HMR and Corporate Strategy in Taxation Office - Case Study Example

AUSTRALIAN TAXATION OFFICE Student’s Name Course Professor’s Name University City (State) Date Introduction The success of a country to provide adequate services to its people depends on the ability of the taxation office to collect a sustainable the tax. On the other hand, the taxation department must train and develop the skills of the employees so that they can develop better techniques of collecting the tax. It is because employee development influences their effectiveness when performing their duties. Australian Taxation Office is the organisation mandated to collect tax for the government. The taxation system is among the best-integrated systems globally (Neal et al., 2012, 3). However, it faces some challenges that require employee training and development. For instance, some employees are not competent in using automated services implying that they need to undergo training first. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the workforce challenges and how the organisation has integrated its HRM practices into the business strategy as well as the technique office applies to manage employee talents. Background Australian Taxation Office is a government office developed by the Australian government to perform the function of collecting tax on its behalf. The agency influences the functions of the government because taxation is the core source of income for the government. Besides collecting the tax, the other roles, the body plays include paying State funds managing the annual system and keeping business records for the government (Australian Government, 2013, 5). The workforce working in the office must work with competent skills to help collect sufficient funds to finance government projects. In the financial year 2011-12, the agency had 24,740 employees. It had a working budget of $3.4 billion and it was able to raise $11.4 billion by ensuring that people comply with the processes of doing business. The changing demand for the taxation systems has forced the agency to hire and train more employees so that it can perform its functions efficiently. The vision of the Australian Taxation Office is to make Australians value the services they get from their taxes and engaging the stakeholders in decision making so that embrace the operations of the office. In this regard, it works towards being leading taxation group globally (Australian Government, 2013, 6). The mission is to improve the well-being of the taxpayers by delivering quality services to meet their needs. On the other hand, the values the company emphasises include encouraging people to participate in paying taxes, supporting people to understand their rights and protecting the tax structure. It enhances tax collection and championing the rights and needs of the taxpayers. Workforce management challenges Australian Taxation Office has appropriate strategies to deliver quality services to the people as well as collecting adequate income for the government. However, the organisation needs to undergo the transformation so that it can improve its effectiveness when doing business. The reason is that the taxpayers want a system that is efficient and they can access and file their returns online as well as developing a single point that provides all the services the customers require (Cheng & Aizzat, 2011, 19). Introducing these changes implies that the management must develop the skills of the employees so as to understand the best approaches to serving the clients. Further, the rising expectations of the clients create new workforce challenges. It is because the employees must possess required skills to offer the services. For instance, employees must undergo development so that they can understand how to implement e-tax. The office has some staff who are not technology oriented. It means that they do not know how to use the automated services to serve the clients (Cheng & Aizzat, 2011, 17). Therefore, they have to undergo training and development to update their technology skills and align personal goals with the organisational objectives. Further, the vision statement of the company has created a favourable environment for innovation and creativity. Despite the office’s efforts to progressively provide quality services, the workforce faces the challenges of lack innovation-oriented environment. The top management has not put in place strategies that motivate employees to promote innovation and creativity (Agarwala, 2003, 29). In this regard, the management needs to develop a long-term plan that encourages innovation among employees. It should encourage the employees to embrace technology when performing their duties. In this way, the organisation will improve its productivity. Also, the agency faces the challenge of encouraging the employees to fully utilise the existing technology strategies to improve tax returns (Chen & Huang, 2009, 30). The office has not adequately used the available information technology to encourage taxpayers to file their returns online. Moreover, the management considers centralising its services to make it easy for the people to meet their tax returns obligations. Integration of HRM practices Human resource practices are essential to the success of an organisation. Without integrating good HR practices can lead to frustrations and conflicts between the employees and the management. In doing this, the first way Australian Taxation Office has integrated these practices is by developing mission and vision statements (Chew, 2000, 33). The vision of the office is to deliver quality services to people to realise the value of their resources. The other integration of the human resource practices is by developing effective workforce planning plan. It is the responsibility of the human resource manager to develop an effective working plan that helps to screen and hire competent workforce for the organisation (Chuang, 2005, 35). The workforce planning is crucial as it helps to indicate the succession plan and procedures adopted when promoting the staff. The concept helps to protect the office from unfair practices such as favours when promoting employees. It helps to improve working relationship between the top management and the employees. Further, it is important to measure the performance of employee and reward them accordingly. Without developing an effective performance management strategy, it is not possible to determine the progress of the organisation. For instance, the human resource team appraises the employees annually to determine their productivity as well as the training skills they require. It helps to improve employee commitment since everyone wants recognition and promotion when an opportunity arises. Moreover, employees are compensated according to their merit (Gold et al., 2001, 17). It implies that the organisation must consider the motivating employees by conducting employee appraisal. On the other hand, integrating HRM practices is crucial since it influences the performance of the organisation. In this regard, it helps to motivate employees to improve their productivity. For instance, integrating the vision to workplace practises is crucial because it provides direction to employees. They need to know what is expected of them and work towards that (Laursen & Foss, 2003, 41). As a result, it is possible to manage conflict of interest. The other significance of integrating HRM practices is that it helps to solve workplace conflicts. For instance, incorporating a training and development strategy to corporate strategy enables the management to develop appropriate programs to improve their skills. Besides focusing on achieving organisational goals and objectives, the employees also realise their career path (Marr & Schiuma, 2001, 24). Also, it helps to eliminate obstacles to creativity and innovation. For example, training and development are essential since it encourages employees to develop a new technique of performing their taxation functions. Besides, integrating human resource practices is beneficial because it contributes to managing the challenge of employee turnover. Australian Taxation Office is one of the offices that have many employees some of who it has retained for a long time (Chew, 2000, 43). Every employee wants to work in an environment where they can meet their needs such as training and development and competent compensation. Therefore, integrating human resource practices is crucial as it helps to influence the productivity of the organization. Alignment of the HRM practices and corporate strategy The corporate strategy of Australian Taxation Office is based on employees. It applies employee oriented strategy, and the management treats employees as the primary assets. The organisation operates in a rapid changing environment (Chew, 2000, 41). In this regard, the management must consider developing employee skills so that they can adapt the changing needs in the environment. In this regard, the employees undergo regular training so that they can operate efficiently and improve their productivity. Moreover, the organisation has developed long term plans of engaging the workforce in learning. However, the current training needs are not sufficient for the workforce to meet the dynamics in collecting the tax. Further, the organisation has invested financial resources in developing a collaborative approach to the organisation's tasks. Corporate governance is essential because it helps to incorporate the needs and expectations of the stakeholders thus improve their commitment in implementing the decisions. The organisation does this by engaging employees in various committees of the organisation (Chew, 2000, 47). Also, it applies considerable governance taking into account the needs organisational strategies. In this regard, the management of the organisation has developed a partnership approach to governance thus promoting employee participation. Further, the organisation has integrated the concept of risk management. The top management of the organisation has invested in intelligence that helps to investigate risks facing the organisation as well as the strategies to mitigate the risks. However, risk management is a recurrence aspect, and it poses challenges to the management. Risk management improves employee motivation leading to improved employee productivity (Marr & Schiuma, 2001, 48). In this way, the organisation has managed to manage employee turnover. Also, the organisation compensates the employees according to the prevailing market rates. It is the strategy that is used to meet the expectations of the employees. All these efforts work towards achieving the corporate strategy. The benefit of aligning human resource practices with corporate strategy is important because it helps to manage conflict of interest between different departments. In the first place, the alignment is important because it enables the human resource manager to conduct workforce planning effectively (Chew, 2000, 31). In this way, the alignment of organisational strategy and human resource aspects contribute to improved organisational performance. The other benefit is that it contributes to developing employee skills because the corporate strategy focuses on talent management. It helps to implement information communication technology appropriately because of the innovation techniques (Marr & Schiuma, 2001, 36). In this way, it supports the implementation of organisational vision and mission statements. Also, the organisation has developed a culture of partnership implying that they work together as a team to achieve the vision statement. Talent management approaches Australian Taxation Office has invested its financial resources in developing employee talents. The first strategy the organisation applies is the use of information communication technology to develop new concepts of doing things (Robert & Robert, 2006, 16). The organisation has introduced information technology with the aim of improving the performance of the employees. In this way, employees are encouraged to do online research so that they can develop new concepts of administering taxation policies. The other strategy that the office uses in managing talents is through competitive recruitment and selection process. The human resource manager hires employees who have met minimum requirements so that they can work as a team in managing taxation policy. In this regard, the organisation selects competent workforce. Also, the organisation provides opportunities for the employees to learn while they are working on their jobs (Agarwala, 2003, 47). An example is job rotation that enables the workforce to diversify their skills. Further, orientation technique is also used to manage the talents. Newly hired employees undergo orientation so that they understand the office’s culture. The above approaches have helped to create working relationship thus avoiding conflict of interest between organisations. Findings and conclusion Australian Taxation Office has a good reputation regarding tax collection system. It considers employees as the assets that influence the success of the office. However, it has to improve its efforts to meet the changing needs of the business environment. The research shows that Australian Taxation Office has effective policies that help in managing the workforce talents. However, it faces challenges such as inability training and development techniques and inadequate implementation of the information communication technology (Robert & Robert, 2006, 28). Moreover, the organisation has implemented good human resource practices with the aim of improving the administration of tax collection. Examples of human resource practices it has applied include adequate vision and mission as well as organisational values. Also, the talent management approaches Australian Taxation Office uses include job rotation, formal learning and effective delegation of duties and responsibilities. It empowers employees to carry out new tasks with new challenges, and this helps to develop governance skills among the employees. Recommendations Firstly, the organisation should employ formal learning by sponsoring best-performing employees to advance their career through lectures and academic qualifications (Gold et al., 2001, 52). In this regard, the employees will work hard to increase their chances of getting an educational scholarship. Also, the organisation should develop exchange programs where its employees interact with employees from other tax offices and learn from one another (Robert & Robert, 2006, 10). The program is cost effective and can help the employees to learn better things from others. References Australian Government 2013, Australian Tax Office, Australian Public Service Commission. Agarwala, T 2003, Innovative human resource practices and organisational commitment: An empirical investigation‖, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol.14, No.2, pp. 175-197. Chen, C. J & Huang, J. W 2009, Strategic human resource practices and innovation performance. 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J 2003, New human resource management practices, complementarities and the impact on innovation performance‖, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol.27, No.2, pp. 243-263. Marr, B & Schiuma, G 2001, Measuring and Managing Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Assets in New Economy Organizations. In M. Bourne (Ed.), Handbook of Performance Measurement. London: Gee. Neal, C. Tonette, R & Michael, M 2012, Human Resource Development. London: Wiley. Robert, E & Robert, H 2006, Talent Management: A critical review. Human Resource Management Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 139-154. Read More