Human Resource Management - Essay Example

1) The HR policies that allow Patagonia to attract and retain the best employees can be summed up as "family-friendly" & "let my people surf". These two decrees have established a unique culture at Patagonia — a culture that values employees who are highly committed to accomplishing the companys purpose and living by its stated values. Patagonias work culture can be characterized as relaxed, friendly, and casual. Founder, Yvon Chouinard was noted for saying, “When the surfs up, surf.”, and many employees do, even during working hours. However, they know that they still have to complete the days assignments and meet their deadlines. All employees at the company are offered flextime hours that can be varied on a daily basis plus each year, under the Patagonia Internship Program, employees can leave for one or two months (benefits and salary maintained by the company while the employee was gone) to work for a non-profit organization, on environmental activism. (Edmund R. Gray and Kimberly S. Petropoulos) To make family needs a top priority Patagonia offers its employees: child care subsidies; paid maternity and paternity leave; parent education programs; a school-support program that allows parents to take off up to five work days to take part in their childs classroom activities; all this in addition to flexible hours and days, job sharing and work-at-home programs have had an especially positive impact on workers who are also parents, who need to take care of their children. (Claudia Miller) As a result of these policies Patagonia has discovered that helping employees with family responsibilities cuts worker absenteeism and improves the businesses ability to recruit and keep good employees. Other companies can learn to adopt family-friendly and people-friendly policies like Patagonia. These policies have proven their value time and again at Patagonia, and have set a wining formula for others to follow. 2) Union membership as a percentage of employment has steadily decreased since the 1950s— some of the important factors in this decline were and still are: lack of legal and political support for organizing new union members in the private sector; intensified opposition to unions by employers and from shifts in the economy. What’s more, changes in the U.S. economic environment have considerably curtailed the charisma of unions to workers and the acceptability of unions to employers, especially in the private sector. (Henry S. Farber) Thousands of jobs were being outsourced or lost to technological changes. The economic environment has gradually become more open to foreign competition in product markets and, capital more mobile globally. As a result, unions can no longer guarantee their workers higher wages while maintaining reasonable levels of job security. Moreover, the bargaining power of individual workers has continuously increased, ensuring fair wages to non-union workers. The bargaining power of individual workers comes from having choices. So employers have to treat workers well to attract and retain them, even in the absence of unions. In a dynamic workplace such as the United States, where millions of jobs are destroyed and created at a continuous pace, a companys ability to take advantage of workers is significantly limited by the simple fact that it is easy enough for workers to find another job. (Russell Roberts) Finally, it is competition among employers that protects the non union workers from exploitation. Even the immigrants who slog and struggle to survive in an alien culture are able earn much more than the minimum wage simply because of competition for their skills. (Russell Roberts) In the next 20 years the trend towards union membership will continue to decline, because individuals will continue to be more empowered than ever before, and will believe in furthering their cause personally to achieve their full worth in the market place. 3) The New York transit strike demonstrates the changing status of unions as diluted from within and isolated from each other. Leaders of NYC’s other unions, who had pledged their undying support to the Local 100 Transport Workers Union (TWU), at pre-strike rallies, stood on the sidelines or pressured Roger Toussaint, the president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, to end the strike without a contract. Even, the TWU International opposed the strike, and actively tried to weaken it. In order to avoid being fined, Mike O’ Brien, the TWU International President, publicly urged Local 100 members to abandon the strike and return to work. The Local 100 leadership was ill-equipped to deal with this kind of pressure from other unions and could not move aggressively to protect the union’s assets or to escalate the strike in answer to the management’s harassment. The strike had lasted 60 hours, when the Executive Board voted to end the strike without an agreement in place. The membership of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union was also left feeling betrayed first by the decision to return from the strike without a contract, second by the givebacks in the contract that was eventually reached, and third, by Toussaint’s display of disrespect for the membership by ordering a second vote on the rejected agreement. As a result even after several months, Local 100 was still without a contract, while arbitration was underway to enforce a settlement. Toussaint lost face among the Local 100 members. After Michael O’Brien, the International President who betrayed the strike, retired, his successor, Jim Little, worked to patch up the International’s relationship with the Local 100. But the damage done by their lack of support at the time of Local 100’s strike, has forever disillusioned the individual union members about the unity of unions and their commitment to workers across platforms. Still, the December 2005 transit strike was a historic event. Transit workers demonstrated that workers still had the power and the will to fight. But the strike was not carried through to a successful conclusion and it showed that poor planning and leadership will doom even the most effective strike. 4) Union proponents feel that employees in right-to-work states who choose not to join the union are “freeloaders” in that they don’t pay dues but they do get all negotiated benefits under the union contract —this is true, employees who are not members of the union do benefit from benefits negotiated by the union contract. But this does not mean that union’s have the right to expect everyone to be bound to them and pay membership dues. After all, as proponents of Right to Work laws rightfully argue: “Nothing in federal law prevents union officials and employers from negotiating contracts in which the employer recognizes the union for its members only” (John W. Cooper). By creating member-only bargaining agreements, unions would be able to eliminate their free rider problem. However, by creating member-only bargaining agreements unions may feel that they lose some of their bargaining leverage. In summary, if unions were willing to bargain for member-only agreements they could avoid the free rider problems associated with Right to Work laws. (John W. Cooper) However, if the union chooses not to specify that it is negotiating for its members only, they cannot complain about indirect gains made by non members. And if the union’s negotiations are benefiting non-members even when such a specification is made (in cases where employers provide the same benefits to non-union employees to be fair or because of their internal company policies) , the unions should benevolently accept it as a by-product that cannot be helped. 5) Individual incentives like cash or non-cash rewards are very important for motivating employees and continuously improving productivity. A balanced recognition and reward program goes a long way to motivate employees to focus on performance goals. It is human nature to crave consciously or subconsciously for recognition and reward, both are equally necessary. It is essential to commend and notice the contribution made by each employee, this makes people feel appreciated, and they work harder and remain committed to the upward momentum. Organizations tend to take it for granted that their top performers are self-motivated. This may be true in the beginning, but more often than not, organizations fail to nurture that motivation until performance goes down or the employee finds another job. Hence, it is of utmost importance that the motivational level of employees is constantly cultivated to make the most of every individuals potential in order for the organization to thrive. Incentives can be cash or non-cash rewards, or a bit of both. Again, the requirement of every individual should be taken into account, what might be meaningful to one person might be useless to another. Incentives should be such that they not only fulfill a need but also express to the employee that the organization recognizes their contribution and cares about what they feel and want. So, the incentive can be a cash reward, paid time off or a holiday in Hawaii — depending on what the employee values. Apart from tangible incentives, recognition and respect are equally important and play a major role in boosting employee morale and loyalty. Sometimes a pat on the back goes a long way for boosting productivity along with employee motivation, especially in case of poor performers, it is vital to recognize small improvements, to encourage them to achieve even more. In short, the goal of recognition and rewards is to reinforce successful performance so that the employee will replicate and apply the same vigor to other tasks on a continuous basis. (Gatlin, Rebecca). Incentive and recognition are as important to me as they should be to any normal person. A genuine expression of appreciation is a source of great pride and encourages one to move forward with more confidence. Knowing that ones achievement is noted provides an unmatched sense of contentment. 6) Executive pay is out-of-hand in the United States— this is true to a large extent, but still not in every case. Executive compensation should be totally in sync with their contribution to the firm’s performance. In cases where sky high executive pay is not affected by either good or bad performance, it can be said that it is a totally unfair and undeserved compensation that is being handed out. But on the other hand if the executive is responsible for huge profits made by the firm, then it would only be fair to reward them fittingly. Unfortunately, as straight forward and fair as this theory may seem, in practice it rarely happens. These days executive pay in the US is anything but fair, especially considering the poor performance demonstrated by the top most executives. Charles Elson, a University of Delaware compensation expert, very astutely said "The overpay is galling to the public when it sees poor returns by companies and CEOs walking away with wealth - people understandably have a real problem with that." Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, chair of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, very aptly said that while most Americans live "in a world where there are real economic consequences" to failure, "it seems like CEOs hit the lottery when their companies collapse." For example when Wachovias Ken Thompson left the company, his exit package was worth more than $5 million, and when Citigroup’s, Chuck Prince was ousted he was given what is popularly become know as a golden parachute of $16 million. (Susan Sward) To remedy this issue firms need to prove how executive pay links with performance. The plain facts must demonstrate to stakeholders and critics alike, exactly what the executives have achieved to deserve the pay package prescribed. Similarly, in a 1998 report, Wayne Grossman, assistant professor of management at Kansas State University, and Robert Hoskisson, the Rath Chair in strategic management at the University of Oklahoma, observed that "much of the criticism leveled at incentive compensation is aimed at the performance standards to which executive pay is tied, usually accounting earnings and stock returns." They also concluded that it is "important for boards of directors, compensation consultants, and executives to understand how accounting and market performance measures behave within the context of overall firm strategy.” To put it simply, boards and compensation committees must make sure that they define and apply credible and appropriate performance standards. (Stuart, Spencer) The next thing that should be done to overcome the disproportionate compensation of executives is to share the wealth. This means firms should improve rewards for their employees and spread the profit across the organization, rather than letting a few top executives receive the largest share. Finally the board of directors and compensation committee should bear responsibility to ascertain and support an executive compensation package that rewards the executive for performance against objectives, binds his interests to those of shareholders, and reduces total compensation in the event of underperformance. (Stuart, Spencer) 7) The payback of work/life benefits occurs, when organizations productivity and innovations go up. Today, companies accept that it makes good business sense to provide work/life programs to their employees because of the financial and non-monetary benefits that can be acquired. There is a natural relationship between work and personal life, which makes it logical that employees who are able to balance the burden of work and their personal life are inspired to do their best a work. In a nutshell, work-life policy aligns the company’s and individual’s targets that create a win-win situation for all. (Child care) Major benefits of work-life programs are: improvements in employee performance because of reduced absenteeism, lateness, health care and sick-leave; enhanced staff morale and engagement; better customer satisfaction, savings on office rental and utilities due to telecommuting, and last but not the least, benefits in terms of positive branding in recruitment and retention of talent retention and reduced turnover. Work-life benefit like employer-supported child or elder care, flexible work schedules, and extended leave motivate employees and contribute to performance to a large extent. The reason behind this is that employees today are in general more stressed and this naturally reduces performance levels, but when provide with work-live benefits a major portion of the stress is removed, as a result absenteeism, lateness, health care and sick-leave due to family commitments and stress is reduced to a great extent. Thus employees become more productive if they don’t have to worry about what is going on at home, and instead are able to concentrate on the job in a relaxed state of mind. (Work Life Solutions). Bibliography: Cooper, John W., (2004), Effects of Right to Work Laws on Employees, Unions and Businesses. 2004, available at: http://right-to-work-laws.johnwcooper.com/ accessed on 19th October 2008. Downs, Steve., What Happened - and Didnt: Behind New Yorks Transit Strike, accessed at: http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/114#R4 accessed on 19th October 2008. Farber, Henry S., (2005), Union Membership in the United States: The Divergence between the Public and Private Sectors, WORKING PAPER #503, Princeton University, September 19, 2005, available at: http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/503.pdf accessed on 19th Ocober 2008. Gatlin, Rebecca., (1997), How to effectively reward employees. Industrial Management, July 1 1997, available at: http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/employee-development/640185-1.html accessed on 19th October 2008. Gray Edmund R, Kimberly S. Petropoulos and Yvon Chouinard Patagonia, Inc.avaiable at: http://www.anbhf.org/Fellows/ychouinard.htm accessed on 19th October 2008. Manufacturing Engineering, Union Membership Tumbles, Mar 2007, available at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3618/is_200703/ai_n18755674 accessed on 19th October 2008. Miller Claudia., (1997), Its Good Business, Childrens Advocate newsmagazine, published by Action Alliance for Children. May-June, available at: http://www.4children.org/news/5-97gdbs.htm accessed on 19th October 2008. Roberts, Russell, (2007), Workers are fine with fewer unions, February 17, 2007, available at: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-roberts17feb17,0,3318291.story?coll=la-opinion-center accessed on 19th October 2008. Spencer, Stuart., (1999), CEO compensation: the whole truth. Publication: Chief Executive (U.S.) July 1 1999, available at: http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/compensation-salary/292050-1.html accessd on 19th October 2008. Sward, Susan ., (2008), Political minefield over CEO compensation, September 27, 2008, available at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/26/BUHM135DL7.DTL accessed on 19th October 2008. Video link, Patagonia, available at: http://www.mhhe.com/business/management/videos/Mgmt-other/Flash/Pantagonia.html accessed on 18th October 2008 Video link, Child care, available at: http://www.mhhe.com/business/management/videos/Noe/childcare_help.html accessed on 18th October 2008. Work Life Solutions, The Benefits of Work-Life Balance, available at: http://www.greatworksolutions.com/work-life-benefits.html accessed on 18th October 2008. Read More