Australia is noticing the change in the laws of employment. This change is also reflected back through the changes in the penalty rates. It is seen that penalties are imposed on the employees in different situations. It is crucial for the company to ensure that they have followed all these changes so as to avoid legal compliances. The retail industry has also been affected by this change as it will influence the HR policies, the job design, as well as the pay scale. This will have direct impact on the performance of the employees which will have impact on the way customers are handled (Singh, 2018). The changes in the penalty rates are going to influence some of the permanent and casual customers that are working on public holiday, Sundays as well as evenings. The penalty rates are going to have impact on the legal environment of the industry. This report is going to illustrate about the way in which these changes in the legal environment factor has impact on the HR planning, Job design and quality of work practice.
Change in the penalty rates has affected different aspects of the human resource management. There are large numbers of employees that are working in the retail firms in different parts of the world. It is essential that companies find the way in which they can motivate their employees (Oliver & Yu, 2018). Most of the time, it is seen that due to the change in policies, the motivation of the employees gets directly affected. There are other impacts of these environmental factors. It is estimated that due to reduction in the penalty rates, on an average an employee would lose around 16 dollars a week after working on Sundays. Woolworths is one of the biggest retail super markets in the country and since there are large numbers of employees working under its name hence they will be directly going to get affected by the change of these policies.
HR managers of Woolworths need to understand the changing rules and regulations within the country so as to avoid any major legal complications. HR planning is one of the most crucial aspects in the modern day business. It is the role of the HR managers to understand the priorities of the employees. At the same time they also need to understand the future need of the employees. HR planning is a continuous process and includes many things related to the human resource (O’Brien, Markey & Pol, 2018). Since its aims to have an optimal utilisation of most valuable resources in an organisation hence this penalty rates change is going to affect the HR planning. HR planning is also necessary for the ensuring that there is no manpower shortage or surplus. Since the penalty rates have been reduced hence it is going to affect the motivational levels of the employees. It is also going to affect the four major steps in the HR planning. First it is going to affect the labour supply. For example if the Woolworths will require the employees on Sunday or on public holidays, they will not get it. The reduction in the penalty rates would restrict the number of employees that were previously available for working on these days. Second is the projected labour demand. Since the forecasting has become very much important in the modern day business hence HR managers will have to project the demand in the market and the numbers of labours that could be available. The penalty rates will reduce the stability of the number of people that was previously available for the firm. For example if the company needs to have employees that would work for extra time or say in the evening and night, there will be less number of people that they would be ready to work. Since awards were the only thing that was attracting people towards the jobs that was not permanent of say for the employees that did not wanted to pursue the job for longer time. There are many casual workers at different departments of the company and it is essential that firm manages these workers (Bratton & Gold, 2017). This is due to fact that these people are very much helpful in the time when the permanent workers are unavailable. This problem is even bigger with the fact that numbers of people that were dependent on rewards was casual employees. This will also move the people towards finding permanent jobs.
The HR planning is also going to get affected by this change as the HR planning was making balance between the organisational goals and the quantity and quality of staffs that will be required for achieving that. Since HR planning does not only focused towards the quantity of staffs but it is also focused towards the quality of staffs present in any organisation (Landau & Rohmert, 2017). The Woolworths standards are even high hence they will require more skilled and qualified workers in all their shifts. The skilled employees will not be working on the extra days in such a low rewards.
On the longer run it is also going to affect the processing of the employees in the organisation. In case of shortage of employees, the companies might fail to deliver the services as per the demand of the customers (Voskuijl, 2017). For example activities related to customer relationship management is directly or indirectly going to get affected by this change of rules. Since the Woolworths is providing 24*7 facilities for the customers hence this change of policy is going to affect them. The online services and failures that may arise at the midnight require high quality staffs to manage the process. Due to lack of quality staffs at might HRM might face several staffing challenges (Alvesson, 2018).
Since the future of the retail business is online market hence it is crucial that HRM of the Woolworths finds another wages to motivate the employees for working in different times. The HR planning will include people from different parts of the world. This diversity can help the organisation to have people to work in every situations based on the benefits that are available with them (Rae, Provan, Weber & Dekker, 2018).
Job design is another major part of the HR practices at the workplace. The HR managers should design the job in such a manner that it attracts the employees towards it. Since the Job design is not only going to affect the new people coming to the company but it also affects the organisational needs (Konz, 2017). Previously the rewards that were given to the employees also played crucial role in attracting them. Now the company also has to rethink about increasing the basic pay of the employees. At the same time HR managers will also have to rethink about reducing the cost of operations. In the time to come the costing will be going to become much bigger challenge for the company and hence the company will have to rethink about the penalty rates that is provided to the workers.
Now at the time of designing a job, HR managers will have to understand the fact that basic pay and the incentives are on the lower side hence the managers will have to find other ways to attract the workers. HR managers of the employees will have to think about the requirements of the job holder (Richter, Heinrich, Stocker & Schwabe, 2018). At the time of interviews also the HR managers could face challenges in the negotiation terms. People will demand for the permanent jobs that too in the shift timings that are genuine. Previously it was seen that HR managers were highlighting the benefits that person is going to get if he or she works on late night shifts or for an extra hour. Now the HR managers will have to negotiate in a totally different terms so as to hire best of talents within the country. Since the cost of employment is increasing day by day for the companies hence they are making changes in the way operations are performed. Same is the case with Job design where for reducing the challenges in recruiting new staffs company will have to provide some other kinds of benefits to the employees like an extra hour leave or some other kinds of incentives. The number of operations that is performed by the employees is also going to enhance in the coming years. This is because with the introduction of technology, the number of employees that are available for one job is going to reduce (McIvor & Markey, 2017). In this time companies will have to find the employees that are more loyal and could stay for longer period of time.
Previously rewards were one of the ways to attract people for doing any job in different timings. The problem of Job design will also be going to affect the third party HR firms as their business was highly dependent on showcasing the attractive features of the job. Bigger companies like Woolworth might also look for offshoring the activities in other countries (Measham, 2017). For example the jobs such as customer grievance handling can be easily offshored. This would somehow help the company in making a balance between the labour demand and organisational objectives. On the larger perspective it might affect the employment opportunity within the country. In different departments of the organisation different types of penalties were generally given and hence at the time of job design, the terms of negotiation will also vary (Tian, Shi & Chan, 2017).
In Woolworths there are many workers working in different departments but on one thing is common that is quality. Since the roles are distributed to each and every staff hence they are expected to work as per the expectations of the company (Govender, 2017). With the change in the legal environment there would be serious effect on the performance of the employees. The quality of the work practices totally depends on the way employee performs which is directly dependent on the benefits that they will get from the job. Since the job design will change hence the features of the position will also change the complexity to maintain the labour demand. This might be possible that the workload on each staffs might increase and hence there will be frequent clashes between the management and the employees over the issues related to payments (Beech & MacIntosh, 2017). This will have effect on the employee relations which will further have effect on the way things are done in the organisation.
The change in the penalty rates will motivate people towards the job that are available in the day time. The negative motivation will be building up towards the employees working in some other shifts. The monetary rewards always have a greater impact on the motivational level of the company. The problem is more severe in the case of the employees that are working the organisation from very long time as compared to the employees that are new (Beaton-Wells & Clarke, 2018). This is because they have got used to earn some extra money for working in extra days or hours. This will be affecting the overall performance of the organisation in various terms. First thing that might be degraded is the focus of the employees as the workers might not be so satisfied while doing their task. This might lead to more number of quality issues or sometimes a failure to deliver as per the standards of the company. Second thing that it will affect is the loyalty of the customers towards the firm. It is possible that employees might work with half-hearted approach. This might degrade the quality of work. At the same time it may lead to more employee turnover which is again a big problem in the Australian retail industry (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). Most of the Australian retail companies are giving lower wages to their employees as compared to the other industries. Hence the problem of lowering the penalties will further make the situations worse. The third thing that it will be affecting is the environment at the workplace. This is because they are going to increase the number of clashes with the managers. This is because the HR managers have the role of assigning shifts to the employees. The rotation policy at the Woolworths will also be going to get affected by the change in the penalty rates. On the larger context, if the quality of the work practices is going to degrade then it might affect the business operations in the whole country (Collings, Wood & Szamosi, 2018). In the intensive competition that is present in the retail industry, this could create a serious challenge for Woolworths.
After analysing the situation, it can be recommended that HR management of Woolworths need to have a long term plan for dealing with this situation. In order to reduce the problem of staffing company needs to increase the basic pay of both casual and permanent employees. In order to retain the employee strength, firm needs to have balance between the workload that is put on the employees and the pay what is given to them for any additional working hours. It is also recommended that there should be more use of the technology in the work process so that least number of employees is required at these extra timings (Yuan, Das, Ramesh & Qiao, 2018). More the automation will be promoted at the workplace more will be chances that company can manage the operations even with the less numbers of staffs. In the Job design company should focus on highlighting the long term profits that employees can gain like at the time of appraisal. Company should also hire people from different nations as they are ready to work at lower wages also. This will also increase the diversity at the workplace and will be able to help the HRM in their cost management. New employees should be encouraged at the workplace. Quality management system could improve the chances of the company to avail best of services from the employees. Along with this, at the time of doing negotiation HR managers must fulfil the other reasonable demands of the employees so as to avoid the chances of conflict.
Conclusion
From the above based report, it can be concluded that there are severe changes made in the penalty rates that was offered to the employees for working on holiday such as Sunday or public holidays. It is going to affect the casual and permanent employees that works on the evening or midnight. This change in the legal environment will be going to influence several HR functions. The HR planning will have to done based on the future staffing needs. Job design will focus on other features of the position and some extra demand of the employees will also be heard. This change is also going to affect the motivation level of the employees which will also have effect on the quality of the work practices. In the long run company should make plans for its staffing needs. It recommended that Woolworths increases the basic pay of the employee so as to reduce the chances of employee turnover.
References
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