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In 2021, Robert, a highly qualified immigrant from the United Kingdom, had recently joined PLT Consulting (PLT), a multinational management consulting company, as a junior consultant in the Tallinn, Estonia, office. This professional services firm had a strong international brand. However, Robert soon realized that the organization catered both internally and externally to more local demands. In particular, his lack of local language proficiency made the organization a challenging work environment for him, both professionally and socially. Robert raised the issue with his boss, who invited him to a meeting with representatives from PLT’s human resources department and his work team. What concrete steps could they suggest that would help resolve the situation?

In 2021, Robert, a highly qualified immigrant from the United Kingdom, had recently joined PLT Consulting (PLT), a multinational management consulting company, as a junior consultant in the Tallinn, Estonia, office. This professional services firm had a strong international brand. However, Robert soon realized that the organization catered both internally and externally to more local demands. In particular, his lack of local language proficiency made the organization a challenging work environment for him, both professionally and socially. Robert raised the issue with his boss, who invited him to a meeting with representatives from PLT's human resources department and his work team. What concrete steps could they suggest that would help resolve the situation?

Honorable Mention; 2023 DEI Global Case Writing Competition This case combines a strategy issue (merger) encompassing the disciplines of organizational behavior and human resource management. Issues related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) are intertwined in the case, ranging from gender discrimination to sociocultural and hierarchical social class discrimination. The case provides a glimpse into one context (Peru), using a realistic fictional situation, as an example relatable across cultures and a variety of industry and organizational settings. In less than two years, Sweet Mountain Bakery (SMB) lost substantial market share in Peru's cookie market. Top management was shocked to find the main reason was the high-growth performance of a relatively small firm in the country's Andes Mountains area, All You Knead (AYK). The competition became so fierce that employees of SMB and AYK regarded each other as rivals to defeat. In late 2022, after several aggressive yet ineffective competitive moves, SMB solved the situation with a buyout of AYK. Unanticipated in this merger was a set of serious DEIB challenges that emerged post-acquisition. Negativity between the two groups of employees undermined company efforts to attain synergy and efficiency and increase productivity. Students put themselves in the shoes of Victoria Huaman, SMB's new human resources vice president. She is the only woman and the only previous AYK manager among the direct reports to the CEO. Her task is to prepare a report addressing not only DEI issues but also the issue of belonging.

In the coming decades, as the pace of technological change continues to increase, millions of workers may need to be not just upskilled but reskilled-a profoundly complex societal challenge that will sometimes require workers to both acquire new skills and change occupations entirely. Companies have a critical role to play in addressing this challenge, but to date few have taken it seriously. To learn more about what their role will entail, the authors-members of a collaboration between the Digital Data Design Institute at Harvard's Digital Reskilling Lab and the Boston Consulting Group's Henderson Institute-interviewed leaders at some 40 organizations around the world that are investing in large-scale reskilling programs. In synthesizing what they learned, they became aware of five paradigm shifts that are emerging in reskilling: (1) Reskilling is a strategic imperative. (2) It is the responsibility of every leader and manager. (3) It is a change-management initiative. (4) Employees want to reskill-when it makes sense. (5) It takes a village. The authors argue that companies will need to understand and embrace these shifts if they hope to succeed in adapting dynamically to the rapidly evolving new era of automation and AI.

In recent years leading executives-from firms like Google, Bridgewater, and Netflix-have touted the advantages of a work environment marked by candid feedback. Employees seem to have bought into the benefits too. In a 2019 survey, 94% said that corrective feedback improved their performance when it was presented well. Unfortunately, the increased diversity of our workplaces has made it much more likely that feedback won't go over well and will be misinterpreted as an act of hostility. That's because people from different cultures, genders, and generations have varying expectations for how feedback is delivered and by whom. What's standard in America, for instance, can come off as harsh or baffling in other countries. Boomers and Millennials hold radically different ideas about what's appropriate too. And gender differences add to the complexity. Women who are frank are often seen as aggressive, and men have a bad tendency to offer unwelcome advice. This article explains how to navigate the divides: Understand the norms of feedback recipients and adjust for them. Follow the three A's-make sure any advice is intended to assist, actionable, and asked for. Last, get everyone on your team on the same page by establishing a common approach and building regular feedback loops into your collaborations.

ELGi transformed from a small family-run manufacturer of compressors and pumps to a global player through multiple initiatives based on improving the quality of their product and the productivity of their workforce over two decades. They adopted an innovative approach to improve their blue-collar workforce's lifestyle and income levels, linked to worker upskilling, increasing job autonomy, and a radical approach to wage agreement. Previously, wage negotiations for ELGi workers were unpredictable and without a clear structure. The process took time and was ad hoc. Dr. Jay, the promoter family member, did not subscribe to the traditional approach of keeping labor wages low and benefiting from the wage arbitrage followed by global subsidiaries in India and other Indian manufacturing companies. He wanted Indian workers to earn competitive wages, almost equal to what blue-collar workers in the West make and become globally competitive. Hence, a "basket of goods" approach to wage fixing was introduced in 1996 to ensure a good lifestyle for workers and their families. This approach linked consumption to compensation and was determined based on the needs of a family of four. Moreover, the company acknowledged the importance of enhancing worker motivation in order to remain competitive on a global scale. By defining a basket of goods as "must have" and "good to have", which was collaboratively developed between the workers, their families, and the management, they periodically expanded the basket items over multiple years. Additionally, with organization-based profit-sharing schemes, suggestion schemes, and career progression mechanisms, ELGi built a dedicated, motivated, and engaged workforce. Furthermore, the practice of keeping workers as contingent workers for long periods was changed to offer permanency for workers completing over three years based on their performance feedback.

Spreadsheet supplement for case IMB983.

This case depicts the critical decisions Xingli Dong (Shirley) made during her career transition from a female Ph. D. in engineering to Energy Automation R&D VP of Schneider Electric and sparks a discussion on her next key decision for a career change. In this male-dominated field, she met a barrage of suspicion and setbacks during her growth from a female Ph. D. in engineering to the head of the R&D Center, especially in carrying out an eight-year-long project. Shirley insisted on leading the team with open-mindedness and inclusiveness, making rapid and incremental iterations through trial and error. The successful project delivery earned her the trust of the headquarters and an opportunity to lead the company's global R&D business. The new position, however, required her to balance work and family and manage a global R&D team while working in China. With authentic leadership, she won the trust and recognition of her 300-strong cross-cultural R&D team; with empathy, she managed to close down a site in Poland. Inspired by other excellent female leaders, she continuously reflected on female executives' unique strengths. In October 2021, Schneider Electric organized a 360 Leadership Assessment for senior executives, during which Shirley realized her weaknesses in strategic thinking would put her in a weaker position to exercise leadership in the long run. Shirley began to consider whether she should leverage her existing strengths in her existing role or venture out of her comfort zone to seek new opportunities. However, she had doubts about whether Schneider Electric would support her pivot into an innovation-related role, where she had no particular advantage.

Nirbhay Lumde, head of corporate social responsibility (CSR) at CGI Inc. (CGI), along with his efficient team, implemented certain novel CSR initiatives to address two critical societal issues: COVID-19 infrastructure and women’s safety in the context of India. CGI had to form partnerships with health care, law enforcement, and government to achieve greater impact from its CSR initiatives and to empower CGI’s employer branding. How could Lumde assess the effectiveness of CGI’s CSR initiatives? Which metrics were likely to help in this regard? Should Lumde consider expanding CGI’s CSR initiatives? Were there any potential benefits to CGI of doing so? If yes, what potential CSR opportunities could Lumde explore?

Unicorn human relationships startup Beamery evaluates it growth versus depth strategy as its strategic partners and customers could become future competitors in a quickly changing AI based human resources and talent management industry.

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. 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? 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?

On April 20, 2010, Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement, was sitting in her office in the West Wing. The split screens on her muted television in her office were, as usual, tuned to news channels to scan for breaking news. She looked up at the breaking news scroll and saw what appeared to be an oil rig fire. "I im-mediately called in my Chief of Staff and asked him to find out the details. Because if it was in America, it was going to become our problem," said Jarrett. She soon learned that a powerful ex-plosion rocked the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, located about 40 miles off the coast of Louisi-ana. The rig was on fire and more than a dozen workers were unaccounted for after the blast. While the Coast Guard assumed the task of coordinating the emergency response, President Obama called on Jarrett to directly managing the political response. The case goes on to describe Jarrett's leadership actions-specifically, the measures she took to manage the White House's relationship to the governors of the five states affected by the spill, from the date of the explosion through the event's conclusion. HKS Case Number 2265.0.

SRK Exports Pvt. Ltd., a family-owned diamond firm based in Surat, India, has over 6000 employees. Despite facing economic downturns and the COVID-19 pandemic, the company, under the guidance of founder Govind Dholakia, has managed to avoid employee layoffs. SRK's HRM practices, including performance management, training and development, recruitment and selection, employee engagement, and CSR, are well-integrated with the company's values and culture, and are supported by the Quadruple Bottom Line Approach. As the firm continues to grow and leadership transitions to the next generation, SRK must remain vigilant in maintaining its sustainable HRM practices. This case study examines the events that contributed to SRK's success in the diamond industry and highlights future challenges for the company.

Laser City was a gaming company with a laser tag facility that provided a variety of fun activities for children, groups, and corporate events. Most services were delivered face-to-face in Edmonton and Calgary locations in Alberta, Canada. To mitigate the impact of the global COVID-19 pandemic and the Alberta Government's restrictions on in-person services on the business, Laser City's management team launched an online gaming service called Codo in March 2020. Presented with the new challenges of leading Laser City employees remotely, the company's co-founder needed to design selection tools to better identify and hire engaged remote employees, find innovative ways to foster casual virtual interactions among workers, and identify new methods to support employees through the challenges of remote work.

redBus, the world's largest online bus ticket provider, required all employees across various data engineering and product teams to interact with each other daily for Agile product development. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the development of a quick and interesting mechanism to deliver new-hire induction that would reduce the time-to-productivity of new hires. To address this need, Prabhanjan Kulkarni, the CHRO of redBus, and Srijeet Sarkar, Director of the Learning & Development (L&D) team, developed an immersive web-based online induction, which they extended to a partially immersive meta-based virtual reality platform sans an interactive avatar. The platform delivered an engaging experience and reduced time-to-productivity, while also releasing leadership bandwidth otherwise required for repetitive onboarding activities and providing a ready knowledge repository for all employees. It yielded additional benefits but also presented some challenges. The millennial and centennial new hires were overwhelmed by this technology's experience and use, which was enhancing the employer brand of redBus. However, older-generation employees found the experience uncomfortable and preferred the conventional physical induction process. The success of meta-learning initiated the development of an in-house mobile and web-based learning management system (LMS). Replete with assessments mapped to individual role levels and competencies for the various departments and teams, the e-learning modules provided learning guides for free online learning, before and after score tracking, and enabled employees to own their learning and development journey. The customized assessment framework also enabled redBus to map the trainee engineers to appropriate teams based on their skill capabilities, ensuring the high productivity of the young engineers.

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 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?

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?