Category: HRM

Introduction

Globalization and technological growth have significantly altered the competitiveness of modern businesses. Besides, modern businesses have inclined towards knowledge- based systems, thus, the employees have been pointed out as the key contributors of competitive advantage that most businesses appreciate presently.

Most advanced economies have asserted that, the principles and practices of Human Resource Management, HRM, have taken a center stage in affirming the long-term benefits of businesses in attaining the competitive advantage (Harzing and Ruysseveldt, 2004).

The Human Resource Management practices have not only been part of developed economies, developing economies such as Indonesia has widely embraced the contemporary practices of the same across its major business entities. According to Analoui, HRM entails principles and practices that influences people or human resources who work for a given organization (1998).

Indonesia current economy has achieved significant developments in its Foreign Direct Investment as a result of the entry of multinational companies in its various sectors of the economy. Thus, the strategic HRM structures have become a necessity for these businesses in sustaining its growth (Analoui, 1998).

This, illustrate that a business has to have a sound Human Resource Management strategy which can address the issues of recruitment and selection, employee training and development, performance management strategies and reward schemes among other important aspects practices of an organization.

According to Dash (2007) the importance of Human Resource Management practices and systems varies basing on context and culture. He also argues that national or cultural factors primarily affect the framework in which HR is managed in various nations globally (Harzing and Ruysseveldt, 2004).

This paper aims at highlighting the striking features of Human Resource Management practices which prevails in Indonesia.

Through literature review, the paper advances the understanding of the differences in Human Resource Management practices in, developing and developed economies, hence we can learn that developing and developed economies Human Resources Management practices have similarities in terms of recruitment and selection.

However, differences arising from performance appraisal, training and development and reward management schemes still exist.

Human Resources Practices in Indonesia

Human Resource Management plays a key factor in every business entity. Organizations are established with a goal of managing human necessities. Hollinshead (2009) argues that Human Resource Management practices have continued to grow globally altering business structures and traditional practices that traditionally existed. Thus, In Indonesia, the trend has not been spared either.

Globalization and entry of multinational companies in the country has taken Indonesia to a different stage in the management of its human resources. Various factors such as classical diversity of social, personnel management, cultural, political and economic factors have gained dominant effect on Human Resource Management policies and practices of major companies in Indonesia (Lange, 2010).

According to Lado and Wilson (1994), cultural policies such as power distance still bind the HRM systems to challenges of pecking and administration. These external factors have affected major roles of HRM in distinct ways, which distinguish them from the practices in developed economies of European companies.

Recruitment and Selection

Organization with strong recruitment and selection strategies contribute positively towards its success (Lado and Wilson, 1994). This is important because effective diversity in strategies aid in choosing the ideal candidate for a given post in the company (Jackson and Schuler, 1995).

In developed economies more attention is tailored in planning, designing and implementation of effective recruitment and selection plans. This is because such structures positively link to a company’s overall performance (Schmidtmann, 2008).

However, in Indonesia, Lange (2010) argues in the public sector companies still centers their recruitment and selection practices tied to social, political and status linkage. This indicates that the manifestation of resilient collectivism within work values that emphasizes on hereditary and joint deliberations over realizing higher work efficiency exists.

According to Dash (2007), the employee referral programs are widely ingrained in the Indonesian culture thus, is a favored tool in hiring plan for major Information Technology companies. Hiring using referrals in Indonesia is favored more than any other channels such as bulletin, direct recruitment and through the use of agents.

This is because, hiring through this strategy enhances bonding between an employee and employer (Lange, 2010). However, in developed economies such as Europe and United States this kind of strategy can be seen as a practice encouraging bias in the recruitment and selection process (Lange, 2010). Hence, these differences in perceptions demonstrate the impact of social norms on the recruitment and practices of Indonesia and Europe.

Training and Development

Modern businesses operate in a very competitive environment. Thus, training has become part and parcel of every organization which ought to remain relevant in modern business. Training has a primary goal of sustaining and improving job performance by providing skills and knowledge on how a given task has to be handled presently and in the future.

According to Tayeb (2005), mature economies in Europe recognize training and development of employees as it creates substantial benefits towards attaining business goals. They stress the importance in evaluating training and development practices which implements cost-effective assessment of such practices to determine the accurate financial resources gains on return investments (Tayeb, 2005).

In Indonesia, the investment on Human Resource Development practices is made up of two philosophies. One of the philosophies is that such activities support a business to gain more on investment and secondly, it strengthens an employee loyalty and commitment towards achieving the goals of the company (Dash, 2007).

Many companies in Indonesia view training and development as a need focused practice, and consider it as an expensive investment to sustain. Hence, Training and Development practices in Indonesian companies are divided. These divisions demonstrate the similarities and differences observations existing in Indonesian and developed economies.

Performance Appraisal

Performance appraisals play an important role for effective Human Resource Management. According to Hollinshead (2009), performance appraisal entails the process of analyzing an employee performance to guide and improve performance. Performance appraisal that aids an employee development is characterized with various elements.

These include; feedback and support, setting performance goals, identifying training needs and provides an input for the management for pay administration. Consequently, companies embracing performance appraisals can effectively regulate the strategy by identifying major steps involved (Torrington, et al, 2005).

Torrington, et al, (2005) indicate these steps as; identifying key performance areas and establishing annual objectives, identifying major attributes for effective performance, regular or periodic review of performance, discussing with the employee and identifying the training and development needs. These factors can sustain a company in the successful implementation of performance appraisal schemes (Torrington, et al, 2005).

According to Price (2007) the performance management tools such as 360 degrees and assessment schemes can assist organizations to ably monitor the progress, abilities and attitudes of its employees and evaluate them alongside organizational and personal development objectives.

However, possessing a performance appraisal framework is not sufficient in itself for motivating employees and producing the business desired outcomes. For instance, some employees can ignore these systems with assertions that they waste time or are poorly monitored or evaluated (Price, 2007). Most Indonesian companies recognize the importance of having an effective performance management system for its workforce.

Over the years, many modern companies have begun investing in the execution of these systems. According to Makhijani et al (n.d) most Indonesians companies have adopted the Competency Based Human Resource Management, CBHRM.

The CBHRM is a plan which encompasses decision making in relation to process involved in recruitment and selection, placement, employee termination by using linked data based on competency contours and employee abilities. It is done in order to preserve or execute an organization’s goals and objectives (Makhijani, et al, n.d).

The CBHRM idea covers different industry sectors this includes; manufacturing, energy and other service based industries. CBHRM has been instrumental in aiding Human Resource Department in executing global HR practices. The concept is enshrined with technological capabilities comprising of; competency profile and dictionary among others tools.

Specifically, competency profile of the design details different skills required with the inclusion of the competencies needed for loftier performers (Makhijani, et al, n.d). Besides, the strategy has been beneficial especially for oil and gas producing companies, in other words, it has increased service quality, surged performance whereas minimizing the costs linked to Human Resources Management (Lange, 2010).

The system indicates the resources and efforts that are in place in improving the performance management in Indonesian companies’ (Dash, 2007). Hence, it can be noted that, in more than one routine, companies in Indonesia are exploiting and modifying the performance management systems created by developed economies and benefit is noticed by implementing them.

Reward Management Schemes

Reward schemes are activities or practices which enables an organization to understand the motivational factors of its employees and design plan based on these understandings (Jackson and Schuler, 1995). The strategy can comprise of the practices of pay instruments approved by an organization.

However, in a diverse cultural perspective, employees maintain a contrasting approach in relation to pay because of the difference in terms of sensitivities towards monetary and non- monetary rewards. According to Branine, 2011, in Indonesia, the reward schemes are poorly organized. The employees are not only underpaid, but constant reminders for payments are common (Branine, 2011).

Most organizations functions under rigid rules and regulations anchored on organizations structure. In fact, these rules do not afford necessities for rewarding loftier performance or wage structure corresponding to merit.

According to Branine (2011), promotion benchmarks are fixed on seniority and the length of employment of an employee. Hence, the bureaucratic network of organizations is termed as an obstacle in designing an effective reward strategy in Indonesia (Schmidtmann, 2008).

However, as a result of liberal markets, companies in Indonesia like anywhere else are fronting a competitive business advantage with substantial shortage of gifted persons; a surging group of companies has begun recognizing the principle of rewards besides strengthening ethical performance of their employees (Jackson and Schuler, 1995).

Additionally, this has been preceded by the likelihood of paying all-inclusive remuneration packages which are unceasingly revised and adjusted in tandem with the evolving motivational requirements of the modern workforce. In mature economies such as those present in Europe, the reward schemes are organized and timely disseminated. The reward is fixed on a number of factors.

One of the factors is rewarding superior performance. According to Jackson and Schuler (1995), European economies reward schemes have been developed to encourage higher performance so that income and pay administration can serve as a strategy to generate satisfaction, initiative and boost capacity building.

Detailed job description and performance standards are outlined to assist in the analysis of work and rewarding of employees for growth performance. Consequently, career planning and development strategies in Europe have been strengthened. Career planning involves the managerial and technical skills that employees gather in order to fulfill their line of profession.

Career plan for most European employees is advanced accordingly; it gives them a future opportunity prediction in relation to promotion serves as an influential feature for performance and progress of talents (Jackson and Schuler, 1995). Hence, one can sum up that reward management structure in Indonesia differs with that offered by developed economies such as Europe.

Conclusion

Human Resource Management practices contribute to the success of companies. It has grown overtime and presently acts as a backbone of most organizations ranging from small and medium sized enterprises, SME, to large corporations. Hence, it serves as a guarantee warrantying competitive advantage for most organizations.

Organizations in developing economies like Indonesia are continuously shaping its practices to be tandem with current globalization. Major progress is being addressed in terms of planning and implementing functional Human Resource Management systems to accomplish business success. Initiatives like incorporation of technology such as CBHRM are an explicit example.

However, according to Dash (2007) the Human Resource systems tend to vary basing on the contextual factors. The culture differences prevalent in different countries have regulated the system in which people management concerns are handled.

As aforementioned, Human Resource Management practices such as; employee recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, training and development of emerging economies such as Indonesia, have been underscored with reference to available literature.

Successively, these practices have been contrasted with those present in developed economies such as Europe to provide more understanding. However, in definite facets, similarities have been traced within Human Resource Management practices found in Indonesia and in developed economies.

This is in terms of recruitment and selection activities. It has been noted that; these practices endeavors to illustrate some aspects of partiality to a given extend, the existence of which can be related to demonstration of collectivism culture existing at the workplace of Indonesian companies.

Moreover, Training and development is also still an indispensable area where organizations have not invested heavily. However, only the Information Technology sector in Indonesia has encouraged massive investments in training and development practices for employees.

Hence, it is anticipated that Indonesian companies would consume more in this practice in the future, when economy expands. Consequently, substantiation shows that performance appraisal is increasingly becoming a vital aspect where most companies have begun to allocate more resources.

Additionally, the reward management schemes in Indonesian companies seem to differ with those available in developed economies companies.

This paper has successfully accomplished to delineate expedient understandings in distinguishing characteristics of Human Resource Management practices in organizations functioning in Indonesia by differentiating and matching with options in which the systems are implemented in developed economies such as Europe.

References

Analoui, F., 1998. Human Resource Management Issues in Developing Countries, Ashgate, Aldershot.

Branine, M., 2011. Managing Across Cultures: Concepts, Policies and Practices, SAGE Publications Ltd, California

Dash, A., 2007. International Human Resource Management, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, New Delhi

Harzing, A., W., and Van Ruysseveldt, J., 2004. International Human Resource Management, Sage, London

Hollinshead, G., 2009. International and Comparative Human Resource Management, McGraw-Hill, Basingstoke

Jackson, S., E., and Schuler, R., S., 1995. Understanding Human Resource Management in the Context of Organizational and their environment, Annual Review. psychology. (460, pp. 237-64

Lado, A., & Wilson, M., 1994. Human Resource Systems and Sustained Competitive Advantage: A competency based perspective. Academy of Management Review, (19), pp.699-727

Lange, J., S., 2010. Human Resource Management in Indonesia: Important Issues to Know Before Establishing a Subsidiary in Indonesia, Diplomica Verlag, Hamburg

Makhijani, N., Rajendran, K., Creelman, J., n.d, Managing Human Capital in Indonesia, Pustaka Alvabet, New Delhi

Price, A., 2007. Human Resource Management in a Business Context , Thomson Learning. California

Schmidtmann, L., 2008. Global Marketing and Global Human Resources Management GRIN Verlag, Munich

Tayeb, M., H., 2005. International Human Resource Management: A Multinational Company Perspective, Oxford University Press, Oxford

Torrington, D., Hall, L., and Taylor, S., 2005. Human Resources Management, FT Prentice Hall, London

Analysis of Sources

It is important for human resources and firms operating in different cultural background to engage in training to enable them have a competitive edge over others because training helps employee to appreciate and respect the cultural values of other people (Coget 2011, p.85). This stands out as the key message in Coget’s article “Does National Culture Affect Firm Investment in Training and Development?”

Coget is an associate professor of management in the Orfalae College of business and California polytechnic state university. The methodology used in gathering this information on the study area involved surveys carried out by Hilla Perezet from Ort Braude college, Israel.

An approximate of 6000 firms was surveyed in 21 different countries. The study’s findings indicated that cultural differences influence whether the firm invests in training or not.

Firms in countries with low power distance, high uncertainty avoidance, and higher future orientation invest more in training of their employees compared to those operating or embracing higher power distance, low future orientation, and low uncertainty avoidance. Power degrees is the degree to which member of a certain group expect that power should be distributed equally.

Written by Shiryan, Shee, and Stewart, the article ‘Employee Training Effectiveness in Saudi Arabian SME Performance’ is a must-read composition that finds out the relationship between employee training and organisation’s performance. The three authors are based in the school of management and information systems faculty of business and law in Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia.

They affirm that employee training is critical if an organisation aspires to achieve its objectives. They based their study in Saudi Arabia where they collected data through surveys. 500 questionnaires were sent to managers and staffs of various SMEs. An estimate of 264 questionnaires was returned for analysis.

The findings showed that most of the firms and SME managers in Saudi Arabia in the firms lack skills on training (Shiryan, Shee, & Stewart 2012, p.52). They do not understand the essence of training. Management training is essential in staff training since good leadership and change management can enable an organisation to achieve its set goals.

As Chidambaram and Ramachandran point out in the article ‘A study on efficacy of employee training review of literature’, any successful organisation should invest in its human capital (2012, p.275). Above all, human resources are the most important parts of an organisation while assets are just a supplementary portion of the organisation. Without efficient human capital, organisations cannot achieve their objectives or goals.

Training of human capital is important as it helps employees to cope with both the internal and external forces within their operations. Through training, individual and organisational needs are attained thus helping the organisation to meet its objectives. The author summarises the literature review on the aspects of employee training.

He suggests that, organisations should not relent in developing their employees in order to achieve their goals. Management therefore has the responsibility of ensuring that adequate programs are in place to allow its staff to acquire more skills and knowledge to be abreast with the ever-changing markets.

Grossman and Salas’ ‘The Transfer of Training: What really Matters’ is a well researched piece that looks at the transfer problem in the training of employees. Even though many organisations have invested their funds in noble training course, many of the employees trained do not transmit such skills at their work place (Grossman & Salas 2011, p.105).

This stands out as a problem that many organisations continue to grapple with, which needs quick remedy. The authors employ Bald and Ford’s model of transfer in arguing their case. Factors that relate to skill transfers investigated include self-efficacy, cognitive ability, motivation, perceived utility of training, and training design among others.

Therefore, it is recommended that human resource managers in charge of training programs should first evaluate the kind of training that is appropriate before using or recommending it to employees. Firms may lose huge sums of money in these training programs thus ending up not reaping any value from the same.

Zeutinoglu et al. are all professors in human resource management areas in DeGroote School of Business, Mc Master University. As they point out, the training of low job workers in Canada is beyond the recommended standards (Zeutinoglu et al. 2008, p.5). As per the Statistics Canada Workplace and employee survey of 2001, few low-job employees received low wages on the job training compared to those in high jobs.

It is therefore important that organisation train their employees to enable them earn decent life, perform well on their jobs, and to contribute in productivity at the workplace, as well as in the economy. Government needs to support on job training for these low-job employees in a bid to achieve this goal.

In his article ‘Line manager involvement in learning and development: Small beer or big deal’, Gibbs argues that line managers should be involved in learning and development at their work (2003, p.282). This step is aimed at ensuring a positive relationship between human resource managers and the line managers.

They should be involved in this program at work to help them trigger positive relationship besides increasing productivity in the organisation. Organisations are changing. Therefore, to be part of the change, such critical changes in these areas should be supported and encouraged.

Even though line managers should be included in the learning and development, there are various disadvantages in this issue. One of the disadvantages is that they may not be able to carry out their duties well because they are trained to be better skilled developers as opposed to being specialists in learning and development initiatives at work.

HRM Practices

Human resource management is aimed at formulating strategies and policies that can best drive the objectives and goals of an organisation forward. The department aims at ensuring that human capital is well taken care to ensure that staff work towards the realisation of the organisational goals and objectives.

Various HRM practices are worth adapting in a bid to drive individual and organisational performance to achieve the intended goals and objectives. The three approaches will include, regular coaching, training and developing of staff’s competencies, ensuring greater employee autonomy and discretion, and developing teamwork.

Regular coaching and developing of staff on the job is one of the approaches that I believe will help in promoting individuals’ self-confidence besides ensuring that performance of the organisation improves (Grossman, & Salas 2011, p. 103). Employees’ training and coaching initiatives will also center on the best ways of managing people through performance management system.

This system is conducive as it aligns individual objectives to those of the organisation. Identifying the potential and the areas of interest of employees is important in staging training and coaching program to trigger positive change in an organisation. Employees are very important components in an organisation.

Therefore, to ensure that they remain in the organisation to improve in their skills and knowledge, training should always be carried out. There are different type of training and coaching that an organisation can use. One is on-the-job training where employees are trained directly by interacting or performing certain tasks. This type of training is less expensive. Most organisations prefer this because it is not expensive.

Besides, it does not require a lot of time. The other type of training is off-the-job training, which is normally attained through special duration programs in learning and technical institutions. Some organisations sponsor their employees to attain skills and knowledge in specific areas. This has turned to be a burden to the organisation. Training is an expensive venture.

Because of its importance, organisations have no alternative apart from practicing it. Many organisations that have embraced training are competitive in terms of development of salient skills in management, leadership, and the general operation or functioning of an institution.

Another human resource management approach that I intend to encourage is greater discretion and autonomy on the workplace. Employees feel part of the organisation if they are well treated and appreciated for what they do (Shiryan, Shee, & Stewart 2012, p. 49).

The environment of working should be conducive to allow employees a space to express their views besides share their opinions with other employees to present their problems to the management. Free communication in an organisation helps in nurturing the spirit of teamwork and unity. Furthermore, this will trigger innovation and creativity as employees will have the opportunity to invent and innovate at their discretion.

For the organisation to achieve good performance, it should be able to innovate and come up with ideas that are able to add value to the organisation. Therefore, greater autonomy is the best way that employees will have a sense of belonging to trigger their self-esteem thus enabling them to influence the organisation’s objectives positively.

Teamwork is yet another human resource practice that will be encouraged in the organisation. This will help employees to share and learn new knowledge as they work together to achieve the overall organisation’s goals. Teamwork is also preferred because it enables a group to work together to assist one another in achieving similar objectives (Shiryan, Shee, & Stewart 2012, p. 46).

The teams will be made up of people with different levels of training and experience. The teams will be rotated in a bid to eliminate boredom besides building the spirit of teamwork and unity. Organisations that have strong teams face their challenges without fear.

They usually ensure that they find the best solutions to their problems. Teams are also one way of creating or enhancing cohesion. They are made up of people from different cultural backgrounds, which is a benefit in creating or establishing a brand.

Conclusion

In conclusion, human resource management has the responsibility to ensure that organisations embrace changes besides recruiting employees who are able to stir ahead the goals and objectives of the organisation. One of the important duties of HRM in this current world is to implement training programs that are able to acquaint employees with skills and knowledge to trigger increased production.

The training should be tailored to the objectives of the organisation. Other HRM approaches that are equally important in improving individual and organisational performance are ensuring that there is a greater autonomy among employees and teamwork.

References

Chidambaram, V, & Ramachandran, A 2012, ‘A study on efficacy of employee training review of literature’, Business Theory & Practice, vol. 13 no. 3, pp. 275-282.

Coget, J 2011, ‘Does National Culture Affect Firm Investment in Training and Development?’, Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 25 no. 4, pp. 85-87.

Gibbs, S 2003, ‘Line manager involvement in learning and development: Small beer or big deal?’, Employee Relations, vol. 25 no. 3, pp. 281-293.

Grossman, R, & Salas, E 2011, ‘The transfer of training: what really matters’, International Journal of Training & Development, vol. 15 no. 2, pp. 103-120.

Shiryan, S, Shee, H, & Stewart, D 2012, ‘Employee Training Effectiveness in Saudi Arabian SME Performance’, International Journal of Business & Social Science, vol. 3 no. 14, pp. 46-52.

Zeutinoglu, I, Cooke, G, Karlene, H, & Chowhan, J 2008, ‘Low-Paid Workers and On-the-Job Training in Canada’, Relations Industrielles (Québec, Québec)/Industrial Relation, vol. 63 no. 1, pp. 5-29.

Whistleblower Activity

It is an offense for an organization to dismiss its employees without following the due process. The residential medical facility terminated the services of Janet Broom and Darla Miller due to their whistleblower activity. The federal Court of Appeals should reverse the decision of the trial court.

Broom and Miller engaged in whistleblower activity for the good of the public and the organization. The Uniform Control Dangerous Substances Act makes it a criminal offense for an individual to steal a controlled dangerous substance. Broom and Miller adhered to this act.

If Broom and Miller were unionized employees, the medical facility would not have terminated them. This is because they would have more bargaining power. It would have ensured fair representation of the employees. The union would have required the medical facility to follow the due process before terminating the employees. Therefore, the medical facility may have issued warnings or suspensions instead of terminations.

Violation of Confidentiality

Companies strive to ensure that they maintain their competitive edge. Confidentiality agreement prevents employees from leaking certain vital information to rivals of the company. ReadyPro Company applied the confidentiality agreement appropriately.

The confidentiality agreement helped in protecting the company from rivals. The terms of employment may provide insights into how a company reduces its operational costs. Therefore, it is vital for an organization to ensure that it maintains the secrecy of the terms of employment.

According to Martinez, the confidentiality agreement was very broad. Therefore, it did not provide a detailed instruction on what is confidential. The confidentiality agreement did not specify how the employee should handle reimbursement issues.

Martinez did not have a formal agreement with ReadyPro on how she would receive reimbursements for use of her personal computer. Instead, she made an agreement with the San Antonio project manager. Since the company did not complain about the agreement with the San Antonio project manager, it would be wrong for it to claim later that she disclosed vital information.

Martinez received reimbursements from the San Antonio project manager. In so doing, she did not deal directly with her employer. Therefore, if there was a reduction in reimbursement it was logical that Martinez would inform the project manager about the reduction. Therefore, her termination was illegal.

Landrum-Griffith Act

Almost half of the members of Local 1 understand only Spanish. Therefore, the union should ensure that it caters for the needs of the members who only understand Spanish. According to Section 101(a) of the Landrum Griffin Act, a labor organization should give its members equal rights. The labor organization should ensure that various factors do not restrict the participation of members in various activities of the organization.

Therefore, using only English during the monthly meetings restricts the participation of Spanish speaking members. Local 1 should correct this by hiring a professional interpreter during the meetings. This would ensure that the interpreter gives the correct interpretation of various words.

It is illegal for local 1 to adopt a rule that requires all candidates for various offices to be proficient in both English and Spanish. This is because this would lock out a sizeable percentage of members of the union from vying for positions. This move would only benefit a few members who are proficient in English and Spanish.

Refusal to provide requested information

The employer may refuse to provide sensitive information that relates to its performance to labor unions. The information may be one of the major factors that determine the competitiveness of the organization. In addition, restricting information access prevents leakage of sensitive information.

The company should provide employees and labor unions with documents relating to the merit pay plan. This would enable the union to ensure that the company does not exploit employees.

The company is under no obligation to provide healthcare information of non-bargaining members. This is because the union does not represent these employees. However, the company should provide information on its current financial situation.

Campaign Threats or Implied Promise of Benefit?

The employer’s did not violate Section 8(a) (1) of the LMRA. The employer was simply informing the employees about the activities of unions. This enabled the employees to know what is at stake prior to joining the union. In addition, the employer’s statements do not constitute unlawful benefits, which violate Section 8(a) (1) of the LMRA.

The employer was pointing out the fact that the company has one of the most favorable compensation packages. The company voluntarily offers the employees good working condition.

The employer stated the new programs that the company was making to enable the employees give the company a chance to prove that it had their interest at heart. Supervisors Bates and Lofton did not violate Section 8(a) (1) of LMRA in their interrogation. The supervisors did not offer any threats or promises to the employees.

The NLRB should not consider the totality of conduct doctrine. This is because the employer did not coerce the employees not to join the labor unions. The employer simply stated how the labor unions would affect their activities. The employer used the leaflets that the union had distributed to show the effects of unions. Therefore, the NLRB should not rule against the employer.

Representing Non-Unionized Employees

LMRA prohibits employers from firing their employees without following the due process. The employer should give employees the right to defend themselves prior to firing them. In addition, an employer should offer certain benefits after termination. Therefore, it was wrong for the human resource manager to fire Green and reinstate Swallows.

It is the duty of a labor union to ensure that it represents all employees fairly. This ensures that the labor unions do not take sides in airing grievances of employees of the same company. The duty of fair representation is applicable to all employees who fall under the NLRA. This is regardless of whether the employees are members of unions or not.

Therefore, the labor union was discriminatory. Billie Green and Mary Swallows were involved in a fight in the company’s parking lot. Both launched their grievances with the company’s labor union.

However, Green was not a member of the labor. On the other hand, Swallows was a union member. The labor union helped in the reinstatement of Swallows. However, the union did not represent Green’s grievances to the company. Therefore, the labor union did not have fair representation.

It is the duty of the labor union of the company to represent Green. This is despite the fact that he was not a union member. The union should represent Green since the fight involved another unionized employee of the company. Representing Green would have ensured fair representation.

Arrest and Termination

Companies should ensure that they involve the labor unions when formulating laws that affect employees. This helps in reducing the resistance of the unions towards the laws. Therefore, failure to involve the labor unions in the formation of laws is one of the major factors that make the labor unions oppose the termination of Rokus by UPC due to possession of drugs.

Police usually arrest people due to suspicion. However, not all arrests lead to a conviction. Various technical or legal factors may lead to the dropping of charges by the police. Therefore, the company should give more weight to conviction instead of arrest.

The arbitrator should not consider any statements that the company made after the discharge. This is because the company may look for information that would justify the discharge. This would protect the company in case the employee sues them.

The length of service determines the decision that arbitrators may make. This is because the length of service may be an indication of the loyalty of the individual to the company. Arbitrators should consider the duration of service since it is hard for employees to change their behavior abruptly.

An arrest means that the police suspect an individual has engaged in unlawful activity. On the other hand, a conviction means that the police feel that they have evidence that would enable them to prove the wrongful conduct of an individual. Investigations may prove that the individual is innocent.

The regulations of UPC state that the company may discharge an employee who has an active Decision Making Leave (DML), if the employee engages in serious violations of the company’s policy. Police arrested Rokus due to suspicion drug related activities. However, UPC acted wrongly since Rokus may have been innocent.

The arbitrator should rule that the company acted wrongly in dismissing Rokus. Police arrested Rokus due to drug related charges. However, they were unable to prove their case in court. This necessitated them to drop the charges.

Discharge for Off-Duty Conduct

The U.S. Postal Service may discharge an employee who engages in unethical conduct. In addition, the company may discharge an employee who engages in activities that are prejudicial to the company.

‘Nexus’ refers to the relationship between two activities. It is vital for the Postal Service to show the relationship between an employee’s activity and the company before discharging the employee.

A company should ensure that it treats its employees equally. However, one should not use this as an excuse to request reinstatement of an employee if the company reinstated another employee who had a similar mistake. Therefore, equal treatment may be inconsequential in a case.

According to the company, Lee should not receive unemployment compensation. This is because he had attempted to defraud the organization that had hired him. Therefore, the company cannot trust someone who is essentially a thief.

Since Lee was involved in a crime, job performance prior to the crime is of no consequence. He attempted to defraud financial institutions. This may have reduced the confidence that members of the public have on the Postal Service.

The arbitrator should dismiss the union’s submissions. This is because Lee pleaded guilty to involvement in fraudulent activities. Lee engaged in the fraudulent activity for many years. Therefore, he was fully aware of the effects of the engaging in the crime.

Arbitrators usually use the decision of previous arbitrators in making a ruling. They usually consider the factors that were prevalent in the previous arbitrations. However, there are significant differences between the current arbitration and previous arbitrations. Therefore, the arbitrators should not use previous arbitrations in making their ruling.

From the case, it is clear that Lee engaged in criminal activity willingly. In addition, he pleaded guilty to the charges of engaging in criminal activity. Therefore, the arbitrators should not rule in his favor. They should uphold the Postal Service’s decision to discharge him.

Interview

The researcher succeeded to carry out an interview that involved two employees who work at Delta Air Lines, Inc. The two individuals gave different views regarding motivation and leadership approaches practiced by the management of Delta Air Line. The two respondents were referred to as person X and person Y in this research, for purposes of anonymity, which was necessary to gather unbiased information from the two individuals.

In relation to motivation, person X pointed out that Delta Airline was a good company to work with since it recognizes the performance of employees. Specifically, he mentioned the Chairman Club, which was established with an aim of giving recognition to best performing employees.

However, person Y was not happy about the role Delta Air Lines. She argued that Delta Airline benefitted much from recognition in relation to employees. Person Y emphasized that recognition benefited the company through low cost of operations while employees continued to suffer since they were given paltry salaries (Creswell 1998, p. 12).

The two respondents showed similar reactions in relation to leadership approaches. Both person X and Y said that operating manuals provided by the management team enabled Delta Air Lines to attain excellent performance. They claimed that operating manuals issued to every department enabled the company to achieve its predetermined objectives.

This is because operating manuals ensured that each department worked hard to achieve the set operating standards. Person Y accentuated that Passengers Service Manual, which is used by Customer Service department to track services delivered to clients, enabled Delta Air Lines to attain admirable performance.

Introduction

Hospitality industry is classified in the contemporary world as the highest earning industry. A number of scholars and businesspersons refer to it as a billionaire industry. Considering that manufacturing era is gone, it is no doubt that we are living in an era characterized by the service industry.

The service industry is broad and mainly encompasses food, service delivery and accommodation related sectors of the economy. Lodging, transportation, tourism, entertainment and restaurants among other segments fall within hospitality industry.

Hospitality industry chiefly depends on leisure time and disposable income. Although hospitality industry involves several groups that deal with maintenance of company facilities, operations as well as management, it is confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that managing employees remains a key aspect towards improving the level of performance for a range of companies in the hospitality industry.

This has compelled several managements in the service industry to come up with effective leadership approaches that aim at improving performance of employees, with diverse expertise and abilities. Different techniques of motivating employees are devised on daily basis hoping that the level of performance would significantly improve at workplace.

Delta Airlines considers a number of management styles including giving handsome package to its employees, with an intention of improving its airline services as well as revenue. Furthermore, Delta Airlines endeavors to improve the level of returns for its major and minor investors.

In addition, Delta Airlines Company ensures that customers choosing the services of the company experience the most appealing flights that would attract them the second time they would be traveling. Such aspects include best entertainment, executive seats and offering flights at affordable prices (Bratton & Gold 2007, p. 67).

Delta Air Lines, Inc.

Delta Air Lines is amongst the competitive airline companies in the U.S. With its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, Delta operates at domestic and international markets. Due to its aggressive strategies, the company has grown rapidly and today, it claims 11% of the market share. Delta Air Lines is popularly known worldwide for its busiest hub.

Delta Air Lines hub, which is based at the Hart-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, serves an average of 88 million passengers every year. Currently, this airline company has about 716 aircrafts, which operate at local markets as well as international markets.

This makes Delta Air Lines the largest airline company based on the size of its fleet. In total, Delta Air Lines operates in about 247 destinations, which are located in both the U.S. and elsewhere in other foreign countries. Delta Air Lines closed the financial year 2010 with revenue of 31.8 billion. Its assets stood at 43.2 billion at the end of the fiscal year 2010.

This indicated a strong performance for Delta Air Lines as compared to its counterparts at local and foreign markets. Perhaps, its financial strength over and above quality services would be attributed to its effective management team.

Delta Air Lines Management Team and Strategies

Richard Anderson leads delta Air Lines as its Chief Executive Officer. Edward Bastian acts as its president while Michael Campbell is the Executive Vice President and chiefly deals with the Human Resources and Labor Relations.

Other top personalities include Stephen Gorman who is the chief operating officer; Glen Hauestein the network planning and revenue management, Hank Halter the financial officer, Holden Shannon the corporate strategy and real estate leader, John Walker the corporate communications director, and Theresa Wise the chief information officer.

Richard Anderson ensures that Delta Air Lines maintains its competitive edge in the airline industry by embracing aggressive strategies such as those related to reducing fares, commonly referred to as cost leadership strategy. In addition, the management ensures that effectual measures are set, which merely ensures that investors get high returns for their investments.

Employees are as well motivated with diverse incentives such as high salaries and long lasting employment contracts. Strategies are also put in place to ensure that its services are expanded to other emerging markets. Delta Air Line traditional approach of expansion focused on acquisition of other companies at the market. For instance, in 1972, Delta successfully acquired Northeast Airlines.

Later on in 1986, Delta acquired Western Airlines. However, in 1994, Delta realized that airline industry had become increasingly competitive and needed contemporary approaches to maintain its competitive edge in the turbulent market environment. Consequently, Delta Air Lines sought to restructuring and streamlining its operations. The new package involved reducing the costs of operations as well as reducing the flight-fare price.

Leadership

Leadership is defined by a good number of scholars as ability to influence employees in an organization towards attaining predetermined goals and objectives. It is also defined as the ability of an organization to align individuals within the organization in order to achieve set targets.

It also aims at empowering employees with necessary skills and tools to undertake required actions that would meet the common goals set by the management.

Although there are arguments concerning whether leaders are made or born, it has been discovered that managers and leaders depict different characteristics. Leaders are said to be innovate, original, people oriented, inspiring, developing and setting long-range perspectives. Leaders frequently challenge the status quo as well as doing right things always among other characteristics.

This helps them to convene short term and long-term objectives of the organization. On the other hand, managers rely much on the regulations and rules of the organization to administer policies that encourage employees to focus on achieving the set targets (Storey 2007, p. 102).

Managers are perceived as people who are fond of copying, maintaining, focusing on structures and systems, relying much on control and regulations, and more importantly meeting the objectives of an organization.

Their characteristics also include, but not limited to short-range view, eyeing the bottom line, imitating previous approaches of management, accepting status quo and doing things right. What fascinates scholars and perhaps what exactly distinguish managers from leaders relates to ‘how’ and ‘when’ questions.

Leaders frequently ask themselves ‘what’ and ‘whys’ sort of questions. These are common aspects that distinguish the originality displayed by leadership and imitation aspects characterized by managers. A number of theories have been put forward to explain characteristics of different leaders.

Trait Theory

Trait theory explains that individuals are born either with leadership characteristics or without. Trait theory focuses on several factors that distinguish leaders from non-leaders. The factors include individual personality, socialization process, physical characteristics and intelligence.

Behavioral theory

The behavioral theory relates to the ability to initiate a particular system and coming up with some considerations over an event. This would refer to the orientation of the leader regarding the aims and responsibilities of employees.

Mangers may perhaps be workers oriented, which could mean that they are concerned more about employees. Task orientation could mean that a firm is more concerned about production levels.

Fielder contingency model

Fielder contingency model states that an effective team relies on an effectual match between the approach of a leader interacting with employees and the extent to which the environment gives a leader the authority to control and influence his or her subordinates. According to Fielder, the environment or situation refers to the relationship between leaders and staff members.

Logically, it refers to the confidence and respect built between a leader and his or her followers. The situation refers to the task structure and the power position. Power position refers to the level of authority that is mostly derived from the position of the leader within the organizational system (Winstanley & Woodall 2000, p. 112).

Fielder affirms that good relations between staff members and their leaders characterize a favorable situation, affective structure of tasks and a powerful position of a manager in an organization.

Path Goal Theory

This theory relates environmental and subordinate contingency aspects to leadership traits. Path goal theory argues that performance or outcomes depend on traits associated with leadership behavior such as directives, supportive and perceptive features in relation to subordinate and environmental contingency aspects.

Subordinate contingency features include locus of control, individual experiences and ones perceived ability and competence. On the other hand, situational contingency features include structures of job assignments, formality of systems and policies, as well as team members.

Charismatic leaders

Charismatic leaders portray features that have considerable influence on performance of subordinates. This type of leaders are said to portray different characteristics from those of other leaders. To begin with, charismatic leaders depict self-confidence. Self-confidence is displayed by their total confidence in their policies and competence.

A vision is also another significant feature, which brings about confidence that would lead to a better future rather than relying on an organization’s status quo. A leader should ensure that there is a broad margin between the current status quo and the set goals or objectives. Charismatic leaders are also recognized for their outstanding abilities in articulating vision.

They are able to explain and describe vision in a way that employees understand without difficulties. This assists in avoiding issues related to confusions and doubts. However, to articulate vision, a visionary leader should understand his or her employees adequately. Charismatic leader should have high levels of commitment and high personal risk that help organizations in achieving pragmatic goals within a predetermined period.

Charming leaders frequently depict behavior that is different from conventional or normal traits of ordinary managers and employees. Although these behaviors appear different from those of common leaders, followers are easily lured to follow such behaviors, especially in the event that a leader becomes successful with his or her unique style of management (Legge1998, p. 56).

Other major characteristics displayed by appealing leaders include realistic evaluation of business environments in relation to constraints and resources and coming up with pragmatic strategies. Generally, charismatic leaders are perceived as aspects of radical change as opposed to maintaining organization’s status quo.

Relationship between transactional and transformational leaders

Several reputable scholars in the field of management have identified distinguishing factors between transactional and transformational leaders. It is believed that old management style was characterized by transactional kind of leadership. However, because of dynamic and competitive business environment, contemporary type of management associates itself with transformational leadership.

Transactional leaders

Transformational leaders recognize achievements that ensure employees are rewarded in accordance to their level of performance. The management should always identify the disparity existing between performance and predetermined policies. This would help in initiating corrective actions and responses. A more contradicting feature as regards to transactional leadership is its passive system.

Passive approach refers to intervening situations when standards tend to fall below or deviate from the track. Transactional leader would assign already laid down tasks and responsibilities to different departments. However, they attempt to avoid making major and minor decisions regarding the operations of the organization.

Transformation leaders

Scholars and managements term transformational leadership as contemporary approach (Beardwell & Claydon 2007, p. 83). Transformational leaders are charismatic and would occasionally provide followers with realistic vision and mission, which eventually earns them respect and trust.

They are too inspiring since they communicate high expectations to their subordinates, use symbols to express directions and targets of organizations. Their level of intelligence is proved by their high level of rationality, as well as extra-ordinary logics mostly expressed in their analytical abilities, especially during problem solving.

Transformational leaders differ from their transactional leaders for the reason that they are able to give personal attention to their employees apart from coaching and advising employees personally.

What it takes to be an effectual and successful leader

What it takes to be an effective leader remains a contentious issue in the contemporary world of business. However, a number of observable studies have distinguished effective leaders from ineffective leaders. Effective leaders are seen communicating routinely. Their communication is associated with exchanging information and frequent handling of paperwork.

Effective managers as well practice traditional management, which is merely known for its controlling, decision-making and planning facets. More importantly, effective management is characterized by networking where leaders are seen often interacting with outsiders in addition to sharing social, economical and political issues with several groups.

Regarding the human resource management, successful leaders are seen motivating and rewarding their subordinates on a continuous basis. Furthermore, training and developing careers ensures that employees meet standards set by the firm. Nevertheless, transformational leaders manage conflicts arising successfully.

Motivation

Motivation is a process that intends to elicit, control, manage or sustain an individual’s behavior. Motivation is categorized as either intrinsic or extrinsic. Extrinsic motivation is associated with external factors. For instance, a student who is interested in acquiring certain knowledge in a given field for not only getting good grades but also gaining mastery is most likely motivated by intrinsic factors.

On the other hand, it would be an extrinsic motivation if an employee were encouraged to perform well at work place by increasing salary or providing other incentives. It is therefore true that employee performance depends heavily on motivation. Nevertheless, to realize good performance through motivation, employees should be equipped with necessary skills, equipments, supplies, time and ability (Goleman1998, p. 72).

A motivating agent is principally determined by the needs of an employee. Although money is generally regarded as the main motivator, it is not the only employee motivator. Money would act as a motivator if it were able to meet individual’s needs and desires. In addition, an employee should believe that he or she is in a position to achieve monetary rewards offered by the organization.

Generally, financial incentives offered by a range of organizations include production bonus systems, commission, gain sharing, group incentive plans, profit sharing, piecework systems among others. Because financial incentives can be limiting to any business that intends to motivate its employees, other approaches satisfy employees such as good contact with consumers’ brand, job enlargement and rotations.

In many cases, organizations motivate employees by giving rewards that have value, providing rewards based on individual performance, treating individual staff members personally, encouraging staff participation and providing immediate feedback regarding employees’ performance.

Since motivation concerns itself with giving incentives to employees with an aim of enforcing compliance, most supervisors frequently use incentives to ensure that employees meet the objectives and goals set by management. With this regard, it would be beneficial if supervisors would have necessary skills regarding employees’ motivation. Managers influence the behavior of employees using various methods.

However, the commonly used incentives include flextime and job sharing. Flextime is a strategy used in organizations, which allow individuals to choose when to work for 8 hours assigned in a day or 40 hours in a week. Conversely, job sharing refers to an arrangement in which two individuals working part-time choose to share tasks of a full-time job.

Theories of motivation

Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs

Maslow states that a number of unmet needs motivate individuals. In accordance to Maslow’s theory, needs which motivates people fall into five categories. They include physiological needs, security, social needs such as love, needs relating to esteem and self-actualization needs.

Physiological needs are basic needs, which an individual requires for survival. Security needs refer to protection and safety. Social needs are those associated with the need for companionship, as well as love. Individuals in the society desire to be respected by their colleagues. This is popularly termed esteem needs. Self-actualization refers to a situation where an individual peruses the full measure of happiness.

McClelland’s Achievement-Power-Affiliation Theory

This theory states that people develop diverse needs via life experiences. The three needs classified by McClelland include the need for achievement, need for power and the need for affiliation. Need for achievement is one’s aspiration to do better.

Need for power is associated to ambition to manage, control and influence people. Need for affiliation is concerned about aspiration to sustain sociable relations. Although people have all the above needs to some degree, strength of various needs depicts what motivates an employee or a worker (Mintzberg, Simons & Basu 2002, p. 88).

Hertzberg’s Two-Factor Theory

Hertzberg claims that both dissatisfaction and satisfaction are associated with dissimilar sources. In his argument, dissatisfaction is seen to result from lack of hygiene factors such as companionship and handsome salary package. Satisfaction, on the other hand, results from existence of motivating dynamics such as fortunate prospects.

Vroom’s Expectancy-Valence Theory

Vroom proved that individuals do whatever they do in life with an aim of satisfying their needs. His argument was based on explaining the degree of an individuals’ level of motivation. According to Vroom’s theory, motivation depends on both valence and expectancy.

Valence refers to the importance that someone places on result of a specified behavior whereas expectancy is the perception that a certain behavior would lead to a given result. In many circumstances, people are predominantly motivated to seek out outcomes that they value.

They also believe that such outcomes are achievable. Individual members have different perception as regards to rewards, as well as whether they are in a position to attain the set up rewards.

As a result, every employee determines personally the value of rewards and the capability of attaining the results. Since individuals in an organization cannot be generalized, it would be prudent for supervisors to study the needs and abilities of employees within an organization.

Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory

According to Skinner, people tend to do a particular thing hoping that it would lead to a desirable consequence. The same people would avoid things that may lead to undesirable consequences. For instance, people desire doing things that may give them praises from either fellow colleagues or the management team at work place.

The management may influence the behavior of individuals by responding to traits technically. Skinner says that consequences can be classified as either reinforcement or punishment. Reinforcement is a positive behavioral consequence.

In other words, reinforcement refers to favorable consequences or preferred behavior. Conversely, punishment is also referred to as negative consequence. Most supervisors tend to stop unfavorable behavior using various approaches, such as demotion and firing employees.

Modifying Employees’ Behavior

Various organizations use either punishment or reinforcement in modifying the behavior of employees. However, ineffectiveness of punishment, many organizations choose reinforcement. Reinforcement tends to result to positive and favorable behavior, which is desired by a firm whereas frequent use of punishment tends to instill a belief of inability among staff members (Nohria, Groysberg & Eling 2008, p. 93).

Since motivating factors are different among employees, the management should learn individual motivating factors at personal level and design rewards as per their demands. In addition, the management should consider policies, regulations and labor contracts guiding the process of rewarding in an organization.

Financial Incentives

The Management assumes that money motivates employees to deliver a quality service. According to theories of motivation, finance is perceived as a motivator if it meets the demands and needs of employees. In particular, an individual earning paltry salary will highly be motivated by its increment.

However, an employee who is comfortable with his or her salary may be motivated by other factors, such as achieving a sense of respect and personal esteem. As for finances, employees would be given financial incentives to make them meet or exceed certain set standards.

Delta Air Lines: Leadership and Motivation

Management’s Systems and Procedures

Delta Air Lines has various departments with diverse systems. Delta Air Lines management offers operating manuals that give standards to every department. The operating manual helps departments to monitor the performance of employees, as well as customers on a regular basis (Storey 2001, p. 57).

The most important manual is the Passengers Service Manual, which is used by Customer Service department to track services delivered to clients. This has enabled employees to provide excellent services to their customers. Operating manual, on the other hand, enables the management to access updated performance, as well as easy references that would help in making major decisions concerning the performance of the company.

The most important information provided by Passengers Service Manual includes passengers’ acceptance, refusal of passenger, ticketing and luggage acceptance.

Delta Air Lines decided to post passengers’ information online where each employee can access it in a 24 hours clock to increase its efficiency. Moreover, the management has made sure that employees stand a chance to access information at home provided one is connected to Delta’s intranet.

Management performance measures

A website that is solely designed by Delta for measuring and controlling performance would help in monitoring and improving services offered by Delta Air Lines. The website categorically provides a section, which indicates standards expected by the management.

The website also provides essential applications for monitoring performance of various departments. In addition, the website provides a section through which the management is able to monitor procedures for giving rewards to subordinates.

The key performance indicators used by Delta include measure of flights take off, lost baggage for every 1000 passengers, airplanes damages and injuries sustained by employees while at work place or during official working hours. This information is to be collected from various airports, combined and analyzed on a yearly basis to estimate the overall performance of the management team.

Performance leaders

Performance leaders are concerned about assigning tasks to different employees and ensuring that operations are covered in entirety. Generally, they normally guide employees on various work processes and allocate diverse resources as per the requirement of the job.

Performance leaders frequently ensure that workers arrive on time at the work place, apart from ensuring that team members complete assigned responsibilities within predetermined time and as per the set standards. In many cases, performance leaders are seen to handle customers’ conflict either internally or externally.

Training and employees performance improvement

Delta Air Lines provides sufficient training to its employees with an aim of improving its services. The management emphasizes on continuous training with an objective of improving its service delivery. Delta Air Lines has some school training centers for pilots. A stringent policy relating to training pilots is aimed at improving the standards of its flights.

In fact, customer department statement aims at empowering employees with adequate experience and skills in order to provide excellent service. Delta Air Lines offers a reimbursement of $2000 for tuition fee. In addition, the company provides an e-learning technology, which helps to improve employees’ performance for those present at workplace.

Employees Rewarding

The management concluded that individual recognition is the most effective way of motivating employees. Delta Air Lines recognize that the most important aspect in an individual is his or her attitude. According to Delta Air Lines’ management, for employees to be instilled with positive attitude, his or her morale should be improved.

During difficult financial times, recognition of employees has helped to reduce operation costs associated with employees’ rewarding. The management developed Delta Gaining Altitude program, which enables employees to be recognized and rewarded for their services.

Delta Gaining Attitude program helps to instill a positive approach to its employees. This is aimed at motivating employees by influencing their behavior positively. As a strategy, Delta Air Lines management has empowered employees to recognize and comment on the performance of their colleagues.

Currently, Delta Air Lines provides cumulative points for purchasing products, which has been entirely welcomed by all staff members. Delta Air Lines recognizes employee anniversaries where it begins with the first year and then performed at an interval of 5 years.

On completing ten years, an employee would receive a recognition letter from the CEO. Chairman Club was established with an aim of giving recognition to best performing employees. On average, the Chairman Club initiates 102 staff members who have contributed enormously to the success of Delta Air Lines.

Such employees are to be chosen by their workmates and confirmed by the management. However, an individual should be registered at a site provided by Chairman Club in order to receive recommendation for good performance.

Stiff competition at the Airline Industry

Delta Air Lines faces tough competition in the airline industry both at local and international markets. Stiff competition in the market is due to the presence of major airlines that offer excellent services.

Recently, a number of airline companies have come up with cost-leadership strategies, which have forced Delta to respond equally by lowering its initial fare prices. The major foreign rivals of Delta Air Lines include Singapore Airline, Cathay Pacific and Air New Zealand. However, Delta is responding to the competition through increasingly improving its services.

Recommendation

Although policies and structures of an organization are important in determining the performance of an entity, it has been recognized by a number of scholars that human aspect is crucial in determining the effectiveness and efficiency of a firm (Woods & West 2010, p. 75).

Human beings control machines and other physical facilities including computers and therefore, a slight change in human behavior might highly affect results of a particular process or activity.

Any organization should ensure that it has effectual management team, as well as competent employees in ensure that quality services are provided as per the set standards.

Since Delta faces stiff competition in the airline industry, it would be prudent to come up with specific measures that would ensure excellent services are offered to its esteem clients. Such activities would require well laid strategies, which would particularly generate an effective leader. Services improvement, such as fitting aircrafts with executive seats, would help Delta attract a number of customers.

Generally, customers require comfort, such as good entertainment and provision of quality and affordable meals and drinks both inside the aircraft and at the airport waiting lounge. Although cost-leadership strategy has been a major strategy used by airline companies, it would be advisable not to lower prices beyond certain levels. This would lead to losses.

To ensure that excellence is maintained at Delta Air Lines, the management should provide more appealing rewards that would enhance productivity of employees. For instance, employees should be provided with salary increment, though it has to be realistic to avoid exorbitant operational expenses. Delta is embracing recognition as opposed to other rewards approaches.

Although this has an effect of reducing costs associated with rewards, such rewards would have less impact on employee’s level of performance. Delta should in fact consider other non-financial rewarding techniques such as promotions, job rotation and employee empowerment. Such approaches are likely to facilitate high levels of performance amongst staff members.

Conclusion

This paper has covered a number of issues regarding leadership and motivation. It has solely discussed issues pertaining to leadership and motivation practices at Delta Air Lines.

To understand fully the implication of effective leadership and motivating approaches that would finally help in improving the level of performance at Delta Air Lines, this paper has discussed various types of leaderships, as well as theories that were put forward by different scholars. It has also given more details concerning motivation and related theories.

From various reading materials and various managerial perspectives in different institutions including Delta Air Lines, it is confirmed that effective leadership is one that has routine and effectual communication processes. Leaders should communicate complex aspects in a more simple way. They should understand the proficiency and qualifications of individual employees in order to assign jobs accurately.

Competent leaders ensure that they give pragmatic directions and vision, which assists in attaining the set objectives and standards. Although traditional modes of management are not popular in the contemporary world of business, it is evident that planning, controlling and monitoring remain key factors in improving employees’ level of performance.

In addition, motivation factors, such as offering financial incentives, are mostly used by a range of entities to increase the level of productivity among its employees. However, it is concluded that non-financial incentives to a large extend help in reducing the cost of operations among various organizations such as Delta Air Line. Delta Air Lines has a number of rewarding approaches.

However, it considerably embraces recognition technique as opposed to rewarding systems. Recognition is initiated by allowing employees to give comments online. Chairman Club helps to identify some individuals who are rewarded after recognizing their great contribution towards the overall performance of the company.

Moreover, Delta Air Line continues to show competent leadership through the websites that are chiefly designed for monitoring performance of various departments. For instance, customer service department is provided with operation manuals where it records all data concerning customers. This helps in keeping track and controlling operations at Delta Air Lines.

List of References

Beardwell, J & Claydon, T 2007, Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Approach, Prentice Hall, Harlow.

Bratton, J & Gold, J 2007, Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice, Palgrave, Basingstoke.

Creswell, J 1998, Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five Traditions, Sage, California.

Goleman, D 1998, Working with Emotional Intelligence, Bloomsbury, London.

Legge, K 1998, Is HRM ethical? Can HRM be ethical? Sage, London.

Mintzberg, H, Simons, R & Basu, K 2002, “Beyond Selfishness”, Sloan Management Review, Issue 2, no. 1.

Nohria, N, Groysberg, B & Eling, L 2008, “Employee Motivation: A powerful new model”, Harvard Business Review, Issue 4, no. 6.

Storey, J 2001, Human Resource Management; A Critical Text, Thomson Learning, Padstow.

Storey, J 2007, Human Resource Management: A critical text, Thomson Learning, Padstow.

Winstanley, D & Woodall, J 2000, Ethical issues in contemporary human resource management, Palgrave, Mendham.

Woods, S & West, M 2010, Organizational Culture, Climate and Change, Cengage, New York.

Introduction

To investigate with the nature and practice of human resource management in an organisation, this paper has organised with the HRM strategy of the Emirates NBD Bank PJSC as the author of this paper has a saving account in this financial institution and a lot of friends and family members are working there.

Background of the Company

The Emirates NBD was organised as the most dominant in the GCC region in 2007 by merging two leading banks of UAE named Emirates Bank International (EBI) and National Bank of Dubai (NBD) and turned into the banking champion with around 141 branches and 740 ATMs and conducting retail and wholesale banking with dynamic financial performance.

As a socially responsible financial institution in the UAE, Emirates NBD is serving the local communities with charity, education, and environment by upholding the cultural heritage of UAE through its 8,000 employees originated from 50 different countries, as a result the company evidenced turned into the biggest and most culturally diversified organisation in this region UAE.

The mission of the company has aimed to deliver value-added management solutions that would finally create exceptional value for its customers, employees, and shareholders while the vision of the company is to turn into the marvellous Service provider in the financial industry along with the property market (Emirates NBD 2013).

Emirates NBD’s HRM Activities to Managing its Staff

The Gulf News (2012) and the Reuters (2012) reported that the largest bank of UAE Emirates NBD would conduct fire 15% of its employees; the board of management has confirmed this job cutting with the intention to attain a huge cost saving and the employees have already noticed to move the organisation.

During the merger of EBI and NBD in 2007, the employees have evidenced huge redundant due to both the hard and soft approach, but five years later in the post-merger era such decision generated fear, uncertainty and instability to the workplace environment and the threatening workforce engaged to demonstrate their highest performance to rescue themselves from this pressure.

The Oracle (2013) explored that the bank has decided to integrate Oracle technology to reduce HR cost by integrating different software solution and it has already adopted ‘Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12’ that assist the company an automated process for workforce planning, recruitment, training, payroll, performance measurement and more than an HR team performs.

At the same time, the integration of new technology is a positive attribute of an organisation, but cost-saving through employees’ layoff is a syndrome inherited from the merger process, therefore, it is essential to investigate the theoretical outlook to the HR perspectives in the post-merger stage

Theoretical Perspective HR During and After Merger

Schuler and Jackson (2003) argued that in the present age of globalisation merger is enormously applied to reinforce and sustain the market position allowing it as a relatively speedy and resourceful path to enter into the new markets, incorporating with new technologies along with organisational innovation though there is no assurance to succeed a merger.

On the other hand, the majority of the mergers became unsuccessful in achieving their stated goals and objectives as the process involved with abundant of social costs, numerous job cuts, omitted income of the communities, and decrease taxes in the operating country, such social costs would be tolerable to the stakeholders while the merger results in triumphant outcomes.

The cause of merger letdown lies beneath the financial issues along with market factors even as previous studies demonstrated that most of the mergers comedown due to deficiency of systematic approach to the diverse dynamics of human resource management and its amalgamation in the pre and post-merger stage where culture, leadership, and communication have also significant effect (Bhaskar 2012).

Bhaskar (2012) pointed out that at the pre-merger state the HR specialists of the acquiring organisation would analyse the soft and hard aspects of the organisation that indented to merged, the hard aspects incorporated with staff member’s compensation, bonus, pension, health insurance and dismissal reimbursement while the soft factors incorporated with culture, performance measurement decision-making process and organisational values.

At the post-merger stage, the HR issues become the focal point in order to establish a HR strategy for the combined employees and designing their organisational role, position, pay structure, communication integrating with the new vision and objective of the merger while skills, capabilities, engagement would be taken into account for decision making (Bhaskar 2012).

Rationales of the Topic

Emirates NBD (2007) pointed out that the objectives of merger between the Emirates Bank International (EBI) and National Bank of Dubai (NBD) was to boost financial strength and capabilities in order to become top leader of financial industry both in the domestic market and GCC region by highest utilisation of the organisational resources through a cost-effective measures.

At the first phase of it has evidenced that the merged management has aligned to cutting remarkable jobs as an implication of their cost-saving strategy, at the same time Emirates NBD engaged in providing training for skills development and improving leadership quality (Emirates NBD 2013).

During the merger, most of the leadership in diverse department were expatriates, but in the post-merger era the company has been keeping continuous effort to developing the leadership from the UAE Nationals replacing the expatiates, for instance, Wahed Al Fahim a manager of Wholesale Banking has promoted as the Group Deputy CEO of the bank (Emirates NBD 2009).

Similar leadership development initiatives also evidenced in the consumer banking, wealth management, and IT department where the lower level to management team members jumped to the top level without experiencing the mid-level positions; therefore, the process of leadership development in the Emirates NBD under question mark and necessitate to have a study in this regard.

Ghad (2012) pointed out that Emirates NBD in order to improve the capacity building skills of its team members has initiated a ‘Managerial Leadership Program’ with the collaboration and direct supervision Harvard Business School that organised participation focused learning scheme to generate leadership capabilities integrating with the business model of the bank.

Most importantly, the training scheme generally addressed three major issues such as ‘personal leadership, ‘team leadership’, and ‘execution leadership’ next to peer-to-peer learning method conducted by the specialist moderators from Harvard, but failed to integrate the existing senior leadership involvement in this workshop (Satyam 2013; and Ghad 2012).

As a result, the leadership development program of Emirates NBD turned into an academic discussion rather than skills transfer from the senior management leaders; consequently, leadership development scheme exists with huge gaps (Satyam 2013; and Ghad 2012). Thus, to address the existing leadership gaps in the operation of Emirates NBD, it is rational to conduct a study with ‘Leadership approach to managing people in the post-merger situation of Emirates NBD’.

Theoretical review of the leadership approach to manage people

To assess the nature and practice of human resource management and leadership approach to manage people at the post-merger situation of Emirates NBD, it is essential to discuss different leadership style, such as autocratic, situational, participative, and transformational leadership approach.

Autocratic Leadership Approach

This is one of the oldest and rigid styles; moreover, this approach based on the centralisation of power for which the leaders have full control over all decisions (Cherry 2013; Withers 2013; Lester 2013; and Weihrich & Koontz 2010). The decisions of the leaders do not reflect the opinion of the groups as the managers seek to wield absolute power over the employees (Cherry 2013; Withers 2013; Satyam 2013; and Weihrich & Koontz 2010).

In addition, the leaders provide more attention on the task accomplishment though they would like to inspire the employees by punishing poor performers along with gratifying top performers; however, the managers direct all the work methods and processes (Cherry 2013; Withers 2013; Robbins & Judge 2004; and Weihrich & Koontz 2010).

However, this approach gives the opportunity to take prompt action to minimise financial risks; however, Emirates NBD had not followed this approach at the time of restructuring the human resources considering disadvantages to the employees.

Participative Leadership Style

This approach is also known as democratic leadership; however, the leaders of the modern era follow this approach in some extent considering the fact that it helps to motivate the employees to meet the missions and vision of the company (Cherry 2013; Withers 2013; Robbins & Judge 2004 and Weihrich & Koontz 2010). However, the main features of this approach include:

• Consider the feedback and opinion of the stakeholders:
• Encourage the associates by sharing the ideas though the leaders enjoy the decision-making power (Cherry 2013; and Withers 2013);
• Help the employees to balance family and work-life (Withers 2013; Robbins & Judge 2004 and Weihrich & Koontz 2010);
• The employees get the opportunity to share their thoughts to higher productivity (Cherry 2013; Lester 2013; and Withers 2013);
• Top management teams trust the staff and give freedom (Lester 2013)

Situational Approach of Leadership

At present, most of the leaders of the organisations focus on this approach in order to meet the challenge of extensive competition due to the effect of globalisation (Robbins & Judge 2004; and Weihrich & Koontz 2010). In addition, consultants and the researchers have suggested to the leaders to take measure in accordance with the needs of the subordinates, customers and stakeholders of the companies (Robbins & Judge 2004; Withers 2013; and Weihrich & Koontz 2010).

The behaviour of the management would vary for the different situation taking into account external and internal factors, attitudes of the subordinates, organisational culture, and diversity management and so on (Robbins & Judge 2004; and Weihrich & Koontz 2010). Here, it is essential to note that the leaders are taking into consideration present position of the organisation to motivate the employees; therefore, this style can play vital role to shape the Emirates NBD bank for the future development.

Transformational Leadership Style

Hall, Johnson, Wysocki & Kepner (2001) stated that this approach helps companies change and transform the people by considering motives of the subordinates, satisfying their needs, and valuing the employees of the organisation.

However, the CEO of Walmart had applied this approach with intent to appreciate employees with praise and performance level of the employees to make the company successful in competitive business environment (Withers 2013; and Hall et al., 2001). In addition, there are mainly four factors to transformational leadership (Robbins & Judge 2004; Weihrich & Koontz 2010; Hall, et al. 2001); however, the following figure gives more details:

The leaders who follow this approach always consider collective vision by communicating with the employees to reflect the opinion of them on the decisions regarding the development of the staff and company; in addition, the leaders inspire the workforce to be more innovative to attain organizational objectives, and values (Hall, et al. 2001).

However, the main objective of this approach is to boost organizational performance, empower the employees, and listens to all viewpoints (Robbins & Judge 2004; Weihrich & Koontz 2010; and Hall, et al. 2001); therefore, the management of Emirates NBD can consider this approach in some extent.

Details of Approach Taken By the Emirates NBD

Emirates NBD (2009) pointed out that during the merger, the top management leadership were organised with twelve directors equally came from Emirates Bank International and National Bank of Dubai, under the chairmanship and direct supervision of Ahmed Humaid Al Tayer while the leadership team composed with top banking sector executives like Rick Pudner, Sanjay Uppal, Shahzad Shahbaz and Joyshil Mitter.

Although the full members of the board of directors are UAE nationals, but the merged board of directors appointed all the top executive leaders from expatriates due to their exceptional leadership attributes in the banking sector with successful record of accomplishment.

In every case of merger and acquisition, there is evidence of restructuring the human resource by reducing the number of employees, in case of Emirates NBD engaged to restructuring its HR with the aim to retain best talents from the two organisations who are most proficient to match the shifting dynamics and capable to carry out new objectives.

Ghad (2012) pointed out that the most outstanding approach for leadership development taken by the Emirates NBD was ‘Managerial Leadership Programs’, at the first phase the MLP has offered to the selective employees of the bank and conducted by the most proficient management professionals from the Harvard Business Publishing.

The MLP was designed to provide leadership attribute among the participants by learning and doing from mutually from the theoretical perspectives as well as practical implication and the learners were obliged to teach their learning outcomes to their co-workers at the workplace.

MLP provided the trainee leaders with depth insight of the leadership competence to analyse the banking sector’s business model, process of constructing a business plan, designing strategy, improve communication skills with appropriate direction and motivation to pursue the organisational objectives and to attain further potentiality for individual performance.

The MLP program mostly exposed with three major components of leadership first one is ‘Personal Leadership’ that addressed technical, psychological, and moral enlargement of the participants to progress individual persistence, skill, and performance with strong technical know-how, positive attitude to the co-workers and self-awareness to uphold the short and long-run organisational objectives of the Emirates NBD.

The next model of Emirates NBD leadership development program integrated the ‘Team Leadership’ by differentiating the leadership and management it urged that managers manage organisational tasks while leader leads people organising them into different groups providing planning and direction to efficiently influence the team members within a positive approach to motivate team members to uphold organisational objectives.

The third approach of leadership at Emirates NBD training program presented ‘Execution Leadership’ that is a leadership action model pointed it as a hard work every day performed duty and a psychological engagement for lifelong hardworking that ultimately motivate the group members to achieve settled goals by avoiding all for inconsistencies and hypocrisy.

Evaluation of the Emirates NBD Leadership Approach

Following the merger, the management of Emirates NBD has aimed to restructure its human resource combining the members of both the previous banks with intention to retain best talents and layoff the unskilled and stringent employees who are not competent uphold the changing dynamics of the organisation.

There are some risks associated with the downsizing or layoff initiatives of Emirates NBD, most of the employees are afraid that anyone could lose his job due to the impact of merger, thus it is essential for the bank to place a clear understanding among the employees to rescue them from survivable syndrome and to ensure smooth performance of HR.

In addition, the integration of most modern ERP solution through ‘Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12’ would generate a tremendous cost-saving by automating its staff planning, recruitment, payroll, training, and performance appraisal, at the same time such automation would reduce the necessity to have large HR team, which may generate further job cuts in the organisation.

At the same time, the technological progress reduce the insolvents in the operation and Emirates NBD has nothing to do from the business viewpoint, but from its corporate social responsibility, the bank could provide some opportunities for replacement or self-employment for the laid-off employees.

Undoubtedly, the leadership development approach of Emirates NBD through ‘Managerial Leadership Program’ is an admirable step that makes greater dynamics of the leadership, but promoting the lower lever team members to the top managers without touching the mid-level is not appreciating.

Appropriate recommendations grounded in evaluation

From the above discussion, it can be said that the leaders face many challenges to managing people of the Emirates NBD because the employees of two companies are joining and working on a new environment for the merger; therefore, this report suggests the leaders the possible ways to managing people of this organisation:

• The leaders of this company should select proper processes for Human Resource Planning in order to determine the demand of human resources to perform the task of personal banking, priority banking, business banking, and so on; at the same time, they need to assess supply of the employees, required qualification, and so on;
• The management team of Emirates NBD had not concentrated more on the research to develop diversified working environment for which they failed to enhance mental strength of the employees inn some extent; so, they should allocate budget to conduct more research on the employees to bring cultural change successfully;
• At the same time, the top management should focus more on the organisational culture to remove distinctiveness of different kinds of humorous practices with the people of different social and cultural background since more than 60 percent of the total workers have come from foreign countries. In this case, the management should respect the cultural divergences to develop a good job place environment;
• In addition, it is essential to prepare a plan to focus on knowledge-based education programme for the employees to deal with advance technology to compete with international players in the marketplace;
• On the other hand, this bank had taken many initiatives in order to reduce the number of workers, such as, adopt new technology to serve the purpose of human resource department. However, the leaders of this bank should more careful before making decisions related with downsizing or layoff as the employees face mental pressure to loss their job; in addition, they must have to take measure to save the staff from the trauma of the job terminations and the concept of survivor syndrome at the time of downsizing of the bank;
• Most importantly, the management should give more power to the employees to deal with different problems in the spot for which Emirates NBD will be able to satisfy more customers;
• The executives must concentrate on the communication and motivation process, career objective, training programmes, thoughts of the employees, feedback and so on;
• The leadership approaches of this bank should be more liberal and democratic to ensure the rights of the human resources and respect their opinion in case of decision-making.

Reference List

Bhaskar, A. U. 2012, ‘HR as Business Partner during Mergers and Acquisitions’, Human Resource Management International Digest Journal, vol. 20, no. 2. Web.

Cherry, K. 2013, What Is Autocratic Leadership? Web.

Emirates NBD 2007, EBI and NBD Merge to Form Emirates NBD Creation of a UAE Champion. Web.

Emirates NBD 2009, Emirates NBD promotes 4 UAE National Management Members to key leadership positions in the Group. Web.

Emirates NBD 2013, About Emirates NBD. Web.

Ghad, A. A. 2012, Emirates NBD Partners With Harvard Business Publishing In Leadership Development. Web.

Hall, J. Johnson, S. Wysocki, A. & Kepner, K. 2001, Transformational Leadership: The Transformation of Managers and Associates. Web.

Lester, C. N. 2013, Leadership Styles – a key to effectiveness. Web.

Reuters 2012, Emirates NBD plans 15% job cut this week. Web.

Robbins, S. & Judge, T. 2008, Essentials of Organizational Behaviour, Prentice Hall, London.

Satyam, M. 2013, Emirates NBD Bank’s Upgrade Automates Workflows, Streamlines Human Resources Management, and Makes Employee Performance Analysis 80% Faster. Web.

Schuler, R. S. & Jackson, S. E. 2003, HR issues, activities and responsibilities in mergers and acquisitions. Web.

The Gulf News 2012, Emirates NBD plans to cut as many as 700 jobs. Web.

The Oracle 2013, Emirates NBD Leads Human Resources Technology Revolution Across the United Arab Emirates. Web.

Weihrich, H. & Koontz, H 2005, Management a Global Perspective, Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi.

Withers, J. 2013, What Is Autocratic Leadership? Web.

Nonaka’s Knowledge-Creating Company

It is true that Nonaka’s Knowledge-Creating Company encourages entrepreneurialism. Entrepreneurship suggests involving stakeholders in creating new ideas to build a new business mind and innovative ideas. In this case, the company explores facts that help Japanese companies to make profits irrespective of the economic environment.

At the same time, the company incorporates new techniques and ideas which are necessary to manage these changes. This is a core entrepreneurship strategy. Providing information to the stakeholders can be considered a key reason why Nonaka is a true entrepreneur supporting company.

To support an entrepreneurship spirit of the stakeholders, the company has initiated an aspiration of goals forum of its employees, as well as nurturing their commitment by involving its employees in the real development activities. This acts as a motivating platform where all are expected to take up the challenges and develop their areas of operation.

The company management provides the employees with the freedom to implement their innovative ideas within the company irrespective of the prevailing risks. This is a key point where entrepreneurialism is promoted by the company.

To support all creative employees, the company outsources the working environment by connecting the employees with other likeminded corporate players to share ideas. Based on these facts, Nonaka Knowledge-Creating Company can be said to be an entrepreneurship supporting company.

Discuss the success of Herb Kelleher’s South West Airlines

Herb Kelleher’s is one of the core founders of Southwest Airlines which started with four airplanes and later became one of the main airline service providers. With a legal and business background, the company managed to move this business forward irrespective of the economic and legal challenges that it faced at the initial stage.

In addition to this, the founder of the company was able to work and relate well with his workers as he believed that employees should be given the priority. He credits the business growth to his employees who treat customers well, hence, promoting a repetitive business.

Within a short time, his business expanded attracting customers and a good reputation all over the world. With respect to the employees, he has become a mentor to many employers, hence, promoting employees rights and respect all over the world.

Major corporations employ workers based on academic qualification but not on their expertise. Skills are relevant in times of economic challenges. Experienced workers are flexible and innovative. Hence, they help their organizations create new economic channels. At the same time, they help manage and sustain growth in their area of interest within the organization.

Most of the growing institutions rely on already established channels of business which expose them to possible risks. Because the already established channels face various risks, it is possible for them to fail in business when one of them corrupts. SHRM (strategy of human resource) advice corporate institutions to hire workers based on their ability to be innovative and creative all the time.

At the same time, organizations should support career growth, as well as expose their employees to entrepreneurship skills as a way of motivating them to sustain their businesses. In this respect, they will be able to manage and survive hard economic times or create economic openings in the already existing market channels.

Discuss the link between Tom Friedman’s “Flat World”

The two sources explain the labor market, challenges and the best ways of improving the relationship between employer and employees. To employers, employees are very important stakeholders of the businesses and their roles should be appreciated by all. Career development and entrepreneurship are other areas of interaction between the two sides.

The two sides believe that employees should be encouraged to be innovative and promote business growth and sustainability. Flat world concept encourages creativity and innovativeness due to the increasing competition and exposures which accommodate self-employment and other related developments in the current operating institutions.

Creation of new products and the way of doing things have changed the usual way of doing things to accommodate the flat world concept. Holding the fact that flat world ensures interaction from all stakeholders in the world, outsourcing and idea change have created space for innovation and creativity.

Education systems have also been changing to accommodate the flat world development as well as ensuring that globalization is realized. The main reason for the need to adjust the education system is mainly because traditional education does not accommodate new changes.

There is an increasing desire to form a single world platform where all share the same experience as opposed to the old education systems which respected single area feelings. Small businesses and others have changed their mood of candidate’s selection as well as changing their blueprint. Those blueprints that fail to accommodate the flat world feelings are said to be inappropriate to the business.

Negotiation Techniques and Tactics

One of the first things I did was to find common ground with the HR manager by accepting that a drug testing policy was required for the company considering the nature of the industry. A driver is responsible for the safety of passengers; therefore, the company feels like it is a necessary step of insurance. By connecting with the HR manager, I established a level of trust and mutual understanding on which further negotiation could proceed.

Further, I wanted to establish the rights of the employee by indicating to the HR manager that it was inappropriate to keep the driver waiting without any information. This directly established my priorities as the Employee Assistant Program (EAP) consultant to protect and support the employee. However, in response to the HR manager’s indication that a third party should be present when confronting the employee, I explained the nature of EAP. It serves as a supporting tool to aid employees; however, any issues should be directly addressed by the manager first. This forces direct cooperation with the driver, which the manager seemed to avoid.

In further discussion, I directly established my moral ground by specifying that the employee’s record was exemplary. Therefore a second chance is warranted, considering that one possibly false-positive test result does not violate company policy. This shows compassion, but relays my stern position to the opposing party, indicating that negotiation will take place. It creates a bargaining zone between my position and that of the manager, in which a compromise can be established.

The manager insists that if the second result is positive, then the employee will be fired if he fails to enrol in the residential drug rehabilitation program. I showed my emotion of frustration and the unwavering opinion that such steps are unreasonable and unjust to the driver in this situation. I exemplified listening skills to understand the manager’s point of view and understood the importance of his decisions. This established a respectful relationship as the manager considered my position and offered a cheaper outpatient program. I confirmed that the program will cost much less and will allow the driver to stay with his family. This was done to determine all factors of the deal to eliminate any possibilities of manipulation or deceit and clarify possible misconceptions for the employee.

Considering the limitations of the situation due to existing policies, I found that the offered deal was the best compromise in this position. Compromising is essential in negotiation as it finds the best alternative while maintaining a balance of a healthy relationship and future cooperation for all involved parties. In the end, I made sure to confirm with all involved sides that the outpatient program was the common decision in the case of the second blood test coming back positive. This serves as a chance to clear any last negotiation hurdles and becomes a guarantee that the result of the negotiations is not misunderstood. Overall, I believe that my negotiation tactics were fair, balancing my position with that of the HR manager. I used my emotional intelligence balanced with reasoning skills to guide myself during the negotiation.

The Practice of Negotiation and Dispute Resolution: Lessons Learnt

Establishing boundaries and the rights of all the parties is important. In negotiations, this principle helps create a balance of power, without which one side will exercise unfair leverage in the negotiation. For example, in the scenario, the driver was uninformed, pressured, and somewhat harassed by the manager. It is not known what the manager’s intentions were, but the union brought a theory that the company wanted to justify firing this driver so cheap labour could be hired. By clarifying the employee rights as the EAP counsel, I established a balance and a sense of security for the driver. Emotional intelligence is key to navigating successful negotiations.

All sides are passionately invested in their respective opinions, causing tension when there is disagreement or misunderstanding. Being able to read other people’s emotions helps a skilled negotiator to evaluate which approach should be taken to arrive at the compromise. Also, that includes balancing personal emotions to effectively communicate one’s point without negating reason and derailing the discussions.

If there are negotiations, compromise will most often occur, since if there were no possibilities for a common-ground resolution, discussions would not happen. While that may seem redundant, it is true in most situations. Therefore, when negotiating, even at an impasse, it is a concept that should be remembered. By compromising, both sides make gains to achieving their goal, but without it, there would be negative consequences. For example, in this situation, if no compromise occurred, the driver would have been fired his test come back positive since he could not afford the rehabilitation program. That means a loss of employment for the driver while the manager loses a skilled worker and faces a possible boycott from the union, which would bankrupt the firm. However, there is a policy in place that the manager must enforce. By inviting the interested parties to the negotiation table, a possible conflict was avoided.

Reflection on the Behaviour During the Negotiation Process

The scenario allowed me to explore myself in a negotiating role. Some of the strengths that I exhibited were being informed about my position as an EAP consultant, understanding what was required of me. I showed good moral judgment and control of my emotions. My communication was satisfactory, as I asked direct questions and engaged in active listening, a fundamental aspect of any negotiation. However, there were weak elements, as I failed to communicate effectively with the driver in the scene beyond a few phrases. Never at any point did I seek an explanation from him on his point of view or feelings, a responsibility of a consultant. I was primarily somewhat passive.

Afterwards, I feel like I readily accepted the outpatient program compromise without negotiating. My involvement was minimal, while I could have utilised better tactics, such as put pressure on the manager along with the union worker. I could evaluate the emotional state of the participants. Still, I never intervened on aspects of the scenario where the manager was accusing the driver of potentially lying, or there was heated tension with the union representative.

While in this scenario, the compromise was acceptable, such passiveness can result in unfavourable outcomes in future negotiations. In the simulation, everyone involved got into his or her role. I was surprised how much debate occurred between the HR manager and the union representative. It became very technical and detailed. The driver’s reaction was also passive, as he left others to voice his position even though his employment was on the line. However, the negotiation discussion took a very predictable route with each side enforcing their perspective to the point where an effective compromise was achieved.

Telecommuting

Telecommuting or remote work station or working from home is growing in acceptance in the last several years in the United States. Commuting shares half of our working life (Johnson para1). There are many issues like energy conservation, environmental impact, refocusing on family values, and other issues that have changed the total working life style (Johnson para1). Some benefits that the companies attribute to the telecommuting are as under (Johnson para1):

Energy Conservation

With the extensive use of telecommuting, there will be less use of vehicles like automobiles, buses, trains, and aircraft as a result, less energy will be required to produce, maintain or repair this equipment. This will also decrease the need for expanding and maintaining highways and creating new office spaces.

Environmental impact

Our environment will be preserved with a less number of automobiles on the roads. More land will be available in the green zone as there will be less need for highways and offices, giving us a clean and fresh environment.

Family Values

Working from home will offer people to bond with their family more strongly as they will have more time in their hands as a result, we will get a stronger society.

But the most important benefit of telecommuting will be.

Improvement in productivity

In the traditional method, much time gets wasted in unproductive activities by people who commute from work. With extra time in hand, people will be less stressed and will be more focused on the assignment.

Purpose of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977

The Foreign Corrupt Practices act came into existence in 1977 and was revised in 1988. Its purpose was to make illegal the bribery of foreign government officers by US persons and put into practice the accounting and record-keeping. It focuses upon the fact of bribes to get hold of a business. Gatti et al. (Para 1) mention that it does not include easy payments or grease payments from the FCPA. Grease payments are done to speed up the acts of the government (Gatti et al., Para 1). Gatti et al. (Para 1) state that these acts of the government are getting permits or licenses, processing official papers, loading and unloading cargo, clearing goods through Customs, and giving police security (Gatti et al., Para 1).

There are many events where Foreign Corrupt Act has been violated. Seitzinger (p 3, Para 15) that Mercator Corporation was guilty of the charges of making an illegal payment to a senior government officer in Kazakhistan. It happened on 6 August 2010 when the corporation accepted its fault. It was stated, that the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are checking if Merck Corporation has violated the act in many foreign countries (Seitzinger, p 3, Para 15).

Steps of Job Analysis

The six steps in doing job analysis are as under:-

• Step 1 – Firstly, the company has to decide how they will use the data information, as this will determine the kind and means of collecting data. (Anonymous, Steps in Job analysis, 201, Para 1). Some methods of collection are like interviewing the employee and asking job demand, position analysis questionnaire, etc (Anonymous, Steps in Job analysis, 2010 Para 2).
• Step 2 – The information related to the job description, organization charts, and other processes should be analyzed (Anonymous, Steps in Job analysis, 2010, Para3). How the job in question relates to the other jobs, it should be properly reviewed (Anonymous, Steps in Job analysis, 2010, Para 3).
• Step 3 – To select the candidate for a representative position, there could be many analogous jobs to assess (Anonymous, Steps in Job analysis, 2010, Para4).
• Step 4 – The job should be analyzed. The data related to job activities, employee working conditions, and employee’s skills and behaviors should be properly scrutinized (Anonymous, Steps in Job analysis, 2010, Para 5).
• Step 5 – To test the reliability of information about the job from the current employees and the supervisor (Anonymous, Steps in Job analysis,2010, Para 6).
• Step 6 – Develop the two tangible products of job analysis i.e. description and specification. (Anonymous, Steps in Job analysis, 2010, Para 7). The job specification carries information like personal qualities and background regarding the job (Anonymous, Steps in Job analysis, 2010, Para 7).

Skills inventory

The companies use such inventories to evaluate the skills of their employees, which are required for their companies (Anonymous, How can a skills inventory be used for strategic HR planning? 2010, Para 2). Accordingly, the companies can do tactical planning which is favorable for their organization (Anonymous, How can a skills inventory be used for strategic HR planning? 2010, Para 2)

These inventories are helpful to take decisions related to manpower hiring: whom to hire and why to hire. They help in understanding the need of the companies related to manpower (Anonymous, How can a skills inventory be used for strategic HR planning? 2010, Para 3)

These inventories are very helpful in making succession plans based on present employees’ skills (Anonymous, How can a skills inventory be used for strategic HR planning? 2010, Para 5).

The process of putting the right men on the right job is called the selection process. Successful selection is possible only when there is successful matching. For selecting a good candidate for the job, the organization will be praised for its qualitative performance. This process will be better for saving time and money. The selection process will scrutinize all the prospective candidates (Anonymous, Employee Selection Process,1998, Para1).

Selection and recruitment both are completely different employment procedures. Recruitment triggers off more candidates for applying for the job, but the selection procedure can reject the candidates also. The best candidate who has all the skills set for the required position is selected through the selection process (Anonymous, Employee Selection Process, 1998, Para 2).

Steps for Selection Process

• Step 1 – Preliminary Interviews – It eliminates those who do not even meet the minimum eligibility criteria of the organization. Then the screening interviews are conducted which analyze the candidates’ education and family background. They also test their skills and education. The candidates are also told about the company and the job profile (Anonymous, Employee Selection Process, 1998, Para 3).
• Step 2 – Application Forms – Successful candidates from the screening process are required to fill in the application forms. It has details about age, qualification, the reason for leaving a previous job, etc. (Anonymous, Employee Selection Process,1998, Para 4).
• Step 3 – Written Tests – The third step of the selection is to conduct some tests like aptitude and reasoning (Anonymous, Employee Selection Process,1998, Para 5). These tests objectively assess the potential candidate (Anonymous, Employee Selection Process, 1998, Para 5).
• Step 4 – Employment interviews – This is done face to face between the employer and the potential candidate. This is a time consuming and expensive step. Many times they are biased as the real potential of the candidate cannot be judged by interviewing in the room (Anonymous, Employee Selection Process, 1998, Para 6).
• Step 5 – Medical Examination –It is required to avoid absenteeism and to check the physical fitness of the potential employee (Anonymous, Employee Selection Process, Para 7).
• Step 6 – Appointment Letter – the selected candidate gets a formal appointment letter after the company is satisfied with all his details (Anonymous, Employee Selection Process, 1998, Para 8).

Weighted Application Blank

Weighted Application Blank: it is an application form that is created to get scores more methodically. It is similar to the biographical information blank (Ivancevich, p.223-224). Ivancevich (p.223-224) states that for creating the scoring system of a weighted application blank, presently working high and low performers are assessed. They are evaluated based on education, work experience, etc., which have been in the records when they first applied for the job.

Each quality is given different weights according to its difference in nature. For example, a Zero means ‘no difference’ + 1 means a small difference, and + 2 means a large difference (Ivancevich, p.223-224). Then the totaling of the weight is done for each applicant, and the one applicant who gets the highest total is preferred to the other applicants. The applicants who are evaluated as less qualified according to weighted application blank, then enter into the next application process (Ivancevich, p.223-224).

360 feedback surveys

In this system, People fill out an unmarked, anonymous feedback form that has questions related to workplace competencies. The questionnaire is based on the rating scale system where the rates have to give written comments (What is 360 Degree Feedback? Para 1). A self-rating survey is also filled by the person receiving feedback (Anonymous, What is 360 Degree Feedback? n.d. Para 1).

360 feedback surveys have a very clear calculative format. The companies can easily make a development plan on its basis (Anonymous, What is 360 Degree Feedback? n.d. Para 2). The feedback from individuals and others is clubbed together to have an unbiased result giving an insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the employee (Anonymous, What is 360 Degree Feedback? Para 2).

Unlike every other system 360 Feedback system is also not an ultimate tool. It is not a way to measure employee performance objectives. It is not focused on basic, technical, or work-specific skills. It cannot be treated as a way to determine that the employee is meeting the basic job requirements (Anonymous, What is 360 Degree Feedback? n.d.Para 6-8).

MBO

MBO is very helpful in specifying the goals and objectives of any organization. It marks an individual’s objectives, completion time, etc. It tracks and sends feedback on the ongoing process to reach objectives (Anonymous, Management by Objectives n.d. Para 1).

MBO helps in decentralizing the various tasks among the employees that help in achieving the objective of the organization (Anonymous, Management by Objectives, Para1).

As compared to the traditional performance evaluation method this system makes people work in a team, clearly focused, aiming for the organizational objective. Each individual is treated as a strong pillar for achieving a common goal. Everyone is dependent on each other for the outcome of the result. This system helps in measuring the performance of the key managers, especially in areas like marketing, HR, finance, Research and Development, Social responsibility, etc

This system is effective only where the staff is competent, has self-leadership skills, takes initiatives, has entrepreneurial creativity, and tacit knowledge.

A merit-based compensation

Merit-based compensation is based on the work performance of the individual employee. It motivates the employee to better perform and help the organization in achieving its objectives. As the employees are motivated the chances of redundancies are very less. It also helps in attracting competent staff. Compensation in variable component absorbs downturns in business and reduced labor costs. Employees also get a feeling of ownership (Silva, page 1-14).

There are some disadvantages, also, to this system. The criteria to measure performance are inadequate. There is an absence of the right mix of monetary and nonmonetary rewards. There is no cyclic assessment of the scheme. Factors outside the control of employees (recession, exchange rate, management decisions, etc.) that affect the performance are not recognized by this system. The employees may feel de-motivated upon receiving less pay for an unsuccessful project. It also requires extra payment for the skilled person. It is also possible without proper administration of the system unusable skills may be acquired (Silva page 1 -14)

The success or failure of this system varies from country to country as it is affected by various circumstances not common to all the regions. This could be an effect of one or all factors, like traditions, culture, the attitude of unions, climate, etc. Therefore for a successful system, it has to be modified accordingly.

Mandated benefits

Organizations use such benefits to pull the new employees towards them and to satisfy the present employees in their recent job position (Anonymous, Government-mandated benefits Para1). Mandated benefits are the benefits that an employer is forced to provide its employee as stipulated by the law. The US government has applied mandated benefits which the employers give to their employees. Some of the mandated benefits are as under (Anonymous, Government-mandated benefits, 2010, Para1).

Unemployment compensation –The employees, who lose jobs without any reason, can have up to 26 weeks of pay, at the rate of 50% to 80% of normal pay (Anonymous, Government-mandated benefits, Para3). Both employer and employees are required to pay unemployment compensation taxes, this takes care of the claims in the event of retrenchment. Employees retrenched due to willful misconduct, etc. are not covered by this benefit (Anonymous, Government-mandated benefits,2010, Para3).

Worker’s Compensation –This kind of compensation consists of injuries and illness for which the employee is insured (Anonymous, Government-mandated benefits, Para2). The employee gets cash benefits or any medical care etc. (Anonymous, Government-mandated benefits, 2010, Para2).

Social Security – In this system, the employee gets either a fixed income after retirement or if, for any reason, he becomes handicapped. (Anonymous, Government-mandated benefits, Para4). As per the law, the employee pays a certain percentage of his salary to the social benefits fund, which is equally paid by the employer (Anonymous, Government-mandated benefits,2010, Para4).

COBRA – This is required by organizations with 20 or more employees to have health coverage even to the discharged employees. It covers the medical of employees up till 18 months or 36 months for the dependants (Anonymous, Government-mandated benefits, Para5). Employees terminated due to misconduct, employees of Churches, and federal government are not covered under this benefit (Anonymous, Government-mandated benefits, 2010, Para5).

For the success of an organization, it is essential to have efficient employees. And to meet this requirement the organizations must train their employees before as well as after joining the organization. Training makes them more efficient and enhances the speed of their work. Moreover, it enhances the productivity of the employees resulting in the optimum utilization of human resources.

In this regard, we can take an example of the two major fast-food companies: Domino’s Pizza and Dunkin’s Donuts. Both companies face the same challenge as far as the training of their employees is concerned. Both train in an industry where turnover averages 300to 400%and where the company locations are widely dispersed.

The following points are to be kept under consideration by the organizations while training their employees:

• Training should be started at the age of 18-21 when a person can meet rigorous performance standards.
• Training should be decentralized to meet the demands of the particular workplaces.
• Training should be given by the corporate training staff having at least 8-10 years of experience.
• Training aids like videotapes and posters with job hints should be provided in all the training centers.
• Managers should be trained through certain levels with higher performance requirements and more responsibilities. They should also be trained in people management, cost management, and how to conduct job training to the junior staff.

Yes, I have also participated in organizational training. It was very beneficial as it made me more skilled and progressive. It inculcated the team-spirit within me and inspired me to learn with zeal within the employees. The training helped me in developing leadership qualities, loyalty, and a better attitude, which is very essential for successful working. So, in my opinion, training should be an integral part of the working of an organization.

Reference List

Anonymous. (1998). Employee Selection Process. Web. Management Study Guide. Web.

Anonymous. (2010). Government Mandated Benefits. Employment Law Information Network. Web.

Anonymous. (2010). How can a skills inventory be used for strategic HR planning? SHRM India. Web.

Anonymous. (n.d.) Management by Objectives. Ecoach. Web.

Anonymous. (2010). Steps in Job Analysis. Web.

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Individual differences are a great source of diversity, which is an important component of innovation and creativity in organisations. Therefore, instead of managers limiting it, they should study its influence on organisational behaviour at both interpersonal and group levels. One of the tools used in understanding diversity is psychometric testing. In modern organisations, psychometric testing has become a very powerful and effective tool for human resource management. Examples of common tests used by organisations include personality, numerical reasoning, verbal reasoning, abstract reasoning, accuracy, and knowledge tests. Psychometric tests are useful in the management of human resources to the extent that they are used for hiring and recruitment, job analysis, job satisfaction assessment, performance appraisal, team building, training and development, and turnover analysis.

Psychometric tests are useful only if human resource managers know the needs of their companies. Every organisation should have well-established measures of job performance that can be used to evaluate whether a potential candidate has the qualities necessary for a particular job (Bratton & Gold 2012). It is impractical to use a psychometric test to predict an individual’s job performance if the organisation lacks quantitative measures of assessing employee performance. Hiring is one of the areas that psychometric tests are applied. Personality tests are common during hiring and recruitment. Research has shown that this type of testing is not very common as only 18 percent of companies use them in the hiring process to determine an individual’s suitability for a certain job (Syed & Kramar 2017). It is more beneficial to focus on dependent variables rather than independent variables (Bratton & Gold 2012). If cognitive and personality tests are used appropriately, they could give a clear picture of an employee’s potential, and help the organisation avoid hiring unqualified individuals. However, the tests could be unhelpful to the organisation if they are wrongly administered or if they fail to abide by the law.

There are limits to which psychometric testing can be applied in certain human resource management functions. For example, precepts of the Americans with Disabilities Act discourage the extensive application of psychometric testing because it can be used to discriminate against individuals with disabilities and mental illnesses (Carbery & Cross 2013). Psychometric tests can reveal certain aspects of an individual’s health or mental condition, and as such, be used to rule them out for certain jobs based on their mental status. The National Football League has limited the use of psychometric testing to basic evaluation after claims of racial discrimination were presented (Syed & Kramar 2017). Tests that are designed for the diagnosis of susceptibility to conditions such as depression, personality disorders, and other mental illnesses are discriminatory and illegal unless the jobs involve special safety considerations.

Psychometric tests are useful in organisations to the extent that they provide information that can be used to enhance employee motivation, performance, diversity, and overall employee wellbeing. For example, the measurement of emotional resilience, stress tolerance, problem-solving capabilities, and leadership skills is useful in human resource management (Carbery & Cross 2013). However, using psychometric tests to evaluate the mental status of employees is unhelpful because it is illegal and could lead to discrimination in the workplace. Organisations should use psychometric tests sparingly because they can compromise the ability to create a diverse workforce and a healthy organisational culture (Spry 2015). The homogenization of recruitment using psychometric testing could lead to the creation of a generic organisation that lacks the diversity needed for success in today’s world that is highly globalised and competitive (Saville 2016). In that regard, companies should avoid using psychometric testing to weed out employees because they could fire highly innovative and creative individuals.

Psychometric tests are unhelpful if they are used to predict employee behaviour. For instance, some companies administer tests that are designed to identify employees who are likely to engage in unethical behaviour within the workplace. Allegedly, the tests determine whether an employees is honest, trustworthy, and conscientious. One of the challenges of psychometric testing is the propensity to over-interpret results (Cripps 2017). In that case, the tests become a source of problems to human resource management. Interpretation might be based on a lack of proper knowledge with regard to what a specific test is supposed to assess. It is thus necessary for companies to utilise the expertise of test providers to administer and analyse results (Sanghi 2014). Many companies do not benefit from psychometric tests because they rely on test results only to make critical human resource decisions (Cripps 2017). For instance, a human resource manager might fire an employee because their verbal or abstract reasoning skills are below average as indicated by the results of a simple test. Psychometric tests must be used in conjunction with other employee assessment methods for them to beneficial to human resource management (Sanghi 2014). Overreliance on test results is harmful because an employee’s results can be inaccurate due to the effect of anxiety and fatigue (Bach & Edwards 2012. Moreover, an employee can prepare for the test and manipulate the answers to fit a certain evaluation standard, thus giving false results.

In conclusion, it can be stated that psychometric tests are useful to the management of human resources to the extent that they are used to improve employee motivation, conduct job analysis, evaluate job turnover, hire qualified employees, and assess job satisfaction. The need for diversity in companies is one of the reasons why human resource managers should use psychometric tests cautiously. Diversity is the main source of innovation in an organisation. The evaluation of individual differences on based on aspects such as emotional intelligence, stress tolerance, personality, reasoning, and leadership should guide the administration of tests. It is imperative for managers to seek the assistance of professionals in order t ensure that tests are in compliance with the law and the results are analysed in the proper manner. Psychometric test are not helpful if they are used to evaluate employee’s mental health or predict employee behaviour.

References

Bach, S & Edwards, M 2012, Managing human resources: human resource management transition, John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Bratton, J & Gold, J 2012, Human resource management: theory and practice, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Carbery, R & Cross, C 2013, Human resource management: a concise introduction, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

Cripps, B 2017, Psychometric testing: critical perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, New York.

Sanghi, S 2014, Human resource management, Vikas Publishing House, Delhi.

Saville, P 2016, From obscurity to clarity in psychometric testing: selected works of professor Peter Saville, Psychology Press, New York.

Spry, D 2015, Psychometric testing pocketbook, Management Pocketbooks, New York.

Syed, J & Kramar, R 2017, Human resource management: a Global and critical perspective, Springer, New York.

One of the clear-cut examples of a company that takes stakes at using other HRM strategies than the modern outsourcing, Baiada Poultry Pty Ltd. is a successful private company that provides the entire continent of Australia with poultry (Baiada, 2012). Thus, the company creates a case for considerable competition in the Australian poultry market and, nevertheless, manages to stay afloat. To address the current HRM policy of the company correctly, a detailed exploration of the current policy, i.e., the internal human resource policy (Beaumont 1993, p. 19), must be conducted.

It is worth mentioning that the market size is rather large, since the company production embraces the entire continent, and, therefore, the stakes are quite high. Speaking of the market itself, one must mention that it presupposes considerable competitiveness since several major companies supply poultry all over Australia, some of them belonging to the sphere of farming, which means that their sources are located near the company. Therefore, several companies have considerable advantages compared to Baiada Poultry Pty Ltd. (IBISWorld 2010).

Also, it is important to add that the target market, i.e., the Australian poultry market, according to what Scoresby and Smith (2011), has always been extremely poor, starting from the earliest stages of the country development up till now:

Poultry, indeed, was not to be had in sufficient quantity in the Melbourne market; Captain Boyce had obtained several dozen fowls from Sydney at a high price. Poultry is dear, and market poultry generally poor, because the rearing of fowls is but moderately remunerating. (p. 235)

Thus, in the light of the above-mentioned, the efficiency of the chosen HRM strategy must be verified for the company to beta the rivals and stay the leading one in the sphere of poultry trade.

Industry and Market

It is essential to mention that the current HRM strategy that the company resorts to is quite a wise decision, since hiring the staff from within the company y will allow preventing information leakage and, thus will help the company to keep its marketing and management decisions secret. Therefore, it is important that Baiada Poultry Pty Ltd. Could continue hiring the staff from its human recourses and develop the specific bonding within the company.

However, it is also essential to admit that the given marketing decision also has its disadvantages, since, rejecting the outsourcing practice, the company might also face the threat of regress. Without the new ideas that the external sources could bring to the enterprise, the latter is highly likely to cease to develop.

Still, according to what Marchington (2005) claims, the chosen way of development can also prove considerably advantageous. As the latter claims, internal human resources will allow the company to “achieve a distinctive comparative advantage” (p. 74), since the given strategy “emphasizes the importance of congruence between human resource policies and organizational objectives rather than, for example, with more general professional or occupational orientations that spread across organizational boundaries” (p. 74).

Therefore, the choice of the strategy will help the company to gain more weight in the Australian market, yet will demand more careful research on the current market trends. Once continuing the chosen strategy of the HRM practice, Baiada is bound to win the chase for the most influential Australian poultry company.

Reference List

Baiada 2012, History. Web.

Beaumont, P B 1993, Human resource management: key concepts and skills, Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.

IBISWorld 2010, Poultry meat farming in Australia – industry market research report, Reportlinker. Web.

Marchington, M 2005, Fragmenting work: blurring organizational boundaries and disordering hierarchies, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.

Scoresby, W & Smith, 2011, Journal of a voyage to Australia, and round the world for magnetical research, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.