Erica Homes ltd. Project - Research Proposal Example

The upcoming Olympic that will take place in London is a great opportunity that will help promote new business in the area. The event will draw the attention of the world upon the UK and upon London. At this time the city has considerable problems with migrants who don't have a place to work and often not even a place to live. It is thought that the Olympics will provide a chance for the development of the area, for the creation of new jobs and for the integration into society of all the people with ethnic origins other that British. Erica Homes ltd. is planning to take advantage of this event and exploit it to the maximum. If the company purchases land right now it will do it very cheaply. However, as the 2012 Olympic is drawing nearer the value of the land in the outskirts of London will double, if not even triple and the prices of housing in the area will rise accordingly. Thus a great profit for all developers that manage to built before that time. Erica Homes ltd.'s strategy is to purchase land in the area, to build high quality luxurious apartments and to sell them when the market value of estates raises, thus realizing the desired profit. The company will hire internationally renowned engineers, architects, chartered accountants and IT experts. Erica Homes ltd. will employ the strategy of participative decision making. The centralization of decision making has been found to have in most cases a negative impact on a company's relations between its employees and its management. Training, on the other hand has the exact opposite effect on the relations. Therefore Erica Homes ltd. is focusing on developing a structure of the organization that is based on communication in all levels. Every employee has to be able to have an impact on the management of the company and he has to feel it, motivating him to work harder and better. This would also encourage the appropriate integration of all employees, even problematic integrations. In order to achieve this system of participative decision making we are encouraging every employee in Erica Homes ltd. to own shares in the company. However little the investment might be, it will make that person feel linked to the organization in a proprietary sort of way and act accordingly. We will not only offer jobs to 1000 people, we are offering long term investment plans. Other organizations have applied this strategy and it has proven very effective because a person who feels secure about his future and the future of his family is more productive. "Members are part of a common social system or clan and are bonded together through the development of a sense of affiliation and belonging"1. Employees of Erica Homes ltd. will develop a sense of loyalty towards the company. In terms of structure the company will have a Board of Directors, a Shareholders Meeting, a General Manager, managers of the different departments and employees in each department. Erica Homes ltd. aims at being adaptable and flexible according to the needs of its employees and to the market. The good management of the company has to accomplish this while being stable and controlled. "There needs to be growth, resource acquisition and external support, but also tight internal information management and formal communication. The framework suggests an emphasis on the value of human resources, but also emphasizes planning and goal setting"2. Information sharing in the company will be very important. "As a catalyst for organisational growth, the sharing of knowledge is vital to an organisation"3. This will add value to the company and help with the achievement of the participative decision making strategy. Information exchange stimulates creativity and creates intellectual assets which are more important for a company than physical assets. "Sharing knowledge within organisations provides the opportunity to discuss know-what and know-how practices to direct the organisation towards future development and growth"4. The shareholders will elaborate plans and goals for long periods of time. The Board of Directors analyze the plans and the goals within the time frames given and draw schedules to achieve them. The General Manager needs to find ways of making these happen and the decision making process begins. Because Erica Homes ltd. has this type of participative decision making, all the employees are asked to give feedback for what is proposed. All the opinions are gathered and the general manager takes them into consideration and takes the final decision also initiating procedures to implement it. As the information travels within the company different people are able to add value to it. Employees are always informed about the stages of the process and about the projects that the company is implementing. This of course means that the company will have very strict confidential agreements in the labour contract of each employee, so they won't be temped to share information with competing companies that might just have an ear for it. The very high objectives that the company has set for itself call for a very careful and considerate approach to management. As set forth, employees of Erica Homes ltd. are a part of the management process. At first the company needs to purchase the land for the construction to start. While the top management of the company and the Legal Department deals with finding the land, appraising it, contacting the owners, negotiating with them and finally, buying the property, the Human Resources Department will have to deal with the hiring of the new personnel and their training. Because the project is very big it has been estimated that to accomplish it the company needs to increase its numbers from 250 to 1000. Most of the new employees needed are for the construction sites and very few in the Administrative Department. Erica Homes ltd. will use multiethnic workforce from London that is both cheap and very well trained. The company has experience with this kind of projects and will seek to employ workers with whom it has collaborated in the past. Considering the magnitude of the project, the company is planning to employ 700 completely new workers. As construction is a very expensive process the company is planning to train the new employees beforehand. It will be a complete loss of time and money to employ the strategy of training on the job. In the time before the actual creation of the construction sites, when the land is being bought, the unqualified new workers will need to be integrated into the organization and taught the basics of what they have to do. The plan to do this is to develop a program in which the experienced employees train the new ones. This is thought to have two very important outcomes: 1. When actual construction starts all employees will know very well what they have to do and how to do it. They will know how the company works and what is expected of them and will be motivated towards great work productivity. 2. Training done by peers leads to the formation of teams in which people know each other and work together very well. This will mean the avoidance of the situation in which new employees feel less favoured than the experienced ones and it will put all of them on an equal footing when the actual building starts. The trainers will receive financial incentives for their participation in this program. A system of non-financial rewards will be developed for the new employees that do the best in class. Therefore, they will be motivated to actively participate and to make the most of the trainings. Outside training will also be provided for new personnel together with the one already in the company. The system of outside training, however costly, will prove beneficial in the long run because of the expertise of the internationally renowned trainers. The team of architects will analyse the construction sites chosen and provide advice and support in the purchasing of the land. They will work together with the construction engineers and with the foremen of the crews in developing the concept for the apartments and the actual plans. All employees will be invited to give input on the concept. The person with the best original idea will be rewarded with a fully paid holyday offered by the company. Erica Homes ltd. has considered developing a themed project that will work around the concept of the 2012 Olympics. The spirit of sports and fair play is actually integrated in the vision and the values of the company and the apartments will bear this mark. This is a start in developing a marketing strategy for selling the apartments that is linked with the Olympics. The personnel of the Marketing Department of the company will receive special training in this field. Trips to Athens, Greece have been scheduled for the whole department. They are aimed in establishing connections with the developers that have worked for the 2004 Olympics. The specialists from Erica Homes ltd. will have meetings with Greek entrepreneurs that have been a part of the Olympics. The organizational structure of Erica Homes ltd will follow the fair play concept. Employees grow according to skills and achievements. Nobody will have any head start and this will provide all with an equal opportunity. Just like in sports they have to work hard and take advantage of it. The field employees will be divided into crews according to their skills and expertise. The crews will be multicultural. Therefore in a crew there will be people of both sexes and people of very different backgrounds and ethnic origins. This will force everyone to work together ignoring each other's ethnicity. Other organizations have implemented this system also and it has shown that group dynamics helps in evolution. If Erica Homes ltd. were to have crews of homogenous ethnical backgrounds, as the tendency exists between the workers, some might feel that others do less work, or that others benefit from certain advantages because maybe the foreman has the same origin. Mix crews prevent that. Members will be challenged to understand each other and cooperate very well in harmony. The team is what counts. Every person has to be able to work within the team. One motivational technique the Erica homes ltd. will use is rewarding employee loyalty. Research has shown that "maintaining high levels of commitment is important for organizational success and well-being"5. Erica Homes ltd. is actively rewarding employee loyalty and makes this known to them. When a promotion is awarded loyalty is always taken into consideration as well as achievements and productivity in a very transparent points system. Everyone can see the points they have and have a set of criteria by which points are raised. Amongst the criteria loyalty to the company is the third. Bonuses to pay checks can also be gained by loyalty, as can trips with the family in exotic places or education grants for especially gifted children. Other motivational techniques that Erica Homes ltd. uses are the ones linked to the satisfaction of its worker's needs starting with the basic ones of hygiene and health. A healthy worker always achieves more than one who concentrates on his back ache rather than on the work itself. Considering the fact that construction work is very difficult and serious accidents can happen, Erica Homes ltd. has contracted a health clinic where employees and their families have free access whenever they have a problem. Moreover, in breaks during a working day they can benefit form a back massage, as the company will hire a specialized person to do just this. A special room will be constructed near the building site for this specific purpose. Food will be served every day on the site and there will be three chefs that will cook according to the requirements of each culture. A day-care will be organized for the children under seven of the employees. They will have a chance to visit their children twice a day, during breaks and see how they are doing. In the interest of developing a strong organized team that will work effectively together the company is developing a team-building project. This will involve monthly sessions with a trained team-building instructor. There will be a series of organizational games that will teach people to trust each other and to know each other's strengths and weaknesses. From people in the top management, to architects and unqualified workers they will all be present at these sessions. They will be followed by a party in which the families of the employees are also invited and encouraged to socialize. In conclusion, because Erica Homes ltd. has to do a lot in such a short time in order to profit from the upcoming Olympics it has to have the right staff to do it and the staff needs to be very well managed. The employees need to be motivated in such a way that the goals of the organization become their own personal goals. With this project Erica Homes ltd. will become a top competitor in construction and a top employer in the field of human resources. BIBLIOGRAPHY Dastmalchian, Ali & Blyton, Paul (1992), Organizational Structure, Human Resource Practices and Industrial Relations, Personnel Review, Vol. 21, No. 1, MCB UP Ltd Gray, Judy H.& Densten, Iain L (2005), Towards an Integrative Model of Organizational Culture and Knowledge Management, International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Volume 9, No. 2, January - June http://www.usq.edu.au/resources/volume9no2gray.pdf Mitchell, Helen J, (2005) Knowledge Sharing-The Value of Story Telling, International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Volume 9, No. 5, January - June http://www.usq.edu.au/resources/volume9no5mitchell.pdf Fischer, Ronald, (2004) Rewarding employee loyalty: an organizational justice approach, International Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Volume 8, No. 3 http://www.usq.edu.au/resources/vol8fischer3.pdf Organisational Behaviour (n.d.) British Council - Arts, encompassculture, http://www.encompassculture.com/readinggroups/teachingmanagement/organisationalbehaviour/ Strebler M T & Bevan S (1996), Competence Based Management Training, IES Report 302, IES Research Networks http://www.employment-studies.co.uk/summary/summary.phpid=302 Read More