Introduction
For an effective operation, organizations need human and physical resources; properly managed organizations have an appropriate number of personnel’s, in number, experience and expertise.
To ensure that the right number of people is available when required, a company’s human resource management should develop effective framework of planning human resources: Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) has realized that to reach much higher productivity, they need to manage their workforce effectively and appropriately.
Well-managed human resources are assets to a company and they develop a sense of loyalty to the company. This paper is a case analysis of Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) where it will focus on identification of root causes of human resources issues faced in the organization; at end, the report will give recommendations on policies or strategies that the company needs to implement to manage its human capital effectively.
The banking industry is competitive and the leaders need to have effective policies that facilitate the involvement of human capital in its management and delivery of quality services to the people. With this in mind, the bank need to have effective human resources management departments (Storey, 2007)
Who were the customers of Mitchell and his HR staff?
The human resources department has the mandate of ensuring that adequate employees are available at all times. It has the mandate of planning, deploying, employing, training, retaining, and dismissal of employees. When the department is undertaking this duty, it looks into quantitative and qualitative aspects.
Qualitative means the right number of employees and qualitative means employees with right skills. (Legge, 2004). Workers engage their mind, time, expertise, and intellectualism in their works; they expect to be compensated through wages, salaries, bonuses, and non-cash benefits.
According to employment agreement, an employer and employee are obliged to respect labor law in the country of operation and uphold to employment-contract terms and conditions. Developing an efficient team is the role of personnel management assisted by top and line managers; it starts with human resources planning to appraisal, motivation, rewards, and ends with termination of employment contract.
Terms of employment vary with organizations and so do human resources practices like selection, contracting, and recruitment. One of the major functions of human resources department is developing a compensation strategy that satisfies all the employees irrespective of their rank, an effective reward strategy should be able to trigger motivation and increase the zeal to work-hard in an organization.
In this case, Mitchell and his HR staff’s are given the role of setting policies that improve the relationship that the company has with its customers (customer in this case means the line managers who the department serves).
Customers (staffs) are the main reason why an organization operated, they are the reason what the organization came into operation so policies made within an organization should focus the improvement of customer feeling and the relationship they have with the organization. This is only attained if there are effective human resources management approaches adopted in the firm (Armstrong, 2006)
One problem that can be seen in the case of Mitchell is the dissatisfaction of its human force, the supervisors are not satisfied with either their salaries or compensations, or the safety and security of their job; with the dissatisfaction, and the company is likely to have a de-motivated team where supervisors fail to be accountable for their tasks.
Some of the signs that can be seen in the organization is absenteeism, low productivity, and a high turnover rate. When making policies that facilitate the delivery of quality services by happy customers, other than the human resources department, there is the need of involving the general management of the organization.
In the case of Mitchell and Co and Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC), the management should join efforts with the human capital department to come up with policies that address the issues they are facing or faced by the work force.
To address the issue facing the bank, the human resources management team should not limit their operations to the symptoms of the problem, which include absenteeism and having employees who are worn out, and not willing to work: the company should look into the root cause of the problem and come up with such holistic policies to the problem.
Mitchell and team should undertake an analysis of the business situation, they should create some guiding questionnaires to the line managers and other staffs that will allow them know the areas they need to improve.
What did Mitchell have to do so that his staff could do the things necessary to reposition and customerize?
To solve the human resources problem facing the company, Mitchell had to undertake a strategic human resources management approach, the approach had four main areas as:
Understanding the problem
The first step in making human resources problem solving approach is defining the challenge facing an organization. The problem needs to be identified and differentiated from its symptoms; symptoms show there is a problem but does not point the problem itself. Mitchell defined the real cause of the problem; when root cause is well established, the success of later stages is facilitated
After having a well grasp of the problem, Mitchell gathered relevant data and facts; it is from the statistics that alternatives of solving the problem are formulated. To gather information, he was open to a number of methods the methods include researching, brainstorming, consulting, and experimentation.
It is the manager’s duty to choose the right method to adopt because different problems call for different methods. The quality of data collected affects the quality of decision made; on the other hand, it is influenced by the definition of the problem.
If the problem was defined incorrectly, then the information collected will be misleading; misleading information leads to ineffective and unresponsive decisions. Mitchell only acted after realizing that he has quality information data, and facts gotten from books, magazines, journals, staffs, line managers, customers and other consulted parties.
Developing best approach, alternatives and objectives of his practice
The information collected offers a platform for choosing the best alternative; the best alternative is chosen after analyzing the effectiveness of all the alternatives formulated; Mitchell had the wider picture of the problem facing the bank, the problem may have been from the organizational culture, the policies, and other weak areas that the department had.
The best alternative is the one that addresses the problem at hand and avoids the occurrence of a similar problem; it should be feasible and effective; when undergoing the transition Mitchell ensured that the operation of the bank were not affected negatively.
Choosing the best alternate is not as simple as it may sound, sometimes it is straightforward while in other instances it is complicated; when complex, managers need to select the alternative with the highest probability of success;
Mitchell analyzed the situation in the bank and came up with a policy that was accepted across the board. Before moving to the implementation of the chosen strategy, Mitchell ensured that the top management has discussed and understood it so that it can garn their support.
Implementation
Mitchell understood that the embracement of his decision by the team would determine the success of the process and ensure that all staffs understand the role they have to play in the bank.
For a successful implementation, every party to the decision must understand his or her role; to make employees understand the role they have to play within an organization, leaders need to develop procedures, rules, or policies to be followed in the implementation stage.
Monitoring and control are crucial for successful implementation; they make managers understand the effectiveness of their decisions, improve them and offers feedback for further decisions.
Effective managers involve their juniors in the decision-making process from the start to the end; they understand that success of a decision is dependent with the support it gets from human resources.
When implementing, Mitchell was keen to ensure that the entire working people support the programs and they well understood what the bank was doing. Any doubts were dealt with according and any other support given as needed.
Monitoring, Control and improvement
When all policies were good to go, and the programs have been implemented and supported by the bank’s workforce, the next and major role that Mitchell did with his team is to monitor, oversee and improve the processes.
They involved in continuous improvement of the process and ensured that the policies developed at a particular time were adhered to and managed effectively (McGoldrick, Stewart & Watson, 2001).
Do you think the line managers would cooperate with Mitchell and his staff? What would it take to get their cooperation? Why might they resist a partnership with the HR department?
The success of a change in human resources policies depends on how well the change has been managed; at the start, the human resources are likely to repel the changes implemented, however if they well understand the change and the positive effects they are likely to get after the policies.
Mitchell and the entire human resources management team are the change agents, they should facilitate the development of such policies that facilitate the acceptance of the new policies and human resources management approaches (Swanson, 2002).
As much as there is huge reliance on the line managers to adopt the new policies, the communication approach adopted by Mitchell plays a critical role. When an organization is implementing a change, the most important feature that must be considered all through the change process is change communication.
A change always defines where an organization is and where it want to be; change agents have the role of pioneering their business to their intended destination; they must have a clear vision of what the future will look like. The Bank’s staffs should be communicated to regarding what the change aims at attaining; they should have the information and enough training that need to be done.
The line managers saw the changes as if it has come to replace their positions in the company as well as reducing their power; to ensure that they well understood that the policies were for their own good, Mitchell and team had the challenge of letting them understand some times individually or train them as a group. The change of policies called for support from all corners including the top management.
When there is an effective change communication, then the line managers are not likely to resists the change or adoption of new human resources management.
Mitchell and the human resources department are the change agent or the originator of change they should handle the line managers in small group of people and sometimes may even be an individual; the change wanted should be communicated to the entire organization to facilitate its implementation.
One most interesting aspect of change communication is that it appears across the entire process and pegged on communication within an organization (Paauwe, 2009).
Another way to ensure that the project has been adopted effectively without any resistance is continuous appraisal of line managers and other staffs. To enable line managers perform their duties effectively and in line with the policies established continuous training system and employee’s appraisal is important.
It helps management establish areas that needs improvement. Some organizations have employees training as a continuous process to ensure that employees are up-to-date with the changes in the industry.
Motivational measures should be put in place to ensure that employees are loyal to the organization and they work efficiently. This ranges from attractive salaries or/and benefits, to developing a good working environment. This ensures that employees are retained as assets in the organization (Storry, 2005).
Whether line managers will accept the decision of the change or not will be affected by the approach that Mitchell and his team will attain, the best approach to manage resistance of new human resources policies is having an effective communication in the organization, right from the start.
The line managers should be involved to ensure they well understand what is happening in their organization as well as why the change had to be enacted.
Develop a matrix with projects, dates, milestones, and people involved (i.e., HR, line managers, and employees) for Mitchell and his staff
Conclusion
An organization requires physical and human resources for its operations. The human resources department has the mandate of ensuring that adequate employees are available at all times; Swiss Bank Corporation (SBC) through its human resources team lead by Mitchell, needed to restructure the human resource policies for the good of the bank.
Mitchell and team used a scientific-strategic human resources issues management approach where they interpolated the prevailing situation, collected data and came up with policies to address the issues.
The department did not leave the policies or strategies at them, however, they supported the policies and ensured that they are well implemented, the only issues they faced was line manager’s resistance to change.
References
Armstrong, M. (2006). A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. New York: Kogan Page.
Beardwell, J. and Claydon, T. (2010) Human Resource Management A Contemporary Approach.New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
John, B.P (2009). Organizational Behavior, from theory to Practice. New York: Wiley.
Legge, K. (2004). Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities (Anniversary ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
McGoldrick, J., Stewart J., & Watson, S.(2001).“eorizing Human Resource Development. Human Resource Development International, 4(3), 287-290
Paauwe, J. (2009). HRM and Performance: Achievement, Methodological Issues and Prospects. Journal of Management Studies, 46 (1), 123
Storey, J. (2007). Human Resource Management: A Critical Text. New York: Thompson.
Storry, A.( 2005). How to Find & Keep the Best Talent: Train & Motivate. Franchising World, 37(9), 52-54.
Swanson, R. A.(2002). Human resource development and its underlying theory. Human Resource Development International, 4(3) 287-290.