HR consultant

The task
Your task in this case study is to assume the role of an HR consultant employed by Nordens, the company discussed in the case study below.
Your task is to evaluate the key issues that may affect the organization’s ability to successfully implement appropriate equality and diversity practices for the company.
You are required to produce a set of recommendations that will enable the firm to improve its existing practices in this area.
You will do this by using your knowledge of HR theory and practice. Your report must be a balanced report identifying the priorities for the firm. You must consider the positive and negative aspects of any theory and practice that you recommend.
You may wish to consider such issues as discrimination, recruitment, staff turnover and human resource development in your discussion. You are not restricted to discussing these issues, but can, if you wish, also consider other areas that you think are relevant to the case study.
Assessment criteria
•?Identification of theory and practice associated with the issues identified in the case study.
•?Demonstration of depth of understanding of theory and practice. 1
•?Evidence of wider reading, drawing upon appropriate material to support and illustrate the analysis that is being put forward.
Your answer should be written in a report style. Additional guidance on how to write a report will be given in class.
Please note the word count of 1500 shown in the MIP is an indicative figure and students should concentrate on the quality of the work produced rather than worry unduly over the amount of words written.
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Case Study

Introduction
Nordens Confectionaries Ltd.
Nordens is a family owned company based in a medium-sized town in the North West of England. Established in the 1920’s, the company has a reputation for producing quality cakes and biscuits and has successfully developed its market in the UK and, more latterly, in some parts of the European Union. Its home market customers include a number of well-known high street retailers for whom its produces both own brand and Nordens products.
The company is quite paternalistic in its outlook and is perceived by its workforce as a good employer. The managing director is very ‘hands on’ and likes to see the workforce almost as an extended family. It has been a significant source of employment for many people in the town, very often employing two or three generations of the same family. In recent decades, the town has also seen a significant rise in residents from minority ethnic groups, particularly from an Indian or Pakistan heritage. This has also become a potential source of recruitment for the firm.
The board is made up of four members of the Norden family. Jack Norden is the managing director, Simon, the company accountant, Philip, the production director and Susan who heads sales and marketing. In addition, Richard Smith recently joined the board as the HR director. The board is currently considering its medium and long-term strategy for expanding its market.
The workforce
The company operates a two-shift system, 6 a.m. till 2 p.m. and 2 p.m. till 10 p.m., to allow downtime during the night for maintenance. It currently employs a full-time production workforce of five hundred people, which is supplemented by a temporary workforce of over three hundred people employed in the three months leading up to Christmas in order to deal with extra demand for its products. Of the five hundred permanent staff, two hundred are part-time staff and predominantly women. Full-time staff are also in the main women engaged predominantly in production or in the packing and dispatch department.The full-time male workers tend to be involved in the more technical aspects of production. In addition, the company employs a sales team of fifty, mostly men, who are generally ‘out on the road’ supporting customers and seeking new business. A further mainly female team of 30 employees work on administration and clerical duties. There are ten supervisors in the factory overseeing various tasks, all bar two of whom are currently men. There are two women managers who manage the clerical and accounts team. The bulk of the staff
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is represented by the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Trade Union, with the team of ten engineers, who maintain the plant, and the office staff represented by the trade union, Unite. It is of note that, having such a large number of women workers, the company has tried to be sympathetic about, for instance, child caring responsibilities. Management seeks to be flexible about holiday cover or if a child falls ill. However, it has no firm policies for this and it is left largely to the team supervisors to sort out.
Current issues
In order to continue to grow the business, the board has been considering a number of options. Its current lines are popular with established clients but are what Susan Norden has increasingly reported as being seen as ‘very traditional’ by potentially new customers. The board in consequence feel that a diversification into more unusual specialist confectionary may be an option to market both in the UK and abroad. In particular, satisfying the taste in cakes and biscuits of Britain’s increasingly multicultural population, it is agreed, is a potentially untapped market. Conversely, it is felt that marketing its ‘traditional’ British confectionary in the growing EU market still offers real potential.
Such a strategy presents a number of production and, consequently, HRM issues for the board to consider. Employee relations have been generally good at Nordens. Although the board was initially sceptical of recognising the unions, after negotiating representation rights, they have found them to be generally supportive of the company’s ‘way of doing things’ and useful as a medium for interacting collectively with the staff. Pay rates at Nordens are above the industry average. There is also a generous pension scheme and a well established health and safety regime, jointly organised by management and the unions.
The establishment of a new product line, however, will mean investment in new machinery and also starting up a new shift pattern, including some night work. Furthermore, recent work with the unions to raise skills levels amongst all the staff has highlighted a significant need for numeracy and literacy training. The new machinery will undoubtedly also require many staff to develop greater IT skills.
At a recent management-union consultation meeting, the union representatives reported that a number of women members had complained that they were being overlooked when it came to new job opportunities and promotion. Of equal concern were a couple of grievances that had been taken out against one of the supervisors. The grievance was that his language and manner were often offensive to women, and to other people from minority groups. The grievance is currently being addressed by management through the normal grievance and discipline channels.
A further urgent issue for the board to deal with is the high turnover in certain groups of staff. Young people remain a hard group of employees to retain. Also the turnover
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of temporary staff continues to be high even though the company sees this as a potential long term source for filling full and part-time staff vacancies after the seasonal demand for production has passed. Similarly, Nordens has tried to recruit staff from minority ethnic communities in the area but they often leave after a number of weeks.
At the last board meeting, the HR director, Richard Smith, gave his colleagues an overview of current and proposed equal opportunities legislation that the company would need to take account of in its current strategic planning. In the discussion that followed, Philip Norden, the production manager, commented that he had not received any adverse reports back from his team of supervisors regarding equality issues. Simon Norden, head of accounts, was worried about the cost issues involved in what seemed to him to be ‘this obsession’ of the Government of wanting to legislate on everything and make it harder for companies to contribute to the economic well being of the country. In contrast, Richard, supported by Susan Norden the sales director, explained that many organisations were increasingly seeing the adoption of a diversity strategy as a means of adding value. He commented that as a new comer, the lack of people with a disability within the workforce, for instance, was quite noticeable in comparison to other companies he had worked for. Similarly, he added that Nordens might be missing an opportunity, and not just as a responsible employer, in not being more truly representative of the diversity in society today by failing to proactively recruit and develop employees from minority groups. Listening to this discussion, Jack Norden, the MD, felt that this issue of diversity warranted more attention. After further debate, it was agreed that they would seek the advice of a consultancy group on how they were to approach the issue of ‘managing diversity,’ and in the context of HRM/HRD more generally, in the company.
End of case study
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