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Instructions to the candidate: You have to go through the Case Study and identify risks,
conduct assessment (use your risk rating criteria) and determine appropriate
recommendations. Expected outcome is a high level risk assessment report.
Case Study:
You have recently been hired as an HR Consultant in the new HR Department of Amazement
Software. Amazement is a 5 year old, startup company, run by two very bright young men -
Will Mates – President, and his best friend Steve Lotts, Vice President. This is a very exciting
change for you because Amazement, which literally started in the basement of Will’s mother’s
house, controls a number of the top software products. The growth of this company has been
phenomenal, and you are looking forward to working with some young leaders, especially in
Information Technology industry.
You knew this was going to be a different place to work because your hiring interview with Will
and Steve was a little unusual. You expected to have to wow them with your HR expertise,
but in fact, were asked very little about HR. Rather, the discussion quickly turned to the
software business, and given that you have an interest in IT, a very animated conversation
ensued. It surprised you to learn that Will and Steve started off as computer geeks, turned
into programmers, and eventually ended up running a company, without having to take any
management courses.
It seemed normal for Will and Steve to interview you because you will be supporting the
management team, but apparently they feel so strongly about the people that work there, they
have done all of the hiring of staff - usually referrals from existing employees.
The HR department that you will be joining is made up of 4 people including yourself. The
other 3 people will report to you. They do mostly compensation and benefits work related to
transactions like issuing salary cheques, and processing benefits applications and changes.
When you are introduced to the group, they seem a bit harried and don’t have a lot of time to
talk. Everywhere there are signs asking “Is Lara Dead…Bring Back Lara”. You think that this
is a bit of a joke, but Will tells you that Lara used to work in the section, but when she left to
have a baby, they really haven’t had time to hire anyone else. Besides, with overtime 3 nights
a week, the work is getting done just fine.
Will and Steve told you that they have some great ideas regarding some additional directions
that they would like the company to take, but are a little reluctant to pursue expansion because
they have a feeling that there may be some human resource problems that need addressing
before the company moves ahead. While they really couldn’t tell you what they are, they
would really like to meet with you tomorrow to hear your ideas.
You know that you cannot meet with Will and Steve without doing some fact finding, and after
explaining this carefully, the bosses decide to give you 2 weeks to do some research. During
the two week period you obtained the following information:
There are currently 95 employees at Amazement, 40 programmers (junior and senior), 15 in
CD reproduction, 20 involved in packing and shipping activities, 10 in sales, and 10 involved
in administrative functions - accounts payable, accounts receivable, etc.
In management, there are the following personnel: Will Mates (president), Steve Lotts (Vice
President), Norm Russell (Accounting Manager), Jack Belkin (Production Manager), Ron
Ballonie (Sales Manager), and 5 project team managers for programming - David Boscoe,
James Carleton, Larry Stevens, Sean Miller and Paul Westlake.
Hiring for the most part has been done by word of mouth - people who already worked for
Amazement recommended other people. Will and Steve generally accepted these referrals
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from existing employees, if they got along well with them during the interview and thought they
would fit in with a young high tech company. This seemed to work quite well for a length of
time, but now Will and Steve have several concerns and they are not sure how to handle them.
Many of the early Programmers stayed with the company because they had backgrounds like
Will and Steve and enjoyed the environment. Lately however, Amazement has lost 8 of its 40
programmers - these were a mixture of senior and junior programmers.
Will is not sure why these people left. Some just gave notice and left, and some had had a
discussion with Will about raises. There didn’t seem to have been very much dialogue. Will
told you that his compensation formula was to offer employees 10% more than they made on
their previous job, and a yearly increment of 7% if people came to him and asked for it. He
said that his formula had worked well in the early stages of the company and no one
complained. When you had a look at the pay information, you found that salaries for
programmers were ‘all over the map.’ Some junior programmers were earning as much as
seniors, there was a $25,000/year spread between the lowest and highest paid programmer
and salary could not necessarily be matched to seniority.
Benefits are handled by a private company that Steve’s cousin works for. Your understanding
is that this arrangement was made because Will and Steve didn’t know anything about
handling benefits and this was the first option that was presented to them. Steve’s cousin
provided them with a very comprehensive set of benefits, so they did not get a second opinion.
Everything was fine until recently when comments were made about the type of benefits being
offered.
Will and Steve have expressed major concern about the programming teams not meeting
deadlines on their projects and this is having a disastrous effect on the timing of a new
product’s readiness for market. Will has made it clear that all of the project managers started
with the company as programmers and just sort of fell into these jobs. Things have happened
so quickly with the new software that not much training has been given to any of the Managers.
In interviewing the Managers, you find that two, whose deadlines are mostly met, have been
so desperate for training that they even took courses externally, without reimbursement from
the company. Courses have included time management, project management and how to
lead.
Coming into the office later in the week, you bump into a young man by the name of Kevin.
He seems lost. You quickly find out that he was hired about 4 weeks ago as a junior
programmer, has just finished school and this is his first full time job. He is a little frustrated.
He tells you that the people are very nice and he is delighted to be working for this company,
but he has spent a lot of time just trying to find everything from the lunchroom to office supplies.
Everybody is just so busy that he has had problems getting someone to ‘show him the ropes’.
He also tells you that he asked for a job description and was told that no one has a job
description in the company…a programmer is a programmer.
He seems so desperate that you stop and show him where things are, and make sure that his
desk is set up. While chatting you discovers that he is a little nervous about his pay because
he has yet to be paid; you call one of your pay people to help him out. It turns out that it is not
unusual for a new employee to wait up to 6 weeks for their first cheque and that his should be
in any time now. He is so grateful for the assistance that you tell him if he has any other
problems not specifically related to his work duties, to give you a call.
After your discussion with Kevin, you review the HR records, and also happen to talk to the
accounting manager. It is true that there are no formal job descriptions, but there are outlines,
drafted by Will and Steve, that identify the basic job function and responsibility of all jobs.
These outlines are about ¼ to ½ pages in length.
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While you were helping get Kevin set up, you noticed that a lot of the furniture is obviously not
ergonomically correct and a lot of the programmers seem to have wrist braces. The equipment
room is a complete nightmare of cable, cords, old keyboards and computer parts - an accident
waiting to happen. In a brief meeting with the accounting manager, he advises that although
there is no specific budget for new furniture, the company can certainly afford it. All a manager
has to do is ask.
You make a comment to Norm about the equipment room and ask what the Health and Safety
Committee has to say about it. You learn that even though a committee was set up a couple
of years ago, that some of the members have left the company and the others haven’t met in
a very long time. Also during your discussion with Norm, he laughingly tells you that the office
grapevine has it that a union has approached several of the programmers. When you ask him
what other managers are hearing, Norm has no idea, but he does comment that since people
are so well paid in the company, the union is barking up the wrong tree.
During your second week, Will calls you and asks if you would sit in on a hiring interview for a
programming positions, as Will and Steve would like you involved in this process from now
on. When you arrive, you learn that the interview is to replace a junior programmer who left
in the last week. When you ask to review the application, Will and Steve tell you not to worry,
the candidate is a friend of one of the current programmers, and is bringing the résumé with
her. When you asked what questions they would like you to ask, Will and Steve tell you that
they normally “just wing it…there isn’t a lot to worry about when a current employee does the
referral.”
You attend the interview, only to find that it was practically a repeat of the one that you went
through. There are very few questions relating to the actual job for which the person is being
interviewed and the discussion quickly switches to software and what direction the company
is taking at this time. The candidate seemed to get along very well with Will and Steve and
they offer her a job during the interview.
You decide to have some get acquainted interviews with some of the staff and given that the
programming area appears to be the hot spot in the company, you decide to start with the
production team managers first. Two of the five team managers, Paul and James, confide that
they are very unhappy. They were “having a blast” as programmers and when Will and Steve
asked them to lead one of the product projects, they were flattered and wanted to help out any
way they could. The quickly found out that dealing with staff was very difficult and time
consuming and that planning who would do what and by when was a complex process. Doing
all of this, and having something ready by a deadline, was almost too much for these two
people. They did not have any project management or leadership training, but when they
asked Steve and Will if the company could send them on training, they were told several times
that things were really very busy. They would have to wait for a few more months.
An interview with a third manager, David, was very strained to start out with. David appears
very intimidated by you and half way through the interview, he finally breaks down and
confesses that he is having marriage problems right now, is fighting a cocaine addiction and
doesn’t know where to turn. The company’s wellness program is non-existent and he does
not feel comfortable talking with his family doctor, because the doctor is very close friends with
his parents. He also feels that because of the doctor’s age and religious background, he may
not be very sensitive about the addiction issue. He also intimates during the conversation that
he is “not the only one at Amazement who has an addiction problem”.
Given the fact that there is no internal help available at Amazement, that this person needs
help immediately and that it took a lot for him to even tell you about the addiction, you ask him
if he would be willing to see a local physician that you know from previous HR work. You tell
him that this doctor has dealt with patients with addiction issues and can access other
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assistance for him. Dave agrees, you get him an appointment with the physician before he
leaves your office and he thanks you very much for listening to him and being willing to help
him out. He also wonders if, because of your job function in the company, whether you will
need to tell Will and Steve about his situation.
Your interviews with the remaining two project managers, Larry and Sean, go reasonably well.
These two are meeting their deadlines, have taken project management and leadership
courses at night, and they appear to have made the transition successfully to this type of
position. Both are concerned, however, that they are not being paid the going rate in the
industry for the type of work that they are doing. They both have had contacts through school,
and through the internet and feel that their wage levels are about 15 - 20% below the industry
rate. They would like to stay with Amazement, but not with this kind of financial sacrifice.
Neither have had a discussion with Will or Steve because they both know about Will’s pay
formula, and they do not think that their discussions will be successful. Larry has confided
that he is waiting to hear about the outcome of a recent interview.
