HRMD320 Human Resources Management : Organizational Activities

Southwest Airlines’ challenges face every company sooner or later. While firm success can be sustained for a number of years, at some point competition begins to take its turn. In addition, with changes in leadership (Herb Kelleher retired from the CEO role and handed it off to Gary Kelly in 2004), it is difficult to maintain the same strong culture. This has profound effects on how people must be managed to sustain success amid a changing competitive landscape. In spite of these challenges, Southwest’s performance remains strong. The airline made a record of $1.1 billion in profits in 2014, almost twice as much as in 2013.  In addition, the airline will continue to expand internationally, providing new opportunities for revenue growth.

1. Critically identify and analyse the major challenges facing Southwest Airlines, if any. How would a strategic approach to HRM help Southwest to successfully address these challenges?

Part 3: 

Case: HRM Incident

Mary Corey recently completed her fourth year with State-wide Services Corporation. In her position as costumer support specialist, she consistently received high performance evaluations-until recently. Indeed, her most recent evaluation, completed three weeks ago, rated her as “Her supervisor, Helen Rowe, wondered why this previously strong employee had fallen so quickly.”  Helen had just returned from meeting with her boss, Betty Allen, when again the subject of Mary came up. Betty suggested that Helen look through Mary’s past work records to try to find some clues about what happened and what they should do now.

Helen closed the door to her office, sat at her desk, and pulled Mary’s personnel folder from her desk drawer as she flipped through the materials in the folder. Mary’s story came into better focus.

About six months ago, Mary’s started taking longer lunch breaks. Given the cramped quarters in which Helen’s Customer Support Department work and demanding routines they had to follow, it was easy to notice Mary stretching her regular lunch period by 10 or 15 minutes. Once she even stretched it for a full 25 minutes. Since it was the holiday season, Helen took no specific action. However, her occasional remarks reminding Mary of the lunch break schedules would produce an uncharacteristically evasive, defensive response from Mary. On at least two occasions, she nodded off to sleep at her desk returning from lunch.

In January and February, she was 10 to 20 minutes late for work on six different days and called in sick on four other days. It was this time that Mary’s dealing with her co-workers deteriorated. Normally quit yet sociable, Mary’s became increasingly short tempered and given to periodic outburst of anger belligerence. Since Mary’s 36, was a single mother of two teenage girls, almost everyone in the office assumed there was something going on at home.

On February 23^rd, though, things took a disturbing turn. Mary left for lunch at her usual time, but did not return. She called in three hours later to say she had gone home because she had suddenly become ill. Her speech seemed slurred, somehow not quite right. She returned to work two days later, with a doctor’s note explaining she had been sick with stomach flu.

1. Assume that you are the current HR manager. Evaluate Mary’s behavior and discuss the action plan you intend to perform before making a decision. Make sure you consider the Equal Employment Opportunity laws to avoid discriminatory practices.

2. Develop and explain a framework recommending two immediate interventions to resolve Mary’s case as a line manager. Which HRM functional area is involved?  Explain.

Answers:

Introduction 

The paper will reflect upon the major functions of Human Resource Management (HRM) in business. It will discuss the role of competency model in the Human resource (HR) department. It will provide with information based on changing roles of HRM within the organization. Moreover, it will discuss the operational and strategical role of the HR team that helps in maintaining, controlling and monitoring the organizational activities. The primary aim is to focus on the two case scenarios that are based on the functions of HRM. Furthermore, it will discuss the factors that are important for the managers to manage the organizational activities.  

Part 1

1.A competency model is considered to be the framework that defines the knowledge and skill requirements of a job. It is mainly a set of competencies that together define an effective performance of a job. The competency models are used in business to a great extent to define and assess competencies within an organization in both soft and hard skills (Albrecht et al., 2015). They present a major element of hiring and recruitment as well as the management of performance and talent based activities of the Human resource (HR) department. The assessment based on competencies often helps in forming the basis for learning content and training programs both for informal and formal. This effective models also creates a basis for linking the competencies with the advice of the training consultant, a significant best practice and organizational strategy. It also helps an organization to link the expertise with the HR processes, productivity goals, and evaluation (Stone et al., 2015). This particular model not only provides training to the junior but also to the senior employees in the HR department. It recognizes the requirements of training and helps in enhancing the personal development of the staff. It also develops relevant training methodology and materials within the organization. It is useful as it develops a specific strategy of the program or project. In the HR department forming a framework of competency is an efficient method to monitor, maintain and assess the attributes, skills, and knowledge of the members within the organization. It helps in recognizing the particular skills and behaviors required for a specific role an enables Human resource management (HRM) team to plan and budget for the training and development of the organization that is required (Bakker and Demerouti, 2014). It ensures an employer in the HR department that the organization’s funded professional and training development are not only productive, goal oriented but also cost-effective.

2.In every organization, the HR department plays a vital role in managing the working hours, payrolls, salary management, interviews, and hiring. The role of HR is not limited to this it also looks upon the retention and performance, implementing new processes and ideas, employee engagement and appraisals. HR is determined to be a specific department where its functionality involves two types they are operational and strategic (Sheehan, 2014). An efficient and good HR team is one who handles all the responsibilities of both the types methodically. In today's context, the increased growth and advancement in the technology has created certain software that plays a major of the responsibilities that are handled by the HR. This, in turn, helps the HR to be more productive to structure out a bright future not only for the organization but also for its employees. In any company, the major activities of HR are based on operational and strategic management that includes employee engagement and performance management, training and orientation, benefits and compensation as well as recruitment (Ellinger and Ellinger, 2014). The management of the employee relation includes operational activities like complaint management, compliance, maintenance of policy and many more. Whereas, the strategic activities include alignment of the hiring strategies related to the business engagement and goals with the best talent that will support the organization to achieve its targets (Sikora and Ferris, 2014).

Moreover, it is significant to review the performance of a particular department or individual that is carried out for a long or short-term basis. With proper monitoring and tracking of the organizational resources, a strategic HRM could plan initiatives to build an environment that represents creativity and innovation. Efficient use of technology could reduce the need for continuous monitoring and permits HR to form Employee Benefits Programs and Reward Programs to enhance the employees to be more engaged and motivated within the organization (Kramar, 2014).

3.In today's workforce, there are various factors in the changing role of HR that includes responsibility of HR to help maintain and establish the organizational culture, the use of technology in HR and modernized duties at organizations. Most of the organizations have experienced remarkable change since the past decades because of more diverse employees, new employment regulations and evolving technologies (Brewster, 2017). The role of HR departments has been greatly influenced by the self-serve digital tools and the increasing availability of technology. Sometimes the change in technology has permitted the HR professionals to adapt to the role of strategic activities. While in some of the cases technology permits the HR professionals to address the administrative task related to their roles more effectively. This changes in the role of HR will influence the training and development processes as well as the responsibilities of the employees (Shuck et al., 2014).

For the HR managers, it is significant to make use of proper tools and techniques for the proper planning process and to make sure that the business is executing systematically. This will help the company to attain the objectives and goals to get success. The HR tools and techniques include HRM information system, performance solution, recruiting software, payroll service, a platform for benefits management and tools for employee engagement (Collings, Wood and Szamosi, 2018). In today's context, the major target of the businesses is to achieve a competitive advantage, and that could be achieved with the efficient use of tools and techniques. For example with the help of analyzing the data HR could turn over the rates and identify the problems that will help the organization to find out the problems in a rapid speed and get a better solution to resolve the problem (Keep, 2014). For instance, if the data presents the fact that most of the turnovers are from new hires than the team could focus on the issue and cause for this turnover. If the data present that the one group has a higher turnover as compared to the other businesses than the focus could divert there.

Part 2

1.Southwest Airlines faces challenges with every organization earlier or later. Although the success of the organization can be consistent for some years still at some point, the competition starts to take its turn. It is critical to maintaining the same strong culture due to the changes in leadership. This, in turn, puts a tremendous impact on managing the sustainability of success with the changing competitive environment (Hohenstein, Feisel and Hartmann, 2014). A strategic approach is considered to be the implementation of techniques and tricks in a skillful manner. The approach could be specific or generic. To deal with any challenges, the HRM must efficiently implement the strategies that are formulated effectively.  

Southwest Airlines is a successful airlines company that has remained in the same position since the past five years. The organization’s performance is good but because of the changes in the competitive environment and the competition within the market the managers of different areas are unable to decrease the structure of the cost. The first and the most significant strategic approach that the company has taken is to link their HR strategy with the vision and mission of the organization. Thus, the primary responsibility of HR is to make sure that they form an efficient HR strategy that highlights the vision and mission of the organization. This strategy must be followed by every employee of the company. The second strategic approach that was adopted is enhancing their employees provide excellent customer service and enjoy their work. This helped the organization to provide its customers with best customer service as the employees were fulfilled with various powers (Sung and Choi, 2014). The third most significant strategic approach that was implemented that increased the effectiveness of the organization is the modification in the name. The Southwest's HR department is being named as the people department that focuses on the two "C's" common sense and compassion.  

Part 3

1.Recently Mary Corey has completed her fourth year with the State-wide Services Corporation. She constantly received a high-performance evaluation at the position of customer support specialist (Hornstein, 2015). But recently her performance and behavior have fallen as compared to her previous performance. As I am the HR manager of the organization, I observed this change in the behavior and performance of Mary Corey that made me wonder why it happened so. It was observed that after lunch moved off to sleep at her desk. In January and February she was late for 10 to 20 minutes on six different days, and four days she gave the excuse of having a fever. She was outburst with anger belligerence and became extremely short tempered. I also observed some difference in her behavior after lunch. The change in the behavior was not known to anybody within the organization. It was assumed that this change must be because of some personal issues.

As Mary was a strong employee and this change in the behavior will put a negative impact on the organizational activities. Considering the negative performance of Mary I would rather adopt some action plan before making a decision. I would look upon her personnel folder to gather information about her. I came to know that she was a single mother of two teenage girls. Hence I assumed that there must be something happening at her home which is the major reason for her negative behavior. I will talk to her and resolve the matter, but if she does not give much response and I will ask the other coworkers to talk to her. As her behavior did not show any improvement, her behavior towards her colleagues also seemed to be negative. I would intend to warn her of losing her job due to her behavior, still, if the condition does not change I would take the help of Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and hope that this will work out before making any decision.

2.Taking into account the situation of Mary Corey it is recommended for the line managers to decide consciously of how to effectively respond to a conflict situation and inquire, reflect and listen to the problems of the employees. To observe the changes and to inquire about the main reason behind the change. It is significant for the managers to respond to the situations in an effective way that will help to reduce the work stress and conflict (Noe et al., 2014). As the employees are overburdened with too much of workload and that results into the occurrence of stress. Hence the organizational environment must be stress-free and enjoyable so that the employees will enjoy working in the organization. Also, the manager should listen to the problems of the employee and provide them with the best solutions to resolve their issues as it puts an impact on their performance. This, in turn, affects in achieving the organizational goals. While managing the conflicts of the employees within the organization, the HRM functional area involved is managing employee relations. Maintaining good relation with the employees helps in managing the organizational activities (Paillé et al., 2014). This will help in developing the performance of the employees to achieve the organizational goals to get success.  

Conclusion 

The paper concludes by demonstrating the role and responsibility of HRM within the organizations. It provided with three parts, and each part discussed the primary functions of the HR department. It aimed to discuss the strategy of the HR department in managing the organizational activities. It discussed the two case scenarios that provided with various information's related to the implementation of a strategic approach that helps in dealing with the challenges faced by the organizations. It is observed that although the organizations deal with various challenges related to business and employees, it is significant for the manager to manage the challenges effectively.  

References

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