Reference no: EM133162724
The Abico Wine Bar is a chain of twelve wine bars located across Ontario including its flagship unit located in the heart of beautiful Prince Edward County, Ontario. It runs as a publicly traded business on the Toronto Stock Exchange and is governed by a Board of Directors.
As a new member of the board of directors for one of the local wine bars, Ms. Ashley George was being introduced to all the employees in the flagship PEC wine bar. When she was introduced to bar back Ruth Johnson, she was curious about her work and asked her what the bar machine she was using did.
Johnson replied that she really did not know what the bar machine was called or what it did. She explained that she had only been working there for 2 months. However, she did know precisely how to operate the machine. According to her supervisor, she was an excellent employee.
At one of the bar's head offices, the supervisor in charge spoke to Ms. George confidentially, telling her that something was wrong, but she did not t know what. For one thing, she explained, employee turnover was too high, and no sooner had one employee been put on the job than another one resigned. With customers to serve and cocktails to be made, she continued, she had little time to work with the new employees as they came and went.
All bar supervisors hired their own employees without communication with the home office or other franchises. When an opening developed, the supervisor tried to find a suitable employee to replace the worker who had quit. After touring the 12 wine bars and finding similar problems in many of them, Ms. George wondered what the home office should do or what action he should take. The wine bar was regarded as being a well-run institution that had grown from 12 to 50 employees during the past 2 years. The more she thought about the matter, the more puzzled Ms. George became. She could not t quite put her finger on the problem, and she did not know whether to report her findings to the president of the franchises.
Discussion Board Questions:
- What do you think is causing some of the problems at the wine bar?
- Do you think setting up a centralized HR unit will help the franchises?
- What specific functions should an HR unit carry out?
- What HR functions would then be carried out by supervisors and other line managers?
- What role should the Internet play in the new HR organization?