Keeping Suzanne Chalmers
Learning Outcomes
The objective of this assignment is to develop the students’ understanding of the nature of how money and other financial rewards affect our needs and emotions. The students should be able to analyse the importance of performance-based rewards and identify strategies to enrich jobs.
Assignment Specifications
Students are required to read the following case and prepare an analytical report to answer the questions given at the end of it.
Word Limit: 2000 Words [excluding References & Appendices Page]
KEEPING SUZANNE CHALMERS
Thomas Chan hung up the telephone and sighed. The vice president of software engineer¬ing at Advanced Photonics Inc. (API) had just spoken to Suzanne Chalmers, who called to arrange a meeting with Chan later that day. She didn't say what the meeting was about, but Chan almost instinctively knew that Suzanne was going to quit after working at API for the past four years. Chalmers is a software engineer in Internet Protocol (IP) the software that directs fiber-optic light through API's routers. It is very specialized work, and Suzanne is one of API's top talents in that area.
Thomas Chan had been through this before. A valued employee would arrange a private meeting. The meeting would begin with a few pleasantries; then the employee announces that he or she wants to quit. Some employees say they are leaving because of the long hours and stressful deadlines. They say they need to decompress, get to know the kids again, or whatever. But that’s not usually the real reason. Almost every organization in this industry is scrambling to keep up with technological advances and the competition. They would just leave one stressful job for another one.
Also many of the people who leave API join a start-up company a few months later. These start-up firms can be pressure cookers where everyone works 16 hours each day and has to perform a variety of tasks. For example, engineers in these small firms might have to meet
The objective of this assignment is to develop the students’ understanding of the nature of how money and other financial rewards affect our needs and emotions. The students should be able to analyse the importance of performance-based rewards and identify strategies to enrich jobs.
Assignment Specifications
Students are required to read the following case and prepare an analytical report to answer the questions given at the end of it.
Word Limit: 2000 Words [excluding References & Appendices Page]
KEEPING SUZANNE CHALMERS
Thomas Chan hung up the telephone and sighed. The vice president of software engineer¬ing at Advanced Photonics Inc. (API) had just spoken to Suzanne Chalmers, who called to arrange a meeting with Chan later that day. She didn't say what the meeting was about, but Chan almost instinctively knew that Suzanne was going to quit after working at API for the past four years. Chalmers is a software engineer in Internet Protocol (IP) the software that directs fiber-optic light through API's routers. It is very specialized work, and Suzanne is one of API's top talents in that area.
Thomas Chan had been through this before. A valued employee would arrange a private meeting. The meeting would begin with a few pleasantries; then the employee announces that he or she wants to quit. Some employees say they are leaving because of the long hours and stressful deadlines. They say they need to decompress, get to know the kids again, or whatever. But that’s not usually the real reason. Almost every organization in this industry is scrambling to keep up with technological advances and the competition. They would just leave one stressful job for another one.
Also many of the people who leave API join a start-up company a few months later. These start-up firms can be pressure cookers where everyone works 16 hours each day and has to perform a variety of tasks. For example, engineers in these small firms might have to meet