In May, Joan Hanley submitted a rsum to the human resource department of L & M Engineering Inc.in response to an advertisement in Indeed.com for a senior editor position. The rsum was forwarded to L & Ms Manager of Communications, Lisa Carpenter, for her consideration.

L & M Engineering Inc is a mid-west-based firm with offices in several states and Canada. It has recently begun adding locations in several other countries such as Australia and South America. The company performs engineering duties in planning, designing, and overseeing construction and maintenance of building structures, and facilities, such as roads, railroads, airports, bridges, harbors, channels, dams, irrigation projects, pipelines, power plants, and water and sewage systems, The firm also plans and designs structures, such as private residences, office buildings, theaters, factories, and other structural property

At the time of the senior editor job advertisement, L & M employed about 5,000 people. L & Ms services are sophisticated and complex, and the working atmosphere is highly technical. The engineering department is the largest and most dominant department. Engineers are in management positions throughout the company, including top-level management. Due to the sophistication and complexity of their products, employees in other departments are required to have strong technical backgrounds; many have engineering degrees.

The communications department employs 11 people. This included the manager, two senior editors (Mark Sessions and Chad Maines), seven editors, and one technical editor (Steve Carson). The manager had an English degree, an MBA degree and had been working in the technical publications field for 12 years. The senior editors had combinations of an associate degree in English and a four-year engineering degree; the seven editors had some form of English degree (associate or bachelor) plus engineering degrees or two-year associate degrees in a technical field. The technical editor had an English degree and an associate degree in engineering.

The department had a well-established set of procedures for new technical articles and white papers as well as for internet content and blog posts. Most basic content was written by someone in the engineering department, usually an engineer, a project lead, or a manager. When given an assignment, the editor would do the necessary grammatical and structural revisions to the document and may also need to interview the engineer or other technical person involved in the project. The editor may also seek the assistance of the technical editor. Once the assignment was edited, it would be reviewed by one of the senior editors as well as by the original writer to determine that the information was still technically correct and that the edits did not change the original meaning of the content.

Once the reviews and any additional edits or changes were completed, the senior editor would do the final sign off, and the article, white paper, or media content would be published. This extensive review procedure gave the editors a great deal of exposure throughout the company.

The current job opening was a new position at L & M that was necessitated by an increased workload and the recent expansions. Although some internal people wanted to apply for the job, Carpenter believed that no internal candidates had the necessary skills for the position. Additionally, she thought it would be good to bring in new blood at the top. She found one strong rsum and began the hiring process.

In considering Joan Hanleys rsum, Carpenter noted that Hanley had an English degree, an Engineering degree, and was working toward a Doctoral degree. She also had three years experience as a technical writer in a local engineering firm. Carpenter was impressed with Hanleys credentials and scheduled an interview date. Carpenter included herself, the technical editor and the two senior editors on Hanleys interview schedule. Carpenters interview was general, focusing on background, goals and work habits. Carson, the technical editor, asked questions regarding writing skills and techniques, while Sessions and Maines, the senior editors, focused on Hanleys technical skills.

Carpenter then met with the interviewers to determine if Hanley was qualified for the senior editor position. Carpenter was pleased with Hanleys responses to her general questions and liked the writing samples she had submitted. Carson felt that Hanley had answered the interview questions well, but he had reservations about her interpersonal skills and ability to integrate into the department. He also had some concerns about one of the writing samples. Sessions and Maines thought Hanleys technical skills were excellent and had no strong feelings either way about her interpersonal skills. Carpenter, Sessions, and Maines all felt that Hanley would be a good hire; Carson disagreed. Carpenter checked two of Hanleys references and got good reports on her skills and work habits. She hired Hanley.

Hanley spent a six-week training period learning departmental methods and procedures, becoming familiar with L & Ms services and processes, and preparing for her first assignment. Each of the senior editors served as a technical publications project leader to oversee editing for one or more L & M service areas. During the training period, Hanley attended project meetings to meet the employees from other departments who were involved with the service areas that she would eventually oversee and to become current on what was happening within those groups.

Following the training period, Hanley started senior editing responsibilities for the documents for one of her service areas. During this time, Carpenter tried working closely to double-check the edits prior to documents being published. Although Hanley was working for only one of her service areas, she was falling behind on reviewing and signing off on edits for that area. Also, Carpenter noticed that several of the edits Hanley had reviewed and approved contained multiple grammatical errors as well as poor organization. Carpenter also noticed that the edits Hanley requested on more than one of the documents had significantly changed the original content and would need further major revisions before it was released for publication. On a least three occasions, documents were published with grammatical errors or poor organization. When these were discovered, they were quickly pulled and revised to be republished.

After a few of these incidents, Carpenter began receiving complaints from the manager of the service area that Hanley was working with. Several editors also began to have questions and complaints regarding Hanleys approach when she brought work back to them for corrections. They felt she was demeaning and demanding. In fact, on more than one occasion, Hanley caused editors to make changes that resulted in the errors in grammar, organization, and sometimes content.

The other senior editors, Sessions and Maines, had also approached Carpenter about complaints they were hearing. They were concerned that the reputation of the entire department might be at risk if the complaints continued. They were also concerned that some of their editors were beginning to talk about leaving because of the way they were being approached. Additionally, Sessions and Maines were concerned that Hanley seemed to be totally overwhelmed with the amount of work she had even though it was nowhere near a full workload. Carson was blunt in his assessment; he said flat out that Hanley was not qualified for the position and should never have been hired.

Given the escalating discontent within the Communications department and the feedback from the other groups within the company, Carpenter knew she had to take some type of action. Unsure of what her next steps should be, Carpenter consults with the HR manager.

Assignment: You are the HR Manager. You need to make a recommendation to Carpenter on what action(s) she needs to take. Before making your recommendation, consider and answer the following questions:

Orientation. Was there an issue with adequate orientation? Consider how much introduction was Hanley given to other parts of the organization, especially the other departments she would be working with. Did she understand basic relationships between departments, and how different functions connected with each other?

Initial training period. Was there an issue with adequate training? How much support does a new worker need? The focus here should be on preparing the new worker to do the job. Although workers are hired based on their skills, they sometimes do not have the skills that the hiring managers believed they had. These need to be developed. Does Hanley have the skills needed to do the job? If not, can she develop themexplain you answer. Additionally, whether or not they have the appropriate level of skills, there needs to be training and goal setting for the specific task in the new job. Reasonable expectations should be established for any new worker. Were the expectations set and were they reasonable?

Other departments dissatisfaction: What happens when poor performance affects a department's reputation and credibility? What must the manager do to first improve that performance and secondly, control the damage from poor performance?

Dissatisfaction in Communications department: How should Carpenter address the growing concern and lowered morale within her department?

HR involvement: Throughout the hiring and training process, HR does not seem to have been highly involved. What do you think HRs role in hiring situations should be? Do you think HR involvement could have made a difference?

Overall issue: What is your overall assessment of the issue? Is this a poor hire, a lack of skills, a lack of orientation, a lack of training, or some combination? Explain your rationale.

Overall recommendation: Based on your assessment of the issue or issues, what should Carpenter do at this point?