Self-Managed Work Teams

C&S Wholesale Grocers Readiness for Self-Managed Teams

As an OD practitioner, helping Cohen determine if self-managed teams are a good fit requires an organizational level assessment to see if changing C&S Wholesale Grocers operations and management of personnel can improve their effectiveness (Heskett, 2006). Using the open systems model, the first step is to assess the organizational level readiness; this will determine if the environment, inputs, transformations, and output is structured to accept self-management, the second assessment is to 2) assess the individual level readiness; specifically the job design and organizational structure to support a team structure (Cummings & Worley, 2009).

C&S Wholesaler Grocers had performed an experiment with self-managed teams; the result was positive with quality and productivity improving. The experiment provided two key benchmarks, 1) management was ready to consider changing the way they perform work and 2) employees were eager to be more engaged in their work and take full responsibility for performing their work. The benchmarks indicate that the environment at C&S Wholesaler Grocers is ready to consider implementation of self-managed teams to perform work in their warehouse.

Design of Self-Managed Teams

The design of the self-managed team starts with defining common objectives, clear responsibilities, defining a rewards and compensation system to incentivize performance improvements, and ensure that the self-managed team has support from C&S Wholesale Grocers management team (How does one build a self-managed team, 2009). Determining the autonomy and boundaries of a self-managed team has considerable impact on the teams’ ability to perform work and adjust tasks and responsib...

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