Systems Migration
Looking across the rows of men suits, Tom Wilkinson spots Peter Dairy working with one of his employees, a sales associate. They are trying to complete a sales transaction on the new SMART information system. Tom watches as Peter again fumbles his way through another transaction. Almost instinctively, he rolls his eyes and shakes his head. Tom Wilkinson manages the Men's Furnishing Group for the Northridge Mall store of the Dukes and Noble Department store chain. As one of the younger Group managers, Tom hascharge of over 20 full-time and part-time sales and service representatives in four units: suits and outwear leisure, clothes, shoes, and accessories. Tom has been with Dukes and Nobles since joining their Management Associates Development program after graduating from college. Peter Dairy is about 18 years older than Tom, with about that many more years' experience in the retail trade. Peter began his career in a floor sales position and, after years of hard work, was promoted to supervise the Leisure Clothes Unit. Beginning about six months ago, Dukes and Noble began a "systems migration" (as the Data Processing staff called it) of replacing the somewhat antiquated computer and information processing system with one that was more streamlined. Under the new, integrated system, all the retail functions inventory, sales and customer tracking, returns and adjustments, accounting and profitability calculations would be joined together and operated out of the same data base. Further, all stores would be linked together, giving headquarters better ongoing control of the company as a whole and of stores and departments in particular.
As a result of this "migration," virtually every job in the company was changed in someway. The jobs of the sales associates changed most: virtually every product, customer, or financial transaction was to be done differently. While the complexity of any one task might be small, the combined weight of all the changes resulted in major learning stresses on employees. They had to learn how to operate the system, access it, complete all transactions through it, and make any need corrections directly on the point of sale terminal all while the customer waited across the counter. As the kick-off date for the conversion to the new system neared, all employees were brought in for a comprehensive four-day training program. Managers and supervisors were trained first so that they could serve as aides and coaches to the other employees once the SMART was operational. Tom and Peter attended one of the early programs together. Tom was impressed by how much the program covered. The trainers went through every conceivable transaction and procedure, demonstrating and explaining them. Each participant in the class was able to practice some of the procedures on the demo terminal. The notebook provided in the program was reasonably thorough, even if it was poorly organized. As was characteristic, Peter approached the training with gusto and enthusiasm. He had never worked much with computers before, and his anxiety about learning how to use the system was more than offset by his strong motivation to learn. Tom was particularly pleased with this matter because he was concerned that Peter's strong "people orientation" might not have a corresponding "technical" aptitude.
It has now been more than a month since the new system started up. All the associates in the store completed the system training shortly before the conversion date and by now, most are operating fairly well with it.Indeed, that's what is so troubling to Tom. In spite of the training and the time on the system, Peter just hasn't made satisfactory progress mastering it. Tom sees Peter's problems in various ways, like the instance he has just witnessed. There was Peter, working with one of his sales associates, trying to complete a distinct, but not that unusual, procedure. It was clear that the associate actually could complete the procedure better than Peter. Peter was following a trial-and error process of running through different key combinations to see if any worked. The customer was growing annoyed. Tom thought about other instances. For example, Peter had asked Tom about how to complete the same procedure on four different occasions in the course of a ten-day period. At times, Tom would watch Peter refer a customer to another sales station or have the customer wait while he asked another associate to process a complicated transaction. At one point, Tom asked Peter to check his manual, but Peter could only say it didn't help him that much, and besides, he wasn't sure where he had left it.
On top of it all, Tom is now sensing that Peter is becoming more frustrated and stressed by the situation. He now thinks that Peter is trying to hide from Tom his discomfort with the system. In a way, this is Peter's method of signalling to Tom that Peter's knowledge of the new system cannot be discussed. Tom wonders how much longer he can go without taking action. Already, there are some grumblings from the other associates that Peter cannot be counted on to help them with their problems. Tom has noticed how Peter's unease with the process is putting some additional burdens on the other employees, as well as the customers. Tom knows that Peter is smart enough to learn this material, but cannot understand why it is so difficult. Tom wants to help but also feels that Peter needs to show some progress and fairly soon or else Tom may be forced to take some actions he would rather not take
Questions:
- Assume you are Tom and your duty is to come up with a feasible solution to deal with the issue with Peter and help him in completing the learning process?
- What type of training was provided to the employees according to the case study? What other types of training according to you will help Peter to emerge efficient in his work.
- How should Tom respond to Peter in the next few weeks?