Case Study- Biscuits and Skill: Biscuit Making in Britain and Germany
This is taken from a study of biscuit manufacture in ten (10) British and eight (8) German firms.
The type of biscuits produced varied greatly between the two (2) countries, largely owing to national tastes and demand. In Britain demand concentrated on relatively basic biscuits: either plan or with simple coating of chocolate, cream or jam. In Germany, there was a much higher demand for decorated and multi-textured products (soft biscuits with jam filling in chocolate cases or layered variegated biscuits). Since this affected the type of biscuits each firm produced, it was difficult to measure and compare output and productivity between the British and German factories.
An examination of crude output figures indicated that at the British factories employees were 25 percent more productive than German employees largely because British firms produced large quantities of simple low quality biscuits. However, when productivity figures were adjusted to consider quality, the German factories demonstrated that employees were 40 percent more productive per employee per hour.
Research revealed that 90 percent of the German employees were craft worker-trained bakers and could work in all the main areas of baking operations including mixing, biscuit-forming, oven control and machine maintenance. The result was the specialization of work and three (3) person teams could be responsible for at least two (2) oven lines simultaneously. In German firms, employees were able to specialize in areas that added value to the final product. For instance, factory staff included highly qualified maintenance persons who were able to undertake regular maintenance work, persons even worked with supervisors to customize equipment and increase productivity and were skilled enough to treat with machine breakdown.
Whereas in Britain, no process workers and few supervisors were vocationally trained. As a result, each individual production line needed a three (3) person team to cover mixing and baking since workers were narrowly trained and needed to stick to their own jobs. Few firms had any regular system of machine maintenance while work was conducted on a 24 hour shift basis and machine breakdown was frequent requiring manual labour to be directed to areas as wrapping and packaging. This was further worsen by the workers not being skilled enough to anticipate or treat with machine breakdowns.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Shirley’s Biscuits a British Manufacturer has decided to expand into the German market to sell gourmet biscuits in order to increase the company’s market share and profits. As the Vice President, Human Resource Management you play an important role in the realization of this strategic plan.
Using the information from theCase Study as well as theRoles of HRM. Discuss the areas in HRM you would focus on and why?