Tarmac Limited Business: Municipal And Community Projects - Case Study Example

The paper "Tarmac Limited Business: Municipal and Community Projects" is an excellent example of a case study on business. A business case is an important step for any company in explaining the reasons for undertaking a given project, explaining the economic value of the project as well as a framework for its completion (Baxter, 2002). This analysis is based on Tarmac’s business case for diversity in terms of the approaches used in relation to organizational concept and human processes. Diversity is an organizational concept used by Tarmac limited to ensure its goals are professionally met by exceptionally qualified staff.

This is implemented through different human resource processes including the staff recruitment process. The department is charged with ensuring the workforce is composed of different people from different backgrounds with diverse culture and ethnicity, as well as different age groups. This diversity of people bring with them a wide range of corporate experience, technical knowledge, as well as different ways of understanding customers. Another way in which Tarmac manages diversity is by adopting the behavioral concept of culture.

They have made it their culture to convey this culture by getting employees involved in different aspects of development including training, orientation, and development. The major organizational behavior concept that is so implemented by the human resource processes within Tarmac limited is diversity in itself. Human resource is involved in this by preparing employees from overseas for the tasks that they are expected to perform within the organization. They also hire international candidates as well as enforcing the legal requirement of non-discrimination at work, in any form.

The workforce of Tarmac is composed of masculine men as well as the old employees and ladies. This ensures no discrimination against age and gender, thereby bringing in more customers from such diverse backgrounds. A greater cultural difference has also helped this company to understand its customers better and provide them with better services which are tailor-made for each of them, allowing the company to survive much economic turbulence, which many other companies have failed to survive. Tarmac’s strategy, though have such strong implementation plans, it also have some weaknesses.

The company in an attempt to have the most diverse workforce does face many issues that in a way, form obstacles to meeting this goal. There is the problem of financing recruitment and promotion. This affected the company during 2010/11 recession when the company had to cut down on its spending. Another problem is trying to meet the diversity when the diversity in itself is so dynamic that a department considered to be diverse may not be so in the next two years due to the effect of promotions and retirement.

It is also very hard for Tarmac to meet this requirement especially in the heavy building materials sector which may not be too friendly to older people or ladies in general. This makes this ambitious culture not easily applicable in such areas. The language barrier is also another major issue. Some staff may be good but have a language problem. Currently, the English speaking staff have the upper hand compared to non-English. This may pause language discrimination in a way. Finally, the company is located in the UK, and this makes it hard to access the labor force from different other countries.

It’s high time they considered their presence in all continents to reduce the cost of having to migrate to the UK for one to work for the company on the new recruits. Despite all the weaknesses above, the company uses the diverse employees to minimize the cost of constantly recruiting and training new employees since the employees themselves exist harmoniously with each other-a culture enhanced by diversity itself (Business Case Studies LLP, 2012). Other benefits include, but not limited to a wider market, reduced costs, proper management of assets, responsibilities for their actions which make them be accepted by many local communities it operates amongst.

The cost of this policy also exists in times when the company has to retain older staff who might not be adding much value especially due to the nature of activities done by the company. Sometimes, poaching for a staff, say from another country to fill a position that could as well be filled by many other qualified UK citizens, may attract extra costs. This may not be doing good to the number one goal of any company to maximize profits. However, up to now, the benefits seem to outweigh the cost, hence, it is a noble idea and the cost incurred may just be that necessary one.

Tarmac limited is not just an organization that is an end to itself but manifests also social justice by listening to the communities they operate amongst and by bringing many jobs to such communities. They fulfill their social justice responsibilities by showing a high level of commitment to the local environment they operate in and showing a high level of concern to the stakeholders in general. This, according to the business case, has enabled them to win the “informal license’’ to operate among them.

Ethically, training staffs during recruitment as is seen by Tarmac’s employees who wrote in the respondents and quoted in the case as well as following the recommended human resource practices like motivating staffs, evaluating them and doing a proper appraisal for promotion purposes, have reflected well with this role of an organization (Weinhardt, 2015). All the above are practiced by Tarmac according to the case given. The functions above directly relate to the organization’s concept of culture, motivation, personality, and ethics.

The human resource processes used to implement these concepts include managing diversity and conforming to legal requirements of equal opportunity. They are also implemented through the process of developing motivation techniques by use of performance management tools and reward tools as well as assessing the suitability of an individual to a particular post.