Human Resource Change - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: Human Resource Change Human Resource Change [Institute’s Human Resource Change Introduction In every human activity and similarly, in every business organization, change is the only thing that is constant, and thus, it enjoys its significant importance in every organization. In other words, in the corporate world, managers are putting continuous efforts to ensure a positive change in their organization (Dessler, 2004). In midst of globalization and technological advancements, organizations are feeling the heat of surviving in this competitive world by changing everyday by introducing new approaches, methodologies, and perspectives. In this changing process, HR managers (Dessler, 2004) play a significant role in determining success or failure of an organization. At the same time, they hold a greater responsibility of providing a motivational workplace environment to their employees, and while doing so, they often are unable to fulfill the expectations of the employees that results in under-motivated employees, subsequently, causing lower productivity and lower performance that is the last thing a company will want from its managers. For this reason, the researcher focused on one of the major companies, Tesco, and identified the problems that HR managers face at the organization to bring an HR change in the organization. In specific, for this paper, the researcher identified the problem of ensuring high-quality performance of employees in the Tesco that has now become a major obstacle for the HR Managers. In the result, managers are looking for strategies and methodologies that can enable them to acquire efficient results in the organization. Tesco’s Background Unquestionably, one cannot discuss the global retail industry while avoiding the role of Tesco that has now become one of the major leaders of the industry. While looking at it in terms of its revenues, Tesco (2011) is behind Wal-Mart and Carrefour in the international retail market. However, besides revenues, Tesco (2011) has proved itself as one of the biggest giants of the retail industry, and has been successful by introducing innovations constantly since its inception in the year 1919 until today. Besides global market, the Tesco is an undefeated competitor in the United Kingdom market and has been an inspiration for other new comers in the retail industry. Historically, Jack Cohen (Tesco, 2011) was the person who founded Tesco in East London in late 1910s. From a small retail outlet in East London in the year 1919, Tesco has now approximately four thousand eight hundred locations around the world. In specific, Tesco (2011) began from selling grocery items; however, now involved in selling of consumer goods, as well as financial services globally. Initially, during its beginning, Tesco Tea was the only brand product that was available at Tesco (2011) in 1920s. By proving it as a leader, in the year 1979, Tesco (2011) was successful in reaching the annual sales of one billion pounds. However, within three years, the annual sales doubled indicating its success in the global retail market. On international level, Tesco (2011) enjoys the credit of becoming the first retailer to indicate nutritional values of its products. During 1990s, Tesco began its journey towards Asian countries, and it has been successful in Asian region until today. In the year 2000, Tesco (2011) launched its official website, and in the year 2007, Tesco (2011) was able to launch its first outlet in the USA. In this regard, from 1919 to 2011, Tesco (2011) has been successful in becoming a global retailer giant. Besides such achievements, Tesco (2011) has been offering a motivational workplace environment to its employees as well. According to its website (Tesco, 2011), the company offers a training and development opportunities to its workforce by allowing them to continue their education while working at the same time, which is an efficient way of the company to encourage its employees to develop themselves while putting efforts to contribute towards the organization as well. Another way of taking care of employees at the Tesco is job-alteration opportunities that enables approximately 10,000 employees (Tesco, 2011) every year to move from their job position to another position while remaining a part of Tesco’s company that is an effective way of allowing employees to prove their skills and capabilities in the organization. Since a decade, Tesco (2011) is giving significant importance to social responsibility and has launched various initiatives to create a softer image of the company globally. Tesco’s notion of ‘every little helps’ (Tesco, 2011) is one of the indications of its emphasis on social responsibility that it shows from its company’s philosophy (Crane, McWilliams & Matten, pp. 291-298, 2008). Analysis of the company’s data has indicated that besides launching initiatives, Tesco has been focusing primarily on achieving customer satisfaction and ensuring customer loyalty. To achieve this status, Tesco has invested in various projects. For instance, company’s data (Tesco, 2011) indicates that the Tesco has spent millions of Euros in Ireland to ensure lower prices of grocery items in the region as part of its efforts to contribute in the society. In the United Kingdom, Tesco (2011) enjoys the significance of an innovative retailer as it established the first supermarket with zero-carbon emission as first step towards its goal of becoming a carbon-free retailer by the year 2050. In this regard, besides usual business processes, Tesco has been successful in portraying itself as a socially responsible organization. In particular, CEO of Tesco (2011), Mr. Terry Leahy said, “By supporting our customers and our staff, and by remaining focused on tackling the key issues that matter to our communities and society at large, we have sought to use Tesco’s size as a force for good” (Werther Jr. & Chandler, pp. 233-239, 2010). Interest Since centuries, humans have been evolving its civilization with knowledge and learning, and even today, one can observe evolution in almost every aspect of human life. In particular, since few decades, there have been significant developments in the field of business that has resulted in the creation of various concepts and notions that now are responsible for different processes in business organizations. In this regard, human resource has now become one of the significant aspects of business organizations that have taken new forms and nowadays, it is enjoying major importance in terms of determining success or failure of a business organization. In the beginning, the HR enabled the organizations to create a new perspective of employees as workforce rather than machines (Foot & Hook, 2005). Nowadays, HR managers are putting their efforts to improve performance and quality of the employees rather than going only after profits and earnings of the organization. In addition, HRM is now inclining organizations to involve in continuous training of the employees, and on the other hand, enabling organizations to focus on the motivational strategies and building of long-term relationships by creating value with the workforce (Bratton & Gold, 2001). Moreover, HR management has even gone a step ahead by making a bigger leap. Today, HR departments and managers are focusing not only on the profits generated by the employees but also on the contributions made towards building a softer image and development of the company (Bloisi et al, 2006), and subsequently, the society. In this regard, a huge number of companies are now taking a holistic and humanistic approach in their organizational, and more specifically, human resource activities and they understand the fact that it is their responsibility to return something to the workforce and people in exchange for the tributary of profits that company has been generating from them. Furthermore, employees today are more conscious, knowledgeable and have serious concerns over the organizational issues and problems. They prefer giving their share of the efforts to companies that are ready to share the concerns of their employees. However, in such processes, HR managers have been confronting a number of issues and problems (Bloisi, 2007) that remain the major notion of deliberation in many parts of the globe. From this understanding, discussion on the identified issue will be very beneficial in avoiding similar issues in the future, and will enable the HR managers to ensure success of the organization. Analysis Undoubtedly, management, and specifically, HR management has not remained an easy task today. In this regard, managers nowadays are confronting hue number of issues and challenges and failure while dealing with issues results in failure of their career. In the result, HR managers at Tesco (2011) go through a lot in carrying out their human resource responsibilities. Particularly, ensuring quality performance of workforce is one of the major responsibilities of HR managers in Tesco, and though it may sounds easy, however, analysis has indicated that managers consider this task the most difficult in the list of an HR manager. It is an observation that managers have to deal with not only employees however a number of factors, such as cultural background of the employees, workforce diversity, ethical issues, issues of globalization, and a huge number of factors that affect performance of the employees. In this regard, in Tesco (2011), changing employees’ attitude to ensure high-quality performance results in a number of problems, and thus, it becomes problematic for the managers to ensure such change in an efficient manner. A huge number of experts (Bloisi, 2007) have carried out research on the similar topic, and thus, the paper will include analysis of problems of HR managers at Tesco (2011). Simultaneously, it will endeavor to include tools that will allow them to carry out the procedures of HR management, and facilitate them in dealing with the identified issue in an effective manner. Analysis (Daft, 2007) has indicated that the identified issue has become the problem of most of the companies globally, and thus, various organizations are putting efforts to identify strategies that can enable managers to ensure high-quality performance and productivity of the employees. In this regard, employee motivation (Daft, 2007) is one of the major strategies of HRM that allows the managers to motivate employees that subsequently results in increment of productivity of the employees. From psychological interpretation, as well as from nonprofessional understanding, it is obvious that a highly motivated individual will be more likely to bring a positive outcome, as compared to an unmotivated individual. In this regard, Tesco has been putting huge number of costs to motivate its 472,000 employees (Tesco, 2011) as in the year 2010. In specific, it has been an observation that organizations use different methodologies to motivate their employees, and in this regard, Tesco has been offering packages of insurances, incentives, loans, bonuses, entertainment, and a lot more to ensure effective motivation of its employees. By offering such packages, Tesco (2011) has been focusing on only one objective: employee satisfaction, and in the result, HR managers at Tesco have now come to an understanding that employee satisfaction is the only way of ensuring customer satisfaction, and subsequently, success of the organization. In the result, while managers at the HR department have been confronting the issue of ensuring high productivity and quality performance of the employees, the company has been successful in facilitating managers with efficient HR policies, such as that of employee motivation program. This indicates the reasons of Tesco’s revenues of approximately sixty-two billion pounds (Tesco, 2011) in the year 2010 in midst of economic recession. In this regard, experts (Mathis & Jackson, 2007) believe that a company should emphasize significantly on employee motivation and consider it one of the organizational objectives if they desire high-performance employees as its assets (Foot & Hook, 2005). Analysis has indicated that while brining an organizational change, a company has to benefit from its assets and has to reduce its liabilities. In this regard, unmotivated employees work as a liability in an organization, and thus, presence of unmotivated or under-motivated workforce has been the major issue of HR managers globally (Bratton & Gold, 2001). Analysis of different researches (Murray, 2002) has suggested that it is better for the HR managers to get rid of unmotivated individuals if one cannot enhance their level of motivation, as liability can only cause failure for the organization. However, at the same time, few experts (Hastings, 2007) have indicated that getting rid of employees should be the last resort of any organization, as companies put huge efforts and incur costs to recruit an individual, and getting rid of the same increase only the losses, and thus, managers should avoid going for the alternative of termination. In this regard, although managers are aware about the importance of motivation; however, many managers have been confronting failures while motivating their employees. Scrutiny of resources has pointed out the answer that indicates the selection of motivational approach that plays an imperative role in determining success or failure of the methodology (Bloisi, 2007). In this regard, managers commonly commit the error of considering money as the only factor of motivating their employees, and this has been one of the major causes of failure of motivational programs of organizations. Experts (McLoughlin & Aaker, 2010) have noted that in some organizational cases, money does not even play a secondary role when it comes to motivating the employees. In this regard, several other factors such as workplace safety, job security, health and hygiene, cultural diversity, etc play a dominant and greater role than the money factor (Mathis & Jackson, 2007). From this understanding, one can state that Tesco (2011) and several other companies confront various problems while carrying out a change in the HR process; however, to deal with them, companies require visionary leadership skills of HR managers who must be able to distinguish between efficient motivational approaches while considering the particular situation. For instance, while analyzing the same issue at the Tesco, it was an observation that in the past, HR managers at Tesco were trying to motivate financially settled individuals with the money factor that was turning into a failure. However, analysis allowed them to understand the importance of other motivational factors that facilitated the managers in achieving the objective of motivating those particular individuals (Bloisi et al, 2006). Further scrutiny of literature (McLoughlin & Aaker, 2010) has identified another approach that can ensure high-performance employees at Tesco (2011) and other organizations globally, employee training. It has been an observation that in Tesco, the company bears the expenses of approximately five hundred dollars on each employee on annual basis for their trainings, and this amount was quite similar to other top organizations in Western countries. However, in Asian countries, this amount cuts to half that indicates the lack of understanding regarding the importance of employee training that can play an effective role in ensuring high-productivity workplace environment in the organizations (McLoughlin & Aaker, 2010). Precisely, training allows the organizations to educate and prepare the employee according to the organizational requirements, while doing so, the company simultaneously shares its objectives and goals with the employees. In the result, it transforms organizational vision into a shared vision that increases the chances of efficiency in the organization, and this happens at the Tesco as well that puts enormous efforts in training its workforce. Recommendations From personal experience, as well as from abovementioned analysis of different researches, it is a recommendation that Tesco and several other organizations should put efforts on emphasizing the implementation of intrinsic compensation that can be very significant in achieving objectives of the human resource managers in the organizations. In addition, it is a suggestion for the Tesco to focus on five job characteristics: ‘skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback’ (McLoughlin & Aaker, 2010) that will be very efficient for them in ensuring high-productivity and quality performance in their organization. From the consideration of these traits, the HR managers will be able to tackle with identified issue, as well as several different issues effectively. Particularly, skill variety will enable the managers to identify the degree to which a work gets the chance to prove his capabilities during a task. Besides, task identity is the extent that allows a worker to own a task based on his individual performance. The third trait, task significance is the level of impact that a task results on another task or other employees in the organization. Moreover, autonomy indicates the level of freedom that individuals get during their different tasks in the organizations in terms of their decision-making power. Lastly, the last trait refers to the extent to which managers give value to feedback of the employees in an organization. From recognition of these five core job traits, it is an understanding that the organization will be able to employ the most appropriate motivational strategy on the employees, and will be able to acquire most efficient outcomes. Besides emphasis on the five job characteristics, it is an observation that globalization has resulted in existence of employees from various distinct cultural and social backgrounds working in one single organization. In the result, HR managers now face a greater responsibility of dealing with the employees according to their social and cultural values. In this regard, managers should be very cautious in avoiding any conflict of individual culture with the organizational culture that may cause very adverse impact in the organization. Conclusion In conclusion, the paper included analysis on some of the major issues that HR managers at Tesco and several other organizations confront while dealing with their employees. Although Tesco has now become one of the leading organizations globally, however, still, its managers face several issues while bringing out change in their different procedures and processes. In specific, to ensure high-productivity and quality-performance employees, it is very important that managers should endeavor to understand the situation first and then put efforts in employing a motivational strategy. Although money plays an important role in motivating humans, however, several other factors are imperative in ensuring success in an organization. Finally, HR managers have the major responsibility to evaluate and decide about the tools and strategies that can result in the most efficient outcomes. References Bloisi, W. (2007). Introduction to Human Resource Management. McGraw-Hill Bloisi, W. Cook, C. & Hunsaker, P. (2006) Management, and Organisational Behaviour. McGraw-Hill. Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2001). Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice. Routledge. 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