New Factory Worker This Case

¶ … New Factory Worker This case study entitled "The New Factor Worker" acts as a profound challenge to the conventional image of the American factory worker as a man or woman merely working with his or her hands, rather than with his or her head.

Although the worker in question, Fred Price, is described as preferring a hands-on work environment, hence his choice of a vocationally oriented career path in high school, as opposed to a college preparatory track, it is also clear that the traditional nature of factory jobs have changed since the days of assembly plants and interchangeable parts.

Even factory jobs that require manual labor demand workers who can do more than complete merely task-based skills, job procedures learned merely by rote that go according to a predetermined plan, as if the worker was an automaton. Rather, even vocationally-based jobs for the new factory worker are now competency based, drawing upon worker's creative and intellectual skills.

Clearly, Fred Price has intellectual as well as technical skills, as is evidenced by his experimental tinkering with his father's old Ford, that are creative as well as merely based upon the performing of rote tasks. Now Fred can use what he has learned on the job in a managerial capacity, as well as a task capacity. Fred's 'street smarts' are put to good use on the workplace floor, given his creation of a computer rigged up to a milling machine.

Other employers are using the personal experience of so-called lower level employees to improve inventory tallies and increase workflow. The employer as well as the employee benefits from this redistribution of responsibilities, as people who know the work from the ground up can often implement the most effective and efficient changes and command the respect as managers of their former fellow employees. Question Fred Price's employer was lucky to find such an intelligent and willing employee who was so adaptable to new tasks.

But with the new demands of the workplace, other employers, depending on the complexity of the work and the technology involved, might find themselves behooved to encourage employees to seek out additional college or technical qualifications, and recompense them for these efforts. Employers, so they have workers who are able to contribute to inventory, workflow analysis, and project management may need to add education to the employee's work schedule, allowing for more flexible times for employees seeking college degrees, or simply soliciting teachers for on-site course education.

High schools may also need to change their curriculum, and community colleges may need to expand their enrollment. Even from the company's perspective, workers can no longer afford not to be learning all of the time, and need to be more flexible and adaptable, with a thinking eye as well as a performing hand even when on the factory floor. Question Price flourished in the newly cutthroat environment, earning a promotion and more pay.

He had underused competencies in a formerly task-based workplace that were now being effectively drawn upon by his employer. Of.