Assignment Sample on 4BS1124 People and Organisation
Introduction
The asset that is used by an organization to meet its organizational goals which includes knowledge and skills that a person possess is known as Human capital. There are a variety of human capital like people management, employees, communication skills and on-job training. On other hand, Cultural diversity in an organization means employees from different ages, religious, caste, genders and economic status working in a single workplace. There are a lot of issues that can be in employment due to human capital as well as cultural diversity. The study focuses on human capital and cultural barriers faced in employment by both Tesco and Royal Dutch Shell with proper recommendations.
Importance of human capital and cultural diversity in workplace
Importance of human capital in workplace
Human capital plays a very important role in forming the structure and base of a workplace where employees can be considered as a most crucial resource in any organization (Nazarova et al. 2020). They are one who can make or break an organization’s working pattern. Therefore, it is very essential for any organization to hire correct human capital so that they could be able to sustain in the long-run. They are ones who are highly responsible for the growth as well development of any organization. The organisation’s performance and productivity is solely dependent on the collective attitudes, skills and abilities of their employees. The amount that is spent on training, growth, development and support of an employee is considered to be a long-term investment rather than expenditure. In last few decades, necessity of human capital in an organization has incredibly increased. Any organization would not be able to function properly if there is lack of human capital as a company’s product, services and management of their operation is purely managed by their employees (Mikhailov and Miasnikov 2020). Therefore, employees are considered to be an irreplaceable asset of an organization.
Importance of cultural diversity in workplace
Cultural diversity can be defined as willingness or openness where an organization hires employees from various backgrounds irrespective of their race, religion or culture. It has been observed that many companies are taking initiatives to succeed in cultural diversity in a workplace in this era of technology and globalisation. Creativity and a better arena of innovation is ensured by cultural diversity. Cultural diversity is very crucial when a company wants to bring some change in their working culture pattern. There are different types of cultural diversity in a workplace which includes gender, religion, generation, ethnicity, race, disability and sexual orientation. Cultural diversity helps in increasing productivity as it makes sure that all employees are working as a team. It also helps in reducing employee turnover as it helps in enhancing employee loyalty towards their organization (Raewf and Mahmood 2021). Different perspectives also get encouraged through cultural diversity and employee engagement also enhanced with it. It also helps in promoting adaptability as employees from diverse cultures are more flexible and adaptable.
Human capital and cultural barriers faced in employment
Human capital barriers in employment
Defining competencies
One of major barriers of human capital in an organization is defining competencies. Proper foundation to human resource practices that are related to recruitment, talent performance evaluation and development curriculums are provided with proper clarity when competencies are defined effectively (Chase-Lansdale et al. 2019). Sometimes this model can be too vague for an organization. Royal Dutch Shell has faced issues in properly defining its competencies.
Creating a High-Performance culture
Creating a high-performance culture can be a bit challenging for a company. Sometimes the performance of employees falls short even if the strategy is properly set and proper vision is communicated. Tesco has faced some issues in creating a high-performance culture for their organization. Due to this, Tesco employees decreased to about 36 thousand employees in 2021 (statista.com, 2021). Employees need to take responsibility for all decisions that can help in facilitating a creating a culture of performance and take lessons from their mistakes.
Developing Leadership and talent
The more complexity has been in the marketplace as the business is growing all around the globe. Diverse employees are required who can cope up with changing market scenarios and who can be responsible for positioning their organization for future. It is very difficult to develop leadership and talent in an organization as it requires a great strategy (Huggins et al. 2017). Royal Dutch Shell has been facing problems in developing such a strategy of leadership and talent which can contribute to the development of the overall structure of their organization through a proper commitment.
Cultural Barriers in employment
Communication Issue
The communication between the team members in a diverse workforce can be a great challenge that can be faced by an organization. Employees in a diverse workforce cannot be able to communicate effectively and they face difficulty in understanding each other. Therefore, the productivity and team synergy could drop significantly which can be the result of failure in providing comprehend instructions. The employees in Royal Dutch Shell have faced this problem of communication as company operates throughout globe. Communicating in a single language with these kinds of employees can be a great task.
Too many opinions
Another major problem of cultural diversity is that an organization receives too many opinions at a single time which can create a huge confusion (Jury et al. 2017). The employees from different cultures have their different ways of approaching the same situation as they come from different backgrounds. Too many opinions created a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication in companies like Tesco. Therefore, a variety of different ideas could be accustomed at same time which is sometimes not beneficial for an organization. It would be difficult for an organization to come to a conclusion after getting so many ideas. The plethora of other ideas may lead to unnoticed innovative solutions to a problem. The productivity of Tesco has reduced due to gathering of too many opinions which compromised the organisation’s potential to stick to strict deadlines.
Hostility
Hostility is also one of the biggest problems that has arisen due to cultural diversity. Decisions and judgement of employees nowadays totally depend upon their unconscious biases. Employees often put their best intentions aside and become fully dependent upon their unconscious biases (Vornholt et al. 2018). The ability of employees to do a job successfully is judged by their colleagues which can create distrust among them. Employees of Royal Dutch Shell have faced this problem as their own employees start judging each other’s capability due to the cultural diversity in their organization.
Issues faced by Tesco and Royal Dutch Shell
Human Capital issues faced by Tesco and Royal Dutch Shell
Creating High-performance culture
As stated above, Tesco has faced a lot of problems in creating a high-performance culture. The employees of Tesco have been compromising values and violating requirements of compliance in order to achieve their organizational goals. Tesco employee turnover rate has declined 8.92% in 2020 with a total number of employees 423,092 employees (macrotrends.net, 2021). Along with that, Tesco’s employees are not taking responsibility for their decision which is eventually creating problems in creating a high-performance culture.
Retaining High performing employees
Tesco is facing a lot of hindrances in retaining high performing employees. Tesco is facing these problems because employees of company are getting bored of their job within a short span of time (Minbaeva, 2018). Most of the top high performers of Tesco do not adhere to the terms and policies of organization which are creating a lot of problems.
Developing Leadership and Talent
As stated above, Royal Dutch Shell is facing problems in developing leadership as well as talent. Due to reduction of 9000 jobs, Shell is unable to build a proper strategy because there is a lack of communication due to cultural diversity (theguardian.com, 2021). Therefore, there is no exchange of thoughts, ideas and opinions which could contribute to overall growth of their organization.
Poor Implementation of HR practices in Management
Another vital human capital problem faced by Royal Dutch Shell is poor implementation of HR practices in management. Due to improper planning and poor project management, Shell is facing such problems (Yakovenko et al. 2020). The staff training programs of company are also not very appropriate which could lead to decline of organization’s overall growth.
Cultural Diversity issues faced by Tesco and Royal Dutch Shell
Too many opinions
As stated above, Tesco has faced a lot of challenges due to cultural diversity as they company started receiving a lot of opinions due to which they could not be able to boil down into one conclusion. It has been seen that total revenue of Tesco declined up to 1.84% in 2020 in comparison to 2019 revenues (macrotrends.net, 2021). The employees of Tesco who are extremely valuable keep on driving innovation ideas in order to recognize the potential issue so that they could bring correct and relevant solutions for it. But due to too many ideas, the potential ideas are always missed by Tesco.
Diversity implementations challenges
Another major challenge faced by Tesco is proper implementation of cultural diversity. Managers and senior-decision makers of Tesco are responsible for enforcing diversity in their organization (Sweeney et al. 2019). The diversity plan of Tesco has not received much attention as managers of the company do have sufficient time to manage such huge as well as time-consuming operations. As a result, employees of Tesco feel frustrated as the transition to a future which is more diverse in nature is not done in an effective manner.
Retain Bad Talent
Royal Dutch Shell has faced problems in cultural diversity as they retail bad talent which led to loss in overall revenue of the company. In 2020, the overall revenue of Shell declined up to 47.97% as compared to 2019 (macrotrends.net, 2021). Royal Dutch Shell’s main focus was to diversify their workforce therefore they keep a hold onto their diverse workforce. Eventually, the company has to face reduction in productivity, motivation and innovation due to poor performance by their employees. Therefore, diversity can bring positive as well as negative changes in an organization.
Communication problems
Royal Dutch Shell has diversity plans so that they could tackle gender as well as age gaps in their organization (Mousa and Puhakka 2019). However, the company failed to make a proper plan to tackle the language barrier which led to a lot of waste of time and misunderstanding was also created.
Attempts made to break down human capital and cultural barriers by Tesco and Royal Dutch Shell
In order to create a high-performance culture, Tesco must be focusing on change, cut out pressure factor, provide employee satisfaction and eliminate distractions like social media, emails and smartphones that can create roadblocks for their organization (Michaelis and Markham 2017). Tesco can be able to retain high performers in their organizations if they try to understand their employees both on personal as well as professional level. Tesco should challenge potentiality of high performers so that they do not get bored of their jobs so easily.
In order to remove problems of developing leadership and talent, Royal Dutch Shell should empower their leaders to make decisions. Royal Dutch Shell should also offer development through coaching to their leaders so that they could come up with great strategies in future (Jogaratnam, 2017). Royal Dutch Shell should properly align their business strategies with internal factors like training cost as well as development cost and with external factors like economic changes in order to properly implement their HR practices in their organization.
Tesco can take certain measures in order to solve its cultural diversity barriers. In order to remove confusion regarding too many opinions, the company can decide to conclude a final decision through electing a committee that will include high-performing executives who will be responsible to hear every opinion and then take a final decision. The committee will identify the best opinion by evaluating all opinions. In order to remove diversity implementation challenges, Tesco can decide to arrange diversity training programs which will help employees to learn about advantages they can gain when they start respecting each other.
Royal Dutch Shell can also take certain measures in order to remove cultural barriers. Royal Dutch Shell can agree upon a single that would be appropriate to all its employees and this will help in avoiding miscommunication in their organisation (Kilbourne et al. 2018). In order to retain good employees, Royal Dutch Shell should let off those employees who are unable to contribute to the growth of their organization as well as underperforming. Royal Dutch Shell can also solve the problems of hostility by hiring managers who can easily detect the signs of hostility. They could also provide awareness training programs to their employees.
Conclusion
Human resources have incorporated a new topic as human capital which has grown rapidly in an organization. Human capital plays a very vital role in the overall development of an organization. On the other hand, cultural diversity provides a reflection of the overall change in an organization’s working pattern. High value can be brought in an organization with the help of diverse work teams. Tesco and Royal Dutch Shell have also brought a variety of changes in their working culture as well as pattern by using both cultural diversity and human capital. However, due to which they also have to face hindrances which can be easily overcome with proper implementation of strategies.
References
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