TELSTRA has been known as the company that has been following innovative tendencies in the design of its HR framework. According to the official statement issued by the organization, TELSTRA’s policies revolve around the notions of integrity, commitment, and teamwork (A Career in Human Resources at Telstra par. 1). Furthermore, TELSTRA’s leaders eagerly provide support and assistance to the staff member by the corporate values and ethics: “Everyone who works on behalf of Telstra – including employees, contractors, and consultants – is responsible for acting by the Telstra Business Principles that apply to their work, together with the Company Policies that support them” (TELSTRA Corporation 9).
The teamwork- and employee-oriented policies, which align with the key tenets of Herzberg’s Two-factor Theory, serve as the essential principles of building strong relationships between the firm and its staff members. Particularly, the theory sheds light on the need to use the internal factors as the tools for managing the employees’ engagement rates, and so do the company’s values that exist to support the staff members.
As a result, the opportunities for investing in human resources are created. The identified policy correlated directly with the theoretical premises for the HR management suggested by Herzberg. By showing the employees that they are valued as individuals, the company managers create the environment in which the employees can grow professionally. As a result, their performance is improved, and the company’s profits are increased significantly.
A closer look at the evolution of the organization, as well as the progress of its employees and managers, will reveal that TELSTRA has been geared toward improving the communication process between the firm and its stakeholders for quite a while. For example, the fact that the head of TELSTRA’s HR Department resigned in 2011 to start her own company that was more sales-oriented proves that TELSTRA has been putting a very strong emphasis on the needs of the staff members for quite long (Bingemann par. 1-2). It would be an overstatement to claim that the entrepreneurship leaders have been putting their staff’s interests over the ones of the company. However, the fact that the employees have been enjoying the consistent attention of the HR Department is undeniable.
However, establishing a set of standard values is unlikely to help a company meet the crucial performance goals, maintain the quality levels high, and keep both the customers and the staff members satisfied. TELSTRA’s secret to the sustainable management of its resources concerns the approach that it uses to revisit the traditional values and reinvent them. Indeed, according to the organization’s statement, the company views the concepts of accountability and mutual trust as the constituents of the same concept even, though the two may fail to coexist in another corporate environment: “One of the values that we espouse for example is: ‘Trust each other to deliver’ which is exactly the opposite of being accountable, but accountability is what comes out of it.
But people interpret values in different ways. We’re trying to draw out what they mean” (Wilson par. 10). In other words, the organization wanders into the area of testing the relationships between different values and principles of corporate ethics. As a result, the leaders of the firm are capable of creating a unique organizational philosophy that creates premises for meeting the needs of both the employees and the customers at the same time (Employee Diversity and Inclusion Policy 3).
Therefore, the strategies adopted by the organization are in line with Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory (); Indeed, TELSTRA focuses on enhancing the impact of the intrinsic factors when reinforcing the staff’s engagement rates and promoting loyalty in the context of the organization. By upholding the employee-centered values and creating the environment in which transparency and ethics are valued, TELSTRA makes the staff members feel comfortable, thus, affecting their perception of their job and their role in the company.
It should be borne in mind, though, that TELSTRA aims at the achievement that can hardly be viewed as attainable in the traditional business environment. Specifically, the company’s managers target changing the staff’s behavioral patterns. As the company’s executives stress, compared to the process of building awareness, the task mentioned above is extremely complicated as it implies that the firm should convince the employees to accept its corporate values (Verner 78).
Seeing that the company managers aim at shaping the staff’s behavioral patterns by suggesting that they should accept the corporate policies and ethics, TELSTRA’s approach can be deemed in line with the principles of Herzberg’s theory. The organization promotes changes at the foundational level, persuading the employees to make their company-related decisions based on the ethical standards that TELSTRA views as crucial to its design. As a result, the quality levels remain high, and the premises for retaining customer satisfaction and loyalty rates are created. In other words, form the theoretical perspective, the company’s culture can be described as the person-oriented one.
It could be argued, though, that the firm could benefit from putting a stronger emphasis on the promotion of professional growth among the employees. While the staff members are valued very highly by the managers, the opportunities for the former to engage in the lifelong learning process and acquire new and relevant skills regularly are admittedly scanty. Therefore, considering the opportunities for further improvement, one will have to point to the urgency of designing the programs that will help the employees improve their competencies, acquire new skills, and gain the relevant knowledge.
Works Cited
A Career in Human Resources at Telstra. n. d. Web.
Bingemann, Mitchell. “TELSTRA’s Battle-Scarred HR Boss Andrea Grant Quits.” The Australian. 2011: n. pag. Web.
Employee Diversity and Inclusion Policy. 2012. Web.
TELSTRA Corporation. The Way We Work – Telstra Business Principles. n. d. Web.
Verner, Steve. Managing Human Resources in North America: Current Issues and Perspectives. New York, NY: Routledge, 2012. Print.
Wilson, Peter. “TELSTRA: Heads Together.” Human Resources Media. 2015: n. pag. Web.