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Module 1
1.1 The future of human resources (page 9)
1 I think the problem is that in the last fifteen years, employers haven’t shown their employees much loyalty. They’ve hired and fired pretty much at will, according to whether the market dictated that they needed to increase or reduce the workforce. The flipside of this is that employees now, particularly those in 25 to 35 age group, don’t feel much loyalty to their employer either. Developing strategies to hold on to highly skilled and highly qualified people has become the number one priority in human resources- in all big companies in fact.
2 There’s no doubt that in the next ten years there will be a move away from the nine to five office-based model of work. In fact, it’s already happening with women, who often find it challenging to balance work and domestic schedules. This could mean more ‘teleworking,’ in other words working at home and being linked to the office by computer; or it could mean shorter working weeks or just more flexible hours. Unless companies offer these possibilities, a lot of people will work for alternative types of work.
3 Companies are finding that graduates and school leavers aren’t well enough prepared for working life. This is going to drive two and universities or college to ensure that entry level to company, people have the right skills. We’ll also see more investment in corporate training-corporate universities and so on-so that employees’ skills can be moulded to the needs of the company.
4 As the birth rate decrease and life expectancy increases, there will be shortages in the job market. Consequently, a lot of ex-employees who thought they had finished their career at 60 or whatever, will be called back to work. This will suit the companies, but it will suit the employees too, because they pensions will probably be inadequate to fund their longer retirement.
5 At the moment people in their 50s and 60s are, on the whole, very poorly valued in companies. Firms want to recruit younger employees who are cheaper to employ and more adaptable to a changing business environment. But as the supply of these younger workers dries up, we’ll have to consider older staff differently. I hope that in future the wisdom and experience of this group will become more valued.
1.2 An environmental accident(page 12)
J= Journalist S=Spokesperson
S Well, it was a very unfortunate combination of events. As you know, weather conditions have been severe in the eastern Atlantic for the last couple of days. The ship’s captain reported that the ship was in trouble at 11pm last nigh and was ordered to make for port as quickly as possible. At 2:30am he reported that
she was grounded on some rocks just off the Cornish coast.
J But this isn’t the first time this particular ship has been in an accident, is it? S She has been involved in two incidents in the past, but these had nothing to do with working order with an experienced crew on board.
J And what are you intending to do to limit the damage to the environment now?
S Unfortunately, while conditions remain so hostile, there is very little we can do, but the moment the storms subside we will be mounting an operation to transfer the oil offer the ship using tugs.
J Do you think this kind of accident is acceptable?
S I think it needs to be put into perspective. Accidents at sea are far less common than rail or road accident. The problem is that they attract much more publicity...
J Well, yes. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a PR disaster for your company, isn’t?
S AS I’ve said, this type of incident does attract a lot of media attention. I just hope that the public can see…
Module 2
2.1 The PeopleSoft takeover (page20)
Commentator I think you could sum up PeopleSoft’s approach to their employees like this: ‘we want you to be happy, we want you to do the things you’re good at and that you enjoying doing.’ Very few big IT consulting companies are like that. They usually throw people straight in at the deep end: put them on jobs where they don’t necessary have much skill or experience, arguing that it’s good for them to learn. But I think that although they talked a lot about caring for their people and having fun, PeopleSoft put a lot of responsibility on them too. Like they were saying, ‘here’s a job you can do and will enjoy doing, but you’ll be accountable for the results’. To enforce that they generally started people on low salaries-and I mean low-and explained that greater rewards would come in time. In fairness, it was direct and honest. In December 2004, when Oracle took over, a lot of employees decided to leave. For a start, the feeling was that their application just weren’t as good as PeopleSoft’s-in fact they were probably just more difficult to use-and secondly people thought that Oracle didn't respect employees as much. The CEO of PeopleSoft, Dave Duffield, had a very paternalistic approach-he used to sign his email ‘DAD’ (which were his initials). It wasn’t well-paid work but people felt valued, which is often more important. Also there was a relaxed atmosphere around the company. The moment the merger was announced, that kind of evaporated. It seemed to become tense, people wondering if the new CEO was going to live up to his reputation for wielding the axe. And, in retrospect, you would have to say they were they right to be worried!
Industry analyst Oracle gets a lot of flak because of its aggressive growth
strategy, but I’m afraid in this sector only the big guys are going to survive. The merger with PeopleSoft was a business necessity. It didn’t happen because the two companies were so alike- their cultures were very different. At Oracle there’s a greater sense of urgency… it’s a stressful environment, but the rewards are huge. I know some reps there who are making millions of dollars. Sure, if you don’t cut it, you’re toast pretty fast, but that’s business. It’s survival of the fittest. The differences really come from the nature of the two businesses. Oracle’s core product is databases and with databases the customers often makes a decision whether to buy or not in a matter of weeks. With ERP applications, which is more PeopleSoft territory, you can be in discussions with customers for months, analyzing their needs and then proposing the right solution before a sale is agreed. So that naturally makes for a different culture. The other thing is that the merger happened really quickly-like marrying before you’ve really got to know the bride. So, of course people are uncertain. I think in the end, though, as both sets of employees adapt to each other’s way of working, things will settle down.
2.2 Falling shares (page22)
CEO Ok ,hi everyone. I’ll make this brief, because I have another meeting to get to, but what I have to say is no less important for being short.
As you know, in our three-year plan we had a target of 20% growth by the end of this year. As things stand, we’re going to be quite a bit short of that- trading circumstances haven’t been easy. And unless we do something about it in the next months, the consequences on our share price could be pretty significant. The markets are already getting a bit twitchy as you will have read in the financial press.
It’s unrealistic to think that we are going to trade our way out of this. All the indications are that the market is going to remain flat for at least the next twelve month. So, what I need you to do is to come up some possible targets for acquisition. We’re looking for a medium-sized business, reasonably well establish in the market. It doesn’t have to be a toy business, but it must be related… in other words in the leisure retail sector, because that is where our expertise is. I don’t need to tell you your jobs, I know you’ll be discreet, but do get on with it- time’s not on our side. I'll schedule a meeting for a month’s time to hear what you’ve come up with.