HR Activities in Sysco - Case Study Example

(Assignment) HR ACTIVITIES IN SYSCO SYSCO is the largest foodservice and distribution company in the United s with almost $24billion in annual sales. It has a wide network of customers including restaurants, hotels, supermarkets, hospitals, and other companies. An efficient Human Resource Management system functioned in SYSCO that could coordinate its various activities by supplying adequate human resources. At the beginning phase of SYSCO, their HR activities were administered according to their own HR practices.

In order to reorganize the corporate-wide human resource activities by keeping the entrepreneurial independence of the regions, ‘a market-driven HR approach was framed. This approach researched the possible ways it could enhance the regional performance of SYSCO and formulated appropriate programs in response to the obtained results from the study. Under a market-driven approach, the regional managers had the right to decide whether they needed to adopt the corporate HR services or not. This concept enables the regional managers to take independent strategic decisions on the strength of their foresightedness skills.

Similarly, the establishment of Virtual Resource Center as a part of a market-driven approach promotes services to managers and employees. The VRC Makes use of HR technology and thereby gathers data so as to provide the acquired data to operating managers. This helps the managers to form timely fitting policies such as incentive programs, driver retention rates, and driver safety records which would assist the organization to attain its long-term objectives. Therefore the data so collected also play a crucial role in the administrative activities of SYSCO.

Hence, the market-driven approach reflects that HR has strategic, operational, and administrative roles at SYSCO. 2. The activities of Virtual Resource Center (VRC) under the market-driven system mainly aim at gathering diverse information in order to provide technical assistance to managers in developing strategic plans. Thus, VRC collected information on workplace climate by surveying the employees and submitted the results to the Human Resource Management. On the basis of the gathered data, HR framed initiatives to promote improved facilities for the workplace.

As a result of this change in the workplace environment to improve workers’ safety standards, the HR management could considerably reduce the workers’ compensation claims by 30% which in turn brought savings worth $10 million per year. Similarly, SYSCO was forced to spend huge amounts on recruiting night shift warehouse workers who need to be paid high rates. In this situation, the management raised the workers’ retention rate by 20% based on employee and managerial input from surveys and it added value to the company’s profit account by $15 million per year.

“These savings are due to reduced time and money spent recruiting, selecting, and training new employees”. Likewise, experienced employees would be more efficient, which aid the company in maximizing its volume of production. Due to the positive impact of HR strategies regarding employee turnover, SYSCO could largely set aside its earnings. The HR management also reduced the delivery expenses and it caused to increase the customer satisfaction. Anyhow, the market-driven approach and thereby HR management strategies have affected reduction in workers’ compensation expenses, employee turnover, and increases in customer satisfaction.