The team acted as a consulting firm, analyzing the client’s human resource issues and presenting a recommended course of action.
The team of Martha and Spencer Love School of Business seniors Jaime Kellinger, Connor Dwyer, Sabrina Ramos and Sal Fazio represented Elon in the inaugural Carolinas Student Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) Case Competition at East Carolina University (ECU) on March 29.
The case focused on the fictional company NewForm IT and its struggles with a number of issues including high turnover of senior leadership, low financial performance, low employee motivation and satisfaction, and a drastic change from its original entrepreneurial culture. Teams had three weeks to analyze the issues and their underlying dimensions and causes, and develop recommendations as a consulting firm for NewForm IT. During the competition, teams presented their findings and recommendations to a panel of HR professionals who served as judges.
“This opportunity has given me much more confidence in my HR knowledge and abilities, and it always feels good to be able to apply what we learn in the classroom into real-world experiences,” said Kellinger, who served as team captain. “The four of us each came in with different interests and strengths within HR and it was so cool to watch our different areas of expertise shine through as we developed our solutions. All of the many hours spent working together in KoBC absolutely paid off with the unique experience to present in front of and receive valuable and rewarding feedback from the panel of judges and industry leaders.
The Elon team was mentored and accompanied by Brian Lyons, associate professor of management and advisor for Elon’s SHRM chapter, and Brittany Mercado, assistant professor of management.
“Attending this case competition was a great experience since we were able to utilize what we have learned in our HR courses with Dr. Lyons and in the Advanced Organization Behavior course,” Ramos said.
“We used theories and scholarly journals to support our recommendations relating to situational leadership and change management,” Kellinger added.
Hosted by the N.C. Coastal SHRM professional chapter and the ECU SHRM student chapter, the event also included a keynote by Carrie Wilkerson, author of The Barefoot Executive, several breakout learning sessions with top-industry leaders, and time for networking and career explorations with the handful of human resource professionals in attendance.