Task Of The Human Resource Manager Of A Leading Retail Organisation Selling Music CDs And DVDs

Describe the task of the human resource manager of a leading retail organisation selling music CDs and DVDs.

The report describes the task of the human resource manager of a leading retail organisation selling music CDs and DVDs. The scenario of the report deals with a situation in which a famous retail organisation which sells audio and film equipments like CDs and DVDs is undergoing through downsizing of the store. Nowadays people all over the world get easy access to the current movies and music videos through the internet. This has resulted in reduction in the sales volume of the music store. Hence, the management of the organisation has planned to downsize the retail store. At the same time the management of the organisation plans to restructure and develop a branch of their business line up to enter into the world of the internet download. In this report the author describes the task of the HR manager of the company to explore different avenues and opportunities to do the same.

Many researchers and scholars have conducted studies on the fate of the music stores since the free download of music and movies from the internet gained grounds. The studies reveal the facts that many companies of the world have faced the same problem of decline in the sale values over the past few years. The studies ensure that the public have not lost interest in movies and music of recent times. It is the easy access of the music and movies online has resulted in such a scenario. The main problem in today’s situation is that the internet has increased the audience for movies and music but it has affected the market for these in an adverse manner (the Guardian 2011).

Some of the articles and journals also highlight some other facts that are of genuine concern to the people all over the world as well as the directors of the music stores all over the world. These articles denote that over the past few years much of the values that films and music creates in the market have benefited some other companies like the technology firms. There are some other websites like Pirates Bay, which makes money in an illegal manner by providing major-label albums. This has resulted in the sharp decline in the sale of the music to lower than half of what it was before ten years. Studies reveal that the famous website YouTube has shown video clips of famous music shows on television to build a business. The company Google bought that clip from YouTube for $1.65bn. The world of piracy was a source of constant trouble to the music stores all over the world. The internet changed the sales figures of the stores selling music CDs and DVDs because the internet enables the rapid transformation of digital data.

Taking note of the above discussion, the human resource manager of the retail store selling music CDs and DVDs plans some strategic methods to overcome this problem. The author of the report describes the external and internal data that the human resource manager would provide to the managers and leaders of the organisation that would give an overview to the problem. The report would describe the methods in which the HR manager would collect and analyse the data and also interpret the data.

Description of the data

The problem statement of this report concerns with the present scenario of downsizing of the retail music store and restructuring the line of business into the world of the free download of the music from the internet. Since there is a great demand for accessing and downloading free music and movies from the internet among the people all over the world, the music company wants to reach these audiences by expanding their business into the world of the internet. Hence the main problem question is that “how can the managers and leaders of the music company downsize the retail music store and restructure and retrain their business devoted to the internet download?”

To address the problems that the author described above, the Human resource manager of the music company goes through some of the internal and contextual data and tries to analyse them. Then the human resource personnel present the report of his analysis to the higher authority of the music company so that they can take the necessary steps to overcome the problem. Few years back before the advent of the popularity of the free download of music from the internet, people would buy music CDs from stores by paying a few Dollars. With the arrival of iTunes, the iTunes took over the world of the recording business. In today’s times people play music videos free of cost on YouTube and also stream songs on MOG or Spotify. The amount of the money that the artists earn for these services is not possible for them to keep the records (www.rollingstone.com 2016).

Some of the internal data that the human resource manager can collect and analyse depends on the sale figures of the music store per month, the number of employees working in the store and the number of CDs, Cassettes and DVDs that the music store sales in each day. The internal sources of data include the information source that is available within the organisation or the music company. The internal sources are the indispensible sources of data without which the human resource personnel and the managers and leaders of the music company cannot come to any conclusion to solve the existing problem. Some of the internal sources of data include the following: the loss and profit accounts of the company, the balance sheets for different years, the report that the salesperson provides, statistics of the expenditure in advertisement, the cost of transportation to the different stores across the city. The human resource executive can easily access these internal data of the music company. the person would not have to incur any additional burden on the finance to receive these information (YourArticleLibrary.com 2014).

The human resource manager also needs to collect some external or contextual information to arrive at a strategic plan to overcome the problems. The external data is of great importance for the thorough and detailed investigation into the problem. The human resource manager can obtain external data in the following two types: the primary data and the secondary data. The primary data is the information that the human resource manager can collect from direct sources. For instance, the HR executive can provide a feedback form to every customer who visits the music store that would contain few questions about the relevant topic. The form may contain questions regarding the tastes and preferences of the customers regarding music and movies, their level of satisfaction regarding the services of the music Company, etc (Wilcox et al. 2012).

The Human Resource manager can collect some of the secondary data from some external sources like the newspapers and periodicals or from relevant music websites. The journals and magazines that talk about the issues related to the problems of the film and music industry would provide the relevant data to the HR manager. There are many websites, blogs as well that highlight the issues of the piracy and the free download of the movies and music videos from the internet. The HR manager can get an idea about what needs to be done in the present scenario from these sources of information. The HR executive can gather these secondary data at minimal cost. It requires less time for the HR to collect the secondary data

Data analysis and interpretation

as compared to the primary data which demands the involvement of the customers, vendors, dealers of the store (Rhodes et al. 2014).

In today’s competitive business environment the internal database of the organisation is one of the most important assets. The HR would find solutions to the existing problems by critically analysing the data that the person has collected from internal as well as external sources. The professional data analytics process would help the HR find answers to the questions. When the HR manager would map the internal data of the music company, he would find trends and patterns about some of the important aspects such as the sales volume of the music store. The mapping of the company’s internal data structure would enable the HR manager to capture, procure and process the data (Centroidtraining.com 2016). The HR manager can also perform some statistical analysis of the quantitative data that he has obtained from different sources. The statistical analysis of the data would include time series analysis and regression analysis. The time series analysis would enable the analyst to forecast the sales figure for any time period in the future. The analyst would perform the data analysis using statistical software like excel or SPSS.

After analysing the data, the HR would prepare a report of the findings of the analysis. The report of the HR would direct the line manager and the leaders of the organisation in the right path to overcome the existing issues. The report would highlight the decline in the sales figures of the company. The report of the HR manager would also throw light on the tastes, choices and preferences of the customers. Knowing all these information, the leaders and managers of the music company would plan to expand their line of business to the world of internet download and to downsize the existing retail store.

The music company needs to transform their internal as well as external structures in order to maintain their profits and to survive in this competitive world. Many scholars and researchers have categorised the change agents in the Human Resource department of an organisation as the incremental and transformational agents. The transformational change is a major change that has drastic implications on the practices and policies of the HR department of the organisation (Sonenshein 2016). Studies reveal that the change agents are the persons who help to initiate the changes in the organisation. The change agent also manages the changes in the organisational set up. Some scholars are of the view the internal change agent in an organisation can foster the introduction of new technologies in the organisation. The change agents organises training for the staffs of the company to incorporate the new change (Fuda 2012).

The change agent in an organisation is a person who is responsible for coordinating and organising the overall effort for the change. The internal change agents of the organisation are the persons either from the HR department of the organisation or from the leaders of the organisation. The role of the internal change agents of an organisation has a framework of doing, seeing, being skills. The “doing” skills of the internal change agents comprises of the methods for creation of the change and some other specific skills. The “being” skills of the change agent consist of some of the personal qualities and characteristics of the person. The “seeing” skills of the internal change agent denote the ability of the person to make sense of certain perceptions of reality and to reshape those (Birken et al. 2013).

The author of the report describes the role of the internal change agent in a precise manner as follows:
1. The agents create a set up for success of the organisation without controlling the business process.
2. The agents provide appropriate solutions to the senior executives of the company without resorting to any resentment.
3. The agents are responsible for applying tools, models and frameworks.
4. The agents perceive the leaders of the company under the light of sympathy.
5. The agents perceive the interventions in a context of strategic set-up.
6. The transformation agents are very optimistic in nature, selfless and courageous (Njoki Muchira 2015).

From the above discussion, one can clearly understand the roles of the internal transformation agents of the company. The transformation agents are the pioneers in implementing different strategic options for downsizing the retail music store and for restructuring and retraining the business of the music company.

Being the internal change agent of the music company, the person would consider certain options that would help him to downsize the existing music store. As the store is not giving enough profit in terms of sales values, the company might think of different other ways to increase their profit margins and sales figures. One such way is to reduce the size of the music store by applying different strategies. The author in this report describes some of the underlying assumptions that the human resource department, the line managers and the leaders of the company might have in their minds at the time of downsizing the music store.

1. The leaders of the organisation consider that the smaller size of the organisations would ensure better performance of the company. According to the leaders of the company, the size of the firm sometimes becomes a liability.

2. The managers and leaders of the company are of the view that declining and downsizing of the organisation, as well as the growth of the organisation are very much desirable and natural to the development of the organisation.

3. The leaders of the organisation and the managers associate the concept of downsizing the organisation with flexibility and adaptability. Efficient lines of production and the delivery of the services improves quality, reduces cost and increases the speed.

4. The leaders assume that inconsistency and conflict in the business environment strongly supports the effectiveness of the organisations. Organisations that resize consistently are very successful in their business operations (webuser.bus.umich.edu 2016).
Having discussed the assumptions that the leaders and managers of the company make at the time of downsizing, the author in this article describes the meaning and the features of the strategies of downsizing. The downsizing of the organisation comprises of a set of measures that the management of the organisation undertake to improve the productivity, efficiency and competitiveness of the organisation. In the present scenario, the leaders and managers of the music company resort to downsizing the music store to increase their profit margins and to effectively channelize their line of business in a different field. Downsizing of the music store represents the strategies that the managers of the company would implement that would affect the workforce of the store, the costs of production and the flow of work (Andreeva et al. 2015).

Some of the key characteristics of downsizing the music store are the following: declining, building down, dismantling, reorganizing and redirecting, de-hiring and compressing, contraction and reduction in workforce to name a few. From a wider perspective, one can associate downsizing of a firm to be merely the reduction in size of the organisation. Downsizing of organisations sometimes help to increase the market share of the company or to enhance the revenue. The cutting down of some of the human resources of the company is a part of the downsizing policy of the company.

The music company plans to downsize the existing music store by implementing some of the methods that the author discussed in this report. The music company also reorganises and restructures their line of business. The reorganisation and the restructuring of the music store form a part of the downsizing strategies. The music company may lose a huge amount of the employees while downsizing. The leaders and the managers of the company need to reallocate the responsibilities and tasks to the other members efficiently. The restructuring of the business would improve the amount of output of work as compared to the input given. The company mainly concentrates on the restructuring of their existing line of business in order to focus more on the core business or the core capabilities of the business. The main interest of the company lies in focussing on the revenue or profit generating lines of the business.

The employees and units of the company whom the leaders do not consider to be a part of the revenue generating process are the ones whom the company downsizes. The company might appoint some outside sources such as vendors and dealers to sell their products as a part of their downsizing and restructuring activity. Apart from laying off unproductive employees from the music store, some of the other restructuring efforts of the company may include complete closing of the retail store. The company may also merge with other music companies or may over-haul the internal structure of their business (Ashman 2015). All these form a major part of the restructuring and retraining strategies of the company.

Scholars and researchers in this area often characterize the work on restructuring the organisations to be the process of thinking fundamentally and redesigning the business in a radical way. The scholars in their articles also describe restructuring to be the process in business that would enable the business to achieve huge improvements in contemporary and critical measures in the business. Some of these measures include improvement in quality, cost, service, speed and profit (Referenceforbusiness.com 2016). The downsizing efforts of the company may include introduction of labour saving and new technologies. For example the music company may install computerised networks all over their business plant. This would enhance the communication and interaction with their customers. Eventually the need for customer assistance personnel would reduce. However, the efforts for downsizing and restructuring may have mixed results.

The managers and leaders of the company have plans to expand their existing business into the world of e-business. In order to reach a wider range of customers, the company can restructure their business line-up by setting up an e-commerce website through which the customers can easily buy their products. Setting up an e-commerce business involves a lot of hard work and careful planning. The company needs to take the necessary steps and make decisions at the right time (Agarwal and Wu 2015). The author describes some of the steps in which the music company can set up an e-commerce business.

1. Choosing a product to sell: The company must first select a product that has high demand in the market. The music company can launch the latest music videos, movie CDs and DVDs in their website. This may be one of the most challenging step to set up an e-commerce business as the company first needs to identify the products that the customer wants.

2. Evaluating the idea of e-business: Once the company decides on the products, which needs to sell through their website t the company must evaluate and scrutinise the idea of selling the products through website. The company needs to evaluate the products and also the market for the product.

3. Scrutinising the competition: The company needs to make some efforts to research about the existing competition for their products in the e-business market. Obtaining idea about the competition in the market would help the company to make effective strategies to survive in the competition.

4. Formulation of the business plan: The next step that the company should follow is to formulate a suitable plan for their e-business. The business plan would enable the company to move in the right direction. A proper business plan would help the leaders and managers of the company to bring their thoughts and ideas together. Further, the importance of the business plan is to determine the way in which the company can achieve success in the e-business.

5. Building of online store: There are many critical elements that the company needs to take care of before setting up their online store. The company needs to design their online store website. They need to write attractive descriptions of their products. The company needs to include beautiful photographs of their products to push them into the minds of their customers (store et al. 2016).
Advantages of E-commerce business

The music store can gain immense advantage by implementing the e-business set-up. The author discusses some of the advantages that the company would get by the e-business in the report.

1. Taking the help of the e-commerce, the music company can expand their business into the domestic as well as international market. The capital investment would also not be very high. The company can easily locate best suppliers and more customers all over the globe.

2. The e-commerce business would help the music company to improve their image as a brand.

3. The e-commerce business would help the company to reduce the cost of creation of the process and the cost of distribution.

4. The company can provide better services to their customers through the e-commerce business.

5. The e-commerce enables the company to simplify the process of the business and make the business processes efficient and quicker.

6. The e-commerce helps to increase the productivity of the music company. The e-commerce business supports the “pull type” management of the supply. In this type of management, the process of business starts functioning when a customer makes a request. The company uses the just-in-time way of manufacturing (www.tutorialspoint.com 2016).

From the above discussion, one can see that the company can easily overcome the problem of reduction in the sale values by expanding their business by implementing the e-commerce strategies and by downsizing the existing retail music store.

In the following section, the author tries to evaluate the ways in which the leaders and managers of the company can implement the methods of downsizing and restructuring. To overcome the problem of the declining sales values of the retail music store, the music company needs to make careful planning to implement the methods of downsizing the store. The management of the company and the leaders are also of the view that restructuring their line of business into the world of e-commerce would enable them to earn more profit and reach more customers. All these need the efficient implementation of the downsizing and restructuring plan.
Trust and Ethical aspects of downsizing

Eliminating unproductive and unnecessary employees from the organisation forms a major part of the downsizing. The elimination of employees can have a painful personal impact on the owners of the small-business. The atmosphere of work in the small business environment like the music store is very similar to the atmosphere of the family. A small group of workers work together and hence they are always available to help each other in times of need. Offering notice of termination to the employee can have a negative impact on the reputation and brand image of the organisation.

At the time of terminating some of the employees as part of the downsizing programme, the company should strictly follow the criteria for termination as mentioned in the terms of employment. Some businesses terminate extra workers due to lack of their capital. Some of the business organisations eliminate employees just to increase their margins of profit. Some employers address the decreasing sale values of their business as a reason for employee termination. The managers and leaders of the company cite all the above mentioned reasons for the termination of extra employees. The company should concentrate on some of the ethical aspects of terminating their employees (Lakshman et al. 2014).

If the business organisation is small enough in which the directors and leaders of the company know each of the employees very well, then they might be inclined to hold back some of the employees of their choice. These employees may not be very useful to the organisation. It is very important for the leaders of the organisation to consider the loyalty of the employee to his work at the time of making decisions of terminating the employee. The higher authorities of the music company should first identify a position from which they want to terminate the employee. The managers need to review the terms of employment and termination of the employee before eliminating the worker. The company must fulfil all the obligations that the company has towards the worker before eliminating him. It would be an ethical decision for the company to pay all the dues to the employee for all the work he has done that might bring profit for the company in future.

The company should choose proper words to write in the termination letter to the employee. If the company divulges extra information to the employee at the time of termination, the employee might use that information in future to take legal actions against the company. So the author suggests the concerned departments of the company to consult with an advisor or employment expert before writing the termination letter to the employee. The company should hold a meeting with all the employees that it wants to terminate as a part of the downsizing process. The company should involve a witness to be present in that meeting. The company should discuss clearly with the employees that they need to sign at the time of separation. The company should also clearly explain the way in which it would settle the final payment to be made to the terminated employees (Smallbusiness.chron.com 2016).
Role of Communication in downsizing and restructuring

The author in this report describes the role of communication in downsizing and restructuring the organisation. The author discusses this under the light of human resource approach. The communication from the human resource manager in an organisation should be based on the well being of the employees as well as the production. The human resource manager should take into account the emotions of the employees while communicating to them at the time of downsizing and restructuring the organisation. The workers of the company whom the company holds back after the downsizing can perform even better if the human resource department of the organisation can communicate with them properly. The human resource approach of communication recognises that the labour of an individual is one of the most important sources for fulfilling the goals of the organisation.

There are great amounts of communications that take place in an organisation. There are four aspects of the organisational communication, which the author wants to discuss in this report. These aspects are the following:

1. The content and topic of the communication
2. The channel of communication
3. The style of communication
4. The direction in which the communication moves

The human resource manager mainly focuses on the social aspects, the job and the innovative strategies in the communication content. The words of the HR and the management team of the music company should be enough motivational to encourage the existing workforce to work harder towards achieving the goals of the company. At the time of termination of the employees and shutting down of the retail music store, the company should make the communications keeping in mind certain social aspects of the employees. The management of the company should explain to their existing employees how the new line of business that is the setting up of the e-commerce website to sell the products is effective in different ways.

It is very important for the human resource manager of the company to clearly explain the tasks and roles of the employees in the new business environment. This would help the workers to understand their jobs better and this would improve their efficiency. The human resource approach of communication emphasises on the fact that the communication with the employees needs to be horizontal, vertical as well as diagonal. This would ensure smooth flow of resources and business ideas to all levels of the employees (pure.au.dk 2016). Another important aspect of communication at the time of downsizing and restructuring of the business is the channel of communication. The human resource manager may communicate with the employees and units of the business through written or oral methods. At the time of downsizing and restructuring the business, the human resource manager should communicate with the employees by sending them letters through mails. The mail should contain the reason for downsizing the store and also the actions that the company would take to overcome the problems. This would not give any scope of confusion in the minds of the employees.Employee Relationships and timeline

The term employee relation denotes the relationship that the employees in the organisation shares among each other. Studies regarding the employee relationships reveal that healthy and positive relationship among the workers of the organisation acts a strong motivating factor. The healthy relationships help in enhancing the morale and confidence of the employees in the organisation. Maintaining good relations with the employees helps the employees to enjoy the work that they are doing (Managementstudyguide.com 2016). The employees would not feel the burden and pressure of work. All these would help increase the productivity of the music company. Hence, after restructuring the business line-up the human resource department of the organisation should ensure that proper and healthy relationship is maintained among the organisation. This would help the company to achieve their goals regarding the increase in the sale figures, generate more profit and reaching a wider range of customers.
The author describes a chart that gives the timeline of the full process of downsizing and restructuring the business of the music company.

Conclusion

The author of this report highlights much useful and relevant information about the restructuring and downsizing of the business organisation. The downsizing of an organisation has many drawbacks. Critics are of the view that downsizing does not always yield positive results. Critics claim that downsizing can result in some other problems. Some of these problems include low level of confidence among the employees, poor level of services to the customers and bad attitudes of the employees. Terminating employees to increase the competitiveness of the business often leads to unexpected results. There is a possibility of increase in the overtime wages of the employees. Downsizing would result in the loss of reliable and high-skilled employees. The company might have to bear additional expenses to find new and efficient workers for the restructured business plan.

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