• Explain the role of HRM in executing the business strategy at Unitel.
• Identify key issues relating to the introduction of the new corporate strategy by Unitel senior management.
• Propose some potential solutions to the problems relating to the introduction of the new corporate strategy at Unitel.
• Discuss how Unitel may benefit from using four (4) human resource management practices (covered throughout the BUSM3201 course) to improve organisational performance at Unitel.
Unitel is among one of the biggest companies in the telecommunication industry in the Asia-Pacific region. The company was a government company which was privatised in the early 90s. After the privatisation of the company, it faced a lot of trouble from various other small companies and local competitors (Unitelme.com, 2015). The telecom industry has seen a lot of innovations in the last decade with lot of new facilities are being added to the services. The privatisation has also opened many new windows for the company but with the expansion of the market a lot of foreign companies entered the market. In order to gain a pivotal position for the customers and to excel in their products and services the company’s senior management has decided to introduce a corporate strategy called the Vision 2020. This program aims to bring excellence to the product and increase the value to the customers. The company is facing a lot of challenges. While the senior level managers have embraced the strategy but the lower level employees are finding it difficult to accept it. Vision 2020 is a way which will bring the high level and the field level staffs together for the first time. The company has to implement new strategies and the HR department has to take special initiative which would motivate the employees to actively take part in the program. The employees need to believe in the vision of the company, which will help the employees as well as the company in the long term (Chadwick, 2005).
The role of the HR is different according to the various situations. It is similar to the contingency theory which says that there is no single way of leadership. Thus it can be said that the HR needs to act according the situation and the circumstances. In the company Unitel it is necessary for the HR to implement new strategies so that the employees of the company accept the vision 2020 (Chand, 2010). To implement the new strategy it need that the company needs to support the processes, structure and the systems with the new corporate strategy. The strategy will fail to implement if there is lack of coordination between the people and the processes. The employees of the organisation must believe in the plans of the organisation in order to make the organisation a success.
The work of the human resource department starts with accepting the new rules and the strategies of the company. Once they are fully assured of the plans then they will go forward in making a well planned strategy for dealing the employees of the organisation. The human resource must make the employees believe in the strategy of the company. The HR must tackle the various issues and their success depends to how far they are successful in making the employees believe in the plans (Vogelsang, 2013).
The steps that the HRM needs to do in order to implement the strategy include:
The company faces various challenges while implementing the new business strategy. The company needs to resolve the issues before the strategy could be successfully implemented in the company. The key issues that the company must resolve are:
The pre-existing issues and the challenges of the company- the threat of the telecom industry is that there are several other companies in the market. The company has to compete with all those companies and it is a very tough job for the company. There are companies who are global leaders and are popular in the market. The company must try to tackle those situations carefully and plan their own strategy (Lynch, 2006).
Shortage of materials and skilled labour force- the company has problems of shortage of the new processes and skilled manpower in the organization. This has created in work overload on the existing employees and they feel de-motivated in the company. Moreover the recruitment of new skilled labor will in turn raise the expenditure of the company. This is because the skilled employee will require more salary and the company has to bear with it. Thus the company faces challenges due to lack of labours as well as from recruiting new skilled employees.
Expenditure of the company in implementation of new technology- the company has to deal with the expenditure of the company when the company incorporates newer technologies in the processes. This technology will eventually benefit the employees abut the company needs to spend a lot on the initial investment.
Acceptance and lack of coordination- the company will face a major challenge internally if the employees of the company find it difficult to accept the new strategies. Moreover the employees who are habituated with working with the old process will find it difficult in coordinating with the new processes. Thus the work of the company might get hampered.
Wastage of time due to the implementation of the new strategy- the new strategy of vision 2020 is a big step for the company. The entire organization needs to be reorganized. The process of the company, the machines needs to be changed or reorganized in order to implement the strategies (Grinblatt and Titman, 2002). This requires a lot of time since the processes is new and the employees need to adapt themselves to the new processes and the technologies.
Training programmes- the employees needs to be given additional training if the new strategies are implemented. The new processes run on new working procedures. The employees need to be given additional training to make them cope up with the workings of the new processes. For the training the company needs to hire additional staffs that will provide the training. This will lead to an additional cost to the company and the company needs to bear with the cost in order to implement the new strategy.
By resolving the training programmes and the issues
The problem with the implementation of the new plan of vision 2020 is that it needs skilled people who can perform the job well. Training is thus needed for the company so that the company can adopt itself with the new technological advancement. Hiring can be called an alternative to the process of training but both require time and money. But training the people who are skilled and can learn quickly can be trained to easily and can reduce the time and the cost (Margison, 2003). Some of the skilled employees are given vocational training and they in turn help the others in the organisation to learn. Moreover the employees can relate with the trainer who is one of them.
Changing the perspective and understaffing
Changes in the organisation are hard to be accepted. It takes time for the people to adopt it and get accustomed with it. The company was already facing a lot of challenges from the early 90’s. The problem that the company faced was when the changed from government owned to privatisation. The employees have already accustomed with the new change in the policy of the organisation and now the issue of adapting to the new technologies are making them hostile toward the company. The company need to motivate the employees so that they easily approve the change. The company needs to understand the problems of stressful working conditions, reaching goals etc as the employees need some relief from the work.
Coordinating the people and the processes
The company must make sure that the people in the company are well acquainted with the processes that the company installed. There is a great chance of the company’s people to go against the strategies of the vision 2020. It is so because the company has once changed its processes when it changed from government to private and now they are implementing yet another change in the work processes (Mathis and Jackson, 2003). Thus the employees must be given brief orientation classes so that the employees have a thorough knowledge of the processes and they are convinced that the new strategy will be successful.
By satisfying the customers
There is a problem for the company if the customers of the company are not satisfied with their jobs. The quality of the work tends to detoriate with time if the employees are not satisfied with the work and the conditions of the work. It was found that the employees were not ready to accept the new strategies. Though the new strategy is expected to have more facilities but the customers are not ready to accept the challenges (Mondy, Noe and Gowan, 2005). The company must by various ways try to teach the customers that the new process will be beneficial and the company. By this way the company will be able to bring a sort of satisfaction among the employees.
By managing the time
The new vision 2020 is expected to be a long process and its implementation will require a lot of time. It is because the employees are to be convinced first. Moreover there are certain other issues that needs to be sought after like the financial budgets which includes the cost of the raw materials, labour etc. A market speculation needs to be done before the implementation of the new technologies; so that an idea can be got about the future prices. The economic condition of the company may improve with the increase in the production which also needs to be managed in the time frame.
The cost of production and the shortage of material
Cost of production needs three resources that is labour, capital and materials. The capital is always considered to be the fixed quantity whereas the labour and the materials vary with time and situation. The new strategy of the vision 2020 is based on the technologies. The labour force of the company that is the employees are not so much associated with the issue of the implementation. The employees fear that there will be retrenchment and termination if they do not abide by the new technology. More over there are complaints from the employees about the long hours which were more than their actual work. With a collaborative effort from the employees the production will increase and the work hours will reduce eventually. The shortage of the resources is also to be dealt with if the company wants to meet its goal and retain the work force (Sheikh, 2013).
The Human Resources Management practices are a way by which the employees are attracted to stay in the company. The employees are motivated, developed, trained and retained in the company for the organisation’s survival and also to effectively implement their strategies. The HRM practices are a set of practices internal to a company and they are designed for the sustenance of the organisation.
The four main practices of HRM are:
Training- with the advancement in the technology, the employees also need to upgrade their skills so as to meet the requirements of the job. For example- Unitel was proposing to make bio fuels from the micro algae. This task requires special training of the employees to operate the processes. It must be kept in mind that the current employees have the potential to do the job but for handling the new process they need to have the knowledge (Speculand, 2009). Thus training is required to bridge the gap between what to be done and what is required.
Recruitment- the recruitment process is an alternative to the process of training. It is considered so because the purpose of training is too enhance the skills of the employees by spending time where as the recruitment process is an easier way to find new skilled employee within a short time span.
Performance Appraisal- it is a method by which the performances of the employees are assessed, evaluated and reviewed. The performance appraisal helps the employees to think creatively over the idea and improve their weaknesses. It is also a way to motivate the employees and to improve their performances. The Unitel Vision 2020 is seen by the employees as an attempt to undermine their standing among the employees.
Reward System- it is a method to motivate the employees and also to recognise the performance of the employees. With this system the employees are feel motivated and they devote their time in the hard work willingly. This process helped to change the mindset of the employees who were rather against the Vision 2020 strategy (Sheikh, 2013).
Conclusion:
While implementing new corporate strategies in the business, the company will have to face various issues and challenges; but the company will be benefitted in the future. It is the company’s duty to resolve the issues the various strategies before it can be implemented and the business strategy of Vision 2020 can be undertaken. The employees of the company are somewhat against the plan and believe that the plan is not feasible, where as the managers have enthusiastically and successfully clinched the new plan (Unitel.com.la, 2015). The company now has employees who are grouped into believers and non believers of the plan. Thus the human resource department has a lot of responsibility in making the non believers of the plan to believe in the plans. This can be achieved by giving the giving the non believers proper orientation programmes and making them understand the vision and the mission of the company in the near future. The human resources department has also to look after the recruitment of new skilled people. Eventually the company will reach its goal, but the process will take time to cover.
References:
Chadwick, C. (2005). The vital role of strategy in strategic human resource management education.Human Resource Management Review, 15(3), pp.200-213.
Chand, M. (2010). The impact of HRM practices on service quality, customer satisfaction and performance in the Indian hotel industry. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(4), pp.551-566.
Grinblatt, M. and Titman, S. (2002). Financial markets and corporate strategy. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Kramar, R. (2013). Beyond strategic human resource management: is sustainable human resource management the next approach?. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(8), pp.1069-1089.
Lynch, R. (2006). Corporate strategy. Harlow, England: Prentice Hall.
Margison, T. (2003). A New Approach for Implementing Systems and Managing Change. Handbook of Business Strategy, 4(1), pp.152-158.
Mathis, R. and Jackson, J. (2003). Human resource management. Mason, Ohio: Thomson/South-western.
Mondy, R., Noe, R. and Gowan, M. (2005). Human resource management. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Sheikh, N. (2013). Implementing analytics. Burlington: Elsevier Science.
Speculand, R. (2009). Six necessary mind shifts for implementing strategy. Business Strategy Series, 10(3), pp.167-172.
Unitel.com.la, (2015). Unitel – The best operator in Laos. [online] Available at: https://www.unitel.com.la/index.php/intro/detail/id-5 [Accessed 2 Mar. 2015].
Unitelme.com, (2015). High Speed Internet, Phone, & DirectTV service in Unity, Maine. [online] Available at: https://www.unitelme.com/page/938/home [Accessed 2 Mar. 2015].
Vogelsang, J. (2013). Handbook for strategic HR. New York: American Management Association.
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