saudi food chain company “ la mexican kitchen ”. W r i t i n g

B) Case Study 1 “La Mexican Kitchen”

You are the HR Director of a Saudi food chain company “La Mexican kitchen”. Dina, the operation manager of one of the company’s restaurants which is located in Al Khobar, sent you an email explaining to you the following case problem:

Dear Sir,

As we are the first restaurant in Al Khobar providing Mexican food, and we are located in one of the most beautiful places beside the sea; thought that many more people should visit us, but they just don’t come. At the beginning, I didn’t know why and thought of the following problems:

nWe are not being introducing the right kinds of food, or

• We need to add some entertainments.

Therefore, I brought someone to play some Mexican music and made little setting rearrangements but, still, did not approach the number of visitors we seek. Then, I realized that we are having a difficult time keeping our food servers for any length of time and it seems like we just get them trained and they leave. Meanwhile, I wonder if they have been provided good training!!!

Sir, we both know that servers are the key element for any restaurant’s commitment to excellent customer service. We can have the best food in town but if our servers are not motivated to provide excellent service, we won’t have many customers. And though our servers are few and paid minimum wages, we know that they can make additional money from tips if they are motivated. But it seems that tips are not enough to motivate them to stay. Additionally, I conducted an employees’ appraisal considering “what to measure” and “how to measure” and used different appraisal methods. Unfortunately, the results were disappointed as I found that the servers lack willingness and ability to work which led me to became convinced that I am not facing an operational problem, and that the problem is related to the employees’ training, performance, and compensation.

I would appreciate that you take an immediate action.

Questions:

• 1.Analyze the situation and state the different problems facing Dina?
• 2.What are some reasons that can lead employees to leave?
• 3.Why, do you think money did not work as a motivator for those servers? How can using expectancy and equity motivation theories lead to better motivate them?
• 4.Describe the three important HRM strategies used for retaining the competent, high performing employees.
• _______________________________-__________________________

Case Study 2: Managing HR in Arab Countries: The case of “The Arabco Company”

The company was established in January (1998) in Saudi Arabia and has expended during the past 20 years into other countries in the region, including U.A.E, Bahrain, and Oman. The company is a subcontractor for various construction activities, mainly civil and electromechanical works. Under the leadership of its founder, Mr. Majed Al Amri, and due to the wise management of the previous HR Director Mr. Hazem Shaker and the commitment of all employees; the company gained a good reputation in the Arab region, and marked itself in the construction industry for quality and the timely delivery of projects.

In the year 2019, the HR director, Mr. Hazem Shaker, retired and a new Young HR Director, Kareem Sabry, was appointed as an HR Director in the company. In order to meet the economy downturn

challenge that happened and due to the Covid 19 pandemic, Kareem was proud to tell Mr. Majed that he will implement plans that can help the company to decrease spending and increase revenues.

Kareem attempted to change some of the company’s HR policies and practices by the implementing following practices:

◼ Lowering salaries for all employees.

◼ Eliminating some benefits such as schooling fees, and medical insurance provided for the employees’ families.

◼ Eliminating the test method from the selection practice and relying only one interviews.

◼ Reducing the training and development budget.

◼ Laying off three of the old managers who receive high salaries.

◼ Hiring two young women and one fresh graduated young man who were willing to work for lower salaries and very low financial incentives.

In less than four years, the clients started complaining of poor delivery of Arabco projects which drew Mr. Majed al Amri attention to that something was going wrong, but he did not know what. He met with Kareem and learned that the employees’ turnover rate was very high, and at the time an employee was hired, another one resigned.

After visiting the 20 projects and finding similar problems in many of them, Mr. Majed noticed that five senior project managers (all are line managers) had resigned, and many of their team members were not happy in the company. He wondered what action he should take.

Questions:

1. Identify the problem/s resulted from the new policies and practices. Why do you think it happened?

2. Do you think that Mr. Majed was also responsible for this problem to occur?

3. How would you evaluate the hiring of the two women and the fresh graduate young man?

4. As the new policies have shown negative impact on the company’s relevant outcomes, how can a good HRM strategy help the company in creating a sustainable competitive advantage?

5. Do you think that we, in Saudi Arabia is experiencing an average level of changes in developing and implementing HR policies and practices? Does the employment law provide strong explanation and guide for many of the HR practices?