Key Challenges And HRD Policies Of The Smith Family

HRD challenges faced by The Smith Family

In the competitive world of today, each company has to perform to their optimum level. The competition helps the company to perform better and achieve their best according to their capacity. In order to perform and function well, the employees of the company needs to perform to their optimum level. The framework of the company depends on a well-functioning and adequate human resource department. The development of the human resources is crucial for the development and growth of the company. According to the leading scholar Leonard Nadler, “Human resource development is a series of organized activities, conducted within a specialized time and designed to produce behavioral changes.” The workforce or the employees of a particular company are the most important framework of the company. The workforce of the company can participate in the development and growth of the company. In this way, the company can achieve it target and function smoothly (Becker and Huselid 2006). The write up discusses the HRD policies of an Australian charity named, The Smith Family. It answers three questions related to the HRD of the company. The company is a charity that deals with creating opportunities for disadvantaged children and the families of the children. It helps them to participate fully in society with the help of education as an important tool. The write up explores the key challenges of using in the organization, the aspects of HRD that are present in the organization, and the recommendations that can be given to the organization to improve the HRD and the impact of it on individual and organizational performance (Noe et al. 2006).

The Smith Family is an Australian firm that is a charity for disadvantaged children. The vision of the company is to bring a better future to the young population of Australia who are in need of care and support. The mission of the company is to create new opportunities for the young population of Australia who are disadvantaged. The charity is education-oriented which helps the children to develop into a successful human being (Rao and Salunkhe 2013). The charity employs competent employees who can participate fully in making the organization successful. The organization was established in the year 1922(Anon, 2017). The charity was organised keeping in mind the welfare of the less fortunate children. The company relies greatly on the help and dedication of the employees of the company. The company, quite intelligently chose education as the means of development and growth. The aim of the company was that no child should miss the scope of education. The Smith Family is one of the most renowned charities of Australia (Jiang et al. 2012). The company employs a lot of competent talents across the country to obtain the maximum utilization of resources. The workforce of the charity is quite competent in enabling the smooth function of the charity. However, there are many challenges or hurdles that the company face in terms of human resource development. The key challenges of using HRD in the Smith Family are the following:

1. One of the main challenges of using HRD in the organization is that the human resources can act and behave according to their motive and agenda. The Human Resource Development is the basic framework of any particular company. It helps the employees to develop their organizational skills. It includes the training of a particular employee after the hiring of the employee, providing the opportunities to the employee after he or she is hired (Jayanti 2012). It provides the employees an opportunity to learn new skills and techniques. The Smith Family, the Australian charity is a well known for its work for the development of disadvantaged children. The charity relies greatly on the dedication and passion of the employees and the volunteers. The human resource development in this firm is important because the employees and the volunteers of this firm only can help to achieve the purpose and goal of the company (Bonebright 2010).
2. Another challenge for the usage of HRD in the organization is that the employees of the organization are subject to the discriminatory treatment by the local and immediate managers. The local managers might indulge in a biased treatment of the staffs under smaller groups. This might lead to dissatisfaction amongst the employees within the organization (Nilsson and Ellström 2012 ).
3. The next key challenge for the usage of HRD in the company is that with the advent of globalization, there is a changing demographics of workforce. The change in the demographic constitution of the workplace is an important and crucial element in any particular company (Sheehan, Garavan and Carbery 2014). The management of the organization faces a challenge in human resource development as the requirement, taste and preferences of the employees of the company varies greatly. The employees come from a varied cultural background or ethnicity, which makes creating a common plan for the employees of the company a difficult job (Kim and McLean 2012). The human resource development of the company has to encompass the interests of all the employees and find out a solution or a plan that makes all the employees happy, which is a difficult task.
4. Managing the managers of the teams is crucial and often acts as a hindrance to the growth and development of the company. The managers of the company have to be kept happy in order to achieve the maximum productivity and profitability. The managers of the company help in running the operations smoothly. Therefore, keeping the managers happy is a task for the organization (Sheehan, Garavan and Carbery 2013).
5. Another key challenge of using HRD in the organization is that the change of the expectation of the employees. The expectation of the employees of a company can change in accordance with the trend and the preferences of the world. The employees of the company have a varied range of expectation and taste. To meet the taste and preference of the employees of the organization is a difficult feat. The Smith Family tries to satisfy most of the demands of its employees (MacKenzie, Garavan and Carbery 2012).
6. The recent trend of globalization and corporate reorganization is another challenge that the organization faces. Globalization brings in a new set of trend amongst the employees of the company. It brings in new demands within the employees. Their tastes evolve with the advent of globalization (Rao and Salunkhe 2013). New sets of demand crop up amongst the employees, which makes the smooth operation of the company a little difficult (Short and Harris 2010).

Role of HRD in The Smith Family’s success

The Human Resource Development (HRD) of a company faces many difficulties in the process of smooth operation of the company. The attitude or culture of the employees play a great role in the outlook of the work culture. The workforce comprises of people who come from different backgrounds and ethnicities. The technology or the skills of the company or the workforce is important as the older ones are getting replaced by the new ones almost immediately (Kehoe and Wright 2013). The knowledge or information of the HR professional of the company is extremely important.  The HRD professionals have to adjust according to the new principles and leadership. The lifestyle and habits of the employees also have to be kept in mind. The environment of the organization is important for the successful operation of the company. The HRD professional has to have the knowledge of different HRD practices around the globe that is relevant to this company (Ghosh and Barman 2014).

Ans: Primary objective of Human Resource development is to enhance the capabilities of employees of an organization and maintain health atmosphere within an organization to foster the growth of that organization (Budhwar and Debrah 2013). Human resource managers who are responsible to maintain healthy atmosphere in an organization plays key role in the development of an organization. They look after the fact that the employees of an organization are skilled enough to contribute to build a bright future for the organization. It is the responsibility of the human resource development department to encourage the employees to work together to achieve organizational target. According to many reports, human resource development is a backbone of an organization that helps the organization to function (Alfes et al. 2013). Being a leading non profit organization of Australia, Smith Family plays crucial role in society development. It is a well-known organization that provides support to the underprivileged children and their families. According to the organizational management of Smith Family, education is a weapon that can be used by disadvantaged children to actively participate in society (thesmithfamily.com.au, 2017). The human resource department of Smith Family plays vital role in the success of the organization. It helps the organization to function properly. The human resource department of Smith Family encourage their employees to work together so the organization can achieve the desired target.  It is not simple for the organizational management always communicate about their agenda and mission to their employees. It is one of the key aspects of Human Resource Development to interact about the organizational objective to the employees and motivate them to participate in accomplishing the organizational target (Tong, Takand Wong 2015). Human resource managers of Smith Family make sure that employees are aware of the objective of the organization and they are able to participate in achieving organizational target. Such practices have led Smith Family to become one of the preferred and successful non profit organizations in Australia as well as in whole world. Smith Family has taken several remarkable initiatives to help poor children, such as- art programmes, community programmes, coaching programmes for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and so on (Cooke, Saini and Wang 2014). It is impossible for the organization to carry out any agenda without their skilled and experienced employees. Human resource management helps the organizational in a significant manner by providing training and development program to the employees where the human resource managers inform about the mission and vision of the organization. It gives a vivid picture of the organizational target to the employees. Such practices influence the loyality of the employees towards the organization (Shaw, Park and Kim 2013). It is not easy to run a non profit organization in this competitive era. It requires the support of the human resource department to improve the skill of employees to earn the desired target and maintain the reputation in the society(Renwick, Redman and Maguire 2013).  Human resource department has provided complete support to Smith Family in their image building by nurturing the skills of their employees and motivating them to work together to achieve the organizational goal (Armstrong and Taylor 2014).

Recommendations for improving HRD

Ans: Although, human resource department of Smith Family plays efficient role in the success of the organization, there are some areas where the human resource managers must focus. Some of them are as follow:

In order to achieve the organizational goal, the human resource managers must use some efficient communication tool to maintain effective communication with the employees. Being a leading organization, Smith Family possesses a huge work force. It is not possible to address every employee individually to communicate about the organizational goal. Instead of addressing each and every employee individually human resource managers must use some effective communication tools like intranet, blog, website pages to interact with their employees to inform them about the new ventures of the organization (Jimenéz-Jimenéz, Martínez-Costa and Sanz-Valle 2014).

They can provide online training programmes to the employees as well. It is impossible for the human resource development department to conduct physical meetings to provide training to the employees within a short span of time. They can organize online training programs to provide relevant knowledge related to organizational objective (Knowles, Holton and Swanson 2014).

In order to inform every employee about the organizational strategy and mission, the human resource department must publish all the information related to the organizational agenda in the official website of Smith Family (Jackson, Schuler and Jiang 2014). It will be beneficial for the human resource managers to inform maximum number of employees. Employees will be able to read all the information from the webpage.

It is not enough for the human resource development department to provide training to the employees at initial stage. Managers must monitor the performance growth of the employees to ensure the development of the organization. They must review the performance of every employee frequently to identify the weak points of the employees (Girma et al. 2016). After observing the weak points of any employee human resource managers must help that employee to rectify the mistake and improve the quality of his or her performance. It will foster the growth of the organization.

Another important function of human resource development department is to increase the commitment level of the employees (Gatewood, Feild and Barrick 2015). It is considered one of the major roles of human resource manger to influence the loyality of the employee towards the organization.  Human resource managers must maintain a transparent relation with the employees and give a clear picture about the organizational goal. The commitment level of the employees will be enhanced. Employees will feel as an important part of the organization, which is highly beneficial for the development of the organization (Alfes et al. 2013).

Conclusion

Human resource development department must concentrate on maintaining healthy atmosphere within the organization. It is the responsibility of the human resource manager to promote the team spirit in an organization. To motivate the employees to work as a team it is important to maintain a healthy atmosphere within the organization. Employees must be in a good term with each other. It will help them to work as a team to achieve the organizational goal, which is highly beneficial for the growth of the organization (Delahaye 2015).

Conclusion:

Thus, it can be concluded that human resource development plays a crucial role in establishing a bright future for any organization. Smith Family being a leading non profit organization of Australia has taken various notable steps to help the children that are suffering from poverty by providing them educational opportunities. It is impossible for the organizational management of Smith Family to carry out any of its agenda successfully without the support of the human resource management department. Human resource management department helps the organization by providing training to the employees as well as informing them about the organizational agendas. Human resource department of Smith Family ensures the bright future of the organization  by providing them efficient and hard working employees.  Although, the human resource managers of Smith Family are playing their role efficiently, there are some areas of responsibility, such as- human resource managers must use some innovative communication tools like – blog, intranet and so on to communicate with the large work force of Smith Family; Human resource managers must provide online training programs to the employees to improve the quality of employee’s performance; Managers must review the performance of every employee often to ensure the   growth in the productivity level of the organization. Such practices will be helpful for the organizational management of Smith Family to maintain the performance graph of the organization and earn desired position in the society as well as among the people around the organization.

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