The Strategic Role Of Human Resources In Creating And Sustaining An Environment For Organizational Success – A Case Study Of Coca Cola

Discussion

Write an analysis on the strategic role of human resources in creating and then sustaining an environment in which your organization will thrive.

The human resource department is a crucial department, which is responsible for the conceptualization, development and sustenance of an optimum work environment and high degree of productivity. The leaders of the organization should strive for optimum utilization of the organizational resources and striving for continuous development (Epstein & Buhovac, 2014). The aim of the organizational leaders should be to push the organization to the topmost position in the global market. The organization- Coca Cola is selected for the purpose of this study. This paper would perform a detailed analysis of the strategic role of the human resources personnel in the process of creating and maintaining excellent work standards.

The human resource department in Coca Cola helps the organization in the implementation of sustainable business practices (Karnani, 2013). There are several critical success factors for every organization, which drive the sustainable business dynamics of the organization. The human resource department plays a critical role in the improvement of the critical success factors (Rummler & Brache, 2012). This is described below-

• Development of a sustainable vision and mission of the company
• Development of a suitable leadership pipeline
• Creation of an appropriate organizational structure and implementation of appropriate governance mechanisms that drive the sustainability
• Development of important functional HR capabilities so that there is creation of sustainable HR processes and systems.
• Ability of motivation and engagement of the employees.
• Alignment of the employees with the organizational goals
• Building agile workplace, which is able to adapt to changes in the internal and external environment (Rummler & Brache, 2012).

Coca Cola have diverse employees working in the organization for fulfilling the common goals of the organization (Ulrich, 2013). The human resource department should be aware of the individual citizenship behaviors. The individual behaviors of the employees, which influences the overall functioning of a particular organization is known as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) (Borman & Motowidlo, 2014). The individual behavior is neither explicitly mentioned in the job description nor it is specified in the employment contract. The individual behavior is a personal choice and it depends upon the individual to behave in a particular fashion. The OCB is considered to be beneficial for the organization as it enhances the efficiency, ability to attract as well as retain talented employees and the ability for organizational transformation (Arthaud-Day, Rode & Turnley, 2012). The human resource managers should identify OCB and strive for the maximum utilization of the same.

There are a lot of domains in which the HR plays strategic roles in Coca Cola. The various issues and domains of the organization are discussed below along with the role of HR in each of these domains-

• Issues of diversity, culture, retention and engagement- There is a need for decreasing the attrition rate of the organizations (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 2013). The organizational culture of Coca Cola should be improved and there should be proper management of employees coming from diverse domains (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 2013). The employee engagement activities should be focused upon, which increases the satisfaction level of employees (Bal, Kooij & De Jong, 2013). The satisfied employees would stick to the organization for a longer time.
• Redesigning of the performance management- The focus should be made on the development of the skills of the workforce. There is a need to improve peer to peer relationships and focus should be done on the coaching and development (Epstein & Buhovac, 2014). The numeric scales, formal evaluations, rankings and others are used to evaluate the performance of the employees (Kehoe & Wright, 2013). There is a need of providing positive feedback to the employees based on their performance standards.
• Ensuring satisfaction of the employees- The modern day organizations are looking for the creation of open workspaces; alter their work locations, open policies like work from home and others (Brooke et al., 2013). The flexibility of the workplace practices and better work-life balance fascinates the employees and there is increased employee satisfaction. The productivity levels of the satisfied employees are more, which contributes to organizational success (Mowday, Porter & Steers, 2013). The satisfaction of the employees is also increased by excellent financial and non financial benefits.
• More emphasis on corporate learning- There is a need for increased specialization of skills of the employees so that they can contribute more to the organizational productivity. There is a need to implement face to face learning and development opportunities (Kolb, 2014). The Coca Cola Company should strive to bring the global workforce together to promote an innovative environment for learning. The traditional methods of e-learning are not appropriate for the modern day organizations (Rummler & Brache, 2012). There is a need to introduce an integrated experience of digital learning (Ulrich, 2013). Coca Cola should strive to incorporate an enriching learning culture, increasing employee’s collaboration and focusing on digital learning tools, like online videos, tutorials and others. The HR manager should incorporate the enhancement of capability development (Rummler & Brache, 2012).
• Redesign of talent acquisition – Coca Cola should strive for innovative methods for recruitment and selection of the human resources of the organization. The company should utilize the network recruiting, which implies that the contacts of the employees, contractors, corporate alumni and others should be utilized (Datta & Roumani, 2015). The candidates should also be sourced from global networks. The HR personnel should develop a strong candidate pool, leverage external as well as internal networks, train the hiring manager and formulate a suitable strategy for talent acquisition (Ulrich, 2013).
• Emphasis on career management strategies and talent mobility- The attrition rate of a company poses serious threats to the organization. The organization incurs a great expenditure when hiring a new person. The different costs include cost of hiring, loss of productivity and the reduction in the learning curve of the new hire (Ulrich, 2013). Coca Cola should engage in “facilitated talent mobility”, which means that the employees should be allowed to move into new suitable job roles (Kehoe & Wright, 2013). The employees should be constantly challenged and developed so that they can contribute more to organizational productivity. The company should invest in new recruit orientation, on boarding, offer incentives and others (Rummler & Brache, 2012). The company should also develop career coaches to determine the patterns of the movement (Ulrich, 2013). The employees should be promoted as per their level of experience and not just the functional expertise.
• Adopt innovative tools in HR technology- The talent management process should engage in human resource management systems. The major job functions of human resource involves performance management, payroll, learning, recruiting, succession planning and others, which are best addressed by enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions (Ulrich, 2013). There is a need to hunt for the cost effective vendors who provide the best ERP solutions and human resource information system at the most cost effective way (Rummler & Brache, 2012).

The organization Coca Cola, should strive for quick adaptation to the changing internal and external environment. The leaders should identify the requirement for change, define the change, develop a suitable action plan, deliver the change process and sustain the change (Rummler & Brache, 2012). The HR should devise monitoring mechanisms that reviews the implemented changes (Ulrich, 2013). It is also important to document the various knowledge management systems and make sure that the information is accessible to the new employees as well as existing employees. The leaders should ensure maximum workplace productivity so that the end objectives of the organization are met (Rummler & Brache, 2012).

Conclusion

The HR leaders should invest in workforce planning and talent analytics (Ulrich, 2013). The talent analytics comprises of the collaboration of the analytics and reporting teams in the compensation, recruitment, leadership and learning job roles. The leaders should engage in efficient planning of the work environment and the formulation of suitable HR strategies (Rummler & Brache, 2012). HR

The HR personnel of Coca Cola should engage in the process of change management in the organization (Rummler & Brache, 2012). The existing processes should be revamped and remodeled so that it meets the organizational objectives. The policies should be formulated in such a way that Coca Cola remains ahead of the competition in the global market. The changes should be rapid and should satisfy the critical success factors of the organization.

Conclusion

The human resource job roles are not an annual process and should be done once in every year. It is one of the dynamic job roles that need to be addressed by the human resource managers. The human resource plays an important role in creating a professional environment. The rules and policies of the organization should be formulated in such a way that it satisfies the interest of both the organization and the individual employees. The organization should strive to be the most popular and should possess excellent brand image in the market. The organization should strive to be one of the global leaders and this is possible only through the betterment of the human resource policies.

References

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Kehoe, R. R., & Wright, P. M. (2013). The impact of high-performance human resource practices on employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Management, 39(2), 366-391.

Kolb, D. A. (2014). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT press.

Mowday, R. T., Porter, L. W., & Steers, R. M. (2013). Employee—organization linkages: The psychology of commitment, absenteeism, and turnover. Academic Press.

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Ulrich, D. (2013). Human resource champions: The next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Harvard Business Press.