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It’s that time of the year again; time for Heathrose Research to pay its annual visit to the North Pole to see how Santa and Mrs Claus, managers of Santa Inc, and their workforce of 1,000 elves and 12 reindeer fared in 2011.
Last Christmas we shared with our readers a case study of how the Clauses turned around high elf turnover, low morale, and poor union and management relations in the company. Their smart management approach to introducing a High Performance Work System paid off in sleighloads with the company lifting its game considerably and turning into a top performer.
While they have continued to build on the positives, a tough global environment made 2011 a challenge on multiple fronts. The Clauses were forced to review their product lines and marketing strategy to stay afloat. They cleverly saw an opportunity to increase their workforce diversity to create a more customer-focused advantage while at the same time putting in place programmes to increase the proportion of women elves in management positions and counter the impact of an aging elf workforce.
Recognised Seasonal Elf Scheme
They tackled the aging workforce problem with the introduction of a new Recognised Seasonal Elf (RSE) Scheme. The RSE enabled them to target young elves from the South Pacific region, offering them seasonal employment during the busy Christmas season. A new intake of South Pacific elves arrived in the North Pole in September after extensive pre-departure training in their home countries where they learned about the culture, values and work ethics of Santa’s workshop. After some initial teething problems due to a lack of suitable scarves and hats on arrival, and a few tense moments where the elves refused to give up their rugby jerseys and jandals – things have run smoothly in the workshop.
Women in management
Women elves at Santa Inc pretty much reflected the wider statistics and were found at the lower paid, traditional, semi-skilled end of the production cycle. They also held only 10% of management positions. Young women elves (known as femin-elves), took the issue to management, providing examples of countries such as Russia, Hong Kong, the Philippines and Poland where women make up more than 40% of managers (they didn’t quote New Zealand as only 30% of management positions are held by women). They also pointed to evidence on the performance advantages of having greater diversity of decision-making. The Clauses agreed this needed to improve and set up processes aimed at increasing women managers to 40% by year’s end.
Diversity provides new ideas
The South Pacific elves brought both a new era of diversity and new ideas to Santa’s workshop. The Clauses have learnt about key market differences in the South Pacific region resulting in a greater emphasis on footy jerseys, backyard water slides, buzzy bees and fuzzy koala bears for South Pacific children. A new line of ride-on lawn mowers complete with a mobile BBQ attachment has also been added to this year’s line of “must have” presents to appeal to the particular taste of Antipodean males.
Rugby World Cup impact
However, the last few months of 2011 have not been without problems – annual leave skyrocketed during October as the South Pacific elves ditched the production line in favour of watching the Rugby World Cup. While management should have factored this into the production cycle, their personal dislike of rugby meant they didn’t anticipate the event’s impact. They solved the problem by offering to gift the annual leave taken to watch the games if the elves met production requirements in time for Christmas, which fortunately, they did.
As the year draws to a close, Santa Inc is preparing for the challenges of the year ahead and in particular, how it might respond to global warming.
Read last year’s Christmas Story here. |
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