late 'nstead, a letter of reprimand was placed in the employee"s
personnel file /owe!er, this re0uired yet more time and additional skills from the super!isors -mployees
did not want these letters to become a permanent record, so they filed grie!ances with their labor union &he
number of grie!ances doubled o!er six months, re0uiring e!en more time for union officials and super!isors
to handle these disputes
1ine months after remo!ing the time clocks, Paul Sims met with union officials, who agreed that it
would be better to put the time clocks back in -mployee2management relations had deteriorated below the
le!el when Sims had started Super!isors were o!erworked Producti!ity had dropped due to poorer
attendance records and increased administrati!e workloads
A couple of months after the time clocks were put back in place Sims attended an operations meeting
at Ancol"s head0uarters in Cincinnati 3uring lunch, Sims described the time clock incident to Liam 4ackson,
Ancol"s plant manager in Portland, %regon 4ackson looked surprised, then chuckled /e explained that the
pre!ious manager at his plant had done something like that with similar conse0uences six or se!en years
earlier &he manager had left some time ago, but 4ackson heard about the earlier time clock incident from a
super!isor during a recent retirement party
5' guess it"s not 0uite like lightning striking the same place twice,6 said Sims to 4ackson ,ut it sure
feels like it6