CASE: NINA, HR DIRECTOR

Nina has worked at Paradise Vacation Rentals in Sacramento, California, since its inception ten years ago. Paradise began as a short-term vacation rentals company based in Reno, Nevada. Paradise started out linking property owners in the ski country around Lake Tahoe who wanted to earn rental income with vacationers seeking an alternative to a hotel stay. As the company expanded geographically to include other popular vacation destinations in northern California and the Pacific Northwest, the company moved its base to the larger city of Sacramento. Nina began her career with the company as the office manager, handling a wide variety of administrative tasks from day-to-day office management to payroll and benefits administration. Over time she found HR work to be an especially good fit for her skills and interests, and she gained experience in other areas besides payroll, for example, hiring, training, and employee relations. Paradise grew in size and eventually HR became a stand-alone department. The company paid for Nina to go to school part-time at night, and she earned her MBA with a concentration in HR. She was rewarded for her stellar performance history, broad-based HR experience, and graduate degree with a promotion a month ago to Director of the HR Department. Nina has five direct reports: Sonia, her executive assistant, and the managers of the four units comprising the HR department. These four units with their managers and main responsibilities are:

• Compensation and Benefits (Peter, manager): Payroll processing, benefit plans administration, federal and state legal compliance (wage & hour rules, benefit plans).
• Employee Relations (Marcia, manager): Disability accommodation, leave administration, conflict resolution, employee separations, special projects.
• Talent Acquisition and Development (Javier, manager): Recruiting and hiring, training and professional development, performance management.
• HR Information Systems (Kate, manager): HR systems design and applications development, website administration, technical support, data management and reporting.

Its Monday, August 15, and Nina has returned to work after being out of the office Thursday and Friday of last week. She was ill at home with a nasty flu bug and was unable to do much more than periodically check her e-mail for emergencies. Thankfully, nothing blew up while she was out; even so, she is confronted this morning with quite a number of items requiring her attention. Complicating matters is the fact she has to leave town on Wednesday for a California employment law seminar in Los Angeles. She will be out of the office Wednesday through Friday, returning next Monday. In the two days before she leaves, Nina would like to clear out as many of these pending in-box items as she can so that she wont be too overwhelmed upon her return. The items take the form of e-mails, voicemail messages, and written memos. Also included are quite a few notes-to-self. These are an assortment of reminders and project ideas that Nina has made notes about over her first month in the HR Director position. She keeps meaning to devote some time to these, but they always seem to get put off in the face of more pressing business.

Instructions:

Review the following items and decide (a) if Nina should delegate all, or some part, of this item, and (b) if yes, to whom? Why?

Item #1: E-mail from the president. Shes concerned about Paradises rapidly escalating health insurance costs and wants Nina to investigate options for controlling this expense item. Nina replied from home that she would look into it and get back to her.

Item #2: Voicemail from Jared Simmons, the HR manager of a Sacramento firm similar in size to Paradise. He wants to discuss the possibility of forming a group of local employers who could subsidize a daycare facility for employees children.

Item #3: Note-to-self. All managers are expected to complete third-quarter performance reviews with their staff by September 30. This entails a brief written evaluation and a sit-down meeting with each direct report.

Item #4: E-mail from Kim in the Employee Relations unit. She is asking for approval to take a weeks vacation at the end of next month. (Marcia is out of the office until Wednesday.)

Item #5: Note-to-self. Five years ago, Paradises management team considered and rejected moving to an HMO-style healthcare plan, believing the traditional PPO model better served employees needs. Time to revisit this decision?

Item #6: Voicemail from a job applicant who wasnt hired. She claims she was passed over in favor of another candidate without kids and hints she may pursue legal action.

Item #7: Note-to-self. Through catching up on some reading at home last week, Nina learned that some businesses are opening onsite health clinics for their employees. Should Paradise consider this?

Item #8: Note-to-self. Need to get moving on planning the department Christmas party! (This is a task Nina has been doing for years. She looks forward to it every year about this time.)

Item #9: Voicemail from Javier. Hes encountering resistance from a few managers who have attended training sessions on the new 360-degree performance feedback system to be implemented at year-end. They think it will take too much time. What should he do?

Item #10: Memo from Stan, Ninas predecessor as HR Director. Before his retirement, Stan helpfully left a list for Nina of all the recurring reports, internal and external, that he had been handling. The next one thats due is the EEO-1 report, with a September 30 deadline. (Note: This federally-mandated annual report requires company employment data to be categorized by race/ethnicity, gender and job category).

Item #11: Memo from Paradises controller. Proposals for next years department budgets are due by October 15.

Item #12: Voicemail from Joe, an employee in the Customer Services Department. He plans to retire at the end of the year and needs information about disbursement options for his 401(k) plan. He says he called the benefit plans helpdesk twice and left messages but hasnt gotten a call back. (This is the third complaint like this Nina has received during her first month as HR Director.)

Item #13: Note-to-self. The Careers at Paradise area on the company website is out-of-date and the Job Postings area seems difficult for users to navigate. Nina is aware that Kris, an analyst in the HR Information Systems unit, recently completed an advanced HTML class and has up-to-date expertise in webpage design.

Item #14: E-mail from Steve, the Sacramento office manager. It looks like some budgeted funds for office furniture and equipment will be available to spend by year-end. Does the HR Department need anything?

Using the Exception Principle, Urgent vs important principle , Delegate to develop principle, scalar chain principle, Unity of command, Parity principle, Result principle, Participation and upward delegation principle.

Apply the delegation principles from above to make decisions, individually, for the items in Nina's in-box.

In your write-up, please number your responses to correspond with the in-box item numbering and respond to the following Qs:

1. Should Nina delegate this item or handle it herself? Note that theres a partial delegation option.
2. If she should delegate it, to whom? Why? Briefly explain your reasoning.