Understanding Management: LIPC Integration Plc - Case Study Example

Understanding Management: LIPC Integration Plc Introduction The payment structure and employee relations have always been a burning issue in management practices. Employees always strive to maximize their payments whereas management tries to minimize the ever-rising demands from employees (Armstrong, 2006). The case study reveals that a company, LIPC Integration Ltd is experiencing considerable difficulties and employee dissatisfaction regarding the payment structure incorporated by the management of the company. In this paper, the payment system of LIPC Integration Plc. will be analysed in order to evaluate the differences in interest of workers among various departments and to provide appropriate recommendations so that the company can smoothly overcome all such difficulties. Discussion The payment system of LIPC Integration Plc has been structured by the expert delegates of Chartered Institute of Personal Development (CIPD) so that a uniform performance based payment system can be established. The professional work based assessors have configured the system in a way that the main computer immediately produces the actual payment as well as the rewards and incentives of each worker, according to their grades in the organization. It has always been experienced that any initiative taken from the management side in an organization, are resisted by the employees. LIPC Integration Plc is not an exception. Though the Fabrication department of the company received the system changes with a positive note, the design and assembly department failed to derive positivity from the newly appointed system (Excerpt from case study). In the next segment, the questions arising out of such organizational framework will be discussed in details. Question 1 The human resource team of any organization can be categorised under three distinct types. The unitarists human resource comprises of an integrated approach where the organization obtains same objectives and incentives for all the employees. The human resource and management always work together in unison in order to achieve the organizational objective. In pluralism, organization is appeared to be constructed with influential divergent sub-groups, each group consisting of distinctive objectives within the same organization. In most of the cases, two groups are prominent in pluralist kind of organizations such as the management and the trade union. Considering the radical industrial relations, such organizational system holds capitalist structure where power and authority is concentrated in the hands of few and inequalities in distribution of economic wealth is very much prominent (Smith, Farmer and Yellowley, 2012). Considering the organizational structure and employee relations in LIPC Integration Plc., it is clear that the three departments of the organization incorporate three different types of organizational relations. The Design Department is of the opinion that the effort they put in the organization’s context is complex in nature and highly innovative. Hence, according to them, it is very difficult for the software system introduced by the management through Chartered Institute of Personal Development (CIPD) to measure performance for recognizing their effort and pay as well as reward rationally because it is hardly possible for a machine to quantify creativity as it is a qualitative issue. In spite of several meetings with management for negotiating their demands, both management and employees of the department are not been able to come to a solution. Moreover, it has also been experienced that the employees are interested in creating their own identity, beyond the organization’s identity by claiming the intellectual property right of their designs. Therefore, the Design Department of LIPC Integration Plc. clearly indicates a pluralist relationship where existence of contradictory sub-groups with distinct objectives is very prominent (Budd and Scoville, 2005). Considering the Fabrication Department, the employees are more than satisfied with the performance based reward system incorporated by the management and they strive to serve long working hours in order to maximize their payment by earning incentives in addition to their fixed wages. Apart from that, a stable relation with the department has enabled the employees to ask for additional training requirements. The management also agreed to provide such facilities to the high performing employees in order to motivate them more towards achieving organizational objective. Therefore, the fabrication department highly incorporates unitarist relationship where all the employees and management tend to work in harmony in order to achieve a shared goal of the organization (Bendix, 2000). Coming to the Assembly Department, the workers are highly disappointed with the performance measurement system appointed by the management. According to them, because of the rigidity of their work, the system has not been able to recognize their effort and as a result, they are not experiencing any improvement in their payment structure since the system has been established. Moreover, the work being repetitive in nature, the workers have demanded to make their working hours flexible and facilitate short intervals in order to eliminate the wearisome from their work. However, the management has nullified all such demand on the ground that productivity is the only means by which they can expect any kind of facilities from the management (Reddy, 2010). Management has also threatened the department that if the demand from the workers’ side keeps on increasing, they will have to plan for relocating the department to Vietnam or India, where cheap labour is abundant (Harzing and Pinnington, 2014). Therefore, strong discretion between management and employees in the assembly department shows radical industrial relations between the two groups in LIPC Integration Plc. Question 2 From the case study, it is evident that all the three departments of LIPC Integration Plc. are suffering from their respective problems in the organization. Therefore, suitable recommendations will be provided through concentrating on the problems of the individual departments so that the organization can sustain their business operations over specified time period. First, considering the problems of Design department, the workers are on the demand of achieving better recognition of their creative work. They also claim that the designs they create are the reflection of their own innovative mind and creative thought process. Hence, they should have the intellectual right on such designs created by them. On the contrary, management team is on the opinion that the designs are the sole property of the company. Hence, the individual employees have no authority to claim the rights on the designs. Apart from that, as the organizational responsibilities of the employees from Design department are not based on their physical effort and it is exclusively depends on their creativity; the employees repeatedly demanded that they should be provided with better incentives and rewards for their creativity. From the management’s perspective, the problem was becoming critical when they tried to replace the staffs through hiring new talents. However, they failed to identify suitable candidates who can maintain the standards of LIPC Integration Plc. Therefore, as they are not been able to find appropriate candidates who can replace the existing workforce without hampering the company’s standard, the management should be recommended to recognize and reward the talent and creativity of the existing employees in this department. In this way, their motivation towards work and strive for achieving organization’s effectiveness will be uniform within the employees (Kelly, 2002). Concentrating on the dispute of providing the intellectual capital of the creative works made by the employees, the management may hire consultants or freelancers who will work independently for the company and hence the credit of their designs will be delegated to them. This will be a cost effective method for the organization as well because such consultants will be paid on a pro-rata basis, depending on their number of works or days served. There will be no liability of paying additional benefits or incentives for securing the interest of such consultants. Considering the case of existing employees, as they are working on behalf of the company and they are provided with all additional benefits such as provident funds, gratuity etc., the right on the designs should be hold solely by the company and not the employees. The Fabrication department, being unitarists in nature, is relatively satisfied with the existing computerised payment system and they are working accordingly to maximize their effort for maximizing their wages. The only issue with them is that have felt the requirement for more training and development programs that the company has virtually promised but has not implemented till date. Hence, recommendation for this department is that as the department is the most coordinated with the management rules, the management should arrange relevant training facilities so that the team becomes stronger and contribute more efficiently towards organization’s productivity (Lewin, Kaufman and Gollan, 2011). Finally, examining the case of Assembly department, it can be inferred that the motivation level of the employees in this department is very low and they tend to find every way to escape from their work. The system of performance related payment and incentives also could not influence the employees to work hard. Hence the management should employ close supervision on those workers to monitor their works. During the working hours, management should also arrange coffee and refreshments for the employees so that they will not require going out for a coffee break (Phillips and Gully, 2011). Question 3 The problems faced by LIPC Integration Plc are from both management and employees’ side. In order to minimize and mitigate the problems from the management’s side, the employees should raise their voice against the management. For this purpose, the employees should construct formal trade union. A trade union is an association that aims to protect the rights and interests of the worker (Colling and Terry, 2010). The workers will also have to identify a leader with strong bargaining power who can efficiently put forward the needs and requirements of the employees in front of the management. The union should also practice superior negotiation skills so that they can always take the strong position while bargaining with management (Cortina and Magley, 2003). Conclusion The nature and functions of the three departments of LIPC Integration Plc are significantly identical. As a result, the facilities and problems experienced by these departments are also district. Identifying such differences in the problems in employee relations, appropriate recommendations have been provided. Apart from that, employees of the departments are suggested the methods of how they can raise their voice effectively against the management. If the management and employees of the organization can incorporate all these recommendations and strategies efficiently, the organizational productivity will become sustainable over a period of time. Reference List Armstrong, M., 2006. A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Bendix, S., 2000. The Basics of Labour Relations. Cape Town: Juta and Company Ltd. Budd, J. W. and Scoville, J. G., 2005. The Ethics of Human Resources and Industrial Relations. New York: Cornell University Press. Colling, T. and Terry, M., 2010. Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Cortina, L. M. and Magley, V. J., 2003. Raising Voice, Risking Retaliation: Events Following Interpersonal Mistreatment in the Workplace. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 8(4), pp. 247-265. Harzing, A. W. and Pinnington, A., 2014. International Human Resource Management. California: SAGE Publications. Kelly, J. E., 2002. Industrial Relations: Approaches to industrial relations and trends in national systems. London: Psychology Press. Lewin, D., Kaufman, B. E. and Gollan, P. J., 2011. Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations. Bradford: Emerald Group Publishing. Phillips, J. and Gully, S., 2011. Organizational Behavior: Tools for Success. Boston: Cengage Learning. Reddy, R. J., 2010. Organisational Behaviour & Industrial Relations. New Delhi: APH Publishing. Smith, P., Farmer, M. and Yellowley, W., 2012. Organizational Behaviour. London: Routledge. Read More