Likely Consequences in Introducing the Two Proposed Measures - Essay Example

Case Study on Human Resources Management Strategy Two Proposed Measures in the Case Study In order to improve workforce efficiency while managing the possible impact of organisational changes to employees, proposed measures under the headings of “Workforce Planning” and “Changes to Working Practices and Arrangements” are included in the 2010 report for medium-term financial budget savings. These proposed changes are included dueto a high percentage (35%) of the workforce being eligible for retirement within the next 10 or more years, indicating a large potential loss of workforce and leading a way for career succession among the younger employees’ and new hires. Also, as a way of increasing cost savings while not sacrificing the morale, loyalty and motivation of employees, they are given various opportunities for a more flexible work schedules and arrangements to suit their career growth and development needs. Under the heading of “Workforce Planning”, important measures given emphasis on by the proposed measures involve the management of planned retirements in relation to the expected high retirement rates within the next 10 or more years. However, grants for allowing temporary retention of employees aged 64 are still allowable under certain circumstances in order for them to enter into a state of transition prior to fully retiring from the workforce. In relation to this measure, while there are no prohibitions to the retention or the rehiring of employees beyond their retirement ages, due to the need for a career succession in hopes of adding contributors of new ideas or innovations to the organisation as well as to allow the career growth of the remaining 65% of the workforce there will be a prioritisation of opening positions in the upper rung of the corporate ladder, with exceptions to certain positions related to advisory councils or organisational consultants. It is also proposed that aside from vertical realignment of positions there will also be possible redeployment in line with the need to change how the whole organisation functions upon the retirement of 35% of the workforce. Thus instead of hiring new employees to fill in the jobs, there will be a greater focus on retraining employees to be more flexible in their jobs to meet the needs of the organisation, thereby decreasing the odds of redundancy within the next few years. To prevent any violation of contracts or other prior agreements it is proposed that negotiations and consultations are done between trade unions and the council, with assistance from human resources. In line with the proposal for an organisation change as well as addressing the need for budgetary adjustments, proposals regarding changes in work practices and arrangements are also proposed alongside workforce planning changes. With regards to the possible changes in how the organisation will be functioning, there will be changes in performance management strategies, develop competency frameworks to address role and productivity issues, as well as re-engineering of the business process as a whole. This in order for the whole organisation to improve output, increase work efficiency, control staff costs better, and to add flexibility to budget issues without total restructuring of the organisation itself. Accordingly an increased flexibility in work load and time is granted through job sharing, job hour reductions and allowing part-time positions, as well as allowing work place flexibility such as home-working, hot-desking and office rationalisation. Other ways of cutting out budgetary expenditures without affecting overall employee morale is by allowing them to have time-offs without pay (or leave of absence without pay), as well as career breaks. This is for them to be able to address personally other areas of concern which could affect their work, as well as explore other career options available for them either within or outside of the organisation. All of these options are considered to be much more cost-efficient in certain areas that have lesser demands than the other sectors since there will be lesser budget expenditures while still keeping these areas operational, as well as generating capital or accommodations for future investments. Likely Consequences in Introducing the Two Proposed Measures Different groups of employees will be affected by the two abovementioned proposed measures, and as such the consequences for each will be different. For example, changes under the heading “Workforce Planning” can be seen either as positive or negative depending on whose concern will be addressed. Using the viewpoint of potential retirees it is expected that they will react negatively to the changes, especially with those concerning their retirement ages and their contract retention upon retirement. This is because they will think that as seniors who have worked for a very long time in the organisation they have invaluable experiences and as such they still see themselves as important human capital (Wright and McMahan, 2011, p.94). As such it is expected that they will assert their rights to remain in the company under any kind of circumstances, unless these said employees do not have strong attachments to their work. On the other hand, these proposed changes can be viewed positively by younger employees, as they will see this as an opportunity for them to become promoted, for increased responsibilities and challenges, for a chance to change some aspects of the organisation, and a chance for them to lead and inspire others. This is highly-relevant for them because aside from having better career opportunities within the organisation, they are also given a chance to contribute in reshaping and reorganising business processes and other operational procedures (Findlay, et al., 2009, p. 244; Trott and Hoecht, 2004, p..372).Also, there is an additional issue of who and what kind of talents will remain in their job positions, and who among them will be relocated, as it can happen that due to reorganisation efforts some work areas will expand or some will either shrink or disappear altogether, depending on the demand for their output (Gilmore and Williams, 2013, p.164). As such, an issue regarding who among the employees will be retained will become very much talked-about within the organisation, and without clarifications on how this will be dealt with it can be expected that many employees will become affected by it and possibly even affect worker output. Similar to “Workforce Planning”, “Changes in Working Practices and Arrangements” can also affect employee morale and consequently work output in some cases. This is because while the proposed changes may have entirely different consequences depending on the situation of the employees in question. As an example, some employees may look forward to having greater flexibility in their work hours and/or space since this will mean that they can increase their time spent on personal matters, such as spending time with their families and friends, find new avenues for career growth, get a degree, or simply just have more time to rest and think before returning to work (Batt and Valcour, 2003; Hegewisch, 2009, p. 10; McDonald, Cullen, and Comrie, 2010). Using such opportunities can allow employees to rethink and re-evaluate their level of commitment to the organisation, no matter how many years they have spent working. This is mirrored by publications which were able to gather evidence on how employee-morale and trust can be affected directly by the ongoing business processes using high-commitment practices implemented within the organisation and enforced by the human resources department (Gould-Williams, 2003, p.31). However these views may not be reflected by other employees with other needs such as work and salary stability, or those who are motivated by monetary rewards. These same employees may also react negatively to changes in performance management and measures, as they might see this as something that will affect how others will judge their work competency, in turn affecting both their morale and drive for work unless they have a strong sense of self-improvement in their line of work (Mathis and Jackson, 2010).As such they may view workplace changes negatively if they are not given additional time and effort to understand fully why such things are to take place. Reasons for Selections and Rejections on some of the Proposed Measures After assessing two of the proposed measures and seeing that some of the changes have clarity while some need additional explanations, instead of simply rejecting or selecting any of the points embedded in these propositions it will be easier to simply sort these in accordance to the relevance of the proposals to the employees and how these will directly affect the organisation as a whole. As such, instead of rejecting proposed changes there will be a proposition for prioritisation instead. For example, in the case of “Workforce Planning” proposals there will be a greater preference for the implementation of Career Succession Planning and Redeployment over Planned Retirement and Employment Post-65. This is because as far as these proposed measures are concerned the reasons for including these changes within the operational procedures of the company were due to how the processes might change as the result of a large group of employees becoming eligible for retirement within the next 10 years. Even if there is a slight consideration in keeping the contracts of some of the retirement-eligible employees, a large number of employees leaving due to retirement can still greatly affect the organisation’s output due to a large decrease in the workforce while the workload remains the same, causing them to have problems in organisational trust, competence and commitment (Gould-Williams, 2003, p.35). Thus the introduction of employee training sessions (e.g. retraining, cross-training, etc.), and career-planning opportunities will be able to contribute in compensating and contributing to a better work output as compared to a greater prioritisation of early-retirement programs which will only benefit 35% of the workforce population(Emmerichs, Marcum, and Robbert, 2004, p.19). In relation to these propositions, two measures related to the effects of implementing these procedures can be given lesser priority: “Vacancy Management” and “Avoiding Compulsory Redundancies”. This is due to the fact that workforce is expected to decrease in a few years’ time, and as such instead of immediately redeploying some employees it would be much feasible to cross-train some of the more eligible or willing ones to some posts which are expected to be vacated by the expected retirees. Through cross-training these people will not only gain additional skills, but also they can be expected to plan or decide based on a bigger perspective since they also have an understanding on other facets of the operational processes(Gilmore and Williams, 2013, p.194). Such measures may seem costly at first but in the long run this not only prevent post redundancies but are also favourable for some of the employees since they get to keep their jobs whilst gaining new skills at the same time (Mathis and Jackson, 2010). This move also allows the vacating of lower-level jobs, which can be filled-in through other cost-cutting practices which were mentioned in “Changes in Working Practices and Arrangements”. Prioritisation will also be used with regards to the proposed measures for “Changes in Working Practices and Arrangements”, as there are some sections that can either directly affect work output or budgetary constraints, and thus must be addressed accordingly. If these measures are successfully implemented, the budget expenditure is already reduced greatly even before fully implementing “Reducing Pay Bill Costs”, thus this section may now be given less priority for its execution. For example, in terms of addressing the need to recover expenses through budget cuts, proposed amendments under the sections Time off without pay, part-time working/job share and flexible working can directly affect the organisational budget expenditures, and it is possible to cut costs while still maintaining constant output for the whole group so long as negotiations are properly done with all affected parties (Findlay, et al., 2009). Also, allowing for career breaks can contribute to cost inefficiencies since employees under this program might still be paid despite having no output, and thus this measure will function properly if it is reserved for limited slots and allowed within certain time periods only (Gilmore and Williams, 2013).Such measures can allow for a greater flexibility of not implementing “Absence Costs” and allowing the revision of the “Pay Freeze” and “Cost of Sickness” sections under the “Reducing Pay Bill Costs” heading. With regards to the generation of competency frameworks, improving the performance management measures and changing the business process and services, since all of these three can be considered to be essential to the organisation’s operation instead of prioritising it will bring much more benefit if these three sections are instead done chronologically. Also, it is important to avoid the pitfall of creating generic performance measures that may not be able to measure employee output as accurately as possible. For example, the re-engineering of the organisation’s business process can be addressed based on information regarding the performance ratings and old competency frameworks of the current organisation. Once issues and problems have been identified, the competency framework of the employees can then be designed based on the organisation’s new business processes. Finally, performance management measures can then be created based on the updated competency framework, which can be used by the employees to find out which aspects of their careers will need training or refreshing, as well as for them to realign their career goals or check if they can gain other opportunities elsewhere (Findlay, et al., 2009; Gould-Williams, 2003; Hegewisch, 2009).In terms of how performance measures will be designed, since employees will be the ones handling the greater bulk of the output it will be much wiser that they be given the task of defining their performance output with the help of the human resources department and their direct supervisors instead of generating a generic system that does not take into consideration the employee field of expertise and kinds of output based on their job descriptions (Findlay, et al., 2009).This not only gives them a degree of empowerment but also a sense of accountability and responsibility that can propel them to become even more productive and efficient with work, which are traits described by high-commitment HR practices (Gould-Williams, 2003). 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