COMMGMT 3502 Human Resource Management : Productivity and Quality

1.HR planning.
Given the simulation scenario, and the brief given by the CEO, each HR Team is required to develop a plan to overcome the HR issues described and improve the performance of the hotel. Each team will use the 'Strategy and Planning Form’ on UTSOnline in 'Simulation Resources' file in 'Course Resources' folder and email this to the lecturer during week 2. 
2.Report and submission of supporting documents (portfolio).
Which sets out their achievements in relation to their original goals and strategies. Teams should approach this task as if they were preparing a report to the Board and specifically explain how they related to their original plan and objectives or explain the reasons these were not achieved. 
3.Simulation Results.
The mark for each group is determined by the group’s Balanced Scorecard value at the end of the final round of the simulation. Marks are allocated out of a maximum of five, on the basis of team scores at the end of round eight.

One of the key challenges in the current age to survive in the business market riddled with choking competition and dynamic economy is to be one step ahead in both productivity and quality of the service they provide to the target market. However there a number of challenges that any business organization faces while sustaining in the ever- changing market, and if not addressed these issues can be the prime contributing factor leading to the destabilizing the corporate entity in the market. Human resource management issues like rise in labour cost, industrial wedges, training expenditure are some examples of the needs that are omnipresent for any thriving corporate entity (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). This assignment will reflect on the aforementioned human resource management issues and strategic management of the same by the means of proper staffing and training.

The case scenario selected for this assignment represents a business process challenge where the organization is facing a few key challenges that have the potential to threaten the economic and market stability of the organization. For instance, the company had been experiencing a 2% rise in the labour cost, and along with it the industry wedges have also increased 0.2% accordingly. Now if we explore the contributing factors to the predicament that the company is facing, the inadequate staffing and heavy workload are the most significant ones. It has to be understood in the context that equal distribution of work and proper training and skill development can fill up the gaps that are facilitating the increase in the labour cost and industry wedges as well (Storey 2014). Apart from that, company is also experiencing a steady decrease in the productivity, and due to the heavy workload the quality of the service being provided is being compromised as well. Human resource management is one of the key pillars of any business organization, and effective and tactful human resource management team operating in a business organization can effectively manage issues related to productivity, performance management, employee training and motivation, and organization development as well (Storey 2014). Hence, the strategic management that our human resource management team opted for had two specific agendas, adequate staffing and staff training.

In order to solve any challenging situation in a corporate sector, it is very important to determine and characterize the requirements beforehand. One of the key requirements of this situation had been to reduce the labour cost and reducing the industrial wedges as well, and i8n order to do so, our HRM management team decided upon exploring the key reasons behind the increase in the manufacturing costs. According to Beardwell and Thompson, productivity and staff performance plays a pivotal role in the over productivity and quality management of the corporate organization. In my opinion, due to the low staffing and changes in the productivity statistics, the quality and overall costing has been influenced (Beardwell and Thompson 2014). Other than that, it has to be mentioned in this context that inadequate staffing leads to excess workload, on a more elaborative note, in order to overcome inadequate staffing the limited number of employees would require to work overtime to compensate for the demands.

According to the staff feedback, the overtime and lack of proper training and skill improvement are the most reported reason behind the increase in labour cost and wedges. The staff analysis report revealed that the demand to staff availability ratio is significantly low which has contributed to the increasing labour wedges. Further investigation revealed the extreme lack of supervision in various sectors of production and that is heavily affecting the performance and training needs of the staff is escalating. Furthermore, the incompetent training and supervision along with subsequent staffing are two important strategic management decisions that the company must take to overcome this challenging situation accordingly (Marchington et al. 2016).

However, the human resource management team needed to be extremely cautious while taking the necessary actions so that the best interests of both the company and the employees are safe guarded. Sparrow, Brewster and Chung have opined in their article that, when incorporating improvised staffing and selection criteria, a few variables needs to be taken into account (Sparrow, Brewster and Chung 2016). First and foremost, if the company is facing decreased productivity, the newly hired personnel need to be experienced and efficient, so that the training costs for the company is reduced to some proportion. Along with that, the sectors that are facing understaffing, there is need for competent staff if not highly experienced so that the demand can be met (Purce 2014). Lastly the basic need that had been identified by our team of human resource management in order to increase the productivity and decrease labour costs is cutting off excessive voluntary overtiming. Hence, the team opted for a highly specific hiring and mandatory training program for the new staff by the more experienced and productive old staff to minimize the cost for the company as much as possible.

Staff management is a type of process which is used to fill all the positions of an organization according to the sufficient and expertise professional. The process of staffing mainly consist of planning of manpower, recruitment of staffs, selection of the appropriate person, promoting the staffs as per needed, training them so that they can have the flexibility to do the work for which they have been promoted and retirement (Kim and Ployhart, 2014).

Staffing level: There were total of 655 staff, which is divide into-

• Level 5 – 20
• Level 4 – 25
• Level 3 – 50
• Level 2 – 60
• Level 1 – 500

Internal availability of the staffs:

• For level 5, there is a possibility of 1 resignation which may lead to vacancy of one position and to fulfil one person is being newly hired (Billett 2015).
• For level 4, there is a possibility of 2 resignations for recovering that vacant position 2 persons are hired from outsource. So no promotion I being done for this position
• For level 3, there is a chance of deficit of 5 staffs and there were 5 persons in level 2 who could be promoted to level 3.
• For level 2, there is a chance of resignations due to which 6 deficiencies may cause and it will need more 6 members. These positions are to be fulfilled from the level 1 to level 2. So, there is a need of 60 employees but there are only 55 staffs which are leading to a shortage of 5 staffs (Ishkov, Mishlanova, and Grabovyi, 2016).
• Finally, at the level 1 there is a need for 500 staffs. 6 of them were promoted to level 2, 50 were hired from fresh interviews, which add up to 494 projected employees. But as there is an estimated employee 500, there is a shortage of 6 employees.

To all together there is a requirement of 655 employees but there are 644 projected employees, which is resulting in an overall shortage of 11 employees.

Training of the selected staff:

The workers those are as new worker in an organisation are generally given an induction program from which they can have the opportunity to meet the other workers who will show them the skill which they must know (Bromiley et al. 2015). For the first few days they were asked to observe and in this process and experienced worker will help them in making them understand the jobs of the position in which they were posted. Next they were trained by two different ways:

• Off the job training – it is done by helping the workers by learning through courses
• On job training – in this process the workers are trained by learning skills through experience at job.

Risk management

In business the management of the risks is the important as it is the process used to identify, monitor and manage the potential risks so that the firm can reduce the negative impact of various aspects that may cause on the organization (Hopkin, 2017). Three types of risk management are:

• To do the risk assessment and analyse the risks.
• To do an evaluation of the risks.
• To treat the risks and response for the implementation of the company’s policies.

Personal reflection:

As a student, the first thing I have to keep in mind that being in a company I must know the basic needs of the company. As a student of human resource I feel encouraged that I have learnt how to deal with the staff and members of the company. This idea will help me to evaluate the market for solving the problems of the company (O'Brien and Linehan 2014). With the experience I have and strong motivation to craft a bright future, I feel I can justify my decision to pursue a career in Business Management. From staffing and training I am able to learn how to maintain the workforce, the risks of managing a team, challenges while organizing a team and the strategies to overcome these challenges.

References:

Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S., 2014. Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.

Beardwell, J. and Thompson, A., 2014. Human resource management: a contemporary approach. Pearson Education.

Sparrow, P., Brewster, C. and Chung, C., 2016. Globalizing human resource management. Routledge.

Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R. and Kynighou, A., 2016. Human resource management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.

Storey, J., 2014. New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals). Routledge.

Purce, J., 2014. The impact of corporate strategy on human resource management. New Perspectives on Human Resource Management (Routledge Revivals), 67.