Nuances to Be Understood When Applying for a Job at ANZ Company - Case Study Example

Taking a HR Job Introduction This paper analyses the issues that need to be understood when applying for a job – such as the organisation’s purpose and vision, what the organisation does and so forth. The job applicant should also understand what the organisation expects him to deliver as part of his service when selected for the job. The paper analyses a HR job at ANZ Group. Information about the company ANZ is a giant banking institution based in Australia, and also has operations in New Zealand and Asia. In the Australian segment of the bank, the purpose of the organisation is to offer both retail and commercial services to customers and facilitate wealth management among Australian customers (ANZ, 2011). The group has an ambition to grow into a super regional bank that can be able to provide the scale and quality of an international business to customers in the bank’s key markets of Australia, New Zealand and Asia (ANZ, 2011). ANZ offers a wide array of full time as well as part-time opportunities. The company is committed to recruiting and retaining exceptional talents to meets its various needs as an organisation. It recognises that skill and experience come in many forms and thus actively seeks interest and application from the wider community and all types of industries. In fact, the Group’s Managing Director of Human Resources, Susie Babani, notes on the Group’s website that the Group wants best talent working at ANZ, regardless of who they are or where they come from. The most important thing for the Group is that diversity of ideas and experiences is the key to its success (ANZ, 2011). This means that for people to qualify to work for the bank, they must inarguably be talented and be willing to deliver their services for the benefit of the Group. The Group offers opportunities that also consider indigenous employment. There are many types work done in the bank, and these are categorised broadly under four groups: retail banking, wealth management, institutional banking and business enablement. The bank’s more than 34,000 employees play different roles under these categories in the 32 countries where the bank operates (ANZ, 2011). ANZ competes in the market by applying a number of differentiating factors. One of the key differentiating factors applied by the bank is its measured strategy to grow its presence in Asia. This involves creating partnerships with local partners in the retail financial services markets, and operating through a network of local offices and branches, mainly in trade, corporate transactional finance and project finance. In Australia and New Zealand, ANZ has a wide array of co-branded products and loyalty programmes, and is a leasing issuer of credit cards. These are some of the reasons that enable the bank to attract more customers (Investsmart 2011). The Group has undertaken a number of changes over the recent years. In 2000, the bank took significant steps towards organisational transformation. It has a mission to transform itself into a more customer friendly bank with a strategy called perform, grow and breakout, aimed at achieving sustainable leadership and long-term success (HR Leader, 2011). A key internal change in the organisation was the formation of the Diversity Council, which enables the business to perform by promoting diversity as a significant strategic asset to attain business objectives, influencing strategic direction of diversity, offering leadership in identifying current and emerging opportunities to further the diversity agenda, and performing a governance role to attain effective diversity management (ANZ, not dated). ANZ’s vacancy description ANZ requires a person to fill the position of Head of Human Resources (see appendix 1). The Group expects the person to be a highly accomplished HR professional who is able to influence, coach and inspire colleagues at different levels. The person should also have attributes that will make him or her drive change and deliver fundamental projects to positively impact the location operation of the organisation. A potential strategic issue facing ANZ is problems associated with cultural diversity of its staff. As noted above, the Group embraces cultural diversity as its key priority, and employs talented people regardless of where they come from. Though there are numerous benefits associated with this, there are costs and concerns in equal measure. These include communication difficulties, intraorganisational conflict and turnover (Hellriegel & Slocum, 2007, p. 435). To counter this, there is need for the Head of Human Resources to effectively foster cultural diversity as this will remain to be the major challenge facing ANZ. The Head of Human Resources should start by encouraging acceptance, respect and acknowledgement of the fact that individuals are unique and distinct from each other. The person should seek to include minorities in the workplace as long as they have the requisite talent. Further, the person should value the differences that stimulate better relationships between employees and encourage the acceptance and understanding of diversity. Importantly the Head of Human Resources should endeavour to meet affirmative action policies by social pressure, and make diversity management a structured process to derive competitive advantages through the diverse group of employees at ANZ. Hence, ANZ has to change its central cultural values and focus its efforts on effective diversity management as suggested by Jabbour et al., (2011). To effectively deal with strategic challenges, the Head of Human Resources should also promote integration of both organisational and leadership development into a single programme. This will ensure that: Different strategic issues are addressed together, Valued resources such as money, time and personnel are used more economically, hence more productivity, and There is a closer leadership involvement with the culture change process. The prospect of being successful in implementing a radical initiative like this increases significantly when supported by the organisational top brass (Guidroz, Luce & Denison, 2010) - in the case including the Head of Human Resources. Conclusion When applying for a job, it is important to understand how the organisation that offers the job functions. It is important to read the organisation’s objectives and vision, as well as the requirements for the particular job. This is important to as it enables the person to understand his expected input into the organisation, in line with the organisation’s HR policies. References ANZ (2011). “Our company,” Retrieved 12 June 2011, from http://www.anz.com/about-us/our-company/profile/business-structure/aus/; “Careers,” http://www.anz.com/about-us/careers/vision/; “Opportunities,” http://www.anz.com/about-us/careers/opportunities/; “Careers,”http://www.anz.com/aus/promo/Asia-Recruitment/Types-Of-Roles/default.asp ANZ (not dated). “Summary of ANZ’s diversity policy,” Retrieved 12 June 2011, from http://www.anz.com/resources/c/7/c79c570044f3ec19acbfbeab6c2532f8/DiversityPolicySummary.pdf?CACHEID=c79c570044f3ec19acbfbeab6c2532f8 Guidroz, A.M., Luce, K.W. & Denison, D.R. (2010). ‘‘Integrated change: creating synergy between leader and organizational development.’ Industrial and Commercial Training, 42 (3): 151-155. Hellriegel, D. & Slocum, J. W. (2007). Organizational behaviour (11th edition). New York: Cengage Learning. HR Leader (2011). “ANZ Bank: Breaking out of the mould.” Retrieved 12 June 2011, from http://www.humanresourcesmagazine.com.au/articles/b3/0c038db3.asp Investsmart (2011). “Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ).” Retrieved 12 June 2011, from http://www.investsmart.com.au/shares/asx/Australia-and-New-Zealand-Banking-Group-ANZ.asp Seek.com. “Head of Human Resources, ANZ,” Retrieved 12 June 2011, from http://www.seek.com.au/Job/head-of-human-resources-anz-leading-global-fmcg/in/sydney/19932311. Read More