Factories Industrial Undertakings Ordinance: A Discussion

Discuss About The Factories Industrial Undertakings Ordinance.

The human resource management strategies are integrated by the business organizations within the retail sector in Hong Kong to accomplish the business goals and objectives with a shared vision. The report is prepared to discuss the various aspects of managing human resources and how it have created ease for Pryde Group, HK to ensure maintaining the organizational standards and improve its delivery of services to its customers (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). The HR manager will be responsible for managing the human resources and ensure that a good workplace culture is maintained too at Pryde Group, HK.

Figure1: Function of HRM

Pryde Group is a multinational sports group that has its head quarters in Hong Kong and has been owned by Shriro Group. The company designs products and services that can cater the needs of people and is one of the largest retail sectors in Hong Kong in terms of sales and profit generation. The company has a huge market share in Europe for the last two decades and has made huge sales revenue for the last few years. The company has established its position in the Hong Kong market too and has been success due to its great quality products and services at much affordable price. It is ranked  in Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest companies and has even portfolio of brands such as Cabrinha, Imagine Surf, NP Water wear and accessories within the manufacturing, retail and distribution sectors (Jackson, Schuler and Jiang 2014). The company has now retail and financial services’ divisions, which has allowed for opening new ventures in Honk Kong. The business is specialized on brand management, distribution and manufacturing. The company maintains a workforce consisting of more than 2500 people and has its operations in more than 40 countries. One of the major products of the company is the RS:X that is one of the sailboards used (Wood and Kispál-Vitai 2014).

Pryde Group’s vision is to become a company that possess string human resources and  mission is to provide the best quality products and services to the customers. The company has been serving the diverse needs and preferences of the customer with a portfolio of multiple strong brands and even managed corporate responsibilities to act with integrity and develop quality and passion (Marler and Fisher 2013).

1. Understand how the strategic management of human resources contributes to the achievement of organizational objectives
   • Importance of SHRM(AC1.1)

The company has to see their internal and external environment to find out the factors that can increase and effective to the business performance, and you will see the key factors should be related to human resources.  The strategic human resource management is set to the long term goals for workforce wherebased on the company business goals. The well strategic human resource plan can help the company to achieve its goals, when the company sets the goals or targets to achieve, it is the employees who will perform the necessary duties toward the goals, and it’s the human resource management to identify the key areas in the company that require the manpower (Kramar 2014).

Strategic Human Resource Management

Pryde Group is the well-known names in the manufacturing, distribution and retail industry that the employees over two thousand people in the world and the main three hubs are located in United State, Germany and Hong Kong, as you can see there were different culture and languages in different countries and it is not the easy to manage. As being the role in human resource management, the focus on the long-term objectives is most important than internal human resource issues (Taylor, Doherty and McGraw 2015). In such, Strategic Human Resource Management plays in a major role to retain them as well as attracting talent.

• Purpose of various SHRM practices(AC1.2)

All the companies will formulate their objectives and goals as the business strategy and human resource will align as the HR policies and that they can maintain the employees with required skills, work in the right position and keep the company performance and efficiency. It is quite clear that Pryde Group, being one of the most reputed retail companies has employed thousands of employees from all over the world and the large workforce has resulted in more production and better quality. To achieve the long term organizational goals, the company shall need to identify the internal issues and make sure that the issues does not result in deteriorating the strategic HRM performance (Lengnick-Hall, Lengnick-Hall and Rigsbee 2013). The HRM plan’s purpose is to improve the skills, competencies and expertise of the staffs at Volkswagen and even retain the most talented and experienced workers (Paillé et al. 2014). The SHRM practices should also match the resources with the future needs and even maintaining their needs of safety, furthermore reduce the operational costs and utilize their potential for the advantage of the firm.

Though Pryde Group is an automated organization, still human efforts and commitment are needed for managing the machineries and equipments, which often incurs a lot of errors. To resolve these kinds of issues, the business organization managed the resources properly through rewards and recognition, hiring training and development needs and performance management process. Rewards and incentives could bring the best of employees by influencing their behaviors and providing them with the best information. In case the employees are incapable of performing their tasks, the HR manager should plan training for them (Kehoe and Wright 2013). It should be done with the involvement of HR manager and line managers for assessing the risks and implement useful HRM strategies aligned with the corporate objectives. By providing them flexible working hours and leaves whenever necessary can keep the employees encouraged and motivated, furthermore balancing work life with personal life would be easy at Pryde Group, Hong Kong (Nankervis et al. 2013).

Developing Human Resource Plans

Figure 1.2 Purpose of SHRM

(Source: DeCenzo and Robbins, 2014)

• Evaluate SHRM contribution to achieving organizational objectives(AC1.3)

The tasks on Strategic Human Resource Management include the implementation on the right skills, place and time in the company. In order to achieve the long-term objectives from the company, it has to improve and utilization of workforce in assigning the duties according to the employees skills. It’s not possible to survive and achieve the company goals and objectives if they without the contribution in the current competitive market (Akingbola 2013).

Figure 1.3 Aligning Business & HR Strategy (Source: hhoppe, 2018)

Figure 1.3.1 Hierarchy of strategic decision making (Bratton, 2003)

The strategic human resource management practices are useful for recording employee activities, their performances and even the monetary benefits including pay structure management, training and developmental sessions to be provided and termination of employees. The administrative grievances regarding the employees are also managed wisely, which can further contribute to the promotion of needs and expectations of the customers and reducing the costs of operations to achieve competitive advantage (Morgeson et al. 2013). One of the first and foremost things to be done is the matching of skills with the corporate objectives and individual roles. The strategic decision making is managed by the HR managers, by which the right skilled employees can be assigned to the right positions with a perfect hierarchy (Zhou, Hong and Liu 2013)

• Business factors that underpin HR planning in an organization(AC2.1)

The HR planning requires identification of the present and future needs of the human resources and creating a link between the HRM and strategic corporate plan for ensuring proper selection, retention and flexibility strategies at Pryde Group. The changes in social structure and population are considered as important factors that can strengthen the SHRM practices. The legal factors include change in laws, rules and regulations to maintain the organizational standards and fostering the development of a better economic environment. By not following these factors, Pryde Group would face difficulty in reaching the benchmark. The governmental rules and regulations could also affect the organizational functioning and so it is necessary to align with those. The behaviors of employees are to be aligned with the major values and beliefs of the organization through the development of a positive corporate culture (Chelladurai and Kerwin 2017). This would foster the development of positive behaviors and it could benefit both the employees and employer of the organization. The external and internal factors could also be assessed to understand the needs and preferences of the employees, furthermore provide them with good wages, rewards, labor rules, laws, working environment, positive culture.  Strengthening of relationship between the employer and employee is also considered as effective factors for keeping the employees motivated at Pryde Group, Hong Kong (Stone and Dulebohn 2013). The transformation of organizational structure would be possible by centralizing of decentralizing the HR functions through the development of a new strategic HRM unit. The roles of staffs are important for improving the administrative effectiveness; furthermore create value to the firm by integrating the human resources into the strategic planning process (Albrecht et al. 2015).

To create a structured human resources plan at Pryde Group, the requirements of HR should be analyzed at first. The existing employees of the company must be retained and the recruitment and selection procedures could bring in more talented staffs to strengthen the relationships with customers and influence the process of decision making too. The HR planning process must include job roles ate various work levels. At the work level 1, there would be frontline jobs that would be to work with the customers and provide them with the best quality services while at work level 2, the team leaders should guide them towards the goals and objectives and even keep them motivated an encouraged. At the work level 3, there would be functions managed at various departments including the planning, management, targeting and reporting whereas work level 4 would allow for data and information analysis along with development of skills to create a sustainable vision or objective (Van den Brink, Fruytier and Thunnissen 2013).

One of the most important requirements is the availability of staffs from the local areas, because they can adapt to the culture easily and will be able to serve the local customers with much convenience. The Chief Operating manager should deal with these functions whereas the HR manager must handle the staffs related queries and provide relevant solutions accordingly for the betterment of the business (Bondarouk and Ruël 2013). Need for informing the employees about the corporate plans and sustainability aspects is essential for creating a sustainable future.

The strategic human resource planning would require identifying the present as well as future needs of human resources by linking the HRM with the overall corporate strategic plan of Pryde Group, Hong Kong. By implementing an effective SHRM plan, it would be easy for the HR manager of the organization to estimate the demands and evaluate the size, nature and supply sources that should be needed to meet the demands in the market. The entire HR plan must also include developing an employer brand, maintaining flexibility strategies, retention strategies, management strategies and selection strategies to manage the human resources properly and ensure business functioning at a faster rate (Lamba and Choudhary 2013).

Assessing the present HR capacity at Prude Group – A skills catalog is developed for the employees to understand about the staffs, their performances, volunteer activities and degrees that they hold. It should be checked to make sure whether they could add to more responsibilities and handle the various functions related to the future development plans or not (Den Hartog et al. 2013).

Forecasting the requirements for HR – The identification and analysis of HR needs must be according to the strategies goal and objectives considering the fact that external factors may also impact the business function. The skill sets would be assessed, upcoming jobs to be filled, numbers of staffs required to meet the strategic goal and involvement of community were to be checked.

Analysis of gaps – The present condition of the organization and where it wants to be in the future shall be observed and then the HR requirements shall be evaluated along with the skills and competencies possessed by them. The new skills, job roles and strengths of the company should be analyzed and the employees must align with the corporate strategic plans to accomplish the long-term future goals of Pryde Group (Bagga Teena and Srivastava Sanjay 2014).

Development of HR practices and strategies to support the organization’s accomplishment of objectives – Recruitment strategies for creating well designed job roles and maintaining a stable employee hierarchy, which could reduce the staffs’ turnover rate. The HR outsourcing strategies would create a diverse workforce and collaborate with other workers to foster creativity, innovation, flexibility and enhanced customers’ services delivery within the retail sector of Hong Kong (Bratton John 2003).

Figure 2.3 Strategy plan to HR plan flow (Source: Laura, 2018)

• How HR plan can contribute to achievement of business objectives(AC2.4)

As it could be seen from the previous section, The HR plan could allow for the HR manager to communicate with the other managers at different levels of the organization and make the employees understand about their individual roles and responsibilities properly too. But most importantly, it would be important to identify the requirements of human resources management at first and then manage the recruitment and selection strategies to attain the right skilled and knowledgeable workers at the company (Daniel et al. 2016). They shall be recruited with the use of interview sessions and through effective hiring procedures by making sure that their skills and knowledge match the job roles and requirements (David, DeCenzo and Stephen 2013). This will result in the success of staff development programs and retention of existing staffs too for Pryde Group, Hong Kong. The analysis of gaps can facilitate the implementation of HR plans and ensure that the skills’ sets are managed properly along with the availability of right numbers of staffs with the most relevant skills and knowledge within the workplace.

• Purpose of HRM policies in organization(AC3.1)

Human resource constructs the company policies and procedures to maintain the employment matters according to company’s philosophy and in compliance with regulations that apply to labour and employment. HR policies support the way an organization defines roles and rules, explain consequences of actions and behavior and provide employees with tools necessary to do their work (Paul, 2005).

As the company ideally to hire the local people for those 3 subsidiaries to save on the cost and resource which improved the workforce and effectiveness. The purpose of human resource policies can be defined as below:

• Structure – defines the company workforce structure to avoid any confusion
• Fairness – support the equal employment opportunity to applicants and employees throughout the hiring process and employment experience.
• Best Practices –analyses the business operation and review the human resource policies and procedures that to have the most positive affect (Howard Distelzweig 2018).
• Consistency –handle the employment matters, policies and procedures consistently to prevent the workforce conflict.

• Impact of regulatory requirements on HR policies(AC3.2)

Government is committed to improving employee’s rights and benefits. (Labour Department, HKSAR, 2018)  Government setup various rules and schemes to protect the employees in their right, health, safety and other legislation, and therefore everything organization have to fulfill these government requirements in regard employee’s welfare which was included in HR policies include local law on the recruitment, monetary, termination, etc. And so, human resource manager has to consider all these government laws while developing and formulating any HR policy regarding the decision on workforce within the company (Laura Portolese Dias 2018).

The HR manager and division managerare in process to select the applicant foravailable positionsand following the local employment regulations and laws at the same time. Other than that, the tasks on the training for candidates, minimum wages and health & safety have to measure as well (Paul Sarvadi 2005).

Regarding the key regulatory frameworks in Hong Kong, two major impact human resource polices are as below:

• Minimum Wage Ordinance – statutory minimum wage has come into force since 1 May 2011 in HK$32.50 per hour and now, it raised into HK$34.50 per hour from 1 May 2017. (Minimum Wage Ordinance, Chapter 608) The running cost was increased and the since the cost leadership is the business strategy goals and objectives that have to filter and retain the right talent and employees only in the company to reduce the headcount costing.
• Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance – the factory and industrial undertakings ordinance provides the safety and health protection to workers in the industrial sector. And the coverage included repair workshops and other industrial workplaces. (Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance, Chapter 59)

• Organizational structure impact on HRM(1)

Due to the strategic human resource management strategies, the structures and cultures of the organization are impacted and this has created diversified workforce and the situations could be handled with much ease and efficiency. The HR managers do play a major role in managing the organizational structure by taking decisions with the involvement of the employees so that they could provide their useful views and opinions. This can also make the staffs of Pryde Group feel that they were being valued for the organization and considered as important organizational assets. The democratic leadership style favors the positive behavioral management of the employees, this can even develop an appropriate culture, and structure to keep the staffs motivated and encouraged to perform to their potential (Wood and Kispál-Vitai 2014). It has the potential to manage the wages scale, remuneration policies, sharing of profit and analysis of developmental positions. With the maintenance of proper working conditions evolved through management of organizational structure, Pryde Group should maintain the safety and hygiene of workers at work, manage ergonomic working conditions, prevent occupational diseases, reduce the occurrence of psychological risks leading to stress and depression. This could definitely promote smooth flow and exchange of information and improve the expert areas of management, economic, legal laws, sociology and psychological aspects too (Kramar 2014).

 

Figure 4.1 Business structure (source: Pryde Group, 2018)

• Organization culture impact on HRM(AC4.2)

Maintaining a good culture is necessary for each and every organization nowadays, not only for the successful management of values, beliefs and ethics but also for promoting teamwork, coordination and communication among the team members. A proper culture can enhance the efficiency of decision making process, furthermore establish a sense of trust and loyalty among the employers and employees, which will ease down the sharing of roles and responsibilities with the peers. Decision making process can be both centralized or decentralized according to the size, nature and scope of business with the formation of a positive culture. The top level managers, HR manager and line managers work together to boost the culture of the organization to create motivation and encouragement among the workers and retain the existing staffs too for the betterment of organizational outcomes.

Hofsetede’s cultural dimensions theory or model is one such framework that enables cross cultural communication between the team members and creates positive effect on the values and beliefs managed by the members of the society. It creates a link between the values and behaviors through the use of factor analysis. The power distance index could allow the less performing workers of Pryde Group to accept the fact that the job roles, responsibilities, freedom and power were not distributed equally. Here the team members might question the authority and power and even might focus on distribution of power to achieve better hierarchical management of human resources (Paillé et al. 2014).

The individualism vs collectivism could allow for making the employees learn to work in groups and communicate with each other to form stable relationships. This would reduce the workload of employees and even create a sense of trust and loyalty among the workers to reduce the chances of conflicts properly. The Uncertainty avoidance index represent the organization’s policies, guidelines, laws, rule and regulations that must be acceptable by all the employees working there to ensure smooth flow of information and messages along with the maintenance of organizational values too. Masculinity vs feminity represents the equal opportunities and scopes provided to the male and female staffs of Pryde Group (Kehoe and Wright 2013). The employees should be treated as one and equal for all and it should be important to maintain a culture free from any discrimination based on race, religion, color, creed or ethnicity.

The long-term vs short term orientation defines the HR practices that should be undertaken prior to comparing the actual outcomes derived with the future predicted outcomes. This would allow the workers to adapt to changes and gain problem solving skills to contribute to the economic growth and development, furthermore create a good financial status of Pryde Group, HK. Last, but not the elast, indulgence vs restraint could focus on the desires and expectations of the staffs and regulate those within the workforce according to the social norms and regulations. It could make them capable of handling their emotions and maintain a positive attitude while working at the company (Nankervis et al. 2013). This will be possible by maintaining a clan culture, which create a friendly working environment where people can work together as an unit to derive positive business outcomes. Here the needs of clients are addressed and staffs are promoted to engage in teamworking, coordination and better comunication .

• How the effectiveness of HRM is monitored in an organization(AC4.3)

The performance management system is one of the most effective ways of monitoring the performances of employees and raising the performance level of the organization. The physical fitness and health of individuals are monitored to check whether their performances have met the business expectations or not and also they are provided with ratings. The factors affecting the company strategies are identified by using metrics including the cost to hire. For example, the HR manager of the retail company would like to hire an internet-marketing manager to track the sales achieved by the company and then compare it to the cost of hiring and retaining the existing talents within the workplace. If the results obtained can confirm the hypothesis testing, then the HR strategy will be successful and noteworthy (Morgeson et al. 2013). The managers often check whether the employees are working properly or not and in case of any misconducts, they should be provided with warning considering the e tire situation rather than taking any immediate step. The performance management process could assess their performances and identify the areas of weaknesses, based on which, necessary training are provided at Pryde Group, Hong Kong.

• Recommendation to improve the effectiveness of HRM(AC4.4)

Based on the previous section, it could be understood that the HR strategies efficiency must be improved for deriving positive outcomes in terms of profit and competitive advantage. After evaluating the weaknesses of the employees, they must be provided with training and development programs to sharpen their skills, knowledge and creative thinking abilities. SHRM strategies focus a lot on maintaining flexible work conditions and so it would be important to provide the staffs with flexible working conditions that should keep their behaviors influenced positively. The employees could perform with more commitment and dedication for achievement of the organizational goals and objectives at Pryde Group. Formation of a good culture would promote teamwork and better communication to ensure smooth flow and exchange of information (Chelladurai and Kerwin 2017).

Figure 4.4 Future research into strategic HRM (Source: Daniel, Jon-Arild, Helene, 2016)

Conclusion

Nowadays, Strategic Human Resource Management plays as the important role in the business to manage the workforce as well as the productivity. The well strategic human resource management plan can either motivate their employees to increase the effectiveness and productivity; and to build up the well organizational culture which will increase and raise up the company goodwill. Therefore, the strategic human resource management is an essential factor to enable fine workforce which optimum utilization.

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