What are the challenges Yabe is facing?
High employee turnover
How would you characterize the key operational
challenges facing Tessei?
To your mind, what caused them?
What would you, if you were Yabe, do to
overcome them?
1.
2. Operational mistakes including crews failing to finish their work in seven minutes)
3. Complaints from customers about hygiene and forgotten items not returned.
4. Safety of the employees (sharp increase of on-the-job accidents)
5. Company revenue declined by 12% although number of cars cleaned had increase by the same
percentage
Unrealistically high standards
- They were required to privately deviate from the protocol because it was impossible to accomplish
all steps in 7 minutes
Flexibility is highly discouraged
- Some employees mentioned their intent to help their coworkers and customers but were strictly
limited to do what their contract says as instructed by their managers
- Their managers will scold and yell at them because the slightest deviation from the protocol is not
tolerated.
Cutting costs by hiring 20-30 part time employees per month
- Some employees mentioned that they have much younger and less experienced people and find it
challenging on how to train and let them work.
- Many were unable to endure the hard work
1. Cost cuts but higher standards and demands
a. Employees are expected to do more (increasing demands) while given lesser resources (no
formal training, strict allocations on soaps and other cleaning materials, they don’t have
enough salary since most of them are part-time workers, there were more disadvantages
than benefits: job was not rewarding, low employee morale)
2. Corporate culture
a. The managers are focused solely on meeting the standards. Managers are very
intimidating and are not kind in pointing out errors.
b. No opportunity for employees to address pressing issues or even simply giving feedback
3. Discrimination and stigma on cleaning jobs
a. Employees overhearing customers
1. Increase employees’ morale by making them feel that they are employees of Tessei rather than as
cleaners only.
a. Improve company benefits to retain existing regular employees (provide hazard pay, meal
allowance, in-house trainings, provide train passes as incentives, etc.)
b. Reduce part-time employees. Hire more full time workers to give them job security and
make it attractive for them to stay at Tessei. This will lower the employee turnover
c. Wear their uniforms with a twist. (Summer time, wear hawaiian shirts, wear red shirts or
with heart designs on Valentine’s Day, Christmas, wear Santa Hats)

Are there characteristics that remind you of
challenges you face in your own organization?
2. Recognize employee performance and appreciate flexibility. Allow employees to help each other
to finish the task/cleaning. Collaborative work leads to a positive work rather than being afraid to
commit mistakes and being scolded. This will minimize or address the on-the-job accidents, if they
are allowed to help each other on other tasks like the manual rotation of seats. Allow employees
to share their insights/ideas/feedbacks with their senior staff to cut the intimidating culture of
their superiors/seniors.
3. Campaign to rebrand or change the bad perception working at Tessei. This campaign will show
how important the work of the Tessei team is in making sure that the customer satisfaction as a
priority and will have the best experience while taking the train.
1. Challenges on limited manpower and high productivity expectations are apparent in our
organization. Although these challenges persist, there have been more opportunities in levelling
off of the management’s standards vs. the realistic performance of the company
2. Challenges on limited skilled employee and management is asking for more deliverables.