The following appeared in a memorandum from the CEO of a consumer electronics manufacturing firm to the head of the company's human resources department, who is responsible for hiring new employees:
“Eight years ago, our firm’s profits were increasing with each new employee we added. We discovered that each employee had the skills and motivation to generate more revenue for the firm than his or her salary cost us. However, for the past two years, our profit margin has been falling, even though we have continued to add employees. Thus, our newer employees are not generating enough revenue to justify their salaries. We must not be hiring new employees with the same level of skills and motivation as those we used to attract. Clearly, then, failures in the human resources department account for our falling profits.”
The author concludes that the human resources department is responsible for the loss of company profits for the past two years. To substantiate this conclusion, the author points out that the new employees do not achieve to increase so much revenue that can compensate with their wages. In contrast, new employees eight years ago could successfully do so. This argument, however, fails to be persuasive for the author’s questionable assumptions, weak analogy, and illogical causality.
Most conspicuously, the author only concerns with the failure of employees to justify company’s revenue to their salaries as a single reason in dropped profitability yet ignores many relevant factors. Actually, the company’ profitability is determined by the whole bunch of the organization, such as marketing strategy, customer service’s satisfaction, factory operation costs and quality of products. Business rivals also often play a pivotal role. It can be reasonably assumed that the low revenue that company has been experiencing for the past two years results from many reasons. Therefore, only one step adjustment by decreasing the quality of new employees without considering other influential factors is incomplete.
Also, it is senseless to compare the present situations of the company to those in the past. The world is changing, and the business environment is remarkably different. Competition in business is certainly more severe than before. Currently, the company may not have business advantages as it had eight years ago. The best way to maintain competitive is to recruit efficient employees with versatile potentials and sheer motivation. This may require the company to give more support to human resources department rather than to curtail the concentration on this area.
Finally, the author foresees the increased revenues after stopping to hire skillful employees. In fact, this is a dubious claim. The ignorance of human resources can possibly destroy the whole employees’ morale. The current employees would perceive that they are trivial. In addition, the consequence will backfire, if this issue expands to major crisis. The company may confront with work strike or mass protest. Consequently, the company will suffer even lower profitability.
In summary, this argument is unwarranted. To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide additional evidence that the lack of efficient employees who can generate high profits enough to justify their salaries is truly the main reason of plummet revenues. Furthermore, the author has to prove that the conditions of the company in the past and those of present are comparable. Most importantly, the given solution would certainly help the company to obtain increased benefits again. Without such evidences mentioned above, this argument remains logically unconvincing, and fails to persuade the readers.
“Eight years ago, our firm’s profits were increasing with each new employee we added. We discovered that each employee had the skills and motivation to generate more revenue for the firm than his or her salary cost us. However, for the past two years, our profit margin has been falling, even though we have continued to add employees. Thus, our newer employees are not generating enough revenue to justify their salaries. We must not be hiring new employees with the same level of skills and motivation as those we used to attract. Clearly, then, failures in the human resources department account for our falling profits.”
The author concludes that the human resources department is responsible for the loss of company profits for the past two years. To substantiate this conclusion, the author points out that the new employees do not achieve to increase so much revenue that can compensate with their wages. In contrast, new employees eight years ago could successfully do so. This argument, however, fails to be persuasive for the author’s questionable assumptions, weak analogy, and illogical causality.
Most conspicuously, the author only concerns with the failure of employees to justify company’s revenue to their salaries as a single reason in dropped profitability yet ignores many relevant factors. Actually, the company’ profitability is determined by the whole bunch of the organization, such as marketing strategy, customer service’s satisfaction, factory operation costs and quality of products. Business rivals also often play a pivotal role. It can be reasonably assumed that the low revenue that company has been experiencing for the past two years results from many reasons. Therefore, only one step adjustment by decreasing the quality of new employees without considering other influential factors is incomplete.
Also, it is senseless to compare the present situations of the company to those in the past. The world is changing, and the business environment is remarkably different. Competition in business is certainly more severe than before. Currently, the company may not have business advantages as it had eight years ago. The best way to maintain competitive is to recruit efficient employees with versatile potentials and sheer motivation. This may require the company to give more support to human resources department rather than to curtail the concentration on this area.
Finally, the author foresees the increased revenues after stopping to hire skillful employees. In fact, this is a dubious claim. The ignorance of human resources can possibly destroy the whole employees’ morale. The current employees would perceive that they are trivial. In addition, the consequence will backfire, if this issue expands to major crisis. The company may confront with work strike or mass protest. Consequently, the company will suffer even lower profitability.
In summary, this argument is unwarranted. To strengthen the argument, the author would have to provide additional evidence that the lack of efficient employees who can generate high profits enough to justify their salaries is truly the main reason of plummet revenues. Furthermore, the author has to prove that the conditions of the company in the past and those of present are comparable. Most importantly, the given solution would certainly help the company to obtain increased benefits again. Without such evidences mentioned above, this argument remains logically unconvincing, and fails to persuade the readers.
