Managing HR Issues At GTR

Identifying HR Issues at GTR

Management of human resource is a crucial part of every organization. It is the base of any firm that safeguards that the employees are hired efficiently, trained effectively, rewarded fairly and treated appropriately (Hendry, 2012). The efficacy of human resources plays a vital role for the successful accomplishment of organizational goals. This case lays emphasis on numerous issues that are faced by GTR owing to dissatisfaction of employees. The employees of the firm have deliberately been organizing strikes to receive a higher pay, apt hours of work and professional working culture. Such strikes are unfavorably affecting numerous passengers who shuttle on a daily basis. In this particular report, we have attempted to identify and source crucial human resource management disputes occurring at GTR and have aimed to recommend elucidations for each of them.

Organizational issues and their solutions:

As given in the case, GTR is presently facing various issues that have led to unsatisfied employees and retaliation from their end. Also, because of the criticality of railway industry along with large number of travelers, employee strikes are adversely impacting various regular passengers. The demands that are presented by the unions of employees are unreasonable and irrational. For the effective functioning and profitability of the firm, GTR cannot succumb to those demands and hence they are unable to reach a grey ground. The predominant organizational issues faced by GTR are as follows:

Conflict in pay rates

It has been noticed in the case study that there exists a serious skirmish between the wages that are currently paid to employees and the expectations that they have for the same. Salaries that the employees take home are undoubtedly the most significant part of every organization (Anker, 2017). Salaries lead to motivation among employees and give them a reason to work efficiently. The case observes that employees are frequently conducting strikes and asking for irrational hikes which is unfeasible for the firm to deliver. Such strikes have adversely been impacting over 300000 travelers who commute using GTR railways. Hence it is imperative that urgent and strict measures are undertaken to address these issues.

1. Negotiation with the unions: The top management at GTR including the directors must conduct one on one meetings with the unions ASLEF and RMT. These negotiations should be conducted effectively among leaders of both parties and genuine efforts must be put in order to reach a feasible conclusion (Korobkin, 2014). Some details of negotiating should be ensured by GTR as well as the unions.
   Both leaders must be well prepared and must have a valid and clear justification of each of the demands.
   b. Timing of the meeting is also extremely important in ensuring a fruitful negotiation. Anything which is demanded at the right time can lead to positive results (Chen, 2015).
   c. Both leaders must anticipate a compromise and aim to bridge the gap that exists between both demands rather than being adamant and sticking to their own grounds (Saeed, 2014).
   d. Conclusions drawn must be detailed and not vague. For example, instead of promising an increase in salary, the exact percentage of hike and also the time duration for the same should be decided.
   e. Once all the negotiations are done, both the parties must remain committed to what has been decided under all circumstances (Robins, 2014). Both the unions must make sure that they should not conduct any strike again and the firm GTR must make sure that their employees are paid exactly as per what is promised.
   f. Closing the meeting well also plays a critical role. It should be done with a recap and confirmation of the final decided pay of employees.
2. Collective Bargaining: Collective bargaining is the process including negotiation of salaries, wages, working conditions and other benefits between employers and a group of employees (Cooper, 2015). These interests are most commonly presented to the firm by labor unions, which in the current case are, ASLEF and RMT. The right of collective bargaining is given to all the employees (Cheng, 2017). The process of collectively bargaining includes the following steps:
   Preparation: collective bargaining effort requires sufficient preparations by both employees and employers.
   b. Discussion: After the preparation, both parties must discuss in detail upon the issue at hand. GTR as well as RMT and ASLEF will be highlighting their points and discussing the issue of employee salaries.
   c. Propose: Once the discussion is done, both parties would propose a specific and attainable solution.
   d. Bargain: On knowing the proposal, employers as well as employees will aim at bargaining their side (Jackson, 2016).  
   e. Settle: Once this bargain has been efficiently conducted, both the parties must reach a conclusive and final settlement and promise to stick to it.

Extra roles and responsibilities for current workers

Every employee of the organization should have definitive and defined roles to perform. At any point of time, if employees are urged to perform any extra duties or responsibilities on a regular basis, then it instils a sense of frustration which further leads to demotivation of employees. In turn, this adversely impacts the performance and leads to decreased efficiency.

1. Effective communication: Communication practices followed in the firm should be clear, transparent and effective (Shockley, 2014).
2. Clear job roles: Each employee must be aware of their exact and explicit job in the organization (Rawasky, 2014).
3. Discussions among focus groups should be conducted as it ensures that all employees are satisfied. Also, if there is a concern, employees can raise it (Krueger, 2014).
4. Policies of fair employment must be practiced throughout the organization (Shields, 2015).

Formation of a viable HR planning process

Increasing concerns for staffing at GTR are matters that require urgent attention. A Human Resource planning process should be maintained in order to resolve such issues faced at GTR. Ideally, a HR planning process includes understanding current and future HR needs of the firm which is important for the organization to attain its goals. In case of a surplus of employees, strategies must be executed about laying off employees and in case of a dearth of employees, strategies must be laid out for hiring employees (Huynh, 2014). Significant steps involved in the human resource planning process are given as below:

1. Analyzing major objectives of organization: The first and foremost step in the formulation of a HR planning proposal is to identify the objectives that firm aims to fulfill. These should include short term as well as long term objectives (Armstrong, 2015). This detailed analysis should be conducted to understand and gauge the level of manpower that is explicitly needed to accomplish those objectives. GTR hence needs to fully redevelop the railways’ infrastructure in order to accommodate more passengers and as mentioned in the case, modernize the ongoing practices.
2. Analyzing the manpower inventory: Basing upon the objectives that are defined in the first step of the process, the organization should aim to reinstate the present manpower inventory (Armstrong, 2014). In this case, GTR hired over 26000 employees every year. In the process of analyzing this manpower inventory, each and every employee that is working in various departments must be jotted down along with the department and the salary details (Rahim, 2015).
3. Forecasting the demand and supply of HR: upon analyzing the current manpower, the demand and supply of human resources for GTR must be forecasted. Demand would be the employees required to accomplish objectives that are listed in step 1 and the supply would include potential candidates which are willing to work for GTR.
4. Analyzing manpower gaps: After this supply and demand analysis, the difference between the two will be referred to as the manpower gap (Handley, 2014). In this particular case, it would indicate that the firm GTR is having a surplus of employees. These employees have signed various contracts and therefore GTR cannot immediately fire them and hence most of the employees have been working with GTR since a really long time.
5. Formulation of an employment action plan: Once surplus of employees has been established, efforts must be made to formulate a plan of action to remove or reduce that surplus. This process would essentially include laying employees off, transferring them to various other departments or including the current employees in new roles which would emerge upon modernization of the railway infrastructure.
6. Training and Development: Once the employees have been introduced to their new roles, effective training should be provided to them which would help in getting accustomed to these new roles and hence perform these duties to the best of their abilities (Arneson, 2013). Also, positive and fruitful recommendations should be provided to the employees who have been laid off. Exit interviews should be conducted on a timely basis and HR head should make sure that procedure of laying employees off is hassle free.
7. Monitoring, controlling and feedback: Upon deciding the action plan, it should be monitored at every given step. It must also be ensured that there is no employee left unsatisfied and that there is sufficient amount of work for existing employees of the organization. Transparent feedbacks should be taken as they would help the firm address grievances and fix conflicts if there are any.

Conflict in pay rates

Developmental activities recommended to GTR

Performance management happens to be an extremely critical function for the success of every organization. Hence it is vital that the HR heads work sincerely to management performance. This performance management includes crucial tasks involving rewarding employees appropriately for effective contributions, giving transparent feedbacks and more importantly practicing fair employment policies within the organization. A key developmental activity that can be instantaneously implemented at GTR is given as below:

Recognition and rewards framework

Recognizing employees’ work is the biggest source of motivation for employees. According to Maslow’s theory of needs as well, it is evident that once safety and social needs of individuals are satisfied, self-esteem needs take precedence. Hence rewarding structure of the organization ensures work transparency and instils motivation in employees of the firm for better performance (Wilches, 2014). Few details must be kept in mind when designing a framework for rewards:

1. Transparent: Firstly, it is crucial that the rewards framework is transparent. The eligibility criteria for the rewards must be clear to all the employees. Even though, it is the top management that designs this framework, it would be effectively communicated to the rest of the firm as well (Nosek, 2015). This would ensure that employees fully understand their roles and responsibilities and can aim to accomplish the same.
2. Effective: The rewards framework should be efficient as well as effective. This signifies that the employees who perform well must be accurately rewarded. And the criteria for every reward should be explicitly defined with no ambiguity. GTR must ensure that the entire purpose of this reward structure is to make sure that better performing employees continue to feel valued while the employees who are non performing feel motivated.
3. Unbiased: The rewarding structure must be entirely free of bias or any personal connections of employers with the employees. This ensures a level of transparency in the entire process of assigning rewards. There must be checks at different levels (Team level, department level, city level and organization level) to ensure that employees are not being favored in an unfair manner. The performance of the rewarded employees could be made public for others to see so that there is no kind of discrepancy in the rewarding structure.
4. Timely: Timing plays a very important role while offering rewards to employees. If rewards are given too frequently then they may not be valued and rewards given too late will make employees lose motivation for working towards the goals. Sometimes, a surprise recognition in any formal or informal manner could act like a major source of motivation for the employees.
5. Feedback: The employees that do not get rewards very often feel demotivated and disheartened and therefore it is the responsibility of their respective managers to motivate them by providing them a valuable feedback that would help the firm to cope and deliver a better performance in the future.

   Influence of employment legislation on HR practices

The equality act came into effect in October of 2010 with the aim to provide an easier, simpler, consistent and more effective legal framework in order to prevent any kind of discrimination in the workplace. This act aimed to take a very strong stance against direct and indirect forms of discrimination that are faced by employees upon the very basis of their sexual orientation, caste, religion, age, disability or race. This particular act has had a large influence and impacted the HR practices throughout the UK. The key areas that are most influenced by this legislation are as below:

1. Pay related: The equal pay act of 1970 lays emphasis upon the importance of equality of pay within organization and across the industry. This fair pay policy is aimed at ensuring that all employees of the same organization are treated fairly and that no employee is overpaid or underpaid in the firm. Similar levels of pay create transparency in the business and instills trust towards the employer.
   The actions that are taken by employers of GTR clearly signify their dissatisfaction with the pay structure that they were offered. They have been choosing to conduct strikes against GTR which has adversely impacted the travelers who commute regularly by the southern railway. Such acts and their effective implementation is very important for any organization. This makes sure that employees are being treated fairly.  
2. Contracted working time: Most organizations within the UK propose a 48 hours per week working structure. These contracted work timings firstly make it very clear from the time of hiring about the amount of hours that the employee would have to give in. This ensures that there is no miscommunication. Working time must be contracted as this also implies that whenever an employee works extra, he or she gets appropriately paid for the additional hours worked.

Brexit effect on HR laws

Britain would most definitely consider revisiting some of the UK legislations specifically the ones that affected the human resources of the organizations. Working time regulation appears to be the most likely act which will be repealed by the Britain government upon exiting from the European Union.

Working time regulations undermine labor flexibility and increas the costs of hiring staff. WTR focuses on areas like employee working hours and rest breaks. The whole idea would be to reduce the burden on the Britain employers particularly relating to breaks, record keeping and rest periods.

Attempt would be made to ensure the work contracts are not limited to just 48 hours as sometimes employers want additional effort from employees. Many previous governments have also fought hard against this restriction. Employers are also currently required to record hours of work to ensure that this maximum does not exceed over a 17 week period. Attempts to reduce such efforts are expected to be popular among businesses. It is also expected that UK businesses would have more freedom to decide how statuary pay should be calculated.

Conclusions

GTR railways have been increasingly facing issues relating to employee dissatisfaction owing to various conflicts in their pay rates and additional roles and responsibilities that the employees are burdened with. The employees have shown a growing dissatisfaction with the work culture and heave resorted to conducted strikes which is adversely impacting various passengers commuting on a daily basis.

There are some recommendations explained in the report like effective negotiations, collective bargaining and explicitly defined roles and responsibilities of the employees at GTR. A clarity in the job role and transparent communication between the employers and employees can lead to efficient resolution of the issues existing in the firm.

Human resource management is one of the most crucial aspects of any organization and for the effective functioning of the firm, it is imperative that GTR takes stern and quick actions as recommended.

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