How HRM Should Do to Organize the Department - Essay Example

? Contents Introduction 2 Snow Mountain Hotel 2 Business Partnership Model 2 Drivers of Business Partnership Model 4 Cost effectiveness: 4 Competitiveness: 4 Talent and organizational capabilities: 5 Challenges of the business partnership model 5 Centralised shared service centres 6 Drivers of Centralized shared services 7 Centralized shared services drivers and objectives are: 7 Meeting diverse customer needs and requirements: 7 Best Practices: 7 Deliver quality services: 8 Challenges: 8 Devolution 9 Fast decisions: 9 Time and resource saving: 9 Employee Satisfaction: 10 Challenges: 10 Conclusion 11 References 11 Carpenter, G and Wyman, O. 2008. Finding your place on the HR shared services continuum. [online] Mercer. Available at: [Accessed 19 October 2013]. 12 Corporate Leadership Council. 2008. Improving HR Business Partner Effectiveness: A Comprehensive Look at Competencies and Development Strategies. [online] Corporate Leadership Council. Available at: [Accessed 19 October 2013]. 12 Chartered Institute of personnel and development. 2013. Understanding the business issues in partnering Arrangements. [online] Chartered Institute of personnel and development. Available at [Accessed 19 October 2013]. 12 Holbeche, L. 2013. Aligning Human Resources and Business Strategy. New York: Routledge. 12 Hope, J., Bunce, P and Roosli, F. 2011. The Leader's Dilemma: How to Build an Empowered and Adaptive Organization without Losing Control. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. 13 Johnson, R. n.d. How Line Managers Help Members of an Organization Work Together.. [online] Chron. Available at http://smallbusiness.chron.com/line-managers-members-organization-work-together-33130.html [Accessed 19 October 2013]. 13 Kuehn, C and Schulz, W. 2006. Management and Organizational Strategies of Utility Companies -- Experiences and Lessons in Foreign Utility Companies. Tokyo: Contentsworks Inc. 13 Mayhew, R. n.d. Why Should HR & Line Managers Work Together? [online] Chron. Available at [Accessed 19 October 2013]. 13 Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., and Sargeant, M. 2002. People Management and Development: Human Resource Management at Work. London: CIPD Publishing. 13 Mayock, P. 2011. 28 best practices for hotel operators. [online] Hotel News Now. Available at http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Article/5800/28-best-practices-for-hotel-operators [Accessed 19 October 2013]. 14 McKay, M. n.d. What Is the HR Business Partner Model? [online] Chron. Available at [Accessed 19 October 2013]. 14 Price Waters Cooper. 2011. Shared service centres: opportunities and challenges in HR transformation. [online] Price Waters Cooper. Available at http://www.pwc.ch/user_content/editor/files/publ_hrs/pwc_shared_service_centres_hr_exec_summ_e.pdf Accessed 19 October 2013]. 14 Reilly, P. 2000. HR Shared Services and the Realignment of HR. [online] IES. Available at [Accessed 19 October 2013]. 14 Reilly, P and Williams, T. 2003. How to Get Best Value from HR: The Shared Services Option. London: Gower Publishing Ltd. 14 Snell, S and Bohlander, G. ed., 2011. Managing Human Resources. Hampshire: Cengage Learning EMEA. 14 Snider, M. 2003. Compatibility Breeds Success: How to Manage Your Relationship with Your Business Partner. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. 15 Storey, J. 2002. Human Resource Management: A Critical Text. Hampshire: Cengage Learning EMEA. 15 University of Michigan. 2013. Administrative Services Transformation Overview Presentation for Shared Services. [online] University of Michigan. Available at: http://ast.umich.edu/pdfs/Awareness-Presentation.pdf [Accessed 19 October 2013]. 15 Wenderoth, M. 2009. Change Management Strategy for Implementing Shared Services. Munich: GRIN Verlag. 15 Human Resources Introduction The human resources department is critical for the success and profitability of any company. The department is responsible for hiring, looking for specific skills and keeping important data on the workforce. The human resources department can work smoothly leading to profitability. On the other hand, when there are challenges facing the human resources department, profitability of the business cannot be guaranteed. Some of the challenges the human resources department can face include tension with the business owners, lack of proper power flow within the department. There are several ways these challenges can be addressed leading to regaining of business profitability and success in its respective sector (Snell and Bohlander, 2011). Snow Mountain Hotel The Snow mountain hotel has hotels and resorts across America, including Canada, United States, Bermuda, Mexico and Barbados. The hotel’s human resources department is in crisis. The department responsibilities and chores are not well-organized and structured and there has been tension between the owners of the hotel and the human resources management. They have varying perspectives and viewpoints on how the hotel should be run. Business leaders and owners have weight when it comes to making decisions, putting the human resources department between a hard rock and a wall. While they have the strategies on how to do their work, they cannot disregard the instructions from the leaders and owners. This paper will provide a number of propositions on how the human resources management should do to organize the department, agree with the owners and share responsibility. Business Partnership Model This is a human-resource strategy in which the company leaders and owners work together with the human resources department (McKay, n.d). The idea is to create a good working relationship for the better of the hotel group. Bringing the business owners and leaders and human-resource department to a common platform is not an easy task. However, if both have the same objectives, then it is easy to implement. For the business partnership model to work, the partners have to understand the business plans, models and challenges of the business. Responsibilities and tasks have to be delegated among the leaders, the human-resource department and the owners (Corporate Leadership Council, 2008). All the partners involved have to know the various partnership arrangements before committing to working on the partnership model. There are various models depending on the specifications of the responsibilities and sharing of resources (Chartered Institute of personnel and development, 2013). Each of the partners has to do their responsibilities to perfection. In addition, they have to compliment each other to have the model work to their favour. In short, this strategy is geared towards restructuring a company to achieve the short term, medium term and long-term goals (Kenton and Yamall, 2010). For a partnership model to work, it is important for the various partners to know their respective roles and responsibilities. They just have to acknowledge that the roles in this case are different from a normal job. They have to be extra committed to the model, be transparent and communicate with the other partners. At the same time, the partners have to be trained on how to handle heir respective roles and how the model functions. Rules, regulations and laws governing the partnership model have to be drafted and agreed upon by all the partners (Ulrich and Brockbank, 2008). Drivers of Business Partnership Model Profitability: making profits is actually the major objective of every business, including the Snow Mountain hotel. All departments and people involved in the company working together makes it possible to look at different viewpoints on many things. In addition, they are able to brainstorm on how to approach important aspects to make profits. At such meetings, each department and leader raises their concerns, issues and also makes propositions. There may be disagreements for variations in different things, but they will definitely agree at the end of the day. Partnership model will allow the hotel to meet their targets, be commercially viable and increase profitability (Ulrich, 1997). Cost effectiveness: Business leaders, owners and the human resources department make it easy to reduce costs and increase profitability. They are able to identify things that are necessary and unnecessary. The hotel group can be hiring more workers during the peak season to maintain good service delivery and good health and mood of the employees. Having less employees and high demand for services is likely to lead to burnout of the employee affecting service delivery to clients. During the low season, the hotel can send some of the employees away and remain with the right number to ensure efficient service delivery. Competitiveness: Common objective pursuit by the owners, leaders and the human resources department is likely influence decision making a lot. As such, the hotel will be able to realize its strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats. The hotel will work together to strengthen its strong areas even more, work on its weakness and threats to turn them into strengths and opportunities. This will increase the competitiveness of the hotel, increasing visitors and profitability. At the same time, there will be harmony between the workforce, all departments and owners of the hotel making it easy to communicate and address issues and problems easily (Hunter, 2006). Talent and organizational capabilities: Business partnership model brings different people together. Of all the people, some have certain talents which may be of invaluable benefit to the hotel. The model presents the hotel an opportunity to harness the various talents. Those with talents can be delegated roles that they can handle appropriately well. This makes the organization to be able to address the customers’ issues according to their tastes and preferences. This has made the human resources to be very effective. In fact, some experts term this as the effective Human resources. Sales and profitability of the hotel would increase with this (Ulrich and Brockbank, 2008). Challenges of the business partnership model The business partnership model has a number of drawbacks. One, the business owners and leaders believe that they have the final say in all decisions made. They are likely to little or no attention to what the human-resource department is proposing. Tension is likely to rise at such scenarios and may affect the operations of the hotel. The partners may be involved in responsibilities that they do not know how to handle. For example, the business partners may have to be involved in employee recruitment and issues. The owners may not know how such issues are handled. Business partnership model is also very involving in such a scenario and may lead to possible logistical issues in the hotel. Another challenge of the business partner model is potential communication incompatibility. The managers of the organization have varying perspective on how a hotel should be run. After all, that is what they studied in the higher education. On the other hand, the business owners and the partners may have varying opinions of how to do business. At the same time, the managers may be unable to communicate freely with business owners especially if the owners are the authoritative type. This incompatibility may have a lot of effect on the profitability of the hotel (Snider, 2003). Centralised shared service centres Centralised shared service centers are a human-resource strategy in which activities and information are availed to a number of parties involved in managing and running of an institution (Riley, 2000). The different parties also share resources, experience and knowledge of a number of things important in running the institution. There are many services that can be centralized through such centers. In the case of Snow Mountain, some of the services that can be shared include administrative services, payroll, recruitment, management of employees and benefits. Centralized shared services are done by independent departments and individuals within an institution. They should have a deeper understanding of customer needs; focus on service and cost and performance (University of Michigan, 2013). Centralised shared centers have to be prepared with a lot of caution. They may cause a lot of confusion if they are not well approached. Some managers and workers may not understand how they should function. It is therefore for the organization that would like to implement this system to first train their staff on the objectives, the goals and the functionality of a shared centers. The managers of the various departments that have to be centralized have to agree on how the center will work. The agreement is sealed by signing a service level agreement (Hope, Bunce and Roosli, 2011). Centralised shared centers usually take about three years to implement. There are three stages involved, initial, full implementation and maturity. This is important for the staff in the different departments to adapt to the changes accordingly. Upon implementation, the departments centralized have to come together and discuss how the center will be used, what each of the department will save, what the responsibilities of each department are and how the challenges that may arise will be addressed (Wenderoth, 2009). Drivers of Centralized shared services Centralized shared services drivers and objectives are: Meeting diverse customer needs and requirements: Most institutions do not know their customer needs well. Centralized shared services make it possible for all the individuals and departments in an institution to not only know their customer needs but also address them accordingly. All the individuals and departments receiving the information are required to participate in meeting the client demands. Sharing ensures that information and requests received are looked at from different perspectives, analysed and the responses from all combined to come up with a comprehensive strategy. This should be done according to the required standards, while ensuring consistency of the services to clients (Carpenter and Wyman, 2008). Best Practices: Centralized shared services encourage the company to know and appreciate both internal and external best practices (Reilley and Williams, 2003). Some of these include developing comprehensive and workable budgets, preparing comprehensive marketing plans, cutting costs, understanding the markets, interacting with clients through social media, collecting client data to improve on their complements and addresses their complaints and work to address their concerns and suggestions. Another best practice an institution should work on it ensuring that they do not pollute the environment. They should have a proper Waste Management system and encourage staff and clients alike to observe environmental conservation (Mayock, 2011). Deliver quality services: Shared centralized services encourage teamwork among the different individuals and units of the institution. Consultation is done at a high level among the various parties. They can set targets, work plan and timelines of specific goals and objectives to be met (Holbeche, 2013). Each unit provides its resources making it easier to work towards the common objectives. This fosters provision of high-quality services leading to customer satisfaction. This could play a pivotal role in encouraging clients to come back as well as attracting new clients. Satisfied client are likely to inform their friends and family of the great services they have received thereby referring them. Profitability is almost guaranteed (PWC, 2011). Challenges: The shared service centers have some challenges. One, most leaders are not comfortable with such. They do not feel like they are in control with shared services. Most of them would like to maintain their leadership to the company. At the same time, there is fear of exposure for some. Shared centers mean that all information and data specified in the shared service memorandum have to be provided. Another challenge is the fact that sharing responsibilities, duties and general running of the institution may pose a challenge. It would take relatively long because of the many consultations involved. The different departments and individuals may have varying opinions on certain issues and agreeing could be a problem. Some urgent issues may have to take longer, and the institution may end up losing. Institutions should come up with proper mechanisms to ensure that there are emergency response units for such cases (Accenture, n.d). Shared centers are also likely to affect the working of the various people. The organizational change that comes with the centralization may make some employees to feel like they do not have control anymore. At the same time, they may be assigned different roles other than what they are used to. It is important for organizations to be cautious when approaching centralization. It does not always work especially for some businesses. This may create a crisis for the organization leading to low productivity of employees and could adversely affect the customer satisfaction, bookings and profitability of now Mountain Hotel (Kuehn and Schulz, 2006). Devolution Devolution is another strategy that can be important to Snow Mountain hotel. This is simply the transfer of power to a lower level. In this case, the line managers would be allowed to do some aspects of human resources. They can make fast decisions on whether to hire someone, fire or manage those under them accordingly. Transferring power to line managers will greatly help in the running of the Snow Mountain Hotel in several ways. Fast decisions: Line managers understand their respective areas of work extremely well. They know the requirements, the resources needed and the potential output and productivity of their areas of work. Line managers managing their respective areas of work allow the higher management and owners to concentrate on other things for the good of the company (Mayhew, n.d). At the same time, the line managers will be able to come up with a workable workforce strategy for their staff, staffing their respective areas, performance management of their employees and resolving conflicts that may arise. Devolved human resources would also allow the hotel to effect changes much faster as there are a few logistics involved. Each of the line managers would work in their respective areas and the effort of all of them will ensure change is implemented fast and effectively (Johnson, n.d). Time and resource saving: In most cases where consultations have to be escalated to the higher management and back to the line managers, a lot of time is spent. Something that is very simple can take days to be resolved. It may even take longer if a decision has to be made by the board or directors. In addition, resources such as money and airtime may be used in a quest to contact the relevant departments and leaders. Delegating some powers to the line managers will ensure that only the very serious issues that have to be authorized by the higher management are escalated. As such, a lot of time will be saved and resources, which can be used to do other things within the hotel (Marchington, Wilkinson, and Sargeant, 2002). Employee Satisfaction: Most employee issues are handled easily by the line managers. They communicate their issues to the line managers, and if it is within their power, they are able to address them promptly. This has a positive effect on the employees boosting their working morale. This is important as it should increase productivity of the employees providing better services leading to customer satisfaction. At the same time, employees are more likely to be free with the line managers. This is very important because the employees will be attentive to the line manager when issuing instructions and orders and the manager would be paying attention when listening to the suggestions of the employees on what can be done to improve their services (Storey, 2007). Challenges: One of the major challenges of the devolved human resources is management of the respective roles by the line managers. The line managers have a lot of work; hiring and firing, monitoring employees, addressing issues, solving conflicts and preparing workable solutions for the area they manage. They may spend a lot of time on these tasks which may either lead to burnout or mix-up of issues. This can greatly affect the productivity of the manager, and the same would be channeled down to the employees leading to lower productivity and customer dutifulness. This can have adverse effects on the hotel if not well managed. Conclusion Human-resource problems and issues can be addressed through a number of models that encourage teamwork among the employees, the line managers and the higher management and owners. Changes in the business will be realized after the successive implementation of the various models. Each of the models has its own benefits and drawbacks. Mitigating the challenges of these models would be important to the hotel. That would be an important factor in retaining existing customers, increasing customer conversion rates, increasing the number of customers, and sales as well as profitability. References Accenture, n.d. HR Shared Services: The Foundation for Integrated Talent Management and High Performance. [online] Accenture. Available at: http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture_HR_Shared_Services_Foundation_Integrated_Talent_Management.pdf [Accessed 19 October 2013]. Carpenter, G and Wyman, O. 2008. Finding your place on the HR shared services continuum. [online] Mercer. Available at: [Accessed 19 October 2013]. Corporate Leadership Council. 2008. Improving HR Business Partner Effectiveness: A Comprehensive Look at Competencies and Development Strategies. [online] Corporate Leadership Council. Available at: [Accessed 19 October 2013]. Chartered Institute of personnel and development. 2013. Understanding the business issues in partnering Arrangements. [online] Chartered Institute of personnel and development. Available at [Accessed 19 October 2013]. Holbeche, L. 2013. Aligning Human Resources and Business Strategy. New York: Routledge. Hope, J., Bunce, P and Roosli, F. 2011. The Leader's Dilemma: How to Build an Empowered and Adaptive Organization without Losing Control. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Johnson, R. n.d. How Line Managers Help Members of an Organization Work Together.. [online] Chron. Available at http://smallbusiness.chron.com/line-managers-members-organization-work-together-33130.html [Accessed 19 October 2013]. Kenton, B and Yamall, J. 2010. HR: The business partner. London: Routledge. Kuehn, C and Schulz, W. 2006. Management and Organizational Strategies of Utility Companies -- Experiences and Lessons in Foreign Utility Companies. Tokyo: Contentsworks Inc. Hunter, I. 2006. HR Business Partners. London: Gower Publishing Ltd. Mayhew, R. n.d. Why Should HR & Line Managers Work Together? [online] Chron. Available at [Accessed 19 October 2013]. Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., and Sargeant, M. 2002. People Management and Development: Human Resource Management at Work. London: CIPD Publishing. Mayock, P. 2011. 28 best practices for hotel operators. [online] Hotel News Now. Available at http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Article/5800/28-best-practices-for-hotel-operators [Accessed 19 October 2013]. McKay, M. n.d. What Is the HR Business Partner Model? [online] Chron. Available at [Accessed 19 October 2013]. Price Waters Cooper. 2011. Shared service centres: opportunities and challenges in HR transformation. [online] Price Waters Cooper. Available at http://www.pwc.ch/user_content/editor/files/publ_hrs/pwc_shared_service_centres_hr_exec_summ_e.pdf Accessed 19 October 2013]. Reilly, P. 2000. HR Shared Services and the Realignment of HR. [online] IES. Available at [Accessed 19 October 2013]. Reilly, P and Williams, T. 2003. How to Get Best Value from HR: The Shared Services Option. London: Gower Publishing Ltd. Snell, S and Bohlander, G. ed., 2011. Managing Human Resources. Hampshire: Cengage Learning EMEA. Snider, M. 2003. Compatibility Breeds Success: How to Manage Your Relationship with Your Business Partner. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. Storey, J. 2002. Human Resource Management: A Critical Text. Hampshire: Cengage Learning EMEA. Ulrich, D. (1997) Human resource champions: the next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Ulrich, D and Brockbank, W. 2008. The business partner model: 10 years on - Lessons learned. [online] HR Magazine. Available at: [Accessed 19 October 2013]. University of Michigan. 2013. Administrative Services Transformation Overview Presentation for Shared Services. [online] University of Michigan. Available at: http://ast.umich.edu/pdfs/Awareness-Presentation.pdf [Accessed 19 October 2013]. Wenderoth, M. 2009. Change Management Strategy for Implementing Shared Services. Munich: GRIN Verlag. Read More