HRMN 300 - Strategic Human Resource Management Final Exam Case Study

This document presents a comprehensive case study analysis focusing on Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) at DRA Performance Solutions (DRA PS). The assignment addresses four scenarios, each exploring different aspects of HR management. Scenario 1 examines recruitment strategies for a new virtual training academy, evaluating current policies and proposing improvements. Scenario 2 focuses on a performance gap with a program manager, analyzing potential solutions and recruitment challenges. Scenario 3 delves into retention issues at DRA PS, identifying problems like lack of strategic planning and training, proposing SHRM strategies, and addressing employee shortages. Finally, Scenario 4 discusses the recruitment of new teams, considering sourcing methods and potential management issues. The analysis provides solutions to the case study questions, supported by academic references, demonstrating an understanding of SHRM principles and practices. The document is designed to help students understand the practical application of SHRM concepts in real-world business situations.

Running head: SHRM
Strategic Human Resource Management
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

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Scenario 1:
Answer 1.
Some of the positions for which DRA Performance Solutions or DRA PS would require
recruiting employees would be training material developers, designing experts and IT experts.
This is because the company has received a contract from BTA to develop a virtual training
academy. The organizational structure of DRA PS shows that it has no training material
developer, designing experts and IT experts at present attending to particular projects (BTA in
the case). Thus, the organisation should hire employees in these positions.
Answer 2.
The existing recruitment policies and guidelines of DRA PS are centred on projects and
are not employee centric, thus lacking long term business planning. For example, the company
prior to terminating employees owing to lack of projects, consider new work opportunities. This
means that the company hires employees for certain projects and terminates them once the
projects are closed. This means that DRA PS does not plan its talent acquisition, recruitment and
retention of employees in alignment with its long term business strategies.
This strategy of hiring employees only to execute certain projects and terminating them
after the projects in questions end would challenge the long term business growth of the
company. Boon et al. (2018) mention that human resources possess knowledge and skills which
provide companies employing with knowledge capital which is so important for companies to
gain competitive advantage in the market and stay ahead of competitors. Thus, by terminating
the employees once projects are over, DRA PS also loses the skills and knowledge of these

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employees or in other words, its knowledge capital to its competitors. This would lead to passing
of the competitive advantages of the firm to its competitors and render the former weak before
the latter. This would damage the long term growth of the company.
The management of DRA PS should deal with this challenge of low employee retention
and consequent losing of knowledge capital by retaining its core employees. The company
should reserve the core positions like project management for its on roll employees who would
not be terminated once projects end. The supporting activities can however be carried out by
subcontracting. This approach would ensure that the company retains its knowledge capital by
retaining its employees.
Answer 3.
The recruitment strategy who would be communicated to the top management of DRA
PS is that the company should recognise the core area in managing projects which would require
application of the core competencies like financial capital and knowledge capital. The company
should assign these core competencies related responsibilities to the on roll employees. The
company can subcontract its supporting activities like maintenance of software. This would rid
the company of the need to recruit large numbers of employees and reduce its salary costs. This
strategy would also enable the company retain its employees and associated knowledge capital,
thus retaining its competitive advantage (Zehir et al. 2016). The strategy should be
communicated to the management by holding a meeting in the presence of the departmental
heads.

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Scenario 2:
Answer 1.
An appropriate method of dealing with the performance gap would be restructuring of the
program manager’s job responsibilities. The responsibilities of communicating of progress and
holding client meet could have been entrusted with the team leader. This is because the program
manager has weak communication skills.
The decision of replacing the program manager was not right because she was a efficient
manager. The different sub activities of the projects were delivered on time which ratifies the
programme manager’s kills to handle complex projects. Thus, replacing her was not justified.
Answer 2.
The most evident option to find a new project would be the team leader. The next option
which the company should consider would be recruiting programme manager from external
sources like floating advertisement on online job portals.
Answer 3.
The recruitment challenge which exists in acquisition of the programme manager is that
recruitment of highly experience and skilled programme manager attract immense costs of
salary. As far as retention is considered, the challenge is that the preferences and expectations of
the clients from programme managers are extremely volatile as well as keeps on changing. The
ratings and feedbacks given by clients largely impact the professional growth opportunities like
performance appraisal of programme managers as well as their retention. Thus negative reviews

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from clients can render even the most efficient programme manager redundant. Thus, changing
expectations of clients pose serious threats before retention of programme managers.
Answer 4.
A number of steps should be taken to ensure that the newly hired programme manager
will be approved and expediently to the possible extent. First of all, the company should align its
recruitment of programme managers with its business requirements. The management of the
company in this respect should acquire feedback from the clients, at least the main clients,
regarding their expectations from programme managers. The managers should then incorporate
these expectations and feedbacks from the main clients to form the job description which would
be used to acquire the programme manager. These two strategies would ensure that the
programme managers who would be recruited would be more skilled and knowledgeable to
function as per the expectations of the clients. This would ensure that the programme managers
would more likely to able to ensure satisfaction of the clients and generate higher revenue.
The parties to the communication would be the management of DRA PS, the
departmental heads and programme team employees.
Scenario 3:
Answer 1.
An analysis of the case study threw light on the several retention issues faced by DRA
PS. The following are the main retention issues:

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Lack of strategic human resource planning:
First of all, the management of DRA PS had no strategic human resource planning. This
is because the organisation made no employee retention and professional development plans to
retain employees. The firm hired employees to serve in particular projects and terminated them
after the projects concerned closed. Thus, the management and the HR department had no actual
knowledge about the skills and knowledge of the employees to deliver as per the expectations of
the clients. For example, the instructors the company hired to provide virtual training had very
poor client management and time management skills. They cancelled and rescheduled training
sessions which created problem for the client. The graphic designer had no knowledge about the
expectations of the client regarding the technical aspects of the graphics and ended up delivering
wrong graphics. Thus, the inappropriate conduct of the personnel of the company actually
showcased the lack of HRM in the firm namely, DRA PS.
Lack of training:
The management of the firm did not provide training to the employees to operate in
appropriate ways. The management of DRA PS did not have strategic human resource
management planning and only acquired employees on temporary basis. The management of the
firm did not perceive the employees as business partners and train them. The newly hired
employees as a result did not feel responsible to the management and the clients. They owing to
the lack of training and lack of knowledge about the expectations of the clients delivered
extremely poorly.
The discussion above point out that the existing recruitment and retention policies of the
firm created threats since they were not aligned with the business requirements of the clients.
The company owing to its short recruitment policies only hired employees to work on specific

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projects after which the employees would leave. The company took no step to retain and train
employees to ensure that they were able to serve clients on continuous basis to deliver high level
projects. This often led to the employees delivering poorly which led to lack of client
satisfaction, ultimately leading to escalations and low revenue generation.
Answer 2.
The company should adopt SHRM strategies to retain employees. The current team
would be motivated by providing the team members with training and mentoring in alignment to
the expectations of the clients.
Answer 3.
The company should hire new employees to fill up the vacancies on urgent basis.
Answer 4.
The company should communicate the present scenario of employee shortage owing high
employee turnover with the clients. The communication plan would involve holding of meetings
with the clients on regular basis to ask for their cooperation like extension of the project deadline
dates so that the company can execute them after acquiring new employees. The strategy would
be implemented by recruiting new employees in alignment with the business requirements of the
company.

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Scenario 4:
Answer 1.
The company should use two steps to hire employees for seven new teams. The company
should ask for references from its existing employees and source employees from outside. The
methods which could be used to recruit staff would be external sourcing and promotion of
employees of lower positions to fill the vacancies.
Answer 2.
The new employees would lack motivation and may conflict with management decisions
they perceive as challenges in the initial phase.
Answer 3.
The participations of the new employees would be gained.
Answer 4.
The new teams would be inducted to the existing workforce to create sense of
belongingness among them to the firm. This ensures bringing down of staff turnover. An
management issue which might crop up would be proactively managed by gaining support from
employees, clients and the management.

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References:
Boon, C., Eckardt, R., Lepak, D.P. and Boselie, P., 2018. Integrating strategic human capital and
strategic human resource management. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 29(1), pp.34-67.
Zehir, C., Gurol, Y., Karaboga, T. and Kole, M., 2016. Strategic human resource management
and firm performance: The mediating role of entrepreneurial orientation. Procedia-Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 235, pp.372-381.