Strategic Human Resource Management - Essay Example

Name Tutor Course Date Strategic Human resource management Human resource refers to individuals, especially the man powers who are employed either permanently or as a contract by a given company, institution to aid in the accomplishment of the company goals and objectives. The personnel here fall under the department of human resource and they are responsible for creating, implementing and monitoring policies regulating employees’ behavior and how the employees relate to other employees (Evans and Lindsay 42). In the modern world with the technological improvements a new concept in human resource management has developed. This is called the strategic human resource management whose aim is develop and implement set of objectives that may lead the company or institution to achieve their strategic goal. Organization which desire to attain maximum profit from their investment must have the proper personnel required. Virgin group of companies One of the companies which have really developed in terms of strategic human resource management is the virgin group of companies limited. Virgin group of company is a leading investment company with the founder Sir Richard Branson being the chairman and owner, for this discussion I have chosen the company since I believe in their vision and mission statement, I have been keen on their innovation and the company history serves as a motivation to individuals who may seek to venture into entrepreneurship business. Sir Richard Branson serves as a role model to young youths as well as business people. The virgin group of companies consists of more than 400 companies worldwide with revenue USD 15 and provides an employment opportunity to approximately 50,000 people. Their sectors of investments include the travel, entertainment and lifestyle and on the recent times they have started to venture into the financial services, transport, health care, food and drink and telecommunications. This vast business opportunity has been made possible due to the innovation and differentiation nature of the company and their investment on human resource. Virgin has a large pool of employees and this demand for proper human resource management to ensure maximum output. The mission of the company is to be the shopper victor through the delivery of brand values which are value for currency, top class quality and the best customer services. They aim to provide quality services through motivation of employees and allowing room to receive feedback for continuous improvement (Hannon, Milkovich and Sturman 12). Their mission statement is defined by the founder who believes that the company has the chance to be atop 20 of global brand. The company has invested greatly in human resource as it plays a very big role in its innovation capabilities and consumer satisfactions. The virgins’ culture believes in a global family business hence they advocate for their workers to manage their responsibilities and yet be able to help one another to solve major issues of the company. This culture practically can be a hard one for any institution or company but through their leader and capable team of personnel this is made possible hence the rapid increase and new innovations in the company. Sir Richard Branson serves as a good role model on how the four strategic human resource management should be done; he welcomes challenges in the fields in which he decided to venture into. The company does not criticize individual ideas and everyone is allowed to air their views and ideas for the benefit of the organization. The company has initiated several awards which are aimed at motivating the most innovative ideas and this promotes the workers to boost their output. The company has is a multinational, the company is always on a bid to seek new partnership using their brand names. The top management cannot reach out to each individual company that operates using their brand name hence the company is tasked by creating a pool of experienced and innovative individual to carry out its policies and retain the culture upon which the foundations were set upon. The top management may seasonally organize training programs to the management with the hope that they will convey and implement the objectives to their junior staff. Employment creation opportunities Virgin group of companies employs the best. The history of the company explain how the humble company grew to become a world class company, many scholars upon completion of their studies wish to join the company. The company uses awards as one of the way of developing their personnel and offer training opportunities to new employees. Externally the company uses its brand name to acquire new business opportunities, for example when they form new partnership they retain the name virgin (Balmforth 1). This makes the consumers to now that the new business is a “virgin” hence the name serves as an advertisement mechanism. The name thus serves to add value to a business. The company culture of making a difference and creating uniqueness gives it competitive advantage over many other businesses, this makes them untouchable hence many firms especially the upcoming ones seeks partnership with them. Virgin group of companies is a prestigious brand company, their employment opportunities are advertised at each company level. They only chose the best to work with them, especially the open minded individuals who are good sales agents and innovators. The company depends on creativity from the pool of employees they employ as they are the ones who interact directly to the consumers hence knowing the demand of the consumers. Their job vacancy targets individuals who are qualified in the specific fields in which their company has ventured, for example virgin hotels advertisement will mainly attract individuals who are specialized in hotel management and services. Academic qualification alone does not guarantee on a job opportunity in the prestigious company, one must possess some other interpersonal skills to put him or her at an advantage compared to the rest. The company requires sound leadership. Individual mistake by the management may ruin the brand name hence creating a very big loss to the rest of the virgin companies. Human resource can be changed in instances where they are not giving enough in terms of output. This is manifested through the company making either profits or losses. Minimizing instances of change in human resource can be achieved through proper performance management processes which entail maximizing staff engagement an output. The top management should provide supervisions. They must also engage the employees when outlining the objectives and goals of the firm so that the employees have a sense of belonging and feel wanted. Multinational companies invest in talent of their employees. Virgin group is not an exceptional, from the music industry to business sector the company has set up mechanism by which the talent of the stakeholders are natured. The founder is a risk taker and organizers entrepreneurial seminars worldwide which aim at motivating young scholars who wish to work in his companies to believe in their talents (Evans and Lindsay 67). The company is always in a stage of seeking new business partnership. This offers new learning and developing opportunities to those already incorporated into the company or those wishing to join, with the company culture being open to innovation one can develop his own ideas and make a name for him or herself. Virgin empire culture Communication plays a big role for the success of this company. There is a well-defined system of communication within the company in order to reach the top management. Proper following of these channels ensures workflow and good personnel relationship. The company offers a safe and comfortable working environment to its personnel, this is done with the aim of making them feel appreciated hence motivating them. The major stake holders in the virgin empire are very familiar with the culture and belief of the company and they are obliged to instill the same in their junior staff. Most of these cultures are the ideas of Sir Richard Branson, who believes in ideology and accomplishing them (Balmforth 2). The success of the virgin empire has thus been catalyzed through the sharing of this concept such as output uniqueness and desire to be business leaders. The name of the founder also serves as a motivation and key figure for the business development as it is a common name worldwide and many workers would wish to be associated with it. One of the cultures which the personnel identify the virgin company with is diversification. This mechanism enables the company to gain efficiency, increase marketing power and as a result the business risk is spread out such that one company can support the other in case of financial restrains. The brand manager thus due to the diversification hence has the main job of finding new opportunities and exploiting them. The virgin empire is distinguished from the modern business world by the fact that the leadership is intermediate than transactional. In a modern world there is a need for team work in any business venture that one decides to take. Sir Richard Branson provided for this in that before he handed the task of business management to the team of able directors he ensured that the policy and principle of what he believed on were all incorporated into all of these sectors. He had an ideology that the work should be fun and employees must gain maximum pleasure from what they do. The system of leadership which the founder brought about was not based on punishment and rewards, he had a broad approach whereby the employees are free and should feel at home. The virgin brand provides the parent name which is enjoyed by the main investors. Investors also hope to invest with them in order to overcome entry barriers in certain countries. The brand has gained consumers trust especially in Britain and individual wishing to invest in such country can be forced to partner with the virgin group to get consumer trust. The company has undergone some major transition since its founding. The founder started the company as sales urgent, he ran the student magazine while trading under the name virgin, and this suggested that the employees were all new in the business. It grew up to become an overnight success. In the recent times a major transition occurred when the virgin America took hits from its transition sabre. In this case the main sources of the hit were due to upgrade fee problems and other revenue management issues. The management of the virgin empire has also undergone transitions in order to cope with the ever increasing competition and to allow room for innovation (Rimmer 33). Another major transition which has also taken place is in terms of innovation, the top management staff consists of very innovative and successful people. They are thus able to share new ideas and apply them directly into the business. A common example is when virgin mobile merged with existing players in the field of communication to offer mobile services. They result of such partnership are usually great, for instance in this case they were able to offer cheaper prepaid services which boosted their competitiveness in the market. Transitions Virgin company transition can be well explained through the use of Kotter 8 steps. The system tries to explain why almost 70% of the major changes in an organization fail. Its criteria try to evaluate the steps to be followed in order for a company changes to be effective (Kotter 96): The urgency of the need to be established a team should be put in place to carry out and lead the change This team must be made of individuals who are properly trained and have the relevant skills to achieve the desired task The objective of the change must be clearly be outlined and details known to every individual in the activity Available obstacles to change should not be tolerated as once the transition is in place it should go smooth. In cases of virgin America Company risk taking should be encouraged and traditional ideas shunned. Proper short term goals are of essence here, achieved goals should be recognized and the key players rewarded for their work. The players are not to give up when faced with challenges and upon complete transition the changes are to be incorporated into the culture. Major challenges in implementing changes comes about when the individuals at the top management levels are at status quo with the current systems but in this case the challenge was eliminated due to the presence of a servant leader. The leadership of virgin empire is of inspirational quality. He has a strong vision to the future and such optimistic individuals must be ready to accept change at all levels. These leadership traits are the major success contributing factors for nay business. The man studies the internal organizations and structure to bring about the change. Innovation hub The innovativeness of virgin company is well demonstrated by the founder. The characteristics which shows the innovativeness of companies include celebrate attempts, appropriate supportive atmosphere, open culture, openness with the customers, market knowledge, clear mission and vision, set employee expectations and broad-perspective employees (Mello 22). Innovations at the virgin company are fostered through involving of employees and reaching out to the most valuable customers. This creates a free and suitable environment to receive feedbacks and their implementations. The company also observes any market gap and tries to venture into these untapped grounds. This observation may come about by monitoring of the competitors, asking questions and triggering brain washing. However the innovation in all the instances must bring about a boost in the company income in terms of profit as a lot of money is usually invested there. Virgin innovations are supported by funds from the companies themselves. The companies involved spend a lot of money in training man power. Most innovative individuals are usually rewarded either through recognition or job promotion to motivate them and other co-employees to be critical thinkers. Major innovations of recent times from the companies have been on the attempt to become more diverse in terms of service delivery. The virgin brand is now trying to venture into as many businesses as possible. Initially this was a good move but recently it has posed as a major challenge. The name of the company has become diluted. In case of loss from one of the constituting company there has been increased value addition to their products through understanding of the institutional market. The company has a team of experienced personnel who are tasked with observing trends and recommend appropriate action to be taken by the company management (Mello 52). Corporate image and objectives Throughout the many years the company has tried to bring out a corporate image as explained in their mission statement. The objectives of the company in terms of human resource Is to provide a home like employment opportunity were workers feel at ease when going about the normal work routine, the work according to Sir Richard Branson should be fun and a source of pleasure to the individuals. The company has tried to brand itself to as a divert employment provide creating goodwill amongst the consumer and the owners. They have achieved this task as reflected in their annual profit reports. The company has also played major roles in environment preservation. The founder is funding several environmental preservation related projects and many other projects with are aimed at helping the human community at large. The objective of the company was to be an international company and they have lived up to the objectives with the company stretching their impact across the world either through active business involvement or through charity grants especially in Africa and the Middle East. Conclusion The virgin group of company has transformed the life of many Americans and the world as a whole, either directly through employment opportunities or indirectly through offering of business loans and grants. The company has invested in individuals dreams. The human resource management set up is a factor to be admired by other business firms who desire to achieve maximum profits. The company is providing a safe working employment where they are comfortable to work. They have motivated their personnel to think beyond and come up with new innovations in order to retain the consumers trust through good salary payment policy and awarding the most hard working company agents. The founder has provided a unique leadership quality. Works cited Balmforth, John. Virgin Atlantic. Hersham: Midland, 2009. Print. Evans, James, and William Lindsay. The Management and Control of Quality. Australia: South- Western, 2002. Print. Hannon, John, George Milkovich and Michael Sturman. The Feasibility of Using Expert Systems in the Management of Human Resources. Ithaca: Cornell University, New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations, 1990. Print. Kotter, John P. Leading Change. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press, 1996. Print. Mello, Jeffrey A. Strategic Human Resource Management. Australia: South-Western College Pub, 2002. Print. Rimmer, David. “Virgin Atlantic.” Business & Commercial Aviation 88.5 (2001): 33. Print. Read More