Shravan, President of Apex Door, has a problem. No matter how often he tells his employees how to do their jobs, they invariably “decide to do it their way”, as he puts it and arguments ensue between Shravan, the employee and the employee’s supervisor. One example is the door-design department, where the designers are expected to work with the architects to design doors that meet the specifications. While it’s not “rocket science”, as Shravan puts it, the designers invariably make mistakes- such as designing in too much steel, a problem that may cost Apex tens of thousands of wasted rupees, once you consider the number of doors in, say a 30 storey office tower. The current training process is as follows. None of the jobs has a training manual, although several have somewhat out-of-date job descriptions. The training for new people is all on the job. Usually, the person leaving the company trains the new person during the one or two week overlap period, but if there’s no overlap, the new person is trained as well as possible by other employees who have filled occasionally on the jjob in the past. The training is basically the same throughout the company-for machinists, secretaries, assemblers and accounting clerks, for example.

Questions a) what do you think is Apex’s training process? Could it help to explain why employees 141 “do things their way” and if so, how?

b) Explain in detail what you would do to improve the training process at Apex. Make sure to provide specific suggestions.