HR and Indigenous Employment Program - Essay Example

?HRM Table of Contents Introduction 3 Stakeholders Involved and Their Roles in Indigenous Employment Program of Rio Tinto 3 Impacts of Addressing Employment and Educational Opportunities and Outcomes of the Indigenous Community 5 Contribution of HR Functions towards Indigenous Employment Program 7 Recruitment 7 Selection 8 Training 8 Key HR and Other Strategic Challenges 9 Conclusion 11 References 12 Introduction With regard to accomplishing short-run employment results, Indigenous employment program seems to be highly effective for organisations. Indigenous employment program is a combination of on the job work experience which can be accomplished by wage affiliates or brokered assignments together with proper support for native employees (Dockery and Milsom 2007). Rio Tinto, one of the leading global mining organisations has also been focused on Indigenous employment programs for provincial growth as well as for local employment. Focusing on this aspect, the essay discusses about the role of stakeholders in the Indigenous employment program implemented by Rio Tinto. The essay further considers contribution of human resource functions to the implementation of the program along with the witnessed strategic challenges. Stakeholders Involved and Their Roles in Indigenous Employment Program of Rio Tinto Since its establishment, Rio Tinto has strived to increase the number of indigenous employment opportunities in the business operations. It is the vision of Rio Tinto to establish strong regional economies where local communities and the organisation itself perform cooperatively. Indigenous employment program provides several advantages to the business of Rio Tinto as well as the entire community. This program permits native people to involve in the progress of mainstream economy and to get benefited from wealth generation (Rio Tinto plc 2011). For Rio Tinto, the major stakeholders of Indigenous employment program comprise local employees, communities, traditional owners & local government and other organisations such as banks and educational institutions. These stakeholders play a vital part in the Indigenous employment program of Rio Tinto (Rio Tinto plc 2011). Employees are considered as the major stakeholder in the Indigenous employment program. Employing local indigenous people in the business operation is a method of Rio Tinto to distribute the wealth created through its operations. Therefore, involvement of employees helps to provide sustainable economic as well as commercial benefits to the organisation. Rio Tinto also aims to establish mutually beneficial relationship with the traditional owners and the government. Their involvement in the program helps to set forth a shared vision for regional economic growth. The indigenous employment program summarises an opinion for the future and states a mutual acknowledgement of tasks of traditional owners which are related with mining fields. On the other hand, the business of Rio Tinto is related with several agreements and Acts with respect to mine improvements, land accesses and land uses among others. Therefore involvement of the government helps to uplift these agreements and Acts and as a result, provide support to the Indigenous employment program. Furthermore, government and traditional owners also support for the involvement of native people in the workforce of Rio Tinto (Rio Tinto Limited n.d.). Banks and educational institutions also play a vital role in the indigenous employment program. Banks help to provide funding support for the employment program in order to develop the capabilities of indigenous people. Furthermore, in regional areas, the employees require preparation for performing their tasks in the factory. Therefore, involvement of educational institutions helps to establish a beneficial platform by school tutoring and support arrangements. Rio Tinto focuses on an all-inclusive method in order to ensure that possible indigenous employees are prepared to perform. Contextually, mining operations can be unfamiliar and overpowering for new employees as they need to deal with a diverse set of workforce. Thus, the employees of Rio Tinto are required to carry out cross cultural education. This is facilitated by several educational institutions and traditional owners who introduce people to the organisational cultural elements and societies (Rio Tinto Limited n.d.). Impacts of Addressing Employment and Educational Opportunities and Outcomes of the Indigenous Community Across the business operations, the facility of Indigenous employment opportunity is convoyed by education programmes. The education programs comprise workplace communication training and skill development training among others (Rio Tinto 2008). The core strategic objective of Rio Tinto is to enhance the long-run return of shareholders through searching, mining and processing mineral resources throughout the world. Addressal of the employment and educational opportunities along with the outcomes of indigenous community can help to accomplish this core strategic objective of Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto believes that attracting, improving and retaining skilled and committed employees is critical for the accomplishment of strategic objectives. Employment opportunity, educational program and development of talented and committed workforce assist in optimising the value of organisation. Since the organisation strives to provide increasing shareholder value in the difficult market circumstances, these human resource functions shall help to allow for better engagement of employees. The Human Resource Management (HRM) strategies of Rio Tinto further aims to support the growth of its critical governance capabilities and assist it to enhance the overall agility of workforce in order to sustain its business performances (Rio Tinto 2008). Rio Tinto can further be observed as committed towards accomplishing sustainable development as an integral part of its strategic objectives. By addressing employment opportunities, educational facilities and outcomes of indigenous community impacts, Rio Tinto can provide economic affluence, social welfare and environmental stewardship to its stakeholders. As a result, this strategy can assist in managing risks as well as will help to maintain strong reputation of the organisation in a socially liable manner. Therefore, Rio Tito can continue to win the inclinations of customers and consequently will provide better access to land resources, human resources and financial resources which are critical for the accomplishment of its strategic objectives (Rio Tinto 2008). Addressing employment and educational opportunities along with the outcomes of indigenous community impacts can be regarded as a major aspect of corporate social responsibility as it allows shared understanding of organisations’ influences on its major stakeholders. For Rio Tinto, these activities demonstrate the momentousness of the organisation for a long-run journey. The strategy of Rio Tinto exceeds compliance and partnership method which brings value to the shareholders by harnessing cooperation and unity (CBI 2006). Employees are critical aspects for the business performance of Rio Tinto. Thus, the organisation carefully plans the human resources in order to enhance their worth. Simultaneously, Rio Tinto aims to establish necessary talents and aptitudes through educational programs in order to ensure that the workforce reflects the future requirements of the organisation. Hence, through its HRM practices, Rio Tinto aims to establish the framework which guides the attraction, improvement, engagement and retention of employees while ensuring configuration of its strategic objectives (Rio Tinto 2013). Contribution of HR Functions towards Indigenous Employment Program HR function is often referred as one of the key functions within the organisation that deals with human factor. The HR department of an organisation is assigned with the task of attracting new and potential talents within the organisation in order to seek the best possible efforts from their performances for attaining the organisational goals and objectives. Primarily, the HR functions performed in Rio Tinto include three major tasks, i.e. recruitment, selection, and training. The application of these HR functions in the implementation of indigenous employment program and its contribution in the overall success of the organisation is being illustrated below: Recruitment Recruitment is an integral part of the HRM. It can be define as the process of identifying and attracting potential candidates from within and outside an organisation in order to make future employment. It is necessary that the recruitment strategy being applied within the organisation is according to the job and organisational requirements. It is worth mentioning in this regard that the ineffective recruitment process can lead towards the hiring of incompetent individual which in turn may cause reduction of the competencies possessed by the organisation (Rioux and Bernthal 1999). Rio Tinto together with Indigenous communities and Australian Government have been involved in developing and implementing ways for achieving positive employment implications within the nation. Over the years, the organisation has duly undertaken the recruitment programmes which have delivered some positive outcomes for all the parties involved in the employment of Indigenous people. Additionally, in order to ensure success in recruiting and retaining Indigenous employees, the company has directly related its operations with recruitment, selection and training process (Rio Tinto Limited n.d.). Selection Employee selection can be defined as the process of short-listing few potential employees from the group of candidates who will be offered a position within the organisation. Selection is usually based upon the knowledge, skills and competencies acquired by an individual that best suits the position offered by the organisation (Maloney 2013). The selection process for Indigenous employees has been able to render progressive results over the years. During the year 1990, less than a 0.5% employees out of 1% of the total workforce in the organisation, were Indigenous employees. The figures in the recent time have dramatically improved with a constant rise in the aggregate number of Indigenous employees (Rio Tinto Limited n.d.). Training Training is usually concerned with imparting necessary skills and knowledge to the selected and existing employees in order increase their efficiency while performing certain specific tasks and duties assigned to them within the organisation. Employee training and development has been the matter of prime focus concerning with Indigenous employees selected in Rio Tinto. The initiative of the organisation in retaining indigenous employees has been severely followed by enhanced training programmes. The organisation has also implemented several programmes such as pre-vocational training and support for ensuring efficient workplace communication practices among Indigenous employees. The organisation also undertakes Indigenous employees mentoring programme in order to provide them with relevant advice and support during the initial years of their employment. These training and development programs are further followed by providing cross-culture education to Indigenous employees for effective communication (Vemic 2007). Precisely, the HR functions performed in Rio Tinto crucially played an instrumental role hiring Indigenous people and imparting substantial skills and knowledge to those employed through effective training and development programmes, which have facilitated the organisation to retain highly skilled employees and achieve its overall goals (Rio Tinto Limited n.d.). Key HR and Other Strategic Challenges Seeking the considerable involvement of Indigenous employees within the organisation is often identified as one of the major challenges for HRM in Rio Tinto. Responsively, the challenge was to design the most viable ways and also to create opportunities for attracting large number of Indigenous people within the organisation. Another major challenge for Rio Tinto dealt with effectively responding the needs of the Indigenous people in the course of implementing the employment program. The encouragement to Indigenous students to take up careers in the organisation through employment programmes can also be attributed as a vital challenge for the HR professionals in Rio Tinto. Additionally, it has been ascertained that indigenous people often suffer from low esteem that imposes crucial impacts on their performances. Consequently, Rio Tinto had to undertake significant training and development processes in order to tackle this particular challenge (Rio Tinto Limited n.d.). During the first year of the employment of Indigenous employees, the organisation was supposed to make close mentoring in order to make them independent which resulted in significant consumption of time and cost (Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations 2003). Additionally, it was quite difficult in finding Indigenous employees meeting the job description within the organisation. The workplace culture and the Indigenous culture also varied significantly that made the organisation to undertake extensive retention programs, focusing more on the cultural factors instead of performance oriented factors. In other words, the organisation was supposed to frame recruitment, selection and training program based on culturally sensitive factor rather than performance oriented factor. The organisation also faced the challenge to gain the most efficient support of indigenous employees for accomplishing Rio Tinto’s goals as these people are mostly concerned with placing relatively high importance to family responsibilities possessing relatively low competencies and skills. Despite the constant training and development program, it was difficult to gain extensive support from the indigenous employees. Furthermore, funding was another major challenge regarding which the organisation was worried about (Government of Western Australia 2011). However, despite these challenges, the organisation has been able to obtain desired successes in its regular business operations. Conclusion Employees are vital resources for the success of Rio Tinto. Through providing employment opportunities to the indigenous people, Rio Tinto not only encourages employee participation and business progress, but also supports the regional improvement. Several stakeholders including employees, communities and government among others, have vital inclusion in the Indigenous program of the organisation. However, Rio Tinto faces considerable challenges through implementation of the indigenous employment program such as proper funding and shortages of skilled workforce among others. Mitigating these challenges, Rio Tinto effectively manages the increasing expectations of major stakeholders. References CBI. 2006. Rio Tinto plc. http://www.article13.com/CBI/CBI_CSR_Case_Study_RioTinto_March_06.pdf. Dockery, A. Michael and Nicola Milsom. 2007. A Review of Indigenous Employment Programs. http://generationone.org.au/uploads/assets/NCVER-Indigenous-employment-strategies-nr4019.pdf. Department of Education Employment and Workplace Relations. 2003. Employing Indigenous Australians: A Guide for Employers. http://www.wpcgroup.org.au/images/stories/pdf/employingindigenousaustraliansguide.pdf. Government of Western Australia. 2011. Aboriginal Employment Strategy 2011 – 2015. http://www.publicsector.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/the-aboriginal-employment-strategy-2011-2015_1.pdf. Maloney, Thomas R. 2013. Employee Recruitment and Selection: How to Hire the Right People. http://www.uvm.edu/extension/agriculture/faccp/files/aglabor/employee_recruit.pdf. Rioux, Sheila M. and Paul R Bernthal. 1999. Recruitment and Selection Practices Survey Report. http://www.eflglobal.com/sites/default/files/knowledge_center/Recruitment%20and%20Selection%20Practices%20Survey%20Report.pdf. Rio Tinto. 2013. Our Approach. http://www.riotinto.com/ourapproach/17194_social_wellbeing.asp. Rio Tinto. 2013. Strategy. http://www.riotinto.com/aboutus/19602_strategy.asp. Rio Tinto plc. 2011. Aboriginal Policy and Programmes in Australia. http://www.riotinto.com/documents/ReportsPublications/RT_PolicyandProg.pdf. Rio Tinto. 2008. Markets and Strategy. http://www.riotinto.com/annualreport2008/pdfs/P19_31MarketStrategyFull.pdf. Rio Tinto Limited. n.d. Rio Tinto Indigenous Employment in Australia. http://www.riotinto.com/documents/ReportsPublications/Rio_Tinto_Indigenous_Booklet.pdf. Vemic, Jelena. 2007. “Employee Training and Development and the Learning Organization.” Economics and Organization 4 (2): 209 – 216. http://facta.junis.ni.ac.rs/eao/eao200702/eao200702-13.pdf. Read More