Strategic Human Resources Management Practices at Good Energy Group - Case Study Example

HRM Applications in a Business Organization Name Professor Institution Course Date Strategic HRM practices at Good Energy Group Executive summary Strategic Human Resource Management has been adequately debated in both business press and academic spheres. Leopold, Harris & Watson (2005) claim that, in the business world it mostly signifies how top management is guiding the organization in a certain direction so as to realize its specific objectives, goals, vision and general purpose in the community in a given environment or context. The main focus of this approach is therefore to facilitate an organization to attain competitive advantage with its distinctive abilities by concentrating on current situation and future course of the organization (Bamberger & Meshoulam, 2000). Over the years so many things have been written in the field of strategic management concerning the process, nature, formation and content of organizational strategy. To know more strategic human resource management practices and it’s ever changing nature we approached chief executive of Good Energy Group a medium-large sized enterprise that located in UK and deals with renewable energy for an interview. The paper therefore focuses on the outcome of the interview. The discussion is the analysis of Strategic Human Resource Management practices, its elements such as high-performance management, employees’ recruitment, selection and training and performance appraisal. Table of Contents Strategic HRM practices at Good Energy Group 2 Executive summary 2 Table of Contents 3 Company background 4 1.0 Introduction 4 2.0 Student interview with Good Energy Group manger Steve Wallace 5 3.0 Recommendations 9 4.0 Conclusion 9 5.0 References 10 Company background Good Energy, is a UK based company situated in Chippenham. It is the only electricity company in UK that supplies 100% renewably based electricity with its fuel mix. The Initially Good Energy company was located in 1997 with the name Ofex, but later in 2013 the management changed its name to Good Energy. In 2012, Good Energy was voted the best energy company in UK in terms of execellent customer service getting 78% votes ahead of Utility Warehouse and Ecotricity. The company endeavors to achieve success has been recognized with various awards such as Best buy for green by Ethical Consumer magazine, Micropower Award for Innovation and the British Renewable Energy Company Award among others. The company is driven by their commitment to supplier clean energy at an affordable price. 1.0 Introduction Bamberger and Meshoulam (2000) define strategic human resource management as a proactive management of employees in an organization. It needs thinking of the future, and planning methods for an organization to better satisfy the demands of its workers, and for the staff to better satisfy the demands of the organization. This can influence the way work are carried out at a business place, enhancing everything from hiring processes and employee training plans to assessment methods and discipline. SHRM comprises of general human resource elements like hiring, payroll, performance, and also entails working with staff in a mutual manner to improve retention, enhance the quality of the job experience, and exploit the common benefit of service for both the employer and the employee (Boxall & Purcell, 2003). This paper widens the horizon of SHRM to consist of HRM practices and practices of various companies both local and multinational. In an interview with the chief executive of a medium-large sized enterprise in UK, Good Energy Group, Juliet Davenport describes how the problems associated with Strategic HRM practices affect the company. 2.0 Student interview with Good Energy Group manger Steve Wallace The student: how has selection and recruitment affected the performance of Good Energy Group? Juliet Davenport: Recruitment and selection make a core part of the main activities essential for human resource management at Good Energy Group. Recruitment is an activity that influences most crucially on the performance of company. While it is acknowledged and believed that poor decisions during recruitment has affected Good Energy Group performance and limit goal realization before, we can equally claim that the past Human resource managers took a long time to identify and adopt new; effective recruitment strategies that can enhance the performance of this company. I cannot say that we have reached where we wanted best I can attest that so far we have seen improvement in the effectiveness of the employees. The past management failed to recognize that acquiring and retaining quality talented employees is crucial to the success of Good Energy Group. Just as Greer (1995) claims the job market becomes more and more competitive and the on hand skills become more diverse, our human resource department has become more selective with their choices. Wrong recruiting decisions can create long term negative impacts such as high training. When I joined the company, we had to carry out continuous training to ensure employees are update with changing nature of work. In this process e had to set funds that otherwise would have been used in other projects. Training denies company time that can be used in production. At the same time, when employees are subjected to continuous, they start to think that their skills are overlooked; such issues results to inefficiency in Good Energy Group. At worst, Good Energy Group failed to realize its objectives thus losing its competitive advantage and its market share to the crowded energy industry (Giles, 2012). From the past records of performance of Good Energy Group, it is clear that a common challenge was the inadequate expertise in various roles in the organization, such as inadequate skill in the production department. This is attributed to poor planning of recruitment and selection by the human resource department. “Thorough HR planning interprets business approaches into specific HRM practices” (Budhwar, 2000a, p.292). The recent recruitment has dwelled much on the competency level of both managers and employees which has demonstrated a major impact on recruitment and selection and shortening vacancy duration, but also improving the applicants’ qualities. Additionally, effective recruitment and selection in the Good Energy Group is attributed to our competent and dedicated Human Resource team (Andrew, 2012). The student: the company has been listed among the top 100 in the medium sized companies in UK. How did you get there? Juliet Davenport: This recognition can simply be attributed to high performance that that company has posted of the last five years. As you know organization requires enhancing performance to carry on its business in today’s competitive environment. Organization and individual performance are the critical to competitive advantage. Top management has been the mechanisms through which high productivity and performance take place in the Good Energy Group. Quoting from Chang & Wilkinson & Mellahi (2007) I would say that our company’s human resources also have been the engine propelling quality, effective completion of work assignments, and effectively relating with clients served, and with workmates. Top managers’ and supervisors have had a direct influence on how effectively their work element operates. Good Energy Group’s human assets directly influence the achievement and quality of products and services it delivers to its clients. With high-performance management practices jobs from generation to marketing to sales are appropriately designed and with our employees trained, motivated and rewarded to realize the organization strategic of business goals to enhance the bottom line outcomes (Breaugh & Starke, 2000, p.426). The company struggled a lot when it was still young with few employees and tighter budgets. It took so long to get the strategies right and compete in this industry. Overhauling the human resource department, recruiting and selecting the right candidates, with the right abilities, skills, and mindsets at the right time has transformed the organization and put it into the map to compete with other successful companies (Juliet, 2009). The Good Energy Group management has put their focus on the external needs of the company, that is the customers. In other words the organization is willing to listen what is good for the customer as opposed to what is best for the company. That way Good Energy Group has maintained a good relationship with the customer thus creating loyalty (Juliet, 2009). A good customer base has helped the company post good results in terms of profit and corporate social responsibility making it ranked in the top-100 medium sized companies in the UK. The student: does Good Energy Group carry out performance appraisal and how has it influence the results of the company. Juliet Davenport: as part of the Good Energy Group development our company carries out “performance appraisal in order to review employee’s personal performance and the whole company performance” (Rausch & Sheta & Ayesh, 2013). Since this is a growing company with emphasis on both performance and employee development, we have been using the performance appraisal strategy to for employment decision like promotions, transfers and terminations. The Good Energy Group uses a performance appraisal to provide for communication. It is a way of providing feedback to the employees about their performance and thus reducing uncertainty. Using Mello’s concept (2006), I would say that feedback and management employee communication operates as a point of job performance. The approach has helped us a lot weed out lazy employees who cannot perform and restructure the organization with the right candidates for various roles. As much as the exercise helped the Good Energy Group grow to where it is today, the company has been forced to conduct fresh recruitment and selection and training for potential employees in order to meet the demands of the dynamic energy sector. During the process a lot of resources and time have been employed to meet this need. In the laying off incompetent employees, the company has been sued by individuals who feel aggrieved by their employment termination thus forcing the company to use its resources to battle the lawsuits. 3.0 Recommendations Good Energy Group human resource department plays a significant role in relation to the development of the right strategies to support organizational course but have to have the capability to think further than tactics to establish the high-level field of concentration that will propel the company to success. The following recommendations will help the Good Energy Group achieve success through the right SHRM. Effective Human Resource strategies cannot stand in a vacuum. Therefore, to be successful in future the Good Energy Group must always align the organization with the strategic vision since the business environment is ever changing. Good Energy Group HR managers should evaluate the demographics of the employees to establish where gaps might exist between existing skills and the requirement for skills and current technologies in energy sector. 4.0 Conclusion Each organization is driven by individuals. As a result, successful HR strategies are crucial to guarantee efficiency and maximum prosperity. Therefore, Good Energy Group top management besides the Human Resource manager should pay more focus to the routine employment management and the challenges that are associated with job strategies which are what Good Energy Group experience everyday. To tackle these issues the manager ought to play more positive responsibilities in training and applying their human resources skills, and perhaps refining better organization culture, all of that may demonstrate more cost-effective, and equally help achieve organizational objective of satisfying customer and employee demands. 5.0 References Andrew, H 2012, AIM Investor: Good Energy, London, Cleantech Investor. Bamberger, P and Meshoulam, I 2000, Human Resource Management Strategy, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Boxall, P. and Purcell, J 2003, Strategy and Human Resource Management, Basingstoke, Plagrave. Breaugh, J & Starke, 2000, Research on employee recruitment: So many studies, so many remaining questions, Journal of management, vol. 26, no. 3, pp 405­434. Budhwar, P 2000, Strategic Integration and Devolvement of Human Resource Management in the British Manufacturing Sector, British Journal of Management, 11, p. 285–302. Chang, Y., Wilkinson, A & Mellahi, K 2007, HRM strategies and MNCs from emerging economies in the UK, European Business Review, 19(5), p. 404-419. Giles, G 2012, Good Energy Group to raise 4 million in placing as makes AIM debut, Proactive Investors UK. Greer, C 1995, Strategy and Human Resources, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Hoopes, D., Madsen, T & Walker, G 2003, Guest Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue: Why is There a Resource-Based View? Toward a Theory of Competitive Heterogeneity, Strategic Management Journal, 24, pp. 889–902. Juliet, D 2009, Open letter to Good Energy's customers and other interested parties explaining its ROC retirement policy (Press Release), Good Energy. Mello, J 2006, Strategic Human Resource Management, South-Western, Thompson. Leopold, J., Harris, L. and Watson, T 2005, The Strategic Managing of Human Resources, Harlow, Prentice-Hall. Rausch, P., Sheta, A & Ayesh, A 2013, Business Intelligence and Performance Management: Theory, Systems, and Industrial Applications, Springer Verlag, U.K., GEG 2013, Company structure and Directors, viewed 13th may 2013 from http://www.goodenergygroup.co.uk/about/company-structure-and-directors Read More