Real Life Problem Assignment

Background: Managers often find themselves in situations trying to solve a problem and finding often the tough part is deciding what is the problem. Identifying the real problem is a skill and a challenge. Questions arise-what caused this issue? Why is our data telling us we have a problem yet unsure what it is? There are so many options? Helpful people around you seem to have a variety of thoughts and that adds to the confusion.

Situation: For months ABC managers have claimed there is a turnover problem at ABC Engineering Company. Now they are saying it at operations meetings, raising it to HR, telling their executive bosses, and now this claim has surfaced at the Quarterly Executive Meetings. Now the President is aware, he is upset at this and has ordered the VPHR to head a committee and find out the problem and pose recommendations at a special Executive meeting in one month called by the President.

Final Straw that brought the issue to Executive Meeting. ABC recruits about 50 college recruits straight from the campus every June-mostly engineers. Six well regarded campus hires from 10 months ago ( of the 50) have resigned with four resigning in the last 6 0 days. Four from Engineering-one from Marketing and one from Finance department. Engineering SRVP was livid-angry-loud in claiming -" we don't pay enough". Marketing and Finance VP's quietly agreed because they rarely disagree with the SRVP Engineering because it is an engineering company, and this SRVP has power and when he speaks people rarely challenge him.

HR Operations Committee-HRVP has her Recruiting Director join the committee and she tells all it is probably a pay problem. She says it is hard paying average salaries because there are always places paying more. Then HRVP has the head of Employee Relations join the committee because she does the exit interviews and yes it seems people leaving say they will earn more money elsewhere. The other members of the committee from the Engineering department echo what their SRVP says-we need to pay more because they know it is not good to disagree with the SRVP. So VPHR asks the Training Director to join the committee and naturally he says it is a training issue-managers need to be better trained to manage and lead young college recruits. The Engineering department is an example where the culture reflects the SRVP loud and boisterous attitude

Assignment Commentary: You are the VPHR and you want to listen carefully to your staff plus the operations people but you also want to solve the right problem with the right recommendations. Your job as VPHR is to act as a Consultant to management and employees.

Assignment: Answer each of these questions including # 7. However question 7 is difficult and so will not count against your grade. Turn in hard copy. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TYPE OUT THE ENTIRE QUESTION . Just type---Question # 1---then your answer. Thank you

Question # 1----ABC has a Turnover problem ?

Definitely Yes ___ Probably Yes___ Probably No___ Definitely No__ No Idea ___

Question # 2--- When I started using this real life problem in class, students listed the following as their answer to the question is there a problem and what is it? Check off your answer.

A) Pay is the problem. _____

B) Management Training is the problem _____

C) The SRVP is the problem. _____

D) Not sure what the problem is _____

Question # 3 What action would you take if you answered A , B or C in Question 2?

Question # 4-If you answered D in question 2, what questions would you ask to identify the problem ?

Question # 5 -If you answered Yes in question # 1-what actions would you take to fix it?

Question # 6---If you answered -No Idea to question # 1, what steps would you take to determine if you had a problem ?

Question # 7-Give me the approximate turnover %.