Analyse CH2M Hill Company And Its High Turnover Rate (Case Study Sample)

CH2M Hill
Name
Institution
1 What was Jan Walstrom's initial "assignment," and how did she come to understand the problem/assignment 18 months later?
CH2M Mill main problem was of human resource nature. The organization was not growing the employees to the preferred level in regards to career progression. The company had many vacancies at the top that needed highly skilled employees (Newman, 2013). However, the company did not have employees who were skilled enough to take the new duties at the top position. The company was experiencing huge employee turnover because current employees did not have the opportunity to progress their careers at the company. Jan Walstrom’s main assignment as the Chief Learning Officer at CH2M Hill was to reinvent career development in the company. The CLO’s task was to create a climate of continuous learning and development to ensure that employees had sufficient talents that could make them take top positions at the company. After 18 months of study, Walstrom discovered that the company did not have homegrown executives because it experienced rapid growth during the 1990s. Since the company did not have enough employees with the required skills for the new positions, it hired new employees from outside firms to take the new positions. An example is hiring Betchel as the new CEO because the current employees did not have enough skills to take the top position (Newman, 2013).
2. What did the data begin to reveal about the perceptions of CH2M Hill's employees and the potential reasons for high turnover? How did generational preferences play a role?
Data collected from glassdoor.com revealed that employees were happy about the flexibility of work schedules. In addition, an employee can benefit from work diversity by changing projects. However, other employees noted that the fact that employees are left to find their work means that they need to have large networks; this makes life difficult for some employees. Also, there are very few promotion pathways in the company, which limit career progression. Many employees want the opportunity to progress their careers, but there are very few opportunities for progression. Also, employees cited that there were very few incentives to work hard. For example, mid-level engineers were given raises between 4 to 5% while average performers’ level of salary raise was between 3 and 4% (Newman, 2013). While the initial pay and benefits were high, raises were insignificant. Employees preferred to look for employment in other companies because of lack of incentives. Data at the glassdoor.com site reveal that the reason for high turnover among the employees was the lack of a clear transition path from junior to senior engineer. Many employees at the company have less than five years experience at the company because of high turnover. Generational preferences play a huge role in the huge employee turnover because the older employees who are responsible for career development initiatives do not create a path for career progression. According to Rothwell, Wang and Payne (2005), it is important to ensure that employees have a clear path of progression within a company. Lack of a proper career path will increase turnover and reduce productivity. Reduced productivity and lack of motivation will make a company to experience a decrease in revenue (Allen & Bryant, 2012).
3. How did CH2M Hill's culture of high performance, independent problem solvers exacerbate the problem of not fully preparing their people for advancement opportunities?
The company’s culture of high performance and independent problem-solving exacerbated the problem of high employee turnover because it did not practice employee orientation and socialization. The company expected employees to be independent problem solvers- a factor that made the company to hire employees with experience rather than those from college. Employees did not have clear pathways for progression because the company hired outsiders to take up top positions within the company (Newman, 2013).
4. What factor(s) did growth play as the company evolved from a family-like, employee centered culture to a global operation?
According to Newman (2013), the company was an employee-owned firm since it was founded. The main culture that was practiced in the company was family-like and was centered through an employee-to-employee relation. However, due to growth through new acquisitions, the company introduced new managers who had a little history with the legacy of the company. Growth through new acquisitions made the company move from a family-centered organization to a top-down organization. Before, the new acquisitions were treated like subsidiaries, but Peterson changed the company to a full-service engineering organization. Before the transition, the company has a clear career guidance and promotion path. However, the transition made the company to hire new employees to take top positions. This made the company start experiencing high employee turnover rates.
5. What steps did Walstrom take to address the retention issues and the lack of employees prepared for advancement into leadership roles?
Walstrom’s first task was to analyze the data that she collected in the 18 months that she was reviewing the problem in the company. She discovered that voluntary turnover was concentrated on new employees. Also, she discovered that the top management was highly composed of employees with little knowledge of the legacy of the company. In addition, she uncovered the fact that the company experienced high costs of turnover amounting to $10 million annually (Newman, 2013). Most new employees reported little job satisfaction because of poor incentives and lack of career growth. Walstrom’s main task was to create a learning and development culture in the company. Her task had...