Advanced Human Resource in Toyota Motor Corporation - Case Study Example

Advanced Human Resource Table of Contents Advanced Human Resource Table of Contents 2 Introduction: Toyota and Relevant HR Issues 3 Human ResourcesIssues 5 Training 5 Negative Behaviour 7 Employee Commitment and Engagement 8 Conclusion and Recommendations 11 References 14 Introduction: Toyota and Relevant HR Issues Toyota Motor Corporation (Toyota) has incorporated business in Japan as a car manufacturer in the year 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda. In the initial stage, Toyota manufactured poor quality vehicles with primitive technology. In 1936, Toyota motor came out with new car models that include GI trucks and Model AA Sedan, which assisted the company in performing operations in a competitive as well as sustainable manner. In the end of 2009 and in early 2010, the company recalled two new models that include Toyota Camray and Toyota Corolla of around 2.27 million cars, which acquired a large market share in the world for the exclusive cars manufactured by Toyota. In 2014, Toyota has a net capital of 397.05 billion yen and it has 338,875 employees operating for accomplishing the organisational objectives (Toyota Motor Corporation, 2015). Toyota has been operating with highest market share in the world in the present day context. The company is also identified to be one of the largest companies in terms of revenue. Human Resource Department of the company has been identified to be facing Human Resource (HR) issues, which has been adversely affecting the operations of the business to a certain extent. For a company, human resource is ascertaining to be the main asset to develop and grow, as human resource facilitates in performing operations in accordance with organisational objective (Ekshan & Othman, 2009). The three HR issues faced by the company include training, negative behaviour, and employee engagement and commitment (Austenfeld, 2006). i. Training For making the employee perfect and efficient, effective training is needed to be provided, so that the employees are able to perform their tasks effectively and efficiently for accomplishing organisational objectives. Providing better training to the employees of the company helps in building up the right skills and knowledge of the subsequent products that are to be offered for meeting the preferences of the customers. Training is an important aspect for motivating as well as developing the competency of the employees, so that the employees are able to perform their operations on the basis of organisational needs. The objective of training involves mostly acquisition of knowledge needed for the staff to perform their function in a better way (Dyer, 2008). ii. Negative Behaviour Negative behaviour in the organisation could affect the growth of the company. In addition, it affects the productivity and profitability of the organisation. In the organisation, the employees develop negative behaviour at the time of job insecurity or highly bullied by the employers. In most of the cases, negative behaviour arises from the behaviour of the managers in the organisation (Burnes & Pope, 2007). iii. Employee Engagement and Commitment Employees engaged and committed in their work are able to ensure competitive advantage including higher productivity and lower employee turnover. It provides a productive growth and good results to the organisation. Employee engagement is a situation where an employee feels an attachment with the company emotionally towards the work and obtains personal and psychological gain and growth with the development of the company (Liker & Balle, 2015). Human Resources Issues Toyota is a leading company in automotive industry and has a good reputed name on a global context. However, the company is recognised to be facing three HR issues that include training, negative behaviour, and employee engagement and commitment. Owing to the HR issues, the company has faced with the issue of mechanical failures for which nine million cars on a global context have been recalled (Liker & Balle, 2015). Training In Toyota, training programs are offered with the aim of providing the employees with required competency and knowledge development program to gain competitiveness in the market. In the training and development segment, the company ensures that the employees are offered with required training services based on which the employees are able to perform their operations competitively (Noe, 2012.). In this respect, the company has made investment for training purposes and devoted time for the employees to be trained in an effective manner. Training programs are developed in an enhanced manner with the aim of enriching the employees about products’ knowledge and utilisation of skills. Training in Toyota is an essential element for the employee and worker development. HR issues relating to training have been recognised owing to the lack of work consistency amid the employees. In addition, HR issues have been faced due to the absence of team management and lack of involvement of higher management during work. In this context, it has been identified to be a lengthy process and time consuming for the employees to learn and perform their functions in an effective manner. In fact, the employees of Toyota are not remunerated appropriately on the basis of their workload and expertise (Robet, 2005; Ekhsan & Othman, 2009) For proper training, an employee should have required classroom training, practical class, outward-bound training, monitoring method, job rotation and inward-bound training method. Toyota adopts four steps of manufacturing that include Plan-Do-Check-Act process. Based on the four steps process in training, the involvement of managers in training is hardly been successful and convincing for the executives. Toyota uses an old model system where the team members are instructed to pull a cord when they notice any deviation from standard, which can stop the production cycle of the company. This aspect has lengthened the production process in the organisation (Liker & Balle, 2015). In Toyota, the training system has few issues like lack of flexibility, geographic access issue and uniform training. Due to the lack of flexibility, the employees are provided with training for short period on the process for which the employees are recognised to approach the management for assistance. In addition, geographical access issue is another important issue faced by the employees. Geographical issue is faced for the fact the training and development department is located in distance places for the place where the employees work. Additionally, the employees from different backgrounds are offered with uniform training services due to which the employees are identified to face difficulties in having an appropriate understanding of the training services. Toyota has a good manufacturing system where the company plans for designing and producing new vehicles, but the company failed in quality management of the car. In this respect, it has been recognised that quality management issue has been faced for lack of training of employees in relation to safety measures. The failure to check and act upon the quality of the car affected the performance of the company to a large extent. Moreover, lack of expertise of the management to have a better understanding about different aspects including production function and quality check among others. In this respect, lack of continuous learning and knowledge development has led towards the failure to work under high leverage training (Liker & Balle, 2015; Wellins & Bernthal, 2005). Negative Behaviour In an organisation, negative behaviour can lead to the downfall of organisational growth. The negative behaviour in the mind of the employees in Toyota is identified to be negatively affecting the reputation of the firm. Employees develop negative behaviour when they are unable to suit themselves for the job or not getting subsequent achievements while doing the work in the organisation. In addition, it has been recognised that there is no systematic working system in Toyota manufacturing unit leading to lag in coordination among the employers and employees, which created negative thoughts. The supervisors in the organisation hardly tend to meet the lower level employees for fundamental base, which affected the perception so the employees to a large extent (Liker & Hoseus, 2008). In Toyota, large number of employees is identified to be day in and day out in the manufacturing unit. Contextually, on this basis, there have been over utilisation of resources and extra pressure is given to the workers, which negatively affected the perceptions of the employees (Bergman, 2006). Negative behaviour is based on the cognitive dissonance basis. Issues encountered on some of the areas of human resources for negative behaviour in Toyota are individual differences, use of temporary workers entry-level workers and skills development. As the workers perform their tasks effectively for personal growth and achievement, but at times, when the employees are not appreciated for their work are identified to develop negative behaviour (Burnes & Pope, 2007). Employees’ psychological behaviour is lagging behind for the development of negative behaviour owing to turnover of the workers has also increased to a large extent. Negative behaviour is also recognised to be developed amid well-trained and skilled workers and co-workers for lack of proper remuneration. In this context, development of negative behaviour amid the employees of Toyota has resulted to an increase in turnover of the employees (Liker & Hoseus, 2008). Toyota has been also facing HR issues relating to negative behaviour for lack of association between remuneration and work of the employees affecting job satisfaction of the employees. Average pay in and job satisfaction of the employees is almost contradict in the organisation. Toyota concern about the production system is ironically based on the production elements of the company. Additionally, the manufacturing system in the process based on which production of the car in managed. In this respect, the company is identified to be less focused on employees. It signifies that the company is less concerned about overwhelming employees in the work. Correspondingly, the company is identified to be less focused on the improvement of the employees (Benders, 2011). Employee Commitment and Engagement In an organisation, employee commitment is an important aspect leading towards satisfaction and retention of the employees. The employees of an organisation are needed to be engaged in work and committed so that operations are performed in a competitive (Macey & Schneider, 2008). Team engagement in Toyota is identified to be based on group effort in work to achieve the set target of the company. In this respect, the employees of Toyota are depended on the physiological and psychological needs. The company with the aim of meeting the needs of the employees has lead towards increased cost (Minto, 2010; Vemic, 2007). Engagement among the senior manager in Toyota is very less, which leads to the failure in commitment towards the accomplishment of company’s target. Commitment of the workers assists the firm to accomplish organisational goals in an effective way. Employee commitment and engagement issue has been faced by Toyota owing to lack of cooperation as well as coordination amid the employees. Lack of organisational commitment negatively affects employees’ productivity owing to which the company faces problems in managing the commitment level of the employees (Pati & Kumar, 2010). HR issues relating to employee commitment and engagement is faced due to different factors that include employee satisfaction, organisational commitment on employees’ performance and effect of organisational structured plan. Additionally, lack of linkage between higher management and lower management has been an important consideration effecting workplace environment of Toyota. In this regard, employee dissatisfaction is leading to turnover on productivity and retention rates that fall further as employees are distracted, confused and preoccupied about organisational outcomes (Hunter, 2010; Robertson, 2007). Improper engagement among the workers is identified to be affecting the operations of Toyota in many parts of the world. Remote management in the organisation leads to lower engagement among the employees. The managers of Toyota hardly meet with the employees in the work area or factory. In this respect, the lack of engagement of the employees for making decisions or changes in the manufacturing units has resulted to ineffective commitment of the employees (Wyatt, 2005). In the production unit of Toyota, the workers and working unit is based on union and in this respect, the middle level workers face problems to be engaged with production operations efficiently. In Toyota production system, the tailored group labour works only for four hours a day that is comparatively very less working hour like non-tailor workers. As there are many workers and employees in the organisation, Toyota is recruiting some of the workers on temporary basis and work on periodically in the organisation, which is also recognised to be affecting the commitment level of the employees (Rajasekera, 2013; MacLeod & Clare, 2012). Conclusion and Recommendations From the above study, it has been recognised that human resources are the basic part of an organisation and it helps an organisation to grow and develop. For Toyota, human resources play an important role in ensuring that operations are performed in a sustainable as well as competitive manner. However, the performance of Toyota is ascertained to be affected in the present day context for recalling of millions of cars for HR issues. The major three HR issues faced by the company include training, negative behaviour and employee engagement and commitment. Training makes the employees to understand better about the production as well as manufacturing of products based on which tasks can be tackled in any situation. Training makes the employee perfect and skilled on the work. Training issues has been witnessed due to uniform training, geographical issues and lack of flexibility. HR issues have been also faced for negative behaviour amid employees. Negative behaviour is developed amid employees for different reasons that include inappropriate incentives, lack of coordination between employees and management and lack of involvement of employees in decision making among others. In addition, the company faced HR issues for employee engagement and commitment for lack of effective pay structure, work overload and ineffective association bet higher and lower management among others. In this respect, Toyota is needed to provide training focusing on two systems that include check and act. In addition, the workers can overcome difficulties in the production and manufacturing process based on successful training. In addition, allowing the low-level workers to come with new and innovative ideas with the intention of producing and developing efficient designed cars for increasing market share. Toyota by providing effective training can develop mutual understanding and trust among the employees. Skilled training is to be provided to the employees, so that they can perform their operations with better flexibility and knowledgeable way. High leverage training and continuous learning should be applied by Toyota in training for building strategic business goal and instructional design process for effective training of employees. On the other hand, continuous learning allows the employees to work in accordance with the organisational objectives (Gorman & Rentsch, 2009). Negative behaviour of the organisation should change into positive behaviour in Toyota. The employees should be provided with proper remuneration and incentives on the basis of expertise requirement. Toyota should change the work culture for persuading the workers and recruit skilled employees for performing business activities effectively. Well-trained and skilled labour should be retained with higher salary and incentive plan. They should train the workers in a specialised way, so that they are able to perform their operations on the basis of organisational objectives (Wilson & Malanowski, 2009). Toyota should build a strong relation between the higher level management and lower level management with the intention of building coordination amid employees. In addition, the management should share ideas among the workers and co-workers (Chaudhary & Barua, 2011). Psychological satisfaction leads to the growth of the employees by meeting their basic needs. The employees should also have the feeling of job security for building of commitment amid the employees. The company should mitigate the relative gap among the employees and senior managers, so that the business operations are performed in a coordinated manner (Vance, 2006). References Austenfeld, R. B., 2006. Toyota And Why It Is Successful, Papers of The Research Society of Commerce and Economics, Vol. Xxxxvii, No. 1, pp. 103-173. Benders, J., 2011. Lean Human Resources, Redesigning HR Process For a Culture of Continuous Improvement. International Journal of Production Research, Vol. 50, No. 4, pp. 1237-1238. Bergman, M., 2006. The Relationship between Affective and Normative Commitment Review and Research Agenda. Journal of Organisational Behaviour, Vol. 27, No. 5, pp. 645-663. Burnes, B. & Pope, R., 2007. Negative Behaviour in the workplace: A study of two primary care trusts in the NHS. International Journal of Public Sector Management, Vol. 20, Iss. 4, pp. 285-303. Chaudhary, R., R, S. & Barua, M. 2011. Relationship between Human Resource Development Climate and Employee Engagement: Results from India. Europe’s Journal of Psychology, Vol. 7, No. 4, pp. 664-685. Dyer H. J. 2008, Creating and Managing a High Performance Knowledge Sharing Network: The Toyota Case. Workplace. [Online] Available at: http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/1441/147b.pdf [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Ekhsan, A. & Othman, A., 2009. Recruitment/Selection and Training Development Practices: Value-Added Contribution towards Organisational Effectiveness. Economic and Administrative Series, No. 3, pp.73-100. Gorman, C. A. & Rentsch, J. R., 2009. Evaluating Frame-of-Reference Rater Training Effectiveness Using Performance Schema Accuracy. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 94, No. 5, pp. 1336-1344. Hunter, P., 2010. Root Cause of Toyota’s Failure Engagement. Articles. [Online] Available at: Http://Www.Humanresourcesiq.Com/Business-Strategies/Articles/Root-Cause-Of-Toyota-S-Failure-Employee-Engagement/ [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Liker, J. & Balle, M. 2015. How To Ensure Employee Engagement: Build Trust And Remove Obstacles To Enjoyable Work. Research. [Online] Available at: http://planet-lean.com/how-to-ensure-employee-engagement-build-trust-and-remove-obstacles-to-enjoyable-work [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Liker J. K. & Hoseus, M., 2008. Human Resource Development in Toyota Culture. Human Resource Executive. [Online] Available at: http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/view/story.jhtml?id=142379047 [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Macey, W. H. & Schneider B., 2008. The Meaning of Employee Engagement. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Vol. 1, pp. 3-30. MacLeod, D. & Clare, N., 2012. Engagement for success: enhancing performance through employee engagement. A Report to Government. [Online] Available at: http://www.engageforsuccess.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/file52215.pdf [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Minto, R. 2010. Toyotas Recall - The Details. Financial Times. Interactive. [Online] Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f15cb310-1282-11df-a611-00144feab49a.html#axzz3alzRclgR [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Noe. R. A, 2010. Employee Training and Development. Document. [Online] Available at: http://serverlib.moe.gov.ir/documents/10157/42675/Employee+Training+and+Development.pdf [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Pati, S. P. & Kumar, P., 2010. Employee Engagement: Role Of Self-Efficacy, Organizational Support And Supervisor Support. The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp.126-137. Rajasekera, J., 2013. Challenges to Toyota Caused By Recall Problems, Social Networks and Digitisation. Asian Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 18, No. 1, pp. 1-17. Robet, K., 2005. The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices on Turnover, Productivity and Corporate Financial Performance. Academy Of Management Journal, Vol. 38, pp. 635-672. Robertson, J. 2007. Employee Engagement. Driving Organisational Performance. [Online] Available at: http://www.infinitus.co.nz/i/benefits/employee_enagement_-_driving_organisation_performance_(jra)[1].pdf [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Toyota Motor Corporation, 2015. Overview. Company. [Online] Available at: http://www.toyota-global.com/company/profile/overview/ [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Vance, R. J., 2006. Employee Engagement and Commitment. A Guide to Understanding and Measuring and Increasing Engagement in Your Organisation. Society for Human Resource Management, pp. 1-45. Vemic, J., 2007. Employee Training and Development and Learning Organisation. Economics and Organization, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 209-216. Wellins, R. S., & Bernthal, P., 2005. Employee Engagement: The Key to Realizing Competitive Advantage. Media. [Online] Available at: http://www.ddiworld.com/ddiworld/media/monographs/employeeengagement_mg_ddi.pdf?ext=.pdf [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Wilson, T. B. & Malanowski, S., 2009. Market Research and Findings. Hourly Employee Engagement and Reward System. Wilson Group. [Online] Available at: http://www.wilsongroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/research%20report-employee%20engagement.pdf [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Wyatt, W., 2005. Employee Engagement and Talent Management. About Us. [Online] Available at: Www.Watsonwyatt.Com [Accessed May 20, 2015]. Read More