Mario Hajdin, Student ID#15740907 BACKGROUND (UoL, 2011) Company producing classical gas meters, which is requiring door-to-door

reading and the same basic model with minor improvements of have been produced over 45 years. Many of the employees have been employed with company over 30 years and 40% of the employees are going to retire over next five years. Situation on the market indicating that companies are considering switching to the gas metering systems which are transmitting consumption readings over wireless networks and there are no plans conceived to meet readily this possible change and intention shown towards adopting new technologies. Part of employees, who are close to the retirement, do not see any problems with the jobs in the near future and they are not interested in new products or development of the same. SITUATION In order to deal with such situation serious analysis must be made, taking in consideration all aspects influencing business perspective, reasons, causes, management, organization state estimation and human crisis (Valackiene & Virbickaite, 2011). Although, crisis in the company may appear in any moment company life cycle, in this particular case it is connected with lack of vision and adaptability to the market demands. Human crisis is closely connected to the business organization business situation. As described in Dattner & Hogan (2011), CEO in this particular case must cultivate a few key steps in order to save the company from the brink of failure and those are selfawareness, political awareness and embracing new technologies. In this particular case embracing new technologies may appear as crucial as it is guiding towards adopting four strategies: listening and communication, reflection on both the situation and people, thinking before acting and search for a lesson. As a first step we must make thorough analysis of the situation (which we do know roughly) and develop steps for overcoming current position. Analysis will consist of business analysis and human resources analysis. Business analysis must include current situation, market research, development of the new products and production. Human resources analysis must show current situation with employees, situation with current employees trough the process of production restructuring, requirements for development and production of new products line, employees incentives and motivation. Despite the clear understanding of crisis, it is necessary to define normal and necessary changes, crisis situation and crisis in a company (Valackiene & Virbickaite, 2011). DEVELOPMENT OF NEW PRODUCTS LINE Having only one product for the market is severely disabling organization to be competitive. Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson (2011, p. 6, cited in Hitt et al, 2011) defined strategic management as the full set of commitments, decisions, and actions required for a firm to achieve strategic competitiveness and earn above-average returns.

CLASSICAL GAS METERS WEEK #7 HAND IN ASSIGNMENT

Company must restructure production and develop products which will satisfy needs of broad spectrum of customers which using gas measuring or monitoring systems in their business as utility companies (Cisco System Inc., 2006), gas plants (Sagemetering, 2011), oil and gas industry (Krohne, 2011) etc. Restructuring and adapting to the market demands is requiring adoption of new technologies, establishing R&D division and prepare production lines for developed products as well as complete restructure of marketing department. NEW HIRES, OVERCOMMING TEAM WORK OBSTACLES AND MOTIVATION In the light of intended restructuring and bringing organization to the higher level it is estimated that significant number of new hires will be brought in the organization, experienced and out of the school. One of very good and workable approaches is described in article on Vitale Caturano & Co. (VCC) out of Boston, which is offering employees various benefits as The benefits also help keep the training and time invested in an employee from reentering a tight labor market just exacerbated by Sarbanes-Oxley. They not only boost morale, loyalty and productivity but also disarm issues a competitor might use to woo away top talent (Hayes, 2005). VCC was hiring also directly from the schools and developed in house training in addition to the regular training, which is half time on the company account and half time out of employee free time and courses are mapped on the way which will develop skills to meet personal and organizational goals. As change of company profile and remodeling will not happen overnight and will take some time, following steps will be undertaken: Talk with employees it is very important initial step to talk with your employees, get their point of view, their grievances, their ideas and establish on the basis of that what they are expecting, what can be expected from them and what will be course with hiring of new employees. Managers should view every interaction with subordinates, not just formal one-on-one meetings, as a chance to tap their expertise and encourage them to express what they really think (Vlachoutsicos, 2011). Business plan for organization restructuring and HR requirements will establish cost and time for restructuring, immediate achievable goals, long term goals, need to establish new department or departments and restructure others with requirement for new employees over the certain period of time. Recruitment at the schools it will take time to restructure, however, recruitment of young and educated people must start immediately in order to secure required profile(s) of future employees, offering them scholarships and additional personal trainings tailored in accordance with their personal need and organization requirements. Tying professional development into the organizations culture and evaluating its efficacy against organizational results differs sharply from most professional development in most schools (It's All About the People, 2010). Recruitment of experienced personnel recruitment of experienced personnel is very essential for R&D and there should be offered, same as with recruitment from the schools, possibility of additional trainings and schooling which will be an asset to the new hires and to the company.

Wang (2011) wrote when it comes to recruiting top talent, the employees you want rarely bother with job boards. Most are bombarded by recruiters every day, therefore, must be emphasized their value to the company with offering them freedom in research towards company goals and offering them possibility of personal advancement in organization based on their achievemnts. Redeployment of existing employees according to the new business plan utilization of employees who will retire over the next five years on the old production line with adding to them trainees who will learn basics in classical instrumentation from them. Redeploying other employees in accordance with their wishes and based on their personal capability and readiness to the advance trough the training on the new tasks. Employees who are not seeing themselves working in newly restructured organization will be offered early retirement. Development and introduction of training pattern will offer all employees, new hires as well as old employees possibility of additional training and schooling modeled in accordance to their needs and company requirements as that is seen as company asset which will increase profit in the future. Also, attending training programs together old and new employees will grow to know each better and work together more easily aiming in the same direction. Incentives will be offered to the old personnel for training of the new hires. Reward scheme - new scheme of rewards, incentives and simulations will be devised in order to increase employee loyalty towards the company and ensure team work. Burroughs et al (2011) in their research writing following: Training may be for naught if it is not paired with the proper incentives, and this may be the most important insight to emerge from our research. As our findings make clear, rewards and training cannot be viewed independently of each other. However, all too often, managers treat them as separate issues, particularly in the case of rewards.

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Krohne Oil & Gas (2011), Total Metering Solutions, Available from: http://www.krohne.com/index.php?id=207 (Accessed: 18 October 2011) Hayes, M. (2005), 'Outrageous Employee Benefits', Journal of Accountancy, 199, 5, pp. 3237, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: 19 October 2011). Vlachoutsicos, C.A. (2011), 'How to Cultivate Engaged Employees', Harvard Business Review, 89, 9, pp. 123-126, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: 17 October 2011) 'It's All About the People' (2010), Phi Delta Kappan, 92, 3, pp. 53-56, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: 17 October 2011). WANG, J. (2011), 'HIRE powers', Entrepreneur, 39, 9, pp. 102-109, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, Accessed: 19 October 2011). Burroughs, J., Dahl, D., Moreau, C., Chattopadhyay, A. & Gorn, G. (2011), 'Facilitating and Rewarding Creativity During New Product Development', Journal of Marketing, 75, 4, pp. 53-67, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, (Accessed: 19 October 2011).