Portfolio Activities for 2014 People and Organizations - Coursework Example

Portfolio activities for for People and Organizations Unit Corporate social responsibility Corporate social responsibility has attracted very many definitions from different scholars who try to bring into perspective the most rational of them all. In this topic, we were taught several definitions of CSR. According to Commission of the European Stakeholder Communities, (2001), CSR is defined as the integration of companies’ business operations with the environmental concerns and their social interactions with their stakeholders voluntarily. Another definition by World Business Council for Social Sustainable Economic Development, (1999) defines CRS as obligation of companies and businesses to undertake sustainable economic development in their communities to improve the lives of their employees, local families, community and the whole society. The last definition and the most relevant one is by Khoury et al., (1999) where CSR is defined as the wholesome relationship between companies and all their stakeholders. The company is obligated to their communities, Economic government, competitors, customers, employees, investors and suppliers. This definition is the most relevant because it recognizes all the stakeholders and further specifies the responsibilities to include investment in community projects, creation of employment, environmental conservation and creation of employee relations. We also evaluated different companies from the FTSE4GOOD index and how they demonstrate CSR. I would look at Volkswagen Group which is a company that deals with motor vehicles. Volkswagen Group has invested a lot of money in its CRS. There is the creation of employment opportunities for the local. It is estimated that since 2008 headed to 2018, the company reserved $7 billion to be invested in the United States to create more employment opportunities. They are also involved in environmental sustainability where they use advanced technologies in the manufacture of carbon-neutral vehicles such as electric cars and low emission vehicles, clean diesel. The Volkswagen Group is involved in the conservation of energy by promotion of green power such as solar. It produces 13.1 gigawatt-hours of solar power energy annually sufficient to power 1,200 households per year (Engle RL., 2006). This topic concludes by noting that CRS policies benefit the community as it enables the companies to pay back to the communities for their support. Volkswagen Group has managed to create massive employment, enhanced eco-mobility, corporate citizenship and better-quality fuel-economy. Unit 2: Flexible working Flexible working is the capacity of a company to adjust efficiently to changes in order to achieve the set goals and objectives. Different forms of flexible working include; numerical, functional, temporal, locational and financial. Numerical flexible working involves the adjusting of the number of workers to cope with the fluctuating levels of production (HRM, 2013). This form may face difficulty because of the lack of retention of workers which can increase the costs of the company in terms of employee layoffs. This can be solved by working with independent contractors in high production seasons like the Christmas times as they do not have employee benefits like paid leave, sick off or pension like in Curry’s company (HRM, 2013). Functional flexible working is where a company has the capacity to shift their employees between departments. Managers face problems of job-fit when shifting employees as most employees are specialized to perform only specific tasks. This problem can be solved by reviewing selection methods such that employees are able to perform diverse functions within the company. For example, an accountant in the finance department should be able to perform human resource functions with ease as is the case of Tesco Company (Business Dictionary, 2013). Temporal flexible working is the ability of a company to alter working hours such that employees have some shorter and longer days such as in Thorpe Park. Managers face the challenges of maintaining very detailed schedules which can cause inconveniences in terms of tardy and attendance. To solve this problem, managers should delegate this function to respective departments which will sufficiently cope to ensure smooth transition between shifts (HRM, 2013). Locational flexible working involves the flexibility of the company in allowing the employees to work in different places even at home. Managers face a challenge of ensuring that employees working at home deliver results. This problem is being resolved in many such companies by introducing performance contracts in which an employee is paid for delivering results (Nelson & Quick, 2012). Financial flexible working involves paying employees different rewards depending on the level of their productivity. The challenge faced by managers here is the question of the criteria of rewards. The problem can be solved by a performance contact in which the employer and the employee agree on the rewards criteria before the contract is signed (Business Dictionary, 2013). In this unit, we concluded that a company may not maintain all the forms of flexibility but only those that will enable it to meet its objectives efficiently. Unit 3: Equal Opportunities Equality and diversity are concepts that are used to ensure that all the people regardless of their differences in race, ethnicity, tribes, religion, occupation and all walks of life remain one with no superior or inferior in quality. In this unit, we learnt that equality is the value of all people being basically similar in worth or status. People demonstrate equality by being fair and respectful to others for the differences in principles or status. The minority, marginalized and disadvantaged are protected from forms of life which advocate for majority. Equality is a human right which everybody is entitled to. On the other hand, diversity is the state of people having differences such as of race, age, religion, beliefs, gender, social class or political affiliation. Where there is diversity, there must be equality as lack of it leads to conflicts. Equality promotes diversity as upheld by the Equality Act 2010. To ensure equality in the selection of employees, the company needs to do a job analysis; this should indicate the minimum qualification of the prospective employee, the skills and the expertise needed for proper completion of the tasks. Employees should be selected for their qualifications in line with the job description if they are qualified, despite their background. The same types of testing should be subjected to all prospective employees. If men and women apply for a position, they should be treated equally and subjected to the same testing without favors. And lastly, this phase should avoid any requirement that requires physical descriptions such as race, height of colour of the skin. In this case, only the qualified will be shortlisted regardless of their diversity. This unit provided us with insights on diversity and equality and how to ensure we have a society of diverse characters by promoting equality. Unit 4: Recruitment An interview is great way of getting to know a candidate’s external personality by providing insights regarding their body language and also by their communication efficiency. However, this does not provide the internal analysis of a candidate to understand their characters before they can be hired. In this unit, we learnt about the aptitude tests within the recruitment phase which expose the candidate’s internal characters. These tests are important because they help the employer to narrow the recruitment criteria as it makes it easier to separate applicants based on their personalities. This method saves the companies’ resources and time especially where there are a lot of applicants for a single position. However, this method has its disadvantages; there is no way of ensuring that the applicants who have passed the personality test will have the same efficiency when they get their hands on the job. Furthermore, there are costs involved in the creation of the program which is used in producing the tests; such costs may be more than what the company saves when conducting he interviews (Kreitner, R., & Kinicki, A., 2010). I completed the aptitude tests in www.shldirect.com and the results from the test indicate that for a candidate to gain the highest scores in the tests, one has to work very hard on the answers. I would recommend that such tests be used before recruitment in order to select the most qualified person for the job, however, some tests are very complicated and so employers have to reach a promise since the tests must produce a prospect which is not very easy. We concluded this topic by noting that interviews have for a long time been very hectic for many employers particularly when dealing with many employees. Aptitude tests provide a very efficient way of narrowing down the numbers to include only the qualified persons to proceed to the interview. Unit 5: Reward Different companies use different reward systems for their employees to achieve the desired level of performance and achieve the set objectives. In this unit, we concentrated on how companies reward their employees. I will examine the case for Ernst & Young and Zurich Company of the United Kingdom. Ernst & Young has a Performance appraisal system engagement where there is both the fixed pay and the variable pay. The fixed pay is the basic pay which is rewarded to the entire employees at a fixed rate. The variable pay varies from one employee to another depending on their performance and their output towards the success of the company. It employs the total rewards system where employees are compensated fairly for their output. Other rewards include the cash allowances, retiral, bonus plan mechanisms such as deferred schemes and commissions. Zurich Company maintains a competitive remuneration policy which ensures achievement of high performance. The company makes use of both the fixed and the variable pay. The employees are paid a basic pay and other benefits which accrue to high performers like bonuses, commissions, and payment in kind. Other benefits for its employees are share appreciation rights (Mullins, L., 2009). The rewards systems for both Ernst & Young and Zurich companies are directly related to the Towers Perrin Total Reward model. This is because the model advocates for all types of rewards to be used in the same system. This includes the basic pay, contingent pay, cash payments and payments in kind, intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. The employees should be appreciated for their high performance by appreciation payments associated with their performance. This is a total reward system in which rewards are extended holistically to attract and retain employees. This model is cost effective as the company pays more when the employees have delivered more to the company and thus it is very economical (Wright, A., 2004). This unit taught us that many companies are changing from the traditional fixed pay system and adopting the Total Reward model where employees are compensated for their contribution to the value of the company. This rewards system has both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as the higher the performance, the more the remuneration. Unit 6: Employee Engagement Employee voice is a very important concept in business because it enables the employers to gauge the level of employee satisfaction and the changes to be made to fit to the employee’s needs and expectation in terms of their working environment. In this unit, we looked at the different definitions of employee voice. According to Freeman & Medoff (1984), employee voice is defined as a collective issue related to all or almost all the employees in an organization or an industry and is mostly related to trade unions which voice the employees’ concerns to their employers. Kaufman & Levine (2000), also defined employee voice as the concept of helping employees air their views to the management. However, this definition of employee voice departs from the union part as the employees air their views directly to the management without the union. We also examined how KPMG communicates with their employees. We found out that KPMG is organized into departments where managers are in charge of subordinate workers. Tasks are divided into teams, and each team has a supervisor. Therefore, communication in this company runs both vertically and horizontally. Different team members, supervisors, managers and executives within the same rank communicate horizontally. Vertical communication is involved with the authority of the company. Power and orders flow from the management executives down through the managers to the supervisor till the teams members. Horizontal communication helps managers maintain discipline, efficiency, maintain good communication and delegate tasks to those who are highly suited. Vertical communication improves integration, feedback and mutual trust in the company as it brings employees and managers closer by effective communication and respect. This unit concluded by noting that the concept of employee voice is has been in practice for along time in the Human Relations section. While some employees prefer to use the trade unions to voice their concerns, other companies recognize the need to employee voice and have put up measures to ensure the concerns are heard internally and resolved without the employment of trade unions. Unit 7: Training and Development The training cycle involves the elements which play a role in the training program from the time of evaluating the needs of training to assessing the outcome of the training. In this unit, we covered the different elements of the training cycle, which are; identification of the training needs, planning phase, delivery and evaluation. The needs to the training are identified at each level of the model. The three levels include; knowledge and information, culture and commitment and skills and behaviors which determine the needs of different trainers as not all trainers have the same needs. Planning for training includes making decisions on how the identified needs of the learners should be met, the resources to be utilized and the timelines need for accomplishment. The delivery phase is concerned with the type of knowledge and skills to be impacted on the learners depending on their needs. Different methods of delivery are employed to match the needs of the learners. Evaluation is the examination of the outcome of the learning process to find out if the objectives have been met or not (Pilbeam, S. & Corbridge, M., 2010). University students are evaluated using different methods. The first one is the sit-in assignments which are timed and students are required to memorize the concepts and theories taught in class. These assignments are usually short in length and they test the comprehension of the students on the basic concepts. The other evaluation method is the term papers. These are assignments given to students to test their ability to synthesize and analyze facts and present them in a research paper. Lastly, there is the end of course assignment which is timed and students are required to apply theory into practice. This assignment does not test the memorization of facts but rather the application of concepts in different fields. All the three assignments are evaluated and they form part of the grade the students get for their efforts. This unit provided more insights into the different phases and elements involved in the selected of learning content and the method used. We also found that universities have different assessment methods which contribute towards the final grade. Unit 8: Staff Retention Staff retention in the company is a very crucial aspect as it ensures that the company does not suffer more losses in the training of other employees and prevents disruptions of the company processes. This unit provides us with the knowledge and information of the reasons why retention is important to the company; challenges faced in retention mechanisms end how to overcome such challenges. There are several issues affecting retention of staff within the company. Such issues include; inability to competitively pay as other companies especially the big ones. Big companies notice very efficient employees in other companies and fish them out with a lot of money as incentives (Milkovich & Newman, 2013). For example, media personalities may change stations due to the high rewards they are promised by rival companies. Employees may not want to remain in a company where there is no clarity on their earning potential. This means that employees are paid the same amount of money every year without incentives or promotions. Such employees are likely to move to other employments where they have the capacity to move upwards and their efforts are rewarded accordingly. Limited career growth will motivate employees to leave employment in search for other avenues which will trigger their career advancement. Such employment keeps employees in one post for many years without progress training or updating knowledge such that those employees may fear becoming obsolete in the industry (Milkovich & Newman, 2013). This unit further gave us the strategies of improving employee retention. Companies should conduct realistic job reviews which provide all the requirements of the job, job simulations, skills which will guide the employees when they are employed. Some employees may be obliged to opt out at the recruitment phase instead of waiting for things that will never happen while in the job when such things were not provided for in the contract. For example, advancement of training is provided by companies like Tesco while others do not provide. Another strategy would be to assess to the potentiality of an employee and develop their capacity to be utilized in the achievement of objectives of the company. The pay problem can be solved by implementing the equitable pay system which compensates workers for their efforts. Those who work hard should be paid more than those who do not perform well. This will motivate employees to perform (Milkovich & Newman, 2013). This unit closed on a high note as we learnt that the challenges faced by companies in their quest to achieve retention of their best employees have solutions which are practical and feasible. 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