Human Resources Management: Talent and capability in a software technology company
With the growing competition in Australia market, there is need of skilled workforce generates with the aim to sustain a long time in this competitive environment. In regards to this, companies face major issues related to retain and recruit the talent workforces for achieving more productivity.
It is identified that currently, companies focus more on the skilled or specialized workforce for exploring new market (Katou and Budhwar, 2010). However, human resources departments adopt the strategic HRM practice to attract, develop and retain employees for providing benefits at the workplace. But the areas where companies are lacking is the managing the diverse culture employees and develop necessary skills in them.
Such issue occurs after the globalization. To address such issues in HRM practice, the case study of Mixim Solutions Australia based company is undertaken in which different issues related to HRM occur.
In addition to this, the relevant solution will be discussed and identify the practices or actions that company needs to adopt for addressing HRM issues. Besides that, HR solutions will be identified and on that basis, the certain recommendation will be given.
Thus, this essay gives the detailed understanding of the HRM issues which arise in the organization and address the solution for retaining the talented workforce at the workplace (Snape and Redman, 2010).
Identification of human resources issues at Mixim solutions
The main problem is identified among the organization is the lack of retention of talent workforces. Similarly, Mixim solution is also going through the same condition in regards to find it difficulties in retention of key capability.
According to Mixim solution, currently, the software developer turnover reaches towards the 25% in Australia and 20% (Tooksoon, 2011). This clearly indicates the company poor HRM strategy which couldn’t able to retain the skilled human resources. In respect to study, HR planning, motivation, performances management, diversity management are the concern areas for the company as it is the major source of growing high turnover.
However, a consultant at Mixim solution found that lack of cultural understanding by the side of manager with the employees is the major problem for failing towards the attracting the talented employees.
Besides that, inappropriate HR planning is also considered as the biggest cause of software developer turnovers as HR planning involves identifying the requirements to fill the position in organizations. For this, organization studies their short-term and long-term needs to hire the employees.
But, in case of Mixim solution, HR departments do not correctly evaluate the HR requirements and they largely focus on the profit generation which also diverts the company focus. At the same time, less development opportunities for the software developer could be considered as a reason for their turnover.
It is identified that company concentrates less on the people personal development and growth in order to save their maximum investment over the training sessions. However, less career enhancement opportunity and growth is the reason as per the consultant report.
In addition to this, inefficient information system tends to be identified of the less employee retention. According to the report of the consultant, the tracking of employees’ performances is quite poor and due to which company could not able to figure out the performances of employees.
Without identifying the performances, the company fails to reward right individual and this result in dissatisfaction of employees. Lastly, lack of better target recruitment and inappropriate personal growth opportunity are the key identified reason for high employees’ turnover and such practice of company does not help to retain the talent workforces. Thus, these are the mention issues are identified in this case study.
The frequently upgrading of technology is demanded the talent workforces for achieving the company targets successfully. In regards to this, strategic HRM is the key element within which company able to manage the talent workforces under the one roof.
But, with the increasing competition makes it difficult to retain the employees over the longer duration. In concern to this, Meyers and van Woerkom (2014) stated that talent management theory is well suited for the company like Mixim solution to retain its maximum staff. The talent management is a modern and effective way of implementing the personnel policy.
This theory signifies that company needs to implement the personnel policies that help achieve the strategic goals through effectively utilize of the potential of people. In contrary to this study, (Farndale et al., 2010) good design and effective execution of the talent management system requires to retain the workforces in the workplace.
However, better incentive plans, the personal growth opportunity is considered as key areas in the good design. Such action always proves to be effective in terms to motivate the employees to perform better for the company. In context to Mixim solution, as per the theory, there is lack of career opportunity and employee appraisal system which demotivates the software designer.
At the same time, HR policy of the company is also inefficient and it reflects from the consultant reports. Likewise, there is the inefficient technique for the management of diversity and HR manager targets wrong market for the recruitment.
Thus, this shows the inefficient HR planning of the company. In regards to this, Mixim solution should design the appropriate HR policy in which need to align the company requirements with the individual needs so that staff could achieve the personal growth and release their potential towards the effectively perform the given task.
In the views of Kumari (2012), recruitment & selection process provide support high towards the retention of talented people and reduce the employee turnover. In accordance with this process, it includes set of activities to obtain the sufficient number of qualified people at right time and place.
It allows both organization and people to take their relationship towards the long duration. Such practice also helps the matching the capability of a candidate with the right position which fulfils the needs of both the parties.
In a similar manner, Ash et al., (2013) illustrated the recruitment and selection process of the company. It involves various steps such as sourcing candidates, tracking applicants, preliminary phone interview, face-to-face interview and selection, employment offer and consideration etc.
These are the major steps that follow the companies to pool the talent workforces. It takes too much time but it provides effective results for the company. In concern to this, Mixim solution fails to adopt better recruitment process in the selection of software designer to the Indian market.
Likewise, the company uses the simple test process for selecting the software designer and such practices do not provide right talent to the company. This is because right software designer requires to conducts the technical test and number of interviews for selecting the most appropriate candidate for the position.
But, HR departments of Mixim solution fails to address such recruitment & selection process. In relation to such issue, Moran et al., (2014) suggested that Mixim solution should develop right recruitment and selection process through hire any consultant for conducting the recruitment and selection for the company.
Such practices could allow the company to achieve the qualified and talent candidate into the organization and it contributes productivity and efficiency at workplace.
In the research of Hofstede (2011), it is identified that cultural differences are the concerned area especially in the case to hire the people of different culture, this is because, differences in culture indicates differ perception, understanding, and viewpoint of individual in against to other cultural people.
In a similar manner, Minkov and Hofstede (2011) presented the cultural differences through studying the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory and it describes the cross-cultural communication by stating that there is a huge effect of society culture over the values of members.
Such values guide the individual behavior. Similarly, such differences are found out in the case of Mixim solution. However, Mixim solution has operated their functions in both Australia and India. In both, the branches, company face the issues of software designer turnover.
In that case, company hires the Australia manager to select the suited candidate from the country India in order to fill the job position. But, due to culture differences, the company fails to attract talent candidate.
Based on this, it is stated that lack of cultural understanding of Indian employees by some Australian manager fails the company to select the best-suited employee. In response to this, Chadwick et al., (2015) recommended that Mixim solution should conduct the session for the manager so that they develop cultural-differences awareness and this could be done through adopting the practical applications of theory.
It includes international communication, negotiation, and marketing. This helps the employees to get the right understanding of the different culture. Such practices would help the Mixim solution to pooling right software designer towards the vacant position in India branch. Therefore, such theories, concepts give the theoretical understanding related to addressing the issues in a reliable way.
Best Practices of Organization from Case Study
There are various practices that Mixim solution uses in an appropriate manner. First and foremost, company to identify the issues in the workplace hires the consultant is tent to be considered as a best practice. It is because such initiatives help the company to address the real root cause of the problem.
Such exercise proves to be effective for the company in regards to resolve the issue (Fong et al., 2011). Besides that, company expands its functions outside the boundaries is also considered as an appropriate practice as it gives the opportunity to company to explore different cultural group and attracts the new customer base.
Other than that, a company provides the quality service to the clients is the excellence which helps to attract high profits towards the company. Besides that, company adopts the merger and acquisition strategy to enter the new market is also proved to be an effective practice.
Likewise, Mixim solution takeovers the other small companies which help it to successfully address the global market needs. At the same time, such strategy also guides regarding the company trading policy in particular market. Thus, such practice of company considers as quite a right step for entering into the other market.
In addition to this, Mixim solution is employed approx. 250 staff in India & about 80 for Australia. Basically, the company hired HR manager, a payroll manager, full-time recruiter in India and a part-time recruiter in Australia.
This is quite effective practices of company to select both full-part time employees because it supports the company to achieve specialized staff in the form of part-time which enhances the services quality and provide productivity. Moreover, part-time specialized staff also allows the company to save its cost and high investment to select the expert staff for the full time.
Full-time staff includes heavy expenses in terms to provide resources and facilities. In regards to this, it can say that company has taken quite productive steps in terms to achieve the goals and objectives.
Lastly, it is also observed from the case is that company offers the additional remuneration to the people who have not worked as a strategy for the company. The reason of given such compensation is to motivate the people for performing efficiently towards the task. That’s why, this practice is considered as the finest action of Mixim solution (Innocenti et al., 2011).
Through this study, it is depicted that Mixim solution takes quite relevant steps to perform the business operation or to achieve the goal in the fullest way.
In the case study of software Technology Company, there is the issue related to lack of retention of talent capability is identified. For this, there are numerous reasons are exists within which the situation of high turnover of the software developer is growing.
Currently, the ratio of turnover of software developers goes on the 25% in Australia and 20% in India. It clearly indicates that the company HRM policy is not so effective and HR planning framework tends to be inappropriate as per the requirements. This study shows various causes due to which company fails to retain the talent and qualified human resources (Pilbeam and Corbridge, 2010).
Based on this, it is analyzed that lack of cultural understanding exists in the HR manager when it comes to recruiting the different cultural individual for the particular position. Likewise, Mixim solution Australia HR manager has less awareness about the culture of India.
This makes them fail to successfully recruit the talent and appropriate software developer for the job position of India division. Besides that, it is also estimated that the poor target recruitments in the Indian market are also one of the reasons for the employees’ turnover.
It means that Mixim solution fails to target right segment market for the position. In response to this, Cunningham and Kempling (2011) stated that company should the technical or IT professionals for the job position as these people has an appropriate knowledge and learning such as software making, coding related work etc. So, the company requires to targeting such segment to attract the right candidate at time & place.
Moreover, Mixim focuses less on training session and campaigns for the employees and it organize the session once in a year which is not considered as quite relevant in the eyes of legislation. Based on this study, it is analyzed that staff of both the countries are quite dissatisfied with less development opportunities and career planning by the side of the organization.
In regards to this, Mixim found the solution to arrange the specialized supporting staff for assisting the employees to perform better. At the same time, the company also tries to increase the training session numbers at the workplace. For this, business is likely to contact the training institutions for creating the best learning environment.
In addition to this, the consultant has also reported that lack of fast-tracking of individual performance is also considered as a big cause of employees’ turnover. The problem is arising in the way that high performer employees couldn’t achieve that appreciation which they deserve. So, it is must to have right tools to track the employees’ performances (Jackson et al., 2014).
In other words, Mixim solution faces the problem of poor HR planning, diversity management, performances management etc. These are the point of concern for the company as it becomes a reason for high turnover and less retention of the software developer.
In consideration to this, the consultant of Mixim solution determined that lack of preparation from the side of HR manager in regards to understanding desires of different groups, poor recruitment & selection is also failing towards attracting the right candidate.
In order to respond such issues, there is some possible solution which could contribute towards bringing effective HRM policy into the business. According to Barrick et al., (2015), Mixim solution firstly needs to concentrate on the designing of HR planning as people always attract by looking at package and profile.
In regards to this, company should analyze the job in order to identify the requirements and as per that, they need to prepare job description and specification. This allows to hiring the best-qualified candidate. In support of this, Chadwick et al., (2015)
stated that HR department needs to satisfy the individual through provide career enhancement and personal development opportunity. For this, human resources management of Mixim requires to conduct an on-the-job training session or coaching for the personal growth and development. Besides that, HRM manager implements the rewards system for encouraging the people to release their potential.
It also helps in filling the gap between employee’s requirements with organization needs. Moreover, Mixim also requires to adopting the right performances appraisal technique in order to track employees’ performance and accordingly provide the appraisal to them.
the best-suited technique would be 360 degree performances appraisal as in this employee get the feedback from the employer, peers, manager, customer etc. this helps the employee to identify their weakness and strength very well. So, it is the best technique as per the consultants.
Based on discussion regards to HR solution, the company can achieve improvements in the form of less turnover rate and achieve higher employee’s satisfaction in a way of retention at workplace over the long duration.
On the basis of above study, it is recommended that Mixim solution should retain the software developer through identify right target recruitment in order to attract the right talent for the position. Moreover, it is also essential to have cultural awareness, especially in HR manager because they are the one who needs to handle multiple cultural groups.
Likewise, in context to Mixim solution, HR manager in Australia should have sufficient knowledge about the India culture before take hiring decision as it is quite difficult to select the talent without having a knowledge regarding the different cultural group.
So, it is must to have a proper cultural understanding of Indian employees from the side of Australian HR manager (Katou and Budhwar, 2010). In addition to this, proper growth opportunity always attracts the human resources towards the company. In this concern, it is suggested that company should establish relevant compensation package with growth opportunity like organize a session for improving people skills.
Besides that, Mixim needs to use performance appraisal process for tracking the performances. At the end, Company should also give extra facilities to employees in the form of better working environment, organize festival at the workplace and provide long breaks to staff members. Such practices of the company would contribute towards in less employee turnover and retention of a different cultural member.
From the above findings, it is concluded that the implementation of strategic HRM is quite important for the company in regards to retain the employees and reduce the turnover. The growing business competition demands high for the qualified and talented workforces.
This is only achieved through the proper HR planning (recruitment & selection), performances management and diversity management. This contributes towards the achievement of productivity. Similarly, Mixim solution through adopting the proper HRM strategy could reduce the high turnover of software designers in both the area such Australia and India. This improves the efficiency and productivity.
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