Developing Human Resource Strategies - Assignment Example

?Developing Human Resource Strategies Executive Summary The discussion undertaken in this report mainly focuses on the importance of Human Resource Management (HRM) and Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) in an organisation named Toyco. Moreover, it also discusses varied definitions, theories and models of SHRM in order to illustrate its importance in the organisation. Other than this, it also comprises of an action plan for Toyco in order to enhance its productivity and revenue margin. The objective of this paper is mainly to highlight the importance and significance of HRM and SHRM in Toyco. It also includes a detail overview about varied SHRM theories and ability, motivation and opportunity model (AMO) in order to describe the diverse aspects and features of SHRM in the organisation. It also comprises of a few recommendations along with an action plan in order to enhance the business objectives. Table of Contents Executive Summary 2 Introduction 4 Overview of Toyco 4 Toy Industry of United Kingdom 5 Internal and External Environment 5 Analysis 6 Overview of HRM and SHRM 6 AMO Model 9 Conclusion 10 Recommendations 10 Action Plan 12 References 13 Bibliography 16 Appendices 18 Introduction Overview of Toyco Toyco is a toy company which is currently operated independently by Martin Monk. It was established in the year 1950 by Harold Bennet. The prime objective of Toyco is to offer extensive range of toys to the children of the society with the intention to enhance the brand loyalty of the organisation (Michell, 2011). Even though, Toyco needs to implement certain SHRM strategies, it had to witness varied types of challenges in its human resource, marketing and finance related operations. Due to lack of coordination among the employees of the organisation, uniform organisational culture could not be maintained within Toyco. As a result, the devotion and morale of the employees are also affected to a high extent, resulting in downfall of the profit margin of the organisation. In addition, this may also result in employee conflicts leading to increase of turnover and absenteeism rates. Along with human resource, the marketing department in the organisation is also facing diverse issues (Michell, 2011). Due to lack of allocation of human resources, the employees are observed to fail to offer various innovative products to the target customers, which might hinder the image of the organisation in long run. Moreover, due to lack of motivation, employee devotion and commitment towards the assigned task is reducing at a considerable pace, which in turn tends to hinder Toyco’s productivity and efficiency. As a result, the customer might shift towards other leading competitors resulting in the downfall of the total sales of Toyco, which might be detrimental for the organisation (Michell, 2011). Thus, these above mentioned challenges should be diminished with the help of various SHRM strategies within the organisation. Toy Industry of United Kingdom The toy market of United Kingdom is regarded to be highly competitive in the current day context. It includes many apparent competitors. Moreover, each and every organisation is currently observed to attempt to offer inventive products to magnetise large number of customers (Michell, 2011). It is essential to retain its market share as well as profitability in the market with the purpose to augment customer loyalty and responsiveness (Armstrong & et. al., 2009). Internal and External Environment The internal environment of Toyco includes its brands, its financial strengths as well as market competencies. Notably, the company serves its customers with a varied range of products such as reaction man, action girl, space geeks and bolbs among others of varying age groups. This significantly contributes to the overall enhancement of its brand uniqueness and reputation in the market. Moreover, the company includes a strong hold over the European and Mexican market intends to enhance its distinctiveness among other competitors operating in same segment. However, the company attempts to retain its brand portfolio offers more concentration over innovation. This is mainly done in order to attract large number of customers to enhance its market share (Michell, 2011). On the other hand, the environment of this industry comprises with the aspects of industry structure, trade barriers in the foreign market, social, as well as economic factors. It is in this context that the companies related to toy sector is changing from a complicated to a fragmented market structure, as a result to which the trade barriers are reducing at a rapid speed, quite likely to offer varied opportunities for the new entrants to the competitive market of toys (Scribd, n.d.). The main threat for the toy organisations operating in foreign market is alterations in the tastes and preferences of the children due to innovation of technologies (Mercer,1996). Other than this, intense demand of the computer and video games is also another noteworthy factor, which might hamper the identity of any toy company in this recent era. Another noteworthy risk of Toyco in its external market environment can be regarded as the impact of economic fluctuations, which might influence the buying habits of the customers, resulting in a fluctuation of finances within the company (Scribd, n.d.). Analysis Overview of HRM and SHRM Human Resource Management (HRM) is a method of managing the workers of an organisation in an effective and efficient way. The practice of HRM mainly deals with recruiting, assorting, training, evaluating and rewarding the employees of an organisation. HRM is also essential to maintain a proper culture within the organisation in order to preserve harmonisation and coordination among the hierarchy (Ward, 2005). Thus, it can be avowed that an appropriate HRM can be maintained with the help of varied suitable strategies (Armstrong, 2006). In the similar context, Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) is one of the important branches of HRM, which primarily attempts to connect HRM with various strategic aims and objectives in order to enhance the productivity, sustainability and profitability of an organisation (Van Lotringen International, 2005). Moreover, SHRM also facilitates in developing a well-organized organisational culture (Lumijarvi, 2007). In addition, SHRM helps to identify diverse human resource aspects, in which strategies can be implemented in order to enhance employee motivation and performance (Armstrong & Baron, 2002). For this reason, SHRM is considered to be one of the most powerful and influential techniques utilised by a business enterprise in order to sustain in the long run. This can also be proved with the help of various theories namely resource based view of the firm, innovation strategy and behavioural perspective theory. Resource Based View Theory of the Firm (RBV) RBV is one of the most significant theories of SHRM. It mainly describes that the workers are the most valuable resources as their contribution leads to the success of an organisation. This theory also describes that any specific strategy or approach should be implemented in the organisation according to the needs and demands of the work forces (Scribd, n.d.). Applying the RBV theory, in the case of Toyco, it can be stated that there is a huge inter personal gap existing within the employees due to lack of communication. It has been further observed that the managing director of Toyco, Mr Gordon Bennet does not desire to interact or assist the other co-employees, which is quite likely to hinder employee morale to a high extent. In the long run performances, this would lead to decline of employee commitment resulting in downfall of brand distinctiveness in the market (Michell, 2011). This shows that the functions of SHRM should be more effectively utilised in order to improve the operations of Toyco. Innovation Strategy Innovation strategy is also another important approach of SHRM, which is utilised in order to improve the competitiveness of an organisation in the market (Armstrong, 2009). It also helps to improve the responsiveness and dependency of the customers, which is extremely essential for an organisation to sustain in long run (Armstrong, 2006). However, in case of Toyco, the HR manager should be more devoted towards innovation techniques to avoid any type of changes which can be detrimental for an organisation. This is because, in order to cope up from the challenges of recession, it is crucial for Toyco, to offer various inventive products to retain its eminence in the market. Behavioural Perspective Theory This theory mainly deals with employee behaviour and attitudes within an organisation. It helps to maintain a uniform organisational culture, resulting in the reduction of employee conflicts along with the overall enhancement of competency and efficiency of the workers (Hill & Jones, 2009). In case of Toyco, heterogeneous and unstructured organisational culture is observed due to lack of communication among the employees. For this reason, many qualified and competent employees left the organisation which hindered its success by a significant level (Michell, 2011). AMO Model According to Boselie (2011), AMO model is one of the most vital approaches of SHRM. It is a common framework utilised for conceptualizing and evaluating the HR practices of a High Performance Working System (HPWS) in order to improve its effectiveness in the long run. The model is mainly based on three notions of Ability, Motivation and Opportunity. In this theory, the performance of an organisation is a function of all the three dimensions and is presented as P = f (A,M,O) (Boselie, 2011). Hence, this model confirms that an individual employee’s ability, motivation and involvement in job-related decision making would influence both organisational efficacy and individual productivity (Katou, 2008). Toyco’s SHRM strategies need to focus more on employee participation in terms of any organisational verdict in order to improve employee coordination and thus refurbish the existing organisational culture toward increasing productivity. This hinders employee performance along with enthusiasm, leading to downfall of revenues (Michell, 2011). Conclusion Conclusively, it can be affirmed that the strategies of HRM present within Toyco needs more improvement in order to assist both the employee growth as well as development of the organisational prospects. In order to do so, proper coordination should be maintained among the workers, which would reduce employee dissatisfaction and discontentment. Hence, the total sales of Toyco would also get enhanced in the short run. Moreover, the corporate image as well as productivity would also improve. It would also augment its market share along with customer responsiveness among other market players. It would be highly valuable for Toyco to retain its attributes and association among its consumers. In order to improve the internal scenario of Toyco, proper strategies of HRM needs to be implemented. Thus, to improve the overall profit of Toyco, varied types of strategic planning is vital in the corporate level, business level and functional level. Recommendations After evaluating the entire scenario of Toyco, it can be revealed that the management of the organisation should offer higher concentration over job-related training programmes. This would enhance the knowledge as well as the technical skills of the employees. In addition, at the time of training programme, proper coordination and communication would also take place among the employees of diverse departments. As a result, proper sharing of varied ideas and facts would lead to augmentation of information as well as awareness. Other than this, the management of the organisation would also acquire a detail understanding of the diverse talents and abilities of the employees. This would facilitate the management in proper allocation of the responsibilities of a work resulting in a uniform organisational culture. Other than this, the management of Toyco should also attempt to reallocate the employees in such as way, so that it helps to enhance the productivity of the organisation. This can be done, by removing the human resources, utilised for the production of the low demand toys such as space geeks towards those products comprising of high demand in the market namely reaction girls and bolbs. This can improve the competency and effectiveness of Toyco in the market. Moreover, the administration of Toyco should also implement the technique of offering rewards to the productive and efficient employees of its organisation in order to improve their motivation and confidence. It would also enhance the competition among the work forces so as to perform better. Action Plan Action How Sensible Measurable Achievable Realistic Timed 1)Job-related training programmes According to the requirement of the job and employee on the basis of appraisal It would improve employee efficiency It can be measured by evaluating the total sales of Toyco With the help of management Reasonable cost Within 8 months 2) Reallocation the employees Due to the requirement of Toyco Productivity of Toyco By evaluating the profitability With management Reasonable cost Within 5 months 3) Reward facility In order to improve employee performance Productivity of Toyco To improve the efficiency With management Reasonable cost Within 5 months References Armstrong, G. & et. al., 2009. Marketing: An Introduction. Pearson. Armstrong, M., 2006. A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. Kogan Page Publishers. Armstrong, M. & Baron, A., 2002. Strategic HRM: The Key to Improved Business Performance. CIPD Publishing. Armstrong, M., 2009. 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Appendices SWOT analysis of Toyco Strengths: High control over European market : Continuous innovation : Good brand image Weaknesses: Improper dexterity among the organisational hierarchy : Low level of technology in manufacturing places Opportunities: Strong prospects in Japanese market Threats: Change in taste of the children’s : Rising demand of computer and video games (Source: Scribd, n.d.) Read More