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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

SPEA holds first case competition

Brynn Edelcup and Corinne Levy present their case to the judges of IU's Human Resource Association's first annual case competition. Students must identify issues in a mock case and provide possible solutions to them.

Some IU students spent this past Friday outside enjoying the unusually warm weather, others tried to determine whether a fictitious company’s decision to terminate an employee was 
justifiable.

This mock case was presented to participants, who competed for $25 Visa gift cards, in the Human Resources Association’s first annual Human Resources Case Competition. Participants in case competitions try to develop the best solution to a business or education-related study within a certain time.

The competition took place throughout the day at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, with registration beginning at 8:15 a.m. and awards ending at 4 p.m.

“We spread out all over SPEA and were collaborating,” HRA’s director of marketing Connor Cole said. “We got little, private rooms. It was a good time.”

Students read the case they were given, identified the problematic actions that were taken while dealing with the potential termination of the employee and determined solutions for these actions.

Some of the issues students identified were inconsistent and contradictory policies the company had, lack of clarification within the company’s policies and the lack of employee training and development programs.

Using a format that is typical for case competitions, students were all given the same case, questions and template for their final presentation. Although they were provided with the same information, each group presented different issues when speaking in front of the judges.

Each group had 20 minutes to present the issues they found and the actions they believe should have been taken by human resources to resolve these issues and answer any questions the judges had for them about their solutions.

SPEA lecturer Daniel Grundmann, who was one of the case competition judges, said he was proud of the students’ presentations because they touched on almost all of the issues he saw in the case.

“It’s the kind of stuff that makes me realize why I do what I do.” Grundmann said to the students. “There are so many great faculty here, and you’re a reflection of that. The work you did was fantastic.”

Last year, some members of the organization attended the Society for Human Resource Management’s case competition, but they were unable to this year. Cole said to be inclusive of all their members and other students not in HRA or SPEA, they decided to have an in-house competition.

Cole said he and HRA’s other executive board members were pleased with the turnout for Friday’s competition, which consisted of seven teams with three to four members each. Some participants created teams with friends in their classes while others were paired with teammates by emailing the organization and expressing their interest in the competition, Cole said.

HRA is a student organization that primarily works within IU’s SPEA. The organization’s goal is to give students who are working toward careers in human resources the experience to develop their skillsets, Cole said.

The organization meets bimonthly to discuss relevant issues and current events, such as politics, policies and trends within the HR field. Cole said he’s excited about the competition’s success because it’s something the organization will be able to keep doing in the future.

“As a club, I think we were formed six or seven years ago, and we’ve just grown so much every year,” Cole said, “This is the first time we’ve held a case competition and it’s been a huge success.”

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