Human Resource Plan For Shifting To A Corporate Structure

Strategies for Enhancing Employee Engagement

This report intends to present a human resource plan as a 50 years old family business operating in automotive, financial and real estate sector with almost 2000 employees wants to shift their company structure into a corporate one. Therefore, the human resource department needs to train their workforce according to new HR plan and strategy balancing with all the business verticals. The CEO of the business group, considering its prolonged history of success decided to make its structure more contemporary to sustain against the competitive nature of the market. Hence, a request has been made from higher management to HR department to implement effective HR strategies aligning with the new structure and a two years HR plan. According to Bach (2013), no less than 70% of entrepreneurs believe that employees are important as far as company’s economic prosperity is concerned. Improving strategic alignment with the HR development planning will help them to meet the business needs and combat future challenges.

In order to do that this report will first recommend the strategies to make the workforce understand organizational objectives following with implementation strategies. Before that, a good understanding of the nature of HR teams of different department is necessary.  According to Brewster (2017), human resource development is another strategic approach for accomplishing the target of business groups. Therefore, employee loyalty programme, training sessions and appraisals will be discussed in terms of executing the plan successfully. Fruitful implementation of HR strategy will ensure seamless and efficient services along with maintenance of a healthy workplace culture (Miller, Breton-Miller & Lester, 2013).

An inevitable truth of operating a business is it must be flexible and adaptive in nature in order to ensure better revenue and sustainability. In order to grow anything needs to be modify maintaining periodic gap.  This 50 year old family business group has though of a corporate shift for that reason and looking for answers in terms of arranging HR strategy that will be balanced with future business structure. As discussed in Collings (2014), a business market is competitive not in terms of profitability and revenue only, but also defined by rivalry for recruiting and retaining skilled talent. A well defined and data driven HR solutions can lead the company towards attaining the organizational goals of future. Therefore, according to Nankervis et al. (2016), objective of succession planning and management is to combine three areas: ‘right people in right place at right time’ as far as change management situation is concerned.

Implementation Strategies

In order to do that strategies are as follows.

• Clear and consistence communication must be maintained with the employees before its implementation.
• Occasional meetings will be helpful to make the workforce understand about requirements of such transition, reasons behind the shift to increase their engagement with the organisational perspectives.
• There is a need of experienced change managers or HR leaders to spread positive outcome of change aligning with employee benefits.
• Managing employee queries is another strategy and for that, line managers must be trained with the transformation details in order to motivate employees accordingly Kenworthy & Wong, (2014).

By enhancing employee engagement, HR leaders can accelerate growth and omit resistance against implementing transition.  

• For doing that developing approach of teamwork can be helpful. Simultaneously, allocating and clarifying job responsibilities will help them to understand the procedures for implanting the change.
• Workers in operations has to be more flexible and learn the new formats and processes in terms of business policy and customer handling. Management must focus on their requirement first to ensure seamless and efficient operation for satisfying customer requirement.

The next stage is implementation of the strategies in order to ensure desired change, which is transforming family orientation into a corporate structure. The following table can address strategies with specific objectives (Maheshwari & Vohra, 2015).

Strategies	Objectives
· Communication	An effective process of channelizing information to all the internal stakeholders including employees through solving queries, addressing complaints and giving suggestions to deal with newly proposed change.
· Consistent maintenance of communication and teams	Establish and cultivate new workplace culture and regulations. Frequent discussion regarding major issues will help to avoid them in new structure.
· Job responsibility and security	Distinct allocation of job responsibilities and management will propose appropriate plans for benefits and retains to fulfil future agendas.
· Workplace culture	As family business and a corporate atmosphere is not the same, employees will be notified officially about the changed scenario (Sarbah & Xiao, 2015).
· Employment and development	According to the changed business need there will be opportunities to recruit new talents and skills along with developing existing employees.
· Filtration in workforce	Before the entire transition, there will be a filtration process in terms of retaining the necessary talents excluding the additional workforce behind tactfully.
· Training and development	Consistent process of counselling, learning and development sessions will be arranged in order to ensure more effective and efficient operations in all the three business verticals (Cascio 2014).
· Policy and agreement	Revised and newly framed HR policies and agreement must have areas where both the organisation and employee benefits are aligned in parallel.

Communication

• Prepare communication plan through arranging meetings, sending emails, several consultation sessions and various modes of sharing information will be encouraged.
• Development of an information broacher with details of structural change, its rationale and shared objectives.
• Clear indication of expectations from the employees and the probable time frame of two years would be mentioned.

• Framing and implementing organisational cultural development tactics.
• Identifying future leadership capabilities to build effective and efficient teams.
• Socially HR management must be active in order to ensure smooth interaction among the employees and between management and employees.

• Again, effective role of two-way communication can be identified as in this case interacting with employees with security, expectations and transform process will be the most practical thing to do.

• HR policies must be redefined and circulated to help employees adapting with the changed scenario.

• Strong placement policies, procedure to recruit new talents aligning with company challenges and requirement must be conducted.
• Benefits, compensation and salaries will be revised according to new job roles for retaining the employees with satisfaction.
• Development programme for existing employees will increse efficiency as well.

• According to Sung and Choi (2014), workforce filtration is necessary in terms of making HR department more aligned and customized to the objectives. Unnecessary, under skilled and inefficient employees must receive notice to enhance their skill or to leave the organisation. This will help to reduce extra expenditure of monetary resources as well.

• Vertical based training sessions will be provided to employees and on-floor assistance will be available in case of any query or confusion.
• Management must conduct corporate training for employees regarding relevant business verticals.
• ‘Organisational orientation sessions’ are important for all employees irrespective of positions.
• Assistance will be provided in terms of preparation if employees serving notice period want to re-apply or employees want to apply for new job role.

• New HR policies must be channelized through team leaders and small HR sessions to resolve queries, for making the employees aware of structural changes and rules, and regulations; they are going to abide by.

Implementation have some strategies as well. There are three phrases roughly for implementation a successful change.

• Actions, which define change management strategy by developing efficient teams and preparing them for upcoming challenges so that organisation can accomplish all their targets.
• Communication and new process of operation must be managed in a way, which complements the management skillsof every verticals.
• Collecting occasional feedback as per requirement would be effective as far as addressing the gaps are concerned. To ensure seamless execution consistent supervisionis what a change management process needs when it comes to making HR teams work as per the newly designed way.

The HR budget is all about HR funds which are approved by HR heads after scrutinizing the organizational needs. As argued by Bryant and Allen (2013), these needs include; hiring process, benefits, monthly salaries and incentives, training sessions, succession planning, engaging workforce through benefits and compensations. This budget is dependable on financial whereabouts and employee performance. HR budget is important in a change management scenario to filter unwanted employees, creates a clear indication for future requirements of HR strengths, it is indeed a motivation for employees and help to reduce voluntary turnover with its right use.

• As described in Patidar et al. (2016), choosing the right budgeting strategy based on review of prior financial performance of the company will help to accomplish objectives and succession plan.
• Real time budget vs. performance monitoring will help to structure budget with a contemporary edge and it will be flexible and situational need oriented.

In order to plan effective human resource strategies; succession planning and management is one of the essential aspects to deliver customers’ requirements. It helps to recognise, develop and retain eligible employees for the contemporary and future business objectives. Objectives of succession planning are as follows.

• According to Cappelli and Keller (2014), this plan is aligned with core business plan with all the verticals and provide assistance in broader human resource planning which is connected with talent management plan, learning and development scenario, recruitment and retention and workplace culture.
• As per the study of Harris (2014), it is also effective while featuring the current and future needs of human resource. It includes training and development of existing employees according to future needs of business in a change management scenario.
• The entire process must be well communicated to ensure success of business plan through executing effective HR strategies.
• As described in Bourne et al. (2013), this management policies once applied must be monitored and examined maintaining a periodic gap to address ongoing issues and measure performance of employees towards shared business goals. Based on which learning plans are made for employees to make them deliver desired performance in corporate scenario.

This succession management plan is essential for several reasons. Employees get engaged with the shared objectives better than prior system. Employees will realise their faults and try to bring perfection through relevant training programme. It is a great medium to share corporate knowledge. Therefore, both the business needs and customers’ need will be satisfied. It can be stated that with the help of succession management plan and planning business goals can be reached through efficient HR department.

As discussed in Bidwell and Keller (2014), the motive of gain agreement is to solve problems. In order to do that a company considers both the view of a consumer and internal stakeholders as well. While management or other stakeholders are processing the information for solving a proposed issue, opportunities of providing new inputs rises. The purpose of gain agreement is to deliver better output by addressing issues and mitigating the same. The stages are as follows.

• Submission of detail problem addressing the stakeholders’ affected interest.
• Proving necessary details of the impact of discussed issue.
• Indicating probable solutions and benefits which need to gain the agreement or approval.

In case, according to Kim and Ployhart (2014), the issues with staffing is considered a balance must be maintained between internal training sessions and external recruitment. Both the areas are associated with HR budget and depends on the allocated amount as per requirement. Existing employees are better fit for traditional setting of the business. Train them to make ready for the corporate sector may consume higher time than recruiting new employees who are well aware of corporate business structures and procedures. Yet it will be problematic for the organisation to remove the old HR structure and employees and search for entirely new workforce. It will be a huge adjustment issue then.

Strategies for HR Budget and Succession Planning

Therefore, in gain agreement paper if a proposal can be made regarding a filtration procedure just before arranging training sessions it will be budget friendly and in terms of seamless delivery of services as well.  Traditional employees know the company values and new employees are master in contemporary skills. As described in Wiewiora et al. (2013), an atmosphere of mutual sharing of knowledge will enrich the HR department which is exactly desirable for the both organisational and individual benefits of employees.

While reviewing the HR policies it must be evaluated that employers are having policies out of mandate boundary or they have genuine consideration or not. These considerations as follows must be examined while reviewing policies.

• Policies should be distinctly defined and setting ideal standard for employee behaviour and performance. These are indication of workplace culture of a certain organisation (Gupta & Kumar, 2013).
• It must be framed in a form of guidance to the managers as on which parameter they must judge an employee.
• There should be no doubt for employees who seek for benefits and deserved rewards.
• Employees will be well aware of the rules, so that they can protest if any violation comes up.

In case of transforming into a corporate organisational structure, a list of guidelines can be made and every employee should have a copy of that. Consistent practice and avoiding violence of company norms employees can adapt those policies grow with such business norms. All the staffs are trained if needed, to develop a clear understanding of policy guidelines to guarantee compliance and lesser incidents of violation.

Policies will be effective and provide output if they are understood and applied in right place, monitored regularly and in case of any issues reviewed accordingly. In order to develop policies and procedures for HR development few stages are followed.

• While developing the business or HR policies relevant stakeholders are consulted first. As described in Kooij et al. (2013), health and safety guides are important in terms of providing security to employees. Furthermore, consultation will end up in the most innovative yet effective idea among the several shared ideas.  
• The policies must be bespoke and aligned to business verticals. In case, policies are hired from other institutions management it must be balanced with the area of application.
• Communication channels must be disturbance free. There should not be any confusion among employees based on inefficiency of management while handing over the policies.
• Policies and procedures must be developed after reviewing the company potential in terms of its acceptability, resource capacity and feasibility of implementation.
• Apart from interacting the procedure related matters, employees must receive training in terms of gaining knowledge and enough adaptability.
• In case of violation, necessary counselling, action or turnover may happen to the accused employee.
• Regular evaluation of programs must be arranged in case of identifying gaps and mitigating them.

Reward and recognition policies are important in terms of employee motivation, encouragement to join a certain organisation and retain an employee for a particular designation. Several researchers, including Eshiteti et al. (2013), have proved with practical evidences that money works as one of the greatest motivator as far as employee psychology is concerned. People tend to leave a company for a better proposal and most of the cases it is higher pay scale and better benefit scheme. Therefore, appropriate policies regarding rewards and remuneration is important (Shields et al. 2015).

As per several multicultural studies, just like Bhatnagar (2014), rewarding employees solve turnover issue and ensures the flow of production. In this case, several reasons can be teamed up for gaining agreement.

• Appreciation or monetary incentives are able to increse employee confidence and help them to work with motivation.
• With more engaged employees this business group can experience increased productivity.
• Employees will tend to retain their job and finds satisfaction.
• Individuals with improved morale tend to make better team efforts. It will directly boost the production and reduces violation of policies and make the employees regularly present in workplace.

Policies must be applied for deserved candidate, meeting all the reward criterion and consistence performance. Recognition can takes place on a regular basis. According to Laschinger et al. (2014), managers must be competent enough to set the policies that motivate, value and empower employees at the same time. Moreover, keep the people loyal to the business group.  Again. Effective two-way communication will take the part of making the process clear. A distinct, interactive sessions will help employees to understand how their actions and contribution will create a difference in terms of accomplishing organisations’ mission and vision. Apart from reward and recognition there are monetary and non-monetary incentives as well. Besides, in a corporate structure an employee receives health, accident insurance as well.

Gain Agreement and Staffing Issues

Pay for efficient and desired performance is one of the essential elements for effective managerial system. According to business scholars a management should not forget why people are paid for. It is for appreciating original value of people’s talent and performance throughout a month or year. According to Farndale and Kelliher (2013), appraisal policies are created to reward an employees’ utmost effort to maintain a balance between individual and organisational interest. It is a gesture on behalf of organisation to make them stay and work with the company with experience and gained vision. On the other hand, performance management can be the entire theory under which appraisal scheme is merely a chapter.  Performance management is comprises of three stages of developing employees. 1) Training or coaching, 2) corrective measures in case of violation and 3) termination; these are needed to make the employees work in a productive way.

First phase is about motivating employees, allowing them to learn, provides coaching and consistently motivating them towards organisational benefits. Effective training sessions will help to develop new skills related to job role and performance will be boosted accordingly.

Second one is to necessary measures including warning for bad performance or absentees and the final phase is termination. In case, any employee is taking prolonged period for adapting with the new culture aligning with the budget plan the company is bound to terminate that employee for remaining cost effective and production oriented as well.

There are questions raised frequently that, which should be more in focus for an organisation to ensure a value based cultural model within an organisation. Answers are varied and the most frequent answers are it takes time, resources must be supportive or workforce’s energy and motivation work towards developing a value based culture. An easy three level riddle if can be solved for developing a programme for value based culture. It will be aligned with talent development and rules of appraisal along with accomplishing organisational vision and mission.

In order to ensure uniformity and central control the business group must unify all the sectors together under one mission and vision statement 2) recognising the market competition and renovate the culture accordingly and 3) talent development.

The significance of a corporate value based culture is, it is capable of supporting mission and vision of the business group which has a legacy of long 50 years. An organisations core value is their identity. Developing cultural programme will be able to maintain that individuality of business principals. Development programme must ensure these steps as follows for gaining success.

• Efficient HR managers are needed for circulating distinct guidelines regarding terminology among each stakeholders of the business groups.
• During training sessions examples must be presented so employees can develop practical knowledge about corporate setting.
• Providing opportunities to learn new skills, well defined reward policy and improved conversations among employees and between the management and employees will help to develop the desired value based culture within a corporate setting.
• Core values must be balanced with recruiting procedure and it must be ensured, all of the new joiners receive a warm induction programme where they gain a clear idea about values, vision and mission of organisation.
• Performance development concerns must be discussed by the managers to include value to their performance and reward-recognition policies as well.

• The first step is to analyse the present culture of the organisation and evaluating future programmes. In this case from a family business how the business group can address the necessary fields to arrive a position of corporate giant that must be analysed first. As argued by Ma Prieto and Pilar Perez-Santana (2014), employee behaviour, performance results will be important for identifying the behavioural pattern of employees in terms of maintaining a job under the organisation.
• In this second step, brainstorming will be helpful for collecting the most effective design for retaining employees and gaining employees’ trust over organisation. Any proposed plan must address the organisational goals, gaining agreement from the seniors and balance with HR budget as well.
• Loyalty programs includes providing benefits to employees, compensation, adequate salary package according to job role.  
• Once the implementation is complete it takes time to evaluate the programmes. In case, any difficulty has been spotted or occurrence of any issue it must be revised. Communication channels must be open for all to drop ideas regarding enhancement of the value of loyalty programme.

• The first level is to develop a training programme to satisfy the requirement of employees. While planning for training, employees’ weaknesses must be addressed and align that with the training objectives.
• Training objectives needs to address organizational needs further. At the employee level, the training must balance with the sectors of improvement for the employee which have been discovered through evaluation programme.
• Creating action plan involves creating material, assigning tutors, arranging proper facilities, schedule planning and necessary equipment.
• Implementation is consistent monitoring and evaluation of lessons, evaluating the outcome, calculating absentees and many more aspects are related to this.
• While implementation there will be several areas which might be discovered as ineffective in order to avoid those revise the training procedure will help to implement the correct strategy according to the nature of employees and their needs.

Reviewing HR Policies

Conclusion 

To conclude, it can be stated that implanting a structural change is not a matter of a night. It takes detailed planning, gain agreement, implementation, evaluation and further revision to create a successful implementation. In terms of HR planning and implementation, it must be considered that people are most important aspect of any organisation. The entire execution depends on them and their efficient quo. In case of dissatisfaction, HR managers can face bulk turnover which will turn out to be real bad as far as accomplishing the organisational goals are concerned.

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