I’m on this new project for a manufacturer of household goods and after a few weeks, the partners on this project have been so happy because their manufacturing team has been giving him less attitude and the team meetings have been more productive. He believes I’ve unlocked a capital resource skill: managing their immigrant floor workers. I wish I could take credit but the truth is I didn’t do anything with the immigrant workers. I was actually managing them, the leaders.
In the first few days, the partners briefed me about their team on the floor being often combative or passive and not contributing or showing up to meetings. They have missed multiple production schedules. Argumentative with carriers and suppliers. I also reviewed the concerning large number of incident reports. The company hasn’t met their quota for 2.5 months now with significant turnover on their production line, and the tension has mostly sat at the supervisor and middle management level where two have resigned. Majority of the workers on the floor were hispanic. Mostly Mexican, Peruvian, Colombian. My beginner level Spanish lead my leadership team believe I’ve tapped into their “local nature” However after a 45 days, there were some alarming discoveries:
I provided a report to the partners and presented along with new billable terms. They disagreed with my findings and were upset that I wanted more money than what we originally spoke. I explained to them that the scope has changed. I wasn’t just dealing with floor operations efficiency; I need to now implement policy and training in top and bottom management along with people on the floor. My Director explained I made a mistake here. I shouldn’t have been proactive on the billing. I should have utilized the allocated hours and ask for more at the end while working through my new plan, and he stressed that I should never place blame at the leadership even if it’s true.
This is what’s funny about entering into a business as a worker consultant and dealing with leadership teams as clients. Sometimes they will see you deliver value in an astonishing way when it’s just par for the course. Other times, they think you’re ripping them off and they demand to speak to your manager. Lesson learned.