Introduction
It has been established that MoonLucks’ expansion to China and Egypt, which is going to be combined with the termination of operation of fifteen locations in other countries, is likely to involve several difficulties relating to culture, ethics, and corporate social responsibility (CSR). The identified difficulties include the cultural issues of organizational culture establishment and cultural conflict management in new locations as well as the ethical challenge of the implementation of ethical and CSR policies. Moreover, there is the ethical issue of dismissals in the closed chops and the CSR challenge of ensuring the fulfillment of all the company’s responsibilities in the new locations.
Measuring Identified Issues
Multiple measurement tools for issue identification and effectiveness assessment have been developed and successfully applied throughout the history of HR studies. Nowadays, it is recommended to combine approaches (for example, a normative approach will benefit from the introduction of qualitative surveys and vice versa) and take into account the context of the company, which presupposes customizing measurement solutions to particular needs (Guest 2011; Paauwe 2009). Some of the components of HR management are not quantifiable and intangible (Boxall & Purcell 2011, p. 102), for example, the issues that are related to organizational culture establishment, but some measurements can be suggested even for them.
With respect to cultural issues, the key quantifiable measure is the existence of conflicts that can be monitored through the establishment of MoonLucks’ customized reporting form and the distribution of monitoring roles among the managers, including HR ones. Concerning dismissals, this issue requires proper documentation, but the company keeps its workers’ profiles in order, which is why no additional measures are needed here. The policies and codes implementation, as well as CSR enforcement, will be quantified with the help of the cases of misconduct; also, the outcome measures will be applicable, but they evaluate the company’s success in the relevant solutions implementation, which is why they can be found in part “Measuring Outcomes.”
Addressing Identified Issues
It is apparent that the identified issues can be addressed through HR decisions that are incorporated into the company’s current strategy. In particular, the implementation of the code of ethics and CSR norms and standards will begin the process of the problem resolution. To proceed with it, the employees will need to receive the appropriate training in line with MoonLucks’ standard procedures that also typically involve team-building, which makes the solution multifunctional. After that, the appropriate reporting and enforcement measures should be chosen by the HR professionals depending on the specifics of the location and in line with MoonLucks’ recommendations and procedures. Also, the cases of conflicts are an issue of its own that needs to be addressed through inter-group and personal conflict interventions (Armstrong 2006).
Concerning dismissals, the solutions will include fair, MoonLucks-approved practices (including appropriate compensation packages), job offers for every eligible employee (the criteria will depend on the options available), and exit interviews that will be aimed at amiable parting with the employee. Also, the latter solution will be used as a measurement tool.
Internal and External Cooperation
The HR Department will need to report to the board of directors; if a solution is proposed in a bottom-up form, it also needs to be considered by the higher-level managers. Concerning the company’s internal stakeholders, MoonLucks decision has reached a unanimous agreement, which is why there are no internal conflicts for the time being.
With respect to local cooperation, the HR professionals will need to engage internal stakeholders, especially the local employees. Public relations are the responsibility of the PR Department, but the two Departments tend to cooperate in the implementation of PR decisions. Concerning other aspects of required cooperation, the company will ensure the agreement with the local authorities by complying with their laws and being a responsible citizen. Also, MoonLucks typically searches for ways to cooperate with local non-governmental activist organizations, especially those oriented towards environment sustainability and charity. The environmental situation in China is often believed to require improvement, especially due to the way the country’s production tends to discharge great amounts of air pollutants (CIA, 2016a). Similarly, Nile is the lifeline of Egypt from the point of view of water supplies that have always been scarce, but it is continually threatened by pollution (CIA, 2016b). Possibly, MoonLucks can contribute to the resolution of the issues, thus fulfilling its CSR agenda of being socially and environmentally responsible.
Possible Difficulties
The proposed solutions are unlikely to cause issues, but they may encounter difficulties that are related to localization and customization of the approved methods of training and evaluation. Similarly, there may be clashes between the organizational and local culture as well as company values and those of the local community. Issues may also arise in the process of learning in case employees experience difficulties with the new material or if their attitude to learning is not positive and responsible. As a result, the managers and HR professionals are required to ensure feedback from employees, and they are encouraged to use MoonDucks’ employee feedback surveys together with other approaches if deemed necessary, including personal interviews. The attitude issue can be rectified with motivational techniques, and the remaining difficulties can be resolved through training programs adjustment and, in extreme cases, the localization of codes and organizational culture.
Measuring Effectiveness
HR management effectiveness metrics are connected to the issue identification ones; in fact, their primary aim consists in evaluating the outcomes of various activities or the company’s HR strategy, which means that they are bound to demonstrate problematic areas. The above-mentioned metrics of issues can be used to imply that the strategy of the company overall is successful or not, but they are unlikely to be traced back to a particular practice. Here, the metrics that are directly related to solutions will be mentioned as a means of identifying their effectiveness.
Concerning dismissals, the effectiveness of the measures will be assessed primarily through exit interviews; unfortunately, the tool is completely qualitative, and it may be difficult to make sure that the employee has provided truthful information (Armstrong 2006, p. 398). As a result, the HR specialists who carry out the interviews are expected to provide their feedback on the process. This aspect will help to measure the breaches (or the lack of breaches) of the psychological contract (Boxall & Purcell 2011); the checking of the legal and ethical impeccability of the process goes without saying. Survivor employee surveys for successful assessment are not a requirement but may be recommended, especially if some of the employees do receive jobs in the remaining stores.
Concerning the training on ethical, cultural, and CSR issues, the number of related activities will become a quantifiable measure because it demonstrates the HR Department’s compliance with MoonLucks directives, but it is a perfunctory measure that does not show training quality. For quality assessment, the activity-specific evaluation criteria have been developed together with the training programs by MoonLucks specialists. They involve knowledge tests, case study discussions, and employee feedback, which is also used to check the program’s applicability. The conflict resolution can be measured through the feedback of the people involved and the outcomes of interventions.
Concerning CSR, the current MoonLucks CSR compliance measurement tools will be applied to the new locations since the company expects them to ensure the fulfillment of their responsibilities to all the stakeholders, including the employees (the guarantees of appropriate and timely payment, rights protection, lack of discrimination), customers (high quality of service and product identified through safety standards, regular managerial review, and optional customer feedback), the environment (environmental protection standards, including the energy and water use), and the society (specific activities that the store has contributed to, for example, charity). The majority of the mentioned tools are statistical, but some (for example, customer feedback) is aimed at qualitative data collection. The tools are already customized to the company’s needs and requirements, but if HR professionals note that their location appears to require some additional customization, they are welcome to make suggestions, which may later be adopted by other locations as well. There was an example of such customization at a location in Turkey: a case of sanitary standards violation was registered, and an investigation showed that the employees exhibited a low level of commitment to standards as a result of perceiving them as excessive. Intervention measures (training with outcomes assessment and several dismissals) were developed, and the company accepted the training as a standard procedure for developing a positive attitude to standards among employees.
Conclusion
The presented solutions and measurement tools include required and optional variants that can be used by HR managers to contribute to MoonLucks accommodation to change, change management, and strategic development. The majority of the solutions and measurement tools are connected to each other, thus forming a system of activities that complement each other and offer responses to complex issues. The HR professionals are invited to discuss the recommended measures and comment on them, possibly proposing their suggestions for improvement.
Reference List
Armstrong, M 2006, A handbook of human resource management practice, Logan Page Limited, London.
Boxall, P & Purcell, J 2011, Strategy and Human Resource Management, 3rd edn, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
CIA 2016a, The World Factbook: China, 2016. Web.
CIA 2016b, The World Factbook: Egypt, 2016. Web.
Guest, DE 2011, ‘Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers’, Human Resource Management Journal, vo. 21, no. 1, pp.3-13.
Paauwe, J 2009, ‘HRM and performance: achievements, methodological issues and prospects’, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 46, no. 1, pp. 129–142.