RL Wolfe Case: Self-Directed Teams

The self-directed team model was an innovative concept for many participants, and not surprisingly, there was a difficult transition period. On-the-job training was provided but there was confusion about roles in some areas and tension between line operators and technicians, despite the fact that both positions had similar dual capabilities. Some workers had to be let go entirely because of their refusal to participate. As noted by Mello (2014), although an employee may be a good fit for the organization in terms of his or her skills, it is also important that the employee be a good fit for the organization’s culture (p.202). Employees were initially hired with an expectation that workplace rules and governances would be traditional and regimented and when RL Wolfe decided to make a cultural as well as a procedural change, perhaps inevitably there was a great deal of resistance.

Areas of controversy also remained given that while self-directed teams might seem to be democratic in theory, they were not always seen as fair to workers. Employees complained that performance reviews were unfair because managers did not know them particularly well. High turnover created a lack of team unity and workers demanded greater control over their hours, pay, overtime, and other benefits, which managers were reluctant to give. In short, workers often felt that they were doing more work because of the greater autonomy in a way that benefited management but not necessarily their own interests. Xerox Europe and Costco are examples of organizations which have gained worker loyalty by making worker development a high priority (Mello, 2014, p. 203). RL Wolfe, although it clearly wished to empower workers with a greater sense of ownership and investment over their labor, experienced unforeseen obstacles because of a perception that it still was not truly committed to developing its workers; it also did not take into consideration varying levels of commitment and knowledge amongst workers to its emerging model.

References

Collins, D. & Garvin, E. (2009). RL Wolfe: Implementing self-directed teams. Harvard Business School Case Study. Cambridge, MA.

Mello, J. (2014). Strategic human resource management, (4th ed). Mason, OH: South-Western College Publishing.