Strategic Human Resource Management at AT&T Company - Case Study Example

Name) (Instructors’ name) (Course) (Date) Part a Context of the company Due to growth and rise of modern technology, communication industry in the United States of America is probably one of the fastest growing industries. This has led to the increase and development of many telecommunication industries among these being the AT&T Corp formerly known as American Telephone and Telegraph Corp that offers telecommunication services such as next-generation TV services, mobile services, smart solutions and high-speed internet for other businesses and people ("AT&T Company Information | AT&T About Us"). AT & T Corp is one of the oldest companies of telecommunication used to serve alone the whole of United States of America and Canada but later due to the rise of competition other companies has grown to offer the same("AT&T Company Information | AT&T About Us"). The organisation has advanced to an extent it delivers the above services to 3.5 million businesses on six continents and their high-speed internet serves about 365 million peoples in North America including 51 million in Mexico ("AT&T Company Information | AT&T About Us"). The level of competitiveness in the industry In early 19th and 20th century the AT &T Corp had the monopoly advantage and used to control all telecommunication services ("AT&T Company And Contact Information"). However, due to the rise of different pressures of change like technological change, the rise of telecommunication as the corporate resource and hike of a market-driven political economy other different companies like the British telecom has expanded and taken the control of most of the continents. Although the AT & T Corp still serve the largest population in the USA, other companies like Century link, Verizon, Sprint, and Fairpoint still offers the same services and occupy bigger areas with different propositions to customers thus industry highly competitive between those companies ("AT&T Company And Contact Information"). External stakeholders, the current trend in the industry, nature of work, current strategies, products and services and the current level of performance. The industry has a variety of external stakeholders who help in continuity and progress of the communication companies. The AT&T Corp uses different sources of energy from various companies ("AT&T Outage Or Service Down? Current Problems And Outages"). In 2008 the company developed scorecards which were intended to evaluate power consumption and project activities. The score cards have developed an easy understanding grade of 2000 of the company largest energy consuming sites. Through sharing these grades, facility managers are able to work towards overcoming any challenges facing use of energy("AT&T Company Information | AT&T About Us"). In addition, the company has introduced more related ideas which have contributed to the innovation of more than 4000 such projects leading to saving of more than 362 million between 2010 and 2015 ("AT&T Outage Or Service Down?"). The organisation has also developed a Saving Power Purchase Agreement (SPPA) which has helped to fund upgrades efficiently without the need of adding more capital. On another hand, the company uses technology to handle challenges and find solutions so as to use energy more efficiently. For example, the company has developed the Project ICON (Intelligent Connection of Facility Network) which uses the network to get information from business equipment across the country enabling to manage data from one single central point thus having a common baseline of operation (AT&T Company And Contact Information). To add on that the company has also established energy intensity metric measure that has shown a great deal of lower energy consumption from previous years to up to now. The company has set a goal to reduce power consumption so as by the year 2020 the energy should have been cut by 60% and by now the energy has been reduced up to 45%("AT&T Company Information | AT&T About Us"). In addition, the company has developed alternative power plans including solar power portfolio which have in used 5.0 megawatts and fuel cell power from Brom Energy Serves which have additional 20.9 MW("AT&T Company Information | AT&T About Us"). On environmental and safety the company have to make it sure that their operating companies do not pose any environmental hazards. To ensure this will not happen, the company has developed an Environment, Health and Safety Policies(EHSP) as a guideline measure based on International Standards Organization and occupational health policies of USA government("AT&T Company Information | AT&T About Us"). The company integrate well with its customers and as well as the surrounding community. The company provides opportunity policy to all people where all applicants are protected from discrimination despite their colour, religion and races which also apply to all customers. The company also takes serious precautions to adherence to human rights and also takes policies serious to every country they operate("AT&T Outage Or Service Down? Current Problems And Outages"). In 2015 the company produced a contribution of 156.6 million for philanthropic spending. The funding was given to various programs according to priority. The civic and community took the largest share of $29 million followed by art and culture with $6.5 million("AT&T Outage Or Service Down? Current Problems And Outages"). The company also has an operational hand salute which provides educational and mentoring programs for the service disabled and veteran service business. The organisation always has original March maker events where suppliers and primes discuss various future and current opportunities. In total by 2016, there are 12 primes, 119 meetings, and 50 suppliers ("AT&T Outage Or Service Down? Current Problems And Outages"). The company uses a $23.07 per volunteer hour which determines the financial equivalent. The company has developed a number of policies that guides sustainability and citizenship. These policies include climates change policies, code of conduct, code of ethics, energy policy, equal employment opportunity, human rights, paper policy, and the principle of conducts for suppliers, stakeholders policy and anti-bribery compliance policy. Key challenges facing practice of SHRM in organisation I. Human resource effectiveness measurement The organisation does not have an elaborate measurement for effectiveness of human resource. These are the results in terms of transaction management as well as positive influences of the business over the past periods. Utilising the metric changes to know the business efficiency is the start of perceiving human resource role as a positive strategic partner in business ("AT&T Outage Or Service Down? Current Problems And Outages"). II. Change management The company has changed management various times including the time they broke the regional Bell operating companies. The change in management leads to change in personnel management thus affecting the whole human resource administration of the enterprise. III. Leadership development The company faces leadership development challenges since most of the managers in the company were not their former employees ("AT&T Outage Or Service Down? Current Problems And Outages"). IV. Staffing and availability of locally skilled labour. The company has a shortage of skilled employees from the USA, and that is why the (Chris)company hires personnel from the other countries such as Canada ("AT&T Outage Or Service Down? Current Problems And Outages").. V. The company also has a difficulty in hiring and retaining talented staff while lowering labour cost Part b, Recommendation to the company to enhance improvement of SHRM on both individual and organisation performance The company should implement the strategic institutional change for productivity, increase quality and satisfaction of employees (Chris). The company should understand that keeping workers satisfied and engaged takes more than just good benefits and job pay. Respectful treatment of all employees is considered as the most practical favour for employee’s satisfaction. In addition to that research has shown that trust among employees and also to their employer is crucial o enhancing workers satisfaction (L. Peter). One will never work on are without security and the proper healthy environment. If the company keeps good employees satisfaction, there will be always lower turnover, high loyalty, increase productivity and in turn n high profits (Stephen). The company should also develop and implement a more efficient training programmed for both employees and the surrounding community (L. Peter). This will enhance good production of advanced services as the worker's personnel are professionals to their work. The education of employees will also boost technology and generation of new ideas thus developing a significant competitive advantage. Training the surrounding community will enable the company from using extra efforts in hiring remote workers (Shawn). Distantly hired workers will need more pay in terms of allowances and talent hire. The surrounding community if recruited by the company it increased trust thus having excellent employer workers satisfaction (Stephen). The other thing the company should do is to construct and design a beneficial structure that measures their success (D. Peter). Measuring company success and trends in the business enable the organisation to develop new strategies that enhance improvements. This makes the company develop a significant competitive advantage over other businesses since the upgraded techniques employed to the firm always led to increasing in workers’ productivity and customers’ satisfaction (Shawn). In addition, the company should also develop leverage advanced technology that enhances the contribution of human resource function to the business (Shawn). This takes the form of electronic human resource management (eHRM) which involves the use of Information Technology (IT) that involves the use of intranets, internets and portals (Chris). Application of tracking systems is one of the latest information technologies the company should use in human resource management. In these systems, the company will be able to reach workers and customers at a very high rate and in a more convenient way thus enabling a reduction in cost and improve employees to manager’s communication. This will develop trust and honesty in the organization and in that way productivity will be increased (D. Peter). The company should also broaden the human resource management perspective and propose how traditional human resource management activities can be used to supply chain management. These activities range from selecting, recruiting , developing and rewarding the workforce to change labour and administration relations (Stephen). Traditionally the HR strategy involves the use of flexible systems that promotes organisation performance. Applying these strategies in a more professional mode leads to a progressive introduction of broader benefits (L. Peter). These strategies include considering supply chain activities, partners and characteristics when making a plan and also collaborating partners of the chain supply (Chris).Broader application of the training activities in HR produces these benefits; identification of specific needs and objectives for the supply chain position and also doing a design training to meet those needs including cross-organizational and joint training (Stephen). The other includes use of data information and statistic to make an informed decision. This involves the use of workers needs and insights through marketing decision making a process or planning to make the strong relation between users and producers (Stephen). The company should train the analysts to enable them to enter new markets and efficiently complete data analysis (Stephen). The manager should bring up individual skills in the organisations to support business intelligence so as to hasten new business strategies that bring coordination in the company (Chris). The organisation should also identify new principles for utilising, developing and conserving human resources (L. Peter). This will enable the company to be able to maintain talents and workers. Maximising on the development of employees within the organization will always lead to increasing in the production of a high standard (Chris). Conserving human resources include activities like allowing the employees to have welfare group, promoting the education of employees and allowing into organisation culture (Shawn). In addition, the organisation should establish and create a culture of collaboration. Managers operate well when their business culture demands collaboration. Rewarding individual success is the better but not enough (Shawn). Only in a culture of togetherness and corroboration will a company have developing managers working to bring other workers up to the process of leadership (Stephen). The company should also develop a clear communication skill between workers and also between managers and employees. The company may expect that the communication is too efficient, but that may not be the case. Communication style varies in different societies. Instead of just copying other styles of communication, the organisation should come up with the style that suits most (Chris). This is a technique of developing organisation culture. The company needs to set a high communication standard and train them where they went shortly.Proper communication built trust and terms where poor communication feeds and create uncertainty (D. Peter). The other thing the company should do is having and maintaining human and rewarding intelligence (L. Peter). When leaders of the human resource are rewarded accordingly, other employees envy becoming among the appointed best. Becoming more human makes workers develop a submissive environment to company policies (D. Peter) Key lessons The assignments have various key lessons than one can use in future to become one of the best human resource management practices. From the assignment, one is able to learn that there are a number of challenges that face any business organisation when it comes to human resource management (L. Peter). These challenges include retaining and hiring new staff, human resource effectiveness measurements, Change management and leadership effectiveness. Other problems are like failure to recognise more dynamic borderline characteristics that enhance effective management of the human resource (D. Peter). From the assignment, one is able to learn essential benefits of proper human resource administration in an organisation (Chris). One of them is that good human resource management helps in building the culture and values of the business company. Individual performance is dependent on the culture or work atmosphere that prevails in a company (Shawn). Human resource management is responsible for developing a suitable conductive working environment. High job satisfaction is brought by a healthy and safe, clean work culture (Stephen). In addition a good HRM will enable one to solve conflicts in an organisation (Stephen). There are always many occasions where there are disagreements between an employer and employees or between the workers themselves (Chris). Good human resource management will always provide a way to deal with internal and external conflicts thus ensuring fluency in production. The other thing to put into practice in future human resource management is creating a good communication network in an organisation between the managers and employees (Chris). Organization with an excellent communication style that allows workers to air their views in a proper and conducive way enables productivity of high standards (Shawn). The company a builds a good name and also promotes retention of employees. In addition, an organisation with an efficient communication system always has an ease in the hiring of new workers and talents (L. Peter). Another key lesson that should be practised in future HRM is offering education services to employees and the surrounding community (D. Peter). Educating employee will, in turn, lead to high performance and promote of reduction of hiring new managers outside the company (L. Peter). When the community is educated by the organisation, trust is build and hiring are likely to be from the same community other than from distant areas hence reducing the cost of production (L. Peter). Works Cited Corp., AT&T. "AT&T Corp.: Private Company Information - BusinessWeek". Bloomberg.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Aug. 2016. "AT&T Company Information | AT&T About Us". Att.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Aug. 2016. "AT&T Company And Contact Information". Computerhope.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Aug. 2016. "AT&T Corporation | American Company". Encyclopedia Britannica. N.p., 2016. Web. 14 Aug. 2016. Chris, Brewste. Human Resourse Management in Northern Europe. Blackwell: Oxford, 2013. Peter, Drunker. Management. New York: Collins, 2014. Peter, Larson. Winning Strategies. Ottawa: Conference Board of Canada, 2013. Shawn, Tyson. Human Resourse Strategy. London: Pitman Publisher, 2013. Stephen, Robin. Management. Upper River Saddle: Pearson, 2014. Read More