BUS603: Managing People

In 2008 (compared to 2006) the number of employees who can strongly identify the values and objectives of the company increased by 13%. However, even one third of the respondents are not sure how they should evaluate this statement, therefore a conclusion can be made that while changes happen in the company, values and objectives are not explicitly declared, explained, or announced. In-depth interviews confirm this, too. Average assessment of the statement in points shows that in 2008 employees are more aware about values and objectives of the company than in 2006: accordingly 3.2 points compared to 3.5 points in 5 point scale.

In the in-depth interviews such company values as high quality and many years of furniture manufacturing experience, traditions, as well as the union care about the company staff have been named; objectives of the company are related to the growth of sales and long-term contracts.

In 2008, no less than 75.5% of workers pointed out that the company paid great attention to the products quality assurance (this was also mentioned during the in-depth interviews while talking about company values). Average assessment of the statement in points increased from 3.5 points in 2006 to 3.9 points in 2008. As the in-depth interviews revealed, this change was due to the fact that the company had taken actions to improve the quality of production, because in summer of 2007 about 50% of the entire production had waster, the company received complaints about the production from the customers as well. During the research period the head of the quality department was changed, quality controllers began to check product's quality more rigorously and actively, they also began to monitor the output process and possible reasons of defect, employees who were making a lot of defects began to receive penalties. Those measures helped to improve the quality of products.