Unless you are using your own approved topic, you should choose one of the following two case

studies for assessment tasks. Note that you will use the same case study for all reports.

CASE STUDY 1: Tanami Wines

Established during the emergence of Australia’s modern industry in the 1920s, the Tanami brand of wines is expecting to celebrate its centenary of producing table wines and fortified wines for    the Australian market in 2025. The business is still in the hands of the original family that started growing grapes in South Australia after the First World War, although it is now a 5th generation   family member that heads the company. The winery has been highly profitable for much of the last century as it has successfully pivoted time and time again to meet the trends set by the new    expectations of succeeding generations of wine consumers. But these trends have been becoming more and more frequent and with climate change accelerating the winery can no longer be confident of being able to meet those trends from the vineyards in South Australia. For the last  few years the family has been considering some form of diversification to stabilise the winery’s future and, specifically, international expansion has been proposed.

Expansion of growing capacity to more southerly locations—such as New Zealand, Argentina, or Chile—will require the company to invest in the land, vineyard development, and irrigation  capacity needed for quality grape-growing. These are capital-intensive activities that the company has not had to address in decades, and to raise the necessary capital the company is also considering floating as a public company.

These proposals are in the early stages but there rumours of uncertainty and concern among the 420 staff. The management team has assigned you to report on the situation and consider what  evidence there might be for resolving any issues. You have been able to access data from the

Staff Climate Survey that the Human Resources Team prepares each year in June (Table 1). In preparing the data you have also selected a few indicative quotes from the many remarks from staff, in order to give the broad tone of the feedback for each year.

Table 1: Turnover intention and staff satisfaction data for fiscal years 2015-2021

.    Turnover: Mean turnover intention on a 6-point scale.

.    Satisfaction: Mean staff satisfaction on  a5-point scale.

CASE STUDY 2: AusVAM 2022

AusVAM originated in the 19th  century as a stock and station agent supplying farms across

Western Australia. Mergers over the 20th  century spread its influence and it is now the largest   supplier to the farming sector across Australasia. AusVAM supplies agricultural chemicals and products, veterinary products for all major livestock, and agricultural machinery.

Covid-19 had a significant impact on Production Division. Before the pandemic it had a stable   workforce, as its location in a major regional centre with excellent services made it an attractive employer for technical and professional staff. But many came from interstate, so when lock-downs and border restrictions threatened, those workers returned to be close to family (Table 1).

Table 1: Divisional staff numbers (full-time equivalent) byproduct line

(data at 1 January for each year, supplied by HR Division)

Now that restrictions are being lifted, as the General Manager of the Division you are concerned to see production return to normal. You called a series of planning meetings with the 78 managers of the Division, and the following remarks from the managers summarise the  discussions:

1.   "Not everyone needs the same skills and knowledge developed. Need a suite of options to meet different needs for different jobs."

2.   "There may be unidentified damage to the facilities that will not become obvious until we ramp up machine use."

3.   "I recommend that trading terms be reviewed. A shorter payment cycle may be needed for immediate cashflow, but if customers are in trouble too, which they will be, then

longer trading terms may be needed."

4.   "Quality of output has to be maintained, particularly in certified areas. We can't let

people back on the job until their skills have been assessed, but then the whole unit has to be re-assessed as well. And finally, we may need ISO9000 recertification. All this  will  delay commencement of production, but can't be avoided. "

5.   "We need flexible work teams arranged around intermediate deliverables rather than units of production such as machines. Team members can share knowledge, and so become more interchangeable and more flexible. Automation needs to be integrated into this as a means of addressing the kinds of practical skills that need constant honing and so restrict the flexibility of the person."

6.   "The range of training methods in use needs to be widened, to cater for all the different development needs of both new employees and for existing ones. "

7.   "Part-time staff could be permitted to take a second job right now (before we re-open production), to develop their skills sooner.  Or part-timers could be encouraged togo   full-time, to maximise the effect of their development on productivity. "

8.   "Computer-aided assessment might help to standardise assessment and thus the skills that do get onto the shop floor."

9.   "There's two problems - capacity (lack of people) and competence (lack of skills).

Employee development for the people we recruit to deal with capacity will be across-

the-board - everything from corporate orientation to machine and safety induction.

That's very different from what is needed for our current employees that need to brush- up specific skills. But there is a third category of employees; that's the ones who are recruited with industry experience, but like our current employees have seen their skills degrade over the last year. Multiply that by the various technical requirements, and it's  complicated."

10. "Agile production methods are needed, as well."

11. "For our machine operators, could we get together with other users of the same machines and get the manufacturers to develop some training modules that are focused on the key skills that need development."

12. "Games that 'gameify' job skills could help. Like, learning the layout of production lines or supplies inventory through a maze-like computer game - particularly if it was 3D the learner could literally navigate through it."

13. “Pilots use computer-based simulations to practice, and can maintain qualifications that way. The machines here are simpler than that so computer simulations or games could   help train and maintain skills.”

14. “Aptitude training of long-term staff might identify people who know the Company and how it works and have the aptitude to be trained rapidly in different skills.”

15. “There's speed, and there's quality, and there is type of skill; we might need different training modules to address all these different attributes of the workflow.”

16. “We need to improve and support the transfer of training. Perhaps more supervisor

support during training and peer support on the job might help. Not sure how to do it, but HR might have some ideas.”

17. “Teachers talk about developing a child's sensory motor skills using a variety of

methods, but here we want to transfer skills from experienced staff to new starters.     This kind of intergenerational Skill transfer management needs a different approach.”

18. “What is needed is a joint approach with management and staff working together on  this problem. If we just focus on restoring skills to previous levels we will have missed the opportunity put in place ongoing means of managing skills.”