Memo to: John Guarniere
Re: Interview with Jack Hyland, Controller, Cary Chemical Corporation
From: Ron Derven - Public Relations Executive
Note: What follows is a question and answer summary of my notes from a telephone interview with Mr. Jack Hyland about the work the Human Resources Division is doing for Cary Chemical.
Q: What was your reaction to the overall program?
A: I believe I was the one who initiated the whole thing. They were brought in to identify Human Resource weaknesses. They were to do a study of where we were weak and how we could better position ourselves. I went to John Guarniere through our accountant. I thought it was very worthwhile.
Q: Was the overall concept of the program easy to grasp?
A: I don't think it was anything really difficult. I think it was a lot easier for me than for Mr. Cary to get involved with. I felt it was a very good exercise for us.
Q: Is there any area of the program where you could suggest changes or improvements to make it more effective?
A: On the questionnaire on the company we got a very low score but when you go through the detail, you see that maybe you didn't answer the questions properly. That kind of diluted our scoring. We certainly took the questionnaire seriously but there were some questions that we could have answered better...
Q: Could you give us an example?
A: For example, the question about budgeting for training. We said "no" because we don't really budget money but we do allocate money. We do spend money on training, but we do not spend zero on training. We shouldn't have answered it that way.
Q: Could you suggest a way to avoid that problem in the future?
A: Once the questionnaire is filled out and the evaluation comes back, before a final score is given, we should go through the questionnaire again to pick up anything to see what we really said.
Q: What other suggestions do you have about the questionnaire?
A: There are a lot of changes in command here, as there is in any company. The question of who is the immediate supervisor and who is the upper management often becomes a clouded issue. I am almost positive that it became a clouded issue when I read the narratives. You do not know who the man on the line means when he talks about upper management. Who is the upper management of this man? The daytime supervisor? The shift supervisor? The plant manager? Or was it Mr. Cary? There is a clarity problem. I think a key should be put in. I know there is a key but it needs to be clearer. You need to really define terms when you get down to the blue collar worker. In the white collar area, it is easy.
Q: Any other comments in this area?
A: The questions are scattered all over the place but the answers came back in sequence. I thought that was very good.
Q: Was there any area of the program you thought was weak and needed improvement?
A: The questions were quite broad. No one sat around after the survey and said they didn't ask about this or they didn't ask about that.
Q: How was the performance of the Human Resources Division people? Was John's performance good?
A: John did a great job. He handled everything well. They did a great job interviewing the people in the plant; they interviewed 85 people in one day. I don't see how he could have done better under the time frame he had. It went perfectly.
Q: How about the way the report came back? Do you have any criticism of that? Is there any way we could improve it from your perspective?
A: Frankly, it was quite good. The graph was quite good and helped us form an opinion right away. The narrative was on target.
Q: Over-all would you give the program high marks as to its value? Do you know where to go from here, thanks to the report?
A: Yes but whenever you give someone the opportunity to bitch, they are going to bitch. You have to weed through what is real and what is not. That is what we are doing right now but we have defined the problems I think. We knew many of these problems, they were not a shock to us. But the report supported what we intuitively sensed.
Q: Now you have a report. What's the next step as far as you are concerned?
A: John will work with us as a consultant.
Q: Would a report be sufficient, or do you feel you need this kind of a follow-through with John?
A: Definitely we need a third party, un biased, to coordinate the program and get us on the right track. In fact, he will be hiring a part-time human resources person for us.
Q: What about the cost of the program, did you feel it was in line?
A: I don't think I know the cost yet. When you see a problem, you need to fix it. You can't say you shouldn't be doing it because it costs a lot?
Q: Do you have any recommendations for us if we were to approach an executive in a similar position to you in another company? Could you offer us any advice?
A: It is a funny thing but unless you identify problems in your company, you are going to think a program like this is ridiculous. You got to almost feel the problem.
Q: How so?
A: If you have an unprofitable situation, you want to improve yourself. You want to improve efficiency, you want to improve profitability. I think everyone can use this program but it would be very difficult to sell to a profitable company. Your everyday administrator or CEO, they will tell you they don't need any more problems, anybody coming in and upsetting the employees. One way you would find companies ready and willing to use this system is to go through the court systems maybe, ha, ha.
Q: What about a direct mail program?
A: How do you get someone's attention with direct mail? I get letters from companies every day over my desk promising to make my company more profitable. If I answered all of them I couldn't do anything else. I don't see it working that way.
Q: We are also going to write a series of magazine articles on the subject.
A: That could get someone's attention. I would recommend this program to anybody. Maybe you should write an article quoting people who have successfully used it-- that's a good idea. ABC Company says the program made their company more profitable.
Q: What size company do you feel would be attracted to the program?
A: I think this program is good for a company like ours-- maybe 80 to 90 employees where you don't have a human resources guy. When you have an entrepreneurial type guy running a company after a while he sometimes runs out of ideas and needs help. He needs a third party to help out and say "here's where you are doing well, here's where you are deficient; here's a priority list of things to do." There are a lot of situations where this program could be used.
For more information on this unique service, Please call John Guarniere at (609) 918-9183
Re: Interview with Jack Hyland, Controller, Cary Chemical Corporation
From: Ron Derven - Public Relations Executive
Note: What follows is a question and answer summary of my notes from a telephone interview with Mr. Jack Hyland about the work the Human Resources Division is doing for Cary Chemical.
Q: What was your reaction to the overall program?
A: I believe I was the one who initiated the whole thing. They were brought in to identify Human Resource weaknesses. They were to do a study of where we were weak and how we could better position ourselves. I went to John Guarniere through our accountant. I thought it was very worthwhile.
Q: Was the overall concept of the program easy to grasp?
A: I don't think it was anything really difficult. I think it was a lot easier for me than for Mr. Cary to get involved with. I felt it was a very good exercise for us.
Q: Is there any area of the program where you could suggest changes or improvements to make it more effective?
A: On the questionnaire on the company we got a very low score but when you go through the detail, you see that maybe you didn't answer the questions properly. That kind of diluted our scoring. We certainly took the questionnaire seriously but there were some questions that we could have answered better...
Q: Could you give us an example?
A: For example, the question about budgeting for training. We said "no" because we don't really budget money but we do allocate money. We do spend money on training, but we do not spend zero on training. We shouldn't have answered it that way.
Q: Could you suggest a way to avoid that problem in the future?
A: Once the questionnaire is filled out and the evaluation comes back, before a final score is given, we should go through the questionnaire again to pick up anything to see what we really said.
Q: What other suggestions do you have about the questionnaire?
A: There are a lot of changes in command here, as there is in any company. The question of who is the immediate supervisor and who is the upper management often becomes a clouded issue. I am almost positive that it became a clouded issue when I read the narratives. You do not know who the man on the line means when he talks about upper management. Who is the upper management of this man? The daytime supervisor? The shift supervisor? The plant manager? Or was it Mr. Cary? There is a clarity problem. I think a key should be put in. I know there is a key but it needs to be clearer. You need to really define terms when you get down to the blue collar worker. In the white collar area, it is easy.
Q: Any other comments in this area?
A: The questions are scattered all over the place but the answers came back in sequence. I thought that was very good.
Q: Was there any area of the program you thought was weak and needed improvement?
A: The questions were quite broad. No one sat around after the survey and said they didn't ask about this or they didn't ask about that.
Q: How was the performance of the Human Resources Division people? Was John's performance good?
A: John did a great job. He handled everything well. They did a great job interviewing the people in the plant; they interviewed 85 people in one day. I don't see how he could have done better under the time frame he had. It went perfectly.
Q: How about the way the report came back? Do you have any criticism of that? Is there any way we could improve it from your perspective?
A: Frankly, it was quite good. The graph was quite good and helped us form an opinion right away. The narrative was on target.
Q: Over-all would you give the program high marks as to its value? Do you know where to go from here, thanks to the report?
A: Yes but whenever you give someone the opportunity to bitch, they are going to bitch. You have to weed through what is real and what is not. That is what we are doing right now but we have defined the problems I think. We knew many of these problems, they were not a shock to us. But the report supported what we intuitively sensed.
Q: Now you have a report. What's the next step as far as you are concerned?
A: John will work with us as a consultant.
Q: Would a report be sufficient, or do you feel you need this kind of a follow-through with John?
A: Definitely we need a third party, un biased, to coordinate the program and get us on the right track. In fact, he will be hiring a part-time human resources person for us.
Q: What about the cost of the program, did you feel it was in line?
A: I don't think I know the cost yet. When you see a problem, you need to fix it. You can't say you shouldn't be doing it because it costs a lot?
Q: Do you have any recommendations for us if we were to approach an executive in a similar position to you in another company? Could you offer us any advice?
A: It is a funny thing but unless you identify problems in your company, you are going to think a program like this is ridiculous. You got to almost feel the problem.
Q: How so?
A: If you have an unprofitable situation, you want to improve yourself. You want to improve efficiency, you want to improve profitability. I think everyone can use this program but it would be very difficult to sell to a profitable company. Your everyday administrator or CEO, they will tell you they don't need any more problems, anybody coming in and upsetting the employees. One way you would find companies ready and willing to use this system is to go through the court systems maybe, ha, ha.
Q: What about a direct mail program?
A: How do you get someone's attention with direct mail? I get letters from companies every day over my desk promising to make my company more profitable. If I answered all of them I couldn't do anything else. I don't see it working that way.
Q: We are also going to write a series of magazine articles on the subject.
A: That could get someone's attention. I would recommend this program to anybody. Maybe you should write an article quoting people who have successfully used it-- that's a good idea. ABC Company says the program made their company more profitable.
Q: What size company do you feel would be attracted to the program?
A: I think this program is good for a company like ours-- maybe 80 to 90 employees where you don't have a human resources guy. When you have an entrepreneurial type guy running a company after a while he sometimes runs out of ideas and needs help. He needs a third party to help out and say "here's where you are doing well, here's where you are deficient; here's a priority list of things to do." There are a lot of situations where this program could be used.
For more information on this unique service, Please call John Guarniere at (609) 918-9183
