Lisa McDonald is the new VP of HR at Company XYZ. She has been with this company for 4 years and is nervous of this demanding position. While working for Company XYZ as an HR Generalist, she went to school in the evenings and earned a master’s degree in Human Resource Management at a local university. As a result of her education, she was the right person for the job when the VP of HR left the company without notice. Unfortunately, Company XYZ did not have a succession plan in place and the CEO decided to “throw” Lisa into this prestigious position of VP of HR. Her first big project was to figure out why productivity levels have been decreasing over the last three quarters. She decided to create a survey. She had all of the employees at Company XYZ take the survey.
After analyzing the results of the “Employee Climate and Work-life” survey, she learned that many of the employees feel as if they are overworked and burnt-out. After conducting some personal research and reviewing the data from the last survey, she learned that many of the employees have over 200 hours of unused sick-time (i.e., 5 weeks) and over 400 hours (i.e., 10 weeks) of unused vacation time. Her employees did not want to take any time off from work. She wondered if it was because they simply loved their job or if they were so overwhelmed with work, they could not afford to take time off from work.
After calling her favorite professor from college, she understands that she has some options. Perhaps it’s time to implement a condensed work week? Perhaps it’s time to give employees the option of working 10-hour shifts, 4 days per week? Perhaps it’s time to offer the senior employees the option of working 13-hour shifts, 3 days per week? Perhaps it is time to let employees telecommute? All of the options have potential and could increase productivity levels and the other issues that emerged from the survey. The only problem is that she needs to discuss the situation with the CEO before she can implement a new policy.
Case Assignment
Once you have finished reading about this topic and reviewing the background materials, please write a 2- to 3-page paper (either in essay format or Q & A format) addressing the following questions:
1. How should Lisa McDonald approach the situation? As the new VP of HR, is it worth implementing a new “controversial” policy (i.e., condensed work week) or is time for a routine work flow analysis and job analysis? Justify your response.
2. Do you believe Company XYZ has an effective succession plan? Justify your response. What are the consequences of not having a succession plan?
3. Conduct some research and familiarize yourself with the following terms: (a) job enlargement, (b) job rotation, and (c) job enrichment. Do you think a plausible solution for this situation is job enlargement, job sharing, job rotation, and/or job enrichment? Justify your response.
4. As an HR Manager, what is the best way to gauge how your employees feel about a telecommuting policy (e.g., large meeting, anonymous survey, or one-on-one meetings)? Justify your response.
5. If the CEO opposes telecommuting but is willing to hear some “options for a condensed work week” (i.e., 3 days a week with 13 hours shifts), what are the pros and cons of such a unique schedule?
6. What if the CEO agrees to telecommuting? What would be some feasible rules and regulations so there is no confusion among the employees?
Be sure to support your arguments with references to the background readings and your research.
Upload your assignment to the Case 2 Dropbox. Be sure to review your TurnItIn Originality report. If the score is over 20%, you may be copying too much material from the internet or other sources and you will need to contact your professor and arrange to revise and resubmit the paper.
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/informationliteracy/chapter/video-me-plagiarize/
Assignment Expectations
The Case papers in this course will be evaluated using the criteria as stated in the Case rubric. The following is a review of the rubric criteria:
Assignment-Driven: Does the paper fully address all aspects of the assignment? Is the assignment addressed accurately and precisely using sound logic? Does the paper meet minimum length requirements?
Critical Thinking: Does the paper demonstrate graduate-level analysis, in which information derived from multiple sources, expert opinions, and assumptions has been critically evaluated and synthesized in the formulation of a logical set of conclusions? Does the paper address the topic with sufficient depth of discussion and analysis?
Business Writing: Is the essay logical, well organized and well written? Are the grammar, spelling, and vocabulary appropriate for graduate-level work? Are section headings included? Are paraphrasing and synthesis of concepts the primary means of responding, or is justification/support instead conveyed through excessive use of direct quotations?
Effective Use of Information: Does the submission demonstrate that the student has read, understood, and can apply the background materials for the module? If required, has the student demonstrated effective research, as evidenced by student’s use of relevant and quality sources? Do additional sources used provide strong support for conclusions drawn, and do they help in shaping the overall paper?
Citing Sources: Does the student demonstrate understanding of APA Style of referencing, by inclusion of proper citations (for paraphrased text and direct quotations) as appropriate? Have all sources (e.g., references used from the Background page, the assignment readings, and outside research) been included, and are these properly cited? Have all sources cited in the paper been included on the References page?
Timeliness: Has the assignment been submitted to TLC (Trident’s learning management system) on or before the module’s due date?
Case reports are to be prepared in Microsoft Word and should be 2-3 pages in length, in addition to a cover page (course name and number, module number, session name, Attention is to be given to citing sources of information in-text (within the body of the paper) as well as in the end references section of your paper. In-text citation and end reference formatting instructions are available at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/. Submit your report in the Case Dropbox for this module on or before the date due, as indicated at the TLC Homepage.
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