GS Plumbing in Hot Water - Essay Example

?HRM case study – GS Plumbing in Hot Water Introduction The increase of competition in all industrial sectors, as a result of globalization, has led firms to differentiate their strategies in order to face their rivals. However, often, the control of inter-organizational problems is proved more difficult compared to the handling of the market pressures. An example of this case is the GS Plumbing, a firm operating in the plumbing industry. Despite its rapid growth, the firm has to address a series of critical issues including the low employee performance and the fact that employees leave the firm for competitors. It seems that appropriate HR practices need to be introduced for help the firm to stabilize its performance towards its rivals. The above problem is explored in this paper; HR tools and practices are suggested for the limitation of the firm’s HR challenges, as described above. It is concluded that strategies, like the HR audit and the HR benchmark could significantly help towards the limitation of the firm’s HR gaps. However, it would be necessary that these plans are appropriately monitored in all their phases; the hiring of employees and the training of existing staff should become indispensable elements of the firm’s HR strategy. 1. So far, GS Plumbing has not conducted a formal audit of the HR function. Why would this activity be useful and who should be involved? Through the case study it is made clear that GS Plumbing faces a series of HR management problems. Alan, as the firm’s HR manager has the responsibility for the appropriate handling of all relevant problems. As revealed through the case study, Alan is willing to develop the firm’s HR policies. However, delays occur in regard to the achievement of this target. These delays are partially related to the following fact: Alan has to work on administrative tasks that would be normally handled by other members of the staff – referring especially to Gail and Jane. The fact that Alan has to perform tasks like the payroll is worrying, showing that Jane, who is responsible for billing and accounts is not able to respond to all the needs of her position. In other words, the inability of the firm’s administrative staff to complete necessary daily tasks has led to the inability of Alan to concentrate on the firm’s most crucial HR policies. At the same time, problems like increased absence from work, low employee performance (resulted to increased customer complaints), lack of appropriate training of new staff and luck of trust across the organization need to be appropriately addressed. A solution should be also identified in order to keep existing staff motivated – periodically employees leave the company for the competitors. The HR audit could help to identify all failures in gaps in the firm’s HR policies, helping the firm’s senior managers to understand how ‘HR policies could contribute to the organizational success’ (Mathis and Jackson 2008, 62). Moreover, it could help to locate a series of appropriate solutions. In accordance with Phillips (1996) the HR audit function can help to identify the effectiveness of the firm’s HR policies, reviewing all areas of HR function, including the hiring, training and remuneration processes and policies of the organization (Phillips 1996, 37). At this point, it should be noted that the requirements of HR audit, can be many, including legal, technical and managerial issues (Storey 2009). The HR audit in GS plumbing could be based on a survey. The use of alternative method of HR audit, such as the interviews could be also used (Phillips 1996, 37), in case that the firm’s technical staff would agree with this strategy. Alan would be the most appropriate person to develop the HR audit across the organization knowing well all details related to the firm’s operations but also the challenges that the firm has to face within its market. 2. Unplanned absence of employees is a particular issue at GS Plumbing. Develop a process to address this issue. Since the unplanned absence of employees is extended in GS Plumbing appropriate measures should be taken by the firm to minimize the relevant time. The process that could help to achieve the above target could, indicatively, include the following phases: a) since his/ her hiring each employee (including the members of his/ her family) would be given access to a series of medical benefits, for instance free check – ups on a regularly basis aiming to identify any severe problem of health early, b) ‘childcare arrangements’ (Torrington and Taylor 2008, 353) could be made for employees who have children, aiming to help them locate free time or better organizing their working time, c) severe penalties should be introduced for employees who extensively use their right for absence because of sickness – referring to those using this right with no reason, i.e. those pretending a health problem, d) the firm should make an arrangement with a local health institute, for checking the health status of employees each time they are absent because of sickness, e) in other cases, apart from sickness, employees will be asked to report the reasons of their absence to the firm’s HR department which will decide on the validity of the employee’s absence, f) employees should be notified that in case of non-justifiable absence for more than 3 times, they would be fired. In other words, the message that policies exist in place for ‘controlling excessive absence’ (Pibeam and Corbridge 2006, 307) should be given to the employees. At the same time, the view of Cook (2010) who suggests ‘early intervention and tackling the underlying causes of stress at work’ (Cook 2010, 41) would be made into consideration for controlling unplanned absence in the particular organization. 3. What should GS Plumbing be doing when employees leave the organization? How could such activities improve retention, recruitment and selection? In accordance with the case study, in GS Plumbing no plan exists regarding the filling of gaps in the workplace. In fact, it seems that each time that an employee leaves the organization – usually for a competitor, as mentioned in the case study – then delays are caused in the delivery of the firm’s services. As a result, the complaints from customers are increased, a fact also related to the practices used by the firm’s technical staff. In accordance with the literature published in this field, the fact that employees leave the organization for the competitors could be possibly regarded as a chance for improving the quality of the workforce. More specifically, in the context of such risk, the firm’s HR managers could introduce more effective selection strategies, testing the ability and the willingness of the candidates to follow the firm’s rules and stay loyal to the organization. At the same time, the above problem could be a cause for the firm to improve its retention strategies, establishing schemes that support employee motivation. For example, benefits would be established for the employees that perform upon a specific level on a weekly or monthly basis. Also, benefits of other types, such as leisure or educational programs for the members of families of the staff or reduced prices on certain products/ services (after relevant arrangements with local entrepreneurs) could be provided to the most competent employees – not necessarily based on their performance within a specific period of time. In the above context, appropriate HR plans should be in place so that, when employees leave the organization, the hiring of the required staff to be developed with no delay (the existence of a database with relevant data could help the firm’s HR department to be ready for facing such problems). Another strategy that could help towards the effective control of the above problem would be the following one: the firm’s HR managers need to choose, among all the firm’s employees, those who should remain at work; they are those who should mainly enjoy a series of benefits (for ensuring their satisfaction as members of the organization). These employees can be identified, within the organization, using the following criteria: they are ‘those who have talent and are contributors’ (Dibble 1999, 18). In accordance with McCooey and McCooey (2009), under certain terms, it would be preferable that ‘goals are set instead of policies’ (McCooey and McCooey 2009, 14). 4. How could Alan benchmark the HR function at GS Plumbing? How could the process be conducted? HR benchmarking aims to check the effectiveness of a firm’s HR policies. Benchmarking is based on the following process: ‘the measures of performance of the firm are compared against data on those measures of other organizations’ (Mathis and Jackson 2008, 61). One of the most common measure of such type is the cost of employees – as compared to the cost of employees of other organizations. In accordance with Holbeche (2009) benchmarking is particularly important in order to understand the performance of a firm against to its competitors. An indicative example of the phases of the benchmarking process is presented in the Appendix section (Graph1). At this point, the following issue should be made clear: benchmarking may not lead to precise findings when organizations with different characteristics are compared. For example, organizations with different number of employees would have different HR needs; therefore the costs of their HR department would be expected to be different (Mathis and Jackson 2008, 61). Alan could benchmark the HR function at GS Plumbing by comparing data related to the firm’s operations with the relevant data of competitors or of professional associations (Mathis and Jackson 2008, 61). For example, the weekly hours of work or the weekly profits of the firm’s staff could be compared with relevant data – available from competitors or for other organizations, as explained above. In any case, the specific process would require the following phases: a) examination of ‘the role that HR function plays in the organization’ (Secord 2003, 54), b) the examination of the firm’s external environment, c) the identification and evaluation of the definition of roles and the distribution of tasks among employees (Secord 2003). The support of the other members of the senior management team, referring to Gail and Jane would be of critical importance for the success of the above task. 5. Are these issues at the senior management level? Could the evaluation function assist here? One of the key characteristics of the HR problems developed across the GS plumbing is the fact that these problems are mostly related to the firm’s technical staff, i.e. the plumbers. At the senior management level, consisting from four persons, i.e. from Greg, Alan, Gail and Jane, HR problems seem to be quite limited. In fact, the review of the case study led to the assumption that only the inability of Jane to complete all tasks of its department would be regarded as a HR gap at the firm’s specific level. Also, the above gap could be even justified, if taking into consideration the fact that Jane works part-time and her workload is extremely high, so that incomplete tasks in her department would be difficult to be avoided. The evaluation of the organization’s HR function – using the findings of the HR audit and the benchmarking, as described above – could further help to improve the performance of the firm’s HR department, revealing the potential weaknesses and gap of the specific organizational sector (Phillips, Stone and Phillips 2001). Moreover, the evaluation of the current status and the performance of the firm’s HR department could help to achieve the following target: to identify additional roles that the specific department could play within the organization, for example, to assist the firm’s expansion in its market. Such perspective is emphasized in the study of Sparrow, Brewster and Harris (2004) where reference is made to the potentials of HR function to support the globalization of an organization. Conclusion The use of appropriately customized HR policies, as described above, could help GS Plumbing to face its HR problems. However, the effectiveness of these policies would require the support of all employees, an issue that should be addressed by the firm’s senior management team. At this point, it seems that the lack of trust and cooperation among employees in GS Plumbing can be the major challenge that the firm would have to face when trying to update its HR policies. In the case study, reference is made to the fact that many employees leave the firm for competitors while others undertake work independently from the firm’s work schedule using the firm’s equipment. In this context, the update of the firm’s HR strategy, as suggested above, could support its growth but the relevant initiatives should be combined with changes in the organizational culture and discipline. In the context of this approach, employees would be allowed to develop their own plan of work but within limits. Employee motivation and support should not be confused with the total independency of employees since the result could be the opposite from the one expected, as proved through the problems that GS Plumbing currently faces. References Cook, S. 2010. Coping with Unplanned Absences: A Pocket Guide. Cambridgeshire: IT Governance. Dibble, S. 1999. Keeping your valuable employees: retention strategies for your organization's most important resource. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Holbeche, L. 2009. Aligning human resources and business strategy. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Mathis, R. and J. Jackson. 2008. Human resource management. Belmont: Cengage Learning. McCooey, D. and D. McCooey. 2009. Keeping Good Employees on Board: Employee Retention Strategies to Navigate Any Economic Storm. Garden City: Wordclay. Phillips, J. 1996. Accountability in human resource management. Woburn: Gulf Professional Publishing. Phillips, J., Stone, R. and P. Phillips. 2001. The human resources scorecard: measuring the return on investment. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Pibeam, S. and M. Corbridge. 2006. People Resourcing: Contemporary HRM in Practice. Essex: Pearson Education. Secord, H. 2003. Implementing best practices in human resources management. Toronto: CCH Canadian Limited Sparrow, P., Brewster, C. and H. Harris. 2004. Globalizing human resource management. London: Routledge. Storey, J. 2009. The Routledge companion to strategic human resource management. Oxon: Taylor & Francis. Stredwick, J. 2005. Introduction to Human Resource Management. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Torrington, D. and S. Taylor. 2008. Human Resource Management. Essex: Pearson Education. Wisniewski, M. 2009. Quantitative Methods for Decision Makers. Essex: Pearson Education. Appendix Focusing on a specific process Mapping, measuring and analyzing the organization’s own process Comparing own process with another organization which is getting better results Setting challenging targets for improvement Adapting processes and practices of the better performing organization Implementing and monitoring process improvements Graph 1 – Benchmarking process, as in Stredwick (2005, 36) Read More