Description
On January 8, 2017, Ronald Huggins, plant manager at AEL Mining Services Limited (AEL), needed to come up with innovative ways to keep his employees motivated. This need was driven by the downward trend of the local mining market. In 2011 and 2012, AEL had rolled out a major retrenchment, leaving employees with low morale and motivation, which in turn had affected performance levels. It became apparent that plant performance needed to ramp up. This was particularly important given the company’s strategic plans to expand internationally and focus 80 per cent of its business, rather than the current 20 per cent, on the international mining market.
Learning Objective
This case can be used in graduate- and executive-level courses in leadership, organizational behaviour, and human resources performance management. By working through the case and assignment questions, students will have the opportunity to: ·Understand the role of incentives as a motivational factor toward goal attainment as well as the impact that tangible and intangible incentives have on employee motivation. ·Gain insight into how to implement servant leadership in a manufacturing work environment. ·Analyze how a manufacturing organization can go about internationalization as well as what needs to be taken into consideration. ·Make recommendations for how Huggins can enhance his team’s motivation levels to stimulate performance.