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 * Situation description:**

Marta is a part-time recruiter for a major retail chain store. She is responsible for sourcing, contacting and orienting part-time employees. During hiring she has independence in choosing candidates to fill vacancies, for around 90% of the time. However, in a recent hiring procedure she was asked to cooperate on an initiative by one of her bosses, the Human Resource Manager, Gill. Gill wanted Marta to screen (and hire, if qualified) a candidate with a learning disability. Gill had to submit monthly reports to her boss, the VP of the Human Resources, Helena on the company`s “equal employment opportunity” initiatives. The conflict identified at this point is between two different 'streams' of the business, STORE X and HEAD OFFICE`S HUMAN RESOURCE DEPARTMENT. Marta represents the STORE X and Gill and Helena (Helena is Gill`s boss) represent HEAD OFFICE`S HUMAN RESOURCE DEPARTMENT. However, Marta represents the intersect between the support function that is HR@HO and Stores, thus the source of much of the conflict. On the other hand, Marta has to communicate her decisions to her Store Manager, Francesco. She does not report to Francesco, but she acts as a human bridge between the two functional units, store and human resource, i.e. Helena and Francesco. Decisions made in delicate situations such as this one need to be achieved by negotiation, in order for Marta to be able to proceed with the process. The conflict identified here is that neither Store Manager, nor Human Resource Manager (Gill) are the direct and 'almighty' boss that tell Marta what to do, but they both have a lot of influence. It is more of a common practise and sort of 'case per case' to consult either one or both in special cases such as the current one. The store manager, Francesco was not fond of the idea of working directly with a person with a disability. He tried to ignore the request from the Human Resource Manager ansd took advantage of having regular face-to-face meetings with Marta more often than Helena to convince Marta to pursue his decision. Helena and Marta work from two different physical locations so they almost never meet in person; they communicate via e-mail. Francesco gave Marta a resume of a candidate that approached him in the past and he pre-screened then. He explained to Marta that he was waiting for a position to open to refer the candidate, who he feels would be a great fit. Marta wants to screen the candidate with a learning disability, but conformed to the pressure exuded by Francesco. The issue here is the Marta compromises to her own needs of self growth and 'doing what`s right' in order to keep a positive relationship with store management. This also opens up questions of personal ethics, because Marta breaks her own code of ethics. Please talk about Marta not being ethical. You may also talk about the fact M works for the company part time and her involvement is not on the same level as that of the other players, thus she might not be even interested in going that far. The only way that she would stand up to support the 'equal employer' practise is as if she had to back up her 'other bos s Gill. In this case it would be the power of coalitions and the ability to point out to store management that they might not be doing the right thing. That is all, again only a hypothetical development of the situation. The deal closed by hiring Francesco`s proposed candidate, because of the urgent need to fill the vacancy and proceed the store operations smoothly. Francesco took advantage of the long and inefficient back and forth e-mail communication between himself, Marta and Helena. Here, it was definitely the communications method that left some 'voices unheard'. The final outcome is: -store operations remain intact, becase an EQUALLY qualified candidate was hired to fill the position; -HR@HO falls behind on their equal employment opportunities hiring practises, but it is outside of the scope of this analysis to discuss any of its implications..

**If you guys have any questions, feel free to call my cell 4165572315, Il be at work for the most of the day.Maja**

Some of the reocommendations come from the book...

**Group debrief of the situation:**

The situation analysis depicts horizontal conflict of interest between the STORE and the HR stream, both involved in creating a best fit solution for the corporate. The two different parts/units coflict starts at the notion that the STORE is techically more important and considered 'key to operations' vs. HR a support function and often considered as no value ading. Another problem identified are the roles of people involved. The issues from this stand point of view are: overlaps in decision makers (does Gill, Helena, Francesco or Marta-who decides who gets hired? Obviosly the answer is much more complex than that); no previos knowledge in dealing with situation of similar fashion (the 'equal employer' practise got enforced as of recently because of pressures in the competitive environments for the corporation) as well as needs for independent decision making while integrating efforts to achieve results. It is inevitable to give power to negotiation in achieving decisions in situations such as this one. Even though this action could have taken many different directions as all parties involved could have approached the situation differently, we deem it is impossible to get everyone happy in such complex organizational structure, working under so much external and internal pressures. However, we disccuss many different directions this situation could have taken, looking at the case from the lenses of polytical, symbolic, structural and human resource.

**Situation analysis:** __Human Resource Frame:__ In terms of the HR framework of organization, __Helena`s need for self-actualization is obstructed__. One can talk about Maslows pyramid from the txtbook here. Helena has the 'right' to do work that is meaningful and important and that she is creating value, like every other employee. However Helena`s role does not conform to standard employee description becase her role of __a VP of HR makes her one of the key fiqures in the company is actively involved in shaping the company`s public image__. This means that she performs under enormeous pressure to meet quotas that create measurable marks for her work to be assessed (the company keeps track of the numbers and plots hiring patterns). As a result, even though she knows both what needs to be done and how that can be done, she still needs people`s cooperation at different levels. Now, this opens up the idea od leadership and making people buy into ones ideas and not simply make them do work because they fear loosing their jobs. That way, if Helena performs on the level of self actualization according to Maslowa hierarchy of needs, she needs to let others developed to that same level in their own domains.

Moving vertically down HR, Gill has been asigned a task. She knows the end result needed to be achieved- participation in efforts to increase the overall business` equal opportunity hiring. She is not under any pressure to hit measurable results, but is expected to do the best work possible. In oder to start the process, Gill delegates to the level of execution, i.e Marta. Because of the fact that Helena is going to asked more HR managers who are in charge of other stores, even if some are more successful than others, the effect will level off and the end result will be claimed as group ownership. Also it is normal to assume that Gill same as Helena has her own needs for self actualization.

Marta faces the issue of 'two masters'. She accepted the position as having to 'discuss and consult' with both Gill and Francesco, but none of the them was labeled as 'the boss'. Also, her status as part time employee does not allow for more agressive and continious involvement with the business. This simply means that neither Marta not Gill (Helena has only met with Gill whose boss she is and trough whom she communicates across the stream) are almost never in the store. Marta because of her part time status and Gill because she is 'helicopter staff' that visits the store when needed and operates from HO. **Recommendations:** -propose more frequent face to face meeting for all three; -undergo a “dealing with different personality types” training (“big 5­­” pg. 179); -discuss self-awareness, defensiveness, search for common interest, doubting infallibility etc. __Political Frame:__ Power and conflict are at the centre of the organization in this example. Resources are scarce (in this example time and money). Also, reaching goals and decisions can be done by negotiation, bargaining and jockeying positions among stakeholders (negotiation would be appropriate in this example). Even though conflict is seen as something positive in terms of the political frame, the structural treats conflict as impeding of efficiency. In terms of political, the store manager putting their foot down is making progress on the situation, i.e. decision making. Francesco has made an informal coalition with Marta making her pursue his decision without consulting Helena, and only notifying her after the fact. **Recommendations:** -Hold meetings and let support functions and core business be reminded of what their overall goals are as teams, help them see the big picture and discern between tasks and process, and know exactly where they are at every stage of decision making. -Find a way for a mutual gain, i.e. trial, or hire employees on an ’x number of moths’ probation basis. __Symbolic Frame:__ The conflict on the level of the symbolic frame exists because Helena and Francesco are guided by different values and principles. They are both very different profiles of people who perfectly fit their positions, but yet need to find a common ground in presenting the organizations’ personality. The organization performs under constant pressure to do well for its customers that is tied into its stock, into public relations and it goes back to its day to day actions to maintain the life chain of events. They need to work towards a common mission of helping the organization be a diverse place and give talent an opportunity while helping governments and societies in general. Helena, Marta and Francesco have all the interest of working for prosperous organisation who has the right candidates in the right positions, doing the right work.

The symbolyc frame is important because often communication between parties is a lot more than simply characters in an email message ( this is most of the communication between Marta-Gill). Marta and Francesco also communicate via email, but also meet in person more often than do Gill and Marta. Face to face meetings gives people access to non-verbal cues such as body language cues, sharing rituals in a day (taking coffee breaks and learning about a coworker`s or boss`s cat disease) seeing and judging about a person trough their personal spaces ( seeing a soccer picture on a desk ) and etc. This creates an informal link to a proffessional relationship, but only serve to reinforce the professional link. Francesco is acctually a Francesca in real life:) __Structural frame:__  The issues are around coordination and strict definition of who does what and who has the final word if anyone does. In this satiation there were no rigid rules as to how to approach the problem, the decision was made through major elements of the political frame.  -we would recommend defining domains when facing issues of diversity (people with learning disabilities) in the workplace.  **-the 'two bossess' issues, does not work. Perhaps the best way to deal with this is have formal meetings, as opposed to weeks long back and forth emailing.**