Using research and learning from this course, analyze and integrate (not just copy or describe) Sloane's findings about Forever Homes Inc. in the accompanying case study, and outline realistic best practices and changes in strategic HRM for her employer, Forever Homes. In your essay, specifically address the following items. 

1. a SWOT (strengths,weaknesses,opportunities, andthreats) analysis using the information from the case. Use point-form for this part of the assignment only. See the explanation below regarding SWOT analysis.

1. a. Identify current good and bad HR practices at Forever Homes regarding managing employee performance. Include motivation, compensation, training and development, employee relations, and more. This identification will follow from the SWOT analysis, with a focus on the internal strengths and weaknesses (SW) of Forever Homes as compared to the research-based strategic HRM best practices you learned in this course. Clearly state your assumptions, if any.

b. Examine the external opportunities and threats currently facing Forever Homes, using the opportunities and threats (OT) analysis from Part 1. In this analysis of the external environment, state your assumptions clearly, and discuss how the external environment impacts the strategic HR management choices made by Forever Homes.

3. With the understanding that Forever Homes will continue with its current business model and strategy (i.e., residential home building), offer your HR recommendations to the CEO of Forever Homes Inc., for immediate implementation. With your recommendations, include notes about any possible constraints or push-back from various stakeholders. Provide at least one specific recommendation for each of the areas below. You can provide more than one recommendation for each area and/or make additional recommendations for HR planning, recruitment/selection, performance management, health and safety, etc.

a. training and development,

b. compensation, and

c. employee relations.

The Case: Human Resource Management at Forever Homes Inc.About Forever Homes Inc.

• As of 2022, Forever Homes Inc. is a medium-sized company that builds residential homes in Alberta and British Columbia.
• Forever Homes was established in 2010 by a father-son partnership in which Dennis and Allen Matheson were co-owners. When they started the company, together they had more than 40 years of building experience. Dennis Matheson, the father, passed away in 2019. Allen is now the sole owner and CEO of the company.
• Forever Homes experienced tremendous growth in the last three years, as the COVID-19 pandemic generated a tremendous housing boom across the nation. The company has a reputation for quality work and has a waitlist of potential customers.
• The company went from building about 15 large, custom homes per year in the Calgary area to building more than 60 large, but more standardized homes per year across many towns in southern Alberta and British Columbia.
• During the pandemic, many remote workers across Canada sold their expensive city houses and moved to towns and more rural settings that offered better quality of life, spectacular views, and often more square footage of housing at a lower price point.
• The rapid growth of the housing market has caused a rapid increase in all housing prices, and the ability to secure raw materials (e.g., wood, concrete, windows) has been uncertain. Supply chain uncertainty has made it much more difficult to plan and schedule the construction timeline of each new home being built. Scarcity of supply has increased the cost of raw materials dramatically.
• Forever Homes grew quickly as a result of their ability to secure home building lots from land developers ahead of other competitors and their ability to negotiate reasonable prices. About half the time, this land was in small towns and rural settings, where fewer established home builders wanted to build. The other half were in traditional urban settings where many competing home builders exist.
• Before the rapid growth, Forever Homes was a family organization with no formal HR systems. Allen did most of the hiring and monitoring of employee/contractor performance himself on the job, while the company's executive assistant, Sloane, hired in 2017, managed payroll and other HR administrative tasks. Little in HR has changed despite the expansion, but HR responsibilities are starting to overwhelm Allen.
• Rising inflation and rumours of a housing-price bubble are causing uncertainty in the housing market. Will customer demand and housing prices remain high? Or, will they plummet? Allen is considering adding a new division to the company to manage that risk, one that does home renovations and maintenance, but he wonders whether this might detract from their core home building business or, perhaps, it might be too much growth, too quickly.
• Forever Homes grew from under 30 employees to over 100 employees in the past three years. Employees hold permanent positions, and they typically perform work tasks related to sales, marketing , project management, regulatory compliance, safety, construction supervision, IT, and financial management. About half the employees work out of the head office, located in Calgary, while the other half work in the field at a variety of geographically dispersed building locations and home offices.
• The construction supervisors at Forever Homes are responsible for hiring contractors in the construction trades (e.g., plumbers, electricians, carpenters) as needed for the building of each house. The company went from approximately 30 regular contractors to a countless number in recent years, as the housing boom made contractors more difficult to secure, and Forever Homes, like many builders, scrambled to find the tradespeople it needed to complete the scheduled work.

Scene One: The Staff Room

Sloane pulled into the employee parking lot at Forever Homes Inc. and smiled to herself. She had been able to accomplish a lot in the last five years, working full-time as an executive assistant while completing a bachelor's degree through Athabasca University. The company had also grown substantially in that time, and she felt she played a part in its success. The flexibility the company offered her during the pandemic, along with her good health, filled her with gratitude.

Since her graduation, things were changing so fast. Allen, her boss and the CEO of Forever Homes, was considering promoting her from executive assistant to HR manager that is, an HR department of one. To date, Forever Homes had no formal HR staff. Allen had been doing most of the work with Sloane supporting him with a variety of administrative tasks, including payroll. With so much growth in the company, HR was becoming too much for Allen to manage on his own. Sloane was excited for the potential opportunity. She liked working for Allen, Forever Homes was familiar, and there was a great work atmosphere amongst the local office staff, but she also wanted the opportunity to grow and develop her career beyond assisting with administrative tasks.

Sloane noticed that her car was one of few cars in the lot, surrounded mostly by half-ton pickups, which was usual this early in the morning. The local construction supervisors were still onsite, having yet to depart for their various job sites for the day. They were a close-knit group of mostly older men with technical/trades backgrounds, hired by Allen's late father, Dennis, when the company began. Sloane didn't have much in common with them, and they didn't interact with her very much. Now, a few younger employees with degrees in Business or Engineering whom Allen hired after his father passed away worked in the office. Although things were slowly changing, there still weren't a lot of women working at the company, and there was a considerable age and educational difference between those hired by Allen since his father passed away and those hired when both Dennis and Allen ran the company.

After Sloane unlocked the front entrance and turned on the lights, she took her lunch to the fridge in the staff room, where many of the older construction supervisors were sitting and drinking coffee. They all had keys to the back door and often let themselves in early, to hang out and chat. This morning they didn't seem to notice her arrival, which was better than the days when they'd comment on how nice she looked in her "office" clothes, but suggested she would get "eaten alive" if she had to work a day in the "real" world.

As Sloan turned to leave the staff room, Allen, the CEO entered via the back door.

"What's this?! Nobody told me there was a staff meeting this morning! Or does it take a dozen of you to make a pot of coffee?" Allen laughed.

If anyone other than Allen had made the joke, Sloane knew that one of them was likely to say that making coffee was the secretary's job not theirs.

"About to head out to the job site, sir," replied one. "Just swapping stories about the good old days and how hard it is to find good help now."

"Well, I'm working hard to find the best and the brightest! We'll probably get some HR help in the coming weeks." Allen responded.

"HR help? What we need is a miracle worker!" replied another. The rest laughed.

Allen laughed, too. "Well, you're doing great under the circumstances. We wouldn't be where we are today without all your help, Dad would be proud of all of you."

One fellow whispered under his breath, "Proud? I don't think he'd even recognize this place..."

Sloane wasn't sure what he meant by that comment.

Scene Two: Later That Afternoon

"Sure thing, sir." said Sloane. "I'll be right there."

Sloane's nearby co-workers all stared at her as if she had just been called to the principal's office. There was a silent, but collective "ooooh" in the air. It was an inside joke as Allen's assistant, she was called to his office multiple times a day. Sloane rolled her eyes at them as a silent reply. They were a lot of fun to work with.

Sloane's coworkers knew she was being considered for a promotion, and each time she returned from Allen's office, they were eager to know whether she got the job. So far, nothing had been formalized.

Sloane entered Allen's office, which had neat piles of blueprints, spreadsheets, and dcor samples arranged about the room. The walls were adorned with inspirational posters. "I'm here, sir."

"Great, have a seat," Allen said. "Well, I've got some news for you. I've hired your replacement."

Sloane's face dropped.

Allen continued. "Not to fire you, silly, but so you can be the HR Manager around here. That is what you wanted, right?"

Relieved, but still a bit confused, Sloane stuttered, "Of course, it is! This is just so unexpected. I didn't know you were looking to hire someone to replace me, or, that you would actually choose me for the position. This is great news!"

"Why wouldn't you be the best choice? You already know how we do things around here and where I'm having trouble keeping up. Our business is solid right now, but the people side of things is just getting to be too much to handle. It's getting away from me. Plus, you already know so much more about HR than I'll ever know. I'm just sorry it took so long. It's been hard to hire someone to replace you in this tight labour market."

Feeling overwhelmed and not sure how to react, Sloane utters "This is just such a surprise.... What happens now?"

"The new assistant starts next week. He's a lot like you young, ambitious, going to school part time, and taking a business degree. He's majoring in project management. I'd like you to train him over the next two weeks. After that, I want you to spend three weeks talking to employees and contractors about what this company needs from an HR department, identifying opportunities, and assessing where you think we have issues and risks."

"Sounds good, sir. Thank you again."

"We'll talk more in the coming weeks. And congratulations! Also, thanks for everything that you do here. I'm not sure what I'm going to do without you as my assistant."

Sloane left Allen's office, closing the door behind her. As usual, the eyes of her coworkers were on her. She smiled and gave them a quiet thumbs up. They all silently cheered.

Sloane had just gotten her dream job. She was going to be in charge of HR at Forever Homes. But she also knew she was basically starting from scratch.

Scene Three: One Week Later

In one week, Sloane was training Jacob, the new administrative assistant. He was three days into the job, and they were having lunch together in the staff room, just the two of them.

Sloane reminisced, "When I joined Forever Homes five years ago, we were a relatively small custom home builder serving primarily the Calgary area, with about 30 employees, and a rotation of about 30 or so contractors whom we hired on a regular basis. Every employee was hired by Dennis Allen's late father. It was a family-like atmosphere, where everybody knew everybody. But since Dennis passed away and housing starts boomed since the pandemic, we've more than tripled our workforce in just five years. Many of the new employees have more specialized skills and talents compared to the older employees, who were expected to do little bit of everything when we were smaller. As we grew into BC and more rural areas, we also came to have more remote workers."

"So, do the older employees get along with the newer employees?" asked Jacob.

"Like I said, these groups have different skill sets, different ages, different attitudes, and different locations. A lot more of the work is rural now, so that's a big shift for us. Working virtually was completely new to us when the pandemic hit. Plus, the onsite contractors in the trades come and go like a revolving door now, whereas most of the original contracting crew had been with us since the company began 12 years ago. Things are just different now."

"I can imagine."

"The level of education of employees is also going up. Some of the new IT hires with a year of experience are getting paid what some of the older construction supervisors were getting paid with seven or eight years on the job different supply and demand, different market forces...."

"I don't envy the challenge you're going to face in your new job."

"Tell me about it. Since it was announced that I'd be taking on the role of HR Manager, many employees have reminded me that "in the good old days" you got hired and worked your way up ladder in pay and seniority over time. Starting wages were a little low, but you had job security and a great place to work. I've also had just as many employees reminding me that the labour market is tight these days, and that they are always looking for the next better job at higher pay. Job security matters less to people than it used to. They want the money now. They aren't interested in loyalty. They don't appreciate the older guys who've been here 10 years or more."

"Well, the head office seems like a pretty good place to work in the short time I've been here, and Allen is great to work with. But there's still a lot of people I haven't met. And what's up with all the pickup trucks parked here in the morning? When I unlocked the front door for the first time this morning, there were a dozen or so older men sitting in the staff room. They didn't say a word to me, but they looked like they'd seen a ghost when I turned on the lights and put on a pot of coffee for Allen's morning meeting with the new kitchen cabinet supplier."

Sloane laughed out loud. "Those are the local construction supervisors. They like to drink coffee and hang out in the staff room before work."

She wasn't laughing on the inside though.

Scene Four: Three Weeks into the New HR Manager Role

Over the past three weeks, Sloane has been conducting research, having conversations with employees, and documenting her existing knowledge of HR at Forever Homes. This is what she has learned and documented:

• Allen understands that having motivated employees is key to the success of Forever Homes. He isn't very familiar with HR practices that can develop (or hinder) employee motivation, commitment, and retention.
• Before the death of Allen's father, Forever Homes was typically staffed with older, long-term employees. Most hiring was done via referrals, and the company had a great reputation as a stable employer that offered fair pay and treated employees with respect. Turnover was low. The culture had a strong mentoring aspect, and everyone knew the boss personally and one a first-name basis. Opportunities for promotion were limited, and change happened slowly. Forever Homes was basically a family-run operation.
• A company bowling league used to exist, but it was disbanded during the pandemic. Its members primarily local construction supervisors now meet and drink coffee in the staff room office most mornings.
• Sloane was unable to find any kind of policy or action plan for diversity and inclusion, or any training documentation. She discovered that some basic personnel information was missing on some of the longer-term employees who were hired before she was.
• Under Sloane's prior oversight, basic payroll and health care benefits administration is under control. Jacob agreed to continue this work while Sloane got her feet under her in the HR role.
• With the growth over the last three years, many workers in the company are not part of the older, networked culture/system. They either work remotely or perform specialized tasks from the office.
• Prior to his death, Dennis handled all the organization's personnel functions by the seat of his pants (ad hoc). Recruiting occurred by word of mouth, formal performance appraisals were almost never done (and not documented, in any case), and all salary negotiations took place one-on-one with Dennis. "Management by walking around" was the go-to management system.
• Since his father's death, Allen has been recruiting via online channels, not just word of mouth. The increase in remote workers in rural areas means that he travels more and is less able to "manage by walking around." There still aren't any formal performance appraisals, and salary negotiations occur unsystematically, on a case-by-case basis. Like his father, Allen has also run HR by the seat of his pants, but he recognizes that this isn't sustainable.
• Today, trades contractors turn over constantly, while there is almost no turnover among the construction supervisors. Turnover among office staff is also relatively low, but the rate has increased every year since 2020.
• There is increasing concern that the pay being offered to trades contractors isn't keeping pace with inflation and market trends.
• Morale has declined in the firm, and the workers have ceased to be a close-knit community. There is some friction brewing between (i) the older employees and the new employees, and (ii) between local workers and remote workers.
• The compensation system for permanent employees is also breaking down, as newer employees in high-demand jobs (like IT) have higher expectations for compensation than the slow and steady increases of yesteryear. Salaries among the original employees of the company have largely been determined by seniority and length of time with the company.
• "Old" employees don't know how to handle the "new" technology, yet there is little training or willingness from those in the know to mentor them. HR "technology" consists of paper files in a filing cabinet and scanned paper forms emailed by remote workers.
• Issues such as absenteeism or lateness didn't used to be an issue, but now they are a rising concern. Theft of building materials and tools, and damage to company vehicles has risen dramatically over the past three years (reason unknown).
• Hiring and adequate supply of trained and experienced workers is a huge challenge in rural areas, and Forever Homes is a newer player in this market.
• The recent growth and expansion into rural areas has disrupted the former culture of easy-going, low stress, life-long employment.
• The process of building a home has not changed all that much in over 30 years. However, there is constant innovation in building materials, building code(s), the housing market, and amongst competitors.

"So, how has your research been going, Sloane?" Allen asked. "I'd like you to write up your current assessment of HR at Forever Homes and send it to me by the end of next week. Please include your recommendations for immediate implementation, particularly for compensation, employee relations, and training."

"Sure thing, sir." Sloane replied.

"And don't hold back. Be sure to let me know the potential benefits of your recommendations and what you think the potential push-back might be from different people. And feel free to highlight all the other HR stuff that's been building up. I'm not expecting to figure out everything at one time here, but I need to identify the problem areas, and frankly, I don't know where to start. A prioritized list of "what to do first" would be helpful."

"Okay, no problem."

"Oh, and one more thing, I'm worried about the "boom" and "bust" cycles of the new home building industry. Don't tell anyone, but I'm considering expanding into the Home Renovations and Maintenance industry. It might diversify our customer base, while leveraging the skills of the employees we already have. It might even provide more job security in the long run. What do you think?"

Sloane was silent and didn't know what to say. Building this HR "department" (of one) was like building a plane while flying it. She didn't know how much more growth this company could take in absence of having more systems in place.

"Hmmm. I need to think about that. How about I focus on the current issues for now and get back to you later on that new issue? You'll have your report next week.

• End of Case

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

a SWOT Analysis for Forever Homes Inc Strengths Reputation for quality work and customer satisfaction Experienced leadership with a background in building and construction Ability to secure home build... View the full answer