HRM Practices in Security 24-7 Ltd - Essay Example

HRM Practices in the Chosen Organization Introduction This report describes in detail two of the main HRM practices implemented in the chosen company, Security 24/7 Ltd: employee benefits and employee development. Both of these practices are discussed in great detail as to how these are implemented in the company. The report also discusses some leadership styles that would or would not benefit the chosen company if adopted. 2. Employee Benefits ‘Employee benefits’ is a field that has developed drastically in the last two decades. “Employee benefits are going to be crucial to ensure staff are engaged and motivated in tough economic times, according to research released by Employee Benefits and YouGov” (Sullivan 2012, p.xiii). Employees of Security24/7, Ltd. are very much aware of their rights and the benefits they stand eligible for, and they know that benefits are crucial to give them some extra support in the tough financial times. However, historical trends of the company show that benefit costs has become a main concern for the employers because the cost of certain benefits even surpasses the wages, like the medical expense coverage. This following section will discuss some very important employee benefits being offered in Security24/7, Ltd. 2.1. Negotiated Benefits The HRM practice of negotiated benefits offered in the company include those benefits which collective bargaining covers, like healthcare, flexible spending accounts (FSAs), pensions, personal days, paid vacations, holidays, reduced tuition for children under 26 and spouse, and tuition assistance. 2.1.1. Healthcare and Health Insurance Security24/7, Ltd. employs group health plans to provide medical care to the employees and their families through insurance or reimbursement. The company also pays for health insurance premiums. Health insurance premiums make health insurance an employee welfare benefit, maintained by the employer or the union. The company implements Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) that covers most of the private sector health care plans, and provides medical protection to its employees and beneficiaries. The individuals who are assigned to manage these plans are required to meet certain standards or the code of conduct that is specified by the law. ERISA is administered and enforced by The Department of Labors Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), which provides information on health plans for the employees, and also compliance assistance information for the employers. 2.2.2. Retirement Benefits Retirement benefits are negotiated benefits which are actually employee defined contribution plans. Pensions are the greatest employee benefit for the retirees of Security24/7, Ltd. History has it that the pension system started in the U.S. during the Civil War as a system of compensation. The practice gained serious popularity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries’ and WWII’s pay freezes. Talking about recent developments, the company provides long term financial assistance to the retirees in the form of lifelong pension. Benefits are also provided to the members of the retirees’ families upon their deaths, for example pension for the widow or widower, benefits for the orphans, and facility to pay the pension to parents or other dependent significant others in case there are no immediate family members. 2.2.3. Paid Vacations Despite being optional, paid leaves are a very popular employ benefit. According to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), it is the employer’s decision to give the employee paid or unpaid vacations. The employees of Security 24/7 Ltd. can negotiate with the employer about paid or unpaid vacations. Some very popular paid holidays offered by the company include New Year Day, Christmas, Independence Day and Easter. The company initially offered only paid vacation benefits to only 37% of part-time workers and 75% percent of full-time workers. One of the recent developments include the National Compensation Survey producing data on paid vacations benefit available to unmarried domestic partners. 2.2.4. Unpaid Vacations Nathan (2012) writes about the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 in her article. This Act “was passed to allow employees to take a leave from work, if necessary, and create a better balance between the work environment and personal life” (Nathan, 2012). Security 24/7 Ltd. implements FMLA very effectively. The reasons that hold employees of this company eligible for Family Medical Leave include birth of a child or critical health condition of a member of the family or the employee himself. Although employers are not required under this Act to pay the employees for the leave; yet, they can pay the employees for the time off to keep up their morale and job satisfaction, and the employees too can enjoy all their employee benefits like maternity benefit, old-age benefit, child allowance, work injury benefit, and maintenance benefit/ alimony. 2.2.5. Income Maintenance Plans Income maintenance plans offered by Security 24/7 Ltd. include social security, disability insurance, survivor’s benefits, Supplemental Security Income Program (SSI), and private pensions. To discuss the history of social security, the Social Security Act was presented by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. By implementing the social security system, Security 24/7 Ltd. intends to provide protection to the insured employees and their dependents during the time of loss of employee’s income due to retirement, disability, or demise. Hence, Security 24/7 Ltd.’s HRM practices based on employee benefits are an important means to boost its employees’ performance and increase productivity. 3. Employee Development Security 24/7 Ltd. employs such HRM practices that support such a system of work organization that requires employees to work on a collaborative platform on which they share their ideas, and get motivated by each other’s talents and capabilities. This makes them bring the best out of their skills to accomplish the tasks assigned to them. Constructive criticism, feedback, and further appreciation motivates them, leading to successful employee development. The company’s employees, when interviewed, stated that their jobs required them to learn and help other employees learn new things, when they worked in semi-autonomous or self-managed teams. The company’s HRM practice of employee development goes very well with the research presented by Ellinger et al. (2008) because the company has greatly benefitted through employee development strategies, such as training, coaching and empowerment, leading to successful employee development that is beneficial to both the employees and the employers. The employers of the company, when interviewed, emphasized that service-related training was the most important thing that improved employees’ skills. Employers enhanced employees’ performance through teaching them new skills and competencies, with the use of which, they could enhance their performance in their job areas. Training modified the thinking of employees, becoming a never-ending process. It made them efficient and resourceful. Training also familiarized them with organizational rules and regulations, along with enhancing their knowledge about higher level jobs in case they were to be promoted. Employees of the company learned changes in technology and working conditions through training. Bourg et al. (2010) studied, in their research, the importance of coaching in employee development, and found that it was a very beneficial HRM practice. Likewise, although Security 24/7 Ltd. had a good training program with necessary instructional tools, there was need for proactive coaching to reach maturity and gain recognition in industry. Thus, a project was initiated that fulfilled two purposes, (1) to start proactive coaching process with all desired tools and technologies to reach affective maturity, and (2) to maintain the coaching process in such a way so as to reduce disparity in its quality and efficacy. The four-step coaching process initiated by the company was helpful in understanding what kind of proactive coaching was required to achieve business goals well in time. Hence, coaching is an important HRM practice of employee development in Security 24/7 Ltd. It helps engage and retain talented employees. Visagie and Kruger (2011) discussed, in their empirical study, the importance of mentoring in employee development, and its relationship with organizational success. They described the characteristics of a good mentor: he must be knowledgeable, experienced, and approachable. Security 24/7 Ltd. also believes in mentorship. It employs mentors who are beneficial for their employees. Hence, mentoring, which involves learning about overall career development, is one of the key areas of employee development in the company, apart from coaching (regular meetings between the managers and employees to discuss required skills); counseling (sorting out employees’ personal problems that are keeping them from showing their best); teaching (giving employees knowledge about communicative, inter-personal, problem-solving, and professional skills); and, training (enhancing employees’ learning about skills and competency). Security 24/7 Ltd. believes that all of these employee development areas of HRM need to be considered to achieve unbeaten employee development. Organizational support for employee development affects employee development depending on employees’ learning and performance goal orientations (Maurer and Lippstreu 2008). Employee development programs have always been one of the best sources of attraction for employees of the company, because these help increase employee retention, which is beneficial for the employers. Jacobs and Washington (2010) state that employee development programs have a very positive effect on organizational performance. Security 24/7 Ltd. also believes that employee development is an important field from HRD perspective. Employee development helps employees become motivational leaders. Development program activities prove very beneficial when they are surrounded by career plans and goal determination. Moreover, the employers of the company believe that employee development plans must be strong, substantive, consistent, flexible, well-built, real-world based, comprehensible, and easy to steer and control. The employers believe that they will always reach success if they have a good development plan. An employee development plan is a step-by-step strategy that helps employees in achieving their goals. Their strengths are raised to the highest levels of potential and competency. Enhancing strengths and eliminating weaknesses are important steps in improving employee performance, and therefore employee development programs are a must-have for Security 24/7 Ltd. that strives to achieve competitive advantage in the industry. Kumar, Kumar and Sitaram (2011) discussed the importance of employee development after restructuring of an organization. They state that when an organization restructures itself, like changing of ownership or structure when it enters into a merger with another organization, it must think about the development of its workforce in order to be successful with the new business objectives. The new management must give significant importance to value-based HR processes in order to develop its employees. Employee development, at this stage, must include performance appraisal, training, and career development guidance. Security 24/7 Ltd. employed all these areas of employee development, and saw increased employee performance and job commitment. In turn, the employers benefitted from the motivated work force that converted the loss-making entity into a profit-making entity within a few years. Hence, productivity and satisfaction were two of the most important outcomes of employee development programs implemented by Security 24/7 Ltd. that were advantageous both for the employees and the employers. Also, employee motivational techniques, which included benefits, performance appraisals, employee recognition, feedback, rewards, and compensations, were important aspects of employee development. These techniques created intrinsic and extrinsic employee motivation which was necessary for the employees to enhance their learning and skill sets. It is also important to mention that Security 24/7 Ltd. considered training as one of the most important aspects of effective HRM practice of employee development. Training is one of the key employee development areas, state Sarwar, Azhar and Akhtar (2011). The employers of Security 24/7 Ltd. are employing training methods to train their employees in such a way that they perform well enough to please their customers. Off-the-job training, on-the-job training, coaching, mentoring, group/lecture training, and computer-based training (CBT), are some of the training patterns that are being implemented by the company to improve the competencies of employees, so that they help the employers accomplish their milestones. The effect of these training patterns on social relationship of employees is also great within the company. Economic relationships arose from effective use of resources; political relationships arose from the hierarchy of relationships with the organization; affective relationships arose from a sense of belonging to each other in the organization; and, cognitive relationships resulted from dependencies among employees occurring from learning. These relationships were beneficial for employees and employers of the company because of the development of harmony in the work place. The employers of the company suggest that employee developmental activities are directly related to their organizational success. When interviewed, one of the employees mentioned that Blau et al. (2008) presented a model, which was later tested on 197 medical technologists during the course of four years, showing hypothesized common and parallel antecedents of employee organizational development activity (ODA) versus professional development activity (PDA). A common antecedent was expected to affect both ODA and PDA, while a parallel antecedent was expected to affect its matching work referent. It was found that the company’s development activity reduced the employees’ unwillingness to stay on job, or in other words, it improved job retention. However, professional development activity did not have a significant effect on job retention. This meant that organizational development activity, which included training and coaching, had a positive effect on employee retention, thus benefitting the employers at the same time. It is also important to discuss the intensity of support offered by the company itself for the promotion of HR practice of employee development. It was studied whether support from the organization regarding employee development affected employee turnover or not. In other words, it was found whether or not training investment affected employees’ willingness to stay on job. It was found that, as envisaged by human capital theory and social exchange theory, the participation of the company’s employees in general training discouraged their intention to quit their jobs. When employers arranged training sessions, this increased the perceived support in employee development (PSED). Thus, PSED improved job retention by decreasing employees’ intentions to quit. PSED also increased job satisfaction. This was helpful in understanding the importance of organizational support in employee development. When employers strive to train, coach, and mentor their employees, they actually strive to improve the potential of the employees, which benefits them in turn, state Koster, Grip, and Fourage (2011). Security 24/7 Ltd.’s employees with high potential tended to work harder because they had enough motivation to learn and excel. They helped their employers to increase productivity and achieve customer satisfaction. Organizational support offered by the officials of the company guaranteed improved turnover behavior among employees, because they wanted to stick to their jobs when they found that their employers were there to value their strengths and eliminate their weaknesses through proper training. This created a trustworthy relationship between employees and employers, which also resulted in reduced workplace conflicts. 4. My Leadership Style Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee (2004, p.53) defined the six leadership styles, and suggested that a good leader has the capability to adopt one leadership style for a given situation and is able to modify it or adapt it to suit another different condition. I also believe that I have the capacity to adapt to any of these leadership styles according to the situation, if I am the leader of Security 24/7 Ltd. These leadership styles are: 4.1. Visionary A visionary leader is able to motivate the personnel to move in a new direction for the achievement a new set of objectives, and always looks at the milestones to be achieved rather than thinking upon how to get there. Security 24/7 Ltd. needs a visionary leader who has the capability to focus more on thinking about strategies about how to get to the goals. 4.2. Coaching Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee (2004, p.59) called this approach “the art of the one-on-one” and defined it as a style that makes an appreciable link between the needs of the person and the goals of the organization. I would focus on the personnel’s improvement in performance considering their requirements and vision as important. For Security 24/7 Ltd., this style is not effective in situations where the overall competency is little to achieve long term vision. 4.3. Affiliative This style focuses on group-thinking and teamwork and motivates employees to make a collaborative effort to enhance productivity. I would encourage groups to communicate and negotiate with each other. I would inspire them to interconnect and enjoy a shared environment within the organization. This style is effective for Security 24/7 Ltd. in situations where stress is high which is lowering down the morale. 4.4. Democratic This leadership style consults the group for important decisions so that the personnel are actively engaged in the decision-making and problem-solving processes. For Security 24/7 Ltd., this leadership style would be disadvantageous in cases where critical decisions are to be made in emergencies or when consensuses do not help in making the most correct choices. 4.5. Pacesetting Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee (2004) assert that this style makes the leader want him and others to be perfect so much so that other members start feeling frustrated and feel as if they are going to fail if they do not fasten up or make more improvement. I would say that I would avoid adopting this style in Security 24/7 Ltd. because I would want to create an environment of peace and calm rather than hastiness for perfection. 4.6. Commanding This leadership styles lowers down the morale of the personnel as it involves more criticism than praise. Although the purpose is to achieve improved performance, yet it is not much effective, so I would avoid it. It is only useful in critical situations. The bottom line is that a good leader is one who is able to adapt his style and choose among the above or one which suits the circumstances he is facing (Duderstadt, 2007, p.120). This is actually the situational approach of leadership (Rowe & Guerrero, 2010, p.134) which recognizes the fact that situations vary with cultures, developments, geography, and within organizations. Change of situation is a basic human need, and this need embarks a significant impact on leaders’ choices and strategic decisions. 5. Conclusion The report discussed how the chosen company, Security 24/7 Ltd. employs HRM practices of employee benefits and employee development through substantial strategies. 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