Answer the question: Important ‘take-aways’ from the simulation experience (reflections). What did you learn from the simulation about HRM that will help you be a better HR manager? What role did your team’s interpersonal dynamics have in your team’s performance in the simulation? • What would you do differently? (1-1.5 pages double space) figure one: weight score for our group (we are the first one) Table one: our expenses of each quarter To: Dr. Martha Cheney From: Pear Inc., Group 4 Alison Chan Katie Flanagan Julia Penney Liam Taylor Tao Tang Date: February 5, 2018 Subject: Job Design Decision for Pear Inc. This memo will address some recent changes regarding the restructuring of the corporate policy at Pear Inc. It has come to our attention that the job design at Pear Inc. can be improved to better satisfy the needs of our employees. Currently, the job design issues we are trying to solve are: repetition of work, forced pacing of work, confusion in identifying end products, little social interaction, and no system to suggest how to improve on the job. We will slowly start to introduce new techniques in the upcoming quarter in response to these issues. In an effort to increase morale in the first quarter, we were able to invest in our employees both internally and externally. This was also achieved by increasing employee benefit packages and providing training and a selection of programs for all employees. Our goal is to continue to improve the company’s overall productivity and performance moving forward. Incident Decision and Rationale The HR Department at Pear Inc. has decided to implement alternate work schedules in response to the job design decision. This includes more flextime, and discretionary work-weeks spread out over 3, 4, 4 ½ day weeks. Taking this action will pose no cost to the company and it is likely to result in greater productivity from the employees. The best option to respond to this incident is to implement alternate work schedules to allow employees a better work life balance. This would allow employees to have more flexibility in when they can get their work done and will require more autonomy from the employees to ensure their work is done. This increased flexibility in schedule should allow employees to have greater productivity. We felt the other solutions while it would be nice to implement all of them, did not have the same level of importance than alternate work schedules. To: Dr. Martha Cheney From: Pear Inc., Group 4 Alison Chan Katie Flanagan Julia Penney Liam Taylor Tao Tang Date: February 12, 2018 Subject: Recruiting for Temporary Positions at Pear Inc. This memo will address a recent request regarding the recruitment of temporary positions at Pear Inc. We have been instructed by a client to augment our current service for next quarter's production, in the form of 50 part-time temporary employees. This client has requested that the work needs to be done to their specific instructions. This cost will not come out of the HR Department budget, but rather the Operations Department budget. We are extremely happy with the progress Pear Inc. has made in the second quarter. Alterations were made to our employee benefit packages, and a more significant amount was invested into providing training and programs for all employees. Our goal is to continue to improve the company’s overall morale, productivity, and performance through the end of the year. This will be done through incremental wage increases, added training, and improved programming available to staff. Incident Decision and Rationale The HR Department at Pear Inc. has decided to post the newly available temporary positions, and allow current employees to recruit for these positions. This will allow our employees to go through a formal application process and in-turn continue to reap the benefits of working at Pear Inc. Posting these temporary positions will also give employees an increased sense of responsibility within the company through the addition of another role, which may result in higher intrinsic work rewards and a greater overall current employee morale. Due to this feeling of increased responsibility, a short term boost in productivity may occur. These positions will have a positive effect on the workers that are hired, as they are becoming more involved in the company. This will improve the employee morale, as hiring outside of the company for these positions rather than internally would have a negative effect. Employees could potentially be disappointed when they realize that these positions are only temporary, but we will make sure to emphasize this during the recruitment process. We believe that this opportunity will have a positive impact on the employees at Pear Inc. and improve the quality of work overall, while continuing to boost morale. To: Dr. Martha Cheney From: Pear Inc., Group 4 Alison Chan Katie Flanagan Julia Penney Liam Taylor Tao Tang Date: February 26, 2018 Subject: Selection of Employees at Pear Inc. This memo will address a recent need to hire a new level 3 supervisor. This person will be required to oversee 15 technicians with a wide age range, schedule work for the section, attend planning meetings with superiors, and troubleshoot technical problems that may occur. We had four candidates to choose from: a 30-year old female with a business degree and years of retail experience but no technical training, a 35-year old male with a 2-year technical degree but no managerial experience, a 55-year old male with a military and management background, or a 30year old male with no formal degree but on-the-job training in the technical field. We are extremely happy with the progress Pear Inc. has made in the third quarter. We decided to increase the training budget for employees, we believe that this gradual increase over the four quarters has contributed to the improved employee morale. We also improved the benefit package for employees by adding an extra vacation/personal/sick day available for use. Our goal over the year was to gradually increase wages, benefits, and training so that we would be finishing the year off with a high morale. Incident Decision and Rationale The HR Department at Pear Inc. has decided to hire the 30 year-old female candidate. We believe she is the best fit for the role due to her commitment shown through past work experience, as well as her business degree background. One of the most valuable skills she has is her dedication and hard-working mindset. We believe that her ability to balance school and work will help her to have a greater understanding of the employees whom she supervises, and be able to work with the alternating schedules we implemented in quarter 2. Although this candidate does not have any technical experience, we consider it more important for a supervisor to have leadership and managerial skills. We plan to have her learn the technical side to Pear Inc. on the job, as she is a fast learner we expect this to go smoothly. Her experience as a department head shows that she knows how to lead people, as well as have the ability to supervise, schedule, and work in a team environment. Each of the other candidates have different strengths and levels of experience. However, we prioritized the previous management experience and the ability to handle multiple projects, over the technical experience some of the other candidates had. We also found it important for our candidate to be a minority to show staff our attempt at hiring a wider variety of demographics in the workplace. 24. To: Dr. Martha Cheney From: Pear Inc. Alison Chan de Katie Flanagan Julia Penney UP Liam Taylor Tao Tang T.7. Date: January 29, 2018 Subject: Job Analysis Decision for Pear Inc. It has come to our attention that there has been some employee confusion regarding job duties, roles and responsibilities. Currently, Pear Inc. does not offer any formal job descriptions and relies on informal understandings to convey job roles. Providing a written job description to employees is crucial step in work productivity, as well as is a proactive action to take to avoid possible legal actions. Incident Decision and Rationale The HR Department at Pear Inc. has decided to break down the jobs within the production and operations departments into general job categories, and conduct a job analysis for each category This will cost the company $10,000, allow them to identify and determine the particular job duties and requirements, and ultimately gain further understanding of the relative importance of each job within these departments. As there is no current job analysis in place and some employees have been refusing work, we believe that an analysis of job categories is an important first step and will improve employee morale. If employees have a set of tasks and jobs they must perform in their role, then they will have a greater sense of belonging and purpose to the organization. To respond to this incident, we believe that breaking down jobs into categories is the most effective option. This action would act as the key first step in the process of analyzing the jobs at our firm. The other options were not feasible for Pear Inc. at this time; hiring an external consultant would not be in the best interest of the company in the long term. We would suggest that Pear Inc. consider conducting a complete analysis of all jobs in the future. Categorizing the jobs is a necessary step in the process of the complete analysis of all jobs.
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