The Work Environment at Zicom - Case Study Example

8th July 2009 President – ZICOM ELECTRONIC SECURITY SYSTEM LTD. Bhupinder Singh Kang Consultant at Your Workplace Executive summary The opportunity of working with Zicom needs a special mention of thanks. The experience that I acquired while serving Zicom days has been of great importance to my career. It gave me immense pleasure and satisfaction to be a part of this great organization. Talking about the work environment at Zicom, it is a place where experience meets opportunity. The organization has an active environment which gives a lot of importance to individual skills and their thoughts. There is a diverse culture of people working for the organization. One is given responsibilities according to their strengths and supported by the latest technology and methods that motivates individuals to develop them further. As a leader of the industry the company has various opportunities for its employees in terms of their careers. The ‘MAGIC’ policy of the HR is an example of the company’s innovativeness. The MAGIC stands fro The ‘Zicom Champion First’ strategy is an unique feature of the company where by the company believes that commitment is a two way process and gives a lot of importance to the fact that only if the company looks after their employees will they in return be dedicated to the organization. It encourages working as a team. The organization recognizes an individual’s personal life and thus helps them to have perfect balance between their personal and working life which gives rise to job satisfaction and also motivates the employees. In return the company wants its employees to have qualities like leadership skills, motivation, flexibility, technical skills, team work and customer service focus. It is the right place where one can nurture their potential in a knowledge sharing environment which is diverse. The best part is that employees can shape their own career path in the organization. The company believes that the best way one can be aware of their ability is to realize their potential. After an individual has realized their potential they need to grow. Growth is only possible where there are opportunities. Zicom being the market leader is the best place to get opportunities (Zicom, n.d.). . Issues The greatest asset that an organization can have is manpower. They are the main resource of building a profitable business. Thus Human Resource is a major concern for companies as they must have a strong management to nurture and retain talents. The quality of employees that an organization has is directly proportional to its profitability and sustainability in this competitive environment (Little, n.d.). As the emerging economies like the BRIC nations are growing at a steady rate of 40% compared to that of a mere 2% to 5% in the Western countries, it is very easy to come to the conclusion that why companies are banking heavily on these developing nations. Some companies are of the notion that brand name and a fat pay cheque will attract talent, but the reality is that a local company that creates opportunities and has proper organizational cultures which actually emerge out as winners over the MNCs. The fact that millions of dollars worth business can get affected if employees do not engage themselves in work underlines the importance of focusing on developing and managing the human resources of a company. Also it should be kept in mind that the cost involved in hiring quality talents is very high. Thus the main focus of organizations should be on creating a pool of talents inside it and continuously nurture it. At the same time attention should be paid in retaining the pool of talents. The foremost issue of creating a talent pool in an organization is to select and recruit people from outside who match the organization’s requirement. In creating a talent pool the company has to focus on having great and effective leaders. Creating leaders helps the company to have a rich talent pool. Effective leaders not only focus in achieving their targets but also help to create future leaders. Selection is a tedious process as a lot of screening needs to be done in order to choose the right person. Going through perhaps a thousand applications is very tedious process so at times it has been seen that often manager come up with a weird criteria that is not required by the company in order to reduce the number of application (Sherman & Freas, 2004). While recruiting mangers are often confused about the requirements and specifications of the organization. In this effort their procedure lacks proper focus in indentifying potential and they end up taking up wrong person for the wrong kind of job. After recruiting the very next problem that companies faces is to retain their talents. Often companies make the mistake of matching their practices with that of their competitors or the industry. However those may be effective in bringing in more job applications but it does not guarantee the fact that they will stay. Thus the issue remains that employee’s preferences should be given importance to otherwise retaining the talents are difficult. What makes a company great is that their ability to attract and retain their employees (Erickson & Gratton, 2007). During the time of economic crisis in an effort to reduce cost companies slash their hiring process. Before the crisis is over the race for selecting talents are back again. Across the world companies are find it difficult to replace their older talents with newer ones. Companies may at times faces the problem of downsizing and may find recruiting a difficult proposition but those who learn to hire talent and retain it will have a distinct advantage in the future (Fernández-Aráoz, Groysberg & Nohria, 2009).. Recommendations After going through the issues I would focus my attention towards selection and recruitment process of the organization. As I believe that creating and nurturing a pool of talent within the organization would be an invaluable asset for the company and help it survive in all kinds of environment. The next area of focus would be towards the training and development process and focus on retaining the talent pool. As after recruitment, employees should be adequately trained so that they can gel in with the organization and perform to their potential. To achieve these I would approach it in a methodical way. Distinguishing the requirements of hiring. Identify the needs for which the company wants to hire. By doing so I would be able to focus my attention on the type of employee that the company is looking for. It would also help to set appropriate criteria for applicants who want to apply for a particular opening. Evaluate the job specification. This would further help to narrow down my options to the type of candidate that the organization is looking for. Job specification also helps to select the type of selection process needed for the recruitment process. Selection process. I would like to implement a three stage selection process, wherein each step would be taken care of separate individuals. The Initial selection wherein the applicant’s forms would be screened and a back ground check is done by a junior HR. The Substantive selection process. This is the most vital step and here I would like a senior member of the department, for which the recruitment process is going on to be a part of it, where in the candidates would be evaluated either through a written tests, performance simulation test or interviews. Again the kind of method to be selected would depend upon the job specifications. The presence of a senior member of the concerned department helps in the process of selection because the person under whom the current recruit would be working is the best person to judge whether the candidate is suited for the job or not. Many a times there is a conflict between the managers who are recruiting and the department for which recruiting is going on as candidates fail to deliver. The final process would be Contingent selection process, wherein candidates who get through the second round would undergo a medical evaluation for fitness test. The purpose of asserting different individuals for each step would mean that the managers would be given specific task to perform and it would increase their efficiency level and make the selection procedure more effective and unbiased. The next step would be to integrate the newcomers with the organization through proper training and development. This step would again be given importance to for making the employees familiar with the work culture of the organization. The last step would be to evaluate and review the efficiency of the selection process so that proper feedback can be generated which would be useful to further fine tune the whole process to maximize its efficiency and that it is beneficial for the company. Other than having an evaluating system in place I also wish to put up a feedback mechanism from the employees point of where in their suggestions or problems will be looked into. Also in order to integrate the new employees into the system emphasis would be given upon conducting interactive induction sessions where in the existing employees can interact with the new ones and be familiar to each other. In a team if all the members know each other it helps to increase the team’s productivity. We have seen that the main problem of retaining talent is turnover. Thus I would like to introduce an employee retention program. However the program might be costly and would require a lot of effort and support of the management, I still believe that having such a program would help to retain the talent pool that the company produces. Since training and development is an expensive proposition companies, still they have to under take this process, and after spending fortunes behind training an employee if they cannot be retained then the efforts goes down the drain. This program can be approached in the following manner. The first thing that is to be evaluated is whether turnover is becoming a problem or not for the company. If it is, then the next question is how many people are leaving and identify their importance of leaving the organization. The next process would be to determine the cost of replacing these employees. Analyze why people are leaving the organization by conducting exit interviews. After doing so the next thing would be to find out that why the existing employees are staying in the organization. This would help us to evaluate the reasons for turnover and retention. By doing so we can then work upon the deficiencies and consolidate on the strong points. After analysis we can then focus on formulating the plans for retention program. Formulating the plans for the program would be taken care by the top management executives through brain storming and meeting. After formulation of the plans comes the next important step of implementations. In implementing role of the top management is vital. Without the proper support from the finance and the human resource team it is very difficult for the plan to bear fruits. After implementation the process needs to have an evaluating system and a feed back mechanism to fine tune it to the organizations culture. Some other minor recommendations would be to establish a mentoring system. Under these system employees working under a mentor would be under constant guidance. This would help to develop future leaders and managers within the organization and also develop a talent pool which is very important. Also creating teams for projects would help create their separate identity which would increase team performance. Recognizing group performance also helps in motivation. Employees who match the flexible or part time work hours should be given the preferences. Provide the employees with the option of choosing the type of compensation that suits their personal lifestyle. Reference Erickson, T. J. & Gratton, L. (2007). What It Means to Work Here. . Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 8, 2009, from http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2007/03/what-it-means-to-work-here/ar/1 Fernández-Aráoz, C., Groysberg, B., & Nohria, N. (2009). The Definitive Guide to Recruiting in Good Times and Bad. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 8, 2009, from http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2009/05/the-definitive-guide-to-recruiting-in-good-times-and-bad/ar/1 Little, J. (No Date). Importance of employees. Talent Management. HR Ireland. Retrieved July 8, 2009, from http://www.hrireland.ie/pdf/Articles%20page%2012%20and%2013.pdf Sherman, S. & Freas, A. (2004). The Wild West of Executive Coaching. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 8, 2009, from http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2004/11/the-wild-west-of-executive-coaching/ar/1 Buckingham, M. (2005). What Great Managers Do. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 8, 2009, from http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2005/03/what-great-managers-do/ar/1 Zicom. (No Date). Grow with us. Zicom. Retrieved July 8, 2009, from http://www.zicom.com/corporate/careers/growwithus.aspx Bibliography Breitfelder, M. D & Dowling, D. W. (2008). Why Did We Ever Go Into HR? Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 8, 2009, from http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/2008/07/why-did-we-ever-go-into-hr/ar/1 Menkes, J. (No Date). Hiring for smart. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved July 9, 2009, from http://www.mapccstraining.org/hmm/hiring.zip/resources/R0511F.pdf How to Give Good Feedback Imperato, G. (2007). How to Give Good Feedback. Fast company Retrieved July 9, 2009, from http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/17/feedback.html Read More