Taking Human Resource Seriously In Minneapolis Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

Situation Identification

Pat Pratt Cook, on the extreme or strong, insisting from Dr Bill Green the superintendent of the Minneapolis Public School, joins MPS with an aim to develop the human resource structure of the school. Dr. Green convinces her to take the role of Chief Human Resource Officer of MPS and persuaded her to do so by prioritizing the role of HR becoming more strategic in the district. However, Pratt Cook after her arrival at MPS find a destructive structure with HR has to offer a minimal role.

The budget cuts have played a crucial role in disturbing the HR department along with the limited approach due to the bureaucratic culture which is intended to focus on basic employment transactions. Pratt Cook has a major challenge to take the lead role in the negotiations that are going on a controversial teacher contract. The team has already placed a school-based hiring program that is known as interview and select and the district administrators have been assigned the task to implement the plan or program by collaborating with the union leaders.

However, the new union president seems to be collaborative, but his section may bring certain challenges for which Pratt needs to assess the complete situation and to overcome the challenges. Every new situation brings certain challenges that create hindrance in implementing the strategies, thus, Cook needs to find a right solution to overcome these challenges. Therefore the paper will illustrate the key factors associated with the issues and after assessing these issues will provide the right recommendation to the Chief Human Resource officer of MPS Pratt Cook and will facilitate her way through.

Key Factors

 The selection of the new process and building strong relationships with the newly elected president of the union is an important task that needs to be accomplished by Pratt Cook. The issues that she is facing are to make HR structure a more solid structure and to negotiate efficiently with the union for the implementation and of interview and select. The objective is clear but there are certain factors that are important to consider.

First of all, the budget constraints is the major factor in destroying the HR structure at MPS and the people in the district and at the school are also not aware of the importance human resource department have in shaping the organization. Secondly, the hiring process is not transparent and the role of principles is not clearly defined for which the new process of interview and selection is needed to be implemented. The implementation of this new process or method will help in making principles more accountable and associating their performance with the performance of the students.

However, it will be difficult to convince principles for this new strategy and a strong resistance is expected from them. On the other hand, the contract has expired and for the renewal of the contract the negotiations are being held. It is important for MPS and for Pratt Cook to take the lead role in this negotiation with the unions in order to make the negotiations successful. The MPS cannot afford to lose negotiations because of the financial conditions of the schools. Besides that, the selection of the newly elected president of the union can also lead the negotiations either way.

Taking Human Resource Seriously In Minneapolis Case Solution

Recommendation

After analyzing the situation clearly and addressing the issue more properly it is recommended to Pratt Cook to adopt a collaborative approach and focus on building strong relationships with the newly elected president of the union. It is suggested Cook should invest her focus in convincing the new president about the interview and select strategy and as he is expected to be belonging to the same school of thought, convincing him will not be a difficult task (Putnam, 1992).

Furthermore, this strategy will allow Cook to properly shape the structure of the MPS and inject the human resource features in it. Furthermore, the hiring process will become more transparent and securitizing the principles will become easier (Bowen, 1991). This will ensure competitiveness and will allow for the district to attract students and more reputed teachers and principals at the school. On the other hand, this may show some resistance from the principles and may put some financial burden on the school, but will provide fruitful results in the future and offer a more suitable strategy in the long run. Secondly, leveraging strong communication, strong relationships can be developed between the MPS and the union.......................

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