Discuss about the Concepts of Human Resource Management.
Human resource management is an organisational approach that helps business organisations in optimising the performance of their workforce using different functions, such as performance management, training and development, career development, etc. that are aimed at developing better relations between employees and employers and improving the condition of the workplace. Management of human resources has become really important for international business organisations because they are now competing in a highly complex and changing business environment, which requires business organisations to have an efficient workforce so that they can remain competitive and can perform better in the market.
COSMOS Aircraft is an international company that is based in Australia and had subsidiaries in China, Singapore and Vietnam. The company builds and sells aircrafts to government as well as non-governmental organisations in 50 different countries. The CEO of the company, Adam O’Meara, has been recently becoming concerned about the company and its profits, which indicate that a takeover was imminent in the near future. He also fears that if the condition of the company is not improved, even his job will be on the line.
COSMOS Aircraft has been experiencing some major problems in its operations and has started experiencing customer complaints in high numbers. The prime reason behind the rise in complaints and a fall in the operational efficiency is the improper management of the company’s human resources. The company has been facing a number of problems in managing a diverse workforce, establishing a positive work culture, management of employee performance and training and development of employees. This report is aimed at identifying the issues that are creating a problem for the company and preparing a framework that would allow the company to get rid of these issues and increase the organisational performance in order to reduce the chances of a company takeover.
Management of human resource is not an easy task and it becomes even more difficult when the management has to be done on an international scale. Some of the issues that the COSMOS Aircrafts is experiencing with respect to its human resource management are discussed below:
First of all, the company is facing a lot of problems when it comes to the culture of the workplace. The culture in COSMOS Aircrafts has become highly negative and the employees have developed a mantra ‘near enough is good enough’ which shows a lack in their will power to achieve perfection. It is also evident from the behaviour of the employees that they would resist any change that the organisation would want to introduce. The negative culture in the organisation is also having a deep impact on the communication channel between the headquarters and the foreign subsidiaries. Further, the existence of too many teams in the organisation, without a proper integration amongst them, makes it difficult for each of the teams to achieve their goals as they all get in each other’s way to perfection (Mooney, n.d.).
Secondly, the company has been facing a number of issues while trying to manage diversity in its workplace. COSMOS Aircrafts is operating on an international scale, which makes it obvious for the company to have a diverse workforce. The company has a workplace policy that prohibits any kind of discrimination amongst the workers on the basis of race, age, gender, ethnicity, etc. but the employees do not follow this policy. The senior employees working in the headquarters are intolerant towards younger employees and are spoiling the workplace environment and relations. Further, there is a lack of recruitment of physically disabled people even if their skills and technicalities are way above the skills and techniques of those candidates who have been recruited by the management. The head of the company is aware of this fact and is also expecting some legal issues in case this problem is not dealt with quickly (The Good and Bad of Workplace Diversity, 2014).
Thirdly, another issue that the company is facing is related with the international performance management. The only performance reviews that the company conducts are in the Australian headquarters while there are no performance reviews conducted in any of the subsidiaries. There are no performance reviews or appraisals that are conducted for expatriates. The management does not even involve economic factors that affects business targets. Further, the lack of an international performance measurement approach also results in wastage of resources as one of the decisions taken by the headquarters involved its Singapore subsidiary to produce a certain part but the company found out later that the same part was already present in abundance in the headquarters of the company.
Lastly, training and development is another issue that is affecting COSMOS Aircrafts. The company takes no serious initiatives while managing expatriate programs. The employees who are leaving to work in a foreign subsidiary are trained for not more than half a day and even the human resource department of the company never takes the needs of individual expatriates into account. The company does not even have a system of assessing the performance of the employees who are working in a foreign subsidiary. Further, the company does not even have a system of workplace planning in the organisation. COSMOS Aircrafts does not make any effort to arrange for training and development programs of its employees so that they can take up higher positions in the organisation (Amo, n.d.). As a result of lack of adequate training and development programs for the employees, the workforce of the company is losing its competencies and is also losing its job satisfaction levels, which is further resulting into lower productivity and performance.
The human resource management issues that the company is facing can have some serious implications for the company in longer run. Nothing can be more detrimental to the reputation of a company than being taken over by another entity because of a failure in managing its human resources. Thus, the company needs to take these issues seriously and implement steps that would help it in improving the human resource conditions in the company. Some recommendations that can help the company in improving its human resource conditions are given below:
First of all, the company needs to improve its workplace culture using different techniques and strategies that would help in integrating the teams and fostering a positive work environment. The management of the company needs to clearly identify its staffing strategies for headquarters and for foreign subsidiaries so that all of them have a uniform culture and it can become easier for the employees to adjust with people coming from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Secondly, the company needs to gain a better understanding of the human resource management concept and start laying a greater focus on performing all the human resource functions effectively. The company should understand the importance of workplace diversity while working in an international business and should also avoid any kind of discrimination in the workplace. The management of the company should formulate strict workplace ethics and behavioural guidelines that prohibit any kind of discrimination amongst the employees. The management should also consider a revision of its recruitment policy and should start recruiting candidates without discriminating amongst them.
Thirdly, the company needs to start arranging for effective raining and development programs for its employees so that they can become more competitive by having a closer look into the industrial environment and market competencies. The present scenario of the company clearly indicates that the employees working in the company have become incompetent and have no intentions of learning new skills or technicalities. The employees are demonstrating a very stagnant performance level and are also deteriorating the workplace environment. In such a scenario, it is important that the management starts to design and implement training and development programs that would help the employees in learning new skills and technicalities. Training and development of employees will not just help the company in achieving a more competitive workforce but will also help the employees on developing their careers and becoming eligible for promotions and performance based incentives (Frost, n.d.). Further, being in an international business also makes it important for the company to design and implement special training programs for its employees who are being sent overseas for special assignments (Ford, 2014). Rather than training the employees for half a day, the company should arrange for training and development programs at regular intervals that will help the employees in learning more about the culture of the countries where the company has its business operations going on. Using such training programs, it would become easier for the company to have a pool of culturally sensitive employees who would show better chances of success when being sent for foreign assignments (Goodman, 2014).
Last, but not the least, the company should design and implement an efficient international performance management system that would help it in addressing most of the issues. The company has reached that stage at which if its human resources are not managed using effective human resource functions, it would become impossible for the company to sustain in the near future and most of the people will lose their jobs while the company is already on the verge of being taken over. The attitude of the employees towards their job demonstrates the failure of the management to take strict actions and implement plans that could have heled in improving the scenario. At present, one of the most important things that the company needs to do is to implement a performance measurement program along with a performance appraisal program. The company needs to implement a performance management program that will enable it to analyse the performance of individual employees while there must be a separate program that should aim at monitoring the performance of expatriates and of individual subsidiaries. The management should also design performance appraisal events where the employees can be rewarded for the performance that they have demonstrated in a specific period of time. Using performance measurement program along with a system of performance appraisals will allow the company to reward those employees who have demonstrated exceptional performance levels in the assessment period while take required actions against those employees who have failed to perform up to the expectations of the company (Kalantzis & Cope, 2003). To assess the performance of the employees, the management can also incorporate different key performance indicators, also known as KPIs, within the performance management system so that it can achieve empirical results in terms of performance. A system of performance measurement along with performance appraisals will make it possible for the company to foster a workplace environment where a greater focus is given to performance. The employees will become aware about their performance levels and will try to perform better than their peers in order to achieve performance appraisals. A new performance management system will also help the organisation in workforce planning as the management will be able to identify those individuals who have the right skills and attitudes to take up higher jobs in the organisation (Joseph, n.d.).
The present status of the organisation is so complicated that implementing the above plans might sound like a nightmare for the management. The attitude of the employees is so negative that it seems like they will resist any change that the organisation might plan to introduce. Thus, the management will have to carefully plan and implement the changes and the new programs in the workplace. The following plan can help the organisation in implementing the above recommendations:
First of all, the management of the company needs to create a sense of urgency throughout its subsidiaries. The management will have to share important information and data with the employees that will bring it into their notice that a major change in the organisation is required if they have to maintain their jobs and assure job security for themselves. The management at the headquarters will also have to ensure that the employees are aware about the position where the company wants to reach from its present situation. The management of the company can formulate mission and vision statements that it wants to achieve by implementing a major change program and then involve the employees in the change management program to build it further. By involving the employees in the designing stage of the change program, the organization will be able to reduce the chances of organisational resistance to change because of proper communication between the employees and the employer.
Secondly, once the change management process has been designed, the next stage in the implementation plan will be to actually move towards implementing the changes in the workplace. In this stage, the management will have to involve the employees and tell them about the changes that are required to be introduced and the purpose of the changes. The management can identify change agents that can assist it in spreading the changes in the organisation. There can also be instances where the employees resist the changes due to numerous reasons but the management can avoid a failure by dealing with root causes of resistance with the help of change agents.
Thirdly, once the changes are implemented, the management can then take initiatives to reinforce the changes that have been successfully implemented. To reinforce the changes in behaviour of employees, the management can reward the employees or can provide them with certain incentives or benefits. It is important for the management to keep its employees motivated so that they can continue to demonstrate a change in their behaviour and do not resort back to their previous ways of working.
Conclusion
COSMOS Airlines is a company that has the potential of becoming a market leader but the vulnerable condition of its human resources is having its toll on the market position of the company. The company has bene facing a number of issues related to its workplace culture, diversity management, recruitment procedures, training and development of employees as well as in managing the performance of its employees and of the subsidiaries at an international scale. In order to ensure a long term survival in the market, the management of the company needs to take some important decisions as soon as possible and come up with some major organisational changes that would help the company in improving the condition of its human resource and improve its profit and market position so that it can ensure a long term survival in the market.
References
Mooney, L. (n.d.). How Does a Poor Company Culture Affect Employees? Retrieved April 27, 2017, from yourbusiness.azcentral.com: https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/poor-company-culture-affect-employees-4410.html
The Good and Bad of Workplace Diversity. (2014, April 23). Retrieved April 27, 2017, from business.gmu.edu: https://business.gmu.edu/news/862-the-good-and-bad-of-workplace-diversity/
Amo, T. (n.d.). The Negative Effects of a Lack of Training in the Workplace. Retrieved April 27, 2017, from smallbusiness.chron.com: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/negative-effects-lack-training-workplace-45171.html
Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2003). The International Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Change Management. 3.
Ford, J. K. (2014). Improving Training Effectiveness in Work Organizations.
Frost, S. (n.d.). The Importance of Training & Development in the Workplace. Retrieved from smallbusiness.chron.com: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-training-development-workplace-10321.html
Goodman, N. R. (2014, February 4). Six Steps for Successful Expatriate Training . Retrieved April 27, 2017, from www.td.org: https://www.td.org/Publications/Newsletters/Links/2014/02/Six-Steps-for-Successful-Expatriate-Training
Joseph, C. (n.d.). Importance of Effective Employee Appraisals. Retrieved April 27, 2017, from smallbusiness.chron.com: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-effective-employee-appraisals-10408.html
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