"Shop-Floor" Mentality
Discussion
Went through three lots of redundancies in my workplace 2008-late 2009(kept my job thankfully).We decided to take a pay cut(for a few months of 10% accross the board) and not have any wage increase for two years.When things started picking up again last year the company gave each of us a three hundred pound bonus as a thank you for going the "extra mile".Shop floor staff is about 140
fesuvious said:
I've spoken to a number of business owners in b'ham who, for any relatively low paid position will automatically throw in the bin any CV's from ex Rover workers.
Sad, but true
There's a company Mrstheboy once worked for who won't take any candidates from the nearby Westland factory, I suspect for the same reasons.Sad, but true
Johnnytheboy said:
fesuvious said:
I've spoken to a number of business owners in b'ham who, for any relatively low paid position will automatically throw in the bin any CV's from ex Rover workers.
Sad, but true
There's a company Mrstheboy once worked for who won't take any candidates from the nearby Westland factory, I suspect for the same reasons.Sad, but true
It's better for a certain kind of employee who just wants to get things done and will happily go straight to the MD/owner, but many lower level workers aren't used to speaking up and become introverted and resentful, especially if the MD/owner doesn't make themselves easily available.
944fan said:
I recently heard someone at work refer to a colleage as having a "shop-floor" mentality.
I am being thick here, but WTF does that mean?
can't see beyond short term targets I am being thick here, but WTF does that mean?
cannot see themselves and their role as a part of the wider organisation
subscribes to 'us and them'
also where there is a difference between Hourly paid and (salaried)'Staff' in terms of roles and responsibilities, the attitudes of the individual are more aligned with the hourly paid than with the salaried staff.
ApexJimi said:
I agree Don, but equally, to play devil's advocate - there isn't always scope for promotion.
and even when there is there is often a glass ceiling ... a large food processing firm I am aware of used to be proud to boast of their policy of 'promoting from within' ... and up to a point yes they did
they rarely advertised externally for Machine operators, Work based trainers, OC/QA assistants and team leader roles ... but very few ofthe 'staff' Managers came from the shop floor and the only real route between the workers and management was on the engineering side where some ofthe 'factory engineers' and some of the Project Engineers had come from the tools rather than from outside ...
mph1977 said:
ApexJimi said:
I agree Don, but equally, to play devil's advocate - there isn't always scope for promotion.
and even when there is there is often a glass ceiling ... a large food processing firm I am aware of used to be proud to boast of their policy of 'promoting from within' ... and up to a point yes they did
they rarely advertised externally for Machine operators, Work based trainers, OC/QA assistants and team leader roles ... but very few ofthe 'staff' Managers came from the shop floor and the only real route between the workers and management was on the engineering side where some ofthe 'factory engineers' and some of the Project Engineers had come from the tools rather than from outside ...
Our site and to a certain extent our other sites, has a definite 'us and them' mentality.
Unite doesn't help matters. At the slightest hint of giving more work out to the shop floor, the 'get the union in' calls start being bandied about.
An informal knees up was organised by one of the salesmen last christmas. It ended up as just office staff, as most of the shop floor stated, 'I'm not going out wi them c*nts'
These aren't minimum wage employess either, they are on 23-24k.
Unite doesn't help matters. At the slightest hint of giving more work out to the shop floor, the 'get the union in' calls start being bandied about.
An informal knees up was organised by one of the salesmen last christmas. It ended up as just office staff, as most of the shop floor stated, 'I'm not going out wi them c*nts'
These aren't minimum wage employess either, they are on 23-24k.
marksx said:
An informal knees up was organised by one of the salesmen last christmas. It ended up as just office staff, as most of the shop floor stated, 'I'm not going out wi them c*nts'
Probably a good thing - I reckon every "all hands" Christmas Party I've been to has ended up in a massive fight.Lots of examples so far of the 'them and us' attitutde and the shopfloor mentality, with perhaps the majority feeling that the shopfloor workers are to blame for it?
I think it would be more valuable to delve into the reasons for these attitudes, and perhaps to suggest what can be done to eradicate them.
I think that part of the problem is that people who work machines etc aren't necessarily very imaginative or particularly well educated, and that the way they think tends to be narrower and less open to change, whereas the 'office staff' for want of a better expression can give the impression in many subtle or more obvious ways of being at least 'different' and maybe 'better' than the manual workers.
I understand that many Japanese industries have done a lot to break down the barriers by having uniforms for all the staff, and that everybody uses the same canteens and other facilities. I'm not sure it would do the trick here but it might be a step in the right direction?
I think it would be more valuable to delve into the reasons for these attitudes, and perhaps to suggest what can be done to eradicate them.
I think that part of the problem is that people who work machines etc aren't necessarily very imaginative or particularly well educated, and that the way they think tends to be narrower and less open to change, whereas the 'office staff' for want of a better expression can give the impression in many subtle or more obvious ways of being at least 'different' and maybe 'better' than the manual workers.
I understand that many Japanese industries have done a lot to break down the barriers by having uniforms for all the staff, and that everybody uses the same canteens and other facilities. I'm not sure it would do the trick here but it might be a step in the right direction?
Deva Link said:
marksx said:
An informal knees up was organised by one of the salesmen last christmas. It ended up as just office staff, as most of the shop floor stated, 'I'm not going out wi them c*nts'
Probably a good thing - I reckon every "all hands" Christmas Party I've been to has ended up in a massive fight.
singlecoil said:
I understand that many Japanese industries have done a lot to break down the barriers by having uniforms for all the staff, and that everybody uses the same canteens and other facilities. I'm not sure it would do the trick here but it might be a step in the right direction?
Surely we don't still have companies with "managers restaurants" separate from the staff canteen.ffc said:
singlecoil said:
I understand that many Japanese industries have done a lot to break down the barriers by having uniforms for all the staff, and that everybody uses the same canteens and other facilities. I'm not sure it would do the trick here but it might be a step in the right direction?
Surely we don't still have companies with "managers restaurants" separate from the staff canteen.As for Singlecoil's point, it's pretty accurate in my experience - another thing with the Japs is that they tend to fully involve the shop floor in design of their own jobs, helping to make them as efficient, ergonomic and repeatable (from a quality perspective) as possible...
Traditionally in western industry (the gap has certainly closed considerably) you'd have an industrial engineer (assuming we're talking manufacturing) design the process, with the shop floor simply expected to follow those instructions - again creating more of the 'us and them' mentality!
ffc said:
singlecoil said:
I understand that many Japanese industries have done a lot to break down the barriers by having uniforms for all the staff, and that everybody uses the same canteens and other facilities. I'm not sure it would do the trick here but it might be a step in the right direction?
Surely we don't still have companies with "managers restaurants" separate from the staff canteen.mph1977 said:
HereBeMonsters said:
No, but at my last place, they timed the breaks so the shop floor staff couldn't take lunch at the same time as the office workers.
which is a pragmatic solution to limited break space / kitchen capacity if this is the case ... mph1977 said:
HereBeMonsters said:
No, but at my last place, they timed the breaks so the shop floor staff couldn't take lunch at the same time as the office workers.
which is a pragmatic solution to limited break space / kitchen capacity if this is the case ... anonymous said:
[redacted]
No, never. My employer is a family firm that treats their staff very well.Departmental bonus scheme (pays out if we exceed a certain profit)
AND Company wide bonus scheme (pays out if company exceeds a certain profit)
Extra day's holiday a year from 5-10 years service
You get your birthday off if it falls on a working day, FFS
If the contracts you're working on aren't affected you can choose your own working hours
And yet still some of my staff are whingers.
One of them had a paddy yesterday because his van was being MOT'd and he wanted someone to ring up and see if it was ready. When asked if he could ring them himself because the admin person he'd asked was just heading out of the room he said it 'wasn't his job'.
I sometimes suspect that they get like this from being treated too well, not too badly.
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