SOLUTION MHR Brewster Seaview Case Study Essay - 2017 Words

The Brewster-Seaview Landscaping Co. Part 1 During the summer of my freshman year in college, I worked for a small private landscaping company planting shrubs, seeding new lawns, cutting grass, and tending flower gardens. The company was located in my hometown of Seaview, N.J., which is a rural community on the coast about 80 miles from Philadelphia. The company was owned and run by Joe Brewster, a 45-year-old man who had lived in Seaview all his life. He had started the company some years ago and not only handled the paperwork (payroll, bills, estimates, and so on), but also worked along with the crew six days a week. The crew consisted of five guys ranging in age from 17 to 20 years. We all lived in towns around Seaview and had gone†¦show more content†¦We were always willing to work overtime for Joe when he needed us to do so. Part II I returned the following summer to work for Joe because of the strong satisfaction I had with the job the summer before. So did the others. However, we were in for a surprise. Many things had changed. Joe had increased the number of workers to 10, bought another truck, and hired two young college graduates from Philadelphia as crew supervisors. His plan was to concentrate on the paperwork and on lining up new customers, leaving the direct guidance of the two work crews to the new supervisors. Joe had hired the two supervisors during the early spring after interviewing a number of applicants. Both were young (23 and 24), from the city, and had degrees in agricultural management from Penn State, but had not known each other previously. We â€Å"old timers† were assigned to one crew and five new workers were hired for the other crew. Because the job market was tighter this year, we were hired at the same base pay as the five new workers, but we were told that we would still be able to make bonus money based on referrals but the new people didn’t have this option. These new workers had little experience in landscaping. Except for the working hours, which were the same as during the previous summer, the two supervisors were told that they could run their crew in any manner they wished as