10 May HOW WOULD YOU EVALUATE HARVEY’S DECISION TO BRING HOPWOOD MANUFACTURING TO THE UNIVERSITY?
AOU – OMU BMHR5103 Assignment 2: Case Study OBJECTIVES: 1. To evaluate the student understanding on the basic principles of HRM with enhancement of critical thinking in current HRM issues 2. To highlight the link between theory and the practicality of HRM through research and case study. EVALUATION This assignment accounts for 30 % of the total marks for the course. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS TO STUDENTS 1. Your assignment should be typed using 12 point Times New Roman font and 1.5 line spacing. 4. You must submit your assignment on LMS by 10 May 2016 no assignments will be accepted after this date. 5. Your assignment should be prepared individually. You should not copy another person’s assignment. You should also not plagiarize another person’s work as your own. This assignment should be completed individually. You are required to submit the following assignment case study analysis: You are required to analyze and answer a case with regards to human resource management issues pertaining to an organization given. You are required to work individually. Total of words is not to exceed 2000 (Questions included). You are allowed to discuss with your classmates but you are also required to answer the questions assigned to you individually. Please read the case as in Appendix 1 and answer the following questions: Questions (Each carries 10 marks): 1. How would you evaluate Harvey’s decision to bring Hopwood Manufacturing to the university? Did he make any mistakes? Should he have done anything differently? Were there warning signs that he should have recognized and if so how should he have responded to those signals? 2. How did the characteristics of the organization and the events that transpired in the previous academic year affect Harvey’s situation? Would the problem have been different if the anonymous e-mail hate message had not been sent? 3. Who are the stakeholders that Harvey must consider as he contemplates his next steps? What are the interests of each stakeholder group? 4. Why did Harvey just sit there silently in the face of these stereotypical and discriminatory statements? Why didn’t he do something then while he had the recruiters sitting across the table from him? 5. What specific action(s) should Harvey take at the end of the case and in what time frame? NOTES: Assignments should be submitted according to the fixed date. Plagiarism is a serious offence. Those who are caught doing it will not be given any scores. If you are not sure what is meant by plagiarism refer to the various websites which discuss this matter e.g. owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts. Appendix 1: HOPWOOD MANUFACTURING: SEEKING TO HIRE THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST OR NOT (A) Professor Robert Harvey did not notice the music streaming from his radio as he drove home on the evening of April 14. He was stunned by what he had just heard from Hopwood recruiters in a wrap-up meeting. They had interviewed a dozen Lambert University students nine for management training positions and three for summer internships. Had he misunderstood what they had said? Could representatives of a Fortune 500 company actually state that they could not place a young Hispanic woman in a manufacturing facility in the South? It was 2006 after all. He did not want to believe it but that is what they said. Harvey wondered what he should do. LAMBERT UNIVERSITY Lambert University a small church-affiliated liberal arts institution located in rural northern Iowa had an enrollment of approximately 2 500 students. It was founded by a group of Mennonites in the late 1800s and it graduated mostly teachers and preachers through the first half of the twentieth century. However beginning in the 1960s Lambert began to develop a strong reputation in the natural sciences and in accounting while continuing to maintain a strong education program. By the early part of the new century the university’s pre-medicine program was among the finest in the Midwest and the accounting department was one of the best in the nation. Eighty per cent of the university’s students came from rural northern Iowa and their homes were located within a two-hour drive of the school. Many of these students were the first in their families to attend college. Within that two-hour radius there were also three large (for Iowa) cities yet few city kids attended Lambert. The school was in the middle of the Iowa cornfields and students from the city generally felt isolated on its 250-acre campus. As a result 95 per cent of the student body (and an even greater percentage of the faculty and staff) was white. Recently the issue of diversity had taken centre stage at Lambert. Despite the low number of non-whites minority students had generally felt welcome but in the spring of 2005 an anonymous e-mail hate message had been sent to several minority student organizations on campus. This event was used as a springboard by the administration to emphasize the institution’s commitment to diversity. Over the next 12 months the university hired a consultant who conducted a diversity audit on campus; faculty staff and students completed diversity questionnaires; diversity consultants were assigned to all employment search committees; and diversity was a recurring topic at many campus meetings. THE HOPWOOD OPPORTUNITY Robert Harvey was finishing his eighth year teaching various business classes at Lambert. In early November 2005 he was contacted by David Maggert who had spoken in his classes as a guest lecturer twice a year for several years in the late 1990s. In fact on those occasions Maggert had travelled to Lambert at his own expense and had not requested any remuneration for his time. In addition he had hired Lambert students both as interns and as permanent employees when he worked for a major auto manufacturer. Harvey had not seen him for several years and was surprised to hear that Maggert had left his high level position in the auto industry to join the Hopwood Manufacturing Company. Hopwood was a billion-dollar producer of recreational equipment including fiberglass swimming pools hot tubs and saunas exercise equipment swing sets jungle gyms and various other items. Maggert said that he had always been impressed by Lambert students and that he would like to meet with Harvey to discuss a new program he was developing at Hopwood. Harvey agreed and set up a lunch meeting with Maggert himself and Sharon Wilson another faculty member in the School of Business. At the meeting several weeks later Maggert explained what he was trying to accomplish. Hopwood had traditionally promoted people from within which meant that strong performers in the factory were promoted to entry-level management positions from which they continued to climb in the organization. Maggert—who revealed at the lunch that he had not joined the company as an employee as Harvey had been led to believe but in fact was an independent consultant under contract with Hopwood—sought to professionalize the company’s management. He was working to develop a program through which the company would hire college and university business students as summer interns. From there the top performers would be offered permanent positions as managers in training. Maggert was visiting small institutions such as Lambert where there would be few Fortune 500 companies recruiting thereby increasing Hopwood’s opportunity to hire in Maggert’s words “the best and the brightest.” Though a little put off by the fact that Maggert had not revealed his consulting status earlier Harvey and Wilson were thrilled with the possibilities this opportunity might provide. Under the proposal students who were selected for internships would be placed in one of Hopwood’s 30 manufacturing facilities around the United States. The company would pay for relocation and housing it would provide an hourly wage and a performance-related bonus would be available at the end of the summer. As it turned out the company would also be interested in recruiting managers in training for the coming spring even though the internship program was not yet off the ground. HOPWOOD VISITS LAMBERT Wilson and Harvey worked hard to develop excitement among students for the Hopwood recruiting visit. On paper it sounded great and it was unusual to have such a large company that was not an accounting firm coming to the campus. They began talking about the Hopwood opportunity informally in their classes and with their top students. Other faculty members in the School of Business were encouraged to do the same. They then arranged for an evening presentation by Hopwood representatives the night before the interviews. The idea was to invite all business students whether they would be interviewing the next day or not in an effort to generate excitement about the new internship/manager-in-training program that might carry over into future years. Posters were hung around campus and the faculty continued to promote the visit. Off to a Poor Start David Maggert arrived with Wendy Blair a human resources representative from Hopwood on April 13 in the middle of the afternoon. Harvey welcomed them to the university and for Blair’s benefit gave the two a quick tour of the campus. They stopped in the lecture hall where they would give their presentation that evening to make sure the necessary equipment was available. Harvey was a little surprised that they needed only an overhead projector. He had expected something a little more sophisticated—even students were now using PowerPoint as a matter of course in their class presentations. But he was too excited to let this minor detail bother him. Following their short walk Harvey Maggert and Blair headed for the coffee shop to visit before the presentation. During their conversation Harvey sensed some tension between Blair and Maggert and he quickly discovered that she did not have a college education. She was part of the rank and file that had been promoted into management. As the evening wore on it became apparent that this new recruiting program was Maggert’s baby; Blair felt threatened by it and was clearly not on board. That evening approximately 225 students showed up for the Hopwood presentation and reception that followed. Twelve of them would be interviewed the next day. The lecture hall was packed and Maggert began the presentation. His portion proceeded smoothly although Harvey had seen him do much better. Blair on the other hand was not well-prepared. She came across as uninterested and less than professional and on more than one occasion during the question-and-answer session she cut Maggert off or chastised him for his response. It was obvious to the few who knew that Maggert was a consultant that Blair was taking every opportunity to remind him of that fact. As Wilson and Harvey discussed the presentation the following morning they agreed that Hopwood’s performance was less than stellar. Certainly a Fortune 500 company could have done better than that. However if the interviews went well that day the poor presentation would fade from people’s memories. Unfortunately that was not to be. The Interviews The interviews were scheduled to begin on Wednesday morning April 14 at 9:00. Harvey had a class scheduled at that time but he walked over to the Office of Career Services beforehand to greet Maggert and Blair and to make sure they had everything they needed. When Harvey left for his class at 9:10 Maggert and Blair still had not arrived and the first student to be interviewed sat waiting. Harvey wondered to himself as he climbed the stairs to the third-storey administration building classroom what else might tarnish the Hopwood visit. His question would be answered soon enough. Christine Ramirez was scheduled for the first interview. Ramirez who was born in Mexico was a senior business major with outstanding academic credentials. She had international experience excellent writing and oral communication skills (not a trace of an accent) and a strong interest in working with a large company. She waited patiently for the recruiters who finally arrived at approximately 9:15. Among the other students to be interviewed was one black male from Kenya whose English was good but laden with a heavy accent and one white female from northern Iowa. The remainder of the interviewees were white males. During the course of the day Harvey saw two or three of the students who had interviewed with Hopwood but learned nothing unusual. One student commented that the interview was quite short; the others remarked that their interviews were relatively comparable to what they had experienced with other recruiters. The Post-Interview Meeting Harvey returned to the Office of Career Services shortly after 4:00 that afternoon. The final interview was scheduled to end then and he wanted to talk with Maggert and Blair about their impressions before they left the campus. Harvey gave the pair about 15 minutes to talk privately after the last interviewee left before knocking on the door and inviting himself into the room where the interviews had been conducted. Blair and Maggert sat side by side comparing notes at the oval-shaped table. Harvey sat facing them. Maggert greeted Harvey warmly and thanked him for returning to visit; he and Blair had some issues they wanted to discuss. Maggert: Bob this was a good group that we saw today and they did a nice job with the interviews. For the most part they were well-prepared and quite professional. We do have some general concerns however about the fit between the students here and Hopwood. Harvey: Tell me about your concerns. Blair: Well let’s take Bill. What a nice kid. I swear I thought he must be a student pastor somewhere. He’s just a real nice young man and northern Iowa is exactly where he should stay. I think he has an offer with a small company nearby doesn’t he? He ought to take that offer and stay here. I don’t think he could survive in the kind of environment we work in. Harvey: Who else did you have concerns about? Maggert: David Smith was another one. He did well in the interview but with that baby face of his I think he’d get eaten alive in our customer service department. Harvey: [silence] Maggert: We were quite impressed with Christine Ramirez though. She did very well. Blair: She was excellent. She’s bright and talented and she handled herself very well. But we’re not sure we can make her an offer. Harvey: Why not? Blair: Well you know that many of our plants are in the South. Harvey: Yes. Blair: Well . . . many of the people who work in those plants grew up in the South. They’ve lived in the South all their lives. Harvey: Yes. Blair: I just don’t think that we can place a young Hispanic woman in that environment. Harvey: [silence] Harvey could not believe what he was hearing. The meeting wound up shortly thereafter and the parties exchanged perfunctory thank you but his head was spinning. He knew that discrimination still occurred but he had never heard anything so blatant from people in such high positions. The words swirled in his mind as he drove home. He couldn’t imagine how Sharon Wilson would react. CONCLUSION The following morning Thursday April 15 Harvey entered Wilson’s office and closed the door behind him. It was not unusual for the two to meet privately to discuss important issues related to the business school. They regularly brainstormed together and bounced ideas off each other but this was different. The stakes were higher than usual and they needed to decide what to do quickly. After Harvey explained what had happened the previous afternoon Wilson recounted a similar statement made by the Hopwood people when she hosted them for lunch the previous day only the lunch statement was directed not only at the “young Hispanic woman” but also the black male student from Kenya. There was no misunderstanding then. Both faculty members had heard the same thing from Hopwood Manufacturing’s recruiters and they knew that such behavior could not go unchecked especially not at Lambert University. Wilson and Harvey (both of whom were white) were Lambert graduates and they knew that aside from general societal standards of decency Maggert and Blair’s behavior was simply unacceptable in the Lambert environment. One of the focal points of the Lambert Statement of Mission was a recognition of “the infinite worth of every person.” The people at the university including Wilson and Harvey believed in that principle and it guided their conduct. Now they would have to decide what corrective action was appropriate. Source : Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation (2011) 1- I think Harvey shouldn’t rush in brining Hopwood to the campus even if it was a great opportunity for the members and students because he didn’t realize the serious discrimination behavior he should have been notice that among the company’s hiring polices and through seeing the white majority of people there. 2- The problem of racism and discrimination made the school very sensitive and these issues are almost forbidden to mention. However the Email should have made the school consider the hiring policy of the company. It was a clear message that there is an obvious discrimination issue within the company. They should have made a programme to a advice or guide the companies to avoid racism.4- Harvey was amazed by the hatred and the discrimination comments the Blair and Maggret made. He should have interfere but he rather kept silent I guess to think of a deeper and more effective plan to deal with this situation. I also believe that if he interfere he would risk the internship chance to be approved. 5- He should take actions quickly to overcome the issue and he should remind Maggret and Blair of the goals of Lamberts diverdity and show them that a preson is worthy no matter where he is from.
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