Background

Global Chemicals Incorporated, GCI, is a leading U.S. producer of chemicals. You are the Plant Manager of a brand new world-class manufacturing plant in Mexico using lean manufacturing practices and high levels of employee empowerment. Construction of the new facility is essentially complete. The plant management staff and the plant workers have been hired and are currently going through an intensive training program. You have been part of the project since its inception.

During the site and staff selection process, you began to sense the importance of “religion” in the everyday lives of your new staff and plant workers. This was different from your experiences in other corporate manufacturing facilities. While you, as the Plant Manager, understand the importance of your employees’ religious faith, you also understand that as corporate management’s representative, you must abide by your Corporation’s managerial philosophy concerning “religion in the workplace.” Basically your Corporation’s philosophy is one of total secularism and, in general, religion should not be part of the daily Corporation’s business except when it is a customer’s requirement, e.g., customers that have kosher specifications.

During the training period you noticed an interesting development in the way the employees approached their work. Among their concerns, was the role of religion in the work environment. But this matter was treated in a low key manner. For example, one employee asked if it was OK to have a crucifix in her work area. Her comment, as with comments by other employees, was made with a face-saving tone and provision, “If not, it’s OK with me.” The employees still were not sure of the limits of their empowerment.

Specific Incident

You, the plant manager, have just finished meeting with the newly hired managerial personnel for the new production facility in Mexico. This new plant, which is in the last startup phase, is the latest global strategic initiative for Global Chemicals Incorporated (GCI) Industries. At the end of the meeting, Irma Davila, the plant’s technical manager asked in a straightforward manner, Will the plant be blessed? Within a short time the plant would be ready to start production and the technical manager was curious to know if a plant blessing by a Roman Catholic priest was planned before startup. Irma explained that there is a tradition in the region that a new facility be blessed prior to initial use to avoid bad luck. What are you, as the Plant Manager, to do to satisfy both his employees and GCI’s management? You elected to ponder the request of this valued employee, the implications for the entire workforce, and GCI’s position on this unforeseen development.

Additional Information

In the meantime, there are many other things that you must attend to before the actual startup of the facility. One of the most significant is the formal business dedication ceremony. This was a very important activity from both a business point-of-view as well as corporate management’s expectation. The dedication was to be a “big” event. Invitations had gone out to federal, state and local government officials as well as important customers and GCI’s corporate management including the CEO.

As the start up date for the new plant approached, employees discussed how the plant was to be dedicated. They were in a sense, owners of the plant, and you had worked hard to get them to this point. They felt that they should have a say in the way the plant was to be dedicated. Questions were asked. Will the president of GCI be here? Will the president of the republic be here, also? Who is being invited? What will the ceremony be like? By now employees were either dropping hints or directly stating that they had heard that a priest had blessed a plant someplace else in the area or some distant town or that some friend or relative had heard that the local priest would be interested in blessing this plant.

You also reflect on what GCI’s headquarter reaction would be regarding the issue of the blessing. You find that you often function as a buffer between the plant personnel and headquarters and often you have to “translate” and filter messages going in either direction to avoid misinterpretations. The issue of a plant blessing will be an “interesting” decision that no one at headquarters has ever had to deal with. You sense a collision of two cultures.

QUESTIONS

Discuss in detail all the issues that you, as the Manager, must consider.

What do you do ?

Can you satisfy both cultures ?

How do you go about making it happen ?