Human Resource

​Human resources (HR) is the company department charged with hiring, training, and promoting employees. HR is responsible for the happiness of the people in the company.

You are the HR head of PepsiCo and have hired talented individuals from IIMs as Management Trainees.​

Multiple Choice

Your objective is to make sure they become leaders for tomorrow.

How would you design the onboarding program for the first 6 months?

• Put them all in HR department, so you can keep a watch on them at all times

• Design a recorded lecture program series to give the trainees information about the organization

• Design a rotation plan so they can get the experience of all the departments in the organization

• Assign all the trainees to work directly under the CEO and get to know about the functioning of the organization

Design a rotation plan so they can get the experience of all the departments in the organization.

​

​Your objective is to train the future leader, so putting all of them in your department under your watch would not provide them with the exposure they need. You can not depend entirely on lecture series as they need hands-on experience. Also, you should not assign them directly under the CEO as they lack experience and CEO cannot manage a large no. trainees under him/her.

Thus​, the ideal plan would be a rotational plan, where they work in all the departments for the next 6 months and get a better understanding of the company.

Multiple Choice

Now, After 6 months, they have been placed in their roles where they are required to analyze a lot of data and present information. What is the first tool training that you would give them?

• Onboarding training

• Product design training

• Analytical training

• Sales training

Analytical training.​

​The onboarding training is already done and there is no need for sales or product design training as they are currently neither selling nor designing the products for the company.

They ​require analytical training as their roles demand them to analyze a lot of data and present information.

Multiple Choice

It's almost a year now and you have been asked to set criteria for their promotion in due time. What would be the criteria for their appraisals and promotions?

• Timely delivery of projects

• Quality of the work done

• Willingness to take up new responsibilities

• All of these

All of these.​

​All of these are parameters that would help us determine whether or not the trainee is ready for appraisal and promotions.

Multiple Choice

Promotions happened and one of the trainees comes to you to ask why she wasn't promoted. She feels she is being discriminated against. How would you handle it?

• Tell her to talk to her department head as it's not your problem anymore

• Tell her to talk to the company head directly if she has any problem and not disturb you

• Talk to her and let her know that it's your decision and if she's not happy, she can leave

• Talk to her and make her understand that promotions were based on certain criteria

Talk to her and make her understand that promotions were based on certain criteria.​

​As the HR head, it's your responsibility to deal with such issues, so you need to talk to the employee and make her understand the basis on which the promotions took place and that there was no discrimination done whatsoever.

Multiple Choice

You explained everything but she's not convinced and believes that her performance was good enough for a promotion. What would you do now?

• Tell her to deal with the situation and not disturb you anymore

• Tell her to either accept her fate or leave the company

• Tell her to calm down and share her performance data with her

• Tell her to calm down and talk directly with her department head

Tell her to calm down and share her performance data with her.​

​While dealing with any such situation, you should have an empathetic approach. You should try to try to solve the problem by talking to the employee and providing data and evidence for your actions.

Multiple Choice

She is still not convinced and wants to leave the organization. How would you handle this situation?

• Take all her important documents and force her to work with the company

• Offer her training and mentoring support so that she can get promoted in the next cycle

• Ask her to either continue working or pay the entire one year salary back

• Tell her that if she leaves, you would not let her work with any other company

Offer her training and mentoring support so that she can get promoted in the next cycle.​

​As an ideal HR head, it's your responsibility to take care of the employees and not threaten them in any way. Thus, under the current circumstances, you should offer her training and mentoring support, so that she can get help to work on her weaknesses.

Multiple Choice

Another management trainee comes to you citing that he is leaving as he has a better offer from Coca-Cola.

What rationale will you give to make him stay?

• In PepsiCo, you will be at a better salary and role in 2 years as we promote much faster than Coca Cola

• You have done training here, so you can not work for any other company

• If you leave, you will have to return all your salary and the money spent on your training

• We will increase your salary

In PepsiCo, you will be at a better salary and role in 2 years as we promote much faster than Coca Cola.​

You should not pressurize the employee by asking for payback or forcing them to work without their will. You cannot increase the salary either as this is a management decision, not yours.

Your focus should be to make them understand that they have much better prospects if they work with PepsiCo than any other company.

Well done1

After you explained, the employee has agreed to stay back.​

But your challenge is not over yet!

When all of these problems were coming, the CEO called you to ask why so many management trainees were complaining despite best-in-class training and transparent promotion criteria. She has asked for your input in making the program better.​

Multiple Choice

How will you find out what needs to be done?

• Arrange a talk session for the trainees with the CEO and let her deal with the situation

• Interview management trainees on their experience and understand where the gaps are

• Quickly make a presentation based on your views about the situation and share with the CEO

• Ask the trainees to sign an agreement immediately that they won't leave the organization whatsoever

Interview management trainees on their experience and understand where the gaps are.​

You can not ask the CEO to deal with the situation as it's your responsibility.​ You can not ask the employees either to sign a never leaving agreement. Presenting make-believe data to the CEO is unethical.

Thus, you should interview the management trainees and identify the problems they might be facing​.

Multiple Choice

You researched and found out that indeed, the biggest concern was salary levels because competing companies have offered much better salaries. What would you do?

• Talk to the trainees and ask them to work on the current salary

• Talk to the competitors and ask them to reduce their salaries

• Talk to the CEO and increase the salaries of the PepsiCo's management trainees

• Talk to the department heads and ask them to pay the extra salary from their end

Talk to the CEO and increase the salaries of PepsiCo's management trainees.​

To deal with this situation, you should have a meeting with the CEO and present your findings on the problem and work on increasing the salaries so that you can retain the employee.

​Wow, that indeed was a challenging year for you!

But you are a pro at handling challenges. ​

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Poll

Would you like to be an HR head in the future?

• YES

• MAYBE

• NO

Poll

On a scale of 1-5 (1 being the lowest and 5 highest), how much would you rate this challenge on fun and learning?

• 1

• 2

• 3

• 4

• 5

Open Ended

What changes would you suggest for this challenge?