Valley Winery Case

The Valley Winery-Case 1.1

Is the management of Valley Winery doing an acceptable job of hiring and training qualified employees?

Management is the foundation of a company. They are the ones that make decisions which could make or break a company. They personify how the company and employees should act. If one is driven towards perfection in sales, many other important areas of the business could be overlooked. For example, maintenance of long term relationships with buyers would be overlooked. If management is pushing the sales reps to just go after the sale at any cost, reps could be looked at as unethical and even too pushy. Valley Winery management encourages reps to lie about how many cases of wine are sold to buyers. This is unethical and puffery. Pushing these sales reps to call their ethics into question, what does that say about management?

Pat Waller, employee of Valley Winery, was recently promoted to sales manager of the San Francisco region’s chain division. When he arrived, he was shocked to find that such a successful division had such a horrible turnover rate. How was the San Francisco division of Valley Winery obtaining their sales goals? He began to investigate and found many problems that were mainly stemming from management. The hiring process of Valley Winery needs to be revised. Mike Wehner, personnel manager for the San Francisco division, believes that employment agencies provide the most qualified applicants. If this is true, would the turnover rate be near 100 percent? According…., employees acquired from employment agencies yield high turnover rates. Top management places too much of an emphasis on youth and physical attributes. Sales representatives of Valley Winery should be groomed and well kept. However, youthfulness and physical attributes should not outweigh qualifications for the job at hand. Looks are important but qualifications and experience would not be overlooked. Businesses have an image they would like their representatives to project.

Once qualified sales representatives have been hired, proper training should be enforced. The Valley Winery new recruits are not given a true portrayal of everything their new sales job entails. During the hiring process, a sales hopeful is sent into the field for a day with an experienced sales representative. This day’s activities are not typical of a Valley Winery sales representatives’ daily routine. According to the Sales and Marketing Management Journal, when sales managers are unclear about a job’s description, they have no way to measure their sales representatives’ accurate performance or create a benchmark to keep them motivated.

Valley Winery sales representatives and management have been considered overly aggressive and resort to unethical tactics. For example, Valley Winery representatives have been rumored to spray hairspray on competitors wine bottles. This act causes the competitors’ products to collect dust creating an unattractive option for consumers. Many other unethical tactics are used to ruin competing displays and in some cases even destroying competitors’ products. By tolerating this behavior, management is encouraging these unethical acts. Management leads by example. Unattainable sales quotas have led to dishonest reporting of sales. The inflation of sales figures is an accepted practice by the division’s previous sales manager and the current area manager. Management should uphold a code of ethics and apply that code if they expect their sale representatives to do the same.

Valley Winery can correct current problems by implementing new practices. A place to begin change is the hiring process. By hiring based more on qualifications and less on physical attributes and youth, Valley Winery will be able to retain employees. Long term relationships will in turn develop between the sales representatives and the buyers. Career fairs should be considered as an alternative to employment agencies. When seeking new employees, it should be a joint effort between human resources and management. Human resources can assist management with guidelines for a hiring process that produces loyal employees with goals of sales growth. These guidelines to be developed should be shared with all management included in the hiring process. Human resources should hold educational classes teaching the guidelines and proper ways to carry out the process. This could eliminate any misconceptions or errors during the hiring process. The Human Resources Department can aid management by implementing a mentor program. This program between management and new sales representatives encourages management follow up, motivation, and a way to track daily progress of