Cutting of the Role of the National Marketing Manager - Acme Industries - Case Study Example

Name : xxxxxx Tutor : xxxxxxx Title : Human Resource Management Institution : xxxxxxx @2011 Acme Industries Memo A To: Lucy – The Marketing Director From: The Human Resource Manager Date: 11th April 2011. Subject: Cutting of the role of the National Marketing Manager Following your contemplation for a restructure in your department which will definitely split the role of the National Marketing manager into two, I considered the likely outcomes of this move given the contract that Sam had earlier signed when undertaking this job. There are problems that are likely to arise due to this which we cannot afford do neglect as a company. Even though Sam’s basic remuneration would not be affected, but the fact that his seniority is going to be diminished by the restructure and the possible reduction of his bonus structure, your proposal may not sail through smoothly. The legalities governing the employment contract of Sam may force me to get back to examine it, revise and assess its details to see if such a proposal may be workable. This is very important since the contract may limit any alterations being done on the role of the National Marketing Manager a position which has been assumed by Sam. For instance, the contract that Sam signed may clearly state that a downgrade of the bonus structure is a breach of terms that the company had laid down for that position. In addition to the breach of terms, this employment contract of Sam could prevent the removal of the rank that Sam now has, a factor that will pose a great problem to your proposal. I understand that the restructure may enhance efficiency but nevertheless, the restructure should not go against the contract that had been earlier signed by Sam. Any form of decision that will be taken by the company which will break the contract may result to severe penalties to the company. The only appropriate time that such a proposal can be easily effected is after the expiry of Sam’s employment contract just before renewing it. However before renewal, the rank after the restructure must be reflected in the contract form. Another possible alternative may be to terminate the contract, which may also create some other problems if the reason for the termination is not clear enough and does not satisfy Sam (Torrington, Taylor & Hall 2007). I would therefore wish to highly recommend that let such a restructure in your department only be done after we have gone through the contract and ascertained that the restructure has not gone against the terms in the contract. Otherwise, Sam will definitely think that the restructure which affected him most was a move you made as the Director of Marketing to get rid of him or to frustrate him. For the common good of the company and the employees as a whole, let not any form of negligence dominate the decision making as far as the restructure in the marketing department is concerned. Yours faithful, The Human Resource Manager. Acme Industries Memo B To: Mr. David – The Chief Executive Officer From: The Human Resource Manager Date: 11th April 2011. Subject: Quitting of the Research and Development Officer In line with the information you gave me on the walking out of Jeff, the Research and Development Officer to join a director competitor to the Acme industries, it is a case to be treated with a lot of caution but if the worst happens, legal action ought to be taken against Jeff. Legal action can be taken against Jeff on the grounds that he has breached the terms in the contract that he signed with the company before he was employed; leaving for the direct competitor of Acme industries is going against the clause in Jeff’s contract that restrains him from working for a competitor in any place within Australia for a time of up to 12 months since terminating his contract with this company. To add onto these, his untimely departure is a great disservice to the company since he was the one involved directly with the development of our secret leading edge tap ware which we have not yet released until next year. Legally, he should not be allowed to work for our direct competitor since he is going to definitely leak out our secret leading edge tap ware as he clearly understands every principle behind its implementation next year and he was directly in charge of this project. He will leak out the company’s secret and later help the direct competitor to counter our move which will make Acme industries to realize a great lose. This is because the tap ware design is a very important innovation and progress to Acme industries. If legal action is taken, definitely Jeff’s efforts of leaving to a direct competitor will be infringed. However, I wish to implore you sir that let us take the legal action against Jeff as our last resort even if it may be a viable option. This is due to the fact that Jeff is a very important person at the moment as the Research and Development Officer since he is the one who developed the design of our latest and very important tap ware product. We should therefore explore other ways of retaining Jeff in this company since his presence means a lot as far as the implementation of the tap ware design later next year is concerned. I therefore wish to recommend that we use the possible option of incentives to lure Jeff into remaining around and not leaving for a direct competitor. This will be the best option since the positive attitude to work that Jeff initially had will be maintained as we continue having him around to implement the secret design. I propose that we try and use incentives like salary increment, issuing of bonuses in appreciation of his efforts and a leave to make him think twice. Let us give him a higher payment than the pay he was going to probably receive in our competing company. I believe this will help change Jeff’s minds and consider remaining as an employee in this company (Torrington, Taylor & Hall 2007). Another option to solving this case, which we must consider, is looking into the reasons that may have made Jeff to consider leaving the company and then trying to get possible solutions to them which will suit all our employees and not necessarily Jeff alone. Let us create a committee that will engage in investigating into the reasons before coming up with recommendations which will help us get solutions. This will help retain Jeff in the staff and limit any future reoccurrence of the same. Let us therefore try this second option first before trying to take any legal action against Jeff if he will completely refuse and insist on leaving. Yours faithfully, The Human Resource Manager. Acme Industries Memo C To: Wilf – The Sydney Warehouse Manager From: The Human Resource Manager Date: 11th April 2011. Subject: Cutting down of the workforce Following your proposal to cut down the workforce from 100 to roughly 40 workers with a redundancy of 20 and a redeployment of 10, I wish to strongly conquer with you and recommend the adoption of this since it may save the company a great deal especially economically. However, all this must be done with a great consideration of the legality of the employment contracts of the employees. When considering the employees to be declare redundant, as the manager you must review the contracts signed by the various employees to thoroughly assess the termination penalties available for instance the payments for severance. You should also ensure that the process of termination has totally abided by the contracts since there may be clauses in the different contracts which may prevent or limit termination in the occurrence of situations like technological development. Such clauses may be negligible but may be used against the company especially by those employees who will be declared redundant. Before declaring the redundancies, you should also make sure that you have clearly communicated the redundancies to the entire company with reference to the redundancy policy of the company (Torrington, Taylor & Hall 2007). In choosing the workers who should stay, you may use performance review in selecting the staff. The staffs with a remarkable level of performance over a certain period of time qualify to stay and continue with their work as usual. Those with an average performance may be considered for redeployment while those with a poor performance should be the ones to be considered for redundancy. The performance review should be able to show how an employee has been able to work along other employees, his level of submission to the management of the company, and his general level of productivity. Another thing you could do together with the management team is to review the contracts to see which contracts are soon expiring. This may also be of much help in the laying off of some of the employees though in consideration of the other factors like productivity as earlier mentioned (Torrington, Taylor & Hall 2007). Since the declared redundancies may lead to the heavily unionized workforce launching forth a union protest and consequently negative publicity of the entire Acme industries, it is inevitable to consider their legal obligations. It will also be of much help if you will work hand in hand with the unions in the redundancy declaration and redeployment so as to avoid any possible negative outcomes. Another key factor to note is the notice period and the severance pay; they ought to be decided upon early enough and publicized to the entire company in advance. I believe these facts will be of much help to you as a manager and will help you go through the entire process with little or no hitches just ensuring a workforce that is enough. Yours faithful, The Human Resource Manager. References Farm Service Agency 2007, ‘How do I deal with an employee's unacceptable performance?’ FFAS Human Resources, vol.4, no. 3, pp. 30-31. Hassard, J & Porter, R 2011, ‘Cutting down the workforce: Eunuchs and early administrative management’, Organization Studies, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 17-19. Kamoche, K, Debrah, Y, Horwitz, F & Muuka, N, G 2003, Managing human resources in africa, Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 17-30. Torrington, D, Taylor S & Hall, L 2007, Human Resource Management, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. University of Cambridge 2011, ‘Redundancy and redeployment’, Human Resource Division, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 5-9. University of Glasgow 2002, ‘Redeployment guidance notes’, Human Resources, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 1-9. Welbourne, M, T 2011, ‘Fixed-term employment contracts: special care is required’, HRM the Journal, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 10-15. Read More