EASY GLAZE CASE
The case study is about a double glazing company, Easy Glaze located in Sheffield owned by Carl and Sarah Sullivan. Participative management style is followed in the company. The working environment in the company is very friendly. On the evaluation of the future needs of the company with the organizational analysis and job analysis it was found that internal and external challenges are faced by the company. The company requires reconstruction and a separate post of the HR manager has aroused. Furthermore, to meet up the future needs certain changes have been made in the organization. Kieran Dawson was promoted as Operation manager and Mr. Sullivan manages only the strategic issues. Due to increasing demand of the products more workforces is required in the company because of which need of human resource planning was realised. This study will pay attention to on the contextual issues, HR planning, equality and diversity, job design, recruitment and selection.
The Charted Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) association consists of the professionals of human resource in UK which drafted rules and regulations for the betterment of the human resources in the country.
- Economical issues:
The interest rate, recession, exchange fluctuations, increase price of raw materials, labour makets and the purchasing power of consumers affects business. UK had a high GDP before Brexit but has slowed down as a result of its impact. The high inflation rate has led to increase in prices of products. This has affected the consumer purchasing power and demands for the product in the UK regions. This can put pressure on businesses to lower its prices to match the customers’ affordability. The labour market in UK is segmented on the basis of their geography which refers to international labour, domestic labour, local and regional labour, there work characteristic which refers to their age, culture, gender and attitude and at last there skills and educational backgrounds (Kumara and Manfredi, 2012). Moreover, the labour market conditions in region of Shellfied have been difficult and challenging for business due to low economic performance.
- Technological issues:
The technological advancements in the UK has led to use of improved technology in automation of many manufacturing factories and improved management of supply chain. The Brexit has not influence the technology progress in the UK. UK has good access to technology in areas of information technology that support the use of internet and social media to communicate with customers, promote marketing campaigns, attract talent and business partners/investors. The techniques of production of double glaze are changing with time and the old methods are becoming obsolete. With the help of latest technology Easy Glaze will be able to operate with efficiency. For HR department, the new techniques will aid in advanced reporting, human resource function outsourcing, and fast communication among employees and software to plan, test and design the reward system for the employees.
Political Context:
Political context includes the political structure, government regulations, government taxes, tax policy, subsidies, trade laws, employment policies and environmental laws that impact the function and growth of a business. The proactive government in the UK has a parliamentary setup which is on the road to recovery from to become politically stable post Brexit. The stability is essential for the growth of manufacturing sector. Easy Glaze in the United Kingdom due to Brexit can face some political pressure. Moreover, changes in corporate tax policies and regulation or increase in tax rate affect the development of the SME in the United Kingdom. In addition to this, government initiatives such as equal opportunities that require companies to follow in employment practices and apprenticeship initiative such as ‘Get In, Go Far’ taht connects the employers and training providers to increase no. of apprentice and give employer influence on training types and experience to be received by the apprentices. Thus, Easy Glaze needs to commit to the principles of equal opportunities in employment.
The legal legislations are the deciding factor of the employment relations (Hook, Jenkins and Margaret, 2015). The rules such as health and safety, industrial policies, social policies, training and development and education of the employees are incorporated in the political context(Brewter and Hegewisch, 2017). Easy Glaze for its smooth functioning must follow all these rules by which the working won’t be interfered.
- Legislative Context:
The companies in the United Kingdom are required to comply with the employment laws, environmental laws, industry specific regulations, and law related to consumer protection. The companies need to fulfil the tax obligations. In particular, companies need to follow Equality Act 2010 that includes age discrimination and forms of discrimination and other dismissal law in the workplace and adhere to the national living wage (NLW) that is set at £7.20 for workers age group 25 years and above since April 2016. With changes taking place all across the world the modifications are even observed in the legal aspects. The laws such as Company Law Act (2006) and Employment Laws regarding discriminations have been amended. Easy Glaze has to register itself with the changes taking place in all these acts and need to work in compliance with Equality Act 2010 and national living wage.
- Social Context:
United Kingdom has relatively high social and living standards before the Brexit which has been affected by during the Brexit due to declining currency value, high inflation and low wage growth. The demographic composition is changing due to increase in number of young population. According to Marchington, Wilkinson, Donnelly and Kynighou, (2016), the workforce is depended upon the changes in the demographics. The social values are changing that prefers a balance of work and life. The work life balance can be learned from the older generations who even have high morals, ethics and commitment towards the organization. It does not only create the mindset of the current employees but even the future working generations. The inclination towards a particular career is because of the social norms.
Human resource planning refers to the process of matching available resources with the organisational demands over a time period. The aim of HR planning is to maintain right amount of qualified employee in right job at right time, to predict attrition rates and develop existing employee to match the future requirements. HR planning is advantageous for the Easy Glaze to forecast the turnover rate, to optimise the staffing and meet the need of additional human resources during expansion. The disadvantage of HR planning for the company is the cost and time factor. HR planning requires more personnel involvement and is time consuming activity and planning also requires investment in human resources information systems. Despite disadvantages, to meet the future demand and the growth patterns the company would require doing a systematic human resource planning.
Analysing Organizational Objectives:
The objective of the organization is to evaluate and analyse the organizations human resource needs in the dynamic environment (Martin, 2010).
Inventory Of Current Human Resource:
The managing directors have the complete information about the number of employees already working which are: sales department has 24 employees with three teams and one member in each team is the team leader. With it there are 16 fitters and glazers.
Forecasting Demand and Supply of Human Resource:
The human resource is required for the HR manager post. The company can fill in the posts by the internal sources as the company works as a unit or family and the business is carried on by the family only (Bach and Edwards, 2013). Price, (2010) states that there are certain factors which have affected the demand of human resource in the organization and they are:
Factors affecting demand of Human resource in Easy Glaze Ltd:
- The future demand of the products must be matched with the productivity and the gap must be determined.
- Replacement requirements must be found in case of any resignation.
- Employees with higher skills are needed who can match the growing demands of the organization.
- At last the recruitment and selection will even be depended upon the budget of the organization.
Work Load Forecasting Method for Demand Forecasting:
Under this method the inventory of the employees to the work at present and in future is analysed on the basis of which the number of employees which need to be recruited is found out. As Easy Glaze is a production company more emphasis is on the productivity and turnover (Wilton, 2016). The working capacity of every employee is evaluated based on their work hours. The man hours for all the units are evaluated separately depending on which the number of employees needed are determined.
- Manpower gap:
After the gap in demand and supply is evaluated the number of employees which will be needed in will be observed. The company will need to provide proper training to these employees so as they can be profitable for the company.
- HR Action Plan and Feedback:
The HR manager will be responsible for the recruitments, training and development and even the inter department transfers. At last, the Hr plan is compared to its application (Mathis and Jackson, 2010).
Equality and diversity are the crucial values of society. Equality denotes equal treatment and opportunity for all individuals without discrimination of age, race, caste, gender, ethnicity, nationality, beliefs, religion and disability. Diversity signifies respecting individual difference to lay positive values in the workforce and community to understand and meet the needs of everybody. It is essential for Easy Glaze to promote equality and diversity policy as increase in the workforce will increase the diversity of the employees in the company. This diversity can shape beliefs, value, culture, thinking and behaviour. Without diversity employee can form homogenous groups in the Easy Glaze can prove to be very harmful and disadvantageous for the development and growth of the company (Kriton and Greene, 2015). In United Kingdom, the legal procedure treats all the employees as equal and there must be no discrimination as it is a crime and a punishable offence. The CIPD is the preacher of promotion of diversity at the workplace and believes it is essential for good management (www.cpid.com). Equality act was formed in 2010 and describes an anti discriminatory framework. The protected characteristics in this act are (www.equalityhumanrights.com):
Age
Disability
Marriage and civil partnership
Gender reassignment
Race
Pregnancy and maternity
Religion and belief
Sex
Sexual orientation
In Easy Glaze, majority of staff are young and single. However, in future with changing in relationship status, ageing and increase in number of working parents the company need to follow approaches like developing an equal opportunities policy to engage in employment practices and procedures that avoid discrimination and provide equality among workers of different background, recruitment and rewards based on job-related criteria and development of flexibility in work practices and patterns to allow worker to make child care arrangements. The company should make policy to recruit candidate of all ages, both single and married.
The aim and objective of E&D policy are to eliminate unlawful discrimination and other conducts banned by the Equality Act 2010 and develop a work team where workers feel included, mutually respected and safe.
E&D policy can be implemented in the company through proper communication of its objectives and educating the workforce, developing a leadership team that carry responsibility of its implementation. HR personnel can undertake an equality analysis of the company and make adjustment to hire candidates when need is identified. The manager needs to ensure equal treatment of its employees and report any case of discrimination or bullying in the workplace and document the action taken for any form of discrimination. To help in cultivating diversity in accordance to CIPD Easy Glaze should continue to practice participative environment. Thus, the organizations must not conduct any form of institutional discrimination.
Job design refers to the process of structuring the work of an organisation to designate the specific work activities to an individual or a team (Aswathappa, 2010). Job design determines the employee responsibility, authority over designated work and scope of decision making. This collectively determined the satisfaction and productivity of employee in a workplace. The job design aims to improve employee productivity and satisfaction at work to achieve organization objectives with high performance standards and positive work environment. Job design is very vital for Easy Glaze as it will facilitate employee development and enhance level of engagement with designated work. A good job design at Easy Glaze will increase the employee productivity through bringing flexibility in work and allowing variety and challenges to work to make it more engaging and appealing. Job design in the company is also aimed to provide a sense of pride in work and satisfaction from work/job. Moreover, the various factors affecting job design are nature of work, sequences of jobs, work practices, ergonomics, work autonomy, diversity, employee skills, abilities and availability.
There are three major approaches to job design. Mechanistic approach that is based on engineering and scientific management aimed on enhancing employee productivity, efficiency and flexibility (Dessler, 2011). Another is biological approach which considers the design of operating environment aimed to reduce employee’s health issues, physical strain, fatigue and other ergonomic issues. The motivational approaches are based on job characteristics which focus to improve employee behaviour outcome and affective reaction through job enlargement, job enrichment, etc.
For Easy Glaze, the suitable method of job design can be:
Job enrichment:
Job enrichment is one of the most popular methods of job designing which is done by redesigning of the job in terms on increasing its scope and depth. This is done by incorporating more responsibility, minimising control, self-monitoring and allow work freedom. Job enrichment will provide the employee autonomy to plan, organise and control the work. This will lead to self –evaluation in performing work and also create need for less supervision. Thus, it will modify the role of supervisors along with workers. As Carl and Sarah have realised the issue of motivation in the company, job enrichment technique is suitable to enhance motivation of its employees. For instance, job enrichment for the Sales manager at Easy Glaze can bring autonomy to make decision to satisfy the customers. This will encourage the sales manager to be innovative and creative in job. This will bring and high sales and enhance the overall productivity of the company.
Ergonomics:
In this biological approach, the focus is given to physical work environment and individual’s physiological characteristics. This can be done through redesigning of the manufacturing equipments that are physically more demanding. Redesigning will reduce physical demands from jobs and make it more worker-friendly so that other workers may perform in case of any worker absence. This is suitable approach for the double glazing company that is concerned with manufacturing and company has a tendency of slightly higher levels of sick leave and turnover rate. This will benefit employee in terms of health aspects and overall wellbeing. It will also reduce the operating cost of company arising from loss of work, make the work environment safer and efficient and reduce the risk factor of health risk and injury for equipments.
Recruitment and selection forms the fundamentals of human resource planning in an organization. The major issues in the design and implementation of recruitment and selection are cost of hiring new employee, cost of induction and training, need for interviewing, testing or assessment skills and selection of internal member or external candidates without subjectivity.
The person specification for HR manager in Easy Glaze is described below that are required to perform the job duties.
Education: Degree level in Behavioural Sciences or Business Administration in field of Human Resource from a recognised institute.
Desirable qualification: A professional qualification in organisational behaviour, human resources management, employee relations and training and development.
Experience, skills and knowledge:
Minimum 2 years of experience in the field of human resources particularly in areas of recruitment activities, payroll, training and performance management.
Should have experience of using a variety of different tools for selection, training and development for succession planning
Should have experience of functioning in cross cultural environments
Should possess good communication skills (oral and written), coaching and motivating skills
Have a thorough understanding of HR policies and employment law
The job specifications for HR manager are as follows:
Organizations departmental planning
Development and application of HR policies/procedures
Recruiting and staffing; Listing recruitment and selection strategies
Employee Welfare and safety
Evaluating the policies (equality and diversity)
Ensure all employment and company laws rules are followed
Development of employee reward system
Analysing the need for future human resource
Taking notice on the absence of employees, discipline
Setting rules for promotions, performance management, employee satisfaction and development.
Employee documentations
Employee Health and wellness
Recruitment and selection strategy for HR manager:
Internal Sourcing
Internal sourcing is filling a position by identifying existing employees of the company (Marder, 2013). The cost of recruitment is excluded. This can be done through searching the Human Resource information system.
External Sourcing
The external sources are used to search for the right candidate. These tools can be advertisements, employee referrals, job boards and trade publication announcements. The development of job description is essential. Here, use of advertisements can be effective for Easy Glaze due to its broader reach. The job can be posted as advertisement in the classified pages of regional newspaper for the position of HR manager.
Third Party Sourcing:
The company can ask a third party such as placement agency to search for a qualified person for the job. The sourcing company get commission/incentive from the company.
Selection methods: After the applications are received the next step is to interview the applicants and go through there resume (Sostrin, 2013). The different methods of selection can be interview, application forms, reference checks (traditional methods) and work sample test, Assessment centers (advance methods).
Recommended method:
Work sampling can be an effective method for providing unbiased results, and is economical and less time consuming and can be performed by Sarh which is having limited training in filed oh HR. However, the observation in this method can be limited and will not record the pace of working. Therefore, for position of HR manager, Easy Glaze can follow traditional method of selection such as interview. This would help the senior management at company to access the potential candidate profile and compare with the job description for the suitability. These selection methods can be useful in obtaining the necessary credentials for the candidate. However, interview has limitation for subjectivity as it is based on prediction of future performance of candidate and depends on the perception and opinion of interviewer.
The CIPD in UK play an essential role with the rules and regulations formulated by the government thus, political, social, technical and legislative context must be evaluated and applied in the organization. The best suited job design methods can be job enrichment and ergonomics. Work load forecasting method can be appropriate for demand forecasting. The search of the HR manager can be done by the use of advertisement and selection by interview methods. With increase in complexity the diversity of the workplace is important. Easy glaze must treat all the employees as equals which will help the company to grow further by combining the strengths of the employees.
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