Review Essay On HR Practices At Flat Metal Pressing Co.

The report is a discussion of the organisation Flat Metal Pressing Co. and the HR practises they use and the gap between the implementation strategies.

The strategic human resource practises are not implemented thoroughly in the company and thus the full production potential is not reached.

The report further includes some recommendations for the company HR department and how they can reach the operational excellency through strategic human resource policies.

HRM and HR function

The purpose of the report is to analyse the present scenario of the organisation Flat Metal pressing and suggest the improvement in the conduct of human resource practises. The overall human resource management’s performance is quite poor according the case (Hendry 2012). The method of conducting the business and gain competitive advantage while managing the human and production resource is the main objective of this report. The strategic human resource management is formulating the policies and then executing the policies in favour of the organisation (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). The whole Hr policies are building around four main factors capability builder, which is resourcing potential candidates and developing current employees by training. The second is technology proponent, which is at the stage of upgradation for Flat Metal Pressing. Third is HR innovator and integrator. Fourth is change champion, which is discussed through the Lewins model in the text below (Beardwell and Thompson 2014).  Further, there is recommendation for improvement in HR policies and practical discussion for performance improvement. The recency effect of talent and skill management process has increased the effectiveness and efficiency of organisations and the production-oriented companies like the one is discussed below needs to put their pool of skilled workers in the process of the said management system and Human resource Information system. The process of quality assurance has also leaded some organisation to their competitive advantage and operational Excellencies (Schaufeli and Taris 2014).

The main objective of human resource planning of an organisation is to ensure that the company reaches its goals by ensuring the individual departments and persons are doing the work they are needed to do with right kind of motivation (STANCIU 2012). The main of the two functions of HRM are managerial functions, which includes planning, directing, organizing, controlling and operational functions are more transactional like compensation, maintenance, proposal, appraisals and incentives (Beardwell and Thompson 2014). The recruitment and training of human resources, also the development of their skills while working on the job, is of major priority of human resource management (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). The whole organisation depends on the performance of their work force while the futuristic values are also to be considered while taking strategic decisions. Human behaviour is sensitive issue to handle and it depends on the environment that they work. The environmental factors which affects the behavioural aspect of human nature are to managed with utmost care (STANCIU 2012). The public relations management is the new part in human resource function to be handled. For production oriented company the labour force management is grave issue as the only motivation for them is the salary and compensation they get(Marpaung 2014). The company is making reasonable profit while the potential is not reached up to the mark of highest level. The main criteria that the company should focus on are the job satisfaction of their employee’s job involvement.

 The integration of strategy to the human resource planning is to help the futuristic goals of the organisation. Hiring process, which includes recruiting who is fit for the job and making them stay by competitive compensation in the industry. Human resource needs to be competitive in hiring process execution thus reducing the cost of recruitment and selection process (GÜLLÜ 2017). The plans for training and development of workers are essential matter for company

HR planning

The human resource planning can be most advantageous function if it is strategise properly. It is the process of knowing the current and future human resource and moulding them according the work. Those people meet the future demand of the organisation on human capital. The basic focus of this part is to meet the demand and supply gap of human capital in organisation. The HR planning process is done in four broad stages. First is assessing current HR supply and forecasting the future demand is second. Third is forecasting the demand based on needs of the company. Fourth is sourcing from good resources of the company and implementation strategy  Simultaneously, the process of HR  planning functions  needs expert advice from consulting firms for smooth execution and efficiency of processes.  The organisation like flat metal pressing can be suggested to use the new employed staff for training and development as the modern technologies and machines will be adaptable for them (Hendry 2012). The monitoring of their performance (reward and compensation) is also needed to be part of the new HRM rules and planning the policies (Armstrong and Taylor 2014). The senior managers in production is reluctant about the cost factors and they are not at all giving the 100% output. The HRM needs to set limits to their capital resource usage and set threshold for performance factors (Brewster and Hegewisch 2017). The performance is to be measured and calculated and the wage needs to be decided based on that. The performance and collective bargaining needs to communicate to them.

 The right skills for every position like production manager, senior manager whose age and competency has issues and HR administrators need to trained or eliminated if they are not performing the task in hand effectively. The update of equipment and relocating their production place is needed to be done as part of HR strategy(Beardwell and Thompson 2014). As informed in the case the sixty percent of the company is due to retirement in the next five years, which explains the staff’s age. The update of the equipments may increase the production level and for that, the older staffs need to be recruited or new skilful people need to be hired, which depends upon the budget the HR administrator can give. The purpose of doing an effective HR planning is to ensure the utilization of resources is done at the maximum level (Baum 2016). The vision and mission statement of the company needs to be revised and communicated to all organisation level. The morale of the company needs to be transparent and the technical workers need to be trained to improve their interpersonal relationship behaviour (GÜLLÜ 2017). The development of organisation goals is the main objective that is conducted through the HR planning and functions.

The management development program in the organisations is for the purpose of people who lacks for the correct skill in their work. For a start the main result of training and development is to achieve zest for excellence, teach them about effectiveness of communication and functional loyalties of to the organisation. There is some difference between training and development. First training is skill focussed development is focused on learning abilities and skill enhancement. Development is dependent on education rather than training. Development is dependent on personal drive and the whole concept is based on personality development. Training can be done in individual level and group level. The training methods can be different, like on-job and off-job training. On job, training includes job rotations, job coaching, apprenticeship, management trainees, assistance-ships and job instructions. Off-job training can be vestibule training but it has certain cons that cannot be neglected. Other off the training methods are sensitivity training, audio-visual, simulations, case studies, role-plays, programmed instruction and computer aided instruction. Though training is a liability for the company, the new employers ones are definitely to be trained in the initial stages and analysed to provide them with the area they suit most.  For a production-oriented company the technical skills are very crucial, as they are keys that lead to affectivity of the organisational vision and mission. The required skills can increase the scope and effectiveness of training.

Training and development

 The training and development strategies include the improvement of knowledge and skills of the company workers. The company which is discussed here has some issues regarding their updating of their equipments and more than 50 % staff are ageing therefore they need to be trained too, which can be a good outcome for training and development program (Lubembe 2012). Training involves development of knowledge, understanding concept behind a skill or strategy, demonstration of knowledge, practising the theories in work place. If the new staffs employed are skilful, the peer coaching of the fellow workers can also be fruitful (GÜLLÜ 2017). The effective learning of attitude can improve workplace environment. The self-motivation factor is also there which can improve the desired outcome (Lubembe 2012). The psychology of change and implementing in the behaviours known to be the impact of training and that leads to development.

Change management in Human resource management is known as the approach to which the organisations, teams and individuals shift with the factors of change in macro and micro economy (Hendry 2012). It is one of the most challenging aspects of Human Resource Management (Hamraz, Caldwell and Clarkson 2013). The outside forces that causes change is the technological evolution, globalisations, macroeconomic factors like recession, competitive dynamics and new legislations (Hayes 2014). The most important factor in change management is the timely knowledge of the force that initiates the organisational adaptation (Cameron and Green 2015).

Process of change- These transitions are done through the change manager of the organisation (Cameron and Green 2015).  The first stage is preparing for change. For this needed tool is management strategy, preparing for team change and then developing the prototype of change (Hamraz, Caldwell and Clarkson 2013). The second stage is managing change, which includes developing changing plans with business requirements and taking action accordingly (Hayes 2014). The third stage is to reinforcing the change (Baum 2016). This process includes the collection and analysing feedback and of the current employees and diagnosing the gaps, implementing corrective actions and guide through the success (Matos and Esposito 2014).

The global economic downturn that happened in 2008 shook the world’s economy especially American banks and financial institutions (Truss, Mankin and Kelliher 2012). The subprime or the mortgage crisis in America made a crucial impact on the financial crisis that happened in 2008 (Marchington et al. 2016). The excessive risk taking decisions of banks and financial institutions made a worldwide impact and affected the economy of the whole world (Baum 2016). This was a recession in the global economy, though it affected the financial development the market of all goods and services were affected(Hayes 2014 ). The purchasing power of people became lower than expected therefore the production was also reduced(Matos and Esposito 2014). The source of money that is banks of the economy reported losses all over the world. Therefore, the investments also reduced.

• As Kurt Lewin's Change Management Modelsuggests the first step is to creating the change,. This is one among the external factor, which the company was liable to adapt to. The first step includes creating the urgency, which is done by making people aware of the need of the change. The forming of a powerful coalition in the organisation is the next step, then creating vision for change.
• The next stage is enabling the organisation for the upcoming change (Matos and Esposito 2014). That is done by the communicating the vision, motivating the workforce and creating win points for the system (Cameron and Green 2015). As for the subprime crisis the main objective of the organisation to survive in the recessed economy because the production might get affected if the planning is not done properly (Budhwar and Debrah 2013).
• The last stage is implementing the strategy of change through making decisions (Brewster and Hegewisch 2017). Like in this case, this can be done by rightsizing the company through letting go of some people or asking the worker to make small sacrifice in their salary while the recession period lasts (Hayes 2014 ).

The company policies are standards, which are needed to be abide by to every word, by every employee. This HR policies and rules to keep the organisational environment protected from illegal practises, consistent over time and it helps make management sober decisions. These policies are important because it is expected from the employee that they abide by the values and vision the company has (Schaufeli and Taris 2014). The practises can be communicated to them by different methods.

• The first step is development of the policies that are consistent. The areas where the policies are needed are attendance
• code of conduct in an organisation,
• hours of operation
• mitigating conflict of interest,
• privacy of employees and their shared information,
• benefits of eligibility,
• sick leave, short term disability, grievances,
• use of company equipments, the confidentiality of documents,
• performance management, appraisals, remuneration management,
• equal opportunity,
• recruitment and selection,
• Dispute settlement, negotiation, consultation and others.

These general codes are very crucial for the employees. These can be communicated   to them by various ways. The policies are drafted and reviewed by the management. Then employee and legal review of the policies is necessary. After the approval of the policies is gotten the implementation, parts are there. To make understand the policies a comprehensive source is to give the employee handbook (Marchington et al. 2016). In this modern era, the online PowerPoint presentations and documents are useful for the employee’s orientation (Budhwar and Debrah 2013). It increases the accountability and saves management time to make the employees understand the broader concept, objectives and vision and values (Truss, Mankin and Kelliher 2012). Other ways to communicate the personal policy and procedure and guides is to make a manual script, using intranet and shared drives, email, information session, policy training sessions, statement of understanding and unilateral introduction policy. If there is a change in any kind of procedures and policies, that too should be communicated in time. The process that are taken for information sessions are consultation, reward and bench marking. For Flat Metal Pressing the internal Hr policies and industrial relations should go parallel as the co-existence of both are needed for both relations (Marchington et al. 2016).

The HR board plays a vital role in developing the policies and making sure, the company stuff has clearly understood them (Truss, Mankin and Kelliher 2012). The company is not involved with the unions but in many organisation the unions has shown interest in improvement of human resource policies and also shown cautionary actions toward malpractices of rules.

The whole world’s economy has been globalised for some years now, which have given the organisation with potential, a competitive advantage and vast market to explore on (Sparrow, Brewster and Chung 2016). The trend of globalisation means more competition and with that pressure on cost control and more technologically advance human resources (Brewster-Houldsworth, Sparrow and Vernon 2016). The great economies of the world United States, Europe was the first of the competitors to jump on this opportunities and thus making higher profits for their respective organisation (Tester and Blangy 2013). The economic benefit of offshore development of manufacturing units has more advantage than virtual presence of organisations (Baum 2016). The Flat metal Pressing co. can take advantage of globalisation in many ways. The main benefit is in cost and pricing. The metals may be cheap in some area, which can be used at their advantage, and thus making the production affordable and more reasonable in pricing. Offshore development of product gives the companies the chance of using specialisation resource and development of the final product. It also provides competence in growth (Truss, Mankin and Kelliher 2012). The scalability and market responsiveness is vulnerable factor but that gets smoothens with more area coverage. The market demand fluctuates therefore the operations of production must be according the demand (Sparrow, Brewster and Chung 2016). To avail the global competitive advantage the organisation should update the supply-chain management. This is similar to improving the virtual reach of the organisations (Budhwar and Debrah 2013). The market activity is need to be monitored if the company is in need of expansion (Phillips, Stone and Phillips 2012)

• The above discussion highlights many managerial issues that need to be looked upon while company needs to gain its full potential in the globalised economy.
• The organisation is going through a rough patch and the managers do not have competence enough to solve the issues.
• The Human resource managers are transactional in nature and does not deploys consistent HR practises and code of conduct of the issues.
• The relocation plan needs to be considered as the location problem is a part of their problem.  
• The training and development of their employees are also a concern as the new employees are not potent enough and major part of the employee pool is due to retirement (Tester and Blangy 2013).
• The business environment of the employee needs to be looked upon by the management, as they are vital to improvement of current situation.
• Moreover, the company not using it optimum operational levels and no full utilisation of resources opens the opportunity for using the international market to tap into. May be the regional economy the company is resides is not enough for the company to reach its full potential and there is huge advantage while doing that. The inter-department communication is not fruitful (Tester and Blangy 2013).
• There must have some effective communicative strategy between the production management, the marketing department and Human resource function. Therefore, the new strategy also inclusive of cost controls strategy across all departments. The organisation runs if the people of are literally organised in their work, which is not happening for the people in Flat Metal Pressing organisation.
• The fair wage system for the people of the organisation and compensation management needs to be work accordingly.  For the problem of labour turnover the balancing of work, competitive benefits and offering potential for advancements needs to be part of the compensation management process.

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