Management of Ability
Introduction
After reviewing the case study for FMC Aberdeen and Green River; this author noted many differences existed between the two plants. First, Aberdeen has only one customer; employs 100 people; produces only one single product; it is fairly new, only five years old; its industry is in defense and functions without a union (Clawson, 2005).
Green River on the other hand, has over 100 customers; distributes its products world wide; employs 1,150 people; has several product lines; has several plants; has been in operation since 1948; it is in the chemical industry and employees are unionized with the United Steelworkers of America (Clawson, 2005).
Management of Ability
The key issue regarding ability is to ensure that employees have all of the abilities at their disposal to perform the tasks asked of them in an efficient and effective way. Three ways to manage ability in an organization include: a) selection; b) placement; c) training (George & Jones, 2005).
At FMC Aberdeen; the concept is that technical skills are not as important, since they can be more easily trained than those of personal, interpersonal skills and attitudes. Thus, the employee selection is a rigorous process, with only four out of 12 applicants being hired (Clawson, 2005).
Aberdeen’s fundamental work unit is the work team, which ranges between three to sixteen employees per team and handles all aspects of the plant’s work and reporting needs; as well as, scheduling, purchasing, coordination of the work with other teams and the individual team members’ performance evaluation (Clawson, 2005).
At Green River on the other hand, since Daily reorganized the facility; there are two managers for the soda ash business, one below surface and one above surface facilities; another to oversee the three new plants now under construction and one more to look after all of the service needs (Clawson, 2005).
Employee recruiting is very easy at...