HRM101 | Introduction to HRM | A Case Study of Linx Australia Group

Linx Australia Group Services

The Linx Australia Group works and provides services in the areas of mortgages, insurances, financial calculations to firms operating in the transport, forestry, construction, earthmoving, agriculture, aviation, information technology, mining, rail, small businesses, automobiles and manufacturing industries (Linx Australia Group, 2018). The firm is responsible for the most pairing the firms that need financial help with the best options of competitive finance, insurance and mortgages ("Industries - Linx Australia Group", 2018). It provides various schemes to the firms so that it becomes easier for them to choose the one that best fulfils their requirements ("Services - Linx Australia Group", 2018). The firm takes every step to know the business that the other firm is related to and takes steps on careful investigation of the pros and cons of every decision and then advices these firms. The firm’s highly experienced consultants in combination with the credits and settlements departments provides the best advices and helps in fastened growth of the firms.

Vision Statement

The firm aims to deliver professional, innovative and customized financial solutions with integrity.

Mission Statement

The mission statements of the firm are three fold and aims at three different objectives:

To continue to be recognized as an industry leader focused on the delivery of unsurpassed personalized service ("Mission and Vision Statement - Linx Australia Group", 2018).

The firm is dedicated and passionate about developing enduring partnerships with its clients, lenders suppliers and insurers.

The firm strives to provide an environment for growth, knowledge and success for their people that encourages and rewards excellence.

Value Statement

The value statement of the firm is aimed at commitment to being a responsible business which will engage in activities that are sustainable, social and incessantly provides benefits to the community where they operate ("Mission and Vision Statement - Linx Australia Group", 2018). The firm is also associated with providing sponsorships to a few charities and initiatives involved with social charity and voluntary help in case of emergencies.

Diversity and Inclusion

The concepts of diversity and inclusion are very important to understand before understanding the problems facing the human resources management of Linx Australia Group. Diversity refers to the notion of protecting the employees of any organisation and gi9ving all employees equal rights and opportunities irrespective of issues like gender, cultural background and origin (Wrench, 2016). It is a process of planning, organising and applying different strategies to ensure an organisational environment where people of diverse nature, gender and belongings can function together efficiently and in harmony (Trittin & Schoeneborn, 2017).

Inclusion as a concept is quite similar to that of diversity in a corporate environment.  It is the process by which a particular firm includes and respects each employees ideas, approaches, perspectives and styles of working to achieve maximum output in terms of revenue generation and profit making (Mor Barak, 2015).

Both these concepts aim at making the work environment more united and a place where each employee at each level of the hierarchy is treated equally and fairly and also provided with an equal amount of opportunities (Collings, Wood & Szamosi, 2018). It is estimated and asserted in many studies that the use and implementation of these strategies help in achieving better results for the firm within shorter periods of time (Oswick & Noon, 2014). This is so because it helps in increasing the amount of motivation and a sense of belonging to the organization among the employees of the firm under concern.

Current Situation

The current situation existing in the organization is that there is a gender gap in the people employed at Linx Australia Group. This problem pertains to the issue of diversity and inclusion at the firm at all levels of hierarchy and especially at the higher managerial levels. There is not an equal representation of men and women at the managerial and directorial levels of the firm. Further, problems were also identified in terms of provision of opportunities for the disabled people in the organisation. Based on this, the employees belonging to the different teams were questioned and a primary survey was conducted. The questionnaire of the survey was comprised of a set of six questions, and the responses to these questions are analysed and discussed n the following sections.

Analysis

The analysis of the existing situation was conducted using the questionnaire provided and attached in the Appendix as mentioned earlier. The questions were asked to women and men and also to the disabled people. The interview was also conducted at managerial and directorial levels with a total sample consisting of a total of 100 men and 100 women. The interview was conducted under secured and ethical conditions where personal information of the employees was secured and their identification was not disclosed. The analytical approach used in this case implemented the use of graphs to understand the intensity of the problems persisting in the organisation. The topics analysed with the help of questions are analysed and explained as follows:

Gender Representation

As is represented in the pie chart above, majority of the employees in the firm feel that there is an unequal representation of men and women in the firm at the higher levels of management and directorial levels as well. This itself represents the lack of opportunities for the two genders in the different departments because of which the population of number of women and men are not equally proportional at all levels of hierarchy in the organisation.

Approaching Team Leaders

  As is observed from the above graph, the majority of the employees questioned, said that they were allowed to approach team leaders equally. However, it was also found that most of these responses were from the management level employees and from male employees as their ratio at the firm in every department and hierarchical level is greater than the representation of women. The negative responses obtained were lower in percentage as compared to that of positive responses because these were mostly from women and as their representation at all levels of hierarchy is lesser. Because of the problem that women faced in the context of not being able to approach the managers on time for the various types of problems they faced, their performances in turn were hampered and this in turn impacted the amount of recognition they received. This in turn prevented them from going on to taking up serious leadership roles.

Opportunities for Women to Work at Night

As is visible from the above graph, there is clearly a lack of options for women to work at night shifts. Although this portrays the concern of the organisation for the women employees so that they can maintain a proper work life balance, many women feel that there should be options for them to work bat night too. For some women, it is the  lack of opportunities, that causes the performance and participation to be adversely affected and hence the men in the organisation are able to better utilise their potential and opportunities. This inculcates the culture of greater part of the workforce in gthe higher levels of the hierarchy to be of the male gender.

Equality of Opportunities for Women and Men in Different Departments

Again, from the above graph it can be asserted that there exists an unequal cohort of opportunities for men and women at every level of the hierarchy, pertaining to the previous statistics of better performing male employees at  the organisation. However, the statistics also reveal that the number of male employees working at the organisation has also been greater than women employees for the past few years. Further, it has also been found that the teams that increased the participation of women employees has caused the overall productivities of those particular teas to increase. This is not because of the fact that the efficiency of women is greater than that of men  but because the amount of cooperation and motivation in the team increased causing a decrease in communication gap and an increase in potential utilisation capacities especially under stress for all employees in those teams.

Performance Evaluation of the Disabled People

As is represented in the above graph from the responses obtained, it can be asserted that there is no provision of performance evaluation for the disabled employees separately. Records suggest that the performances of the employees who are disabled are not lenient enough and are based on exactly the same number of parameters like that of the other employees. The amount of emphasis also given to the different parameters during the performance evaluation is also the same. This represents unequal amounts of opportunities for the disabled employees in terms of efficient tools and techniques that will make their work easier and help measure their potential in an effective manner. This also prevents them from obtaining promotions and recognitions from the managers and the absence of such specialised systems also makes it difficult for the managers to recognise the needs and wants of the disabled employees.

Presence of good and effective policies in place to redress issues faced by disabled people

As is represented in the graph, the existence of policies and regulations for the disabled employees in the firm is present. However, interviews with the disabled people and the managers equally suggested that these policies and regulations were not actively followed and were not stringent enough. Although the provisions for the emergency needs and requirements of the disabled employees were present, many a times, they were not provided on time to these employees.

All of the above graphs, suggest a bigger human resources management problem existing in the firm, which is the problem of motivation and work life balance faced by women employees and the disabled employees especially. This in turn caused lack of motivation and increased friction among the other employees of the organisation This, in turn caused reduced growth of the firm and lesser amounts of revenue generation for the employees at all levels and all departments in spite of on time services provided.

Identification of the Major Issues

From the questionnaire prepared and the responses analysed, a number of problems have been identified which are mentioned and discussed as follows:

Lack of provisions for the disabled employees in terms of their specialised needs and requirements especially in times of emergencies

Lack of a different performance evaluation system for the disabled employees including the exclusion of certain parameters or the use of special parameters depending on the disabilities of the concerned employees.

Lack of a separate team of the human resources management for screening out the employees actually disabled from the other employees while hiring and ensuring that their specific needs are addressed and looked after at all points of their tenure with Linx Australia Group.

Lack of equal opportunities for both male and female employees at all levels of the hierarchy and in all departments of the firm

Lack of technological systems that will effectively help in identifying the performances of the women separately and help them in gaining higher compensations, promotions or recognitions

Lack of existing opportunities for women to work during the night shifts which in turn reduces the promotion of women to higher levels of leadership as this effects their overall performance and productivity

Women also face problems in terms of being able to approach their respective team leaders with their problems due to lack of effective communication between them and lack of enough representation women in the management and directorial levels.

Recommendations and Solutions to the Identified Problems

The problems identified all lie in the context of diversity and inclusion issues as discussed before in the preceding sections of the report. The recommendations and solutions to the problems are described and explained in this section.

Firstly, the management should go through some type of restructuring so that some amount of change management is possible, this will enable the employees to remove notions of biased behavior and partiality on part of the managers. Further under this respect, greater number of meetings and one on one conversations should be held and organized so that there is no existing communication gap between the managers, team leads and the employees (irrespective of their genders or disabilities). This will ensure that the values of all employees are considered and there is a general  level of transparency that is maintained amongst the employees at all levels of hierarchies.

Secondly, a special team in the human resources management department of the firm should be built who will specially look after the needs and requirements of the disabled employees. This team will be responsible for maintaining and monitoring the hiring criteria of disabled employees and shall be responsible for setting the parameters and attributes that will separate normal employees from disabled employees. It is also their responsibility to structure and develop an evaluation system that is exclusive to judging the performance and productivity of the disabled employees.

Thirdly, the firm should most importantly implement the use of smart devices and automated technology that will help in identifying the better performing women and help the managers to provide them with the recognitions and promotions that they deserve.

Fourthly, the provision of night shifts for women employees should also be provided by the firm. Further, if the directorial level employees of the firm think that this will lead to loss of work life balance or safety and security of the female employees then other feasible options like work from home during the night shifts should be provided. If neither of these options are availed then this particular factor should be monitored in such a way that it does not affect the performance evaluation procedure for the women employees. Steps should also be taken up by the firm to hire more women who are experienced so that the culture of equal employment opportunities is maintained at all levels of hierarchy.

Conclusion

In order to conclude, it can be asserted that Linx Australia Group though efficient in providing on time and highly specialized services to its customer firms, has some diversity and inclusion issues in the human resources management department of the firm. The major problems include lack of equivalence in the way women and disabled employees are provided with opportunities and recognition. However, if the firm takes up some restructuring change management strategies and stringent measures that the employees need to adhere to, the firm will be able to overcome these problems. This in turn will help in increasing the amount of motivation and hence help the firm in achieving higher amounts of profit, revenue generation and other non-financial targets.

References

Collings, D. G., Wood, G. T., & Szamosi, L. T. (2018). Human resource management: A critical approach. In Human Resource Management (pp. 1-23). Routledge.

Foster, E. C. (2014). Human resource management. In Software Engineering (pp. 253-269). Apress, Berkeley, CA.

Industries - Linx Australia Group. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.linxaustraliagroup.com.au/industries/

Linx Australia Group. (2018). Home - Linx Australia Group. [online] Available at: https://www.linxaustraliagroup.com.au/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2018].

Mission and Vision Statement - Linx Australia Group. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.linxaustraliagroup.com.au/about/mission-and-vision-statement/

Mor Barak, M. E. (2015). Inclusion is the key to diversity management, but what is inclusion?. Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 39(2), 83-88.

Oswick, C., & Noon, M. (2014). Discourses of diversity, equality and inclusion: trenchant formulations or transient fashions?. British Journal of Management, 25(1), 23-39.

Services - Linx Australia Group. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.linxaustraliagroup.com.au/services/

Trittin, H., & Schoeneborn, D. (2017). Diversity as polyphony: Reconceptualizing diversity management from a communication-centered perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 144(2), 305-322.

Wrench, J. (2016). Diversity management and discrimination: Immigrants and ethnic minorities in the EU. Routledge.