1. Based on this chapter and the case incident, compile a list of 10 international HR mistakes Mr. Fisher has made so far.

2. How would you have gone about hiring a European sales manager? Why?

3. What would you do now if you were Mr. Fisher?

“Boss, I Think We Have a Problem”

Central Steel Door Corporation has been in business for about 20 years, successfully selling a line of steel industrial-grade doors.¹⁴⁵ The company had gradually increased its presence from the New York City area, first into New England and then down the Atlantic Coast, then through the Midwest and West, and finally into Canada. The company’s basic expansion strategy was always the same: Choose an area, open a distribution center, hire a regional sales manager, and then let that regional sales manager help staff the distribution center and hire local sales reps. Unfortunately, the company’s traditional success in finding sales help did not extend to its overseas operations, when Mel Fisher, president of Central Steel Door, decided to expand his company into Europe. He tried for 3 weeks to find a sales manager by advertising in the International New York Times, which is read by businesspeople in Europe and by American expatriates living and working in Europe. Although the ads placed in the Times also ran for about a month on the Times’s Web site, Mr. Fisher so far has received only five applications. One came from a possibly viable candidate, whereas four came from candidates whom Mr. Fisher refers to as “lost souls”—people who seem to have spent most of their time traveling aimlessly from country to country, sipping espresso in sidewalk cafés. When asked what he had done for the last 3 years, one told Mr. Fisher he’d been on a “walkabout.”

Other aspects of his international HR activities have been equally problematic. Fisher alienated two of his U.S. sales managers by sending them to Europe to temporarily run the European operations, but neglecting to work out a compensation package that would cover their relatively high living expenses in Germany and Belgium. One ended up staying the better part of the year, and Mr. Fisher was rudely surprised to be informed by the Belgian government that his sales manager owed thousands of dollars in local taxes. The two managers had hired about 10 local people to staff each of the two distribution centers. However, the level of sales was disappointing, so Fisher decided to fire about half the distribution center employees. That’s when he got an emergency phone call from his temporary sales manager in Germany: “I’ve just been told that all these employees should have had written employment agreements and that in any case we can’t fire anyone without at least 1 year’s notice, and the local authorities here are really up in arms. Boss, I think we have a problem.”