Internal and External Factors Affecting the DEEWR Strategic Plan - Case Study Example

Strategic Plan: DEEWR STRATEGIC PLAN (Name) (Course) (Institution) (Professor’s name) (Date Due) Introduction A strategic plan seeks to provide the organization with a sense of identity and direction towards the attainment of the set goals (Schuler, 1992). There is an old saying, which states that failure to plan means planning to fail, and therefore strategic management plan is what gives the organization the direction and path to undertake in order to attain its goals and objectives. It is therefore apparent that strategic management plans guide organizations towards success. The plan takes into consideration the mission, vision and the goals of the organization (Skaggs & Youndt, 2004). It is important to ensure that the strategic plan is workable in order to ascertain the attainment of the goals. This paper seeks to analyze DEEWR strategic plan, providing objective analysis and interpretation of the strategic plan. Human resource implications will be identified from DEEWR strategic plan, which will then be applied in developing a strategic plan that addresses the identified human resource implications. Priorities that DEEWR wishes to achieve in the short- to medium-term Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR) is at the core of the Australian government productivity agenda, which has an objective of making a real difference to ensure that, everyone shares in the country’s prosperity. The DEEWR strategic plan ascertains the department’s pathway for the subsequently three years. The plan reflects the main concerns set forth by the government, which includes the development of early childhood by developing an optimistic start in life, quality education results at all levels, a secure, just, industrious and successful workplace, a skilled, productive and educated workforce with increased participation, and a participative and inclusive community. These priorities are mirrored through five major goals and supporting strategies that offer focus for the department’s endeavor. From the plan, one of the main priorities to be accomplished within the three year period encompasses; ensuring that the different departmental areas work jointly efficiently to put into practice the government’s agenda. In order to attain these goals, the department of education, employment and workplace relations works jointly with the Council of Australian Government offering direction and guidance for these aims and how they are accomplished. Internal and external factors affecting the DEEWR strategic plan It is evident that, every firm is faced by different internal and external factors that need to be addressed if such plans as attainment of goals and objectives are to be realized. In our case study, DEEWR lies on the same ladder. The department’s strategic plan faces various internal and external factors that are a threat to its human resource needs. Some of them include: There is a wide gap between indigenous Australians and this is seen as a major challenge that is basic to the work across the public service and the department itself. It is true from the plan that, many Australians are disadvantaged and marginalized in education, employment, training, and in the society. This gap is seen to affect the human resource needs and if not closed, the DEEWR strategic plan may not meet its objectives. Lack of enforceable minimum national employment principles. This is vital as it ensures a fair, secure, industrious and successful workplace. Poor workplace safety arrangement is a major health hazard and may greatly influence employee’s performance. This as a result may result to increased probability of risks and low productivity among the workforce. Rigid and traditional practices in the work places which may influence the firm’s outcomes. Employees and employers are not conversant with the modern practices and an attempt to educate them on this may take time while others may not be willing to learn. This is a major challenge to the human resources as they may be forced to retrench and recruit new employees. Poor communication between the various departments is a great challenge as it may affect the functioning of the organization. This may result to slow or failure to achieve the set goals. Political influence whereby there may be interference by the government officials Key human resources implications Human resources (HR) can be delineated as a pool of human capital under the organization control in a direct employment association, while the HR practices are the firm’s endeavors that are aimed at managing the pool of human capital and making certain that, such capital is utilized towards the accomplishment of the firm’s goals (Kaufman, 2001). These as a result lead to two features of human resources: skills, knowledge and capabilities intrinsic in the persons who make up the firm; and employment of such skill through personnel behavior (Legge, 1995). The aim of all firms is to produce significantly enhanced economic performance. These can only be achieved through efficient management of individuals. In organizations, such management practices are left at the hands of human resource management. High performance, high commitment, and increased involvement are among these practices (Boudreau, 2003). In our case study, DEEWR strategic plan seeks to attain its main concerns within the next three years. These priorities can only be accomplished if there is an efficient human resource manager who will engage in various significant activities towards attaining the same. Some of the key human resource implications based on these priorities encompass extensive training, hiring, performance measurement, and employee retention. These implications are explained herein. Extensive training One of the major priorities of DEEWR strategic plan is to produce a highly skilled, knowledgeable and productive workforce. This can only be attained through intensive training programs for employees, or a higher and vocational education which will enable individuals attain their full potential thus becoming productive participants in the contemporary labour market. High performance management practices put emphasis on training that is offered by commitment. In order to have a workforce who will be able to recognize and resolve problems, instigate modifications and take accountability for quality, a skilled and an inspired personnel with potential and knowledge to undertake the essential tasks is required (Harrison, 2004). This can only be achieved through the increased efforts and commitments of the human resource. From other case studies such as the automobile industry in the U.S. greatly invest in training as compared to its competitors. This has resulted to the achievement of profit goals even in periods of economic stringency. Such training should be focused on generalist competence and the firm’s organizational culture rather than specialist skills. Training which can be considered as a source of competitive advantage is therefore very important in organizations as it is said that knowledge and skill are vital- and very few firms work on this. Therefore, in order to meet its goals, human resource at DEEWR should ensure that, efficient training is provided through extensive training system. Performance measurement In any organization that seeks to attain its goals, it is crucial to carry out employee performance measurement. Performance measurement can be based on employee’s behaviours or on the outcomes of such behaviours. Behavior-oriented measurement focuses on individual’s behaviours that are deemed vital to perform a certain responsibility efficiently, whilst, result-based measurement focuses on the repercussions of such behaviours (Becker et al, 2001). In our case, DEEWR governance framework incorporates performance measurement in their activities making certain that it is integrated with planning and reporting. This gives the department a focus on constant improvement driving achievement at strategic, firms and individual levels. Performance indicators in this plan include organizational performance encompassing employee survey, participation and completion, and stakeholder’s satisfaction. It is certain that, successful implementation of an organizational strategy depends heavily on staff behavior. The application of human resources practices in DEEWR can assist in controlling employee behavior thus; it should implement staff behaviors that are consistent with the firm’s strategy as this helps the firm to attain superior performance. This is as explained in the contingency predictions theory. Behaviour is seen as a function of motivation and ability, thus DEEWR can set HR practices that make certain that persons with required skills are employed and retained while motivating staffs in order to act in consistent ways with the DEEWR Strategic Plan. According to the organizational growth strategy, it is better to rely on staff selection rather than staff development. Hiring One of the major priorities of DEEWR strategic plan is to provide a participative and inclusive community. This will be achieved through offering assess to financial support and other services to people that are essential to assist them overcome barriers, attain new capabilities and knowledge, secure employments at the same time participating in the society. This goes hand in hand with firms that want to achieve its set objectives. Such firms require that they hire the right individuals which necessitate a wider application pool from where they select based on competence (Collins, 2007). Secondly, firms need to know exactly what critical attributes and skills they require which should be consistent with the specific job requirements. All this is left in the hands of human resource who should establish the most effective way of employee recruitment. This implies that, for the DEEWR strategic plan to achieve its goals the HR must be very competent in how they recruit their employees. Recruitment can be internal or external both of which requires provision of extensive training and career development opportunity to ensure good performance. Human resource policy The most critical strategic human resource implications identified from DEEWR strategic plan include training and performance measurement. These two implications are considered more critical among the other implications outlined in DEEWR strategic plan. This plan was developed to transform the lives of the Australians in a positive way, which in essence translates to making Australia productive and inclusive. One of the ways this goal can be attained is through equipping the people with knowledge and skills, which can only be attained through education, and vocational training. It is therefore evident that training is one of the highly prioritized goals in the plan, which makes it also a critical human resource implication. DEEWR plan also outlines various indicators that are applied to measure the performance levels. For instance, the plan seeks to measure performance through stakeholder satisfaction, participation and completion rates, and internal and external benchmarking of the management of people. This is a critical human resource implication because it is from the performance indicators that the organization can gauge if it is moving towards attaining its objectives or not. It actually gives the organization a clear direction regarding the attainment of its objectives and goals. The performance influences decision making in the organization concerning the strategies to be implemented in order to boost the performance (Becker and Huselid, 1998). This plan seeks to address two important strategic human resource implications, training and performance measurement, and show their significance in the organizational setting. The plan seeks to show the importance training and performance measurement has for the organizations, and how these two human resource implications, promote the attainment of the organizational goals. Some of the ethical considerations include honesty and validity of the performance reviews and equal treatment of employees when it comes to training sessions. Brief background An organization’s resource based view holds that internal skill and knowledge represent significant sources of an organization’s competitive advantage. According to the human capital theory, organizations should strive to protect core competencies by investing in training and development. Apparently all high performing and successful management practices lay greater emphasis on the training of the employees. This is considered as an essential component of the high performance management system because all organizations lay greater dependence on front line employee initiatives and skills to help identify and solve organizational problems, initiate change and take accountability for quality production in the organization. All these important elements require a highly skilled and motivated task force that is equipped with the capacity and knowledge to carry out the requisite tasks. It is believed that having a multi-skilled task force that is adjustable to the changing conditions and possessing a broad conceptual knowledge concerning the organization’s production system is essential to the functioning of a flexible production system. In addition, an organization’s competitive advantage can only be secured when its employees’ skills and capabilities are unique and cannot be replicated by the competitors. On the other hand, performance measurement is increasingly becoming recognized because most organizations feel that the ancient practice of financial measurement is not sufficient to evaluate and motivate mission accomplishments (Armstrong, 1995). This is a process through which the organization initiates parameters to evaluate whether its programs, acquisitions and investments are attaining desired outcomes. Objectives of the plan Illustrate the importance of training employees in an organization Establish the importance of performance measurement in an organization Identify recommendations that could be applied to ensure employee training and performance measurement in organizations. Assumptions One of the common assumptions concerning training of the employees is that this is often considered as a frill and adds extra costs to the organization. In fact, many organizations consider training as something that could be easily eliminated in the organization to enable the organization make more profits especially during periods of economic stringency. Therefore, many organizations do not consider training as a basic requirement that could boost effectiveness but it is instead viewed as extra costs. Regarding performance measurement, there is an assumption that this could be only evaluated by assessing the organizations profitability index. Most organizations evaluate employee performance through organization’s profits, in that if the organization is profitable, then it is assumed that every employee is equally proficient. Timing and resource considerations for coordinating the implementation and delivery Successful training programs require commitment from the management. Some of the resources required for coordinating the implementation and delivery of training programs in an organization include Funds for hiring the training experts, printing training manuals Power point projector that can be used to display images Computers both for the trainers and the trainees The time required to implement training is three months and it should be noted that this is a continuous process since newer ideas are coming up every day. For the case of performance measurement, the organization needs to establish key performance indicators that will reflect the organization’s goals. The major resource required to measure performance is the balanced score card that evaluates the organization’s internal processes, customer perspectives and leaning and growth. The time required to implement this practice is approximately one financial year in order to give the organization the ability to assess its progress in terms of its internal practices, financial performance, customer perspectives and its overall growth towards the attainment of the set goals. Measures for monitoring progress Formal interviews could be carried out after a three-month period to monitor the progress of implementation. The employees as well as the management could be interviewed to find out if there are any training activities carried out in the organization. These could also be assessed from the organizations internal processes and customer perspectives to find out if there have been any improvements regarding the skills and expertise held by the employees. Planned milestones In the first three months, training will have been implemented in the organization. The training will be able to equip the employees with more skills and expertise that will make the organization attain a competitive advantage. The employee’s performance will also be evaluated after the nest one year to see if the organization has an effective taskforce. Ethical considerations in its implementation and delivery Ethics govern the practice of a profession. It basically considers the principles of morality. In this case, some of the ethical considerations to be looked at during the implementation process include privacy when it comes to employee performance review such that the performance review process should not make employee performance public. This can de-motivate some of the employees. The performance reviews should also be reveal valid information about the employee so that decisions made concerning the employee performance are just and honest. Regarding the implementation of organizational trainings, some of the ethical considerations include time management, equal treatment such that all employees are allowed o understand the concepts well. Apparently, there could be those who can be considered as first learners, while other may appear to learn concepts slowly. Therefore, there is need to ensure all employees learn the concepts without having to discriminate the slow learners. Conclusion This study has focused on DEEWR Strategic Plan 2008–2011 that mirrors the government major priorities of quality education, early childhood, inclusive society and skilled workforce; which is aimed at equipping people with the necessary knowledge and capabilities to cope with the challenges of the 21st century. These concerns will only be accomplished by having competent human resources management who will be responsible in hiring, performance measurement and training. As described in the paper, the most critical tasks for the HR include training and performance measurement which will be addressed through a strategic human resource plan. References Armstrong, P. (1995). ‘Accountancy and HRM’. In Storey, J. (Ed.), Human Resource Management: A Critical Text. London: Routledge, 142–63. Becker, B. and Huselid, M. (1998). ‘High performance work systems and firm performance: a synthesis of research and managerial implications’. Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, 16, 53–101. Boudreau, J. W. (2003). Strategic knowledge measurement and management. In S.E. Jackson, Collins, A. (2007), “Human resources: a hidden advantage?” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 19 No. 1, pp. 78-84. Harrison, R. (2004). Learning and development. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Kaufman, B. (2001). The theory and practice of strategic HRM and participative management. 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