ANALYSIS OF CASE: HELEN ROFE AND NORMAN TRUBSHAW FACTS: The case study deals with two individuals

namely Helen Rofe who is the team leader of a company, for a sales section dealing with the north west of England and Norman Trubshaw, who is her section leader. In the case Mr. Trubshaw was disappointed to see low sales figures that the team working under his supervision had achieved in the last quarter . This was the first time the team had missed its targets in 5 years. To discuss the reason for this downfall in performance he calls upon Helen, the team leader. She states that she had not got time to study the sales targets as they were only released to the Section Heads the day before . Mr. Trubshaw informs her that the the dip in sales target was by 20% without any apparent external reasons. To this Helen tries to give a possible explanation which is soon dismissed by Mr. Trubshaw. ISSUES: Then Mr. Trubshaw makes an unusual comment stating Hmm, tell me Helen, how does your husband view you coming back to work?. It may seem that he is asking this question to Helen because he is a concerned boss worried about his employees. But in reality he is indirectly asking Helen to leave the organization as he feels that she has lost her proficiency at her work due to the long maternity leave and has had some gaps in her attendance following a long-term illness of her daughter, Charlotte. PERSPECTIVE: In my view what Mr. Trubshaw is intending to do is a mistake as the case clearly states that in the past the team under the leadership of Helen had never achieved a low sales target in the past 5 years. Plus Helen does not let this comment/query effect her as like a true professional she does offer a solution/ action plan to solve the problem by offering to studying and finding out the causes behind the dip in sales. This case appears to be a clear case of Glass Ceiling which is a commonly used term to describe the invisible barrier blamed for limiting the

career prospects of females where in a particular reason such as long term absence due to child birth raises question marks about the ability of female employees in the minds of some of the higher authorities. More over the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 which is part of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, provides that women affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions must be treated the same as other applicants and employees on the basis of their ability or inability to work. The law protects women against being fired, being refused a job, or being denied a promotion when the sole reason is pregnancy. (Case Study - Extract : The Mutual Exclusive Ps: Pregnancy & Promotion by Ines Kistenbrgger) ALTERNATIVES: Alternatively Mr.Trubshaw should have first given the data regarding the sales figures to Helen and then, should have asked her to find out the reasons for the decrease in sales and given her atleast a weeks time without commenting or doubting her abilities which she had already proved in the past. Plus he should have also noticed that she was going through a family crisis relating to her childs health. In this case he should have tried to convey his sympathies to Helen and should have given her time to settle down in her work environment after her long break from her work. Mr.Trubshaw could have allowed Helen to get her daughter to the office atleast for two days in a week, in extreme cases of her daughter being very ill so that Helen could have concentrated on both her personal and professional life to give her best to both.

REAL LIFE COMPANY EXAMPLE OF WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN: Samsungs Female Executives Shatter South Koreas Glass Ceiling by B. J. Lee Jul 30, 2012 Samsung chairman Lee, saw the potential of a female workforce very early in his management career. He demanded that at least 20 percent of new employees had to be female and built a number of day-care centers for his working moms. Chung Mi-jin, a manager at Samsung Engineering, knows how helpful those benefits were to her. In 2005 she was seriously thinking of quitting her job because of her newborn baby. She had to return to work only three months after giving birth, and her heart ached whenever her baby was ill. But right at that moment, the companys first moms room opened, to her relief. She could utilize the room to rest and relax while successfully continuing to do her job. It was truly a lifesaver, Chung says. I am glad I didnt quit at that time.

BUSINESS COMMUNICATION III CASE STUDY ANALYSIS MBA-HR 2011-2013

SUBMITTED TO: Ms. SMRITA SINHA SUBMITTED BY: NIKITA JAIN ROLL B-33

ASSESSMENT OF NIKITA JAIN

Nikita Jain has done her graduation in BBA(general) from Amity School of Business, Amity University, Noida. She choose HR as her specialization in the last year of her graduation and hence is currently pursuing MBA in HR (batch 2011-2013) from Amity Business School, Amity University, Noida. She hails from Delhi, but lived 15 years outside India in Doha, Qatar. She came to India when she was about to start with her 8th class. Further on she completed her senior year education from 8th class to 12th class from Chiranjiv Bharati School, Sushant Lok, Gurgaon. Currently she lives in Gurgaon. She belongs to a business class family as her father is an entrepreneur owning 3 optical showrooms by the name of Optic Centre and her mother is the operations manager for the same. Nikita maintains a good balance between her academics and co-curricular activities. Her notable achievements include participation and winning prizes in open peep rifle shooting, she was Miss Amity fresher BBA (2008) during her freshers party, she organized and conducted the first Inhouse Quiz during her graduation fest Aura that helped the coordination team to save 2 lakh rupees (2011) and was a member of the coordinator team during the Amity Youth Festival(2012). She did her graduation summer internship at an HR consulting company named Hay Group in Gurgaon and her MBA-HR summer internship at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Gurgaon. At Hay Group she worked on a project called Employee Motivation- an essential for organizational excellence and at PwC she worked on a project on Assessment Centers conducted by Pwc for its client organization DBOI (Deutsche Bank operations International) for its Jaipur, Mumbai and Bangalore branch. Both these projects were highly appreciated by the companies. Nikita has good communication skills but can still improve upon her oral/spoken communication as she sometimes is at a loss for words. She can also improve by working upon her vocabulary. I would rate her as a 7 on 10 in her overall communication. She has excellent presentation skill as she has given umpteen number of ppts and has zero stage fright. According to the feedback obtained from mock interviews during the managing excellence classes she was one of the best candidates. She scored a 74 on 100 in BC-I and 76 on 100 in BC-II. Her SGPA in 2nd semester was 6.03 and she earned a CGPA of 6.07.

Nikita Jain MBA-HR (2013) B-33