Managing People for Competitive Advantage - CEVA Company - Case Study Example

Managing People for Competitive Advantage (JNB324) (Assignment 1) Student: Student ID: Lecturer: Subject: Course: Bachelor of Business (J3N Maritime & Logistics Management) Due Date: 13 March 2012 Word Count: 2009 Abstract This paper sets out to show the reason why HRM practitioners should aim at sharing the overall HRM responsibilities between professionals, outsourced service providers, senior and line managers within the organization. In doing so it suggests that HRM specialists need the ability to manage up, down and across the organization. Contemporary HRM plans and strategies should assist to facilitate the achievement of corporate strategic plans for it is without a doubt that HRM practices in the transport and logistics companies are needed to ensure that there is quality, continuous improvement in delivery of services and quality of services and also customer satisfaction. Most transport and logistics companies emphasize on the development of the structural component of the organization and sideline the HRM component and hence the need to emphasize HRM practices and why they should be shared among professionals and outsourced service providers among others. Table of contents Abstract i Background Information CEVA is a company that was formed by the merging of TNT logistics and EGL. It is ranked as one of the globes logistics company and in Australia it is ranked to be among the top five best performing companies in the industry. The company improves its competitive position by developing, implementing and operating innovative supply chain solutions. A geographic position in the Asia pacific region makes CEVA Australia an excellent location for international logistics solutions. The company is involved in freight management, contract logistics, and distribution and transportation management. The company has various global networks with facilitates in over 170 countries and an employee base of about 49,000 people worldwide. CEVA understands that every industry has its own characteristics and priorities thus measures have been put in place to deal with each business needs in their different industry sectors. CEVA understands that transportation and logistics is all about smart thinking as well as the efficient movement of products. Thus in achieving these, the company employs route optimization and pool distribution to the best local networks; the company is a specialist in the surrounding services that aid in the generation of maximum results for minimum cost. Unsurprisingly, the company handles services related to ocean, air, customs compliance and truck brokerage to expedited ground and transportation management. With a diverse global network, the products that are to be transported to different locations arrive safely and on-schedule. Contemporary HRM Human resource management has over time been considered as a contemporary growth that tries to restructure employment relationships (Bratton & Gold 2003, p. 67). Various attempts have been undertaken all in the aim of replacing some earlier management traditions such as personnel management and industrial relations (Redman & Wilkinson 2001, p. 150). There are various HRM practices among them, employee input, compensation, employee selection and recruitment, training of employees and internal labor markets (Dessler 2003, p.200). All the HRM practices directly influence the attainment of strategic corporate plans and contribute to the performance of the organizational objectives (Guest 1997, p. 269). HRM practices directly contribute to the organization’s performance in light of CEVA Australia Company capabilities of providing integrated logistics services, using ICT in solving logistics and supply chain problems, devising solutions distinct to supply chain and logistics and offering expertise in the logistic industry. Thus HRM practices in organizations has continued to increase and improve over time for nowadays organization have linked the attainment of strategic corporate plans with HRM for such plans can only become a reality through the workforce of the organization thus HRM. Corporate strategic plans involves the collaboration of all stakeholders in order to devise and maintain actions that are in light of making the transport and logistics company at a competitive advantage over other competitors and thus the justification that HRM practitioners should aim at sharing the responsibilities in the achievement of corporate strategic plans. Thus HRM over the years has become the most important asset in the organization owing to the fact that an organization success is wholly dependent on its ability to maintain the control of the organization workforce, ensure that the organization’s workforce has adhered to the organization’s rules and regulations among other HRM functions for instance, training, recruitment of staff and staff appraisal. These predominantly HRM tasks should be shared in light of achieving corporate strategic plans (Huslid 1995, p. 640). Outsourced Service Providers Outsourced service providers refer to people or a person who is a separate entity from the organization and is mandated with performing certain services for a company in this case CEVA Australia Company. The outsourced service providers are not employees of the company but however share the responsibilities of HRM professionals in the achievement of corporate strategic plans. Arrangements which are made by the organization in light of attaining its goals and objectives need to be distributed to the outsourced service providers so that the service providers can best understand what is expected or required of them and where they fall in the achievement of the organization’s strategic plans. When these roles are clearly stated for the service providers, there is little confusion as to what the organization expects from them and hence the service providers will not make deals with the organization that are to go wrong. HRM on the other hand comes in the effort of regulating the service provider’s services in that such question as whether customers are pleased with the service provider’s services and whether the outsourced services are increasing or reducing the profits of the organization arises. This then clearly demonstrates that HRM practitioners have to communicate through the various departments in the organization for instance the finance department for analysis of the profitability of the outsourced service providers and the customer relations or the human resources department for a complete audit on whether the organization’s customers are satisfied with the outsourced services (Analoui 1999, p. 56). CEVA Australia Company has a team of highly trained professionals which has the ability to train new employees, reward highly performing employees, motivating the employees, appraising and retaining the employees who are the performers of the organization (Beatty 1973, p. 200). Thus CEVA Australia eliminates challenges for instance shortage of manpower and high employee turnovers. Owing to the fact that the company has over 170 operations in the global field in different countries, the company’s HRM professionals have to know how to be conversant with their employees who are from a diverse workforce and so do service providers interactions with the customer’s of the organization who are drawn from diverse regions within the company’s operating periphery. Line Managers A critical matter is the separation of duties among the HR professionals and line managers. The trend mainly focuses on the delegation of duties to line managers and in particular to areas such as staffing and selection, evaluation, communication and to some degree over training and punitive issues in the organization (Hendry & Pettigrew 1990, p. 40). The underlying principle for developing duties related to the management of staff within the organization in relation to the organizations line managers is comprehensible and the same applies to delegation from an essential HR element to local HR professional (Keenoy 1990b, p. 370).   Line managers are basically termed as the group of managers who the employees have an obligation to report to and later the line managers will have to communicate with the high level managers. These managers are tasked with various responsibilities such as the provision of technical know-how and managing the employees. Line mangers assist the HR in striving to achieve the strategic goals of the organization and they do these by performing the duties assigned to them such as management of the employees working under them (Mondy 2010, p. 150). The line mangers in most organizations are also tasked with the duties which conventionally fall in the remit of the human resource manager in an organization. Some of these responsibilities include training, performance evaluations, guidance and tackling discipline related matters and complaints. In general, all line managers are responsible for the program impact of HR choices; on the other hand the human resource team is responsible for the conformity with the action. With the shared responsibility between the human resource team and the line managers, it is evident that each of them is in due course responsible for effectual and lawfully compliant Human resource system. For CEVA Australia the line managers work together with the HRM practitioners to achieve the roles that they share. The human resource department in CEVA Australia and the line managers ought to work collaboratively so as to ensure the achievement of the company’s mission and vision, deal efficiently with all employees and offering of advice necessary so as to accomplish some tasks and within the required time limit. Thus the contemporary HRM plans and strategies should assist and facilitate the achievement of the corporate strategic plan. Senior Managers There have been ranging debates as to the effectiveness of HRM practitioners in their contribution to the achievement of corporate strategic plans without a clear line being draw as to their responsibilities and the responsibilities of senior managers (Amis, Slack & Hinings 2004, p. 25). The differences between duties performed by HRM practitioners and senior managers are thin as the nature of HRM continues to evolve today and delineating such differences becomes hard (Sisson 1993, p. 207). Initially senior managers are the ones that lead the organization, provide support to the organization and also demonstrate commitment in the organization in an effort of motivating employees towards committing themselves in the organization’s objectives. In simple words, senior managers are the backbone of an organization and hence an important component when achieving corporate strategic plans (Kramar et al 2011, p. 156). On the other hand, HRM practitioners are also an important aspect in light of attaining corporate strategic plans in that in some instances, the extent to which they act as catalysts or as means towards the attainment of corporate strategic plans is not clearly cut out and hence their roles and the roles of senior managers can in most cases conflict and hence the need to share out the HRM responsibilities and the best way of sharing the HRM practices is making the senior managers and the HRM practitioners roles in the organization interdependent towards the attainment of corporate strategic plans (Sisson 2001, p. 200). On the other hand, for the overall achievement of corporate strategic plans, there is need to ensure that HRM practices are followed even by senior managers in a contingency perspective manner. For instance, when a HRM practitioner at CEVA Australia makes recommendations that only employees with certain qualifications are to be recruited in the organization, senior managers are to follow the recommendations of the HRM practitioners without so much bureaucracy. These overlapping roles between the HRM practitioners and senior managers have to be shared in the effective achievement of corporate strategic plans. On the other hand, when senior managers have to make decisions in issues touching on HRM practices, HRM practitioners have to adhere to such directives for the overall benefit of the organization (Analoui & Karami 1999, p. 250). This therefore presents a shift in the nature of HRM practitioners as proactive, descriptive and executive which interrelates to senior managers roles which are reactive, prescriptive and administrative. In cases where senior manager’s roles and HRM practices meet at the crossroads, the solution to such organizational issues is the sharing of the responsibilities which presents an overreaching scenario where corporate strategic plans are effectively achieved (Wayne 1991, p. 32). Professionals Professionals can be defined as individuals who are paid so as to perform certain specialized duties. In most cases a profession is a vocation instituted upon dedicated educational guidance; professionalism aims at supplying disinterested guidance and service to others in the same organization (Marchington & Wilkinson 2002, p. 120). Professionals ought to work hand in hand with the HR so as to ensure the success of the business. Professionals provide immeasurable benefits to the organization and thus they ought to be treated well in that they ought to be remunerated on the basis the services they provide (Storey 1992, p. 98). Like any other company, CEVA has a great number of professionals who work together all in the aim of attaining the organizations goal. The HR at CEVA ought to share his/her responsibilities with other professionals within the organization so as to ensure that HRM specialists have the ability to manage up, down and across the organization. With clear and concise formulation and implementation of the contemporary HRM plans and strategies there will be the achievement of the corporate strategic plan. Thus an arising needs to share the human resource responsibilities with the professionals within an organization. Conclusion In conclusion, the noble tasks carried out by HRM practitioners’ emphasizes the way people are managed for it is clear that the success of an organization depends on its workforce for the organization’s workforce is the force that propels the organization towards success or the attainment of corporate strategic plans (Greenlaw & Kohl 1986). The high commitment that is distinct to HRM practitioners can only be improved through the sharing of HRM responsibilities and it is only then that the commitment of other stakeholders in the organization can be demonstrated as evidenced in CEVA Company. For instance, in an organization where there is no definite HRM department, HRM roles are distributed across all the departments of the organization and hence shared out. HRM being an important component in the organization that aims at getting results through managing people, it is doubtless to say that the activities of the HRM practitioners helps the organization in achieving corporate strategic plans the reason being that any department in the organization has employees who must be managed in light of attaining corporate strategic goals and hence all the departments of the organization have to be familiar with the HRM practices. In view of modern day organizations where these organizations have shifted their focus from being product centric to being consumer centric organizations, even the logistics and transport companies like CEVA Australia cannot be left behind and hence the emphasis for HRM practices to be shared out for the ultimate delivery of customer expectations (Nankervis, Compton, Baird, & Coffey 2011). References Amis, J., Slack, T and Hinings, C. 2004a, ‘The pace, sequence, and linearity of radical change’, The Academy of Management Journal, vo. 47, no. 1, pp. 15-39. Analoui, F. & Karami, A. 1999, ‘New Human Resource Initiatives in the Enterprise Sector: A Strategic Approach’, Conference on Human Resource for Development: People and Performance, 27-30 June, University of Manchester. Analoui, F. 1999, Effective Human Resource Development: A Challenge for Developing Countries, Ashgate, Aldershot, UK. Beatty, R. 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