Sample Solution to Kalosha Problem Set

Sample Solution to Kalosha Problem Set

(Note: this is not intended to represent the "right" answer to this case. In fact, several approaches are reasonable; this is intended as an example of one possible approach.)

Summary This report describes the results of a questionnaire survey completed by 122 members of the managerial, technical and sales staff of Kalosha Industries. Summary statistics for the answers to the eleven questions appear in Table 1 at the end of this report.

Recommendations

• Find ways to give more employees a role in budgetary decision making. It would appear that this would increase the likelihood that employees would turn down a higher paying job from another organization to stay with Kalosha.
• Explore different perceptions between men and women; take action to correct any unfair discrepancies. There are significant differences between the male and female employees in this study with respect to some measures of satisfaction.
• Identify job characteristics that make work enjoyable (other than high income). Our results suggest that the most important job characteristic for Kalosha's employees is "enjoying the work", but further research is needed to make this finding actionable.

Who Are the Employees? The average worker is in his/her late 30s, but employees ranged in age from 20 to 64 (Figure 1). The employees surveyed have worked for the company about 8 years on the average, but these data are skewed. In fact, fewer than 50% of the employees surveyed have worked for Kalosha more than five years (Figure 2).[1]

Figure 1. Age of Employees / Figure 2. Years of Service

There were 70 men surveyed and 52 women, which suggests that the proportion of women in the organization is about 43% (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Gender of Employees

How do the Employees Feel? The employees seem to be well satisfied generally (Figure 4). The majority of employees expresses some degree of pride in working for Kalosha (Figure 9) and describes relations between their coworkers and colleagues to be good or very good.

Figure 4. Employee satisfaction. / Figure 5. Important job characteristics.
Figure 6. Likelihood of promotion. / Figure 7. Participation in decisions.
Figure 8. Participation in budgets. / Figure 9. Employee pride.
Figure 10. Likelihood of turning down other job / Figure 11. Relations between coworkers.

However there is some cause for concern with respect to employee loyalty; most workers would be unlikely to turn down a higher paying job from another organization to stay with Kalosha.

If management is interested in enhancing the likelihood that employees would turn down other offers, the results illustrated in Figure 5 suggest that the most important job characteristic for Kalosha's employees is "enjoying the work". More research is needed to find out what exactly makes the work enjoyable, but this finding suggests that some job characteristics are more important than high income. One possible direction to pursue is to give more employees a role in budgetary decision making; fully 45% of employees surveyed reported having no participation in budgetary decisions (Figure 8).

In addition, there is evidence to suggest that there are significant differences between male and female employees with respect to some measures of satisfaction (Figure 12). On the question "As a part of your job, do you take part in budgetary decisions?", most male employees answered "yes", while most females answered "no". On the question "In general, how would you describe relations in your workplace between coworkers and colleagues?", only 10% of males answered "so so" or "bad", compared with 29% of females. This suggests that management needs to explore the different perceptions between men and women in the workplace and take action to correct any unfair discrepancies.

Figure 12. Gender differences.
Mean / Median / Mode / Min. / Max. / St. Dev. / Range
Age (years) / 39.1 / 38 / 39 / 20 / 64 / 10.43 / 44
Gender
(male = 1, female = 2) / 1.43 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 2 / 0.5 / 1
Job Satisfaction
(1 = Very Satisfied, 5 = Very Dissatisfied) / 1.63 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 4 / 0.83 / 3
Years of Service / 8.22 / 5 / 1 / 0.08 / 52.25 / 8.98 / 52.17
How likely to be promoted in next 5 years?
(1 = very likely, 5 = very unlikely) / 3.29 / 4 / 5 / 1 / 5 / 1.53 / 4
Does your job allow you to make decisions affecting your work? (1 = always, 4 = never) / 2.28 / 2 / 2 / 1 / 4 / 0.73 / 3
Do you participate in budgetary decisions?
(1= yes, 2 = no) / 1.45 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 2 / 0.5 / 1
How proud are you to work for Kalosha?
(1 = very proud, 4 = not at all proud) / 1.79 / 2 / 2 / 1 / 4 / 0.61 / 3
Turn down a better-paying job to stay at Kalosha? (1 = very likely, 5 = very unlikely) / 3.25 / 4 / 4 / 1 / 5 / 1.33 / 4
Describe relations among coworkers and colleagues. (1 = very good, 5 = very bad) / 1.79 / 2 / 1 / 1 / 4 / 0.79 / 3

Table 1. Summary statistics.

Managerial Statistics1Prof. Juran

[1] Note that one employee reported being 62 years old and having worked for Kalosha for more than 52 years, suggesting that this person was employed at Kalosha before his tenth birthday. This is most likely an erroneous response; the years of service datum from this employee was excluded from this report.