Chapter 11 Assignment

Topic: Organizational Controls

Instructions
The assignment for Chapter 11 is a short assignment. Check the course schedule for the due date. Case and questions. Read the case below and answer the four questions at the end of the case. The story is somewhat old, so dont focus on the pay. However, the issues are very current and relate to good and bad ways to control employee output and activities. Assignment Length. This paper should be at least 2 double-spaced pages. Use one-inch margins and Times Roman 12-point font. Be sure to use the spell check and grammar check options on your word processing software. I want the assignment to have no spelling errors or grammatical errors. Good luck.

Mr. Eden Profits from Watching His Workers Every Move

Source: Wall Street Journal, December 1, 1994, p. A11 Ron Edens runs a company called Electronic Banking Systems, Inc. Located outside Baltimore, Maryland, EBS provides outsourcing clerical services. It handles the clerical tasks involved in processing donations for groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Green peace, and the National Organization for Women. Most of Edens employees earn $7 an hour or less doing repetitive tasks such as opening envelopes or recording donation data on a computer. Ron Edens is especially proud of the control system he has created to closely monitor his employees. Walking around EBS, you see long lines of people sitting at spartan desks, slitting open envelopes, sorting contents, and filling out control cards that record how many letters they have opened and how long it has taken them. These letter openers must process three envelopes a minute. Nearby, other workers tap keyboards, keeping pace with a quota that demands 8,500 strokes an hour. Jobs are highly specialized and involve extensive repetition. Letter openers only open envelopes and sort contents. Workers in the audit department just compute figures. Data-entry clerks punch in the information that the others have collected. The workroom is silent. Talking is forbidden. The windows are covered. Coffee mugs, personal photos, and other adornments are barred from the workers desks. Edens wants to remove anything that might distract his workers from the job at hand. For example, commenting on the blocked windows, Edens says, I dont want them looking out its distracting. Theyll make mistakes. In his office upstairs, Edens sits before a TV monitor that flashes images from eight cameras posted throughout the plant. Theres a little bit of Sneaky Pete to it, he admits, using a remote control to zoom in on a document atop a workers desk. I can basically read that and figure out how someones day is going. In addition, his systems software generates daily reports recording the precise number of keystrokes tapped by each data-entry worker and the number of errors made by each worker.

The work floor at EBS resembles an enormous classroom in the throes of exam period. Desks point toward the front, where a manager keeps watch from a raised platform. Other supervisors are positioned toward the back of the room. If you want to watch someone, Edens explains, its easier from behind because they dont know youre watching. Theres also a black globe hanging from the ceiling, in which cameras are positioned. At EBS, workers handle thousands of dollars in checks and cash. Thats one reasons, Edens says, for the cameras. It can help deter would-be thieves. But Edens concedes that tight observation also helps EBS monitor productivity and weed out workers who dont keep up. There are multiple uses, Edens says of surveillance. Edens is unapologetic about his control system, including the rule that forbids all talk unrelated to the completion of each task. Im not paying people to chat. Im paying them to open envelopes, he says. Edens offers considerable insight into his philosophy of management when he says, We dont ask these people to think the machines think for them. They dont have to make decisions.

Answer the following questions:

1. What type(s) of controls is(are) Mr. Edens using to ensure high worker productivity? Give examples and label the controls. As you label the controls, use the types of controls discussed in the chapter. Remember, in most assignments you are showing that you can take material from the textbook and apply it. 2. What are the advantages of Mr. Edens control system? 3. What are the disadvantages of Mr. Edens control system? 4. What ethical issues, if any, are you concerned about at EBS and why?