silo mentality - sacking truck drivers

 
… how you measure value dictates its value …

It must have been about 10 years ago. An Operations Manager finally decided he had sufficient justification to sack his ‘pet hate’ employee – one of his truck drivers.   

The only thing stopping him was the annoying fact that the Sales Manager had told the Managing Director some time ago that this particular driver was very popular with one of their most difficult customers.

The Sales Manager heard of the Operations Manager’s intention and decided to intervene via the Managing Director,

"From the sales/customer relations point of view, he (driver) is great with customers.  He's helpful, on time, the order is always correct, he is pleasant with everyone.  He is the one driver that customers mention spontaneously when we speak with them. The irony is that there is nothing the guy seems able to do to satisfy his boss [Operations Manager]."

The Operations Manager's new concern?

That his wayward truck driver was seen working on someone else's truck – on company time. In his view: no further details necessary.

His secondary concerns?

The driver was always questioning; deliberately slow with his paperwork. The Operations Manager was convinced that the driver was provoking him by wasting company time.

Any unexpressed concerns?

Operations Department staff spoke "off the record". There was a general belief that it didn't help that the driver spoke English as a second language.  He was described as a private man of strong opinions and morals; a man of pride who refused to bow to "authority" because it was expected.

Apparently our driver did the unheard of and talked back to the Operations Manager.  He asked intelligent questions of decisions; even had been known to make suggestions on improving Despatch procedures … (gasp, horror)

 

Two managers with completely different views of one employee's work performance…

 

By asking some simple questions, the issue soon became clear.

Of the driver,

• Why was he working on someone else's truck that day?
• Why did he feel it necessary to painstakingly check orders and paperwork before commencing his deliveries?

Of the Operations Manager,

• If there were sound reasons for both why he was working on someone else's truck that day, and for the thoroughness of his pre-delivery preparation - are there any other grounds for dissatisfaction with the driver's performance?

Of the Sales Manager,

• What does this truck driver do that the difficult customer likes so much?
• What does he do better than, or more of, than other drivers?

 

Not surprisingly, the driver had a very different view of his work performance to that of the Operations Manager.

Question 1:

Yes, guilty as charged. He had been helping to unload someone else's truck on company time.

But, for him, it had been the sensible thing to do.  He had been “caught” helping out at a customer's depot. The customer had one truck loading bay and until an earlier delivery was out of the way, our driver had to wait. They appreciated his help, he said, and suggested I talk to them to confirm what he had said.   Then shook his head stating that all the Operations Manager had to do was ask ...

I didn't bother as I didn’t think there was the slightest need to do so… so much for the "unloading someone else’s truck" incident.

Question 2:

Why was the driver so pedantic in the way he checked orders and paperwork as deliveries were loaded onto his truck?

He laughed.

"Simple,” he said. "There are mistakes made in the preparation of orders and in particular in the preparation of the paperwork. But I think it better to fix them before I leave, rather than have our customers complain and send the papers all back again. Why should our customers have to fix our mistakes?"

Why indeed?

A quick check with the Sales as well as the Finance Departments confirmed there were some ongoing problems originating either in Despatch or elsewhere within the factory that ended up at Despatch.

The story had taken a 180° turn.

No, the driver was not sacked.    Anything but. 

The Managing Director made 2 quick decisions.

Firstly, he made it a priority to attend the next Operations staff meeting.

In front of the Operation Manager and Operations team, the Managing Director praised the driver for the continuing quality of service he, the driver, was providing the whole company, not just Operations by,

• helping to maintain excellent relationships with customers, and in particular with the difficult customer,
• minimising Finance Department work by correcting administrative errors before they were "inflicted" on customers.

The Sales Manager later told me that the difficult customer had started using the driver to pass sales orders back to the Sales Department. They preferred dealing with the driver, knew what they needed to order, and didn't require any additional ‘selling’ from a sales rep…

The Sales Manager had been smart enough to recognise a natural sales conduit and had encouraged the driver accordingly.

 

An irony really. One of the company's best employees on the verge of being sacked because one manager thought only in ‘silo’ terms regarding the needs of his department, rather than the overall needs of the company.

The last I saw of the Operations Manager was him busily responding to the results of the Managing Director's second decision: an overdue and necessary review of the work flows and procedures in Despatch and the factory.

Apparently, the Managing Director had had enough of the errors and customer complaints, and the inadequate promises to fix them.

Cheers
Nic