The Developmental Needs of LightCo Company - Assignment Example

Introduction The need for every organization to have the best hands that would make it achieved its set objectives and long term goals is very much germane in contemporary times, where there is keen competition across industries due to a globalize market that is easily accessible from any part of the world. Human resource is the most vital among all resources that an organisation possesses. Thus, it development would make workers more competence to efficiently meet set objectives. According to Farrazzi & Gatti (2007), “…developing deep, genuine relationships- both internally among co-workers …is one of the most important skills need for performance in workplace”. Thus, Human Resource Development (HRD) is a vital process used in contemporary times to make an organization Human resource inapt and adequately equipped to face the challenges of the time. According to Wilson (1999:27), “An alignment between strategy and training and development is now commonly regarded as a good business sense in all corners of the globe”. This is more adduced to the limited resources and finance to aid an organization in the attainment of its goal. Thus, HR development will go a long way in the organization to attain effectively set goals in the most efficient way. Three levels of strategic decision making have been for an organisation to be successful. This includes the corporate-level, business-level/competitive, and functional strategic level. An organisational corporate – level strategy identifies the portfolio of businesses that in total will comprise the organisation and the several businesses, and the ways in which these businesses will relate to each other. Human resource development strategy adopted by an organization would go a long way in determining how these strategic decisions are well implemented, and the attainment of the right results for the development of the organization. The Developmental Needs Of LightCo Company The LightCo organisation practices a HRD that wants to keep a competence workforce that would efficiently match its priorities and set objectives, at the same time development a flexible workforce that is well developed. The other part of LightCo’s HRD structure is that while the old structure that seek to maintain already made workforce that is experience, thereby saving cost for on-the-scratch training for green workers who are still not experience, its new policy seek to introduce new horns, workers that are without experience still fresh in order to maintain a longer service in the organisation. The foregoing shows that the company is not focus and really chosen a path to follow in terms of its human resource development needs. For its desire to safe cost its prefers to recruit already made executives, where less cost on training will be minimal, still seek to maintain a long career service from young and inexperience workers. Hence, LightCo organisation should either choose to enjoy the benefits and advantages associated with recruiting young and inexperienced workers who will develop their career in LightCo and stay longer, or the company can choose to continue with its old practice of recruiting staffers can have garnered many years of experience, so that the cost of developing their career would be minimal. In essence, what am expressing here is that LightCo human resource development lacks focus and it does not have a permanent and stable policy for workers training and development. For instance, complains have come from he workers that management focuses only on the development of senior executives. The company need to have a well structured training policy for junior workers that should have a continuum in making the process of introducing them into the developmental phase more flexible and easy. While, it is true that top executive should be adequately carried along in the developmental processes of the organisation, as it would be explained later, the middle or junior workers should also be included in the training programme of the company. A closer integration between top management goals and Human Resource Management practices helps to elicit and reward the types of behaviour necessary for achieving an organisation’s strategy. According to Matanmi (2001:7), “as a concept HRM has relatively recently, developed as a generic (i.e. broad, all-embracing), and yet specialised management field that particularly draws its strengths from such multi-disciplinary sources of knowledge that include (but) not exclusively restricted to) personnel management, organisation behaviour (OB), industrial and labour relations, economics, law, psychology and sociology”. In the process of HRM, there is an increasing emphasis on the personal needs of the organisation and its members. Thus, how effectively an organisation’s employee contribute successfully to the attainment of the organisational goals depends to a larger extent upon the ability of its HRM staff. Hence, the challenges of the HRM are to create an organisational environment in which each employee can grow and develop to his or her fullest extent (Sims, 2002:4). To attach the usage and benefit from the development of human resources within an organization there should be structure on ground in the organization that would encourage the thriving of HRM. Effective Human Resource Management practices are recognises as to enhance an organisation’s competitive advantage by creating both cost leadership and differentiation. Today’s competitive global environment has made organisation maintaining a competitive advantage puts a premium on having a committed and competent workforce. Low-cost, high- quality products and services are a result of committed employees all working hard to produce the best products and provide the best services that they can at the lowest possible cost. Thus, it is important that the management of LightCo Company are constantly in touch with top executives’ middle level cadre and they be included in the organisation’s strategic plan, since they have the wealth of experience in the motivation of the organisational workforce into putting their best in the attainment of the strategic goals of the organisation. Furthermore, the possession of information about human resource planning put the Human Resource Manager in a good position to partake in the strategic planning of the organisation. For example, with the available information on human resource planning, this along side with the organisation strategy would bring about the hiring of the best human resource that would be in a better position to efficiently meet the organisation’s goals. In this view, Sims (2002), has it that, as effective partners in helping organisations successfully achieve their goals, Human Resource manager of LightCo firm need to have a clear understanding of exactly what are the organisation’s strategies, and then they must ensure that their own efforts are consistent with provide support for those strategies. To the extent that the Human Resource Management function is seen as a strategic partner and/or a centre of expertise, of course, its manager should also be actively involved in the formulation of corporate and business strategies as well as other functional strategies. Learning Strategies And Interventions Needed In The Different HR Activities In LightCo LightCo organization with its two phase HRD programme; preparatory and development stages should back this stages with strategies that should not only focus in cost saving, but one with long term aim of have competent workers with longer career in the organisation. Human Resource Development plays a strategic component part in the organisation which is now use strategic process in deriving the corporate advantage (either through price leadership or product differentiation) that will make the organisation efficiently attain its corporate goals. This is brought about by the merging of the business strategy with the human resource planning, whereby the best resources planning; whereby the best manpower are made available to efficiently realise the organisational goals and objectives. According to Sims (2002, pg 5), a well-designed organisational strategic plan permits the Human Resource Management department to develop Human Resource Management plans and be better prepared to cope with changes in both the internal and external environments. Today’s organisations need more than a traditional personnel model of Human Resource Management activities that simple involve putting out small fires like ensuring that people are paid on the right day, that the job advertisement meet the newspaper deadline, which the same manager remembers to observe due process before. Sacking the new representative who didn’t work etc. The strategic Human resource management is now widely recognised where the Human Resource Management is seen as a strategic component is organisational management. In essence, The LigthCo firm should have a induction plan for new recruited workers that would acquaint them not only to the job functions of which they are recruited for, but the working strategy and plans set out by the organisation to attain its long term goals. When inducting these fresh workers they should be made to identify how their contribution in the organisation will lead it to attain its general objectives and goals. In the aspect of building a team of workers that would harness the human resource of LightCo organisation and lead to better customer service delivery, interpersonal skills, and leadership skills a strategic framework for harnessing the different activities of the workers, functioning in their different levels and positions. A key factor in the process of integrating strategic planning with Human Resource Management is ensuring that the Human Resource staffers recognise their roles as change agents and strategic business partners. “This becomes difficult to attain in a rapidly changing organisation where the lack of stability tends to leave people with the feeling that they are victims of change rather than champions of it. However, one key to creating a successful Human resource function is to organise the chaos caused by change” (Cipolla, 1996). The human resources that are well developed are apt at managing changes that comes with uncertainties in their official capacity in strategy implementation. A model to illustrate organisational strategic change and HRM was carried out in Warwick University. The diagram below shows a full recognition to the external context of human resource strategy; and also identifies a two- way rather than a one – way relationship with organisational strategy. There is also important recognition of the impact of the role of the personnel function on the human resource strategy content. Source: Model of strategic change and human resource management (Henry and Pettigrew, 1992:139) in ‘Patterns of strategic change in the development of Human Resource management’ in British Journal of Management The illustration above thus, gives a diagrammatic flow and relationship between the changes in business organisational strategies and the external business context and the Management of HRM. It shows the connectivity between organisation strategies, environmental influence and the role and management of HRM in the business strategy. In connection with the above, the LightCo human resource manager in this scenario should play a prominent role in harnessing the organization’s strategy alongside those objectives set to develop the workers who would be implementing the organization strategy, within the context of the environment in which the organization operates. This task will be conducted effectively when the senior and middle managers are carried along in the planning process and the implementation processes of the change. Usually, the senior managers will play more roles in the planning process, while the middle managers, alongside the senior managers, involve in the implementation process. How Would These Strategies And Interventions Be Evaluated To See Their Effectiveness The Peter Principle is of significance here in explaining how HRD strategies should be conducted for effective results. The Peter principle shows how the pattern in which HR decision are formulated regarding the implementation of the organization’s corporate strategy and how to involve competent workers to put up the right attitude towards competing in the actualizing of the organization corporate objectives and goals. The principle gives HR manager the added responsibility to be awakened to the reality that they are significant resource in the actualization of the corporate goal. HR manager and staffers tend to recognise the critical linkages between organisational strategy and Human Resource Management strategy. “The view that Human Resource Management personnel are simply ‘paper pusher’ continues to disappear, to be replaced by the notion that they play a key role in helping to achieve organisational success and determining the organisation’s competitive advantage” (Sims, 2002, pg 5). Thus, the Peter Principle enables Human Resource Managers sees the Human Resource as strategic partners working towards the organisation’s strategic goals. Thus, this gives the organization the right resource to compete favourably. The awareness of strategic function of Human Resource Manager is emphasised by Chaturvedi (2005). He put it that “By design the perspective demands that Human Resource Managers become strategic partners in business operations playing prospective roles rather than their being passive administrators reacting to the requirements of other business functions. Strategic Human Resource Managers need a change in their mind set from seeing themselves as relationship managers to resource managers knowing how to utilise the full potential of their human resources. The Peter Principle has the effect of changing the mind frame of HR manager to making them see the reason to cooperate with other personnel to make right decisions regarding promotion, assigning functions that would affect the strategic and competitive stand of the organization (Peter & Hull, 1969). For an effective integration of the human resources development in LightCo, the role of the top level management of the organization should not only be to integrate workers but also to build them to be able to handle uncertainties and changes that has to do with the airline industry they operate. The ability of the HR Manager to operate in line with changes in the industry will enable the organization workers to be disposed and adapt to new changes in the industry and pattern of the organization’s operations. A key factor in the process of integrating strategic planning with Human Resource Management is ensuring that the Human Resource staffers recognise their roles as change agents and strategic business partners. “This becomes difficult to attain in a rapidly changing organisation where the lack of stability tends to leave people with the feeling that they are victims of change rather than champions of it. However, one key to creating a successful Human resource function is to organise the chaos caused by change” (Cipolla, 1996). The human resources that are well developed are apt at managing changes that comes with uncertainties in their official capacity in strategy implementation. The management of LightCo in this scenario plays a prominent role in harnessing the organization’s strategy alongside those objectives set to develop the workers who would be implementing the organization strategy, within the context of the environment in which the organization operates. This task will be conducted effectively when the senior and middle managers are carried along in the planning process and the implementation processes of the change. Also making junior staffers know and see reasons why they should adopt any newly introduced changes in the organization’s operational mode. Read More