dolution

CARVER NORTH ENGINEERING CONSORTUM (CNEC)

An acquisition has brought some changes to Company CNEC, an engineering company. Historically, company CNEC employed few engineers. The engineers who worked for the company were located in a separate division called MIX. MIX was a service-type division for the rest of the company.

The acquisition brought an increase in the number of engineers to Company CNEC. The population of engineers is now split between division MIX and the acquisition ONDL.

Ideally the senior management of company CNEC would like all their engineers ‘under one roof’, preferably in division MIX. This they feel would provide the engineers with an enhanced sense of identity and broader based career opportunities. To this end, they have already indicated that in the future newly recruited engineers will exclusively be based in division MIX.

However, they face a problem with their existing population of engineers. The board members are unwilling to instruct or order all existing engineers to move to division MIX, as this would be inconsistent with the sort of organization culture they are seeking to develop. The current engineers have therefore been given a choice; they just opt for MIX or ONDL by a certain date. The line managers to whom the engineers are responsible are to provide a series of counselling interviews to all engineers to help inform the decision they will take.

The ‘grapevine’ has already indicated the existence of some strong feelings on the part of engineers regarding the desirability of being located in MIX or ONDL. To some of the engineers MIX is undesirable because its service-type orientation may mean relatively short assignments outside of the islands that will be a disruption to their home life. However, if they elect to stay in ONDL (where no new engineers will be recruited) will their longer-term career prospects in the company be damaged?

Senior management would like coaching sessions to be provided also because they anticipate three different responses from the engineers

(1) I will happily move to MIX;

(2) I will never move to MIX;

(3) I am confused and uncertain. Bear in mind that senior

management ideally wants all engineers in division MIX.

To complicate the issue further three key engineers are experiencing the following:

? Jessica is a 28 year-old married female with very demanding high stress assignments and is a second year PhD student. Jessica has always been a high achiever. She graduated with top honors from college and has very high standards for herself and can be very self-critical when she fails to meet them. Lately, she has struggled with significant feelings of worthlessness and shame due to her inability to perform as well as she always has in the past and the acquisition has her fearing the loss of her job,

? Kristen is a 38 year-old divorced mother of two teenagers. Her career to date has been successful and well-paying for the past several years in upper-level management. Even though she has worked with company CNEC for over 6 years, she’s found herself worrying constantly about losing her job and being unable to provide for her children. This worry has been troubling her for the past 8 months. Despite her best efforts, she hasn’t been able to shake the negative thoughts.

? Josh is a 30 year-old male who recently moved back in with his parents after his fiancée was killed by a drunk driver 3 months ago. His fiancée, a beautiful young woman he’d been dating for the past 4 years, was walking across a busy intersection to meet him for lunch one day. He still vividly remembers the horrific scene as the drunk driver ran the red light, plowing down his fiancée right before his eyes. He raced to her side, embracing her crumpled, bloody body as she died in his arms in the middle of the crosswalk. No matter how hard he tries to forget, he frequently finds himself reliving the entire incident as if it was happening all over. He has buried himself into his work and has been asking for overseas assignments.

Case Study Instructions

Counselling and coaching have always been effective tools for productivity and are needed even more in today’s continuous right-sizing of organisations. As an effective HRD Practitioner one must ensure that when counselling and coaching are provided by an organization constructive communication is used in the process to impart the service and that employees receive the correct help that is needed. This holds true even if the service is contracted out by the organisation.
Question: Identify where a problem exists in the organisation’s CNEC wellness programme as it relates to counseling and coaching and provide recommendations to management to improve the process. If no problem exists, identify the technique used and explain in detail the process provided and its effectiveness in the organisation. Use HRD knowledge and principles.
Make reference to the following related issues including those listed below that should be addressed, where relevant:.

a) Reducing defensiveness

b) Problem oriented and not person oriented

c) Descriptive not evaluative

d) Planning

e) Goal setting

f) Participative management

g) Change agent