Scenario for Final Paper.
Amanda Smiley became president and CEO of Purest Medicalabout two months ago. Prior to that, she was vice-president ofmarketing and sales at Ferraro Products, a smaller medical productscompany. Amanda has a PhD in chemistry and an MBA with a specialtyin marketing. She and her husband Dustin do not have children.Dustin is a professor of philosophy at the U of M and the author ofseveral books on philosophy of mind. In their spare time, they playa little golf, travel to Italy, and participate in road rallies.Amanda is honest, open, demanding, and fair. She is a good coachand is always offering encouragement. When you are talking withAmanda, as soon as she senses that you have not done your researchand thinking, she cuts off the discussion and sends you on yourway. You don’t want to come unprepared a secondtime.
Purest Medical is a company that designs and sells avariety of medical products. Performance at Purest has slipped thelast two years, mostly due to the prolonged ill health of thefounder, Dr. Nathan Dooley. The Board hired Ms. Smiley and she hasreplaced 75% of the senior management team, most of whom were veryclose to, or past, retirement age, and had lost motivation. Thesituation: sales have increased only 2 – 4 % per year over the pastthree years, below industry average. Manufacturing waste has alsolagged behind industry averages. Inventory levels of raw materialsand finished products are too high, tying up much needed capital.The company has to become much more efficient and effective.Manufacturing technology is a strength. On the employee side, jobstress levels seem to be climbing, based on a recent employeesatisfaction survey taken just before Ms. Smiley’s arrival.However, employee turnover is still at a lowlevel.
Amanda (she demands everyone call her by her first name)has set some aggressive goals to improve the overall performance ofthe 305-person firm. Her goals:
Increase sales by 15% this year and at least 20% nextyear
Reduce manufacturing waste by 20% this year and anadditional 20% next year
Increase the number of viable ideas in the productpipeline by 66%
Improve order response rate by at least 85%
Improve communication across the company to convey asense of urgency
You were hired as Purest’s HRD specialist two weeks ago.You are learning a lot quickly about the company, but there is muchmore to learn, since this is the first time you’ve worked in themedical products (or any health-related) field. You recentlycompleted your BS at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, andafter a short vacation to Europe, you were able to land this job.You haven’t even had the time to join a professional associationyet, although you have that as a goal for this month. You did keepyour Human Resource Development textbook.
Just the other day you and your boss, Genna Hamilton,the vice-president of HR, had an informal discussion with Amandaover pizza in her office. Amanda asked you to help her put in placea training program to improve performance across all areas of thecompany. She knows something has to be done. She expects you tolead this critical project. She mentioned that she feels someacross-the-board training for all supervisory positions, includingherself, needs to be a part of the program. She even wondered ifthe senior management team needs some extra attention. Further,Amanda is concerned about getting people to change their behaviorsafter training – she expressed that this has frustrated herthroughout her managerial life. Amanda also emphasized that shealways wants to see a strong business justification for anyinvestment of people and money. She asked Genna if it is easy tocalculate ROI for a comprehensive HRD program, and Genna didn’tknow. You didn’t want to show up your boss in front of Amanda, soyou simply said yes; later you explained it in detail to Genna.Amanda also suggested that one of your recommendations be athorough communication plan, detailing exactly what she and othersin supervisory positions need to do to encourage all employees toparticipate with passion and urgency in this program. As you wereleaving her office, Amanda said that getting something done veryquickly was an absolute necessity. She asked for a plan to achieveher goals through training, and she added that maybe training isn’talways the solution. She hinted strongly that maybe there are othertypes of HRD interventions. In any case, she expects a prioritizedlist of activities. And then she said: “Let’s meet next Monday at9:00 a.m. to review your plan and suggestions. I don’t expect youto cover every detail, especially with the ROI, and I assume youhave some kind of process that we’ll need to follow. I’m reallyexcited about getting started on this pronto. See you then. By theway, I hope you’re settling in here. Genna has spoken well of youand I have high expectations. Let me know if you need anything. Youcan’t do this alone.”
What are your recommendations and plans to address allthe goals of Amanda’s
- What will you do to measure the success of yourrecommendations?
- What alternatives may be necessary if the recommendation doesnot work?
- How will you know that the desired result has been achieved?Include ROI or equivalent.
- What questions or concerns do you have at this time?
