CASE STUDY

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Human Resources Management Case Study

Perhaps the biggest problem that would come with expansion is that there will not be enough labor and skills available to produce good quality products. Also, making the rules strict for the employees is not a good move as it decreases the level of good human relationships and can cause a lot of disloyalty as well as dissatisfaction amongst the employees which can result in poor performance. In the past five years, many companies around the world have shifted their organizational model from the traditional to various other ones to enhance their firms and to make them into a better place to work at. Today, more and more companies are realizing that a traditional way of running a business is not so effective in the changing workforce that exists today. There are many different ways that such companies are changing their workforce and their organizations in order to incorporate the new ideas of human resource managements.

Viewlite also has to come up with new organizational models. Perhaps the most significant change that it can make to its workforce is to implement a transformed organizational model instead of the traditional one. This basically consists of completely changing the way that the firm works. Some of the changes that companies make are such like in the areas of the department of human resources. By implementing change in the assembly line and financial management to their departments, companies have been able to affect their sales as well as their rapport with their customers as well as employees. By implementing change and financial management tools, companies like Oticon Internationals, a Danish company that manufactures hearing aid, have been able to increase and boost their sales. By such strategies, Viewlite will be able to decrease their time-to-market by a long shot and are also able to open up new markets for their upcoming and modern products. Change and Financial management basically deals with eliminating many of the functional departments that a company might have and by removing job tides and other physical barriers, like office walls. This kind of change helps the employees to grow and to think of their companies as their own. This is a very effective tool in the HR Department as it keeps the employees at bay and also helps them to help the company grow further. The employees are happier and thus their work is more productive and more efficient. Also, financial management deals with completely revising the working ethics in a more modern organizational model as compared to the traditional one. The financial statements of the companies are available on record and the employees that are working in the financial departments have their own specific agendas and work ethos.

            Viewlite should not make the rules for the employees as strict as they have done. At Viewlite, the employees feel that they are not a part of the company. By giving the employees more participation rights in the affairs of the company and by giving all the employees a different set of powers, thereby eliminating the number of ‘bosses’ in the company, makes the employees feel more accepted in the workforce. This also gives the employees a reassurance of security in the job and also motivates the employees into working better since they feel that it is their own company. Many companies today are encouraging their own employees to buy their shares and stocks so as to make the whole company one unit and as one entity. This gives the employees the confidence of saying that they work in their ‘own’ company and this kind of an attitude is a very healthy one for the employees to maintain as they work harder and without too much constraints and complaints. The HR department of Viewlite should consider this so as to get more productivity out of the employees.

            Another area where Viewlite needs to change its policies is with the teams and the job designs that are being handed out to employees at the company. The work that used to be handled inside the offices is being divided differently now. In the newer models of organization, ones that are other than the traditional ones, workers were assigned work by the upper management on the basis of who the management thought was best for the job. A new approach is to organize the work and the workload by setting up project teams consisting of workers who join these teams because they think they are compatible to their competencies and interests. Companies that follow such models usually also change the levels in the company’s organization, and mostly keep only three levels: project sponsors (the former management team); project leaders; and project coworkers. All the employees in the company are expected to work on many different projects at the same time, where at least one of the projects is one in which they are competent in and one in which they think they would be able to produce more efficiently because of their competencies or interests. This kind of an organizational structure, a flat, project-focused teaming structure that created a knowledge-based, networked organization, has been dubbed the “spaghetti” organizational structure. Many people might argue that this “spaghetti” structure is a weak one since it is flat, fluid and thus haphazard since so little hierarchy, and no central or top-down control, will not cause the firm to have a focus and to move more cohesively in the right direction. But as we see, this has been implemented by many companies and many of them are known to have very secures support systems based on shared values and goals that keep the company and its employees motivated and on their way to success.

Another new way that Viewlite can improve employee performance is by using more effective and efficient performance management programs. Viewlite has failed to correctly gauge and ascertain the behavior of their employees and this has been affecting the total productivity and efficiency of the company. Not only that, Viewlite has also failed to take in account the affect that the employees and their behavior might be having on the representation of the company on books, that is, in the stock market, auditors’ books etc. This has to be changed as Viewlite needs to be more conscious of their image in the market and would need to constantly reevaluating its ranks in the competitive market. This would lead them to evaluate their employees by measuring their practices. This has come about as a very significant change as now many companies require peer evaluations as well as evaluations of the employees by their superiors as mandatory. These measurements of practices then help Viewlite to find out which of the employee is working at what quality level and thus aids them into deciding raises and bonuses. This also keeps the employees in check as they work harder and better to project themselves better. This also increases the level of motivation in the employees and helps keep the company operating at a healthy rate.

            As it has been previously mentioned in the last paragraph, companies today are coming up with various new ways in evaluating the performances of their employees. In the past, the employees were motivated to work by giving them motivational pushes like salary raise, vacation packages, health and dental plans, bonuses etc. Although these are still the push factors in motivating the employees to work harder and more efficiently, the methods of employee selection for these rewards have been altered. Now the competitive work force has become even more competitive because companies today are driving their employees further by creating more competition amongst them. Employees who work harder are rewarded more. And now, it is not just the matter of working hard, i.e. quantitatively.  Quality also matters and employees are being encouraged to give a better service to their customers by adapting new behavioral changes. These include more personal content to the dealings, giving more time to the consumers and also keeping up to date with the movements and preferences of regular clientele. This helps the company grow because the clients feel more at home with the people who work there and the employees work harder and better because they have more incentive to do so. All in all, this is also different from the traditional training that employees used to get and this is also becoming a normal part of the activities of the HR department and Viewlite should incorporate all this into its Human Resource Management Strategy.

I think that since Viewlite now needs more skilled employees, it should use different staffing methods. Staffing is probably the biggest and the largest of the worries of Vewilite. Without a proper staff, a company cannot hope to run any better than a mule in a horse race. Getting the right kind of people into the company is the biggest issue that the Human Resource department of any company has to face. The HR department of Viewlite should carefully realize what are the jobs available and what kind of people would fit in best so that they are able to do their job properly and efficiently. Once the needs and requirements set by Viewlite have been decided, the workers should then be inducted on a skill based criteria. Viewlite can either recruit the people as organizational-based teams, or outsource the work to a separate firm for that particular job.

            The most modern HR Departments in many companies are not just involved with the internal affairs of the businesses that involve selection and recruiting. Many companies’ HR and marketing departments are working side by side to help the country grow. The heads of these departments are usually meeting and considering the new ways that the company and its image should be marketed not just in order to attract more clientele but also to attract the best workers. Finding good workers is becoming a very hard task these days because of the continuously changing working environment and the huge amount of competition in the workforce. Research has shown that the moral and the attitude of the workforce of companies is a very big contributing factor to the company’s overall image in the trading market. The marketing and the HR department at Viewlite should work together to not only change the way the company works and operates on the inside rather they also work in collaboration to determine how the company is going to affect the local communities. Viewlite should become more consumer oriented, and focus more on the consumers. Viewlite should advertise heavily not only to attract customers but also attract better employees. Both these are vital for the company’s success and growth. Most companies today are advertising on the bases of making the life of people better, and they show their nicely setup offices and working environment in their ads. Better employees would be attracted to Viewlite if they have a good marketing strategy and a more competitive workforce is established. This would cause Viewlite to work better and add to its efficiency and productivity.