Fall

08
Spring
17

Human Resource Report

Case Study: The Mountain SKITech
Company
Complied by: Carlos Hernandez, Elise Hodges, Gloria Flik, Lovisa
Hammarstedt, Manuel Escotto, Mathieu Francois, and Tom Goncalves
 Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION 3

COMPANY AUDIT 4
COMPANY STRATEGY 4
COMPANY STRENGTHS 5
COMPANY WEAKNESSES 5
WORKFORCE & GROWTH OF SME 6
HR PRACTICES 7
SOCIAL CLIMATE 7

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PROCESS 8

CURRENT SITUATION 8
THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS 9
CV SELECTION 14
MARKETING STRATEGY 15
WEBSITE DESIGN 15

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL METHOD 16

CURRENT SITUATION 16
360 PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL METHOD 17
OBJECTIVES 18
PROCESS OVERVIEW 18
GUIDE 22
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN 23

EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION 24
CURRENT SITUATION 24
PERSONNEL POLICY 25
COMPENSATION 25
BENEFITS 26

TALENT IDENTIFICATION AND RETENTION 30

TALENT COMPETENCY CRITERIA 30
KEY STRATEGIES 31

CONCLUSION 33

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Introduction

Montagne SKITech is a Chambery-based company founded by the French

entrepreneur Brice La Clusaz with the objective of creating, developing
and selling a new generation of bindings and skis. It is based on the
foundations of enhancing the optimal performance of the skier, increasing
safety for their physical protection and respecting the environment by
engaging in sustainable and environmentally friendly business practices.
Since its foundation in 2000, the company has experienced a steady
growth due to its innovative business model, having nowadays 451
employees, operating internationally and with the ongoing plan of opening
business sites abroad.
Regarding its corporate culture, SKITech puts major emphasis on three
main topics that have contributed to the companys exponential growth
and to the reputation it has today: constant investment in R&D in order to
improve and develop their business operations, remarkable engagement
in corporate social responsibility, and major focus in developing their
workforce in order to contribute to job satisfaction and advancement.
These initiatives have their origin in the business corporate strategy of
becoming the world leader in alpine skis and snowboards and increasing
its presence in the markets for different types of skis.
As evidenced, SKITech has experienced since its early stages a rapidly
growing market presence and it is in the right track for achieving its
business strategy. However, the company currently faces a major
challenge that may put its stability at risk, which is the lack of a proper HR
service and the lack of formalization of HR practices and policies. This has
been the cause of numerous issues that have damaged to some extent
the companys reputation and the employees satisfaction. The poor
management of the financial crisis that led to a negative impact to the
employees morale, the unfair and ineffective remuneration policy and the
ongoing issue of having the founders wife working at the company
without any proper contract are some examples of the incoherent HR
practices the company has engaged into.
The following paper will analyze more into depth the current situation of
the company, will identify the areas of improvement and will give
measurable and precise recommendations on how the business can
modify its current operations in order to solve these issues.

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Company Audit

In order to fully understand the problems of SKITech are facing it is

important to analyze the current company situation. To do this we are
going to perform a social and organizational audit of the company. This
audit is a picture of Mountain SKITech before the transformation of their
HR-department. In order to perform a social and organizational audit, we
first need to define both terms. An organizational audit is over hard facts
of the company. These hard facts can be financial and operational
investments and strategies. We are also going to perform a social audit,
which is a review of a companys involvement in social responsibility. If
refers to both internal and external aspects. Outlined below is a social and
organizational audit of the company, looking at the company strategy,
strengths, weaknesses, workforce growth of SME, HR practices, and the
social climate.

Company Strategy
The current organizational strategy of SKITech is shaped by the owners
objectives. The owner, Brice La Clusaz, aims to make his company
become the world leader in alpine skis and snowboards and to increase
the presence in the markets for different types of skis. He intends to
achieve this by increasing the market position by providing its customers
with high quality and high performance products, associating themselves
as a high quality brand. There are three major parts to SKITechs strategy
of how to achieve this goal: innovation, expansion, and sustainability.

One big part of SKITechs strategy is innovation. They see research and
development as a major part of their business, which strives to renew
existing products, perfect industrial processes and develop totally
innovative ranges of products. While doing this, their overall target is to
support a further growth of turnover.

As a growing company, SKITech also seeks to expand their business

internationally. Already now, they are exporting their products throughout
the world. Furthermore, they want to develop the markets in for example
France and elsewhere, besides their acquisitions of firms in the U.S. and
Asia. Currently they are looking for ways to increase brand awareness
internationally.

One essential topic of the strategy is sustainable development, including

social and environmental aspects besides the economic performance.

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Concerning the environment, SKITech pursues to reduce their
environmental impact of packaging through recycling, reducing of
packaging material and especially the research on those topics in order to
continuously become more green. Concerning the society within the
company, the advancements of social and personnel policies are
important, as well as the progress in development of people. The overall
objective of the owner is to make his company become a Great Place to
Grow.

Company Strengths
There are numerous strengths in the way that the SKITech runs its
business. They appear to have a good idea of how to diversify in the
market. Since they are a high quality brand with technical expertise they
are not only gaining market shares, but they are also becoming an
attractive employer. They have a good reputation externally as well as
internally among their growing number of employees. According to
employee interviews, new recruits are welcomed in a professional way.

SKITech is a model of a SME: its high quality products, dynamic

management and its environment allowed the firm to grow rapidly. The
company started in October 2000 with only 13 employees and 10 years
later it expanded to 451 employees. However in 2010 the company was
facing some financial difficulties but they were able to avoid any layoff
during this period by loaning employees for other companies in the same
sectors for 18 months, after this period all employees came back to work
for SKITech. The companys dedication to their employees boosted
employee loyalty and strengthen the company culture.

Hiring the right people is very important, along with the fact that every
employee is placed in the section that suits them the best. We think that
Mountain SKITechs current product differentiation enables the company
to make optimal use of its employees as they can be placed within
different sections over time. The impression is that Mountain SKITech is
investing in their staff, and that they do see the connection between
maintaining their employees and sustainable economic growth.

Additionally, the company seems to be well prepared for the future from a
business perspective. Through investments in research and development
they are making their way to future breakthroughs and increased
revenues. We also consider the CSR-related investments to be smart and
right in time. To make the right investments at the right time is a very

5
important key in human resource management, even though it is often
forgotten. Making sure that the business has a future is equivalent to
securing the jobs of the current employees, thus it has to be the highest
priority.

Company Weaknesses
In spite of the steady growth of the company, Montagne SKITech still has
a lot of areas of improvement it should take care of as soon as possible in
order to avoid further complications. First and foremost, the problem of
not having a well-established HR department becomes evident. This
results particularly problematic considering the current size of the
company. Since the management neglected to invest on an HR team
during the companys early stages, it will now be more problematic since
the company has grown in terms of employees, processes and complexity.
Furthermore, another problem that most probably derived from the lack of
an HR department is the financial crisis the business went through during
2012. Due to the poor crisis management, employee mistrust began to
rise and it is still present nowadays.
Further problems that derive from the precaire HR situation are issues like
having the owners wife being a permanent worker of the company,
although she is not being paid and didnt necessarily follow the proper
recruiting stages, which again might affect the companys credibility.
Additionally, over the past 3 years 100 employees have left the company.
It is unclear why they have left, further research into that would help the
company identify why they lost these employees, without knowing why
the company cannot improve their business to avoid this in the future.
Another issue SKITech is facing is the current payment classification
method, since they do not take into consideration the individual skills and
might be overall unfair for most of the employees, lowering staff morale.
Furthermore, the company is facing a lack of diversity due to their lack of
a proper HR department. This is bad for the company culture along with
company image. They should strive to include more women and
foreigners into their staff.

Workforce & Growth of SME

Although the financial crisis of the company did create many internal and
external problems, Brice managed to retain all of his employees instead of
laying them off. The company has grown and gone back to good health in
4 years. By 2013, the company was making a turnover of 109,070,000
and a net profit of 1,424,000. Their present financial capacity of more than

6
5 million euro will allow the company to invest in R&D and in new
machinery for the growth of the company.

As of today, the SKITECH has begun expanding internationally and has

made the investment of buying two subsidiaries in Japan for the Asia
market and in the U.S. for the American market. This means a significant
growth of the companys workforce, which is currently at 451, with an
addition of 20 people in Japan and 50 in the U.S. This will allow the
company to do an internal outsourcing of R&D and other upstream
activities.

As for the development of the products SKITECH offers, they are now
present in cross-country skiing and ski trekking markets. This is thanks to
the constant development of its field of activities, which also allows it to
sell more ski bindings around the world.

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HR Practices
Prioritizing finance and product development has led Brice La Clusaz, CEO
of the company, to neglect HR-focused activities. Since it has been the
finance department that has been in charge of HR tasks, HR problems
have not been given the attention they require. Prior to our arrival the
department consisted of the MDs assistant and by Astrid, the CEOs wife,
whose expertise is unknown.

As a solution to the management of Human Relations within the company,

2 employees, along with a recruit with a specialization in Human Relations
were put in charge of the department since last summer. Even so, the
company continues to have insufficient HR knowledge, resulting in poor
policies and procedures. To improve the previous solution, Brice decided to
hire new people for the HR department, which now comprises 4 full-time
employees.

HR policies in the firm are many, but they are old policies that have not
adapted to the growth of the company and the innumerable changes in
the business environment that come with the years. This combined with a
lack of a strong HR department has caused SKITech to fall into trouble

Social Climate
Based on the testimonial of a recently recruited accountant, an idea of
the social climate inside the company can be inferred. First of all, he
stated that his reception into the firm was very warm and welcoming,
which immediately made him feel as part of the family. He mentions that
employees are very helpful and are not selfish, so they would not hesitate
in helping anyone out, especially newcomers. As well as helping with
knowledge related to work, they also helped him observe how every
profession works and how the business functions on a day-to-day basis.
The boss in charge of him also behaved very helpful and welcoming,
introducing him to all the other employees. Throughout the company
there is a feeling of openness and very little hierarchy between workers
and top executives. This leads to a relaxed and comfortable workplace,
which fits in very well with the company values and culture. All in all, the
satisfaction of the employees can be seen reflected in the quality of the
companys products and service.

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Recruitment and Selection Process

In order to implement a recruitment and selection procedure for a future

management secretary, we decided at first to conduct a job analysis and a
job description. Once we had clearly defined the parameters of the job we
designed a recruitment and selection process for the company.

Current situation
The company Mountain SKITech has a huge number of employees for a
startup. In total they have 451 employees, divided into Engineers &
Executives, Technical Middle Managers, qualified workers and unqualified
workers. Because the company is growing rapidly, there is a huge need for
new employees in several departments.

Normally, the HR department is responsible for the recruitment and

selection process of new potential employees. Unfortunately, the HR
department is not working properly, because it has no clear structures,
neither qualified employees. This comes from the fact that the owner
hasnt focused on the HR department, since he had been busy with
looking for financing his start-up. So far, the financial department had
been responsible with the HR activities.

This caused some serious problems within the company:

Mountain SKITech has an issue about the age of their workers. In the
previous years, mainly workers from 40 to over 60 years had been
employed. The company is lacking younger workers. Mountain SKITechs
strategy is being recognized as an innovative start-up, which further
fosters innovation. However, if the workers are older, this might not
represent this strategy. Normally young people from the university are full
of ideas and want to work in a creative and innovative way. This is why
Mountain SKITech should recruit more people from the universities.

Another issue about Mountain SKITech is the number of women working in

the company. There are 83 women employed, but 368 men employed.
This means, that only around 18% of the employees are women. This is a
severe issue for the company. A only male dominated style of working can
not bring good profits in the future or good public image. Furthermore it is
also important to mention, that there are very little women in leading
positions. This favoring of men is also shown through the language within
the company. For example it is always referred to a manager as a he

9
and him: Each manager welcomes his new employees. He visits
them to visit the company. This is very bad for company morale and
public image, it can lead the women in the company to feel ostracized and
if these memos got out, it could reflect negatively on the company.

Another serious problem is the employment of the wife of the owner. She
is not even included in the employee roster, because she is not paid. Until
now the wife has assisted in structuring the HR department. Here, a very
bad picture of women is painted. It seems as it is okay to employ a women
without paying her, whereas this would not be allowed with a man. This
might cause legal consequences, since someone is working without
getting paid. If she decides in the future she wants a salary, she could sue
the company. Or if she decides she no longer wants to work, the company
would have to rush to fill her position, instead of taking the time to find
the right candidate. Since she is not salaried, she is not under contract of
what she needs to accomplish within her role, this means that the
restructuring of the department could take longer then it might with a
hired employee. It is clear that having the wife as an unpaid employee is a
liability for the company.

Another severe issue is, that there is very little diversity within the
company. Only 2.5% of all the employees are foreigners. It might would be
a benefit for the company, if people with different cultural values and
backgrounds work for the company. It can enrich the daily working life as
well as foster a stronger team bond between employees.

This is why the newly created HR department of Mountain SKITech, should

lead the recruitment and selection process.

The SKITech needs a new management secretary. This is the recruitment

and selection process for this position:

The Recruitment Process

Step 1: Analyze the need of the management department

As there are very little women in the company, it should be great to hire
a new woman, instead of looking inside the company. This means, that
one need is diversity within the management department. Generally, we
need a person with strong communicative skills and a very professional
appearance. What we require is someone who is flexible and able to
work under pressure. Former work experience is also necessary. The

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 position will require fast learning of multiple administrative systems and
we would therefore value a technical background of some kind. We need
a someone, who can organize very well, especially in several languages.
Especially English, French and German are of high importance for the
department. As the company is lacking diversity, a foreign, but trilingual
secretary would be desirable.

Step 2: Make a job description for the job as Management

Secretary

Montagne SKITech is a French company founded by entrepreneurs

passionate about snow sports and with high technical expertise in
providing top-quality safety equipment. Our goal is to become the
world leader in alpine skis and snowboards and we are constantly
seeking to diversify and improve our products. In regards of our
constant growth and vision of expanding internationally, we are
currently seeking for new team members who share our vision and
who will help our business reach it.

Job description
You will be working within a long-term contract alongside with the
CEO and Financial director, performing data-capture related tasks and
will also be working half time with the financial team. This is a unique
job opportunity that offers personal and professional development,
community building, and an in-depth view into the ski and snowboard
industry.

Responsibilities
Register different types of documents (namely invoices and
company reports) into the companys IT system
Prepare meeting minutes
Perform constant quality checks of the information
Attend planning meetings with the CEO
Organize orders and manage supplies of different non-french
customers

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 Requirements
3+ years of experience in this or similar domains
Working on export
Trilingual in French, English and German
Drivers license with clean record
Available as soon as possible

Contact
Please send your full application, including your CV and motivation
letter to the following address: hr-department@mountageskitech.fr.

Step 3: Establish a recruitment plan

As a first step, we have to check which channels we are going to use to
spread that we are looking for a new employee. Firstly, we would decide
to publish the job opening on social media. As especially young people,
which the company is recently leaking of, look for jobs in the Internet,
social media would be our first opportunity. We will publish the job
opening in LinkedIn, StepStone, Monster, Apec, Viadeo and Xing.
Furthermore, we would post the opening on our own homepage and post
a link on Facebook and Twitter, that we are searching for a new
employee.

Furthermore, we are going to recruit on campuses of universities. As the

company should hire young, creative and innovative people, the
university campus is a good opportunity to look for potential employees.
Mountain SKITech could present the company and do job interviews with
students. However, there is also the possibility to visit job fairs and
present our company there.

We could also work together with diversity agencies, who could offer us
potential employees from a variety of backgrounds - different
nationalities, different expertise, and different characters.

The timeline for the recruitment will have to be flexible, as it is of main

interest to find the right person. Therefore the process will take some
time. However, we would publish the job opening immediately and will
try to hire a new management secretary. We will not give a specific date
of hiring, like in 6 months.

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Step 4: Select an Interviewing Committee
We will accurately think about which people to send as an interview
committee, as we also give the candidate an insight into our company.
So it is not only the candidate, who needs to sell himself/herself, but
also we as a company, who needs to sell ourselves as a good
company. Therefore, we are going to send 3 people:

We would ask the wife of the owner to join the selection interview,
because she already worked as an assistant. She might have some
knowledge about how a good secretary, who is also doing some
assistant jobs, should be working. Furthermore we could show the
candidate, that he/ she will have close contact to the founders of the
firm, which shows, that Montage SKITECH is like a family.

As we need someone, who interacts a lot with the job position in its daily
working life, we would send one important manager of the management
to the job interview. For them it is important to have someone
trustworthy and disciplined working, so they will get the information they
need to make far-reaching managerial decisions.

Finally we would invite a third person, who showed great engagement in

our charitable actions, like Action against hunger or Doctors without
borders. This person will be responsible for the soft skills of the
candidate. This person will ask specific questions about the personality
of the candidate, as well as their hobbies and topics not related to the
work. Moreover, this person will also point out the importance of social
responsibility for the company.

Step 5: Review the applications and pre-interview selection

Including all the mentioned desired skills, we are going to review the
applications of potential management secretaries. Hereby, we are going
to focus on the certificates and education, including language skills,
which the candidates have. However, there will be a special focus on the
social skills. We could check, if the candidate has ever done some
volunteering or several other social activities. It should also be important
to see, which hobbies a candidate has and what he is doing in his free
time.

Step 6: Invite candidates to interviews and conduct interview

We will take around 2 hours time per invited applicant.

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 The first hour should be questions. First, we are going to ask about the
professional skills of the applicant (approximately 30 minutes):
Where and what have you studied?
Which majors have you taken?
Why do you think that you are the right person for us according to
your skills?
What previous experiences do you have in the field of a
management secretary?
What overvalue are you going to bring to our firm?

After that, we are going to ask about the social part of the interview
(approximately 30 minutes) in order to get a deeper insight about the
applicant's motivations concerning the companys vision:
Have you participated in voluntary community service?
What suggestions would you give our company in order to become
more
environmentally friendly?
How would you make our customers become more interested and
involved in initiatives to protect the environment?
What do you think ski resorts specifically can do to improve their
environmental practices?
What environmental topic interests you the most and why?

The second part of the interview will be a case study or a scenario, which
should be given to the applicants. The objective is to see how they would
approach a problem in their potential working area.

Imagine you are sitting at your desk and 20 people are going to call
you. 10 of them are very angry and want to talk to the CEO because of
dissatisfaction with the products. Some of them start insulting you.
Besides this problem, you have tons of work to do: Lots of data needs
to be filled in into the IT system, but, unfortunately, the system broke
down. You expect to do it later, but you have your working group for
the communication with Doctors without borders in the afternoon.
How are you going to react?

Here the applicants handling with stress could be analyzed.

Step 7: Select whom to hire

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 After we have seen several applicants, we are going to assess them in
the following ways:
30% of CV and Motivation Letter
70% of Interview Impressions
This will decide what person will be offered the job position as the new
Management Secretary.

Step 8: End of the recruitment

After the acceptance of the future employee for the job, we are going to
meet him to negotiate the offer. We will negotiate the working hours and
the salary for the applicant. Furthermore, we are going to negotiate the
responsibilities in the job and what we clearly expecting from him/her to
do. After the end of the negotiation, we will let the applicant sign the
contract.

Step 9: Post hiring care

After the recruitment and selection process, it should be secured, that
the employees are feeling well in the company and are supported by
their colleagues. At Mountain SKITech, each manager welcomes his new
collaborators. They first invite them to visit the company and meet the
people, they believe appropriate for the first day. They act as a
godfather in order to offer some advice. There had been an interview
with Sam, a young accountant hired in February 2014, who was very
pleased about how he was treated during the beginning of his
employment. The only thing he mentioned is, that he had problems with
the administrative documents, which he received from the MDs
assistant.

Therefore, the future HR department should prepare documents for the

hiring process. Not only the working contract, but also collective
agreements, social and collective policies etc., what should be signed,
need to be properly prepared before a new employee is hired.

CV Selection
The first applicant, Alexia BRICHEMONT, is characterized through her good
Master Degree from the Aix-Marseille University. Furthermore, through
internships, she has gained a huge knowledge in the field of recruiting,
as well as organizing. Moreover, she has also some social skills, shown
through her membership in student associations, as well as the organizing
of activities in a leisure center. However, unfortunately she only speaks
two of the desired languages. Summing up, Alexia BRICHEMONT would be

15
a good candidate for a future HR department, but as the management
secretary, who would mainly be doing administrative tasks, she will be
overqualified. This could mean, that she would quickly not feel well in the
department and the threat of quitting the job would be high. Therefore, we
would ask her about her interest in a job of a future HR department and in
case, invite her to a job interview.

The second applicant, Simon GIDERETTE, is characterized through his

studies at a good university in London. Therefore, he has the necessary
language skills of French and English, as well as a school level of German,
which could be refreshed with a course during his work. Furthermore, he
has shown social skills through his introductory apprenticeship in
beekeeping and team leader at Off to Work in London. Generally, he is
pretty much interested in mobile communication and social media, which
is shown by this internship. Unfortunately, as well Simon GIDERETTE is
overqualified. He could also be of high interest for the HR department,
which has the need of improving its social media appearance especially
on the homepage. If so, we would invite him for an interview for the job.

The last applicant, Nana PRUCHE, would be the preferable applicant. She
has mentioned lots of skills, which are of high importance for a good
management secretary. Especially being experienced in reception and
human resource software, using open office tools, electronic messaging
and agendas, formatting documents, preparing documentation, organizing
document filing, welcoming people physically and on telephone, as well as
organizing orders and managing materials and supplies for the
department, are necessary for the department. Furthermore, she has a
diploma as trilingual commercial assistant, which is unfortunately not in
the three preferable languages, but only in English and French. However,
she has social skills, shown through her participation in the Club
Mditerrane. Summing up, she would be the candidate we would most
prefer to invite for a job interview.

Marketing Strategy
We decided to focus on developing a marketing strategy in order to be
more attractive to the future talents. While there had been some
attempts to define and market the company, we feel there is much room
to expand. In 2006 SKITech formalized 4 values to represent the company
culture, humanism, openness, enthusiasm, and proximity and in a 2013
internal survey 87% of the companys employees believe and defend
those values. In addition to these values the company has a very low

16
hierarchy and a strong commitment to their employees. These two factors
lead to quick employee integration, and overall comfort in the company.
We believe that we should be highlighting these company values and
culture as a way to appeal to potential employees.

Another way to attract talent is by promoting the companys dedication to

sustainability and innovation. As climate change become more of an issue,
people have become more socially environmentally conscious, which is
something SKITech is focused on. SKITech focused on sustainable
development, including reducing the environmental impact of packaging,
in only 6 years they have reduced their packaging by 15%. We believe
that SKITech has not done enough to showcase their efforts, and are
missing out on a valuable recruitment opportunity. By promoting their
sustainability efforts, they will attract talents whose interest and values
align with the company.

The above items are the qualities of SKITech that make it a unique and
desirable place to work, and by promoting them we believe we will attract
talented potential employees. In order to promote them we would like to
advertise and partner with local universities, update our website to
provide a more user-friendly interface, and participate in or sponsor a
community service project.

Website design
The current website needs some improvements.

Firstly, the mentioned sentences should have a deeper meaning and

should inspire the readers to think about the company and identify
themselves with it. Instead of addressing people, who want to come to
office on a bicycle rather than by subway, they should rather address
people, who want to be the ones, who make the first step to protect the
environment and to fight climate change. And instead of addressing
people, who want to express [their] creativity, they should address
people, who are passionate about working in a creative and innovative
way. In this way, they call for emotions within the readers.

Secondly, to emphasize the emotions, it is necessary to include pictures

besides the texts. Instead of making the link to skiing through the written
sentences, it would be great to select pictures related to skiing. For
example a picture of someone up on a mountain with the alpes in the
background in skiing outfit, with SKITechs equipment, stretching his arm

17
in a winning pose with the sentence The planets resources are limited:
mans resources are unlimited if he is motivated!. And there could be a
picture of employees together in the nice atmosphere of aprs-ski,
laughing together, with their skiing cloths on, and two of the employees
hold up a third employee on their shoulders in the middle of the whole
group. And then, there is the sentence A Great Place to Work - A Great
Place to Grow!.

Thirdly, it would be necessary to have a link on the website to a database

with job offers, which should have the different category groups
students, graduates and employment. These job offers should be
specific.

Lastly, it is important to distinguish the social and environmental

sustainability of the company in a better way. There could be small picture
of the IFS, BRC and ISO 9001 certification signs on the top of the page, as
well as the color green at the website, because green is most likely
associated with sustainability.

Performance Appraisal Method

Current Situation
Mountain SKITechs objective is, that each person within the company can
blossom and exceed oneself. Therefore, there should be a growth
contract or a contract for development. This growth contract would
include a plan of where the employee hopes to go within the company. In
order to create a plan for each employee, there firstly need to be
performance reviews and interviews, to understand the employee's
current situation and skills.

While there is currently performance appraisal at SKITech, it is not fully

developed. Currently, these interviews are organized by the managers,
but each year only around 60% of the employees benefit from this
discussion. The risk of the current method is, that in case one doesnt get
along well with his/her boss, their performance appraisal may be biased.
Therefore, we would recommend a different performance appraisal
method. With this method, we aim to reach 100% of the employees to
create a healthy career development based on objective measures.

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360 performance appraisal method
In order to best accomplish this we picked the 360 degree performance
appraisal method. With this method, different opinions are taken into
account. Firstly, the employee itself evaluates his/her performance. After
that, the subordinates, peers and clients evaluate his/her performance
and in the end, the superior evaluates the performance and goes with the
employee through all the different appraisals.

The most significant benefit of this appraisal method is the fact that
employees get feedback based on different perspectives and criteria.
While the supervisors might evaluate the employees based on their
output, co-workers might evaluate them based on their pleasantness to
work with, whereas subordinates might evaluate based on their leadership
skills and fairness. This will therefore allow a more complete analysis and
will yield more reliable results.

Furthermore, each party that contributes with their feedback base their
expectations on different time frames; whereas the superiors might base
their opinion on recent performance, subordinates might have a broader
perspective and rate their peers based on their overall performance. This
fosters an atmosphere of trust and team-building, since each employee
commits themselves to total honesty and help each other gain
understanding of their current performance and the improvement areas.

Additionally, a positive aspect is the fact that every employee gets

involved in this method, including the top management, people who
usually dont get any feedback whatsoever. The fact that middle and low
managers can also contribute with their feedback to their superiors will
foster high-performance teams and effective organizations.

Finally, the last yet most obvious advantage of this method is a high job
satisfaction of employees. Since their opinion is rated as equally important
as anybody elses opinion, this makes the employees feel valuable and
with the power to positively contribute to their workplace.

19
Objectives
The main objectives of Performance Management Review is to evaluate
and ameliorate the performance of employees and increase the future
value and performance inside the company. PMR also aims at improving
communication, providing feedback, understanding the needs behind
training, setting roles and responsibilities for each job position and
choosing how rewards will be allocated.

As for Performance Appraisal Methods, 360 Degree Feedback allows top

management to:
1. Gain information of the strengths and weaknesses of individuals in
terms of how well they performed roles, tasks, activities,
competencies and challenges. (Self-awareness of their performance
may have a positive impact on individual's performance)
2. Identify training needs and plan training/development strategies for
individuals.
3. Generate data, which serves as a more specific basis for rewards
and decision making
4. Base rewards and payrolls on feedback
5. Unite individual's goals with organization's goals, mission, values,
and vision.
6. Communicate to their subordinates their expectations goals, and
deadlines

All in all, 360 Degree objective is to make appraisal more transparent and
objective.

Process Overview
We would like the employees to go through this performance review
process once a year.

Step 1: Self-evaluation
The self-evaluation gives the employee the chance to evaluate his own
performance. The employee can review his/her achievements and
his/her weaknesses from the last period and think about what went
wrong. This should be discussed later with the superior. The objective of
this is, that the employee reflects on his/her own achievements and
concretely deal about in which direction his/her career development
should go.

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 The self-assessment could look like the following:

Please assess all the mentioned points in specific, quantifiable

results with supporting qualitative information:

Firstly, mention the positive aspects of the last working period. Mention
your accomplishments and point out specific tasks, that went well and
why.

Positive of the last working period:

Secondly, mention the negative aspects of your last working period.

Mention the tasks, which didn't work out and why.

Negative about the last working period:

Now, please mention what kind of skills you would like to improve or
attain and how you think about doing that. In case, please mention,
what your supervisor could do in order to support the development of
your skills.

Further improvement of my skills:

Step 2: Subordinate evaluation

The subordinates should evaluate the employees according to his/ her
skills as a leader. The leadership skills should be in the center of the
evaluation. The objective of this evaluation is to see, how the employee
can manage to lead his/her employees in a better way in the future.
Furthermore, it could bring the conclusion, that there should be
leadership trainings for the employee.

21
 Communication
He/ She is able to communicate information clearly
He/ She is able to communicate the essential information
He/ She is able to listen and take care of other people opinions

Leadership skills
He/ She is able to clearly give instructions
He/ She is an inspiring leader
He/ She distinguishes himself/ herself of fairness
He/ She can motivate me
He/ She clearly states the vision and objectives of the
department

Personal skills
He/ She fosters the team spirit within the team
He/ She has lots of social skills
He/ She can cooperate easily with his/ her employees

Step 3: Peer evaluation

During the peer evaluation, the employee is going to be evaluated by
other employees from the same job level. They should rate, how he/ she
is doing his job, which affects their daily work. Furthermore, they should
evaluate, how he is behaving towards them. Here, there should be a
focus on the soft skills of the employee.

Quality of work
The results, he/she is performing have a positive impact on my
own work
His/Her analytical and conceptual skills contribute to execute
my daily work
During the job performance, he/her comes up with creative and
innovative ideas

Approach to work
He/ She has a strength in organizing his work and work, which
affects others
He/ She is working very structures

22
 He/ She is able to deliver his work in time
He/ She is flexible, when something doesnt work out

Motivation and Self-discipline

He/ She shows lots of commitment
He/ She is able to cope with stress
He/ She is able to cope with criticism

Step 4: Client evaluation

The client evaluation should look at how the employee is behaving
towards the clients and if he/ she can manage to satisfy them. This
should be made anonymously and especially look at, if the employee has
a good time management and good quality management. Furthermore,
a healthy relationship with the client is important to keep the business
going.

Quality of work
The purchasing experience(s) with him/her was satisfying
He/ She provides a service of quality
He/ She delivers proper work in time
He/ She is meticulous in his work

Relationship
He/she creates a relationship of confidence between the two
parties
He/she communicates clearly in a respectful and proper way
He/she shows enthusiasm during the conversation

Step 5: Superior evaluation

Firstly, the superior evaluates the employee. Secondly, he makes a
summary of all the different evaluations of the 360 evaluation. With an
analysis of the feedback, he goes to the interview. During the interview,
he gives the employee feedback on his/her performance. Hereby, it will
be compared, what the current performance is, and if it sticks to the
requirements. Bilateral communication is essential during this interview
to be sure that the employee get things right and to provides him
advices for the future. After discussing all the feedback, a personal
development plan will be created on how to achieve goals in the future.

23
24
Guide
There are several important aspects to consider while implementing a
performance appraisal plan. This guide is meant to support the managers
through this process and future development of the plan.

The first step is to convince the employees of the appraisals importance.

Explain how this form of communication will contribute to improvements
of scale throughout the company. Also, remind the employees that these
are anonymous reports whose questions must be answered honestly and
seriously. Make sure employees understand that this is a standard
procedure that all employees have to complete. In order to help
employees accurately evaluate, its important to include a description of
the job position for the person being evaluated.

Guide for management conducting performance appraisal review

When completing the performance review with an employee it is
important to remember that this is a sensitive subject and must be
broached with tact. It is also important that each employee review be
done in a similar method, so that all employees feel as though they were
treated fairly. In order to assist managers in effectively completing
performance evaluations we have compiled a guide of the steps to follow
and important things to keep in mind.

Before the review:

Try and set as comfortable of an environment as possible for the
evaluation
Make sure to review all the evaluations prior to the review and have
a summary of points you want to talk about
You dont want the employee to feel rushed or unimportant, so
make sure to set aside enough time to thoroughly go over the
appraisal results.

Order of the review:

Let them know that this is also a time for them to voice any
concerns or thoughts they may have about the method or the
company in general
Start with employee self evaluation, not based on their paper, but
by asking them first. Then go over any points that may seem
important from what they wrote
Then move on to subordinate reviews, then peer reviews, and client
reviews, and superior review

25
 Then give time for employee to respond to the results and talk over
the points.

26
 Other things to keep in mind:
Use the performance appraisal as a continuous practice
Be a role model through your contribution to the appraisal
Make sure there is room for continuous improvement of the
method
Based on employee evaluation results, further steps will be taken
o Raises, ways to improve performance, training, mentorship, etc

Personal development plan

Personal development is an important part of the job of each employee.
Therefore a specific personal development plan should be created. This
allows the employee to grow and improve his/ her performance, as well as
work on their development as a person and their attitude and
relationships with colleagues and managers.

Current situation
Currently, SKITech is following the owner's values, which intend to make
SKITech a Great Place to Work, but also a Great Place to Grow for
everybody. Furthermore, he intends to nurture people and the business
together, without any predefined limits. Therefore, skills development
had been implemented. This was implemented by the establishment of a
training plan for benefits aimed at adapting to the evolution of each job
and developing skills, the employees initiative within the framework of
personal training , as well as the employees initiative within the
framework of personal entitlement to training.

Here, the biggest problem is, that the employees arent using their
entitlement to training.

Improvements
In order to change the development of skills initiative, it should be
important, that training opportunities should not come from employees
initiatives, but from the management, who should implement
professional and personal development as part of the companys
personnel policy. With the intention of further developing people, there
should be new initiatives taken within the firm, which might attract
employees more to use their entitlement to personal development:

There should be specific trainings, about the development of

professional skills, like e.g. Excel courses or department specific courses,

27
 as well as trainings of personal skills, like rhetoric, presentation skills or
communication. Generally, there is one trainer, who gives a seminar. On
the other side, coaching is important to be implemented. At coaching,
there is a coach and a coachee alias employee, who are going to
intensively talk about topics, the coachee wants to improve. This might
be the preparation for a new leading position or a situation within the
team, whereat the coachee doesnt know how to behave. Moreover,
there should also be opportunities to send employees to external
organizations, who specialized on further education of employees.

In order to fulfill the role as an innovative and young startup, it could be

interesting to implement MOOC courses within the field of E-Learning,
where employees can also enlarge their knowledge. SKITech should
create an E-Learning platform and publish MOOC courses time by time to
see, if employees would use this opportunity.

Furthermore, it could be of interest to establish Mentoring Programs

between experienced, often older workers and younger workers, who are
eager to profit from the others knowledge. A tandem should be formed,
which meets several times per week to discuss the approach to different
tasks. Besides the benefit of a knowledge transfer, the social climate
within the firm could also be improved.

Moreover, there should be an Internal mobility program, which not only

ends at transferring skills, spreading knowledge and enrichment
through diversity, but includes the intercultural development as well.
There should be the opportunity to spend several weeks at USA or Japan,
in order to gain intercultural skills. Although, this would not be possible
for each employee, a little part could be compensated by the offering of
language courses within the company, as well as intercultural trainings.

Lastly, it might also be helpful to do a job rotation, whereat employees

join a different department for a few days or more in order to see, if they
could imagine to go into a different direction. This can lead to a very
different approach of developing ones skills.

Employee Motivation

Current Situation

28
While in the past SKITech has been recognized for their personal and
social policy, which states that sustainable economic development is not
possible without the implication and the development of people, due to
changed circumstances, with new stakes and challenges, they need to
reinvent their personnel policy to help motivate employees. While they
have a strong foundation of social responsibility that motivates employees
and carries well with the companys expansion, they lack an updated pay
scale and benefits program, which is a strong motivator for many
employees.

Personnel policy
Generally, a personnel policy has the objective of regulating the
relationship between the employee and his/ her organization. It should
ensure, that everyone is treated fairly and equal, and that each employee
is treated according to their performance. Everything has to be performed
in a transparent way.

Besides mentioning of the daily work schedule, including hard facts, like
working hours per day, vacation leave, sick leave or lunch break, HR
practices should also be included in the personnel policy. Those are the
hiring procedures and the integrating of new employees, as well as the
performance assessment procedure, which had already been transformed
in former cases. However, the compensation and benefit system is yet
missing and needs to be clearly defined in the personnel policy, so that
every employee has access to it.

Compensation
The current pay scale
This is the monthly pay scale for each level of employee

Function/job Junior pay Expert pay Senior pay

scale scale scale

Unqualified 1460 1580 1800

worker

Qualified worker 1530 1630 1980

TMM 1860 1990 2790

29
 I/C 2950 3300 4650

Problems with the current pay scale

There are many problems with the current pay scale, the main one being
the method in which they split the pay levels. Currently the levels are
unclearly assigned and do not relate to the employee job titles, in the
company there is no one titled junior qualified worker so it is unclear
how they assign employees to each pay level. It is unclear if junior
expert and senior refer to skills or years of experience, or something
else entirely. This lack of clarity could lead to employee discontent as
employees in the same position, with the same experience and skills
could be paid different salaries. Another issue is that there is no yearly
bonus or benefits, both of these encourage employee performance and
company loyalty. Since SKITech pays below the market rate it is
important that they attract and retain employees in other ways.

How to redo the pay scale system

We think it is very important to redo the pay scale system so that all
employees feel as though they are being fairly compensated. While
SKITech is known for its low social hierarchy, it is important to take
position hierarchy into account when deciding employee salary. To
demonstrate the current company hierarchy we have constructed the
chart below:

30
 General
General
Manager
Manager

GM
GM assisstant
assisstant

Purchasing
Purchasing Logistics
Logistics R
R&&D
D Production
Production Finance
Finance
Manager
Manager Manager
Manager Manager
Manager Manager
Manager Manager
Manager

Downhill
Downhill Skis
Skis Cross
Cross Country
Country Trekking
Trekking Skis
Skis
Engineers
Engineers &
& Engineers &
Engineers & Engineers &
Engineers & Engineers &
Engineers &
Project
Project Skis
Skis Project
Project Project
Project
Executives
Executives Executives
Executives Executives
Executives Executives
Executives
Manager
Manager Manager
Manager Manager
Manager

Engineers
Engineers &
& Engineers &
Engineers & Engineers
Engineers &
&
TMM
TMM TMM
TMM TMM
TMM TMM
TMM
Executives
Executives Executives
Executives Executives
Executives

TMM
TMM TMM
TMM TMM
TMM

Qualified
Qualified Qualified
Qualified Qualified
Qualified
workers
workers workers
workers workers
workers

Unqualified
Unqualified Unqualified
Unqualified Unqualified
Unqualified
workers
workers workers
workers workers
workers

It is clear that there are different levels of employees within SKITech,

and most departments have a similar employee levels. It is important
that the pay scale for the company reflect that. Our proposed monthly
pay scale is below.

Job Title No 1 to 3 to 5 to 10 to 15 +
experience 3 5 10 15

Department 4200 4720 5240 5760 6280 680

31
 Managers 0

Project Managers 3200 3600 4000 4400 4800 520

0

Engineers & 2900 2950 3387 3824 4172 470

Executives 0

TMM 1800 1860 2095 2330 2565 280

0

Qualified Workers 1500 1530 1548 1666 1784 200

0

Unqualified Workers 1400 1460 1545 1630 1715 180

0

The important thing in implementing this plan is that all employees

would be evaluated at this new pay scale, based on the number of years
of industry experience. An employees salary could only increase, so if
an employee is getting paid more than what the scale says they should,
otherwise they will keep their current salary. The employee yearly bonus
will be determined by their performance evaluation and expertise.

We believe that this pay scale reform will help not only to motivate
employees, but also improve employee relations and increase
transparency. Since there is a clear definition of what is expected of
them and what they will get in return they will be more motivated since
there is a set goal in mind.

Benefits
Rewarding exceptional employees
To reward good employees is crucial, but we also find it important to find
rewards that are clearly connected to what we do, in order to stay
professional. An example of this can be to hand out discounts for ski
passes and ski clothing. We consider it meaningful that our employees
are healthy and involved in the skiing activities. Another way to
encourage skiing is through providing employees with extra vacation
days as a reward. Except from these examples we will use traditional
methods including raises, promotions and gift cards. Additionally, well
performing employees will get discount books for nearby restaurants, for

32
 them to use during their lunch hours, which we hope will lead to closer
relationships among co-workers.

In addition to the general employee rewards we have come up with

additional motivators for both hourly and salary workers. We feel as
though it is important to have some unique rewards as these two groups
often have very different positions and desires. For hourly workers we
suggest using the ability to set their own schedule and paid lunches. For
salaried workers we feel that priority in picking dates for using their
vacation days would be a good motivator.

Furthermore, there should be the possibility of a sabbatical for

employees. They should be able to take some time off with their
families, which is not covered by their vacation time. This can be around
6 weeks after 3 years of working with SKITech.

Motivating underperforming employees to develop themselves further

It is important in motivating underperforming employees to discover the
reason behind their lack of motivation. Once that has been identified,
then you can move forward in choosing methods to motivate them. This
is why we are doing the 360 method of performance appraisal along
with a feedback session with the direct manager. Through the feedback
session when the manager and employee work together to discover why
the employee is not performing in their current role and create a
personal improvement plan for the employee. Once they have set goals
and objectives for the employee, with the options of management
providing coaching or training for the employee.

Another important way of motivating underperforming employees is

through investing in them. Methods of investing in employees include
specialized training, mentorship, and coaching. As mentioned above it is
especially important in a performance appraisal to discover why an
employee is underperforming, often times it is because they might not
be in a job that suits them. During the performance appraisals
management should be assessing whether the employee might have
skills that would better be utilized elsewhere. If so, the employee could
be offered a specialized training or the opportunity to transfer
departments. This type of company investment makes them employees
sees that the company is invested in their future, which builds loyalty
and encourages them to perform better.

33
Workplace wellbeing as motivator for employees
The employees are the most important resource of a company. Only if
their workplace wellbeing is high, they can perform their tasks in a
profit-bringing manner. Additionally, also their eagerness to engage into
the company is mainly driven by their wellbeing.

In order to secure a healthy working environment, it is important to have

a company-wide social codex, which for example, secures, that
employees cannot be bullied. Additionally, there should be individual
department policies about how they want to secure their workplace
wellbeing.

To give the employees something back, the management could order a

monthly lunch for all the employees. This could also serve as a little
teambuilding, because all the employees gather together and can do
small talk for around 1.5 hours. Furthermore, there should be proper
teambuilding events exerted within each department, but also within the
whole company. Each department could have a monthly budget to plan a
team event, which should be maximum 2 hours. Some examples are to
go, playing badminton together or having dinner together. To maintain
the companys social image, they could do CSR-Teambuilding
activities, like for example planting trees together.

Especially the workplace ergonomics are important for a healthy working

place. There should be back supporting chairs or cushions and proper
lighting. Studies have shown, that the workplace lighting is very
important for the productivity. Especially natural light is eye gentle.
Moreover, green plants can also contribute to the workplace wellbeing.
Furthermore, there should also be some comfortable places provided,
where employees could, if necessary, take a nap or just sit down, if they
want to be at a quite place for a few minutes. Fresh fruits are also
necessary for the brain to work properly.
In order to realize this, there should be an employee survey first, which
asks for potential improvements. And if a huge amount of people want to
have several improvements, the management can think about
implementing some of the mentioned changes.

Company branding to increase the brand awareness and feeling of

belongingness to the company
Providing employees and their families with branded items would not
only improve employee loyalty and company pride, but increase the

34
 company brand awareness. We suggest providing general items such as
branded shirts, mugs, and hats for both employees and their families.
Since SKITech is a winter sport company offering discounted rates on
branded winter gear would be ideal, that way when an employee wears
it while skiing it would be advertising for the company. This would also
make a great option for a companys holiday gift, as employees may not
want to purchase the branded clothing, but if they have it, they will
probably wear it. To increase employee engagement we could have a
company wide design competition for the various items, such as how to
incorporate the logo onto a ski jacket.

Develop plans with your employees

In order to further increase the strategic point of Be a responsible
company, SKITech could establish the possibility of retirement plans,
especially for the many old employees at SKITech, health plans and
dental or medical plans, as well as life insurance plans.

Further development of Corporate Volunteering to increase team bond

The current Corporate Volunteering possibilities at SKITech, which is the
cooperation with Doctors without borders and Action against hunger,
should be further developed. Until now, around 12% are participating in
those initiatives, however there is room for more. Furthermore, SKITech
should also think about enlarging their initiative to foreign countries and
sending employees there to do volunteering for several days. This will
generally improve employee engagement, attract younger employees,
as well as improve corporate visibility.

Talent Identification and Retention

In order for SKITech to be able to identify key talent within their staff, it
results important first of all to establish a clearly defined competency
model in order to objectively measure the performance of their
employees. According to the Aberdeen group, an American service
company that conducts primary research studies, 53% of the top-
performing companies nowadays have implemented this model.
Furthermore, it is highly recommended to implement competency models
across all the hierarchy levels of the organization in order to ensure more
effective results.

35
Nevertheless, it is also recommended that companies base these
competency models on their corporate culture and business objectives.
The reason for this is that it establishes an important criterion to evaluate
whether an employee is up to the companys expectations and
furthermore it will allow the company to adapt their competency models
as new key plans, priorities and strategies arise.

Talent Competency Criteria

Competencies
A set of related behaviors that are associated with success or failure in a
job. Since one of SKITechs business objectives is to expand, employees
will be evaluated based on specific competencies such as creativity (in
order to come up with innovative problem solutions), intercultural skills
(since we aim to recruit a multicultural workforce and to deal with
external partners abroad), as well as initiative and flexibility (since it is a
young company that is constantly changing and with evolving business
processes).

Personal attributes
Personal motivations and dispositions that impact job satisfaction and
ultimately define success or failure in a company. Since our corporate
culture is to give employees the freedom to constantly develop their
skills of interest, as well as the tools to do so, we will be able to identify
high-talented workers by the number of workshops and seminars they
attend in- or outside the company. Self-training, acquire new skills

Knowledge
Technical or theoretical skills that allow an employee to carry out their
tasks. Although this criterion will vary from position to position, this
could also be linked to the previous section of how much employees are
motivated to continuously actualize themselves in their business area.
Therefore, we will be able to recognize superior performance in the
willingness of workers to learn more about their business area, either
theoretically by attending academic lectures or seminars or practically
by involving themselves more in their department. Often proved with
certificates

Experience
Educational and professional practical achievements associated with
successful performance. Employees will therefore be expected to

36
 actualize themselves about ski sports and specific gears required to
perform this sport.

Key Strategies
Once SKITech is able to identify their strongest workers based on these
criteria, the question that comes right afterwards is how SKITech will be
able to retain these employees, since they are the ones who ultimately
drive business performance. According to a research paper carried out by
Oracle, there are certain key practices that companies can put into place
to motivate and retain their best performers. Below is a brief description
of each strategy and how SKITech can apply them to their own business.

Recruit the right people in the right job

As previously mentioned, companies should pay close attention not only
to the professional experience and technical skills of their applicants, but
also to their aptitudes and personal fit to their vision and business
culture. Furthermore, it results evident yet valuable to precise that
prospective employees should be placed in a job that matches their
skills, motivations and aptitudes.
In the case of SKITech, since we are a company concerned about
environmental issues, we have decided to establish a thorough selection
process that includes not only the standard round of interviews, but also
practical case studies and scenarios aimed to show the applicants fit to
our goals and requirements.

Improve the manager's ability to manage

Once an employee has been hired, the responsibility of motivating and
retaining talent shifts almost entirely to the manager. For this reason, it
is important not only to offer thorough training to new employees, but
also constant actualization to the managers in order to keep them up to
date and well-informed about the companys goals and how they can
direct the performance of their team towards the achievement of these
objectives.
Considering that SKITech is still a relatively small company in terms of
number of workers, it is now when the company should envision to
invest in management training and prepare the management for the
upcoming increment of the staff when the company starts to expand
abroad.

Empower employees to manage their own careers

37
 Since development has as many different meanings as there is people in
a company, employees should be given the tools to develop and grow
according to their motivations. They should be accountable for knowing
the companys expectations of their development and performance and
act accordingly.
Taking an example from SKITechs current business situation, it is stated
that one of their short- to medium-term objectives is to expand
internationally, in which case the company will need several new skills
from their employees, such as negotiation strategies, foreign languages,
etc. Employees can therefore choose among a wide range of training
opportunities and specialize in an area of their interest. This will allow
not only a diverse-skilled workforce, but also high performing and
engaged workers that will help to ensure the companys growth and
continuity.

Proactively drive talent mobility

This initiative intends to embrace internal employee mobility by either
allowing employees to alternate between departments or well to
encourage internal promotions for higher positions instead of recruiting
someone from the outside. These methods have been proven to have a
direct impact on employees satisfaction and retention, but also it allows
the company to economize in recruiting and training costs.
Taking again the example of SKITech, it is mentioned that the finance
department is currently performing the main HR missions while a proper
HR department is being established. Even though this is not an ideal
scenario to stimulate employee mobility, this could be a starting point
for employees to discover other departments in the company and
potentially awake their interest in working in a related position. This
allows not only the employees to acquire a broader set of skills, but also
to create a constantly changing and innovative workplace that will
contribute to job satisfaction.

Conclusion

Human Resource Management has presented a huge strategic problem for

SKITech. As previously discussed, SKITech has faced a lot of internal
issues due to the lack of a proper HR department. Going from a financial
crisis that led to the loss of trust of their employees and then the hiring of
the managers wife without a proper contract or recruiting process, has
caused the companys credibility to be severely damaged. Weve outlined

38
in the paper above the methods we have used to address these issues to
avoid further damage. Since there was a complete lack of a previous HR
department we were only able to tackle the most basic functions this
period, so in the next sector there are many issues we would like to
address including the structure of the HR department, workforce planning,
the company training plan, and the implementation and success of HR
decisions. Currently the HR department has 4 employees, which has not
really been sufficient for the needs. In the coming year we will need to
decide on a method to figure out as the company expands, when our
department needs to expand, in addition to how our department expands
(interns, departmental teams, etc). In order to properly staff our
department and other departments we need to implement better
workforce planning, in future years we hope to be proactive instead of
reactive with workload fluctuations. Furthermore, we need to have to
clearly do an onboarding plan on how the organization must train people
in order to become productive, when they are integrating into the
company. As we watch the company grow, it will be important to keep our
training plan updated, if employees are negatively reacting to certain
methods those should be changed to fit more with the company dynamic.
While we believe we have outlined method for success in this report, we
also realize that company cultures are complex things, so in the coming
year we will be evaluating the success of our methods and plans and
altering them based on our findings. In conclusion, we are hopeful for the
future and believe we have taken numerous steps to create an HR
department for SKITech that will yield positive result for the company for
future years.

39