Introduction
Bank central Asia is a financial institution that deals with all kinds of banking activities including foreign exchange and loans disbursements. This is a significant organization for the understanding of strategic human resource management. This is a process that has recently been established in most organizations including Bank central Asia.
According to Delery (1998), “it is the general approach to the strategic management of the human resource which is dependent on the intentions of the future directions that the organization is to take”. This organization targets manpower issues over a long time. In this, there is concentration on the type of quality results the company expects, and this considerably determines the structure put in place to achieve these results.
These human resource strategies are mostly concerned with the development of the service deliveries in a way that is fair, and for the overall improvement of workforce attitude, eventually leading to positive results in the performance appraisal. Strategic human resource management in Bank central Asia is especially useful in this particular industry, since it establishes an effective system of talent development and specialization capacity.
The management structure of Bank central Asia is made up of different people working at different capacities for the success of the organization. This includes the chief executive officer, who is at the top of the leadership structure. He oversees all the activities in the organization, and the other managers report directly to him.
Others include the financial manager in charge of finance, sales and marketing manager in charge of advertising and sales of the company’s products and services.
Finally, is the human resource manager, whose function is to ensure that the company has a reliable workforce. Besides, he also ensures that the needs of the employees are being met adequately, and that the working conditions are effective for adequate service delivery.
Role of managers in determining the success of strategic goals in Bank central Asia
One of the most basic roles of managers in this organization is to create a culture for the organization. This is considered to be the most important, since it determines the uniqueness of the organizations and the elements that distinguish it from the other banking institutions. They also determine the philosophy of the organization, and this refers to the guiding principles and believes in the workplace.
The other role played by managers in Bank central Asia is ensuring that the people in the organization has a motivational factor that pushes them to work with a positive mindset. Banking can be tiresome owing to the daily responsibilities involved, such as serving the long queue of customers and dealing with figures.
The employees therefore need a constant motivation if they are to continue working in the organization for long. This is mostly done by coming up with a reward strategy that encourages hard work and innovation. They create the working environment and maintain it at a level that is conducive to both the employees and the organization at large.
The other role played by managers in this organization is to create intra-organizational flows of people related to the strategy of the business. At one time or another, companies are faced with a need to change their strategy. This is mostly as a result of the changing trends in the business world that the organizations have to adapt to if they are to have an advantage in the market.
Banks, for example, need to install some automated gadgets that have just arrived in the market to enable them serve their customers better. The management function in this regard is to look to it that the alterations have been done and that there are people to handle any new duties introduced into the organization.
The next role is that of ensuring that the main executives in the organizations are matched with the strategy of the business. “This specifically applies mostly to companies that use product portfolio analysis approach to strategic management ,and is brought about by the growing interest in meshing strategic planning with executive skills” (Nankervis et al, 2002 pp 108).
Managers, especially, in the human resource department are faced with the role of ensuring that the organization has enough number of employees with different capacities helpful to the organization. Being a bank and considering all the daily operations, this organization needs a relatively large number of employees for their service delivery to be effective.
This, according to Begin (1992) requires the “development of a human resource planning system that can come up with accurate forecasts” (379).This is however faced with two major hitches, the first one being lack of reliable data as a result of incomplete appraisal of employees at the time of hiring.
The second hitch is the absence of a strong business strategy link. This means that the “human resource plan is usually a paper exercise most of the time, and it ends up not getting utilized by the strategic decision makers effectively” (Begin, 1992 p. 399).
Finally, in an organization such as Bank central Asia, the managers play the role of “growers, caretakers and undertakers” (Nankervis et al, 2002). Some organizations have different managers for each of these roles, but owing to the profit maximization and cost minimization goals, most modern organizations tend to incorporate all the roles under the job description of one position.
This ensures a reduction in cost and increase in effective owing to the belief that more responsibilities lead to greater efficiency in the work place. Under the grower’s role, the management is supposed to develop policies that will expand the business operations, hence increase the amount of services and goods being offered to the customers.
As caretakers on the other hand, they ensure that these operations are run effectively and they also monitor the progress and achievements being made. Finally, as undertakers, they deal with the technical part of the organization that requires skills and specific area knowledge.
How effective employee management contributes to the success of this organization
Employees are an integral part of an organization, and there is no organization that can survive without them. They are the people who run the activities at the ground level and implement the strategies set by the management. Owing to this, the way they are treated is directly related to their performance.
Organizations that have regulations in place governing the freedom of employees and their rewards are more successful, since they develop a system that is sensitive to the needs of each individual. Human resource managers are faced with a hard task of managing people unlike the other managers who deal with policies and strategies.
They decide when to hire fire or promote. They also determine the remuneration package and the benefits endowed to the employees, in relation to their positions, experience and input into the organization.
Effective human resource management ensures that the employees have the motivation to work. When they are comfortable with the way they are being treated, they will develop the need to work effectively and ensure that the organization benefits from their input.
On the contrary, employees who are not satisfied with the way the management treats them tend to develop an offensive attitude that only leads to poor performance, hence failure to the organization at large. The management can improve or destroy the attitude of the employees towards work.
Harassing employees has never been fruitful in any organization. Research into organizations that have a good reputation indicates that they have a system of ensuring that all the employees are treated with respect. Any disrespectful treatment or even the intention of it is dealt with severely, and may lead to consequences as serious as losing one’s position.
An effective remuneration system that is not discriminatory ensures that the employees are satisfied with the treatment they are given a fair treatment. This does not just include the monetary remuneration; it is inclusive of the psychological remuneration in terms of verbal appreciation and recognition for good work or improved performance.
This results in a workforce that works towards the best performance, hence improving the general reputation of the organization. Co-orporation among employees leads to the development of unity in work which at the end of day ensures that all duties are performed with a high level of effectiveness. Emotional safety is the important aspect in the performance of an individual in all areas.
This means that organizations that look into the psychological needs of their employees stand a better chance of performing well than those who only consider the amount of work done by the employee. At the end of the day, workplace issues such as strikes are usually as a result of emotional instability and not even the amount of remuneration, as it is made to appear.
Another way through which effective management of the employees is able to assist in the achievement of the organization’s strategic objectives is ensuring that the employees have a reason not to stay longer in the organization. Having to employ new employees more often usually costs the company more in terms of production.
New people in the organization take time to adapt to the culture of the organization and this results into slowing down of the activities in that particular department. The factors that determine whether employees are willing to stay longer in the organization include the reward strategy and the working environment.
An effective reward strategy is one that ensures the employees are comfortable with their roles and that they do not feel exploited. This may include things like providing them with healthcare cover, miscellaneous expenses allowances and work leaves, once in a while. This will ensure that the employees are able to stay for long in the organization, hence improving their productivity.
Assessing and developing training needs in Bank central Asia
One of the ways in which training needs are assessed is by talent evaluation and development. One of the things that the human resource managers should consider when hiring the workforce is talent. This will give them an overview of the capacities of these people that they are hiring.
Talents can be developed in an organization and this process according to Begin (1992),involves “transforming the organization its employees and other groups of people involved in its operations” (400).
One of the ways in which this can be done is facilitating a learning workshop with the aim of training the employees on how to work towards the establishment of competitive advantage in the organization. Once the individual talents have been developed, the organization can be assured of employees that have the interests of the organization at heart hence effective delivery of services.
Another important need when training employees is the establishment of career development plans. In career development, the employees are able to define their areasof expertise and ensure that they handle tasks related to that which they have specialized in. As a result of this, the organization will be able to achieve its goals more effectively as there will be minimal or no conflict of work interest.
Specialization also ensures that the employees are able to handle their responsibilities with expertise leading to a quicker fulfillment of the organization’s objectives and goals. Finally, assessing the training needs of the employees in an organization requires the company to carry out the process of appraising the performance of the individual employees.
Group evaluation is necessary, though it has many setbacks such as the shortcomings of some people being covered up by the achievements of others in the same group. This explains why at some point the employees’ performances have to be analyzed at an individual level as this will ensure that training facilities are developed in favor of at least a majority of the needs of the employees.
Evaluating and rewarding managers in Bank central Asia
Despite the fact that managers, in most cases, are not involved in the ground work they have a huge responsibility of ensuring that all the activities are running smoothly. Most of the times, they are forced to go beyond their normal work definition and make major decisions for the organization to function effectively. They are directly accountable to the owners and stakeholders of the organization.
Owing to their difficult tasks of running the company, they have to be remunerated accordingly to their satisfaction. Their performance is mostly determined by the performance of the company in general. An organization cannot perform well if the management is not effective.
It is also not possible for an organization to fail if it is under good management. This explains why the audit of a company that is not performing well usually begins with the management processes before checking on the other systems. This, therefore, means that the performance of managers is evaluated directly from the analysis of the organization’s performance.
As for the rewards, managers are the highest paid people in any organization. In most cases, they even have shares in the organization. This ensures that they are able to manage the organization effectively to safeguard their shares. Since there is no higher position than management, they have no interest in being promoted and so everything they do is for the organization to grow.
Their reward should therefore, be determined according to the amount of responsibilities they handle. Most companies prefer to make their managers as comfortable as possible by providing them with company housing, vehicle and other benefits such as medical for cover extended to family and holiday packages, once in a while.
This gives the managers an incentive to work towards further expansion of the organization, which means that their remuneration also increases proportionately. It is also advisable for a company to develop a system of maintaining their managers until retirement or giving them a longterm contract. This will ensure consistency in the management process; hence guarantee a positive trend of growth.
Work place issues affecting the organization’s strategic goals
One of the issues affecting the achievement of an organization’s strategic goals is the management philosophy. This is determined by the psychological contract entered to by the employees after being employed in the organization. It addresses the “nature of the exchange between the employees and the organization” (Delery, 1998 pp 300).
The most common of this type of philosophy is “fair day’s work for fair day’s pay” (Nankervis et al, 2002 pp 120), which is an indication that employees are paid according to the amount of work that they have done. This is only fair for the case of the employees who are in the habit of hiding behind other people’s achievements.
However, it becomes unfair whereby some people might be out of work for very genuine reasons yet they lose their pay for being absent. In such a case, it reduces the motivation for the employees and some even end up quitting. The organization is not in a position to maintain its employees due to lack of incentive.
To address this issue, the organization had to come up with a system that monitored the performance of the employees. They were rewarded not for turning up for work but for the quality of work done. This ensured that the employees came to work regularly and also developed the urge to work hard to improve their productivity as this is what was being rewarded.
With time, an employee would be able to earn bonus points for continued good performance and this would motivate them to improve better. New employees would be motivated by appreciating the slightest efforts to improve performance and this would ensure that they have something to look forward to if the purpose to work harder.
The result of this action was that the performance of employees improved at a very high rate and the rate of labor turnover reduced meaning that more employees decided to remain in the organization and climb up the ladder by working hard.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it is clear that Bank central Asia cannot do without the strategic human resource management department. This literally determines the direction the organization takes as well as whether it will grow or remain stagnant for a long time. Employees form an integral part of the entire organization and this explains why any department under human resource has to be considered with great concern.
Employees who are not satisfied with their working conditions or remuneration package may end up being a liability to the organizations. Again, having to bring in new employees each now and then costs the company a lot of revenue in terms of time and productivity. Therefore, the strategic human resource management has to be considered with great importance as it determines the general performance of the organization.
References
Begin, J., P., 1992. ‘Comparative HRM: A System Perspective’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 3(3) pp. 376-408.
Delery, J., E., 1998. ‘Issues of fit in strategic human resource management: Implications for research. Human Resource Management Review, 8, (3), pp. 289-309.
Nankervis, A., Compton, R.,& Baird, M., 2002.Strategic Human Resource Management, Nelson Thompson Learning, New York.