Human Resource Decision Making at Canada Importers Ltd.

Canada Importers Ltd. (CIL) is a large importer of linens, dishware, and crystal from a number of Asian, European, and South American countries. While nearly 55 percent of linens are imported from China, nearly 70 percent of crystal and diamond items originate in India. Most of the dishware comes from European and South American countries. Several other handicrafts and household products are imported from other East European countries and Japan. Different geographical offices of CIL specialize in different trade and import regions; for example, the Toronto and Vancouver offices primarily deal with suppliers in India (specializing in different industry groups), while the Calgary office conducts all negotiations with South America. CIL’s offices in Montreal and Halifax primarily deal with their European counterparts. Over time, management practices, including HR activities, in various CIL offices have begun to show considerable differences, posing problems for the senior managers. Recently, the following conversation took place between Rob Whittier, the vice-president of human resources, and Henri DeLahn, the vice-president of distribution.

Rob Whittier: You may not agree with me, but if we are going to have consistency in our human resource policies, then key decisions about those policies must be centralized in the human resource department. Otherwise, branch managers will continue to make their own decisions, focusing on different aspects.

Case Study

DigiTech

Besides, the department has experts. If you need financial advice, you would not ask your doctor; you would go to a banker or other financial expert. When it comes to deciding compensation packages or hiring new employees, those decisions should be left to experts in salary administration or selection. To ask a branch manager or supervisor to make those decisions deprives our firm of all of the expertise we have in the department.

Henri DeLahn: I have never questioned your department’s expertise. Sure, the people in human resources are more knowledgeable than the line managers. But if we want those managers to be responsible for the performance of their branches, then we must not deprive them of their authority to make human resource decisions. Those operating managers must be able to decide whom to hire and whom to reward with raises. If they cannot make those decisions, then their effectiveness as managers will suffer.

Discussion Questions

1. If you were Rob Whittier, how would you resolve this dispute?

2. What risks can you identify from a human resource perspective in Henri DeLahn’s arguments?

3. In retrospect, how might you have avoided the debate with Henri DeLahn by introducing human resource strategies during the growth phase of Canada Importers Ltd.?

Connecting Organizational Strategy to Human Resource Strategy

Gail’s phone buzzed as she stepped into the DigiTech office first thing Monday morning. Having been the director of human resources for three years, Gail was accustomed to her phone buzzing as soon as the day began, but this time was different. Stephanie, the company’s chief operating officer (COO) had sent a text requesting an urgent meeting with Gail.

DigiTech was an educational gaming provider specializing in peer-to-peer games for kids aged 12–15 that provided the foundations for software coding.

DigiTech had been in business for 12 years and employed about 125 people in various functions from user experience, to graphic design, through to technology support. It was an exciting time at DigiTech, as the company had recently created a new strategic plan and digital transformation plan that would take DigiTech into the next generation of computing power and gain back the market share it had recently lost.

Late last year, the business analyst at DigiTech had discovered that the company was losing clients because its connectivity was not fast enough and the quality of its games was falling behind the market. While DigiTech had no problem improving the quality of its games, the company discovered that when its games had become more detailed, its connectivity speed had dropped, leaving clients frustrated. As part of its digital transformation plan, DigiTech made the decision to move everything to the cloud to improve connectivity speed and give the company access to the computing power required by the higher quality games.

Stephanie was frustrated. She expressed to Gail that the operations team at DigiTech was not successfully implementing the projects that would take its software into the cloud. This put the implementation plan that was supposed to take five months nearly two months behind. This was a problem for Stephanie and the company’s CEO because they had both promised the owners that everything would be up and running by June—a mere three months away. Stephanie’s immediate reaction was that the operations team simply needed to work harder and learn whatever they needed to in order to get it done. To that end, Stephanie wanted Gail’s help so that HR could make it happen.

Gail asked Stephanie what she meant by the operations team’s needing to “learn whatever they needed to in order to get it done.” Stephanie indicated that the operations team was having difficulty getting things “set up right” in the cloud because things needed to be configured differently than before and that they had seen an increase in security breaches since starting the project. Probing further, Gail asked what the operations team needed to learn, specifically, to which Stephanie replied, “I’m not sure. I just know that they need some training, and fast.”

Discussion Questions

1. What do you believe has led to the emergency meeting between Stephanie and Gail from (1) an organizational perspective and (2) a strategic HR perspective?

2. What internal and external forces were influencing DigiTech?

3. In hindsight, what should Gail have done before this eventful Monday morning?

4. What should Gail do now?