Plastec

Paul arrived at Plastec Company 18 months ago, as the first HR professional the company ever had. Started fifteen years ago by two brothers, the company has been experiencing a “growth spurt” for the past 3-4 years, fueled by increasing demand for small plastic parts: computer keyboards, toys, airplanes….a wide variety of needs. Paul was directed by the owners to “use HR to keep us staffed up so we can grow” and to “keep us out of court.” The company has a single location which is in an industrial park outside a major metropolitan area.

When the company was founded most of their workers were Caucasian and about 20% African-American because this was the racial make-up of the surrounding area (labor market). In the past few years people of many different ethnicities have moved into the area: Hispanics, Asians, people from India, Bosnians, Serbians, and Russians, among others. Plastec’s employees are primarily Caucasian and African-American, although there are two Hispanic employees and one Vietnamese. There is a high demand in the local labor market for semi-skilled labor like the majority of the jobs at Plastec.

As soon as Paul arrived, he attempted to get relevant data and HR metrics so we he could understand the company’s strengths and weaknesses regarding their labor force. While he was able to piece together some data, a lot of it just wasn’t available or if it was available, it wasn’t easy to retrieve and analyze.

Review the dialogues in the course Introductions for weeks 1, 2, and 3, as well as the above information, and answer the following questions:

- Which employment laws or regulations should Paul pay the most attention to and why?

- Keeping in mind that it takes time/energy to implement systems to retrieve data, which HR metrics should start Paul capturing?

- Paul knows he should be updating job descriptions but he “just hasn’t had the time”. Why should he make this a priority (or should he)?

- Identify 1-3 things the...