Field Work Experience Within HR Department - Essay Example

Introduction The area of human resource management is a diverse field and plays a pivotal role in the efficient management of an organization. It is the duty of the human resource manager to implement safety at workplace, make proper compensation planning as well as ensure a proper flow of communication. Dealing with human capital has always been a critical constituent in the organization. Owing to the aspect of diversity prevalent within the area of human resource management, it has been a tricky aspect to manage for the concerned authorities within the organization. From the viewpoint of a human resource manager, efficiency in managing human resources is primarily gained through the experience in dealing with the issues related with management of human capital. Correspondingly, through the field work experiences within the human resource department, it becomes easy to understand the diverse managerial practices in an organization. The report intends to provide a vivid description of the field work experience obtained in a LNG company (Liquefied Natural Gas) named Liquefied Natural Gas Limited. The report illuminates the different managerial practices in the organization detailing out the individual as well as corporate strategies undertaken by the organization to earn its competitive domain globally. Moreover, the field work also helps in identifying the major areas of discrepancies, which if rectified can help the company gain corporate excellence. Discussion Description of the Organization The Liquefied Natural Gas Limited is an Australian public listed company having its headquarters in Perth in Western Australia. The company is located on the Ord Street in West Perth near the Kings Park Road Highway. The company operates in three sectors namely oil and gas project development, investing in existing oil and gas discoveries and technology development and licensing. The surroundings of the company office majorly comprise factories and other organizational establishments. The demographic structure of the customer population of the company includes certain major corporate and governmental establishments. Being surrounded by the different companies the area is highly populated and is mostly visited by the employees of the different organizations. Liquefied Natural Gas Limited has been enjoying an added benefit of focusing on its sustained development by leveraging its location advantage (Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, 2014). The company is focused on developing its liquefaction technology in order to lower down their cost of capital. To increase its environmental sustainability, the company is inclined towards implementing technological measures to minimize the level of carbon emission. Parallel to the same, the company has a single mixed refrigerant process, which contributes towards higher efficiency of its production. Additionally, Liquefied Natural Gas Limited also has aero-derivative gas turbines, ammonia refrigeration system and efficient re-liquefaction to boil-off gas. The implementation of technological developments has facilitated the organization to derive market capitalization of nearly AUD 1000 million (as of 18th June’ 2014). The company’s shares have witnessed a steady growth over a period of 3 years. It has even experienced a percentage change of 3.6% since 2013. Besides, in terms of organizational key human capital, chief executive officer, non-executive chairman along with director and managing director are the prime. In addition, the primary supporting organizational members include chief technical officer, chief financial officer, engineering manager, group commercial manager, finance manager along with company secretary (Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, 2014a). Organizational Strategies and Policies Observed Liquefied Natural Gas Limited has a corporate strategy to become the leader in the mid-scale LNG sector. The company also plans to supply fast-track energy related solutions to the gas suppliers and energy users who do not have proper gas supply. It has aligned its individual strategies with the corporate strategies, which can be termed as amid the most effective approaches by the organization. The company plans to develop its market leadership in the mid-scale Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) sector. It also plans to develop a safe and protective environment. The strategies that appear to be most effective are the technological developments as well as their market abilities. The company urges for the continuous development and plans towards serving the consumer needs as their highest priority. The strategy that appears to be most effective is the use of technological resources incorporated by the company. Liquefied Natural Gas Limited through its technological development has successfully lowered down its cost of capital and minimized the amount of carbon emission in order to reduce the environmental impact of its activities (Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, 2014). Liquefied Natural Gas Limited has been successfully developing its brand image in the global arena. Through its efficient implementation of the technical development as well as the cost reduction initiatives, the company has developed its market share considerably. Additionally, the company has also developed its corporate entity through its efficient environmental sustainability programs. To maintain its corporate excellence, Liquefied Natural Gas Limited has successfully implemented the environmental friendly production programs. Subsequently, the company has also increased its efficient resourcing techniques so that it can maximize its production by utilizing a minimum amount of the resources. Liquefied Natural Gas Limited has also taken a corporate strategy to minimize the lead time of production to increase the capacity of production (Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, 2014). In order to develop technological soundness, the company has inclined towards developing a good research and development unit and also an information technology center. To ensure continuous growth and development, the company is focused to increase its technological sustainability at the global domain. Liquefied Natural Gas Limited critically analyses its strengths and weaknesses and attempts to find the opportunities it can exploit as well as identify the major areas to mitigate the threats. Moreover, the managers speculate the market scenario through having a keen eye on newspaper reports, and journals to continuously review its present policies in order to modify the industrial norms as per the requirement of the macro environment. The managers in organization use advanced technologies like computers and cell phones to carry out their daily operations in a time efficient manner (Jogulu, 2010). Managerial Approaches and Styles Liquefied Natural Gas Limited follows a bureaucratic management system to manage its daily operations. The top down system of management ensures better supervision and also helps the organization to operate well in the global domain. Moreover, the management style ensures that the company can attain its set goals and also keep the individual goals aligned with the organizational goals. The culturally linked business makes it a compulsion for the company to follow a transformational leadership scale. Correspondingly, the interdependent relationship between the leadership style and cultural underpinnings helps the company to progress accordingly. The company follows a six sigma approach towards quality management to ensure the workplace safety. The complete work site was divided into a small number of offices under the various departments operating within the site. This office included workers not constituting more than ten members in each group. The company even has detailed out the organizational policies and procedures as well as the safety measures to be followed through bulletins and posters (Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, 2014; E&P Forum, 1994). The manager desks were placed in such a way that the workers could be in direct contact with the manager. This setting facilitated to increase the interpersonal relationship between the managers and the workers. The physical environment of the workplace suggests that the site follows a proper safety standard as well as maintains the policies. The plant layout was standard and followed the health measures as well as offered requisite recreational facilities for their employees. Additionally, by detailing out the policies and processes, the company ensures that the proper safety standards are maintained. Through maintaining proper interpersonal communication and work culture, the company maintains complete workplace decorum. Since Liquefied Natural Gas Limited has been having a set of major production based activities within the site, the employees have to follow a strict routine of work. This routine is set in order to implement the safety measures in the workplace. Managers are required to manage a number of individuals coming from a diverse culture and have adopted strict conflict management techniques. To develop the work culture of the organization, the managers have encouraged the industrialized practices and regularly instigate employees to develop themselves. However, practices among the workers that could be negative for the growth of the organization are not tolerated by the managers at the workplace. Though there was an autocratic management approach viewed among the managers, the free flow of communication helped them to develop an interpersonal relationship with their subordinates. The setting of the workplace was done in such a manner that the managers can be easily approached by the workers. This also facilitated the manager’s ability to locate the chances of conflict at the very initial phase along with aiding them to prevent it from spreading to a larger extent. While visiting a factory site, there was an instant of conflict within two laborers working on the same project. The conflict rose due to the mismatch of their opinion at a particular instance. This could majorly be an outcome of the diverse culture and the difference in training the labor received initially. This triggered a chance of larger conflict among the employees operating in the factory. However, the manager operating at the floor immediately attended the laborers and clarified their issues to prevent the conflict from spreading to a larger extent. This was an effective approach by the manager. The managers sitting arrangements were in such a way that they could monitor the operations in the site as well as observe the advent of any kind of conflict. This sitting arrangement of the mangers made them continuously monitor the site. This arrangement acted as an added advantage to the managers to sort out the reasons of the conflict at an initial phase. Overall Evaluation of the Field Work Experience Practicum experience gained through the visit to Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, has helped me gain a wider knowledge on the operations conducted in a plant dealing with natural gases. The organizational culture that is to be followed in a company operating in the LNG sector and the techniques that could help the company attain a competitive domain have been learnt through the field work. The visit was worthwhile as it helped in gaining a lot of practical knowledge. Besides, the company’s strive to retain the competitive advantage through the development of technology is quiet appreciative. The different safety measures practiced within the organization were also in line with the corporate strategies of the company to maintain a healthy environment at the workplace. The tactical human resource development team also enabled the proper management of the workplace through their efficient labor management techniques. To prevent conflicts, the company has efficiently placed the managers in an efficient way within the site. The most astonishing part of the visit was that the company very diligently managed their employees and maintained a proper work culture. Liquefied Natural Gas Limited aggressively adhered to the fact that the detailed routine of work must be followed to prevent any accident on the floor. Personnel were also allotted to make sure that the laid down norms are duly adhered. The precautionary measures were updated and the planned layout as well as the safety practices met the standard norms of the industry. The conflict management technique practiced by the management was also efficient and helped the company to handle the issues at the initial level. The strong communication system also made the flow of operation and smooth. The major area of concern for the company can broadly be cited as a major gap between the standard of work and the level of training that is actually been provided. Liquefied Natural Gas Limited has been continuously stressing on the development of information technology as well as continuous monitoring of infrastructural development of the company. However, the exact training that the company is required to provide its staff is lacking far behind the actual desirable standard needed to be maintained. Moreover, the human resource department should also plan to incorporate proper and adequate number of employees in different areas so that the workforce balance could be maintained. On a positive note, the company has been strictly following the corporate strategies and has been successfully aligning the individual goals with the organizational goals. Correspondingly, it is developing its performance appraisal programs so that it can allot the exact work to the right candidate. Through its developed technologies, the company has successfully reduced its cost of production along with developing a new trend of production to minimize the lead time taken. The concerns that have been alleviated are related to the training programs and the human resource development team. In this regard, the company in order to minimize the chances of discrepancy has implemented integrated training programs. This kind of development program can help the company to uphold its corporate image in the global market as along with aiding it to meet the standards implemented in its corporate strategies. In order to meet the dynamic and evolving demands in the global market, Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, been planning its resource allocation in a very efficient way so that it could leverage utmost benefits from its present operational activities. Conclusion Liquefied Natural Gas Limited has been able to align its operational activities with the corporate strategies in order to develop a sustainable corporate image. The company has been managing its resources quiet well through proper decision making. The managerial approaches have largely been observed to be positive in infusing the corporate strategy into practice. Moreover, the top down leadership style has been identified to be backed up by the strong interdepartmental communication. The successful plant layout has decreased the occurrence of uncalled-for labor management related accidents. In order to minimize inter-organizational conflicts, Liquefied Natural Gas Limited has successfully placed its managers in such a position that they could identify the conflict at the initial level and prevent it from taking larger proportion. Besides, this kind of approach increases the level of employee satisfaction and helps the organization to retain its invaluable employees. Through the retention of its valuable human resources, Liquefied Natural Gas Limited increases its performance in the global domain and efficiently manages its corporate strategy. Human resource management related activities in the company however should be monitored much more efficiently. Through the regular training and monitoring of the employees, the company will be able to upgrade the employee knowledge base as well as develop its competitive advantage. References E&P Forum. (1994). Guidelines for the development and application of health, safety and environmental management systems. Design and Layout, 1-35. Jogulu, U. D. (2010). Culturally-linked leadership styles. School of Management and Marketing, 1-16. Liquefied Natural Gas Limited. (2014). About us. Retrieved from http://www.lnglimited.com.au/irm/content/who-is-lng-ltd.aspx?RID=172&RedirectCount=1 Liquefied Natural Gas Limited. (2014a). Company strategy. Retrieved from http://www.lnglimited.com.au/irm/content/company-strategy.aspx?RID=200 Read More