Legal Risks and Employment Relations Issues for ABC Ltd
Added on 2019-09-16
5 Pages1765 Words161 ViewsType: 161
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Assignment Questions Case Study ABC Ltd is an independent software house employing 250 staff. Its business involves the production and ongoing maintenance of specialised software which is used by car dealerships for stock control and accounting purposes. New versions of its core products are developed every 18 to 24 months. The business is fiercely competitive, ABC being relatively small players in a large international market. Theysurvive by maintaining their 800-strong customer base, serving these businesses well and involving them in ongoingdevelopmental and maintenance issues through a 'user group' which meets each month. ABC employs a twelve-strong sales team who are seen by senior managers as being central to the organisation's success and future survival. Their role is to maintain good relationships with established customers, to seek out new business wherever possible, to ensure that clients are happyto invest in new versions of software packages as they comeon stream and to liaise with the 'user group'. The latter involves running formal meetings which are always followed by social events at which ABC managers entertain their clients late into the night in pubs, clubs and restaurants. Steve Brown has been the Sales Director at ABC for as long as anyone can remember. He is widely considered to have managed the sales team very effectively, while also maintaining excellent relations with major clients. Despite attempts to persuade him otherwise he has now decided to take early retirement. He and his wife plan to use the substantial commission he has earned over the years to travel the world in some style. A replacement thus needs to be found. It is decided that an exclusively internal recruitment exercise will take place, that Steve's job will not be advertised outside ABC, and that a relatively informal selection procedure will be used to install a replacement quickly. No formal advertisement is drawn up. Instead a meeting of the twelve sales staff is called at which Steve Brown’s retirement is announced by the Chief Executive, Paul MacBarrel. At the same time he states that while Steve is working his notice a replacement will be appointed to work alongside him for a few weeks before he leaves. “If anyof you are interested in being considered for the position” he says “drop me an email”. Later that day he receives four
emails from long-standing members of the sales team putting themselves forward. The next day Paul meets with his Finance Director, his Company Secretary and Steve to make a decision about who should be promoted to the vital role of Sales Director. The first candidate they consider is Joan Keenan. Joan is a very good recent recruit and one of only two women currently employed as sales people at ABC. The senior managers quickly decide to reject her application. She is a good deal younger than most of the team she would be managing and they doubt that a predominantly older male team would take at all kindly to being managed by a young woman. They are also concerned about the impact Joan's appointment would have on the mainly older, male customers who make up the user group and who are used to being entertained by others of a similar ilk after the 'user group' meetings. The second candidate is Aldo Viscida. He is in his early forties and is a brilliant salesman. He has been employed at ABC for some years, having emigrated from Milan in the 1980s. He regularly tops the monthly table for sales commission, having won many bonuses and prizes over the years. He is respected by the other employees on his team. However, his written English is poor and the Sales Director'srole involves writing regular reports as well as much more written communication with clients than is required of the sales team. Aldo's application is thus also rejected. The third candidate is David Constant. He is the longest-serving member of the sales team after Steve, and is generally considered to be his deputy in all but name. He is well-liked among the user group members and would do a competent job in the Sales Director's role. On the downside, from the panel's point of view, is the fact that David is now 61 and so can be expected to retire soon. He has also recently told them in confidence that his wife has been diagnosed with multiple-sclerosis and they fear that he will have to devote himself to her care sooner than he thinks. This would inevitably mean that he has less energy to put into the more senior role. It is thus decided that the fourth candidate, Mike Replica, will be appointed to succeed Steve. Mike is 40 years old, very professional and has long been considered a possible future senior manager. He has plenty of interesting ideas about how to develop both the role and the team. The fact
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