Devesh Kumar, SHRM, Section A, 18323

Key Learnings from last class

Richer Sounds

Today we saw how management at Richer sounds carries out the recognition process. They do so by giving two awards.
First is the golden Aeroplane which is awarded to the most exceptional employee who performed above and beyond the
call of duty. The second award is the Wooden school award which is given to the employee who has done some amazing
act of stupidity.

Next, we discussed that when a person is humiliated, he can experience three kinds of emotions

Humiliation

Anger Shame Guilt

Anger – A person feels angry when he feels that he is humiliated for no reason or for trivial matters. So, management
should be mindful that it does not humiliate someone for trivial reasons.

Shame – When someone attacks capability a person feels ashamed. A person should attack lack of capability so that the
other person does not feel humiliated. At Richer Sounds the point of giving Wooden school award is to attack that
employees lack of effort and not to humiliate him.

Guilt – Guilt arises when an employee deliberately under performs in order to sabotage the company. But at Richer Sounds
employees are incentivized in such a manner that they perform to their full potential

American Medical Technologies Inc.

We started this case by discussing about the SHRM process. It starts in the following manner

1) First an orientation is conducted. During which a failure story is shared among the employees. The purpose of
this activity is to make employees aware how much loss their actions are causing to the company.
2) Next step is to form Employee task force which consists of employees considered best by the head of the
department.
3) The role of the top team is to collect data from everyone except the top team. For the top team profilers collect
the data

Next, we discussed that when the questions are open ended and direct you got more meaningful data. The quantitative
survey does not answer the causality but qualitative survey leads to substantial remedial plans.

Next, we discussed the six factors which present the employees from giving their best
 1) Difficulty in understanding how the top teams work together
2) Poor vertical communication
3) Management style – Boss does not know how to handle things
4) Poor inter functional coordination
5) Unclear or conflicting strategic priorities
6) Deficiencies in career development and management competence

Global Products and Quality Caterers case analysis

Global products

Global product was a highly regarded brand name and had a staff of around 400 employees producing range of gas
appliances. However, there were troubles with respect to out of date plant and equipment, disused derelict warehouse
and antiquated and compartmentalized office and eating facilities. And these factors led to inefficient attitude on part of
workers.

Traditional Hiring

Shoo floor workforce primarily comprised long serving employees (working for over 25 years) and mostly women. Because
of seasonal nature of the business factory employed subcontracted employees who worked for 5 months in a n year.

Acquisition

Global products entered into an acquisition. Global product had a policy to retain top management as they considered it
as an important initial step. Acquisition team made it clear that the new business unit will operate as per ‘Global products
way’

A presentation was made to be shown to the acquisition team and the existing management team. The purpose of the
presentation was to outline future implementation plan, which were

1) Senior management will complete a comprehensive post-acquisition analysis of the business.

2) Site would be cleaned up including demolition of the disused warehouse
3) Offices would be refurbished and modernized including overhauling the central reception and meeting areas
4) Shop floor to be reorganized with the introduction o certain total quality and short cycle management techniques

However, the employees were not happy with it as the session offered no opportunity and was more informative.
Half of the employees were just happy to be included in the change environment and the other half were more
skeptical and were taking ‘wait and see’ attitude.

Implications of the acquisition on employees

1) When the first part commenced employees were required to work for long hours. The directors and middle
managers were highly involved in the collection and correlation of the information demanded by the head
office. When the information gathering phase was occurring other employees cleaned up the work area
 with acquisition team supervising. Several gas appliances employees were assigned to help with the cleanup.
This shows efforts were made to build camaraderie between the employees of two organizations.
2) During the construction phase many employees of the new business unit though initially claimed that they
did not like open plan offices they later on admitted new layout to be preferable one over the previous one.
All office staff were given the opportunity to choose new office furniture based on their own individual
requirements, a step which was well received. Also, a bright new canteen with seating area was also added
where all employees would dine and meeting will be held. This was step to increase employee’s engagement.
3) New changes were introduced like zero defect manufacturing, reorganization of the shop floor etc. The shop
floor employees although were little wary of these changes, but they embraced these changes they were
confident that they would continue delivering good performance.
4) Renegotiation of the contract from seniority-based pay to performance-based pay was done in such a
manner that there was no loss in wages.
5) Management s sought employees help on how to deal with manufacturing seasonality and employees also
responded with variety of ideas which were embraced by the management.
6) Shop floor employees felt they had information regarding the roles and jobs and was wanted by them from
by the Gas Appliances and Global Products.
7) Current employees were promoted rather than hiring externally. This engendered trust among employees.
8) In conclusion acquisition was considered as a success by both employees and management as the stated
objectives were achieved with the least amount of disruption to the staff.

Quality Caterers

Staff at quality caterers was perceived to be of highest quality and integrity. They had received government training
initiative award and had contracts for over 20 years. They were not interested in short term profit and encouraged Quality
culture as it fitted with the copay culture. They were a highly decentralized organization.

Quality Caterers was acquired by the Service Conglomerate. Service conglomerate’s CEO had a reputation in the industry
of drastic cuts in the staffing. However, after the acquisition Service conglomerate made many attempts to allay those
fears like holding a reception and presentation. However, the level of service during both the events was very bad.
Employees were informed that nothing will change for them and they would be informed of any future changes and finally
they were offered discount card which offered 10% off to all service conglomerate services.

Implications of the acquisition on employees

1) Business plan to enhance profit improvement services had taken place prior to the involvement of Quality
Caterers employees. Some directors felt that this was a divisive ploy.
2) The plan entailed cutting the number of managerial employees. Functions such as pay roll and accounts were
centralized. 2 of the 8 regions to be incorporated into the remaining six regions.
3) Half of the operational directors, 20% of regional managers and most of the regional staff was to be cut down.
This technique came to be known as ‘Black Monday’ where executions were carried out fast and abruptly.
4) Information concerning the affected employees’ terms and conditions was collected from the centrally held
personnel files in which information was incorrect. Hence redundancy pay calculations, job titles and even names
were incorrect.
5) In addition to staff reductions training department was radically reduced, yet customers continued to pay
substantial training levy. This created ambiguity as the previous job performance had been based on pay and
now managers were required to lie.
6) Due to the above events a further 15% of middle managers left the company.
7) Those who remained had to cope with increased workload, and the pressure to deliver in less time. Some worked
70 hours in a week. There was lack of communication
8) Most employees did not understand or accept changes in company culture.

Comparison between Global Products and Quality Caterers

Global products Quality Caterers

Changes surrounding the HR practices were
discussed in detail. Managers were entrusted with
the relevant information regarding their role and
duties.
Socialization process at Gas appliances was
thorough; changes to working practices,
organizational priorities and rewards were fully
explained to all affected employees
Low employee turnover at Gas Appliances was due
in part to employees understanding and accepting
the socialization process
This exceptional dissonance was not found in Gas
appliances where changes were openly discussed
and accepted and where managements actions
mirrored managements communication given
earlier.
Reginal managers were not given any guidance as to
their job change. Both predictability and
information were inconsistent, thus exacerbating
role ambiguity
Many managers felt that new client charges as well
as managements behavior were unethical. Job
changes were not addressed and employees felt
both their roles and rewards in the new
organization were not clarified satisfactorily
Unclear outcome expectations caused by the
increased role ambiguity exacerbated employees
concerns.
New practices and beliefs were not openly
discussed and when implemented employees felt a
sense of betrayal.