Customer satisfaction is not the means to achieving a certain goalit is the goal.
You Make the CallSituation 3
The owner of a small food products company was confronted with an inventory control
problem involving differences of opinion among his subordinates. His accountant, with
the concurrence of his general manager, had decided to “put some teeth” into the
inventory control system by deducting inventory shortages from the pay of route drivers
who distributed the firm’s products to stores in their respective territories. Each driver
was considered responsible for the inventory on his or her truck.
When the first ‘short” paychecks arrived, drivers were angry. Sharing their concern,
their immediate supervisor, the regional manager, first went to the general manager and
then, getting no satisfaction there, appealed to the owner. The regional manager argued
that there was no question about the honesty of the drivers. He said that he personally
had created the inventory control system the company was using, and he admitted that
the system was complicated and susceptible to clerical mistakes by the driver and by
the office. He pointed out that the system had never been studied by the general
manager or the accountant, and he maintained that it was ethically wrong to make
deductions from the small salaries of honest drivers for simple record-keeping errors.
Question 1 What is wrong, if anything, with the general manager’s approach to making
sure that drivers do not steal or act carelessly? Is some method of enforcement
necessary to ensure careful adherence to the inventory control system?
Question 2 Is it wrong to deduct from drivers’ paychecks shortages documented by