Paradox Glass & Bottle Company

Paradox Glass & Bottle Company employs more than 600 people at its regional manufacturing plant. The company is structured functionally, with manufacturing, design and engineering, finance, marketing, and human resources (HR) departments. Paradox’s HR department is staffed by eight employees working in the areas of recruitment and development, payroll and condition, and industrial relations. The HR manager takes direct responsibility for industrial relations and two senior HR officers coordinate the activities of the other area. Nick Maddern is Paradox’s HR manager. He has only been at Paradox for three months, having moved from interstate where he had been HR manager at a large financial services company for a number of years. Accepting paradox’s job offer and moving interstate had been a difficult decision for Nick and his wife. They had both lived in the same city all their lives, but they felt that moving to a regional area would offer them a better lifestyle. He and his wife had agreed that they would not move unless both of them were happy to do so, and they had discussed at length the issues for and against moving. On the other hand, the Senior HR Officer (Recruitment and development), Tim Wylie, and Senior HR Officer (Payroll and Conditions), Karen Smythe, are both locals who have worked at paradox since leaving school.
Paradox is a successful and profitable company, and its board of directors has recently decided to use the company’s substantial capital to grow its operations. In response to an increasing domestic market for Paradox’s products, the company is in the process of expanding its operations by establishing a second manufacturing plant of similar size in a nearby town. The board also decided to upgrade the facilities and equipment at its existing plant, with a view to expanding its current domestic-only market into south East Asia. To ensure that the new plant has sufficient appropriately skilled workers to be up and running on schedule, the HR