Question

INTEGRATIVE CASE: A PROBLEM AT METRO TRANSIT^" Ahmed Das is the Vice President of Human Resources at Metropolitan Transit System, a large and complex rail system that covers both a large city and suburbs in a metropolitan area. The Vice President of Operations, Billy Watson, has called Das to complain about the quality of candidates available to become new Rail Operations Managers. Watson's specific comments were: "How come your training program is not delivering the people we need? What's wrong with the training anyway? You people in HR need to get with it! We're experiencing some retirements and we need quality people to fill these positions." Assume that you are the Organization Development (OD) manager for Metro Transit, and that Mr. Das has called you in to ask for advice. In looking for new Rail Operations Managers, Metro Transit allows all Metro employees to apply when there are openings. As this is one of the better-paid positions at Metro Transit, many employees apply. HR staff first remove individuals from the pool who are recent hires, or who have had attendance or disciplinary problems. HR then narrows the list to not more than 20 candidates by reviewing candidates' work records and annual appraisals, as well as by asking for current evaluations from each candidate's supervisor. The remaining candidates are then interviewed by a panel of three to four interviewers. Typically, one or two interviewers are from HR, one is from the Training Department, and one is a Rail Operations Manager. Because of scheduling conflicts. Rail Operations Managers are not always a part of these panel interviews. Based on the panel ratings, HR then picks eight candidates to attend a week-long Rail Operations Manager training program. The training program covers the procedures and rules used to govern the rail system, and also emphasizes simulated incidents to address service disruption problems. After training, candidates are placed in a Manager pool from which they are called on to temporarily replace a regular Rail Operations Manager who is unavailable due to sickness, vacation, or other reason. The performance of the candidates in these temporary assignments is evaluated, and those whose performance is viewed as acceptable are eventually promoted to be a regular Rail Operations Manager. The content of the training program was designed collaboratively with current Rail Operations Managers, and as recently as two years ago, had been highly praised by Rail Operations Managers. However, only four of the eight candidates who completed the training 1 1 months ago remain. Two candidates were removed from the pool by the Rail Operations Director due to their inability to perform the job, and two had resigned saying that they had not been adequately trained concerning what the job entailed. Questions: Based on what you have learned in this chapter, as well as in Chapter 13, what advice would you give to Mr. Das? That is, from an organization development (OD) or perspective, what approach would you take to solve this problem?

Answer 1

Ans 1: Organizational development process begins when an organization realizes it has a problem, which is influencing its mission or vision, in this casestudy the problem is Mr. Das is not able to find right level of rail operations managers and VP operations has blamed the training process. Discussing the process as follows:

Organizational development Process	Metropolitan Transit analysis
Identify the problem (Situational assessment)	4 of the 8-rail operations manager have left 2 because their performance was not up to the mark and 2 because they were unable to perform and resigned saying training was inadequate.
Brief of the situation	The identification, selection and training of the rail operations manager is performed in a detailed and systematic manner and best shortlist employees are identified, trained and kept in the managers pool and called in as and when a temporary replacement is required to evaluate their suitability to be upgraded as a regular rail operations manager.
Assess and analyze	The HR vice president Mr. Das should have a detailed discussion with Mr. Watson the VP operations and brainstorm methods to fine tune and rectify the training program and selection process. The feedback of the shortlisted and trained candidates should also be taken, especially those who felt the training was inadequate. The selection and shortlist from in-house employees should also be studied
Action plan	The HR Vice President should revamp the training system as discussed and finalized with the operations Vice President. Further, the involvement of operations team in the selection process should be made mandatory. The option of finding good rail operation managers outside the organization should also be explore. The percentage of in-house and outsourced employees can be maintained as 75% and 25%. The 75 % of employees being from the organization and 25% can be recruited from outside the organization. The training program can be revamped as per suggestions received from the trained individuals, VP operations and the individuals who are still in the job.
Implement plan	The training program can be updated according to feedback received, the recruitment from outside the organization can be executed as per plan.
Gather data	The information collection can be done from the in-house upgraded employees who are currently the rail operations manager in the pool, their training efficiency can be measured after the change in the process of training. The new recruits can also be evaluated to check the efficiency or success of recruiting outsiders can be checked.
Analyze result	Analyze recruitment of new employees from the organization vs outside the organization should be measured. The results will dictate future action, which might indicate that recruiting rail operations managers from outside the organization is more successful. The ratio of the recruitment can be fine-tuned accordingly. The efficiency of the revamped training program can be measured against the changes or evaluation of the new managers.
Receive feedback	The feedback can be taken from the VP operations and find out if the two new measures are giving the desired results.

To sum it up the VP-HR and VP operations should systematically review and analyze the recruitment and training methods from time to time and g\fine tune as required.