Organisational Psychology

21 Pages 5257 Words

THE SWEATSHOP

INTRODUCTION

The Sweatshop is a clothing company, which started in 1994. It is assumed that the owner/managing director Susan Ropati had experience in the clothing industry, however, may not have performed at senior management level before. Susan lacks experience in management and appears to have built her company based on her personal values, goals and beliefs rather than on a theoretical business model. The company appears to be rapidly growing which has precipitated a sudden change in its’ existing day to day running.

Analysis of the Sweatshop case study identifies a number of problem areas. From the onset it appears that the owner/managing director, Susan Ropati has aligned her own personal and professional goals to those of her employees. Susan has attempted to employ people whom she believes share her dreams and values rather than by looking at skill and experience bases. This has hugely influenced the culture within the company and impacted negatively at times. The culture of the company is driven solely by its owner/managing director, Susan Ropati. There appears to be a strong need to achieve, high expectations, and intense drive in self-discipline. Susan appears to be autocratic in her dealings with her employees, which has led to a general culture of inequity.


Secondly, there appears to be no formal performance management system in place. Objectives, goals, and performance plans have been developed with no consultation to the individual employees they target which has led to employees of the Sweatshop not knowing what their key performance indictors are and what standards they must adhere to. With the implementation of a new pay-for-performance system there has been no review of job descriptions, no consultation with subject matter experts in regards to key performance indictors of each job and no monitoring of performance progress over time to ensure targets are being met and bonuses...