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Refiloe Molefe, affectionately known as Mama Fifi, was a humane agripreneur running an urban organic vegetable farm, Fifi’s Veggie Farm (Bertrams Inner City Farm), in Johannesburg, South Africa. Molefe’s vision was to empower the nearby urban communities and ensure food security by selling fresh vegetables, teaching the community how to plant organically, and employing community members to work on the farm. She successfully implemented farming activities through partnerships with various governmental institutions, companies, and universities. Many organizations recognized her work on the farm, which received donations, won competitions, and obtained multiple awards.<br><br>Around 2019, while Molefe’s agribusiness was gaining momentum in the area and beyond, the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality was planning to build a multipurpose centre on the farm premises as part of its strategic objectives. In early May 2022, she was invited to discuss the demolition of the building and the municipality’s decision to move her to a new place in Eikenhof, on the city’s outskirts. Molefe was informed that, on May 26, 2022, the mayor would be handing over the premises to the contractors, and she would have to move to the new location. The new site did not have adequate infrastructure to support organic farming practices and would require her to share the location with farmers who used chemicals, potentially contaminating the soil and endangering her organic farming practices. Not wanting to depend on the government, she was weighing another option: to operate at a local church south of Johannesburg. She had to decide whether to accept the municipality’s offer, use the local church premises, or buy land she could own for a more sustainable future.

Often organizations need to apologize for a situation caused by a poor decision or by the actions of one of their employees. There are also times when individuals need to make a public apology about something they have said or done. This case gives students an opportunity to put themselves in the place of Lara Spencer, co-host of Good Morning America, apologizing for comments she made in 2019 about the United Kingdom's Prince George and his grade school curriculum, which included computer programming, religious studies, poetry, and ballet. Critics quickly called Spencer to task for making light of boys and men who dance.

Many companies are very bad at hiring people—although they often don’t realize this—and they cannot get better if they don’t recognize that they need to improve. This note explores the common errors organizations make when attempting to hire employees and outlines the steps they should take to hire better and with improved diversity outcomes. The note is written from the perspective of someone who not only has interviewed thousands of job candidates but also is familiar with the literature on recruitment and selection. It serves as a practical guide that leans heavily on existing research.

In the rush to develop vaccines, many strains of viruses are used in laboratories in an effort to help humanity. However, the same samples used to develop life-saving vaccines could potentially be used to develop weapons of biological warfare. This case looks at the scenario from multiple perspectives in an effort to discuss the ethics of virus usage, storage and regulatory oversight given the differing economical situations and motivations of the actors.

The case highlights the courage, tenacity, and drive of a young woman pursuing her law degree part-time while working full-time in a financial role in Maryland. She applied to a posting for a government relations role in her parent company’s head office in Washington, D.C. The job involved advocacy work with members of the US Congress, which aligned with her interests even though it was intended for candidates several levels above her current role. However, given her interest in the opportunity, she reached out directly to the hiring executive, bypassing her manager and circumventing her organization’s standard human resources processes and protocols. She left the call with a request for an interview, although she thought that it could result in either a rapid climb or a painful fall from grace with reputational risk, which could impact her future career. Time would soon tell.

Ajeet Singh was an example of an authentic leader, devoting himself to tackling the societal grand challenge of sex trafficking and child prostitution in India. Singh was the founder and leader of Guria India (Guria), a non-governmental organization with a holistic approach to improving the lives of sex workers and trafficked women and children. Through trial and error learning as well as years of immersion in and working with the community in one of India’s red-light districts, Guria had developed an end-to-end approach attacking the challenge at its systemic roots in poverty, corruption, and the failure of social institutions. However, Guria still struggled with an insecure funding base, low salaries for staff, and an insufficient leadership pipeline; Singh could identify no successor to take up his work. Singh wondered how he could extend Guria’s reach across all of India: Should Guria establish new locations in other cities, and if so, how would these be staffed, and what kind of leaders would be needed? How could Singh find and groom a cohort of successors to follow and replace him once he was no longer capable of providing his current level of proactive leadership?

Supplemental Material for Main Product.

In June 2022, India’s community health workers, known as accredited social health activists (ASHAs) in the state of Jharkhand, were on strike, demanding regularization of their services, increase in remuneration, and incentive benefits. Dr. Nitin Kulkarni, the health secretary for the state of Jharkhand, must deal with the strike as soon as possible, as the state immediately needs the services of ASHAs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Circl Learning Limited (Circl), a United Kingdom–based organization that provided coaching training to professionals and diverse young leaders from under-represented groups, was facing a challenge regarding impact measurement. Founded in 2018, Circl had grown and established a significant client base in a short time. Measurement of impact was a core component of its philosophy and growth strategy. As the chief executive officer prepared for a team meeting, he contemplated the measurements that Circl had in place and was currently tracking. What other key metrics should the organization consider for 2023?

Jill Herzog founded Caring@Work Support Services (Caring@Work) in 2014 with a desire to give back to the community. After running a successful plastics recycling business for many years and building goodwill in both her community and in the recycling industry, Herzog saw an opportunity to start a second business dedicated to social impact, one that focused on providing both paid work and support services for clients with intellectual and developmental disabilities.<br><br>Herzog expected that her team members would be highly engaged in their work, which involved helping people with disabilities live healthier and happier lives. However, she was shocked to find out that the opposite was true. Herzog noted several instances of Caring@Work employees lacking motivation and spreading gossip. Even more problematic was the fact that the service provided to the clients was being compromised, and employees frequently failed to complete the required note taking for Medicaid reimbursements. Herzog wondered if her goal of giving back to the community while earning a modest profit would ever be realized. Were the problems due to her leadership style? Were there larger, more systemic problems precipitating the counterproductive workplace behaviour?<br><br>Clearly, something had to change. After eight years in business, Caring@Work had yet to earn a profit. Herzog knew that her business could not grow to the point of being financially sustainable without a committed workforce that shared her passion for the company’s mission. When one of Caring@Work’s top performers, Sylvia Ward, threatened to leave due to the toxic work environment, Herzog knew she needed to act fast. Over the weekend, she drafted a speech to deliver at the next staff meeting on Monday, but she wondered if this was the right approach. Would the speech alienate her workforce even further? Or might it urge them to take their jobs more seriously?

PowerPoint Presentation to accompany Ivey Product no. W31771.

Lisa LaFlamme was the trusted face of CTV National News. In 2022, she was at the height of her career. It was therefore a shock to her colleagues and viewers when, on August 15, 2022, she posted a video on Twitter to announce that she had been abruptly ousted from CTV by its parent company, Bell Media Inc. (Bell Media). Bell Media was hit with seemingly never-ending waves of negative press, including speculation that sexism and ageism had been the reasons behind LaFlamme’s ousting. The choice to get rid of LaFlamme, and the manner in which that choice was exercised, had lasting negative effects that Bell Media surely had not anticipated. Looking back, was replacing LaFlamme unequivocally the wrong choice? Or could it have been handled in a way that would have prevented such backlash?

Ola Electric Mobility Pvt. Ltd. (Ola Electric) was launched in 2017 by ANI Technologies Pvt. Ltd., better known as Ola Cabs, as a venture for making electric scooters. Bhavish Aggarwal, one of Ola Cabs’ founders, acquired a 92.5 per cent stake in Ola Electric and pursued a path of rapid expansion. By 2022, Ola Electric had successfully raised a large amount of capital from investors, developed several subsystems (especially software) of its products in-house, carried out two product launches and generated tens of thousands of bookings from customers, and was building a state-of-the-art plant for making electric scooters. While Ola Electric’s scooters had received positive reviews from a few expert reviewers and generated customer bookings, the company found it difficult to deliver defect-free scooters in sufficient numbers. The company was also mired in a number of controversies, such as some of its scooters catching fire, alleged safety issues with its products, publicly sharing a customer’s private data, and the departure of several executive from the company. Blunt communication by the founder and majority owner Aggarwal made some of the controversies worse. Aggarwal and his team now had to determine how to address the challenges and decide whether to focus on tackling these or on aggressively pursuing greater volumes. In which direction should they steer the company’s strategy?

VDart Inc (VDart) was founded by Sidd Ahmed in December 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, as a digital talent management and services firm, which grew at a steady rate to reach US$160 million in annual revenue and more than 2,550 employees in 2019. The same year, the company was classified as the 138th largest and fifty-sixth fastest-growing staffing firm in the United States. VDart’s global servicing hub was based in Tiruchirappalli, India, with about 380 employees who served clients from seven geographic locations. VDart differentiated itself from its competitors through its core values of appreciation, recognition, and encouragement (ARE) and through unique cultural practices including shout-outs during Monday conference calls, Friday Lunch & Learn sessions, and annual reward and recognition (R&R) events. Growing rapidly, VDart had set itself an ambitious goal of becoming a $500 million revenue firm by December 2022. However, the rapid growth was putting a strain on the existing culture, making it challenging to sustain and nurture it. Ahmed and the top management were finding it increasingly difficult to instill the VDart culture in new employees, realizing that the values which had propelled VDart’s success thus far would not take it to the next level. The case describes the company’s twelve-year growth journey, its unique cultural practices, and the growing pains, inviting students to think about options to manage culture during rapid growth.

In March 2020, the German online travel experience platform GetYourGuide faced an abrupt drop in revenues in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the drop, the company had been thriving, grown from a simple idea thought up by a group of friends in a student dormitory into a market-leading company in the travel experience industry with a valuation of over US$1 billion (a “unicorn” start-up) and more than 600 employees across fifteen global offices. Co-founder Johannes Reck and his team needed to determine a path forward—but how to prioritize responses to the crisis? What would the impact of any responses be on the company’s longer-term strategy? And how could the responses be aligned with the company’s values, which centred on entrepreneurial vision and commitment to employees? Whichever action plan was chosen, decisions would have to be made swiftly.

<p align="justify">On April 12, 2022, a devastating mudslide covered 87 hectares of the Toyota South Africa Motors factory located in Durban, South Africa. The company’s president and chief executive officer was facing various immediate issues including mud flooding of the plant, employees stranded within the plant, growing concerns over electrical shorting and possible electrocution due to rising water levels, and the plant’s closure in response to the flooding. As a result of the flooding, the plant had to shut down for five months, which deeply impacted the entire supply chain of original equipment manufacturers and dealers who depended on Toyota South Africa Motors for their sustainability. The consequences of a prolonged plant closure could affect multiple stakeholders, including 8,000 employees and the larger South African economy. Toyota South Africa Motors contributed approximately 130,000 Toyota vehicles per year for the local market and for global export. The company’s president needed to contain the immediate crisis and work with Toyota South Africa Motors stakeholders to lead a substantial recovery from the disaster.

This is Part II of the exercise set: Toyota South Africa Motors: Flood Devastation and A Plant in Crisis (W32218).

This is Part III of the exercise set: Toyota South Africa Motors: Flood Devastation and A Plant in Crisis (W32218).

In March 2020, the Government of India announced a nationwide lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Only organizations deemed to be working in essential services were allowed to continue operating. This lockdown lasted until May 2020, during which time companies faced transportation restrictions, supply chain issues, and staffing challenges, among others. Despite this, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC) managed to achieve crude oil production and profits similar to the previous year. However, the company battled crises both onshore and offshore as it fought to care for its employees and their families amid lockdown conditions.<br><br>Two years later, the organizational stress and personal toll exacted by the nation’s lockdown still haunted the group. However, while the events had been traumatic and arduous, they also offered potential lessons for the company, something that the management team was interested in. What capabilities had aided the company during the lockdowns? ONGC’s Human Resources Director, Dr. Alka Mittal, wanted to understand how employees had coped and managed during the lockdowns so she could formulate a future-oriented “People Strategy Plan” to combat potential similar future crises. However, she was also worried that revisiting such intense experiences could bring strong negative emotions to the forefront and increase employee stress, thereby decreasing morale and job satisfaction. ONGC’s management needed to determine how best to handle the situation so that it could prepare for future crises without damaging its existing relationship with employees.

In December 2021, Steven Cahillane, chief executive officer of The Kellogg’s Company, was facing worker unrest and a union strike. After several rounds of discussion between the workers' union and management, an amicable settlement could not be reached related to abolishing the two-tier pay system that Kellogg's introduced in 2015. After negotiations unfolded and management and the union still could not reach a conclusion, the union launched a strike on October 7, 2021. How could Cahillane improve relations with the workers' union? How could he bring the strike to an end? Does Kellogg’s management have more bargaining power than workers?