Summary of case

Steelcase, Inc., is a Grand Rapids, Michigan, company that manufactures office furniture and equipment, provides workspace design solutions and systems.  The company has over 21,000 employees working in sales and manufacturing roles in fifteen different countries, and has yearly revenues of $3 billion.

Steelcase’s products and services are sold through a network of over 700 different office supply and system dealers.  Four hundred of these dealers are located in North America.  All of the dealers serve as the customer interface, much in the same way that a car dealership is the interface between the car manufacturer and the consumer.

Within Steelcase’s Human Resources department is an internal consulting group that supports internal customers (e.g., employees).  The performance consultants in the group maintain an ongoing communication dialog with the internal customers in support of their work, while the performance analysts work with internal customers on Human Performance Technology (HPT) projects.

Steelcase has a subsidiary called the Furniture Management Coalition (FMC) that serves the expanding office furniture industry.  This company works with Steelcase’s dealers in providing expertise on how to manage inventory, warehouses, maintenance, and moving, a segment of the business that can be very profitable for Steelcase and its dealers.  FMC has about thirty people in the United States in this company; a Vice President, six support personnel, and about twenty-five Field Operations Managers (FOMs). 

The FOMs are spread out over the United States and each services a territory, which can be comprised of several states.  The FOM selects and develops dealers (i.e., “service providers”) in how to provide the FMC services and helps them maintain profitability by assessing problems and coaching them if necessary.  In addition, the FOM communicates directly with the FMC customers to resolve problems that arise between customers and service providers, and is the spokesperson(s) for the service providers in communicating with internal Steelcase entities.

Initial Problem Statement

Although it was not apparent that revenues were less than expected or profits were reduced, the FMC vice president felt that several problems with FOMs needed the attention of Steelcase’s internal consulting group.

The overall problem was that the roles and responsibilities of the FMCs needed to be clarified, enforced and measured appropriately and equally.  The symptoms of the problem included:

• Efforts were often duplicated because the FOMs did not communicate with one another to share ideas and best practices.
• Each FOM had a different way of doing the job.
• FOMs were spending almost all of their time resolving problems with customers and “fighting fires”.
• The service providers were not being measured equally according to the established metrics.
• Many customers were resorting to contacting Steelcase corporate employees to resolve issues with equipment or services instead of going to their service provider’s FOM.  The result was confusion and duplication of efforts.

Using input from FMC management and one FOM that understood the job role and the dynamics within the organization, the consultants devised a list of focused questions for the project team to use to define the scope of the HPT project.  These six questions determined that the following deliverables would be created to aid in the analysis phase of the project:

• Performance model
• Gap analysis report
• Gap and causal analysis model that includes barriers/enhancers to FOM performance
• Barrier summary report
• Solution mix recommendation(s)
• Evaluation report

Performance Analysis Tools, Analysis, Results

The consultants facilitated sessions with the FMC management and FOM leaders to establish the key parts of the FOM model in terms of responsibilities, competencies, best practices, barrier and enhancements, and measures.

The consultants interviewed the FMC management and all FOMs using questions designed to gather information about what they did in their job for each of the components.  The results of the interviews were used to create a performance model that was validated with the FOMs and FMC management.

The performance model defined the exemplars of worthy performance in the FOM job.  The consultants discovered that not one FOM was an exemplar in all of the areas defined by the performance model, but many were exemplars in one or more areas.

The project team created surveys in which the FOMs would rate themselves on a scale on the components of their job as defined by the performance model.  A similar survey was created for the FMC management to rate the FOMs on the same job components.  These surveys were carefully constructed to gain the best input without the respondents having to make judgment calls on the validity of any questions.

The data, in the form of numerical information and verbal feedback was analyzed and used to create the gap analysis report which revealed how the actual performance of the FOMs measured up to the exemplary performance.  Interestingly, the project team found that the FMC management tended to rate the FOMs a bit lower in the surveys than the FOMs rated themselves.  Regardless of this trend, both groups rated the following components of the FOM job the lowest, indicating the biggest gaps between actual and exemplar performance:

• Assessing service providers’ strengths and providing appropriate development.
• Communicating effectively and efficiently with FMC management.
• Creating skill and career development plans.

Cause Analysis Tools, Analysis, Results

Instead of using a tool such as the Five Whys or facilitated brainstorming sessions, the consultants used the results of the FOM and FMC management surveys to develop an accurate picture of the causes of the low-rated components of the FOM job.

As a best practice for their Steelcase HPT projects, the internal consultants used a variation of Thomas Gilbert’s Behavior Engineering Model to analyze the factors affecting job performance.  The FOM project used this same model to depict the gap and causal analysis, including the barriers and enhancers to FOM performance:

Intervention Selection and Development

The consultants led a subset of the project team through a matching process of pairing possible solutions with problem areas.  Each potential solution went through a cost-benefit analysis in which the cost to implement was weighed against the cost of doing nothing.  The team came up with the following solutions:

• Define and communicate service provider selection/assessment process.
• Develop “scorecard” and sub team to establish benchmarks.
• Define and communicate service provider selection/assessment process.
• VP and manager to meet with dealer alliances group and define roles and responsibilities.
• Specific development measures to be tied to performance review information.
• Implement “sales awareness program” to increase linkages.
• Appoint new FOM team leader (player/coach).
• Define and communicate service provider selection/assessment process.
• Clarify role proactively with customers on a regular basis.
• Information-sharing metrics to be placed into each FOM’s objectives.
• Multiple solutions: FOM performance model and measures; create operations administrator position.
• Process documentation to outline procedures.
• Management to address resource issue with dealer alliances group.

The overall objective of the solution mix was to increase the likelihood that the FOMs would perform the behaviors representative of the exemplar in clarifying service provider expectations, documenting practices, and implementing the appropriate incentives and measures so that worthy performance may be achieved.  One specific solution was the appointment of an FOM team leader.

The FMC team was primarily in charge of the implementation of the selected solutions, with the occasional guidance or communication from the internal consulting team leader.

Evaluation

Rather than a formal evaluation report, the project team matched results and measurements to the solutions for the barriers to performance in the FOM job areas to reflect the perceived success of the project one year after the implementation of the solution mix.  Interviews with the FOMs, FMC management, the new FOM team leader and FOMs that performed according to the performance model’s exemplary behaviors were interviewed for the input to the evaluation.

While many of the behaviors of the FOMs improved, FOMs still spent too much time solving customer problems or “putting out fires”.  This was due in part to some confusion remaining about the specifics of the FOM job role.

Critique

We think that the internal consulting team did a good job of maximizing the amount and quality of information they received as input from the FOMs and their management, without these two groups having to take time away from their actual jobs.  The team seemed to have done their due diligence in finding out who the key informal FOMs were that would provide critical input to the HPT project, as well as selecting the appropriate tools for each step of the project.  It appears that the internal consultants were very competent in their roles of HPT professionals, a strategic advantage Steelcase may have over its competitors by utilizing the talents of these individuals to solve problems before they threaten their business.

Having the benefit of ten years of technology advancements since this case was written in 2002, the main thing our team would have done differently is to make better use of technology to assist in the carrying out of the tasks in each step of the HPT project.  For instance, the interviews with the FOMs were largely carried out over the phone by the consultants.  By utilizing Skype, the consultants could have gathered more information about the FOMs by observing subtle changes in body language, mannerisms or facial expressions during the course of the interviews.  Communication technology could also have been used to communicate the FOM performance model regarding exactly what was expected of FOMs moving forward.

Additionally, our team would have included the evaluation of the entire FMC company within Steelcase to determine if part of the root cause of the FOM job function problems were due to overlap with other roles within the FMC company.  It appears that the FOM job grew out of an opportunity within Steelcase to capitalize on new needs within the industry.  In all likelihood, the job functions of the FOMs were not very clear due to the single-point-of-contact nature of the job in each of the territories.  It is often difficult to reconcile jobs that are created in this organic fashion with a corporate performance model.