By Maurice Cacho
Associate News Editor
A group of Ryerson Business Management students is amongst the best in Canada when it comes to human resources management, following the results of a national competition held in Montreal in late March.
A group of five Business Management students — fourth-years Fatimah Krabi, Suma George and Greg Pantelic, and third-years David Winterstein and Bernadette King — placed within the top six at the Excalibur Canadian Tournament in Human Resources, held from March 24 to 26.
“It was a very, very strong team and we’re all really surprised that we didn’t get first place,” Krabi said. “We were shocked, a little bit dismayed as well. We thought we had it.”
The Ryerson team placed between fourth and sixth, as organizers only numerically rank the top three finishers.
In total, 25 teams participated in the national competition. Contestants were asked to prepare and present solutions to fictional case studies in human resources management.
Submissions were evaluated by a panel of judges, which included an executive board member from shoe retailer Aldo. “They’ll give you a fake company name, tell you they’re experiencing problems, and a main goal (to solve),” said Krabi, who is also the outreach coordinator at RSU’s Working Students’ Centre.
In the final round of the competition, Krabi’s team had to deal with a real case study from Aldo.
“It’s the people-side of business. It’s ensuring that the company performs smoothly in terms of its most valuable resource, which is the employees themselves,” she said.
The team started preparing for the annual competition in February. Krabi said she is thankful for the help of Business Management professor Rian Pienaar, who she regards as the team’s coach.
“We must have spent 60-plus hours preparing beforehand,” she said. Next year, Krabi hopes the HR team’s two substitute members will build on this year’s successes.
“They’re both very intelligent individuals with excellent capabilities,” she said. “So I’m confident we’ll get first next year.”
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