Human Resource Policies that Would Best Facilitate Any Changes in an Organization's HR Profile - Essay Example

HUMAN RESOURCE POLICIES THAT WOULD BEST FACILITATE ANY CHANGES IN AN ORGANIZATION HR PROFILE NAME: STUDENT NUMBER: WORD COUNT: 2555 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This plan provides detailed information on how Resolution Health, a hypothetical company dealing in providing health insurance to inpatients and outpatients is handling the changes that are occurring in its human resource department. Resolution Health is an organisation that was started five years back and it has a customer base of over fifty thousand clients in Australia alone. Growth of the firm has had challenges especially in the human resource department. The department has experienced drastic changes with more and more workers joining the organisation. These employees come from all walks of life and this has resulted to cultural diversity. As diversity is good for any company, the firm has also had to deal with some challenges associated with it. This plan is set to outline the changes that have been experienced and the solutions to these challenges are also included. The organisation is not static. It is a dynamic firm and one that is aiming at adapting to shifts in the environment and implementing strategies that will see it able to control the changes that are taking place. Recommendations are made for the company to not only embrace diversity but also to ensure that employees from different countries are comfortable and able to work well with the rest of the other employees. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION This report is set to outline the changes that the human resource department at Resolution Health is experiencing and the strategies that it has implemented to ensure that it controls these changes. It also highlights how the firm will transform these changes so that they work for the benefit of the organisation. Resolution Health has also adopted policies and plans that will assist it to cope with the changes arising from the diversity of its employees and these policies are discussed in this report. Workforce diversity is essential in the 21st century (Barrows & Powers, 2009, p. 53), especially to Resolution Health as it has eradicated the problem of limiting the company to only local employees. The firm can now access employees from across the world and this way, it is assured of working with the best talent that the world has to offer in terms of labour force. This will in turn boost its performance, thus the need to encourage diversity in the organisation. 2. CHALLENGES ARISING FROM WORKFORCE DIVERSITY 2.1 Communication Communication barriers have emerged within the organisation. This is because the employees in the organisation are from different cultures and their first language is not English. English speaking employees find it difficult to communicate with the other employees not able to speak English fluently. This has resulted into misunderstandings especially in the case of passing information from the management to the employees. If a manager assigns a task to an employee who has difficulty in understanding the English language, the employee may fail to fully comprehend the task assigned to him and this will cause a decrease in productivity of the employee and the organisation at large. Without clarity in communication, the firm has had to deal with problems such as late accomplishment of tasks, slow pace of working, and in increase in costs due to the need to repeat tasks among other issues. 2.2 Opposition to change Most managers and employees that are from the local area fail to understand the need for diversity in the workplace and this has made the work environment more difficult. With a difficult environment, workplace diversity initiatives that the organisation has implemented are not providing the intended benefits to the company. 2.3 Implementation Implementing the idea of diversity in the company is a major challenge. Employers and the management staff have not yet achieved the best strategies that will ensure that employee diversity increases the firm’s productivity. Failure to effectively implement strategies that see the smooth running of the human resource department has caused frustrations. 2.4 Managing diversity As required, once the process of workplace diversity s implemented, companies should adopt policies that will control the changes that will arise. This has not been the case with resolution health as there are no policies yet to ensure that the firm controls the changes that it experiences. 2.5 Biasness in recruitment and selection Implicit and explicit biasness surface in the organisation’s recruitment and selection processes. Managers use salient social categories to identify individuals that are in similar category with them. Most employees are recruited on basis of their other factors other than qualifications. Such biases in recruitment practices lower the performance of an organisation (Dipboye & Colella, 2005, p. 29). 2.6 Limited career resources Employees in the company and who have no connection to higher level managers face significant barriers for career development and progression. This discourages the employees and has contributed to the low productivity of employees. The human resource department fails to meet its objectives year after year. Biasness has resulted to informal coalitions and this causes critical information bypassing the formal networks. Research has revealed that employees underrepresented in the organization are excluded from activities that may enhance their success. The underrepresented employees are mostly from external cultures and in most cases, they do not have mentors with whom they can relate to. The employees from other regions not only have few mentoring relationship but also have an increased chance of failed cross-race mentoring relationship which can have negative repercussions for career development as explained by Thomas (2001, p. 98-108). 3. STRATEGIES/POLICIES ADOPTED TO ENSURE THAT DIVERSITY WORKS The above challenges have aroused the need to come up with strategies and policies that will ensure that the firm adopts diversity and that diversity in the workplace works to the benefit of the organisation. These policies are based on a vigorous research that was conducted in the firm aimed at identifying the reasons why the previous policies did not work well. It was identified that the previous strategies failed due to the above challenges as cultural diversity could not be implemented effectively with bias and poor communication among other issues existing in the organisation. The strategies are discussed below. 3.1 Incorporating cultural diversity programmes in the planning and management efforts The process of workplace diversity must originate from the management levels (Daft, 2009, p. 324). Diversity practices rely largely on the cooperation of the top management team as the team matters most in issues of implementing cultural activities (Cox, 1993, p. 74). By including the policies into the planning process, the organisation will be prepared for any challenges that may arise from the implementation of the diversity program. The organisation’s leaders such as the CEO and CFO will be involved in the process of ensuring that the attitudes of employees towards diversity originate from the top trickling down all the way to the subordinate staff.  Management cooperation and participation is a must for creating a culture conducive to the success of an organisation’s plan (Daft, 2009, p. 452). 3.2 Training of employees The firm has resorted to training its employees in English by enrolling them to classes that will ensure they learn to speak and write English fluently. In addition, the company has hired bilingual employees who are tasked with the responsibility of teaching English to non-English speaking employees. The bilingual employees will be working on other duties and the teaching will only be an additional task. Through training the employees, the company will eliminate the problem of communication and language barriers. The organisation will also reduce the costs associated with repetition of work as employees will now be capable of understanding their employers well. Training of the employees will be on an ongoing basis. The organisation will ensure that the training programme will not be a onetime activity. The training process will involve everyone as it will entail many things. The diversity training programme will help the organisation in the following ways: Employees will be able to voice their opinions and perspectives on various issues about the firm. Employees will be able to understand their roles and responsibilities. The employees will learn how to be tolerant to each other and there will be a reduction in the negative elements of intolerance. Employees will be empowered and hence, they will become more interested in the firm’s success. 3.3 Educating the change-resistant employees the need for cultural diversity Employees who are opposed to changes arising from cultural diversity in the organisation should be educated on the need for cultural diversity in the workplace. The firm has educated the employees and ensured that they do understand the need to have employees from different cultural backgrounds. By informing them the reasons and the benefits that arise from cultural diversity, there will be reduced friction in the working environment as the fears that people had due to workplace diversity will be eliminated. 3.4 Hiring experienced personnel Through hiring professionals who have intense knowledge on how to successfully implement the process of cultural diversity, the firm is assured that it will be able to smoothly incorporate the employees from different cultural backgrounds into the system. In order ensure that the firm accommodates a diverse workplace, it is also necessary to ensure that the managers have experience on how to deal with their new diverse employment team. Managers of the company will be educated on how to deal with the employees of different ethnic backgrounds, thus facilitating a smooth flow of activities in the organisation. The firm will take an affirmative action of giving the employees from different backgrounds more taxing activities to enhance their opportunities of growing. 3.5 Evaluation The firm will be reviewing the strategies mentioned above to ensure that they are effective in facilitating cultural diversity. The organisation will assess how the employees are responding to the training and whether the training is in deed beneficial to them. To achieve this, the company will conduct surveys and administer questionnaires to each employee in order to assess their improvements as a result of the training. Through the surveys conducted, the organisation will be able to measure its weaknesses and strengths. The surveys will assist also in understanding these strengths and weaknesses and how to act on them in the collective effort of making Resolution Health a more successful venture. Diversity in the organisation will not only entail the recruitment of foreign employees into the organisation; the organisation will also aim at recruiting disabled personnel and more females. 3.6 Strategies to ensure female participation 3.6.1 Providing childcare and nursing care support systems Expectant employees will be allowed up to three months leave and the work hour will be reduced for a period of two years, this will allow the females to have a work-life balance. The company also has a child care centre within the organisation to allow children to play in a secure place when their parents are working. This will increase productivity as the employees will feel the need to give back to the organisation. By doing this, the company avoids the problem of constantly recruiting new employees to the firm due to our current employees leaving to work for other firms. Employees will want to continue working with the organisation because of the benefits attached to the firm. 3.6.2 Launch a women’s forum This will be aimed at letting the women freely talk about their issues and concerns e.g. career plans, childbirth and so on. 3.7 Strategies to ensure participation of disabled personnel Resolution Health will establish a counselling centre. This centre will be aimed at counselling disabled workers to ensure that they work with minimal stress, thereby increasing productivity. Employees with impairments will be trained on how to work with ease even though they are impaired. Regular follow ups will be conducted by the human resource department to ensure that the disabled do deliver results despite their disabilities. The organisation aims to achieve the following figures in its mission to encourage workplace diversity Table 1.0: Target estimates to encourage workplace diversity Fiscal year 2012 Fiscal year 2013 Fiscal year 2014 Disabled employees 20 26 34 Female employees 35 42 50 Foreign employees 30 36 45 4. IMPORTANCE OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY TO THE ORGANISATION 4.1 Reducing conflict Cultural diversity will allow the employees to be tolerant to each other. By encouraging respect, there will be a significant reduction in conflicts that arise due to differences in ideas among the employees. 4.2 Increased productivity Cultural diversity is a great booster for workplace productivity as workers are able to learn from one another’s differences. This will allow the employees to develop new ways of thinking and thus encourage innovation in the organisation. By respecting cultural differences, businesses can open new pathways to innovation and promote better problem-solving across their organisations (Esty, Griffin & Hirsch, 1995, p. 194). 4.3 New business The company will attract and maintain at the same time, new employees. More and more employees will want to join the organisation, thus eliminating the problem of staff shortage at any given time. The firm will be able to attract new customers from the different backgrounds which its employees come from. This is because by having a diverse workforce, customers can better identify with a firm’s employees. They feel more secure and less alienated in an atmosphere where at least one of the employees’ faces resembles theirs (Marques, 2008, p. 6). The employees will be required to promote the image the firm, thereby ensuring that the organisation’s client base stretches across borders. The company will also be able to develop new markets as the market will expand from its current Australian market block to the entire world being a potential market. Introduction of services that are not available in the culturally homogenous businesses will also be possible. Along this line, Etsy Griffin and Hirsch, (1995, p. 210) emphasise that organisations that embrace their employees’ cultural differences open the door to culturally differentiated markets that otherwise would remain invisible. 4.4 Attracting talent Businesses that open their doors to cultural diversity are in a better position to attract more talent (Marquis, 2007, p. 326). Resolution Health will be in a better position to acquire the extremely important talent of individuals across the world. This will increase its employees’ creativity and innovation and this will translate to better returns for the firm. In addition, the organisation’s policies aimed at employing workers from the widest range of available talent provide the company with a competitive advantage over its competitors. 4.5 Variety of viewpoints Employees at Resolution Health will translate to a large pool of ideas on how to advance the firm. The firm will therefore be in a better position to solve issues and problems that face it. Consequently, it will be capable of handling the customers better and more effectively. 5. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 5.1 Conclusion The firm policies to ensure that diversity is achieved definitively going to working for the benefit of the enterprise as there are provisions to evaluate their effectiveness. These policies are bound to cut down the company’s expenses and boost its profits. The fact that employees have already responded to some them and the management team is ready to incorporate them in their administration process guarantees the success of the changes that are being implemented. Workplace diversity is important to this organisation especially in its efforts to achieve an increase in sales and improve its marketing strategies. Diversity will increase employee productivity and this will translate to more profits and revenue channels for the company. By training employees to speak English, the company will reduce or completely eradicate any communication barriers in the organisation and thus facilitate good flow of information from the managers to staff. The move will also improve its organisational image as the company will be viewed as an organisation that is receptive of all cultures. The company’s market is also expected to expand significantly and its customers will receive improved service as the employees will be more talented and very innovative. Diversity within the organisation will help solve various issues in the organisation and ensure growth and development. 5.2 Recommendations It is recommended that in addition to training employees about the importance of workplace diversity, the company should also actualise the practice in its activities to embed it in employees’ culture. When employees embrace diversity as part of the organisational culture, they will be able to achieve more as there will be little resistance to change. Additionally, the company should encourage the employees to embrace cultural diversity by ensuring that various teams comprise members from different backgrounds. This will encourage team participation and foster integration of ideas from different perspectives when doing a given task. REFERENCES Barrows, C W & Powers, T F 2009, Introduction to the hospitality industry, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey. Cox, T 1993, Cultural diversity in organizations theory, research, and practice, Calif, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco. Daft, R L 2009, Organization Theory and Design, 10th edn, Cengage Learning, Australia. Dipboye, R & Colella, A 2005, Discrimination at Work: The Psychological and Organizational Bases, Routledge press, Australia. Esty, K C, Griffin, R & Hirsch, M S 1995, Workplace diversity, Adams Publications, Holbrook. Marques, J 2008, ‘Workplace diversity: developing a win-win-win strategy’, Development and Learning in Organizations, Vol. 22, Issue 5, pp. 5 – 8. Marquis, J P 2007, Managing diversity in corporate America: An exploratory analysis, Ca rand press, Santa Monica. Thomas, D A 2001, ‘The Truth About Mentoring Minorities: Race Matters’, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 79, No. 4, pp: 98-107. Read More