Reference no: EM133335062
Case Study: D&S Holdings, Toronto, Canada was started in April 2002. Over the past 20 years it has grown from a small trading company to a large conglomerate with Strategic Business Units (SBU) in Banking, Insurance, Real Estate, Oil & Gas, and Mining. From one office in April 2002 with twenty-five employees to over 650 offices and over 7500 employees in Canada, the success story continues. Each SBU is Headed by a General Manager (GM), who report to President & CEO.
In November 2021, a new President & CEO, May Wade took over the leadership of D&S Holdings and with that came new ambitions of expanding into new markets. May had previously worked in New York for 10 years and was keen to expand operations into USA.
D&S Holdings is very profitable and in Jan 2022 was able to fund the acquisition of a US Conglomerate (that was available for lower than market price due to the pandemic situation). The US conglomerate had thirty-five office and 1200 employees, and has interests in Banking, Insurance and Real Estate.
The US operations had various issues i.e., high turnover, low morale, lawsuits for wrongful dismissal and discrimination etc. While the customer base was becoming more diverse, the employee composition was very homogeneous, and male dominated. The organization structure was designed that all 35 Office Managers reported to the COO of US operations.
May had a clear vision for the US operations - streamline the organization structure to reflect the SBU of D&S Holding, and to let the Office Managers focus on growing the business and leave people management to HR. She also wanted to introduce a new organization structure with three General Managers (SBU heads) reporting to the Executive Vice President (EVP), US Operations who in turn reported to the President & CEO of D&S Holdings. May saw growth opportunity in New York State for the banking business and wanted to expand operations with fifty new employees to be hired in New York City and five in each of the thirty-five offices. May also knew that the key to success was on building strong customer relations and tapping into the diverse customers of New York.
Aya, one of the General Managers in Canada is being promoted as Executive Vice President (EVP) and will be based in New York City. As the new EVP, Aya was being introduced to all the employees in the New York office. When she was introduced to Ruth, she was curious about her work and asked her what the Customer Relations Management (CRM) software she was using did. Ruth replied that she really did not know what the CRM software was capable to do or what it did. She explained that she had only been working there for two months. She did, however, know precisely how the software worked. According to her supervisor, she was an excellent employee.
D&S Holdings Canada was regarded as a well-run institution that had grown from 25 to 7500 employees during the past 20 years. With the growth came aspirations of employees to grow as well and one growing concern was the lack of career opportunities especially for Office Managers and staff.
Questions: You are the Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) of D&S Holdings and are required to prepare report for May, President, and CEO by answering the three questions given below.
1. Identify and explain the issues and challenges facing D&S Holdings. What are some solutions that you would suggest for the challenges you identified?
2. Design a recruitment and selection strategy for new banking employees in US Operations. What would be the main aspects on which you would focus?
3. Design a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy for D&S Holdings. How would you implement the strategy?