Reliance Insurance Company : Case

Case Synopsis:

The main focus of this case is to look at the decision making process involved in deciding on a four day work week schedule.

Case Facts:

1.      Reliance Insurance Company is a medium-sized regional insurance company.

2.      It specializes in automobile and homeowner’s coverage.

3.      It has recently been experimenting with a four day work week at few of the regional offices.

4.      Regional office personnel currently worked for 40-hour week.

5.      The home office suggested a four 10-hour days, with a half hour for lunch and two 15 minute coffee break in place of the current work schedule.

6.      Janet Downs has been the manager for the Seattle, Washington office for six months.

7.      She started with Reliance eight years ago as a claim adjuster.

8.      Janet is twenty-nine, single and looking forward with career with Reliance.

9.      Each regional office is open five days a week and the manager needs to schedule his/her employees.

10.  Janet is discussing about the four day work week with her assistant manager Dick Minton.

11.  Janet wants to discuss the matter with other employees but Dick thinks that won’t help in creating a solution. 

Case analysis:

From the analysis of the above case, we can conclude that Janet Downs is having problem with deciding, whether or not to experiment the four day work-week plan among her employees. After discussing the matter with her assistant manager, Dick Minton, Janet believes that she should let the group decide about the matter rather than jump to a conclusion. However, Dick believes that it won’t help in creating any type of solution if they do so.

If Janet and Dick were to imply their decision based on their discussion than it cannot be considered as a rational decision. Firstly, the decision they would make would be based on their own belief and thoughts and not on the consent of the others that would be affected by the decision. They would be committing biases and errors in their decision making process. This is because by not consulting with the others on the matter they would be having only a narrow perspective on the matter. Without the inputs of the concerned parties, they would be making decision without analyzing all the possible alternatives. This would hence, limit their scope of better understanding all the risks and uncertainties involved.

While it is true that group discussion would lead to more effective and efficient plans, it is also true that such process can be lengthy and time consuming for the organization. Decisions made by Janet and Dick would be quicker and easy to implement. It would take longer time for analyzing the pros and cons with all the employees and with differences in the opinion of each employees, it is also true that no single solution can be created for the matter. So, on one hand the decision that is made by the two would rather favor in achieving required results more quickly.

However, choosing quick decision over smart one is not always a wise decision, especially when the decision has a long term effect on the workers. In today’s world, every decision must be considerate about all the factors that it affects. Quick decisions between the manager and his/her assistant might have been acceptable in the older period but in today’s context it is not so. Employees’ job satisfaction has been one of the key reasons for a business to succeed in achieving its goal. A better motivated employee creates a better result. Hence, I believe that the situation of Janet Down calls for a group discussion.

Also, since most of the employees are either seniors or just new recruits, the implication of the four day work-week plan would rather have lesser rejection than what they might actually hope for. This is because most of the seniors would be forced into taking the new routine without any objections since their families also depend on the revenue bought in from their job. The rest of the younger staffs are just new recruits who have just recently been part of the organization. So, even a slight change in the working hours would not cause much of a ruckus for them. Even, if they are not pleased with it, there would be no shortage of the employees in the market. Hence, whether or not they implement the decision of changing the working-week, they still would be able to control most part of the working environment.      

Now when talking about the advantages and disadvantages of the four day workweek, we can see many pros and cons to it as well. Firstly, the pros can be concluded in the following points:

1.      Finishing of work more quickly.

2.      Compact schedule creates more free time for the employees.

3.      Faster results and conclusion.

4.      Might help to grab better opportunities in the market.

5.      Might motivate the employees because of lesser working days.

Secondly, the cons can be concluded in the following points:

1.      Overload of work.

2.      Decrease in workers efficiency due to workload.

3.      Tired employees cannot make the best decision and hence, result in unfavorable losses.

4.      Decrease in the quality of the work.

5.      Dissatisfied customers due to decrease in quality of the work.

6.      Most of the employees may quit the job and search for a new one.

If I was Janet then the information that I would want would be relating to the performance of the other companies who have applied the same strategy as ours. We need to evaluate the pros and cons of the project and also see if it is the most appropriate one for our company. Also, I would gather information from all my employees about the new strategy. Depending on the reply of my employees I would take my decisions.

If I was Janet, then the first thing I would like to have is the opinion of my employees. It is one of the most important factors for today’s business to success. By gathering information from my employees, I would be taking their points also into consideration before making my judgment. This would, create a sense of trust among me and my employees and would eventually yield better results. Also, about half of my employees are older than more than half of them have someone who depends on them and the rest have just completed high school. Hence, by simply taking a decision on my part without the consent of my senior and junior employees, I would not be making any rational decision. Since, my employees are either middle-aged and married or young high school graduates; it would be wise to take into consideration their say in the matter. I would follow all the steps of effective decision making and examine all the parts with careful analysis. Also, I would examine the different businesses that have implemented this strategy as well. By analyzing their performance and their progress, I would be able to draw conclusions about the impact of my decision as well. Hence, I would prefer analyzing all the possible alternatives and not being bias while making my decision.     

 

Recommendations:

The following would be the set of recommendations that I would like to give to Reliance Insurance Company.

1.      Follow the proper steps of decision making

2.      Avoid deriving conclusions using decision based on past experiences and gut feeling only.

3.       Avoid using decision biases and errors while making decisions.

4.      Since, it is unstructured, consider all the risks and uncertainties that could be involved in the decision.

5.      Use linear thinking style rather than non linear style, or rather, choose logic and reasoning over feelings and hunches.

6.      Analyze all the possible outcomes of the decisions beforehand.

7.      Consider the employees point of view as well. In today’s world, employee’s job satisfaction also plays an important role in deciding the success of the business.

8.      Analyze the performance of different companies that have applied the similar strategies and derive the pros and cons of the strategy.