Analysis And Recommendations Essay For Mining Company HR Management.

The assessment of this subject supports students in developing their skills and knowledge in topics that include strategic human resources management, organisational design, culture and ethics, organisational behaviour, motivation and performance management. Retention and succession planning are important themes.

Assuming you are the Senior HR Executive for MiningCo, which operates in a range of isolated locations with many fly-in, fly-out staff on a rotating two-week roster basis. Analyse and reflect on the following three interrelated scenarios:

• Case one: you are tasked with researching the impact of introducing performance management initiative on the motivation of staff in your location. You are to make recommendations to the board, specifically on how the proposed initiative will impact on their decisions moving forward.

• Case two: MiningCo has a problem—each isolated site operates as a single entity and there is very little cross-over or staff rotation between them. The economic crisis in Greece and the increasing impact of the presence of ISIS in the Middle East on foreign nationals is resulting in many of the senior executives onsite wishing to leave. You will need to make recommendations to the board for how to curb any hysteria that ensues.

• Case three: you need to put together a crisis managementteam to manage the event that any substantial talent gap emerges at any individual site. You will need to decide on the selection criteria, the format, structure and function of the team and how you would reward them.

Following your analysis, present your findings and recommendations in a report addressed to the MiningCo board. You should make significant references to subject material and substantial wider reading using the Torrens University library. Attach appendices as necessary, noting that they are surplus to the report (and its word count) and, therefore, assume they may or may not be read by the board (and the marker). There is no prescribed format for the report; use your own research to inform its structure.

Assume the word limit is literally a limit and that the board will reject any paper that breaches it. Students should use the brief to guide what to include in the assessment and the following rubric to inform the standard required.

The report is about management of human resources of Mining Company and to make recommendations to board of directors of organization. Mining Company has its operations in wide range of isolated locations having fly in and fly out staffs on a roaster based on two week rotation. There are there interrelated scenarios that are required to be analyzed and accordingly make recommendations. All the given scenarios deal with management of human resources. Report incorporates discussion of theories of human resource management and steps taken for motivating employees. Organization has been recommend to employee various retention strategies for preventing higher attrition rate of employees.  

Case one:

In this particular scenario, the impact of performance management initiative on motivation of staffs is to be assessed by HR executive of Mining Company. Workers are working on fly in fly out basis where they are working in remote isolated locations and to this particular type of miners, Maslow’s hierarchy theory is a relevant motivation theory for advocating the fulfilment of needs of employees.  Performance management is considered as a process that assist organization in achieving results through performance in planned objective of agreed framework (Aithal and Kumar 2016). Such procedures helps in enhancing the performance of employees, team and organization as a whole that is driven by managers.

Performance management initiative of Mining Company might involve performance appraisal. In this method, a set of performance factors is considered by managers such as attendance, cooperation, loyalty, quantity and quality of work and job knowledge. Employees are rated on incremental scale using all such performance factors (Kramar and Parry 2014).

Multi person comparison- In this particular method of performance measurement, performance of one employee is compared against other. This might involve paired comparison, individual ranking and group order ranking (Garg 2014).

Management by Objective is considered as mechanism for appraising performance of employees. In this particular method, assessment of employees are done by evaluation of how well they are capable of accomplishing objectives and their specific set of goals. It is a framework or model that is employed by organizations that helps them in clearly defining employees and management objectives. With this method, that involves flow of goals and planning of organization and transformation of same and incorporating into personal goals. Employees and staffs of organization are required to measure and set goals in accordance with organizational goal as per this framework. MBO is a goal setting process that helps in assessment of contribution of each employee’s toward organization (Kramar and Parry 2014).

Case Two

Employees are able to increase their productivity and their efficiency gets enhanced when their performance is viewed on regularly. Employee motivation received support from the performance management system and team members are motivated to significant extent. Performances of employees are enhanced by enabling tracking and aligning the goal of organization with that of employees. Conversation between managers and employees are facilitated with the help of implementation of this particular system of performance management (Shen and Benson 2016). Rather than focusing on negative feedback, employees are encouraged to give their best and thereby enhancing their satisfaction.

Mining company HR executive is require to employ Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that would help them to understand needs and using motivation theory for satisfying the needs of individual employees. The performance of employees of Mining Company can be enhanced and the impact of performance management initiative on board help in moving forward with decision by following recommendations:

• It is required by organization to integrate their goals with the work target of each employees having formal appraisal and setting of objectives at the heart of performance management system.  
• The ongoing nature of management of staffs would be altered with the implementation of such performance system. In this regard, activity trap of managers should be avoided and they should not interfere in day-to-day activities of staffs. Implementation of system of performance management can be done by participation in process of strategic planning (Martin 2017).
• Employee empowerment should be done and form the part of performance management system by measuring of goals and their achievement should be rewarded.
• Managers are required to understand specific duties and role of employees and there should be balance between efforts of management and employees empowerment. There should be scope and enough gaps exist for providing opportunities of employees to act as their self-managers.
• Management of Mining Company needs to create a congenial and conducive work culture that would assist them in sharing their knowledge and experience for fulfilling the aspirations of employees and achieving goals of organization. Employees are required to be well informed about values, objectives, mission of organization. The framework of developing and managing the performance of individual and team as a whole.
• Management of organization should overcome impediments and obstacles for effective management of performance by contextual and effective management of business external environment.
• Employees should be treated as partners to business and they should be involved in decision making process of organization. Some of the factors that come under the umbrella of this principle is recognizing the talent, capabilities and merit of employees along with providing them with authorities and authority.
• For better management of performance, there should be continuous monitoring of performance, organization should have a full proof feedback system of individual, department and team performance.
• The framework of organization should be conformed to system of performance management and the system should encompass the procedures of informal and formal measures for increasing the effectiveness of individual, team and corporate.
• Performance management system should be carried out throughout the year and it should have sequential implementation of various phases of system.
• Management should ensure that there is enough flexibility in the system of performance management. Each of individual team within organization need to have sufficient maneuverability for designing their own process within the performance management overall framework.
• Orientation of performance management should be should be toward the future improvement and planning. Necessary inputs for future actions are provided by evaluation system. Such framework should be incorporated in the performance system for gaining a win-win situation. Development and performance needs within Mining Company should be addressed by providing frequent and regular dialogue between employees and managers (Stredwick 2013).

A system is required to be incorporated within organization for measuring and monitoring the employees and staff performance against the standard that have been set or industry standard and the existing shortcomings should be communicated to employees. For the purpose of reposing faith of employees in the system, there should be transparency in the evaluation system. Focus should be ion continuous development of skill, knowledge and capabilities of employees. The initiatives of performance management system should be designed in a way for ensuring the interrelationship between various procedures (Marchington et al. 2016). The accountability of performance should be assumed by team members as well as management so that they agree on common goals leading to joint monitoring of outcomes and implementation of agreed plans.

It is essential for management of organization to retain highly capable staffs as they are one of important resources. Recruitment of staffs involve huge amount of expenditure for business and loosing skills would lead to considerable amount of loss. Organizations are required to adopt different retention strategies in situation when they are facing difficulties in retaining their valuable staffs. Moreover, staff retention would also need incorporate motivation strategies (Renwick et al. 2016). On other hand, success planning is another strategy that can be implemented that is related to managers or employee replacement who are wishing to leave. Main objective of this particular planning is appointing appropriate personnel for minimizing the loss.

The second scenario is about staff retention issues faced as they are planning to leave the organization due to increasing impact of ISIS presence in Middle East on foreign nationals and economic crisis prevailing in Greece. All this are regarded as eternal environmental factors incorporating socio-cultural and political factors. In the first aspect, Due to political disturbances in Middle East, staffs of Mining Company are getting nervous and scared. Secondly, prevailing economic crisis in Greece is impacting the operations of organization as they are not sure about gaining profits out of operations.

Impact of Environmental Factors on Staff Retention

The staffing issues in an organization is affected by environmental factors and human resource practices and the performance of organization is impacted by legal, political, economic, socio-cultural and technological factors. Staffing policies of Mining Company is affected by political and socio cultural factors. Motivational factors that helps in retaining employees within organization are love and belongingness, security at work and safety (Pulakos et al. 2014). The economic crisis is adversely affecting Mining Company operations and this is making employees face the consequence of economic downturn. Employees have the possibility of getting demotivated by the self-esteem needs and issue of job security.

The hysteria ensuing the external environmental issues of Mining Company can be curbed by making following recommendations to the board and they are as follows:

Prevailing issues in Mining Company can be solved by the adoption of succession and retention strategies. Some of the retention strategies that should be adopted by Mining Company are

• Work life balance- The operation of Mining Company is based on rotating roaster basis for staff. In case of sites, there is lack of rotation of employees. Therefore, organization should make rotation of employees based on roaster to some less dangerous place or sometimes close to their family members. It would help them to deal with present situation and enabling them to tackle with their nervousness (Tyson 2014).
• Job security- It is essential for any organization to create a sense of trustworthiness among organizational members and sharing them every possible information that would impact their overall performance.  Staffs need to be motivated to the extent that they develop a sense of trust and belief in organization that would help in providing them with job security. Security of job plays an essential role in motivating employees in their current working conditions.  Mining Company executives can use job security as one of retention strategy. Employees will be provided a sense of security by dealing with their safety needs as per Maslow’s hierarchy needs (Messersmith and Wales 2013). For ensuring the security of employees seeking to leave the organization, it is required to put as proper security system in place. Such system can be used as communication platform for communicating about any possible danger that might evolve due to presence of ISIS. Sites and location can be controlled by using technology that helps in preparing disaster plan due to worst case of Middle East.
• Training and development- Employees of mining Company can be motivated by proving them with training and development opportunities. Retention of staffs can be done by training them to deal with the situation.
• Social grouping- Employees are social animals and they feel nervous when they are faced with such situation. They can be scared when faced with any small environmental change and they would be highly influenced by social grouping and meeting. Therefore, social grouping is one of the essential factor that helps them in dealing with such situation.
• Compensation/ Rewarding- Rewarding employees can help in remaining focused and dealing with organizational challenge. There are various ways in which employees can be rewarded such as bonus, insurance, free health checks, bonus, free health checkups and bonuses.
• Ensuring recognition and basic needs of employees- Employee working in Greece site are getting adversely impacted by economic condition. In such situation, esteem and basic needs of employees are not getting fulfilled. Managers in such scenario are mainly concerned about fulfillment of their self-esteem needs and they would be supporting their employees in future.

Employment of succession strategies helps in ensuring that right people are appointed in right place and at right time. In the situation, when employee retention become difficult, Mining Company is required to give priority in developing a large taken of pool for dealing with such situation. Program of successful planning should be objective and seek employment of talent at level. There should be encouragement of promotional strategies and leadership development for directing employees in proper direction. Management of situation can be done by development programs (Singh and Khatri 2016).  

In this particular scenario, the sites of Mining Company have experienced potential talent gap that requires development of crisis management team. An organization is able to curb the adverse impact of any internal or external crisis by forming the crisis management team. Such team helps in the development of strategies and taking future course of actions for dealing and overcoming with crisis situation. Crisis management team helps in development of crisis management and communication plan by setting out a framework while preparing them to response to a particular situation during initial phase of crisis (Marler and Parry 2016).  

Format and structure of crisis management team:

The crisis management team of Mining Company will include head of departments, board of directors, chief executives officers and associated people, human resource representatives and lower level staffs. Main role of crisis management team is to formulate the crisis management plan by properly analyzing the situation that will help in protection of reputation of organization in the industry. In order to deal effectively with crisis, there should be flexibility in crisis management team that will help in handling incidents of varying types and severity (Bilal et al. 2014). Management needs to incorporate some of elements while designing the structure of crisis management team.

Recommendations

Structure of crisis management team:

(Source: Stredwick 2013)

The structure of crisis management team would have three tier structure that is Tier I at facility site level, Tier II at region or country level and Tier III at corporate level.

Corporate level crisis management team- At this level, the management team would comprise of corporate office executives and senior managers. Formation of team at this particular level incorporates talented and qualified employees that helps in achieving desired objectives (Wilton 2016). However, chief executive officer does not get directly involved in crisis management and all the team members are accountable to him.

Regional level crisis management team- The formation of team at this level involves specific country manger along with senior staffs and reporting manager of operating country. Additional resources are required for setting up team as they deal with crisis management faced in respective countries (Zhou et al. 2013). Mining Company has their operation in Middle East that of facing the threat from presence of ISIS and formation of crisis management team at regional level is essential.

Facility or site level crisis management team- Facility level crisis management team will help in addressing the crisis at isolated sites of Mining Company. On site management of crisis is done by such team that helps in facilitating direct communication between staffs and managers.

Function of crisis management team:

• Such team would help in making assessment of threats and potential risks that are faced by company and evaluating the preparedness of company to deal with crisis situation at both operational and corporate level.
• Another function of such team is effective management of crisis and ensuring the safety and people and community in professional way and thereby reducing the impact on operations of business and organization as a whole.
• Crisis management team are required to stay in touch with media as well as external clients for handling the critical situation arising from prevailing crisis in organization (Jha and Bhattacharyya 2017).
• During emergency situations, team will help in formation of appropriate crisis management plan that work out best.
• It is utmost importance for organization to detect any early signs of crisis that would help in identifying the areas where main issues exist.
• Maintaining the confidence of stakeholders of organization by minimizing the damage of such crisis on reputation of organization. They are also responsible for ensuring continuous and safely running of business during course of crisis.
• Another function of crisis management team is to provide added protection to assets and people of organization that would assist them to return to state of normalcy as soon as possible and thereby protecting reputation of organization (Mitchell et al.2013).

Providing employees and organization with strategic direction and guiding them to mitigate the impact of prevailing crisis resulting from internal as well as external environmental factors.

Ways of Rewarding crisis management team:

Types of reward	Reward description
Profit sharing	Employees of organization can be motivated by providing them with share of profits. Members of crisis team can be rewarded by giving them share of profit that would generate them a sense of belongingness.
Recognition	There are limited number of members in organization that are recognized for their excellent performance. Crisis management team helps in taking out organization out of crisis situation and protecting their reputation (De Waal 2013). Therefore, they can be best rewarded by recognizing them.
Incentive pay	In this type of reward, team members received monetary benefits based on their performance against their pre-determined targets.
Praising	This is one of the simplest way to reward employees that would help in enhancing their engagement in managing crisis.

Conclusion:

In this report, three interrelated scenario of managing human resources of Mining Company have been discussed. Employees of organization are demotivated due to prevailing circumstances in the area of their operation. The employment of several performance management initiates would help them in addressing the issues and motivating employees to continue with their organization. Mining Company needs to adopt several retention strategies for reducing employee attrition rate. They need to provide a sense of security to employees for dealing and handling threats.  Moreover, organization is required to formulate crisis management team for handling the ongoing situation, to effective deal with crisis and preparing future course of action and preventing occurrence of some avoidable situations in future.

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Conclusion

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