Human Resource Management Strategy and SWOT Analysis of Alshahama Equestrian Club - Case Study Example

Name Institution Course Tutor Date Human Resource Management Strategy Introduction Human resource Management has been an exclusive paradigm of managing the employees of an organization. It’s an inclusive field of management that draws from various disciplines, theories and practices. Human resource management is viewed as an all-embracing term describing a number of distinctive approaches to people management, (Price, 2011). The management of people in an organizational context is central to some issues such as knowledge management, recruitment, deployment, retention, dismissal, and stress management. The unprecedented changes in an organization in terms of structure, welfare, recruitment and training and development strategies have resulted from the need to strategies on the available human resource. The benefits of HR department cannot be gainsaid. The department oversees all matters pertaining to staff welfare and contribution towards work and achievement of organizational objectives. The benefits of employees in organizations have by large prompted rigorous actions by organizations to attract and retain employees through organizational reputation and human relations. Objectives The objectives of this research project is to analyze the Human Resource Strategy of Al Shahama equestrian club by assessing the existing human resource strategy and current SWOT Analysis and provide a critical review of organizations with poor HRM with a summary of my opinion. Research Methodology The methodology adopted for the research project is a systematic review approach. Systematic review approach is a qualitative methodology that uses defined and structured questions forming the basis for research. It is a means of identifying, evaluating and interpreting all available research relevant to a particular research question, topic area, or phenomenon of interest, (Kitchenham, 2004) . Kitchenham adds that asserts that systematic review provides information about the effects of some phenomenon across a wide range of settings and empirical methods. Systematic review is an appropriate method for this research since it seeks to address specific questions pertaining to the topic of interest which is HRM. The HRM in Al-Shahama Al Shahama Equestrian club was established in 2003 and is one of the places where a number of restless riding students in the capital have come to settle. The Equestrian club based on Abu Dhabi is popular for professional horse ridding and has been in the limelight for quite some time. Al shahama equestrian club has distinctive features in terms of management and horse ridding and hospitality facilities that have made it attractive for many people to attend to their club. The equestrian club is fully equipped with required facilities providing an easy environment for people to learn or absorb new skills and the refreshing atmosphere and a majestic surrounding. Like any other equestrian business, Al shahama has been experiencing challenges of attracting and retaining staff owing to the deficiencies in human resource management and information management. The staffing problem observed in Al shahama equestrian club can be attributed to a couple of human resource management aspects which play vital role in benchmarking effectiveness off HRM strategies. However, their current human resource management is in another level of professional with the club investing much in training and building skills in order to retain more staff. The club’s human resource has put much effort in building careers, identifying skills and training needs, and improving opportunities for work and college- based learning. These are strategic moves of the club and it really shows how importantly the staffs contribute towards the success of their business. SWOT Analysis of Alshahama equestrian club SWOT analysis is a model of assessing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to a business organization. It is a toll commonly employed by facilitates on a strategic plan for their business organization. It is through SWOT analysis that organizations are able to strategically address issues facing their operations. Yüksel (2007) argues that ‘Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis does not provide an analytical means to determine the importance of the identified factors or the ability to assess decision alternatives according to these factors’. However, this model pinpoints individual factors that are generally described. Al shahama equestrian club has itself been on a difficult path in its strategic management of human resource. An analysis of their Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are as follows: Strengths: The strengths of Al shaham are based on its dynamic capability and resources. From a dynamic capability point of view, an organization is perceived to be able to adjust to the changing needs of the external environment and market. The dynamic capability framework tries to analyze the ability of a firm to create wealth through combination and proper use of available properties of the business. Teece (1997) articulates that the dynamic capabilities approach as an approach to strategic management stresses on internal and external firm-specific competences to address changing environments. Therefore, if an organization is able to alter its internal environment to suit the changing needs of the market it serves, then this becomes its strength. It’s a competitive advantage over its competitors. According to my research, I identified strengths of Al shahama equestrian club as follows Good human resources leadership The club has been in existence for quite some times therefore, it has a perfect knowledge about the market. Conducting open enrollment sessions Staff training and development program Weaknesses: The weaknesses of Al shahama are those resulting from various issues that are not within their capabilities and therefore, providing a direction towards which the operations will be strategically planed. The weaknesses of Al shahama equestrian club include: Lack of proper marketing campaign strategies Motivation not up to standard Opportunities: Opportunities refers to the existing gap in the market. A market gap can arise due to certain variant factors in the market that fail to meet the needs of the market. Some of the opportunities of Al shahama equestrian club include: Creating Employment through making career information more available to the public in order to attract more staff, improving working condition, developing clear career and qualification structures and incorporating conventional lifestyle models to attract young people into their business. Developing marketing campaign and job advertising strategies in order to build the business’ reputation and attract more staff and retain the existing staff. Growing the workforce through increments in salaries and wages. Threats: Threats are external factors that affect the operation of a business. Actually, competitors are the threats of businesses. They become threats since they may take over the market or consume a larger part of the market share, thereby threatening the existence of another firm. The threats of Al shahama are the equestrians in other countries, which they compete with in terms of attracting international visitors. My opinion in enhancing HRM is that, a better HRM should be based on how staffs perceive an effective human resource management. Their perceptions will provide the Human Resource team to strategically employ these perceptions to address issues that render HRM ineffective. Additionally, organizations need to understand that productivity of their human resource depends on a better human resource management. Therefore, all aspects of human resource management should be addressed. Aspects such as staff welfare, training and development, talent or skills building, salaries and wages, team work, decision making involvement among others are key issues affecting the effectiveness of HRM. The organization with poor HRM An organization can have challenges of managing the people working within it. This has an effect on the organizational behavior. Since employees are the drivers of organizational operations, they determine the extent to which the goals and objectives of the business are achieved. Proper management of employees would mean a lot to an organization, far from increased profits to creation of reputation. Taking a case in one of the fast food industry, HRM has been poor in some of them. In the case of Mc Donald, one of the giant fast food retailers, it happened to have had poor HRM with the company facing several protests, boycotts, strikes, law suits and campaigns. Poor HRM has an adverse impact towards an organization. The following are the impacts or poor HRM to an organization such as McDonald Fast Food Retail Company: Decreased production The net impact of poor HRM is low productivity of labor. The output per worker tends to be low even though division of labor and specialization is well established. For instance, McDonald was reportedly paying low wages and salaries to its employees. Given that the role of HRM is to cater for the needs of employees to reduce costs associated with labor turnovers and recruitments, HR department is vested with the responsibility of enhancing or providing a good working environment for employees. Where employees are subjected to unhealthy environment and paid low wages, they tend to work less and the overall financial performance for the company drops significantly. The productivity of labor depends on factors such salaries and wages, performance appraisal, performance recognition, and a well established human relations within the organization. Increased costs of operation Poor HRM is costly as it is associated with several issues pertaining to individuals working in an organization. Where there is a poor HRM, staff turnover is usually high since many people leave to search for better jobs. Furthermore, new workers who come in are recruited as per the policies of the organization and the recruitment process incurs costs. Other costs include costs include litigation costs and cost of retaining the existing staff. When workers are paid below the minimum wage rate, then trade unions chip in to protect the rights of employees. Some employers end up facing the laws and spending much as a result. Organizational Reputation A very important aspect of management that is affected by poor Human Resource Management is Reputation Management. It becomes very difficult to manage organizational reputation where the HRM is poor. Employees are the key stakeholders within an organizational context since they bring in expertise, knowledge and experiences to facilitate production and other operational activities. Therefore, if their affairs are not well take in, then they might end up into protests or strikes and this destroys the image of the company. For instance, McDonald company’s image was destroyed due to the several protest and strikes happening, which according to sources; the company was regarded as ‘a low-paying, unskilled and dead-end job’. Loss of competitive advantage As people tend to destroy the long-built image of an organization, the competitors utilize the opportunity and ensure that they overtake you. A company faces stiff competition when it loses its competitive advantage in the market within which it operates. McDonald company lost its competitive advantage and that is why even after a struggle to restore its reputation, the company never succeeded changing the perception people had about it. With the increased costs and reduced revenue, it became very difficult for the company to enhance its CSR and this was really a big blow, drawing to the benefits of CSR. Conclusion For the above cases, the importance of HRM is a no point of contention. Its benefits are seen to cover a wide aspect of an organization. In my opinion, for the case of Al shahama equestrian club, its HRM is stunning and that is why it is really attracting many people. Many spectators attend their competition and this is the best part of the club as it improves its financial performance. On the other hand, McDonald Company faced the wrath of undermining the employees by paying low wages and providing no motivations to employees. The net results were poor financial performance and lose of reputation. References Price, Alan. Human resource management. Cengage Learning, 2011. Kitchenham, Barbara. "Procedures for performing systematic reviews." Keele, UK, Keele University 33.2004 (2004): 1-26. Yüksel, İhsan, and Metin Dagdeviren. "Using the analytic network process (ANP) in a SWOT analysis–A case study for a textile firm." Information Sciences 177.16 (2007): 3364-3382. Teece, David J., Gary Pisano, and Amy Shuen. "Dynamic capabilities and strategic management." (1997): 509-33. Read More