[This article was first published in Army Sustainment Professional Bulletin, which was then called Army Logistician, volume 2, number 5 (September–October 1970), pages 26–29. The text, including any biographical note, is reproduced as faithfully as possible to enable searchability. To view any images and charts in the article, refer to the issue itself, available on DVIDS and the bulletin’s archives at asu.army.mil/alog/.]
SO, YOU ARE A TOP MANAGER and you really think that you know what’s going on in your organization! What makes you think so? Do you depend on your middle managers to tell you? Maybe you wait until the union stewards complain. You might very well be like the top manager in the article in the 5 December 1969 issue of Life about the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T). In this article top management was surprised to find that they really didn't know what was going on at the grass roots in their organization. They were happily marching along, listening to the managers, believing their statistics, convinced that they told them the whole story. Such was not the case.
There are new horizons now. Employees think differently. They want to be heard. This was driven home to me while I was the inspector general for the Defense Supply Agency. One of the tools the director of the agency uses to keep his finger on the pulse of the agency is to have his inspector general hold complaint sessions in field activities. During my inspections, l often found many areas where the people were complaining, but when I discussed it with top management, they were completely unaware that the situation existed. Yet, the employees knew the problems existed, and they were concerned about it.
When I took command at the Defense Industrial Supply Center, a field command of the Defense Supply Agency in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, I found that it was located in the middle of a very volatile community made up of various ethnic groups. All of them are competing for housing, parking places, and jobs, and all of them are quite vocal in pursuing their interests and seeking their share of the good. Some of them have ideas on how to help management be more effective. Listen to them!
We needed a technique that would give us a direct pipeline to our people so that we could try at the top management level to smoke out our problems internally before they became an item for The Inspector General, a Congressman, a headquarters problem, or just a cause celébrè aired in the local newspapers. We have a very fine union relationship, but even here, problems normally are aired by the union after they have been sifted by various levels within the union organization. It is important to note that the union relationship is not eroded through a direct pipeline program, and an understanding and objective union will work with management to see that the employees are heard and that they get the answers they want.
We were seeking a Sound Off Program that would give our people an opportunity in an internal, confidential way to blow off steam.
We noted that a program called Operation SOUND OFF had been tried in various activities. Both the Defense Logistics Supply Center in Battle Creek, Michigan, and the IBM organization had similar programs.
What is Operation SOUND OFF? It is a program whereby an employee can bring a complaint directly to the attention of the commander of an installation, or in civilian parlance, probably to the top operating official. Each of our employees now feels that he or she can communicate directly with the top man and receive a personal reply from him. This is necessary because regardless of how you think you are in touch, if you are top management, you don't really get the ungarbled truth. The reasons you don’t are quite basic. Many unions thrive on problems and many times first-line managers are afraid to escalate problems. Thus, you have to ferret out a way to get the truth.
One item which usually causes concern is that of first-line supervisors who have the feeling that they are being circumvented when the employees can talk to top management. We solved this by having the original answers staffed at the first-line level so that the supervisors were a part of the action. We found that good supervisors were as interested as top management in smoking out the problems and solving them. Lazy managers were against the plan and fought it.
The Sound Off Program has three basic advantages:
• It is confidential.
• It catches the eye of the top operating officials.
• It does not erode management prerogatives.
How does the program work? One of the important ingredients is to insure that the integrity of the program is maintained. There must be a top, front-office assistant to act as “Sound Off” coordinator. When a “Sound Off” is submitted to the coordinator on the special form (see illustration), he tears off the portion with the employee’s name, stamps a number on it, and places the portion of the form with the employee’s name on it in a safe. No one in the activity knows the employee’s name except the coordinator. Not even I! Then, the “Sound Off” is copied in the coordinator’s office and sent down through management channels for preparation of a reply for my signature. It’s fantastic the amount of tired and canned replies that you get from your supervisors when you first implement a program like this. It’s a good way to shake up your troops, to have them do some new, fresh thinking. Initially, we sent a lot of them back to find out “Why?” And this, in itself, was almost worth the program.
Coordinator Handles Replies
When the letter to the submitter is signed by the commander, the coordinator then matches it with the portion of the form showing the employee’s name and address, which up until this time has been in the safe. It is then mailed to the employee’s home.
It is important that one thing be quite clear. This program is not a substitute for normal supervisory-employee communication nor is it meant to eliminate beneficial suggestions, other complaint methods, or normal management direction. This is merely another avenue permitting the employee to feel that he can tell the “boss” if he is unhappy about something before he has to take it outside of his own organization.
To make sure that “Sound Off” forms are easily available, we have boxes containing self-mailer forms already preaddressed to top management scattered throughout the installation.
This program has to be sold to both the union and supervisors. We did this by holding a series of presentations showing the need for it and the results we hoped to gain. We had the normal big cry from management at all levels that such a program would invite all kinds of complaints — that it would cause untold loss of manhours and production answering the numerous gripes and comments.
We launched the program on 25 July 1968 with a full written explanation distributed to each employee spelling out the mechanics of the Sound Off Program. The first several days, 45 “Sound Offs” came pouring in. The first-line supervisors and middle managers were up in arms complaining about the valuable time and money required for them to prepare written replies to some unknown employee who had surfaced an opinion that something was wrong. The complaints ranged from unsatisfactory rest rooms, to lack of promotion opportunities, poor cafeteria maintenance, and poor management procedures.
You have to be careful, however, when you receive these “Sound Offs.” One week in particular, we were hit with 15 about eliminating our background music. If we had reacted to this and eliminated the music, we would have found that we had reacted to a minority. But based on this, we went out with a poll to all employees and were surprised to find that instead of people being unhappy with the music they liked it. The ballots showed that out of 2,300 employees fewer than 100 of them wanted to eliminate the music and 2,200 liked it the way it was. So a word of caution — if you use the program, use it as a “sounding board,” and do not react without getting all the facts from the employees.
Going back for a moment, let's touch again on the tendency for first-line and middle management employers to give the same cliché answers to problems. It became evident in the letters that were coming from the first-line supervisors that they were not taking the program seriously. Top management rapidly became dissatisfied with some of the lower management replies. They were full of generalities, some were ungracious, and some were even on the brink of rudeness. When a top operating official signs a letter to an employee, it should have a clear, thought-out answer, and it was obvious that these were not being staffed accordingly. They were promptly sent back down the management channel for rewrite and further polishing. After a few months, first-line and middle management realized that the program was here to stay and that it was going to be a way of life because the “boss” was interested. In a matter of time, the “Sound Offs” leveled off, and now they are coming in at the rate of about 10 a week. The employees have gained confidence in the program by virtue of prompt and attentive top management replies to their particular opinions, comments, and recommendations. The program has now matured and a positive attitude has developed.
Employees are now given answers as to — “Why,” “Who,” “What,” “When,” and “Where.” The fact that over 900 employees have used the “Sound Off” method is evidence that there were many things bothering them.
As a result of a review of these “Sound Offs,” top management has a real feel for how the people accept the programs that have been implemented by the front office. The morale of the employees has improved and productivity has responded with a big jump in work measurement effectiveness.
The healthy heartbeat of any good organization stems from the employees. Listen to that heartbeat. It’s a good warning signal. If you do listen, then someone else won't have to tell you that your organization is ailing.
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Rear Admiral Grover C. Heffner, Supply Corps, United States Navy, commands the Defense Construction Supply Center, Columbus, Ohio, and commanded the Defense Industrial Supply Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the time this article was written. He is a graduate of the University of Washington, Stanford School of Business, and the National War College. Admiral Heffner has held various naval logistics positions during his thirty years of service.
| Date Taken: | 02.27.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.27.2025 10:27 |
| Story ID: | 491676 |
| Location: | US |
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