Line Managers and HRM Issues - Essay Example

163860 Case Study for Retailco "Line Managers and HRM" The assignment requires answering 2 questions Critically analyze the implications of employing part-time staff, making reference to the recruitment, appraisal, and employee development processes in the company. At Retailco, the line managers and the HRM staff face the problem of part-time workers. The ratio of part time workers to full time employees is around seventy percent. In Retailco the company employs a lot of part time workers and half of the employed staff comprises of working females. The employed part time workers apparently are a reason for the inefficiency in the work performance and the managers, the line managers and the HR personnel believe that the replacement of part timers with full time workers will definitely increase the productivity and performance of the work force. Part time workers are hired on a short term basis and do not receive any of the benefits that the employers have to give to regular workforce. Part time workers also have the disadvantage of not receiving on the job training and other forms of regular job based learning. Retailco at the same time is also not interested in investing much into the part timers as the major advantage of hiring the part time workers is the cost saving as compared to the full time workers. Another problem with the part time workers is that the part time workers have other commitments too. The turnover of part time workers is high as they have less loyalty and less bonding with the organization working in. On the other hand, the full time work force is expensive to manage and maintain. The part time workers are only paid for their services whereas the full time workers also receive a hefty benefits package alongwith their basic salary. From the perspective of recruitment of part time workers as opposed to full time employees, the part time workers have to be hired more frequently. Store managers have substantial responsibility in terms of management and human resource activities. These managers are responsible for local HR activities including, but not restricted to, recruitment and selection, on-the-job training, staff scheduling and performance management. The workforce majority being the part time workers pose a difficulty for the store managers to manage their time to conduct such additional tasks which do not directly contribute to their performance. Store managers have set cost targets and budgets constraints within which they have to remain. They believe that hiring full time workers costs more in terms of overtime rate, for example, and thus they would run out of their budget limits if they hire full time workers. Thus they prefer hiring part time workers over full time employees. Another problem arising as a consequence of such a budget based recruitment practice is that the recruitment is dependent upon the budget for the period. If the budget is set to be low, the recruitment activity is stopped and existing part time employees are made to work overtime. Then, at some time, the shortage occurs and a rush to recruit starts making HR policies inconsistent and costly. Having very less or no incentive, the managers are least interested in taking this extra responsibility. The HR team must ensure that the managers are in congruence with their thinking and policy before putting it in place. Section managers hold responsibility for nearly all aspects of recruitment and selection. Section managers also interview the candidates for selection, thus giving them the major responsibility of selection and recruitment. Store managers have set cost targets and budgets constraints within which they have to remain. They believe that hiring full time workers costs more in terms of overtime rate, for example, and thus they would run out of their budget limits if they hire full time workers. Thus they prefer hiring part time workers over full time employees. Another problem arising as a consequence of such a budget based recruitment practice is that the recruitment is dependent upon the budget for the period. If the budget is set to be low, the recruitment activity is stopped and existing part time employees are made to work overtime. Then, at some time, the shortage occurs and a rush to recruit starts making HR policies inconsistent and costly. Another problem with part time hiring is that the part time workers are not that dedicated and deeply routed into work as are full time workers. Customer care and customer service levels of full time workers are far better than those performed by the part time workers. Part time workers, being attached to Retailco for shorter periods of time, do not receive extensive trainings related to work and customer service. Due to this lacking, their on job performance is not up to the mark. Their level of dedication is also low due to the fact that they can not be loyal to the company. Some are engaged in jobs only during high seasons whereas some others are working in multiple places in other times, thus making it very difficult for them to get loyal to their work and organization. With reference to appraisals and performance issues, the part timers are a source of problem from the head office perspective. Head office wants employees to perform well and meet performance standards which need dedication and commitment from employee's end. Full time workers put in more effort to achieve the best standards of work performance whereas the part time workers do not work hard to do that. They, already working on overtimes, can not work on to improve their customer service and support levels within their given timeframes. Head office made attempts to introduce performance appraisals for all the staff members, but due to excessive time needed to carry on such additional activities, it is never supported by the line managers. Part time workers also pose problems in performance appraisals and other extra and non-core activities. From the supervisor or line manager's perspective, he has more part time workers than the number of full time workers to perform the same job task. In order to carry out performance appraisal and other job related or performance related activities for the part timers, the line manager has to take out ample time. The line managers are reluctant in carrying out performance appraisals as they have huge work force size and sparing that much of time will affect their routine activities for which they are gauged for their efficiency and performance. From the perspective of development, the supervisors find it hard to train part time workers as they are not permanent and do not provide a long term service. Training and developing them for future is not possible. The training and development does not solely lie with the line manager, but the HR personnel are also involved in training and development activities. Training seasonal or peak time employees (part timers) do not provide much incentive to the HR people as well as the line managers. They tend to overlook the training and development of such people. Full time workers, being in small number, do not get the consideration they need and thus lack in the skills and trainings that they should have received over the period of their jobs and services within the company. 2. Discuss the impact of the desired HR strategy and its implementation by Store managers on the Store's operations and how credible the HR strategic approach is. The desired HR strategy that the HR personnel are planning to implement in the organization has significant impact on the working and operational requirements of the various outlets. The line managers and supervisors are required to spare be inline with the HR personnel in terms of implementation of the HR strategy and the overall organizational policy framework. The HR strategy is based on the belief that the employees working for long hours tend to be more committed to their work and dedicated as compared to those who work for part time. On the other hand, the HR personnel believe that the full time workers also perform well on job as they are more stable and dedicated to their tasks. They perform customer services in a better way than the part timers. The HR function considers a number of strategies and concerns regarding the personnel related policy. These managers are responsible for local HR activities including, but not restricted to, recruitment and selection, on-the-job training, staff scheduling and performance management. Section managers hold responsibility for nearly all aspects of recruitment and selection. Section managers also interview the candidates for selection, thus giving them the major responsibility of selection and recruitment. Store managers have set cost targets and budgets constraints within which they have to remain. They believe that hiring full time workers costs more in terms of overtime rate, for example, and thus they would run out of their budget limits if they hire full time workers. Thus they prefer hiring part time workers over full time employees. Another problem arising as a consequence of such a budget based recruitment practice is that the recruitment is dependent upon the budget for the period. If the budget is set to be low, the recruitment activity is stopped and existing part time employees are made to work overtime. Then, at some time, the shortage occurs and a rush to recruit starts making HR policies inconsistent and costly. They have to perform several tasks in order to improve the overall workforce performance and productivity. Improving the productivity of employees at a minimum cost is one of the core challenges that the HR personnel have to perform. They also have to focus on maintaining a constructive relationship with the trade unions. Another major concern is to maintain a balance between the part time workers and the full time employees that the company has on payroll. Given the independence to the store managers and supervisors, the company and its HR personnel hardly gets involved in the core hiring and selection process of employees for its various locations. The major recruitment and selection decision is made by the store manager, in which he has full authority even to make hiring related policies. The store manager can hire workers on full time or on part time, depending upon his preferences. From the store managers' perspective, they are concerned mainly with staying within the given budget. As long as they are within their budgets, the head office does not bother them if the set targets are being met. As a result of these office considerations and behavior, the management does not get the desired level of commitment from the store managers. Local managers, as a result, exercise their discretions in hiring and firing, whereas the corporate head office continues to find out ways to focus cost minimization as well as quality improvements. Store managers find it seemingly difficult to implement the corporate strategy which focuses on both the quality and the cost minimization. Due to the extra efforts that are required of them to perform the extra tasks of performance appraisal and employee performance management, which are added to ensure a better level of quality, the store managers did not support the idea and thus were very reluctant in the implementation of this corporate strategy. Besides all this, the problem with Retailco seems to be the lack of HRM skills and knowledge possessed by the workforce, the line managers and the store managers. Most of the jobs do not require the candidate to have prior Human resource knowledge and/or experience. The human resource aspects of the job are not even perceived to be anything more than the routine management activities that the store managers perform. Whatever the policies HR plan to implement, the workforce commitment is required from all levels. Implementing various policies had many complications in the Retailco setup as the HR decisions are not centralized in a sense that the store managers and the section managers have independence in making their recruitment and hiring decisions as well as other performance related issues. Starting right from the selection and recruitment process to the training and appraisals, the store managers conduct the entire HR process stream for their subordinates and their group of employees. Getting their acceptance on various policy issues is very critical for the HR as well as the corporate strategy makers. In order for the policy to succeed, the store managers must be in agreement with the HR personnel to implement and practice the new policies within their domain. The HR strategy focuses on performance based appraisals and other measures to ensure that the performance is maintained at its best, providing customer services with high degree of customer satisfaction, and at the same time abiding by the limits of costs of operations. With the new corporate focus of reduced cost and increased quality of operations, the HR team plans to introduce performance appraisal system whereby the store managers and the supervisors have to conduct performance appraisals for their employees on a periodic basis to see where they are lacking in terms of their performance. The workforce majority being the part time workers pose a difficulty for the store managers to manage their time to conduct such additional tasks which do not directly contribute to their performance. Store managers have set cost targets and budgets constraints within which they have to remain. They believe that hiring full time workers costs more in terms of overtime rate, for example, and thus they would run out of their budget limits if they hire full time workers. Thus they prefer hiring part time workers over full time employees. Another problem arising as a consequence of such a budget based recruitment practice is that the recruitment is dependent upon the budget for the period. If the budget is set to be low, the recruitment activity is stopped and existing part time employees are made to work overtime. Then, at some time, the shortage occurs and a rush to recruit starts making HR policies inconsistent and costly. Having very less or no incentive, the managers are least interested in taking this extra responsibility. The HR team must ensure that the managers are in congruence with their thinking and policy before putting it in place. The credibility of the HR policies in this regard and its follow-up or accountability procedures are the major sources of denial or refrain from implementation. This causes concerns for the viability and sustainability of the corporate wide HR strategy. The study shows how even the best conceived HR strategies and policies can be mitigated by the actions of line managers and store managers. As a result, there are uncertainties about the consistency of handling day to day routine issues of human resources between different Retailco stores. The emphasis placed by Retailco on achieving tangible targets and goals means that any manipulation of local HR invariably leads to a focus on 'hard' HRM techniques. The evidence suggests that the delegation of HR activities and responsibility for HRM to line managers can negate the practice of 'soft' HRM, such as performance appraisal, due to preoccupation with the achievement of tangible targets. This gives cause for concern about the execution and viability of the high-commitment HRM in large complex organization, pursuing a strategy of cost reduction. Read More