OHM103

Case Study 2- Case of Hiring

By- Shreya Mehray

 Q1. Do you agree with this Ram’s business decision? Explain with your justification.

• I disagree with Ram’s business decision. They are very clearly discriminating on the basis of gender, if they
decide to hire one of the two men. This is illegal, immoral and completely unacceptable.
• To quote Ram, she is a ‘stellar candidate’ and the other two candidates are ‘less strong than she is’.
• If all the employers started to think in the likes of Madhu, we would lose a major chunk of the talent pool
available.
• They are not even sure if the female candidate does in fact want to have children or not. So their whole
argument is completely baseless since the candidate may want to focus on her career first.
• Ram would be choosing wrong if he decides not to hire the female candidate on the basis that she might
want to have children in future, and he would have to provide her with maternity leave. According to this
logic, Ram, or any other small business shouldn’t hire young women at all!
 Q2. As a consultant what advise will you give to Ram? Justify.
• As a consultant, I will advise Ram to hire the woman, as she is a ‘stellar candidate for my
investment advice unit I am setting up. She brings with her an Ivey League MBA and three years
of top experience in New Delhi in a major retail bank.’
• She’s got the degree, the experience, meets all the requirements and very much ‘stronger’ than the
other two candidates. To not hire her would be completely immoral and not to mention illegal.
• They are not sure whether she actually wants to get pregnant or not. If she does not, the startup
would lose a very promising candidate.
• Since this is a startup, Ram needs to be very careful about whom he is hiring. Good employees
can make all the difference between success and failure. The female candidate is what the startup
needs right now. In the upcoming years, maybe the firm would progress owing to the female
candidate.
 Q3. Do you agree or disagree with all of Madhu’s comments on this
issue? Give reasons.

• I agree with Madhu’s first comment, “hiring will make the difference between success and failure
for my firm”, but disagree with most of the other comments.
• According to Madhu, we should not hire the female candidate because she might or might not
take maternity leave and small businesses cannot take that hit.
• But, he failed to consider that passing up on the best person for the role because they might be
off for six months maternity leave is a ridiculous business decision. What we have to chose is six
months versus years of that person working to the best of their ability for the business. The
female candidate staying with the business for years makes more sense.