Employee Resourcing for Factory Relocation HRM - Essay Example

Employee Resourcing for Factory Relocation HRM Prepared by Submitted to Word Count Need for Employee Resourcing and Relocation The changing situations and competitions in the business influenced the market leader Hertfordshire Shelving Systems and it was forced to change its market strategy and the company has to enhance its performance to compete with the other companies who are in the same business. The company Hertfordshire Shelving Systems has to change its marketing strategy and it was forced to improve the quality of the products and it has to create a new working atmosphere to improve the productivity with cost efficiency. In the above activities, the competition taught a lesson to the company about how to face the market challenges and marching towards with new goals. As the company face threats by some other upcountry companies which manufactured the same products with low cost, the Hertfordshire Shelving Systems Private limited was in self defense to keep up its market share and to retain its regular customers as well as to keep up the confidence and to consolidate the business. As the low cost furniture and shelves manufactures entered the market of Watford, a town on the outskirts of London and they dented the market of Hertfordshire Shelving Systems, the management has been forced to protect its existence in maintaining the market stature. In this process the company had to follow some methods and it totally had to change the work culture and working atmospheres. The work place also had to be changed totally into a new look and the management planned to improve the performance of the company by implementing cost cutting methods and to maintain constant profits as the new products hit the market with low price. Company Relocation While the company is facing such problems it has to reorganize and has to change the lay out of the production policy. Two production plants one in Watford which is around one 110 thousand square feet and the second one is in Devon with 20 thousand square feet need relocation or changes. Here there is a problem regarding the areas of the production plants. The Watford plant is too big for modification and Devon unit is very small to revive. However, the company can relocate the units and resources the human resources by following some relocation as well as resource principles (Business Facilities: The Location Advisor, 2009). 1 Being Gracious The first thing in relocating is to vacate the unit from the present site. While vacating the site of the old unit, the existing land owner may not be friendly to the management. So the management of the organization should remember that they have to maintain good relation with the previous land lord /owner as well as with the new land lord. Good human relations help the management to be a good entrepreneur and improve business activities of the company. However, as the present sites of the units of the company are owned by the company, the fact is to find a new location that minimizes the transportation cost as well as employee resourcing. The next step is to understand the business partners to dominate the competitors. In understanding the business partners, the management has to be independent first and that independence regarding production and marketing can decide the relations with stakeholders as well as business partners. The responsibilities in the relocation should be shared between them to avoid deviations between them and the above aspects can be fulfilled when the management is independent in production and marketing activities. If there is dependence, there is a need of collaboration agreement that shares profits to the business partners as well as losses if any. The next step in relocation is about landed cost calculations. Shifting of the company results in expenditure to the management and correct planning about the relocation can minimize the expenses like the costs regarding water, power, transport, labor and taxes. As the all the above expenditures influence the company and its profits, relocation needs planning as well as cost effective methods in production after relocation. Hence, to counter the competition of the competitors, the company has to be cost effective in production after relocation. Intensive planning on relocating units and resourcing staff and office files is necessary and drafting a road map can help management to complete the process peacefully in a time bound manner. The road map may be for one year as the company in this context is reasonably big. The road map enables the management to shift the staff and the official records as well as official equipment according to the pre-planned schedule. The technology management plays major role in re-location of the company or office as shifting computers, phones and other electronic office systems need technology management for relocation. However, it is important for any company to be budge sensitive as the relocation is for minimizing the costs to ward of the competition from the competitors. Hence, concentration on budget is important, while shifting the company. Planning of budget allocation and relocation is important and linking them to each other demands a manager who is good in financial as well as administrative activities as a coordinator for relocation. The manager cum coordinator should plan the relocation of the units according to the budget. An experienced relocation project manager minimizes the expenditure. The choice of professional re location agents for transport the assets of this company to a new place is important in making relocation as per the budget and in the much needed time. For the above activities, educating the employees about packing of goods is important as in the course of shifting the company the employees as well as the assets play a main role. The relocation agency should educate the employees regarding the packing and moving them. They can conduct a meeting to create awareness in such aspects. It is necessary to organize the job in a systematic manner to avoid the damage of sensitive goods and machinery as well as electronic equipment as the damage of them can show impact on the cost effectiveness after relocation. The management should take care of the sensitive articles and at the same time they should mind to avoid transporting unused items. It is necessary to leave the old furniture and unused articles, shelves and useless files and stationary with the old premises to save the transportation as well as the place in new campus as the old campus is owned by the company. The fate of them can be decided after the beginning of the production in the new premises. The unused and spoiled old items will occupy the place and cause discomfort for the staff and organization. Simultaneously, the management should not reveal the decision of shifting the company till the schedule of shifting is confirmed. After the finalization of the schedule, they should inform this to the staff as the rumors may spread and they are capable enough to confuse the staff. The management should think about welfare of the staff also while shifting the company. The management should distribute the pamphlets to the staff to convey the details of the new campus, amenities and special assignments. Some coordinators have to communicate with the various departments and with the staff for smooth functioning of the job. Some times the relocation of the company impacts the number of the employees and some times the number of staff has to be cut off and it is a part of resourcing the employees. The management has to mind the job security of the staff and they should try hard to not to cut the work force and should be in a position to maintain the staff by increasing the production as well as the marketing activities to market the manufactured goods at the new locations. While shifting the company, the human resource management is also very important to save the employment of the existing workers and staff. The new premises should have some characteristics that enable safe production as well as secure shelter. The new place should be highly secured than the old premises. The management should give enough importance to the security of the staff and the assets of the company during and after shifting. The company should provide the insurance to the staff as they are going to a new place and they may not aware of the conditions and situations there. After shifting to a new place the entrepreneur should talk to the local economical developers first to improve his business in the new place. They have to expose their financial stature and marketing strategy to capture some share in the local market. It is important to introduce the company to local market as well as the outside market about the new strategies in production and marketing and the benefits of them to the customers. This helps the company, to land foot in the market after relocation. All these steps have to be taken before shifting the company. Being a CEO of the company, one should be able to maintain the relations with the people who can influence the market. To improve the sales of the products management should gather information about costly customers, and leaders in marketing in the area the company wants to sell its products. Simultaneously, the entrepreneurs should listen to their employees and staff to know their opinions on shifting the company and may take advices from them if necessary and if they are valid (Business Facilities: The Location Advisor, 2009). 2 Employees resourcing As the company is facing the market threat from the competitors it is necessary for Hertfordshire Shelving Systems to shift its campus to the outskirts of London. Simultaneously, they have to rationalize the human resources. The company has to reorganize the new workforce according to new work place. Human resource management development has to look after these employees resourcing activities as employee resourcing is an important duty of Human resourcing department in large scale companies. The major duties of this function are staffing, administration and performance assessment with in employee resourcing with inter related management. The HR administration has to consider the employee development program along with employee resourcing. They have to appoint right candidate for the right post to compete with the other German and China made furniture companies that offer cost effective furniture. As the part of the resourcing and re location the work force was deployed from Watford to Stoke-on-Trent to meet the market demand and to compete with the companies. The HR activities of the organization influence the overall performance of the company. This department can impact all the departments of the company. In case of Hertfordshire Shelving Systems Ltd, the HR department needs to play a major role in employees resourcing and utilizing of the work force. Some people in staff were taken under contract basis and in case of them; the company utilized the manpower in a proper way. The management has to strengthen the HR department and try to reduce the losses of the factory by recruiting the staff in temporary basis as the unemployment increased in Stoke-on-Trent up to 5% by the year 2000. The HR department had endorsed the nearly 150 workers and 120 of them were directly deployed in production and rest of them were put under reserved staff to deploy at emergency. Consequently, at the time of starting production, the staff were divided into groups and a team leader was appointed to supervise them. The main production section involved in loading of the steel bars and strips and later the products were certified by the quality assurance department and ware sent to the paint shop to paint them. In that department also some problems arose while painting of the furniture, while clipping and hanging into the paint bay the hooks and the clips also were painted un-wanted. However, HR and production departments have overcome the problem with coordination. It is necessary to deploy the staff in shifts to achieve good results. The first shift need to be from 6 am to 2pm and the second one was from 2pm to 10pm. Thus the company had utilized its human resources and planned its human resources and met the challenges from the competitors.3 Steps to be taken to improve profitability As the company, Hertfordshire Shelving Systems is facing the profitability problem, due to the competition, it is necessary to implement employee resourcing and other activities in an effective way. Some of the steps necessary to gain profits are; Along with employee resourcing the company has to take some precautionary measures. The company had to take care in selection of the material used for the production. The material optimization influences the customers as it decides the quality of the outcome. The quality of the material would attract the costumers and it leads to increase the profits. If the company improves the productivity without any extra expenditure, it can bag good profits. The next step is transportation and warehousing. The functioning of smooth shipment improves the credibility of the company while delivering the shelves and office furniture. It is necessary to take care that the furniture do not break or crack before it is delivered to the customer. Next to this, the warehouses should be well connected with road and rail transport to avoid delay in delivery of products. Thus the management should take appropriate actions to improvise the profits along with productivity. 4 Successful Manpower management enhances the profits The company has to meet the marketing challenges by successful utilization of manpower. This was proved by the Personnel today magazine with its twenty years of marketing research with many organizations. The survey proved this after the study of 3000 employees from various industries. It found that the organization improves the expenditure control by 10% on human resourcing and that results in increase of profit. The increase of profit is at the rate of 1,500 British pounds per an employee. Thus the shelving Systems Company also would have to re organize its staff to meet the challenges from the new companies and to increase the profitability after relocation of its units. A researcher Tamkin asserts that there is no limit of expenditure on human resourcing and on the profits also. However, HR managers should mingle with the staff to meet their goals. To reach their goals of profits the human resource division should mind these steps to be followed. The first one is perfect planning. It is necessary for human resource and personnel care is required for each employee. The payments should be linked with the profits and the salaries have to improve when the profits rise. The Hertfordshire Shelving system also implemented the same formula and the work force was deployed according to the requirement. The organization should try to improve the skills of the staff and HR division should assess the skills of the staff regularly. The meetings with each employee also help to enhance the productivity. The management with proper vision should go forward to achieve its goals. 5 Managing and resourcing the people After relocation, the best management of human resources enables the managements to overcome the problem of profitability. The Hertfordshire Shelving Systems can also follow the same formula and can get the relief from the marketing and profitability tensions. As the HR heads can find that the department is the cost center of the company they had to implement the proven methods to improve the profitability. As a result, the corporate executives were relegated and regularized accordingly to utilize human resources in a proper way. In this company also the HR department needs to be revived and the work force should be utilized well to enhance the productivity. The company can divide the staff according to the availability of the work space in the two production centers in Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire. It is necessary to divide the man power into batches and team leaders have to supervise their activities of productivity. The production in overtime should incentive sensitive so that it helps the employees to work with more vigor. The company can utilize the employment well and can hire workers from Stoke-on-Trent as unemployment exists there at 5 percent. The payments need to be hiked according to productivity and profitability. The deployment of qualified personnel is necessary to utilize the manpower properly. Thus the company can implement cost effective methods to meet the competition in the market.6 References: Business Facilities: The Location Advisor, 2009, 25 Essential Relocation Steps, Business Facilities.com, Retrieved on 5th April 2009 from Ani B. Raiden1 et al, 2004, The Development of a Strategic Employee Resourcing Frame Work (SERF) for Construction, published by arcom.ac.uk, Retrieved on 8th 7th April 2009 from http://www.arcom.ac.uk/workshops/04-Edinburgh/04-Raiden.pdf Patrick Smorch, 2009, Nine Steps to Greater Profitability and Sustainability, Published by packagingdigest.com, Retrieved on 7th April 2009 from Louisa Peacock, 2008, Good human resources will boost your company profits, research proves, Published by personneltoday.com, Retrieved on 7th April 2009 from Shafiq Lokhandwala, 2007, Managing People, Process & Strategy for Increased Profitability-How Human Resource Departments Can Leverage Technology to Become a Strategic Profit Center, Published by IFMA, Retrieved on 7th April 2009 from Read More