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Pearson BEET Level 4 HEN/D Diploma in Business Management Human Resource Management Assessment RD FISTICUFF Matthew Breton Task 1 HER Management Human resource management is the more contemporary term used for people management as opposed to the classical term personal management. Even though culturally one term has superseded the other this was not just a simple change of name. A better assessment of this change can be thought of as a redefining of the role with each term applying a different philosophy and main duties being either taken on-board or passed across to different positions within a company.
This said, if you wanted to apply a general description to both terms it would be better to as Ian Henderson in human resource management for MBA students 2nd addition does refer to them as “people management” and can be described as “All the management decisions and actions that directly affect or influence people as members of the organization rather than as job-holders. ” If we are to look at this description we can take it to mean that HER or Personnel managers are not line managers who are in charge of the technical aspects of a person’s job.
Initially Personnel managers duties included aspects such as organizing staffing such advertising for new positions, performance related tasks such as arranging training and administrative tasks which would include collecting employee details and ensuring an organization is complying with national legal requirements focused on employment. As can be seen from this description personnel management takes a very practical approach with an operational focus to the management of people working within an organization and this was the structure and focus of many personnel departments up until the late sass’s and early 1 ass’s.
The hilltop’s fitted extremely well with Tailors and Forbids (Davies, 2010) and early American mass production techniques. The role was often seen as removed from line management and very bureaucratic to the extent of hindering a company’s success. These two aspects where resulted from the personnel managers primary goal of reducing the cost of human resources. Employees at this time where often seen as no more than an expensive troublesome cog in the mass production machine.
Moving on from Tailors and Forbids a massive cultural and philosophical shift occurred in American companies in the way that they regarded people management. Many had lost faith in procedures and policies which had so far been successful and new Japanese concepts of how to run a company and mass produce products such as Just in time where starting to introduce serious competition into the American markets (Gillie et al, 1998). Organizations where starting to realism that rather than employees being a hindrance they are in fact their most important asset.
This can be seen in the primary goal of maximizing utilization of human resources over the long term for the newly evolving form of people management, human resource management. In contrast to personnel management HER management entrenches its hilltop’s in strategy and pro-active solutions (Price, 2007). This said HER management is still heavily involved in training, reward systems and staffing usually working alongside a general manager. It just takes a more long term and strategic approach to the subjects.
Many of the day to day and operational duties which historically resided within the personnel managers’ role have now been transferred across to line managers. In the example of British Gas this has the advantage of employees and managers building better relationships. It also feeds into the normal duties of a British Gas line manager which are all based around team management fastidiousness’s, 2014). For a line manager to be effective they need to have a good understanding of the criteria for workflow within their team and how these apply to the members.
If for insistence there is a skill shortage they will need to be able to assess who is most suitable for further training or if they feel a member of their team isn’t being challenged enough they need to be able to identify how to motivate them. A simple scenario to compare HER against Personnel would be recruitment. In a company which Uses a classical personnel management approach they wouldn’t think about recruiting until there was a need i. . Capacity had been reached due to growth and new employees where needed to meet operational demand.
With this approach there are many downsides including not being able to maintain growth and applying stress to those already employed due to increased workloads. This is a completely reactive way to run a business and would not be seen as a scalable model. In contrast an organization which uses an ideal HER management style would be forecasting any projected growth and predict that to maintain this growth they will need to employee X amount of employees and start pro-actively taking steps to ensure that the operational demand can be met.
This indicates one of the main differences between HER and Personnel management being that HER is intrinsically embedded within the organization and will work with all departments to ensure that the company’s most valuable asset is maintained and running smoothly. As we will see later in this assignment the philosophy now been applied to people management has allowed for many advancements in areas such as recruitment, retention and motivation all of which have been studied thoroughly with a strong focus on psychology. In 2010 the UK government strengthened and simplified employment isolation by creating the 2010 Equality act.
This Act merged over 116 pieced of legislation the main nine being: the Equal Pay Act 1 970 the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 the Race Relations Act 1 976 the Disability Discrimination Act 1 995 the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 the Employment Equality (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2003 the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 the Equality Act 2006, Part 2 the Equality Act (Sexual Orientation) Regulations 2007 (legislation, 2014) To focus briefly on the aspect of discrimination there are five main ways someone can be discriminated against, these include:
Indirect Direct Associative Harassment Visitation (legislation, 2014) Each one of these types of discrimination can be applied to nine characteristics: Age Disability Gender reassignment Race Religion or belief sex Sexual orientation Marriage and civil partnership Pregnancy and maternity (legislation, 2014) The main thing a company can do to ensure that it and its employees are safeguarded against legislative action is to create a culture of understanding and openness.
However it is also important for the company to have an equality advocate who is usually someone who works in HER management and ill have an extensive knowledge of the equality act this person can act as a mentor or mediator in certain situations. Alongside this advocate it is also useful to have an employee guide book running over the basics of what is the expected behavior at work. An equality procedure can also be written which could deal with all aspects of the act.
To further these documents training to all employees should be applied on an annual basis. Task 2 Recruitment and Selection Moving on from my consideration of the equality act I will now analyses the planning stages applied by British Gas’s HER management. CUPID describes HER planning as “Workforce planning is a core process of human resource management that is shaped by organizational strategy and ensures the right numbers of people with the right skills are in the right place at the right time to deliver short- and long-term organizational objectives”.
Considering this description I will aim to recognize the reasons companies apply this kind of planning and as a means of control I will also be comparing and contrasting these strategies and stages with my own company Alumina. British Gas applies a focus on two key areas of HER planning to ensure it insistently delivers brilliant customer services in a competitive market. These two areas are recruitment and training (fastidiousness’s, 2014). Recruitment Within British Gas managers have a process of forecasting to assess how much the UK market for BBC gas engineers will grow.
From my experience of working within 828 service industries this type of planning is rare even though it makes complete sense. An example of this is Illuminant’s failure to correctly implement key metrics such instrument install base and employee utilization as a means of recognizing the need for additional personnel while t the same time they apply a focus on sales and revenue forecasting neglecting the service requirements any growth will need. Referring back to my scenario in task one the benefits of British Gas’s kind of detailed forecasting are many.
It will help an organization correctly distribute budgets and ensure that skill sets are never short within a company. This has the added benefit of avoiding unnecessarily heavy workloads on current employees. In consideration it is very impressive that British Gas forecasts in detail for one year and in general for up to a further two years in advance fastidiousness’s, 2014). As part of its workforce planning British Gas applies the diversity and inclusion strategy which ensures it is actively recruiting from a wide demographic (fastidiousness’s, 2014).
This is beneficial as it helps reflect the broad demographic of its customers and can be advantageous for allowing a wider cultural understanding of the people it is serving. One practical example of this would be times of preferred visit and language barriers encountered on a daily basis. In contrast to this Illuminant’s field service team throughout Europe are predominantly Caucasian males even Hough the customers have a varied culture. They do redeem themselves somewhat by recognizing that even though the support call centre is based in the UK they need candidates who are multilingual and able to serve central Europe.
Part of the diversity and inclusion strategy is to utilities targeting marketing for open positions. Using specialist stations to attract the right candidates to the right jobs can be a very powerful tool and selecting certain types of printed media shows that British Gas has a keen understanding of the different groups it is trying to reach. Once again this differs to the approach taken by Alumina in so much as they will not use targeting marketing per say but rely heavily on relationships built up with specialist recruitment agencies.
One aspect that does not help their demographic of engineers is the referral scheme which inadvertently causes similar people to be put forward as candidates. Not only interested in the specific demographics of candidates British Gas also looks for a certain caliber of person, they employee age restrictions and a need of having a minimum level of nationally recognized qualifications (fastidiousness’s, 2014). This is important as the training and work involved needs to be relevant and within the ability of the application.
Further emphasis is also put on a candidate’s aptitude for customer service and going the extra mile. One key HER strategy which has been applied is a value based questionnaire which categories applicants into three colors red, green and amber. If an applicant is categorized as red they will not be invited to an interview saving both theirs and the company’s time. Due Alumina not being the same size as British Gas they do not have to apply such a drastic means of short listing candidates. However they do include numerous differently focused phone interviews prior to face to face meetings.
Alumina also like British Gas have minimum requirements which candidates must meet. These are usually ensured by the recruitment specialists Alumina uses and because of these long standing relationships the specialists can quickly identify candidates who have the right attitude and work ethics allowing them to be productive within Alumina. Training In contrast to the differences found in recruitment between British Gas and Alumina the operational training and professional and personal development thin the organizations is fairly similar.
This is due to two reasons. British Gas operates in a highly regulated market requiring employees to train to a certain level and be able to demonstrate and understanding of the latest health safety regulations applies by the E (fastidiousness’s, 2014). Illumines focus on training stems from the ever evolving and changing products which they release and the high level of expertise needed to service these instruments. The common theme between these two is change. Employees must be able to adapt and have an aptitude which allows them to embrace these changes.
To aid this Line and HER managers must facilitate programs which best assist and enable their employees to approach further learning. As well developing employees in way which allows them to fulfill their roles managers must also identify candidates who they believe would be suitable for advancement through the company. Once these individuals have been identified again the managers must facilitate and environment allowing the employees to advance. Examples of training are as such: Product release training (LIMN) Apprenticeships (BAG) Traineeships (BAG) Technical training (BAG) personal development(BAG, LIMN)
DISC profiles (LIMN) Mentoring (II-MN) coaching (LIMN) As you can see the main difference between the two companies is that while Alumina recruits candidates from a professional level British Gas finds it advantageous to train employees up to a professional level. This incurs additional costs but can lead to greater company loyalty. Task 3 Rewards and Motivation As I have just been discussing the difference between British Gas and Illuminant’s operational training and personal and professional development I will now move onto deliberating the reward and motivational system applied concentrating on Alumina.
I will aim to identify their main reward and motivational systems and understand which of the many theoretical motivational categories they fall into. Will start off by discussing the basic compensation package which Alumina offers as this also involves recruitment and the very first motivation the company needs to facilitate within a candidate namely joining the company. The compensation offered at Alumina varies between job types and rolls but there are many systems which align allowing for lateral moves within the company.
The main similarities are that most roles involve a three tier pay call (entry level, level 2 and senior level); they allow for employee investment schemes (ESP.), offer continuous technical learning courses, 10% pension contributions and private healthcare cover. Additions can be made, for example field service engineers and application scientists also receive a car allowance as this is deemed necessary for their job.
The compensation packages have been assembled by HER and are continuously reviewed and adjusted on a roll by roll basis to ensure that Alumina remains competitive within the jobs market and attains the required level of candidate. HER must main sensitive to localized jobs markets as shortages in skills can cause wage spikes and candidates can be lost to the competition. By promoting within and acquiring candidates at a lower skill level and building them up British Gas can somewhat control the wage levels of certain job markets.
Once Alumina have successfully employed a candidate they must endeavourer to retain this employee by realizing their motivations and using this to build a semi personal rewards system. As with the compensation package the rewards offered will have a basic level across the company allowing for fair imprison which helps minimize inequitable perceptions of situations i. E. Why does that person get a higher reward than me when work harder. The basic reward system which applies to all employees is mainly monetarily based.
It contains stock contributions (ERRS), on the spot bonuses (which any employee can request for a colleague of any stature), Annual bonuses, basic wage increases and promotions to higher tiers. Again because of the across the board nature of these monetary rewards a culture of equity is mostly achieved. These basic motivational techniques and reward systems are very dated but still effective to some degree. They are based around the Tailors theory that man is primarily motivated by economic means i. E. Lath, workers respond as individuals which allows one employee to perform well and receive an ERRS where as a colleague might not have performed well and does not receive one and that employees can be treated in a standardized way. Another more personal approach to motivation is also applied at Alumina and borrows approaches from the findings of the Mayo’s hawthorn experiment. This experiment found that employees are best motivated when they have good communication with their managers; managers take a greater involvement in each employees work life and when employees are allowed to work in teams.
Managers at Alumina take an active involvement with their employees work life to help understand what motivates said employee other than monetary rewards. Managers apply many tactics to achieve this level of relationship. They utilities DISC portfolios which help initiate a basic level of understanding and how to communicate between one another. Individual development plans are formed which look at the short, mid and long term goals and aspirations of employees (appendix 2).
The manager and employee an then decide to set SMART goals to help the employee realism their aspirations. Within these goals standard and additional training can be included as well as helping employees participate in certain groups or projects that they will find stimulating and help them along the path towards their long term goal. Managers are also able to apply job evaluation although at Alumina this is paired with the annual appraisal and DIP which I believe is the incorrect setting for job evaluations.
One tool that service managers use with job evaluation is the field service engineer score card (appendix 1). This core card lists the attributes associated with this role and allows employees to score themselves in each attribute allowing them to identify skills gaps and places in which they can improve. The score card also details what is expected of an employee to advance to the next tier. This score card can be seen in the appendix of this assignment.
As we have discussed employees and their manager decide on goals to set which feed into their individual development twinned with this managers set standardized goals throughout their team to allow neutral job assessment. Some examples of these goals are field visit port completion above 95%, Service level agreement met above 80% and so on. These goals have been derived from the managers own goals which in turn where derived from their senior managements goals. This way deriving goals from a top down approach allows for company alignment.
So as you can see Alumina recognizes that a balance must be met between standardized rewards and tailored motivational systems in order to retain high achieving individuals. In my opinion this approach works fairly well as each individual is just that and allowing managers to take a flexible yet measurable approach to motivation and rewards empowers them to get the cost out of their employees. In contrast if HER only had set rewards the model may not appeal to everyone and the possibility of hard working employees leaving because their needs are not being met would be a reality.
Task 4 Employee Exit Procedures There are many reasons for leaving a company but these can generally be grouped into three categories: Termination of contract Retirement Resignation These three reasons are common place among all companies but I will now focus on two companies I have worked for so that I can give a detailed account of the procedures surrounding the situations. The first company and situation will describe and assess is LLC Services PL who is a third party liquid chromatography servicing organization and a private limited company.
The situation entailed an employee who was employed as a validation engineer. His duties comprised of validating the equipment other engineers had previously serviced. During his employment he was tasked with sourcing a method of validation which would simplify the process. Once he had found this method and tested it proving it to be an efficient alternative the process was rolled out to the standard engineers and job roles where changed. With this change of duties it was deemed unnecessary to have a specific engineer who only validated the instrumentation after service.
This meant that there was no longer a need for the role and so the individual was made redundant even though he had the skills to remain on as a standard engineer. By taking this decision LLC Services was not able to recruit another engineer for 12 months as the validation engineers redundancy would have been deemed as an unfair dismissal in accordance with the Employment rights act 1996 (legislation, 2014) . Throughout this process LLC Services PL ensured that they followed the qualities and a strict exit process. Cited to leave LLC Services PL in 2009 and in accordance with my contract gave a written resignation and worked a month notice. There was no exit interview and Was expected to work my daily duties as normal. This left me feeling as though my time at the company had not been appreciated. Found that it was very short sighted of the company to operate in this way as even though they and I where adhering to any legal requirements throughout the process they missed a great opportunity to receive any feedback I had in regards to the way the company was ran, anything specific to my job and whether was leaving due to any grievances.