QUINTESSENTIAL KELLY

Discussion Case 1

MPM 2021 Group 9:

Lim, Alfonso Louis A.
Malapad, Hilario Jr. S.
Manuel, Harold M.
Mendoza, Angelica C.
Vargas, Reginald B.

I. Point of View

The point of view that we’ll take for this case is the current top management of Wearever
Tire and Rubber Company. The Finance Head with the help of Human Resources will nominate
the best candidate to the President in deciding which candidate is more suitable for the credit
manager role assuming that the credit department is under the Finance team and that HR
handles the people and Operations and Marketing Heads may be indirectly involved in the
decision. The top management has access to employee records, performance reports, and
personality assessments conducted by the firm’s human resource department in order for them
to objectively identify the best course of action.
II. Synopsis

The Wearever Tire and Rubber Company faces a dilemma when Robert Bennington, a
credit manager, has announced his retirement. Tasked with the problem of selecting
Bennington’s replacement, the management must now choose between two candidates for the
position: Andrew Kelly, a senior employee in the credit department who has been in the
company for 25 years, and Mike Fitzmaurice, a younger man with five years experience in credit
who started out as a junior executive in the company’s training program. Kelly, despite being
recommended by Bennington as his replacement due to his efficient work habits, has been
pegged by the management long ago as “not good management material”. Fitzmaurice, on the
other hand, lacks experience but has drive, originality, and an exemplary educational
background. Given the background and the work performance of these two potential managers,
the company and employees’ attributes will be assessed in this case analysis to come up with
an alternative that will address Wearever’s dilemma between choosing old reliable Kelly or the
bright newcomer Fitzmaurice.

III. Analysis of Relevant Case Facts

Internal Environment Analysis

For the relevant case facts, we can categorize all as a factor in the internal environment.
For employees, we need to consider Kelly and Fitzmaurice’s given characteristics that may
serve as a sign on how well they can be a manager. These are grouped by personality,
education, experience, skill set, and impact on the company if ever they will be chosen as the
new manager. We also need to look at the culture and management situation as well.

A. Employee

Personality

In terms of personality, Kelly has shown discipline through his punctuality and
attendance. He also displayed loyalty with his 25 years of serving the company. Furthermore, he
takes care of problems without comment and is a “no genius” type of person. Although not
gregarious, he is still friendly and is recommended by the retiring manager to be his
replacement. These personality traits can make him a good role model for the rest of the team.
However, he is not seen as a managerial material and aggressive enough to be an effective
leader by the management. Mike on the other hand has drive and originality. Management
thinks he got what it needs to be the next manager. Other people in the team think he can go
far. This may imply that Mike has high potential and, in the future, - if not now - can be more
effective than Kelly.

Education

As for education, Kelly only finished high school when he started working for Wearever.
Meanwhile, Mike has an accounting degree from a prominent university and is still pursuing
higher education with an MBA. This may imply that Mike has significant knowledge not only in
terms of modern credit techniques but also in terms of management. This might therefore equip
Mike for any challenges he may face along the way while Kelly can only rely on his general
knowledge in this field.

Experience

Kelly is full of significant experience gained from the company itself with 25 of his years
working in the company, 22 of which is in the credit department. Due to his loyalty, he is now the
senior employee in the department of 60 people which may earn him the respect and trust of
most employees, even earning the recommendation of the retiring manager. He can also
leverage his experience to compensate for his lack of education. Mike on the other hand has
only 5 years credit experience which may not be enough time for him to fully understand the
theories he got in his education.

Skillset

For their skills, Kelly has shown efficient work habits. Further, it can also be implied that
he got the skills needed to solve daily credit problems based on the fact that he can take care of
problems without comment whatsoever. As for Mike, he has been enrolled in the Junior
Executive program training of the company which may give him ample management skills. Both
of their skills might help them in solving future problems should they be chosen to become the
next manager.

Acceptability

Lastly, based on the current culture of the organization which incentivizes worker
longevity with rewards such as package of benefits, incentives and sometimes promotion, Kelly
is likely to be accepted as the next credit manager. Moreover, he is already the senior employee
among them and is a close friend of the retiring credit manager. Mike, despite his huge
potential, is considered a newbie in the organization. Furthermore, if he is chosen to be the next
credit manager, it may cause dissatisfaction from the rest of the employees, ultimately affecting
company performance as a whole.

B. Culture
 It is apparent that the Wearever Tire and Rubber Company has a culture which values
work longevity with rewards and benefits. This may be the fuel that drives the employees in
performing or staying in the company, ultimately resulting in the stability of the company.
Further, this is shown by the management’s fear if ever they decide to promote Fitzmaurice
instead of Kelly.

C. Management:

The company’s management performs effectively in attracting, developing, and

maintaining an effective workforce. They were able to attract Kelly and Fitzmaurice, who have a
diverse set of backgrounds and skill sets. Further, the company was able to ensure longevity of
its employees through proper implementation of motivation and compensation strategies such
as benefits, incentives, and promotion. However, it could also be noted that Wearever lacks an
objective set of criteria in assessing the capabilities of their employees and rely heavily on the
perceptions of management.

IV. Problem Analysis

A. Problem discussion

The main problem that the company currently faces is on how to select the replacement
for Robert Bennington, the current credit manager. In addition, there are pressing concerns
accompanying the potential candidates for the position. If the company selects Kelly, past
management believes that he might be unable to be an effective leader since he lacks the
aggressiveness to manage his other 59 co-workers. This might result in a decrease in the
performance of the department. On the other hand, if the company chooses Fitzmaurice,
Kelly’s effectiveness as an employee might diminish and other employees might think that
service counts for nothing. With the retirement of the current credit manager, the top
management must now choose the most effective candidate as his replacement.

B. Problem Flow Diagram

C. Problem Statement

What decision should the top management of Wearever Tire and Rubber Company
make in order to choose the best replacement for the retiring credit manager whilst ensuring the
continuous productivity of the company and avoiding the risk of negative feedback towards the
management?

V. Formulation of Alternatives

A. Alternative Solutions

Alternative 1: Promote Mike Fitzmaurice as Credit Manager and provide loyalty and
performance rewards for employees.

Wearever Tire and Rubber company will select Mike Fitzmaurice as Credit Manager. He
will receive training and will be evaluated during his first six months in the position to assess if
he is fit for the managerial position or not. A reward will be given to employees for their long
years of service as well as the top performing employees.
Alternative 2: Promote Andrew Kelly as Credit Manager.

Wearever Tire and Rubber company will be choosing Andrew Kelly as Credit Manager.
He will receive training and will be evaluated during his first six months in the position to assess
if he is fit for the managerial position or not. Mike Fitzmaurice will remain in his current
designation in the company.

Alternative 3: Select Andrew Kelly as Credit Manager while promoting Mike Fitzmaurice
as Kelly’s assistant manager.

The company will be selecting Andrew Kelly for the position of Credit Manager while also
promoting Mike Fitzmaurice as an Assistant Credit Manager. Both employees will be working
together in managing the credit department by utilizing their respective knowledge and
experiences. Both of them will also receive training and will be evaluated during their first six
months in the position to assess if they are fit for the managerial position or not. This will also
increase the package benefits of Kelly.
B. Decision Criteria

The case study will use a qualitative approach methodology in order to use the weighted
decision matrix to help resolve the management’s dilemma in selecting the replacement for
Bennington as the new credit manager. The decision-matrix method, also Pugh method or Pugh
concept selection, invented by Stuart Pugh, is a qualitative approach used to rank the multi-
dimensional options of an option set.

Decision Matrix Procedure:

1. Brainstorm the evaluation criteria appropriate for the situation.
2. Discuss and refine the list of criteria. Identify any criteria that must be included
and any that must not be included. Reduce the list of criteria to those that the team believes
are most important. Tools such as reduction and multivoting may be useful.
3. Assign a relative weight for each criterion, based on how important the criterion is in the
situation.
4. Draw an L-shaped matrix. Write the criteria and their weights.
5. Evaluate each alternative against the criteria. There are three ways to do this:
a) Establish a rating scale for each criterion
● The group uses a rating scale of .15, .2, .25 (.15 = low, .2 = moderate, .25
= high)
b) Rank-order the alternatives across criteria. For each criterion, rank your options
based on how well they each meet the requirement. Ranking 1 to 3 from
desirable to least desirable
c) Use the decision matrix method and compare the criterions against the
alternatives. For each criterion, rate each alternative in comparison to the rating
scale.

The criteria used in determining the best option are their managerial skills, managerial
attitude, acceptability of the organization, educational background and work experience which is
derived from the relevant facts identified earlier. The study created a weighing scale for each
decision criteria based on their level of importance in relation to the set of alternatives.

We put the heaviest weight (.25) on the managerial skills and attitude since these are
the core competencies of being a manager and can be a good indicator of how well one can be
a manager. Managerial skills include the human, conceptual, and technical skills; also included
is their capability to plan, organize, lead, and control. It is also when a manager uses his own
abilities, special knowledge, work experiences and perspective to increase the productivity of
the people he manages. On the other hand, the managerial attitude criteria consider their
personality in relation to being a manager. This is based on the personality traits given in the
case study.

Next heaviest is the acceptability criteria (.2) since this dictates how easy the
implementation will be. The acceptability of the organization checks if (1) the employees will
accept the alternative as their new credit manager and (2) if the cost will be acceptable to the
organization.

Work experience and educational background both hold the least weight (.15) but these
are still important in considering the right person for the position. The last criteria are the work
experience or the length of experience they have in the department and educational background
which includes training and currently pursuing degrees. When looking for the suitable person
that will fit the position, there are other things to take into consideration. It has always been a
part of the process to hire a degree graduate in a position due to his specialized knowledge, but
it is also best to consider a candidate with no degree but with a good record of work experience.

VI. Evaluation of Alternatives

Decision Weight
Criteria Factor Alternative 1 Alternative 1 Alternative 3
(Promote (Promote Kelly) (Select Andrew Kelly as
Credit Manager while
 Fitzmaurice) promoting Mike
Fitzmaurice as Kelly’s
assistant manager.)

Rating Weighted Rating Weighted Rating Weighted

Educational .15 1 .15 3 .45 2 .30

background

Work experience .15 2 .30 1 .15 3 .45

Acceptability .20 2 .40 1 .20 3 .60

Managerial Skills .25 1 .25 3 .75 2 .50

Managerial .25 1 .25 3 .75 2 .50

Attitude

Weighted 1.00 1.35 2.30 2.35

average:

Educational Background

Alternatives 1, 3 and 2 are rated from one to three respectively. Educational background
has always been considered when promoting a person. Hiring someone who is a degree holder
is an advantage to the company as graduates of a specific major are shaped to be prepared on
their career path. In this case, Alternative 1 has more advantage as Fitzmaurice has an
accounting degree with some additional work towards MBA. Alternative 3 is the rated second
since even though Kelly’s knowledge will be enhanced by the inputs of Fitzmaurice, they would
still have to compromise in creating plans or strategies that would be acceptable for Kelly. For
this alternative, Kelly will be making the final decisions as Credit Manager. And Alternative 2 is
rated last as Kelly has only a high school diploma compared to the specific degree held by
Fitzmaurice.

Work experience

Alternative 2 is rated first followed by Alternative 3 and 1 which are rated second and
third, respectively. Work experience is categorized by the length of service the person had been
working in the company and the years of experience in the credit field. Alternative 2 is rated first
as it was stated that Kelly has been working for the company for over 25 years where he started
working in the mail room right after high school and had received several promotions, one being
transferred to the credit department at the age of 21. Since then, he has been in the department
and is now a senior employee at the age of 43. Alternative 1 is rated second, it is evident that
Kelly has more advantage than Fitzmaurice who only has 5 years working experience in the
credit department. Alternative 3 is rated third as this will be both Kelly’s and Fitzmaurice work
experience. Although the combination of both their experiences are valuable there will still be
adjustment in the initial period of their promotion. Due to the differences in work experience,
there may be a conflict in decision making. Fitzmaurice will need to undergo collaborative
training with Andrew Kelly to harmonize their work performance.

Acceptability

Acceptability is defined as the characteristics of a thing being subject to acceptance for

some purpose. In this scenario, we considered the employee acceptability and the cost of the
implementation. Kelly is one of the employees working for more than 25 years, with great
experience in the credit department and is known well by his co-workers. Further, no additional
cost will be incurred in this alternative since we would only replace the existing position and no
added benefits will be given to anyone. As a result, Alternative 2 is rated first. On the other
hand, Alternative 1 has the second rank where we recommend giving additional rewards to
Kelly. Although this may not be as acceptable to the employees compared to the second
alternative, it is compensated by the reward that will be given to Kelly for his loyalty and
performance which, in turn, will incur additional cost to the company. The reward which will be
given to Kelly will serve as the standard for employees that will reach 25 years of service.
Lastly, alternative 3 is the lowest rank among them since although this will be easily accepted by
the employees, this will entail great cost to the company due to the other promotions which
require added salary and benefits more than the benefit given only for the loyalty and
performance.

Managerial Skills

In choosing a manager it is very important to look into the person's capability to

strategize decisions, foresee problems that may arise in the future while also maintaining a
good relationship with his co-workers and subordinates. Alternative 1 is rated first, this is
because Fitzmaurice is knowledgeable in the credit area and management due to his
accounting degree and MBA, respectively. In addition, he has gained managerial experience as
a Wearever’s junior executive in the company’s training program. This gives the opportunity for
Fitzmaurice to improve and be more flexible as he has been exposed to tasks that are not only
limited in his line of job. Therefore, the people in Wearever think that Fitzmaurice can go far.
Alternative 3 is ranked second.Although Kelly’s current skill can be supported by Fitzmaurice’s,
he cannot bypass Kelly’s managerial decisions. Alternative 2 is ranked last, management
believes that Kelly doesn’t possess the required skills and so tagged as not good management
material.

Managerial Attitude

The personality traits are used to assess the person's workplace behavior and
performance. In this last criteria, Alternative 1 is rated first as Fitzmaurice has shown drive and
originality towards work to make up with his lack of working experience. Alternative 3 is ranked
second, since the managerial attitude that Fitzmaurice currently possesses may not influence
Kelly’s attitude towards being a credit manager. Alternative 2 is ranked last, the reason for this is
that even though Kelly is consistent in his work and has shown good records in terms of
attendance and punctuality, the management believes that Kelly is not aggressive enough to
handle a team.
VII. Decision/Recommendation

Based on the results from the evaluation based on the decision criteria, Alternative 1
wherein Wearever Tire and Rubber Company promotes Mike Fitzmaurice as Credit Manager
while providing loyalty rewards for Kelly has emerged with the highest rank. Therefore, this
alternative will be utilized in resolving the company’s dilemma.

It has become apparent that Mike Fitzmaurice is the best choice for the position based
on the evaluation of alternatives. Initially, Fitzmaurice has already received management
training from his experience as a junior executive in the company’s training program. So, in
addition to his educational background, he already has the management skills necessary for the
job which makes his adjustment to the credit manager role more efficient. Aside from these,
Fitzmaurice’s drive and originality could be harnessed in effectively learning the specificities of
the job. These characteristics that he possesses gives him the potential in achieving the
important goals of the credit department.

Kelly, on the other hand, may have a longer tenure in the company but lacks the
managerial skills and attitude that are necessary in managing a huge team of 60 people. Even
though the management gives importance to loyalty and value of work, it is also a necessity to
recognize skill and competence. He has proven that he is a very effective employee but this
does not mean that he will automatically be effective as a manager. To avoid the possibility of
employees thinking that loyalty is not rewarded, it is also vital to reassess the company’s
recognition program.

Action Plan:

Since there is an urgent need in filling up the vacant position, the management will be
utilizing the “on the job training approach” wherein additional management training and
performance assessment sessions will be provided during his first six months in the position.
With this regard, the top management will conduct a meeting with HR wherein the department
will be presenting a set of training and assessment activities for the management’s approval.
This will (1) be utilized in assessing Fitzmaurice’s performance as Credit Manager and will (2)
serve as a standard basis in assessing future management candidates in the company. During
this time, authorized personnel will be assigned as representatives in monitoring Fitzmaurice’s
training progress. Once the details of the training and assessment program has been finalized,
Fitzmaurice will now be informed regarding his promotion.

In concurrence with this, the top management will be revisiting their policies on loyalty
and performance rewards. Since Andrew Kelly has reached 25 years in the company, the
Finance and HR Departments will have a separate meeting to reinvigorate their reward system.
In order to mitigate negative feedback from employees with regard to Fitzmaurice’s promotion, it
is vital for the management to decide on a way wherein the service of their employees will be
rewarded without compromising productivity and profitability. So, additional rewards will be
provided to employees who have reached milestones in their service records as well as to top
performing employees. Awards will be given to employees based on their annual performance.
Loyalty awards will be given for every five years that an employee has served. Special
recognition will be given to employees who have reached 25 years and beyond.

The terms of the promotion will be discussed to Fitzmaurice. A memorandum will be

disseminated by the Administrative Department to inform the employees regarding Fitzmaurice’s
appointment as Credit Manager as well as the changes in the loyalty and performance rewards
system. This memorandum includes a summary of Fitzmaurice’s qualifications which has served
as basis in their decision making. A week will be allocated as a transition period wherein office
transfer and promotion document processing will take place.

After the transition period, the six-month training and assessment program will begin.
Orientation and training will be conducted during the first week of the program while monthly
assessments will be conducted afterwards. These assessments will include attainment of the
department’s KPI and peer evaluation from his employees and colleagues. Fitzmaurice’s
monthly performance assessments for the first six months of his promotion will determine if he is
fit for the position. After the assessment period, HR will be preparing a presentation with regard
to his performance. If he has failed these assessments, the contingency plan will commence. A
Gantt Chart could be seen in Annex 1 for the schedule of implementation of activities.

VIII. Contingency Plan

The recommendation may fail due to the following reasons: 1. Mike Fitzmaurice will
decline the offer 2. Mike Fitzmaurice will not pass the evaluation or 3. Mike Fitzmaurice, during
his training, has violated policies which will result in him being disqualified in being a credit
manager. Regardless of the reasons, a back-up plan should be in place. Based on the
evaluation, the second best alternative is to hire Kelly as a credit manager.

As discussed in the previous chapters, promoting Kelly has its benefits and
consequences. Kelly will be easily accepted by the employees as their next boss. Moreover, he
has a good feel on how his department works. Furthermore, he can be a role model manager
that can influence his subordinates to follow his work attitude. However, he is handicapped in
terms of educational background and management principles which may result in him having
difficulties in managing the team in the future. To avoid this potential problem, the management
should immediately bombard him with management training and capability building. Specifically,
what they think Kelly lacks for a management position, it should be prioritized in the training
program. Furthermore, they should ensure that the training Kelly got is retained in him and
applied in his work/position.
 Annex 1. Gantt Chart for Mike Fitzmaurice’s Promotion: Planning and Implementation Schedule

Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Month 4 Month 5 Month 6 Month 7

TASK: 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Creation and Finalization of Training Program

Enhancement of Loyalty & Performance Rewards Program

Inform Fitzmaurice Regarding his Promotion

Cascade the Decision Details to Employees

Transition and Adjustment Period for Fitzmaurice

Implementation of Loyalty & Performance Rewards Program

Orientation and Training

Credit Manager Observation Period

KPI Assessment and Peer Evaluation

Consolidation and Presentation of Assessment Reports

Assessment if Contingency is Necessary