Human Resource Management Case Study: Strategies And Solutions

Identifying and achieving strategic goals through human resource management

1. Possible ways identified to contribute to the achievement of the strategic direction of the organization are:

• Improve time to the marketplace. Harness existing assets
• Increase innovation
• Measuring Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
• A Holistic approach adoption for improving the delivery(Chirstopher, 2017)

Among the identified goals that are significant for the strategic direction achievement, is “Increase in innovation.” Innovation is bringing a new product, process, or system to enhance the work of an organization. Innovation is a key aspect to enhance the performance of the organization; a human resource of the company is held responsible for innovation. Since the company main goal is to increase the delivery speed and performance, this can be done through innovation in the process. The HR can take some initiatives for this, like conducting brainstorming activities to bring out new ideas from the employees. Moreover, organizational culture is also responsible for motivating people to work with innovation (Zacher & Rosing, 2015).

Innovation can be increased by following human resource factors:

• Recruitment and appointment- the basic and most important factor of human resource are to recruit the perfect person according to the job profile. Positioning right person at a right job is very important to increase performance through innovation. In case a more qualified and competent person is appointed at a lower position, where even after having great ides to implement, he is not authorized to do so, or vice versa then this will be a loss to the company(Saebi & Foss, 2015).
• Training and development- another factor to increase innovation are providing training and development to the employees; this can be done by filling up the skill gap. Through effective training, employees can be innovative with using technology and process and could be able to reach to the customer more quickly.
• Communication training- training of communication is also very important to enhance the thinking and communicating power of the individual, so that if an employee is having an idea in his or her mind, then they must also convey or express in an effective manner so that to utilize that idea. Moreover, in such training classes, brainstorming and other activities can also be conducted for the creation of new and innovative ideas in employees mind.
• Organizational culture- it is the culture that is responsible for supporting innovation. For example, if the free flow of ideas is supported by the work culture of the organization, then more innovative ideas can be gain from all the employees. HR can provide such culture to the employees within the workplace(Sawer, 2014).

a. Factors considered in the appointment of human resource that is the recruitment process, so that new employees actively contribute to the organization are as follows:

• Experience- one of the important aspect to consider is how much experience is the applicant having. In the case of fresher, it is more difficult to work in an organization, as more training would be required to provide. Moreover, a person with more experience will require less time to adjust into the new environment and easily adapt the work culture, and eventually be more actively contributing in the organization. The experience is considered, but this must be the priority while selecting(Swidere & Barrick, 2015).
• Potential- this is another factor to be considered because a person may not have a record of work experience on paper, but his or her potential is very high according to the job description. For example, sometimes taking chance with a new engineer can be beneficial for the organization. Therefore, if the potential of a person is considered it may lead to an active contributor to Home Cozy(Greiner, 2015)
• Hard skills- these are helpful and most easily identified factor to be considered while recruiting. In addition, hard skills are easily measured, simple to define the applicant’s skills. These are very essential because without these skills the work cannot be accomplished. For example, the staff for recording the return items must have the skills to use a computer and other technical operating machines(Kim, Noma, & Tanizawa, 2016).
• Cultural fit- this is another important factor to be observed while recruiting, this is if the person will be able to adjust to the work culture of the organization. For example, the working hours are suitable, the culture of working in teams.

b. Induction process

The induction process is introducing new employees to the organization; make him understand the basic policies, rules, and culture of the organization. This is an important step after recruiting a new staff, this is helpful in making a person comfortable in the new work environment, and contributes more to the organization. This program will be helpful in improving Home Cozy and its employee’s productivity. By providing this initial training program, all the needed information is provided to the employee, which will eventually save time and money of the company and employee will quickly initiate delivering outcomes.

c. A workplace-learning program will be established that will systematically include appointment and induction process. This learning programme can include providing offering letter to the selected applicant, then welcoming the employee, introducing him to the organization, making him meet other employees, telling the employee about the organization, Work policies, role, and expectation proves compliance, and performance standards(Dias, Silva, & Morais, 2017).

(Source: (peopleworks, 2018)

Advantages of performance appraisal and reward plans

1. Motivation

The performance appraisal and reward plan are majorly contributing in motivating the person who is giving his best to the organization, that is more than the targeted or expected one and motivating others who desire to get those rewards and will be motivated to work harder next time to receive that reward (Dipboye, 2018).

2. Self-development

Is a major advantage, as it allows a person to receive feedback for oneself, which could be either positive or negative. A person is the best to judge for himself, is an individual can do self- development, the performance will eventually be improved, and also leads to self-motivation.

Factors for recruitment and induction processes

3. Identification of underperformers

With this method, the people who are not performing up to the mark can be observed and assess and will try to improve their performance in future

4. Records of performance appraisals

With this method, the appraisal of the employees can be recorded for the future, so that the further performance has the base to compare for improvement. And recording performance appraisal can also be key to motive others.

5. The decision regarding transfer or promotion

This method can be helpful in deciding the employee’s transfer or promotion. Moreover, the management has a strong and factual base for such a decision. Through this, no employee can question the system that why they are not promoted.

Among these, the two major advantage that will be helpful in improving the performance of the employees are:

1. Identification of underperformers

This is the most attractive benefit of performance appraisal, and rewarding system. Through this method, the performance of each employee is been assessed, and the people who are performing more than the target are rewarded, at the same time people who are not performing their duty effectively are also observed. The underperformers after performance appraisal ask and compel to perform high and enhance their performance (Dustershoff & MacGregor, 2014).  

2. Motivation

Motivation is something that compels employees to perform better in future. The rewarding system will be responsible for the winner to perform similar way in future as well and will make other co-workers feel like gaining the same reward, for which they will perform better next time. Eventually, it will be resulting in improved performance of employees and organization as a whole.

4. Performance-based pay 

This system of Home Cozy that is the “performance-based pay,” as a reward system is very effective for the organization and individual employee. With the consent of staff, that is formally conducted, this system was introduced and informed through debate. According to this method, it will be initiated with training grade, and then eventually gain up to the eight-grade pay scale, as per the performance of an individual in an organization. The performance level of each individual is then stored in the system, which will allocate the work automatically to the employees as per their grade. This system is very effective, as this will motivate employees to perform well and increase their grade to enhance their pay. Moreover, the system is set with the consent of all employees, so they do not resist the system or any change occurs (Brown, Kaine, & Shields, 2015).

Advantages of performance appraisal and reward plans

A recommended reward system to improve the performance of staff:

1. A winning system with an Incentive plan

According to this system, the reward is based on two factors, behavior, and employee activity performance. This will ensure that the performance is been improved, but this is not the result of poor or unethical behaviors or the undue influence of the employee. The incentive plan could be prepared to identify top performing employees of the organization along with the behavior of that individual. Moreover, some particular behavior must be rewarded that will make difference to the organization. For example, discipline, that is the timely completion of work, punctuality in coming and leaving the workplace (Fang & Gerhart, 2014).

1. Strategic reward system

This system is similar to the existing system of Home cozy. According to this system, it is taken as pay for performance; the elements in this reward system are a financial reward, which includes a base salary of the individual, employee benefits provided by the company, and pay incentives. Another element is a non-financial reward; this includes intrinsic rewards, recognition, praise, time off. The reward system can result in the major motivation for staff to perform their best (Wynstra & Sekviardis, 2015).

An employee is an asset to the company, which needs to be retained when an employee was found to leave the company, a succession plan was made. A succession plan is helpful in identifying competencies and is responsible to work, assess, and retaining that employee, and assure the continuation of leadership for every position critical in the evaluation (Mason, 2015). The succession planning strategy created to retain Tom consists of six steps process:

1. Identify key position

This step involves identifying the major or critical position, that is necessary for proper working in the organization.at this stage, the position of tom is considered. In the case of Home Cozy, tom is assistance human resource manager.

1. Building profile for all positions

The job profile is created for all the identified position, to ensure the skill set needed to perform for that position.

1. Analyze competencies gap

Then the competencies required, and the personnel existing competencies are compared and the gap is been analyzed. This gap could be the reason for the underperformance of an individual and could be demotivating

1. Development of opportunities

After assessing the gap, the opportunities are developed that the opportunity an individual can gain with their strengths and overcome their weakness.

1. Individual development plan

Proposing effective reward plans for improving employee performance

It is developing a plan for all employees, including tom, to make him realize the growth and development opportunity for him that is there to continue working with the organization. This will be helpful to reduce tom stress, which is observed to be the major problem for him.

1. Maintain skill inventory

This is the last step in the succession planning strategy that is to maintain the skill set in the organization. The skills that are needed must be available in the organization or it can even be enhanced by training and development programme (Hawkey, 2017).

A. Saturday staff

The major issue is related to Saturday staff is stability, because they leave the organization in some week, month, or year. The most suitable motivational theory for Saturday staff is McClelland’s theory. According to this theory, each individual has three motivators and one of the needs or driver is reflected in the behavior of the person. The motivators are:

• Achievement- this motivator, as the name suggests is a desire to accomplish and demonstrate mastery or competence.  It is persistent to an individual need for mastering of skills, and significant success.
• Affiliation- this motivator includes need or desire for love, relatedness, and belongings. For some people, a healthy friendly environment is a motivator instead of a financial requirement. This include belong to a social team, need for friendship, they need support from people who are close to that individual and have interpersonal relationships with them
• Power – this includes the desire for control. Some people like to have control over others, and this brings the motivator for them. They are more towards influencing others to have a strong desire to lead(Peters & Ryan, 2015).

Therefore, with this motivational theory, the HR manager can understand the motivator for individuals, and motivate them similarly, so that they are more loyal and retained with the company.

B. Flexible staff

For flexible staff, the most suitable motivating theory is “Vroom’s expectancy theory, “this theory was propounded by “Victor Vroom,” which explain how an individual select among the activities available to them. According to this theory, motivation is the result of appraising three factors. These three factors are:

• Expectancy- this factor indicates, what an individual is expecting, like more efforts into the work outcome into success.
• Instrumentality- it is the factor that explains, the belief of an individual about the connection between goal and activity. Which eventually says that if performance is good, the reward will be good
• Valence- this factor is the degree to which an individual value what he or she receives in reward, which is the outcome of success(Lazaroiu, 2015).

The home Cozy company is a mail ordering shopping company, and its major work is providing value-added logistics and an effective delivery system. The culture of an organization plays an important role in providing support or aching the strategies. Every company follows different types of culture, which includes ethics, values, believes, and the base for working in an organization.  For such an organization, the most suitable organizational culture will be:

1. Hierarchy

   culture

This type of culture illustrates the foundation of culture on control and structure, which is very essential in Home Cozy Company. The environment at the workplace is very formal and disciplined in such a culture, with the proper process in a position of guidance. In such an organization, leadership is based on monitoring and coordination that is well organized, while emphasizing culture over predictability and efficiency. The value of this organizational culture includes uniformity and consistency (Kaur & Ma, 2015).

1. The clan culture

 Since the company is more towards teamwork, this culture will be quite suitable for Home Cozy. As per this cultural form, the base or roots of the culture are with the collaboration. The people in-group see themselves as a section of a large family and shares their commodities, who are involved much and are active. In this culture, leadership is seen in the way of mentorship, and the firm is considering traditions and commitments all around. The important values considered in this culture are rooted in communication, teamwork, and consensus. Moreover, respectful relationships with customers, employees, suppliers, and work environment are considered. Since the major focus of this organizational culture is similar to that of Home cozy, it can be justified that this culture is suitable for the company (Kesen & Kaya, 2014).

Succession planning strategy for retaining employees

One of the major HR-related problem observed in Home Cozy Company is “Recruitment and retention of employees.”

This is a major problem for human resource in the company, as recruiting new staff is an important aspect in the company because the majority of staff is temporary staff. Temporary staff is the reason for the increase in the cost of the company. Whenever a new staff is introduced to the company, the company need to provide training, resource, spend time on that individual to make him work effectively. For this many resources are required that is the additional cost of the company. The main problem occurs when trained personnel leave the company. The time and money spent on that staff just wasted. This issue leads to other major problems, like demotivation for other employees, repetition of recruitment and training process to fill the position. The recruiting cost became very high for the company, it the cost per hire, which the company tries to control, but controlling, has become a major problem for HR of the company (Allen, 2017).

Some of the steps taken by the company can face this problem:

• Compliment employees need within the workplace- the need of the employees must be considered and fulfill that, to motivate them to perform better and continue working for the firm.
• Employee’s development- the employees must realize that they have growth and development opportunity in the company, only then they will retain to the company.
• Reward system- to motivate employees it is important to provide the financial and non-financial rewards for their performance, above their fixed base salary
• Employee benefits- benefits to the employees must be provided, only when an individual is with the company for a year. This will motivate employees to work with the company for at least one year
• Healthy work environment- the work environment is a major factor for staff to continue work or not. If a good environment is not provided, this could be the major reason for staff to leave the job(Som & Aguenza, 2018)

Communication is very important for any activity in an organization, whether it is recruiting an employee, motivating them, providing them with induction training or development training. Considering the issue identified in the previous sector, it has been observed that communication is essential for employees to achieve retention and recruiting goals (Quirke, 2017). The two important communication strategy to tackle above-mentioned issue are:

• Appreciate your employees

The communication can be done by providing recognition to the employee, like an employee of the moth, through this the employees will get to know how he or she is performing good, and make the employees understand how to improve their performance to achieve that recognition or receive such award. Employee’s major motivation is a financial reward, therefore on basis of performance, the reward can be provided, with announcing that reward, so that this can also motivate other employees to work hard. The appreciation is not a major thing, but this can increase the employee morale, and feel that the energy he or she has put into the war was noticed by their senior and would continue to provide good quality work in future as well.

• Have more open meetings

This will enhance the communication between managers and all the stakeholders, the changes, expectations, target, rewards system can explain to the employees. This will make them feel important, that all the company related information is been informed to them. The consent of stakeholders can also be taken in the meeting, to make them feel part of the company and their viewpoints are important in decision-making. This is done because communication must be a two-way process, it should not be one-sided, that the leaders took a meeting, covey their messages and end the meeting, In fact, the employee’s problems can be discussed in the meeting, and feedback can be asked for.

Motivational theories for different types of staff

Through these communication strategies, the retaining staff can be possible, and employee turnover can be reduced (Andersson, 2016).

References

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