ITUSA Case Study: SWOT Analysis, Flexible Working, Psychological Contract, Diversity and Inclusion,

Assignment 1 – Case Study

ITUSA was founded over thirty years ago, and is an American, privately owned IT company.
World-wide it has around twenty-five thousand customers and an annual revenue of £500m.
It operates out of twenty-three countries with thirty-six locations.

Its global spread takes in China, India, Australia, Brazil and a number of European countries including France, Germany, the UK and Ireland.
In the UK it employs two hundred staff based at its London office. ITUSA has grown out of a series of strategic mergers and takeovers. Combined into a single organisation, this has enabled it to provide a wide range of services in the fields of technology; automation; cybersecurity; enterprise software and supply-chain management. The total number of employees across the globe is one thousand seven hundred, of whom around eight hundred work in IT. Of these, three hundred and fifty are spread across US locations. In the UK there are sixty ITUSA IT staff operating in global specialist project teams; and they are projectmanaged remotely from the US. Each team (which will vary in size according to the project they are working on) comprises staff from a network of countries.

As an employer ITUSA pays above the market average for staff. Their IT recruitment strategy is to attract highly skilled and qualified staff who are committed to continuous professional development in a fast-paced environment that is constantly changing. In return, employees enjoy an employee-centred health and well-being package that embraces work-life balance policy and practices. Further initiatives include: - diversity and inclusion; volunteering opportunities; and a flexible benefits scheme. The flexible benefits scheme allows employees to select the benefits they want, trading in some benefits to have more of others.

The worklife balance practices include time off for other responsibilities, working flexible hours, working flexibly between home and workplace, and job-sharing full-time positions.
As a global organisation ITUSA celebrates different cultures. Their recent UK employee satisfaction survey rated ‘Culture and Values’ and ‘Work-Life Balance’ first and second respectively. ITUSA offers a range of competitive team-events as part of employee development ‘away-days’. In addition, most offices include a fitness centre and access to a range of well-being activities including yoga, massage and meditation. The demographic profile of ITUSA IT staff is balanced in favour of young men. Although ITUSA engages home country nationals at each location, it also provides opportunities for staff to move between countries. In addition, staff have opportunities to work temporarily in other countries on time-specific assignments. Many IT staff see this geographic flexibility as helpful for their career-development and promotion.

Flexible Working

HR puts a lot of emphasis on ‘organisational fit’ when recruiting. The fast-pace of the IT industry tends to favour those applicants who are up-to-date in terms of learning and development, and keen to operate in a fast-changing environment. The Global HR Director acknowledges that for a company such as ITUSA there is a particular attraction in recruiting the new generation of workers, typically aged between twenty and forty years, and referred to collectively as Generation Y (or, the millennials). This generation is viewed as having a  particular set of traits. Some of these traits are a reaction against the workplace values and behaviours of previous generations – Generation X and Baby Boomers.

Tecall is a small software UK-owned IT company established in 1995 and based in Birmingham.
Over the last five years it has struggled to keep pace with the industry as it suffered from cashflow problems and a lack of investment. Recruitment was halted as the company spiralled into decline and receivership. At this point ITUSA identified a strategic opportunity to enter and grow this small UK software-house market. ITUSA targeted recruitment of key exemployees of Tecall and hired twenty-five (almost all) of its highly specialised IT workers. The UK arm of ITUSA is preparing a programme of company induction for this newly acquired
group of IT specialists. The group will spend three weeks in the US on a ‘familiarisation and onboarding programme’ before returning to work in the UK. The technical side will be delivered by IT staff over a two-week period. For the remaining week, HR will focus on ‘softskills’ and support both the groups and each indi vidual’s smooth integration into the culture and values of ITUSA.

There are concerns from HR (US) that Tecall ex-employees will find ITUSA’s culture difficult, as they are not well-matched to ITUSA’s targeted traits profile of new recruits. The reason they may not fit in can be summed up as ‘generational’. Tecall ex-employees are predominantly from Generation X and share many of the characteristics associated with being born during the period 1961 – 1981.There is early evidence to suggest that they hold mixed views about working alongside Generation Y employees, with their different values and
behaviours.

On the one-hand, these views stretch from Generation Y as:
• liberal,
• tech savvy,
• self-expressive,
• confident,
• open to new ideas and new ways of doing things

Whilst on the other-hand, some see Generation Y as:
• overly selfish,
• narcissistic,
• lazy,
• delusional
• disloyal to a fault,
• materialistic a
• care little about civil and political affairs,
• constantly checking their twitter feeds and seeking validation on social media.

The Psychological Contract

Questions:

1. Draft a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) model based on ITUSA’s decision to enter the specialist software market previously occupied by Tecall. Using this analysis critically analyse the effect on ITUSA of bringing twenty-five specialist software IT ex-employees of Tecall into the ITSUA global working environment.

2. In this global environment software IT employees will work in ‘virtual teams’ with IT staff across several countries and be ‘virtually managed’ from the US. Evaluate whether this type  of working is likely to become more common in organisations. Assess whether there are any barriers to overcome or is flexible working now the norm for all employees and workers.
Drawing on research what initiatives can use to promote and support a much wider take up of flexible working practices.

3. Using your theoretical knowledge justify whether idiosyncratic contracts are relevant today’s world of work. Critically evaluate whether the psychological contract is out-of-date and that individualism is the key motivator to attract and retain the best talent in organisations.

4. Evaluate the business case for diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Using theory and research assess whether there is a moral business case for diversity and inclusion. Discuss the link between diversity and performance and whether HR holds the key to unlocking truly inclusive working practices.

5. As a senior HR leader, you have been asked to construct a briefing paper on values-based work environments to inform your senior leadership team on the current issues. Using theoretical knowledge and understanding, summarise the facts, identify key pieces of information and HR issues that need to be addressed. Assess the financial implications that may impact of being a values-based work environment and evaluate the benefits and
drawbacks. You also need to offer recommendations on how to the address the issues that you have highlighted.

6. With such a diverse and geographically spread workforce what initiatives can HR implement to ensure that employee feedback and concerns are captured. Using theory and research make a strong case for the inclusion of the employee Voice rather than just another employee survey which is not really considered.

7. Analyse critical issues that are impacting the nature of work and the workplace. Evaluate, using theoretical understanding, whether current models of HR require transformation to keep up with the pace of change to the nature of work and the workplace.

8. What should organisations be doing to prepare for both the major demographic changes and the skills gaps which are likely to become more pronounced in the next 20 years? Using current research evaluate what can be done to encourage more take up of skills-based initiatives. How will an aging workforce affect organisations generally?