The topic of talent management has become an essential subject of discussions, and there is much literature surrounding the issue (Cappelli, 2008). It is also crucial to state that there is a substantial literature that has identified the connection between investments and practices and organization results by the Human Resource. A study conducted by McKinsey invented the term war for talent as a manner to outline a primary strategic enterprise problem and a crucial driver of performance at the organizational level (Ready & Conger, 2007). The unanimous response to this battle for talent was the management of talent. Talent describes people who exhibit or are needed to fill crucial or mission-critical positions and people who have leadership abilities.
Big Bytes seems to be grappling with human resources issues due to lack of proper planning for its workforce and lack of training and development programs for its workforce. Thus, there is a need for an action plan to remedy the situation at Big Bytes.
The Big Bytes seems to be grappling with the challenge of absenteeism among its employees as many of them are students who are absent during the end of their semesters due to school activities. This seems to affect the company particularly during peak seasons such as during Christmas when the company should be making huge sales, but people are absent. Big Bytes lacks talent management as an integrated and systematic mechanism of obtaining, developing, involving and retaining crucial employees and organization leaders who have the potential of delivering excellent results. The issue regarding talent management entails several HR practices as it deals primarily with labour resourcing point of view of talent management as it involves attracting and choosing the right employees. The success of Big Bytes ultimately relies on its employees, and this would mean that the task of resourcing and recruiting is one of the ultimate of all the decision-making process that Big Bytes has to undertake.
Samantha had more than a decade of experience serving as a retail manager in a large department store; however, after one decade, she decides to change the direction. This time round Samantha wanted more independence and less contact with the public. It is through a casual relationship with a friend that propelled her to apply for a new position that had been created of a general manager at Big Bytes. Big Bytes is a chain of stores situated in large heartland malls. Brian Lam, the owner of the Big Bytes, developed such a position since he felt that the number of shops which had grown to ten transcended his span of control. Also, the fact that the law regarding operation of shops had been changed that had been instituted with regards to shopping hour regulations which translated to Big Bytes remaining open for all days in a week. Brian was a hands-off manager who delegated more power and authority to his managers as the number of shops increased.
Brian was not worried about his style of management as turnover and profits were reported to be satisfactory and also based on the report by his accountant, all tax, and other regulatory prerequisites had been met. Following the appointment of Samantha, she was given a vague instruction which was that she was to observe how each store operated and inform Brian what she thought. It is paradoxical how Samantha after two months of meetings and visits discovered that the laissez-faire approach led to Brian’s shops being managed satisfactorily at best and at worst poorly. She reports that she found some issues that she thought would be noble to discuss with Brian.
In the report, it was found that managers lacked commitment. This may be because they had been in such positions since they were probably the longest-serving employees when the position of a manager became available. This kind of recruiting people to fill such senior positions may be detrimental to the success of Big Bytes as the company lacks tools such as Human Resource planning considered to be a prerequisite for successful recruitment and selection. It is through following a proper planning process that identifies the staffing requirements allowing ample time to expect and conduct recruitment and selection. Human resource planning could be essential in the case of Big Bytes as it could facilitate the best utilization of human resources to satisfy the goals of the organization. This could entail several steps such as stocktaking the levels of existing staff by evaluating external labour market, an analysis of the internal labour market and profiling the existing employees with regards to productivity, qualifications, competencies, and turnover. Forecasting is also imperative as it involves projecting the likely demand for and workforce supply, anticipating future staff needs. Future staffing needs should also be planned for, and this could be in the form of taking a forecast of the needs of the staff and transforming this into an action plan, for instance, recruiting new staff, establishing initiatives to advance the skills needed to move forward, better regulation of absenteeism and implement a redundancy scheme. Lastly, Big Bytes needs to have an evaluation system that compares staffing plans visa vis primary measures of enterprise success for instance productivity and customer satisfaction.
In recruiting the managers, Big Bytes should address issues such as whether the job vacancy could be an avenue to solve other business priorities such as employee development, function flexibility, and mobility among other factors. Recruitment of managers should involve attracting people considered to be potentially employable individuals to apply for the position created. Big Bytes approach of recruiting managers based on years of experience should be reviewed as the company does not even know whether it has got it right and who should be involved in the process. Big Bytes should ensure that their recruitment and selection mechanisms are evaluated. Issues such as effectiveness and fairness are paramount.
Succession planning for Big Bytes is hectic as senior positions such as those of managers are opened and eventually filled without being planned for (Bower, 2007). The changing nature of jobs makes an organization such as Big Bytes refocus its strategies to cope with the varying market conditions, develop internal talent pools that create a positive impact on important individual level or enterprise level results. It is for these reasons that a company such as Big Bytes ought to have plans and qualified individuals to fill crucial positions such as those of managers that require commitment and dedication due to various types of career movements.
Appointment of employees by word of mouth seems to be another challenge facing Big Byte. It is surprising that an established business enterprise such as Big Bytes uses word of mouth to recruit people to join its team. The company ought to have systems such as an active human resource department to oversee processes entailing recruitment and selection. This could require conducting in-depth interviews with the invited candidates to assess their suitability regarding skills, competencies, and level of experience among other factors. The company should also have systems to ensure that certain aspects such equality particularly gender balance issues are met.
Brian allocated some amount of money to be used in training employees to improve their performance at Big Bytes. However, managers, on the other hand, saw this as a waste of time and resources as most of the employees were casual and anything transcending the basic training would be a waste of time and resources. Most of the employees were bothered by the issue of lacking training, and that is the reason they indicated it in the survey that was conducted. Big Bytes has got to grave the problems that have to be handled simultaneously, and one is that one of having permanent employees as the process of investing in a worker through training is expensive and time-consuming and when such an employee leaves, it takes a lot of time and resources to train another one. At the same time, it is imperative to train the employees generally.
Big Bytes seems to have issues with retention. Retention is a challenge for many companies in their day-to-day operations. Attrition is also costly to a company, not only in expenses regarding recruitment and selection but also for human resource development. The decision to exit the company is a personal decision. Such an arrangement can be influenced by pull factors such as a better offer that is more attractive or push factors such as dissatisfiers that reduce morale and cause frustration. The employees at Big Bytes may be leaving the company due to lack of financial rewards, lack of recognition and career progression among other factors.
It is thus crucial to understand the extent of staff turnover challenge and its nature before implementing any solution to remedy the scenario.
Big Bytes needs to plan for its human resources where there should be statistics and turnover analysis. It is essential for the company to identify why it has high turnover rates compared to the average in the industry. It would be necessary to recognize voluntary turnover with regards to whether better management could be able to generate positive results. Big Bytes should also conduct exit interviews to understand why its employees have left and would have taken to sustain them and what they are being offered in the companies they go to. Employee surveys are also essential for this matter identifying dissatisfiers and satisfy and what differentiates Big Bytes from other employers.
Big Bytes should also evaluate downsizing and redundancy. This has become the most challenging component of human resource management. Restructuring and downsizing for Big Bytes should entail managers purposefully eliminating hierarchical levels commonly known as delayer, job roles endeavoring to align operations and thus facilitate business performance. Students have characterized the company as workers who are usually absent during the end of the semester, and this seems to affect Big Bytes performance. Though it is prudent to offer such students employment offers as a way to curb unemployment, internships would serve better to equip them with the skills and experience required in various jobs.
The use of human resource development is crucial for such a company where employees have explicitly indicated their desire to have formal training (CIPD, 2015). In this case, human resource development could entail activities and mechanisms that are purposed to have a positive effect on organizational and individual learning. It is through human resource development that the success and survival of an organization become possible and this is precisely what Big Bytes needs if it is to survive in the future. There is a need for massive investment by businesses in both learning and development, and this entails including several factors such as the effect of HRD on the performance of the organization, known as a result of knowledge, HRD as a catalyst for organizational transformation (Phillips & Phillips, 2010). Big Bytes has been characterized as a company with the highest staff turnover compared to the average industry turnover, and this is worrying as the company may be losing people that could be an asset to the company.
However, HRD could assist as an employee retention strategy. Big Bytes could accrue many benefits by having well trained and developed employees with the inclusion of improved productivity which could see reduced production costs and products that are of high quality. This could translate to greater customer satisfaction thus making the possibility of customers returning high, workers at Big Bytes could also enjoy flexibility as they develop a variety of skills and this would help reduced boredom and low morale currently facing the company at the moment as multi-skilling can only happen if the employees are well trained (Smith, 2008). Another benefit is that there are less monitoring and reduced management expenditures when workers get on with their jobs leading to recruitment and employee retention that is successful.
However, there are reasons why some companies fail to invest in this area for some arguments. One of the cases by the organizations is that danger lurks since highly trained and well-established empoyees could be poached by rival companies, the need to have short-term expenditures minimized and the hardships HRD experts face with regards to providing proof of a substantial return on investment. Also, the notion of lack of benefits in the short term with regards to investment in HRD as it could take much time for the impact of investment in HRD to effect on enterprise performance. The environment of today where organizations operate commands concentration on HRD based on performance. This translates that HRD is not for its sake but HRD should be concentrated on attaining the organization’s emerging and future objectives, and this is what strategic human resource development (SHRD) is all about (McCracken & Wallace, 2000). SHRD is connected to strategic enterprise goals and objectives with the aim of assisting a company attains its mission and goals via an instructional design framework and the utilization of benchmarks for purposes of comparison.
Big Bytes seems to be grappling with the performance management issues and entails integrating many of the parts that facilitate prosperous people management (Colville & Millner, 2011). The full realization of performance management leads to an integrated and strategic approach to improving people’s and team performance which enhances the performance standard of the organization as a whole. Organizations such as Big Bytes are constantly under pressure to attain performance improvements and optimize the contribution of each employee. A crucial connection between the performance of the individual or teams of employees and the company’s success is the company’s reward system that provides a transparent indication of its philosophy to the management of the human resource. Rewards in this context refer to anything offered or awarded for some service or accomplishment of an achievement.
High or low remuneration, accessibility of platforms for learning and development and promotion opportunities give a valuable direction into the company’s approach to human resource. In this context, Big Bytes employees need to develop a common mind amongst workers of what has to be done to enable Big Bytes to attain its stipulated objectives (Fairhurst, 2008). The employees at Big Bytes seem to have lost direction regarding the company’s objectives and mission; this is the reason they are always absent and lack the motivation to work making them leave the company as there is nothing worth enjoying. Performance management is one of the strategic approaches to regulating performance that incorporates personal goals with those of the company and identifies and develops employee strengths (Haines & Stonge, 2016). Robust connection now exists between corporate scheme and the individual goals of workers in several companies.
Establishing objectives. This phase entails outlining expectations and setting objectives and goals in a transparent and group problem-solving manner. Big Bytes needs objectives that are well-constructed to motivate its employees to action. Such goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound described by the acronym SMART. Based on motivation literature they would emphasize the need to be precise about comparatively achievable goals. After setting the goals, Big Bytes has to wait the perfect time comes to evaluate the outcomes.
Delegate some tasks. This stage entails assigning some work to employees. A crucial component to delegation is an evaluation of the level of development of the person and their responsiveness to perform the delegated task as required. One trait to successful delegation is that the delegated task should be well fathomed and the job should be grouped into segments coupled with substantial responsibility and authority that is delegated to facilitate the work be performed diligently.
Development of human resources assists employees to attain performance expectations since they are compelled to have the necessary skills, competencies, and attitude (Pulakos & O’Leary, 2011). Coaching and counseling should entail controlling and optimizing performance. It is an action-based shot to transforming behavior and is highly effective. To enable employees of Big Bytes, improve on their performance, workers need information regarding their progress accompanied with recommendations on how they could improve.
Examining the results entails evaluating performance with utmost precision and fairly. The setting of goals and objectives clearly for workers is a crucial element of performance management and a critical requirement to an outstanding performance appraisal. Big Bytes need to develop mechanisms and systems to evaluate the extent to which employees have realized such goals. It is imperative also to consider how such purposes have been achieved. The way forward is to assess and utilize the information during the stage of mentoring and counseling.
In performance appraisal evaluation of outcomes, an appraisal is wholly connected. In a broader perspective, the aim of performance appraisal should be to provide feedback to workers and inspire a commitment to future improvement and development. Big Bytes should conduct evaluations annually, and such evaluations should involve the line manager and an employee though most companies are shifting focus to an approach where there are continuous performance and feedback discussions between unit managers and the workers. The judgments from such evaluations should be employed to reach administrative decisions that could directly impact the worker for instance in areas such as remuneration, training, and salary.
The appraisal interview should be an ample platform for both the supervisor and the worker to discuss the previous performance, emerging issues and goals to be attained in the future. An effective appraisal system should evaluate critical job characteristics and be independent of extraneous and corrupt influences, integrating all essential components of the job. It should also be dependable and free from rating mistakes (Segal, 2010).
Most of the employees at Big Bytes seem to lack morale, and there is a high turnover, and this may be due to the lack of a good reward system. A good reward system has been found to motivate workers while streamlining their objectives with those of the company. Such a system entails balancing employee remuneration and recognizing excellent work with optimizing competitiveness and obtaining benefits on pay expenditure. Following the cost of reward practices, it is imperative that a well-defined mechanism is advanced that reflects the needs and prerequisites of the company and its workforce. The primary tasks carried out by remuneration systems are to lure and sustain suitable workers particularly when the labor market is rigid to boost workers’ morale to anticipate their job goals. It should also impact culture, for instance, promote creativity, dynamism and define the structure of the company.
Conclusion
Big Bytes seems to have management issues right from the start, and Brian believes since his shops are accruing profits that are satisfied that everything is alright. However, he fails to understand that his shops could be better and experience exponential growth if they complied with human resource management tools. The bottom line is his laissez-faire management approach where he delegates management without paying consideration to the skills and qualifications of the people he delegates authority to. The managers at his shops also do not seem to be familiar with the HR issues as they are employing people with word of mouth and there are no interviews conducted to evaluate the suitability based on the skills and competencies they have and how they match the jobs available. However, Samantha seems to have identified some of these issues since she has vast experience having served as a manager for more than a decade. Topics such as downsizing and redundancy should be used for Big Bytes as there are many employees are not productive enough. However, with a proper action plan, performance management could push the company forward amidst future uncertainties.
References
Bower, J. L., 2007. Solve the Succession Crises by Growing Inside – Outside Leaders. Havard Business Review, 85(11), pp. 90-6.
Cappelli, P., 2008. Talent Management for the Twenty-First Century. Havard Business Review, 86(3), pp. 74-81.
CIPD, 2015. Factsheet: Learning and talent development strategy. [Online]
Available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/strategy/development/factsheet
[Accessed 8 December 2018].
Colville, K. & Millner, D., 2011. ‘Embedding performance management: understanding the enablers for change. Strategic HR Review, 10(1), pp. 35-40.
Fairhurst, D., 2008. Am I ‘bovvered’? Driving a performance culture through to the front line. Human Resource Management Journal, 18(4), pp. 321-326.
Haines, V. Y. & Stonge, S., 2016. ‘Performance management effectiveness: practices or context?. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23(6), pp. 1158-1175.
McCracken, M. & Wallace, M., 2000. Towards a redefinition of strategic HRD. Journal of European Industrial Training, 24(5), pp. 281-290.
Phillips, J. J. & Phillips, P. P., 2010. Confronting CEO Expectations about the Value of Learning. Training and Development, 64(1), pp. 52-58.
Pulakos, E. D. & O’Leary, R. S., 2011. ‘Why Is Performance Management Broken?. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 4(2), pp. 146-164.
Ready, D. A. & Conger, J. A., 2007. ‘Make Your Company a Talent Factory. Havard Business Review, 85(6), pp. 68-77.
Segal, J. A., 2010. Performance management blunders. HR Magazine, 55(11), pp. 75-78.
Smith, R., 2008. Aligning Learning with Business Strategy. T+D, November, 62(11), pp. 40-44.
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