Career Development at Electronic Applications

1. Executive Summary
Electronic Applications was found in 1972, its headquarters are on San Francisco and it is a major producer of silicon chips. The company’s sales, profit and stock price have grown fast on the past years while the human resources policies have remained unchanged.
The main problem the company is facing nowadays is the high turnover ratio closed to an average of 30% on the past three years. The fact that the company is based in an area where many of its closest competitors have offices facilitates employee’s movements from one job to another. This high turnover is mainly affecting positions among the electrical engineers in the R&D department.
The key factors behind this high turnover are more related to the fact that there are no career development programmers inside the company than to salary issues, as a wage survey has revealed, Electronic Applications pays 5-8% above the market.
Recently the company has hired Harold Sweeney:
On the medium term he would need to upgrade the company’s human resources policies, at the moment are mainly reactive.
On the short term he would need to tackle the high turnover ratio, specially taking into account that one of the company’s section chiefs, Helen Morgan is reviewing the possibility of moving to another company.
2. Problem Statement
Electronic Applications has not got a Human Resources policy in place that goes accordingly to its position in the market and its actual growth. On the past years the Human Resources policies have only been reactive.
On the medium term, the key questions, the Human Resources department needs to answer, are following ones, in order to align its strategy with the company’s one:
- What are Electron Applications’ major strategic issues over the next three years?
- What are the most critical needs and