Human Resource Management Issues In ComSyst Technologies Case Study

Executive Summary

Organizations around the world face issues with human resource management. ComSyst Technologies is currently going through a similar challenge. Poor human resource management of the organization has also negatively impacted its core business activities. Since CST deals with defence and emergency services industries, it needs to have a work force that is ready to work under pressure. There exists a need for revamping existing human resource management strategy. We recommend that CST should draft a new human resource management strategy that is aligned with employee lifecycle. Furthermore, the organization needs to encourage theory Y leadership as opposed to theory X leadership. This will help the organization in retaining employees, bringing down employee turn-over rate and increasing productivity. Lastly, CST needs to foster a team-based high performing organizational culture. If CST adopts all these recommendations, in due time it will overcome the challenges and hurdles that it is currently facing.

Introduction and Background

 Twenty first century’s work place has its own set of challenges. One such challenge is human resource management. It is as difficult to manage human resources as it is to manage financial resources. Long gone are the days when employers could manage to be negligent towards their employees and still manage to achieve their business targets. Nowadays, if an organization does not invest in enhancing its employees’ experiences, its core business is very likely to suffer. The evolved and current “concept of human capital and knowledge management is that people possess skills, experience and knowledge, and therefore have economic value to organizations” (Ramlall, 2004, p.53).  Poor human resource management strategy has grave consequences for the core business and might even result in financial loss for the organization. That is why all the successful businesses focus so much on human resource management.

            Currently, ComSyst Technologies is experiencing a similar conundrum. Its human resource management practices are poorly managed which has resulted in loss for the business. The performance of employees is generally poor, there is low employee engagement, a decline in staff retention and high employee turn-over rate. Due to this, the organization has recently lost three major tenders to competitors and its market share has also declined.

            However, the organization needs to realize that this issue might be big enough to cause concern, but with strategic thinking it can be solved. The organization needs to lay out a strategy for attracting and retaining the best available talent by creating team based high performing culture and building employees’ capacity. Since CST is a multi-national organization, it needs to ensure that whatever steps it takes to cater this issue is well suited for the local context of the countries in which it operates. This might even require tailoring the human resource management strategy according to the local text.

Main Discussion

                High attrition rate and poor employee performance are issues that are currently being faced by several organizations. However, the way most of these organizations have decided to tackle these issues is highly flawed. Instead of trying to enhance the experience of employees through-out their life-cycle, they try to find out the most problematic stage and work on it.

            It is highly recommended that CST should not repeat the same mistake. The organization should take a holistic approach towards understanding and improving employees’ experience. A thorough understanding on the employee lifecycle will help the organization do so. Employee lifecycle model reiterates that there are six stages in which the organization gets an opportunity to engage with the employees. It should not let go off any opportunity to do so. Research has shown that “viewing employees as internal customers of management can provide insight and value for managers, resulting in a more proactive approach to employee retention rather than a reactive response to turnover” (Cardy et al., 2011, p.213). Hence, taking into consideration all the problems that CST is currently facing with human resource management, it should focus on enhancing employee engagement in each stage of the cycle.

            The first stage of employee lifecycle is attraction. Each and every organization needs to attract applicants. At times, even organizations whose products are doing exceptionally well in the market find it hard to attract a huge pool of candidates. This is because candidates do not get attracted to organizations that have an exceptional product but rather to organizations that have an exceptional employer brand. Employer branding is based “on the assumption that human capital brings value to the firm, and through skilful investment in human capital, firm performance can be enhanced” (Backhaus & Tikoo, 2004, p.503). CST can do employer branding by fostering a conducive work culture. One of the biggest reasons why employees resign from their job is because their organizations do not have a healthy work environment and one of the biggest reasons why employees do not switch jobs is because their organizations have a good work environment. Hence, CST should ensure that it has a positive work culture. This will not only help the organization in retaining the existing employees, but will also enable it to attract the emerging talent.  However, merely having a great work culture is not enough. CST should also market the strengths of its work culture on social media forums.

 The second stage of the employee life cycle is recruitment. Research says that “an effective recruitment strategy will reach a wide audience and draw a large number of qualified candidates. The larger the eligible applicant pool, the more selective the department can be in making its hiring decisions” (White & Escobar, 2008, p.120).  In terms of recruitment, first and foremost, ComSyst Technologies (CST) needs to revamp its recruitment process. A well-thought and research-backed recruitment strategy can help the organization hire the best talent out there. The recruitment process should start-off with recruitment planning. As soon as an employee leaves the organization, the vacant position should be analyzed. After that job specifications should be identified and job description, if need be, should be revised. The more organized the organization’s recruitment plan is, the higher are its chances of attracting the most suitable candidates. Once the job analysis has been done, job specifications and job description will also come to the forefront. Then, job evaluation should be undertaken to specify job grade and job ranking. After recruitment process, recruitment strategy needs to be laid-out. This strategy document should highlight key things such as whether the vacant position will be filled internally or externally, what type of recruitment would be done, and what will be the sources of recruitment. The next step is to look for the right candidates. Once the vacancy has been advertised through the selected medium, resumes and cover-letters will start coming in. HR should consider the following factors while short-listing the resumes: reason for changing job, longevity with each organization, long gaps in employment, job-hopping, and lack of career-progression. The short-listed candidates should be called in for an assessment centre and an interview. The job offer should be made to the selected candidate. Also, it is highly recommended that CST’s HR should make use of technology for recruitment. It has great benefits. Xerox, for example, has replaced its screening process with an online test and has resultantly witnessed a decline in attrition rate by 20%.

There are certain things that organizations miss-out on while planning the recruitment process. These things are absolutely essential and can help the organization in attracting the best talent. Firstly, CST should ensure that its job advertisements are attractive and appealing. Secondly, the HR should select the most appropriate medium for reaching out to the prospective candidates. Thirdly, HR should provide the applicants with a deadline for every step of the recruitment process. This helps in reducing uncertainty and creates a favorable image of the organization in the mind of the applicants. It further helps in creating a good brand image through the recruitment process. Fourthly, interviewers should be well-prepared for the interviews and should avoid insulting or degrading the interviewees. Lastly, since CST is a multi-national organization, it might consider tweaking its recruitment process a bit according to the local context of the countries in which it operates. For instance, India has a collectivistic culture where as Australia has an individualistic culture so the organization might need to adopt slightly different tactics to attract applicants in both these countries.

The third stage is employee onboarding. Primarily, “onboarding programs are designed to drive faster time to productivity and reduce the various shock factors among new hires, reduce turnover rates and in turn, turnover costs, and drive assimilation of the organizational culture and values” (Pike, 2014, p.2). Most of the organizations treat this stage as one in which they only need to provide the new employee with the tools and information that will enable the new hire becPome functional. However, this is a highly flawed approach. If CST has approached this stage with a similar frame of mind, it is time to change it. During this stage, the organization not only needs to provide the new employee with the required tools and information, but also needs to make efforts to help the new employee get fit into the organizational culture. One of the biggest reasons why new employees leave the organization soon after joining it is because they are not able to adjust to the work culture. This does not necessarily reflect badly on the new employee, but rather on the organization. It is the organization’s responsibility to not only provide tools that enable the newly on boarded employee to fulfill his job responsibilities, but also with tools that enable the new employee to fit into the organization’s culture. This practice of human resource management helps the organization in retaining employees and simultaneously brings down employee turn-over rate.

The fourth stage is development. Whenever an employee joins an organization, the vision is long-term. The employee does not wishes to stay in the current position throughout his time in the organization. Instead, the employee wishes to grow and progress in the organization. One of the ways “to facilitate development behavior organizations might best use their resources to train managers in skills needed to support employee development (advising, referral, and feedback skills) rather than purchasing or developing career management programs that focus on career exploration and career strategies” (Noe, 1996, p.131).  CST also needs to adopt a long-term approach and focus on the development and career progression of its employees. It should not treat its human resources as static, but rather as constantly evolving and growing. This will not only help the employees progress, but will also help the organization in retaining the employees. The best way to do so is to design realistic career paths for each position and communicate them to the employees ideally during the onboarding stage.

The fifth stage of employee lifecycle is retention. CST’s approach towards all the preceding stages will help it perform well in engaging with employees at this stage. This is to say that if the organization manages to engage well with employees during attraction, recruitment, onboarding, and development stage, it will automatically be able to engage employees during the retention stage. The reason being that if organization manages to establish a good rapport with the employees during the earlier four stages then it is very less likely that most of the employees will leave the organization. One of the most important ways to retain employees is to create employee engagement platforms and improve communication channels.

            The last stage of the employee lifecycle is the exit stage. This is where the employee leaves the organization and the journey ends. In this stage, the organization does not only needs to enhance the exit experience of the employee that is leaving but also of other employees around. The experience of the employee that is about to exit the organization can be enhanced by conducting an in-depth exit survey in which the employee can openly voice the grievances and then the organization can use the collected data for organizational improvement.

            Even though taking employee lifecycle into consideration is extremely important, merely doing so is not enough if CST wants to create a workplace that is future-oriented. A lot more needs to be done. Future-oriented work places focus on talent management, succession planning, advanced communication, conflict management, negotiation, managing performance, building capacity and developing effective teams.

            Managers can play a pivotal role in incorporating these things in their day to day practice. It has been noticed that “employees are more likely to remain with an organization if they belief that their managers shows interest and concern for them, if they know what is expected of them, if they are given a role that fits their capabilities and if they receive regular positive feedback and recognition” (Ng’ethe, Namusonge & Iravo, 2012, p.300). It has been noticed that most of the managers at CST are theory X managers. This has caused a lot of financial as well as human resource loss to the organization. Theory X managers have a pessimistic view of their employees. They believe that there employees do not have the capacity to improve their skills. Hence, the only way to get work done from the employees is through rewards and punishments. Such managers are not suitable for future-oriented workplaces as they ruin the experience of their employees and create a negative employer image of the organization. Hence, the need of time is that CST should get rid of theory X managers and replace them with theory Y managers.

            Theory Y managers are optimistic about their sub-ordinates. They believe in delegating tasks so that their employees can grow professionally. This practice demonstrates that they trust their employees and take keen interest in their employees’ career progression. As practice has proved, “empowerment and trust are intimately related – trust forms the basis for empowerment” (Mone et al., 2011, p.208). Such managers will prove to be an asset for CST and help the organization step out of the current crisis. Theory Y managers are better at staff retention and the productivity of their employees is also greater as their sub-ordinates have a higher job satisfaction. Such managers are also proficient in creating team-based high performing culture – one thing that CST needs the most right now to boost its employees’ performance. Also, “managers should realize the importance of various HR practices to utilize the potential of human resources adequately” (Sattar et al, 2015, p.91).

            Research shows that “employees in high performance organizations have clear performance standards, receive the training needed to keep up with new demands and are encouraged to participate in decisions affecting their work and to be innovative” (Wiley, 2010). Furthermore, “organizational policies, procedures, structures and systems decide the extent to which employees are satisfied, committed or engaged in an organization” (Joshi & Sodhi, 2011, p.163). To foster a team-based high performing culture, firstly managers need to identify what exactly has to change in the organization. For instance, one thing that surely needs to change in CST is the prevalence of theory X leadership. When all such things have been identified, CST’s leaders need to visualize the change they are looking forward to. This can be done by organizing a leadership forum where all the employees who are in a leadership position can come together and draft a 10 year proposal for fostering a high performing culture. These leaders can then share the proposal with their team members and take their input on it. One thing that leaders and managers need to be mindful about is that culture building is a slow and steady process. It cannot happen overnight and requires time. Lastly, CST needs to turn this 10 year plan into actionable items.

If the organization wants its culture change plan to work-out, it needs to ensure the following things: role modeling, effective communication, skill building, and reinforcing mechanism. Managers need to be the role model for their employees. They firstly need to adopt the new practices themselves before expecting their employees to do so. Secondly, CST should train its managers on how to effectively communicate changing practices to their employees. Effective communication is the key to successful implementation of organizational change. CST also needs to invest in its employees’ skill building and needs to introduce reinforcing mechanisms that will assist the employees in learning new practices.

Recommendations

Based on the above discussion, following are the recommended steps that CST should ideally take:

• Take employee lifecycle into consideration while designing employee engagement strategies.
• Focus on employer branding so that the best pool of applicants can be attracted.
• Discourage theory X leadership style and encourage theory Y leadership style.
• Invest in employees’ skill building and career progression.
• Enhance organizational communication structure so that change can be incorporated easily and effectively.
• Foster a team-based high performance culture so that employees’ productivity can be improved.
• Re-visit human resource management strategies with a future-oriented mindset that is focused on enhancing employees’ job satisfaction.

Conclusion

CST is surely going through challenging times. These challenges have put a strain on the core business. However, if the organization implements the above given recommendations in a timely manner, it can make a come-back and regain its lost business. One key lesson to learn is that human resource management is a serious issue and should be dealt with accordingly. Employees are one of the most precious asset of any and every organization. Hence, they need to be treated with utmost care and respect.

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