Career Planning at Diverse

Case Study: Career Planning at Diverse,Inc

Diverse, Inc. is well named.  It is a major, multi-billion dollar food broker that operates primarily in the United States but maintains sales offices throughout the world, including China, the C.I.S., and many other countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and South America.  Its primary business is buying and selling food grains, narrow profit margins in the face on intense competition.  Futures buyers’ lock in favourable prices and the string of worldwide sales offices sell these bulk goods to food processors and foreign governments.

The employees of the company hold many diverse jobs, ranging from ship loaders to highly specialized commodity buyers and sellers.  Top management was concerned that many employees, particularly those in key buying and selling positions, were quitting to go to work for competitors.  Not only were replacements costly to find, but employees also took with them vital information about company procedures and prices.  Additionally, top management wanted to move key employees across borders to balance its work force to meet changing patterns of international trade.  To build loyalty to the company and enhance morale, the human resource department was directed to begin to career planning program for employees’ throughput the company.

Questions

1. Given the diversity of the company’s work force, what unique problems would you expect the human resource department to encounter?
2. What other career development actions could the human resource department undertake in the short-run to address the loss of key people?