Introduction
North East Wessex District Council is the organization which deals with providing government services to the citizens of southern England. The company employs about 300 people. Age, gender and other characteristics are absolutely different as well as the time employees have spend with the organization.
The company has decided to merge with North West Wessex District Council with the purpose to reduce some money by means of outsourcing some services provided by North West Wessex District Council. It becomes obvious that human resources play crucial part in company functioning.
Perfectly organized Human Resource Management may be really helpful for the company and may increase its profit and labor productivity. The main purpose of this report is to consider some ways and strategies which may be directed at the company with the purpose to organize the human resources in such a way that it could be possible to improve cost effectiveness of the company. Here is the list of actions the company should provide to improve its efficiency.
‘Glass Ceiling’ Elimination
It was considered that the ‘glass ceiling’ exists in the company. It is extremely inconvenient and out of fashion now. The world has understood that women may be rather efficient in work and they may improve the work of the whole organization. One of the main reasons for setting ‘glass ceiling’ is that women should balance work and family which makes them distract from their responsibilities too often.
Still, it has already been proven that women may cope with their responsibilities both at the workplace and at home successfully. Thus, being guided by the experience of such companies as AFLAC, Quaker Oats Company, IBM, KPMG, etc. it may be concluded that such organizations have succeed by using special programs which are really helpful.
Thus, IBM and KPMG say that those programs helped to increase the number of women specialists in their companies (Bohlander & Snell 2009, p. 224). It is impossible to imagine that women can become successful in aviation industry, but a number of stories show that it is possible to fly above the glass ceiling and become successful in aviation industry (Anderson 2009).
Training and Retirement
Morrison and Spink (2010) having conducted an analysis of some companies and the actions they have provided offer to provide consultations to the staff on all levels, to increase staff motivation and training programs, the flexible working and job share arrangements also positively influenced the working process.
Moreover, considering the techniques used by the Blackpool Fylde and Wyre hospitals Foundation Trust, it may be concluded that the reduction of the overtime costs by means of hiring new employees who became responsible for more tasks is also an effective strategy (Morrison & Spink 2010, p. 15).
It is necessary to mention that there are 114 employees who are either 50 or more years old. This means that these people are going to retire soon. It is important to become involved into preretirement programs which may be helpful both for the company and for the employees as well (Bohlander & Snell 2009, p. 511).
Thus, the company hires a person who is going to learn some special responsibilities the worker performed. This is not going to be difficult for a young employee to become involved in the working process in the future. Moreover, looking at the number of people who are going to be retired within the next 10-15 years, it may be concluded that it is necessary to train young new employees now in order they could become deserving followers.
Say that training helps retention and this is extremely important. If people see that they are necessary, if they see that the managers spend money on them, they understand that hey bar necessary. It is better to teach and train employees rather than hire quality specialists as it is cheaper and the worker who has been trained knows the specifics of the profession and can properly utilize his/her knowledge (Dela Cruz 2004, p. 11).
Outsourcing
Considering the opportunity to merge with the purpose of outsourcing of some facilities, it is possible to say that it can be a good opportunity to apply human resource administration onto the web. The technologies allow providing such operation and to make those effective, confirming Lawler and Fitzenz (2004). Such changes may be helpful for “an organization to maintain competitive costs and service levels and support its business model” (Lawler & Fitzenz 2004, p. 212).
It should be mentioned that outsourcing opportunities may be extremely helpful for the organization, especially in IT sphere. The outsourcing of such services after the companies merge may be helpful, especially if to pay attention to the following, the software is cheaper as two companies use one (Reddy 2005). The research conducted by Yang, J. et al (2008) in China showed that good collaboration and training of the staff increased the efficiency of the performed work.
The idea of human resources outsourcing is supported by Fitz-enz and Davison (2002) who state that the function of human resources is entering its final stage. The outsourcing of human resources is the best step in the name of cost-effectiveness (Fitz-enz & Davison 2002). Hosking (2009) also states that to achieve cost-effective functioning of the company, it is possible to hire temporary professional, as the company does (31 employees are hired on the temporary conditions).
Special Additions for Managing Human Resources
It should be mentioned that there are some specific categories which should be supported by the organization; they are “training and development”, “human resource information system”, and “health, safety and working conditions” (Huang, Budhwar & Debrah 2001, p. 62).
It should also be mentioned that the work and fun should be balanced as well. On the basis of the experience provided by the Coca Cola Company, it may be concluded that effective communication between all the members in the team is important for the productive functioning of the whole company (The Coca Cola Company 2008).
Conclusion and Recommendations
In conclusion it should be mentioned that the companies and managers began to consider human resources as not just people who work, but as the business function of the whole business.
The decision of the North East Wessex District Council to merge with North West Wessex District Council is a great opportunity for the company to improve the work of human resources by using outsourcing techniques. Moreover, the report has provided the readers with the information which may be really interesting and useful for North East Wessex District Council in the question if managing human resources.
Reference List
Anderson, N., 2009. Flying above the Glass Ceiling: Inspirational Stories of Success from the First Women Pilots to Fly Airline and Corporate Aircraft. Sheffield: Safe Goods.
Bohlander, G. & Snell, S., 2009. Managing Human Resources. Stamford: Cengage Learning.
Dela Cruz, T., 2004. Effective training helps retain employees, build morale. Hotel & Motel Management, 219 (5), p. 11.
Fitz-enz, J. & Davison, B., 2002. How to measure human resources management. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional.
Hosking, R., 2009. Cost-Effective Staffing Strategies for a Difficult Economy. OfficePro, 69 (20), pp. 21-22.
Huang, T., Budhwar, P., & Debrah, Y., 2001. Part I: Human resource management in Asia: Chapter 4: Human resource management in Taiwan. Human Resource Management in Developing Countries, pp. 56-74.
Lawler, E. E. & Fitzenz, J., 2004. Human resources business process outsourcing: transforming how HR gets its work done. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Morrison, S. & Spink, R., 2010. How to make your workforce more cost effective. Health Service Journal (HSJ), 6 October, p. 15.
Reddy, M.S., 2005. Human Resource Planning. Delhi: Discovery Publishing House.
The Coca Cola Company. 2008. Coca Cola building dream teams in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Tourism Board.
Yang, J. et al., 2008. Human resource staffing and service functions of community health services organizations in China. Annals of Family Medicine, 6 (5), pp. 421-427.