Case:

You have recently been hired as the Human Resources Manager for the Edmonton-based rapidly expanding catering company called "Wholesome Provisions".Wholesome Provisions has only been in business for five years and has quickly grown from a family business to a mid-sized company with just over 120 employees. Specializing in locally grown organic meals, "Wholesome Provisions" has become an in-demand catering choice. The executives of Wholesome Provisions have outlined a few problems that need to be addressed immediately.

Since implementing yearly performance evaluations over the last three years, Wholesome Provisions has been using these performance evaluations to justify pay increases and bonus payments. While some employees appeared happy with the process, others had complained that the system was unfair. In particular, there was a rumor that Jen Greens, a salesperson, was actively looking for a new job since receiving a poor performance evaluation from her manager, Roger Smith. Apparently, Jen had met all of her sales quotas for the year. She had shown up for work on time, had been respectful to customers, and had only missed two weeks of work when her mother was sick, and she needed to care for her. Jen had expected to receive positive feedback on her performance evaluation, but instead, Roger rated her as "average" in most categories. Then to make things even worse, Roger rated Jen as "needs improvement" on two categories: customer service and dependability. When Jen asked Roger to explain the poor ratings, Roger indicated that he had received several customer complaints about Jen. Jen wanted to know who complained and what the issues were, but Roger stated that this information was confidential and that he couldn't share any details. When asked about the poor rating regarding dependability, Roger explained that Jen suddenly took two weeks off work during the past year and left her coworkers with extra work.

Sara Goldberg, one of the executives, had recently hired a new junior accountant (Steven) who had a CPA designation and two years of relevant experience. It was challenging to attract a new person to this role, so Sara had to offer Steven an extremely competitive salary. As it turned out, to hire Steven, he was given an annual salary of $3000 less than what Alexandra was earning. When Alexandra found out, she was furious. As she explained to Sara, "I have been a loyal, productive employee since the beginning of Wholesome Provisions, and now you hire someone who is junior to me and who will be earning almost the same salary!" Sara tried to explain to Alexandra that she had to do this as the market was competitive and all funds currently available to her had to be allocated toward offering Steven a salary that would bring him to the company. No further money for other salary increases was presently available, and Sara encouraged Alexandra to think about her entire compensation package, including the benefits she earned at Wholesome Provisions. Alexandra's response was that she didn't care about benefits and was extremely insulted about the salary situation. Alexandra handed in her resignation the next day.

The Executive at Wholesome Provisions are concerned about employees coming in late for shifts and also spending company time on social media or personal emails. Wholesome Provisions has tried to create a supportive family environment, but as the company has grown, they have noticed an increase in employees coming in late, checking out early, and time spent at work on popular social media sites. One of the executives has suggested purchasing software to monitor employee activity.

1. write a conclusion for the case study