Caf Co - Importance of Ulrichs Human Resource Model - Case Study Example

Introduction Human resource management is the approach that deals with coherent and strategic activities that are undertaken by an organization to manage the personnel of that organization. The personnel of any organization is deemed as the most important asset of an organization as it collectively or individually work towards achieving the objectives of that organization. In a more general manner, human resource management can be defined as the process under which an organization employs people, develop their capabilities, use their services, maintain their services and compensate them for their services to the organization. All this is deemed to be in tune with the specific requirements of the organization (Bloisi, 2007). 1. Case Study: Caf Co Before the review and after Caf Co adopted its new outlook of its human resource management, its human resource management had a number of similarities with its new outlook on human resource management. One of the similarities was that Caf Co recognized its personnel as the most important asset of the company and to this end various amendments were made to benefit the workforce of the caf. There was also the aspect that the human resource of the organization was deemed as a very important channel of the caf achieving its objectives and goals and this played a very important part in ensuring that the personnel were well trained and recruited to ensure that they met their objectives. This brought about the similarity that the personnel of the organization were well trained and also that new employees were well recruited before joining the organization. There was also the fact that the employees were handpicked from the best selection the market had to offer and old employees were subjected to refresher course at a certain period. This method of human resource management can be classified as the classical form of human resource management (Marchington, 2005). When Caf Co adopted its new human resource management, the human resource though being deemed as one of the resources of the organization was deemed to be the most important resource of the organization. To this effect they were viewed by the management as a special form of resource and that they were regarded as human beings. When this perspective was undertaken by the organization, the human resource of the organization started receiving extra benefits which were deemed as motivators for the personnel to accomplish their objectives and also realize their targets. To this effect the benefits were awarded to various individuals who showed that they were capable of achieving the 4Cs which denotes competence, congruence, competence and cost effectiveness. This new outlook by Caf Co indicated that they had adopted the Harvard human resource management which advocates for these policies to be implemented by any organization (Bloisi, 2007). 2. Necessity of more responsibility in the line management It is important for the management of any organization to portray a high degree of responsibility in their human resource management. This is especially true to the line management because in this aspect the management is responsible for the administration of all human resource activities which when brought together plays an important part in ensuring the organizational output is well coordinated to meet the organization's objectives as well as targets. When the management portrays an attitude of more responsibility, the personnel will also view the various projects as very important and in turn will put more effort in ensuring that the objectives are met. The supervising role that the management will play will act as a motivator for the personnel to ensure that they submit a high quality results. This will in turn play a very important role in ensuring that the organization offers the clients high quality products and services and this will play a very important role in improving the public outlook of the organization. In this respect, the sales base of the organization will rise due to the fact that many people want to be served by the organization (Marchington, 2005). 3. Importance of Ulrich's Human Resource Model Ulrich's human resource model could be very beneficial to Caf Co because it can address the organizational problems that have been and are still being experienced by the organization. Ulrich's model embraces four important roles which are very important for the human resource of any organization as well as quality of the organization's products and services. These roles can be very instrumental in helping the manager of an organization to solve some of the problems that the organization is facing (Bloisi, 2007). One of the roles is the strategic partnership which is involved with the alignment of the organization's activities to the strategy that is adopted by global businesses. This is the responsibility of both the human resource business partners and the human resource management. It is not easy to implement this and it is in this respect that the organization will need to invest a lot of effort by the employees of the organization for the implementation of this policy. This can be very beneficial to the manager of Caf Co because with the human resource adopting this strategy establishing global trends in the organization will mean that the personnel will work towards improving their services and products to world class quality. This will ensure that the organization will have a lot of benefits and will also increase its customer base hence ensuring that the company is a competitive entity in the global market (Marchington, 2005). The second role of Ulrich's human resource model is the change agent and it an important role which is directed towards supporting the change and other developments in relation to the human capital of the organization. It is important to note that the paramount role of human resource is to encourage, establish, supporting and providing the capacity for change in the organization especially where the human resource is concerned. This will be very helpful to the manager because with change comes improvement and this is very instrumental in ensuring that the organization meets its objectives and targets. In the same respect, the human resource is directed towards improving the qualities of their services and products with accordance to the change that is being encouraged by the management (Bloisi, 2007). Another important role is the administrative expert which is concerned with the efforts of the human resource to provide the highest quality service with the lowest cost possible. This will also help the manager in alleviating the problem of the management incurring a lot of losses so that the organization can offer the best services to its clients. This is very beneficial to the organization in both the short run and the long run periods of running the caf. This can be attributed to the fact that when the organization offers high quality services it attracts clients an this means more sales for the organization. When at the same time the services are being provided in the lowest possible cost, the profit margin of the organization rises and this is very important in ensuring that the company thrives in the long run and the short run (Marchington, 2005). The final role is the employee champion whereby the human resource management is tasked with the task of ensuring that the requirements and needs of the personnel are recognized and that the human resource management is very instrumental in aiding the employees during the various changes that the organization is likely to go through. In this respect Caf Co's management would benefit largely from the fact that the mechanism in place will be able to direct the employees in the direction of change without the organization spending a lot of resources and time in directing the employees. This helps in saving the company the most needed resources and also preparing the employees in adapting to changes that the organization will most likely adopt in its operations (Marchington, 2005). The Ulrich's human resource model can be very instrumental in ensuring that the organization manages its human resource in an efficient manner and that the organization stands to leap the benefits of its most important asset, its human resource. This is because the roles help the organization in ensuring that the human resource of the organization is up to date with the modern trends in the world and also being able to adapt to changes that the organization might adopt (Marchington, 2005). 4. (a) Reasons for Caf Co failure in selecting suitable baristas In an overall view, the reason for the failure can be attributed to the fact that the human resource management has failed in its responsibility of identifying the kind of employees who will be very instrumental in ensuring that the development of the organization is achieved. This can be attributed to various factors which the organization has a responsibility of rectifying before they run into some business problems which will adversely affect them and might also result in them running out of business (Bloisi, 2007). One of the reason for this is that Caf Co's human resource management does not undertake the responsibility of ensuring that there are well trained before embarking on their jobs. The task of a barista is very important to a caf as one of their major products is coffee which also plays a very important part in attracting the customers. This means that the human resource management has failed in ensuring that the organization's employees are trained to provide the highest quality products and services as possible. There is also the need by the management to ensure that the human resource management is capable of hiring the best baristas in the market (Marchington, 2005). The human resource management has also failed in its mandate of ensuring that all its employees are capable of producing and offering world class products and services respectively. This is one of the reasons that the caf has been having problems with hiring the best baristas in the market. The human resource management should ensure that their employees have a global outlook in offering their services and products and this will be very instrumental in ensuring that the baristas play an important role in the development of the organization (Marchington, 2005). The human resource management does not also play an important role as an employee change champion and this means that the baristas do not adopt to the changes of the organization as it develops. This is especially when the organization is willing to change its outlook to that of a global organization and hence offer world class services to the customers. This has played a major role in ensuring that the company does not have high profile baristas and it is also contributing largely to the fact that the organization is loosing its clients (Bloisi, 2007). (b) Recommendations There should be an internal reshuffle of the human resource management department and this will play a very important role in ensuring that the new managers of the human resources adopt some very important policies in their hiring and training of various employees in their organization. This will also play an important part in ensuring that the organization employees are under apt mechanisms to ensure that they develop their services which is very instrumental in the development of the organization (Marchington, 2005). It is also important to ensure that the human resource management trains the organization's employees in accordance to the requirement of the organization and most importantly the requirements of the clients. This will play a very important role in ensuring that the employees develop their skills and services which will also play a very important role in the development of the organizations (Marchington, 2005). The human resource management should also ensure that that the organizations globalization requirements are in stride with the services of the employees. In this respect, the organization has the responsibility of motivating the employees in such methods that the organization's overall outlook will assume a global one and this will be very beneficial in ensuring that the qualities of the both products and services are of high quality. This will play a very important role in ensuring that the organization is very competitive even in the global market (Marchington, 2005). The human resource management should also advocate the employee change and development and this is very instrumental in ensuring that the employees' development will have a positive impact on overall outlook of the organization. This will play a very important role in ensuring that the organization has high profile employees (Bloisi, 2007). 5. Conclusion The adoption of strategic human resource management has proved to be very beneficial to numerous organizations around the world. It is important to note that the world is developing fast and the business sectors are not being left behind. In order to effectively adapt to these changes in the business sector, the organization must have very competent employees and this can only be achieved if the organization invests in a competent human resource management. This concept has helped a lot of businesses in gaining world recognition in their products and services. It is important to note that the personnel are the most important assets of any organization and their contribution to an organization is the key aspect that determines the success of an organization. The personnel can break or make an organization. Human resource management has the task of ensuring that the personnel are competent, cost effective, committed and congruent. This can only be achieved by extensive training and also investing in various mechanisms which will help the employees to adopt to the developmental changes and needs that the business sector of the world is adopting. It is due to these facts that the human resource management is an integral part of any organization and it is also a very important factor in the success of a business. Works Cited Bloisi, W. (2007). An Introduction to Human Resource Management. McGraw Hill. Marchington and Wilkinson. (2005). Human Resource Management at Work. CIPD Read More