Summary of the Case Study
This is a comprehensive case study which clearly explains historical, human resource management issues in the company – HMSI. HMSI carried out its management functions by basing on the two key beliefs. These beliefs are the respect for differences of individual labourers and what the company termed as the “three joys”. The company aimed at using these tools for promoting all its members.
Just like many other firms that are managed through the modern human resource management principles, HMSI also carried out performance appraisals on its employees. Workers were graded basing on a certain grade after which they were rewarded according to the respective grade scored. The study also explains the development of unionization activities in the company.
These activities emerged because of the differences between the employees and management as regarding the human resource policies and implementation. The union activities took a long course. They resulted in attempts to use dispute resolution methods like reconciliation to resolve the problems. However, some of these problems escalated to violent confrontation.
This forced the intervention of the government to stop the violence and provide a strong foundation on which a mutual agreement was built.
The study explained how the unions and management of the company adapted and coped after the agreement of stopping hostility between employees and management of HSMI was reached. Finally, the study discusses the lessons that were learnt by the company and how it can utilize these lessons as it focuses on the future management.
Analysis of the Case Study of HMSI
Company data, history and records; are distinguished when it comes to betterment of the existing human resource management policies (Malonis, 2000). This study gives a deep insight of the management activities in HIMSI since its inception. When a firm faces challenges, the management should make decisions which will help in sorting out the constraint facing the firm.
The decisions that are made need to be well thought and widely consultative; otherwise, they are likely to cause more friction in the organization. Any change in an organization must be followed by restructuring decisions to aid in enforcing it. A clear example is the decisions that were made by the president of HMSI in the year 2005 when the company.
The president wanted to see the company embarking on an expansion program that was a bit aggressive which could see the company regains its operation as was before the constraints (Saini, Management Development Institute (Gurgaon), and University of Hong Kong, 2006).
Confrontation in organizations can be as a result of the failure to attend to the seemingly small grievances which later escalate to crises. One of the major functions of the management of companies is the identification of issues from either within or without the company which can result to divisive conflict in the organization.
Crisis results in the loss of productivity (Moffitt, Bordone and Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, 2005). The 2005 conflicts in HMSI resulted in the loss of sales of up to 1.3 million Rupees (Saini, Management Development Institute (Gurgaon), and University of Hong Kong, 2006).
More often than not, restructuring is used to regain the image and the grounds of the organization more so in the aftermath of a crisis. Restructuring aims at having a total overhaul of the organization by changing a number of operations and organizational identities for instance changing the name, logo, packaging and branding of products among many other strategies.
As mentioned earlier, the restructuring strategies must be systemic and deliberated on by the entire organization. Failure of doing so by the management is likely to escalate the problem already at hand (Armstrong, 2006).
The management of firms increasingly understand the need to expand the operational capacity of their firms by expanding into new operational areas by way of opening subsidiary firms. HMSI began its operations in the year 1999 as a subsidiary firm of the Honda Motor Company Limited which is headquartered in Japan. The subsidiary firms often operate basing on the operational principles of their mother companies.
As part of its expansion programme, HMCL has opened more than 130 firms across the world HMSI being one of these firms. Performance appraisal has become an integral part of managing employees in organizations.
It is one way of making employees feel appreciated by the company for their efforts. HMSI recognized the need for this and put in place such a system. However, this system had its own flaws which mostly resulted from the way it was implemented (Armstrong, 2006).
Lessons from the Case Study
Most management of companies come up with different initiatives, which aim at improving the performance of their organizations. With the realization that workers are often the most significant assets for firms, the initiatives of management mostly centre on workers. When workers are satisfied with the organization, they raise their input, which automatically spills over to the general output of the firm.
However, all human resource initiatives in organizations must be employee centred. The employees must be actively engaged and or involved in formulating these policies or initiatives as these initiatives directly affect them (Robert, 2011).
Failure to engage employees in the plans of the organization is likely to have grave consequences in the organization just as was the case with HMSI management and its employees. Before a performance appraisal programme is run by the organization, employees must be notified and trained on the assessment procedures and the importance of such a programme.
Most modern labour laws allow employees to join labour unions. These unions act as tools of negotiation with the management of organizations. Organizations must recognize these unions and formulate proper channels of negotiating with these unions in order to avoid bitter confrontations (Robert, 2011).
Dispute resolution has thus become a vital part of the function of management. Organizations, with the aim of surviving in the competitive industry must be aware of this. They must craft exhaustive channels of resolving disputes with their employees.
Communication is a vital entity for the management of firms especially so the subsidiaries. Cultural noise can negatively hinder the performance of a firm in the country where it is located because of cultural disparities that come in between communication.
Thus, it is important for the company staff to receive mentorship on the culture of the business destination. The company will have to consider this as it expands into new destinations globally (Marieke & Hofstede 2010)
The Hofstede theory helps in the understanding of how culture impacts on the company activities in foreign countries. The main Honda mother company has good employee relations because it operates within a single culture. When a company chooses to enter new markets it has to formulate and follow an adaptation strategy. This strategy helps in the blending of different cultures in order to have a good working relationship.
The Honda Motors Company has Japanese cultures. Since it is operating in different cultures in foreign countries, there will be a need for the adoption of cross-cultural models of management. The adaptability to culture determines product development and thus it is important for the company to capture the different dimensions of culture which include individuals and business location among others (Mooij & Hofstede, 2010).
Reference List
Armstrong, M 2006, A handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page: London.
Malonis, J A 2000, “Human Resource Management (HRM). “Encyclopedia of Business, Vol. 1. Web.
Marieke de Mooij and Hofstede, Geert, 2010, Applications to global branding and advertising strategy and research. International Journal of Advertising, vol. 29, No. 1. pp. 85–110.
Moffitt, M L, Bordone, R C, and Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School 2005, The handbook of dispute resolution, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Robert, L M 2011, Human resource management: Essential perspectives. South-Western, Division O., New York.
Saini, D S, Management Development Institute (Gurgaon) and University of Hong Kong 2006, People management fiasco in Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India Ltd., Asia Case Research Centre, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.