CASE STUDY. Read the case carefully. Answer using the case analysis method. 10 points

A very small car restoration business (CRB, Inc.) is interviewing you for a position as its human resources

manager on a part-time basis, working 20 hours per week, while you complete your degree. You would

be the first HR manager they have ever been able to afford to hire, and the husband and wife owners (Al

and Mary Brown) have been operating the business for 10 years. In addition to you, they recently hired a

part-time janitor. This brought the paid staff to six full-time employees: a foreman who is responsible for

scheduling and overseeing the work, two auto body repair workers, a person who disassembles and

reassembles cars, a painter, and a detail person who assists the painter with getting the car ready to paint

and sanding and waxing it afterward. Al Brown handles sales and estimating prices, runs errands and

chases down parts, and envisions the future. Mary has been doing the bookkeeping and general

paperwork. The owners and employees are very proud of CRB's reputation for doing high quality work in

the restoration of old cars made as far back as the 1930s.

CRB pays its employees based on "flagged hours" which are the number of paid hours that were estimated

to complete the work. (For example, the estimate may say that it will take three hours to straighten a

fender and prepare it for painting. When the auto body repair worker has completed straightening the

fender, he would "flag" completion of three hours, whether it took him two hours or six hours to actually

complete the work. It is to his benefit to be very fast and very good at what he does.) CRB pays the workers

40 percent of what it charges the customer for the flagged hours; the other funds are

used to pay to the

employer's share of the taxes and overhead, with a small margin for profit. The foreman, who does some

"flagged hours" auto body repair himself, is also paid a 5 percent commission on all the labor hours of the

other employees, after the car is accepted as complete by the customer and the customer pays for the

completed work.

Emplovees are given feedback by Al the foreman, and by customers on an infrequent basis. Right now,

everything is going well and the employees are working as team. In the past, the situation was less

certain and some employees had to be fired for poor work. When an employee filed for government paid

unemployment compensation saying that he was out of work through nc fault of his own, CRB challenged

the filing and usually was able to prove that Al had given a memo to the employee requesting

improvements in quality or quantity of work. There has never been a formal planning or appraisal process

at CRB.

Mary Brown has read an article about performance management and is wondering whether CRB should

implement such system.

Questions: Answer the question using the case method.. 10 points

If you are the Consultant, do you believe that the performance management system would work for such

a small business? Why or why not? Defend your answer.

AORTIS