Case Study
Simply Literature Production is a small- to medium-sized production company various types of books used in business. Located in Alberta, the company has annual sales of about $18 million.
The owner and CEO Ravi Prosper, is proud to make a high-quality product that will stand up to many years of use. He uses only high-grade paper, cover stock, and binding materials. Of course, this has led to high production costs and high prices. He also believes in ensuring 100% customer service and will always strive to meet the customers’ special specifications whenever requested. However, resetting the equipment for relatively short production runs of customized products takes considerable extra time and, of course, also drives up costs.
The firm employs about 120 people, most of whom work in production. The firm has a few supervisors to oversee production, but their responsibilities are not clearly spelled out, so the supervisors often contradict one another. There is no system for scheduling production; in fact, there are few systems of any kind. Whenever there is a problem, everyone knows that you must go to Ravi if you expect a definite answer. This means all decisions are made at the top of the company chain of command.
The company also has several salespeople who are relatives of Ravi or his wife and these salespeople must travel throughout Canada. This can be very tiring for these employees.
The company has one bookkeeper to keep records and issue the pay-cheques, and several office employees to handle routine administrative chores.
The firm has no specialists in accounting, marketing, human resources, or production. Ravi handles these areas himself, although he has no real training and little interest in any of them except production. Instead, Ravi focuses most of his attention on ensuring product quality and on dealing with the countless problems that everyone brings to him every day.
Ravi thinks he is a caring and generous employer. Although he feels the organization cannot afford any formal employee benefits, he does have an absence policy which he seldom follows often allowing workers to stay on payroll for a considerable time, even if they can not work due to family obligations, sickness or any other reason Ravi will accept. He is well liked by most employees, who have shown little interest in unionization during the few approaches made by union organizers.
Ravi has no formal methods of managing pay. He tends to make all pay decisions on the spur of the moment, so almost everybody has a different pay rate. He has never given annual raises, so any employee who wants a raise has to ask Ravi. He gives raises to most people who approach him, but the amount depends on his mood at the time and on how well he knows the employee.
For example, if the firm has just lost a major customer, raises are lower, and if the firm has just booked a large order, they are higher. They are also higher if he knows the employee is a male, has a family to support, or if the employee’s spouse has been laid off, or if the employee has added a new member to the family.
Ravi believes that a good employer should recognize the contributions made by employees during the year. So, every Christmas, if profits allow, he gives merit bonuses to employees, which he says are based on their contributions to the firm. One day in early December, he sits down with his employee list, in alphabetical order, and pencils in an amount next to each name.
Everybody gets something, but the amounts vary greatly. If he can put a name to a face (which is difficult sometimes, because new employees seem to turn over a lot), he tends to give larger bonuses to the employees he can remember. If he can remember something such as a cheerful attitude, the bonuses are higher still. But if he remembers anyone complaining about that employee for some reason or another (he usually can’t recall the exact reasons), the employee gets a smaller bonus.
HRES2203-Compensation And Benefits
