Posted: November 10th, 2020

assess a HRM issue or problem as objectively as possible

Task-2
Group Project (Presentation and Report)This task is designed to develop your
ability to:
 contribute fruitfully to a group task;
 assess a HRM issue or problem as
objectively as possible;
 appreciate the potential of theory in
managerial decision making and
problem solving;
 apply theory to ‘real life’;
 take responsibility by designing a
practical course of action (rather than merely
making recommendations).Task description
Students will form groups of around four
during class in week 3/4. Each group should identify a
problem situation (HR problem) in an
organisation they have access to- preferably an
organisation where at least one group
member works or has worked recently. The focus has to
be on an unresolved problem (only one
problem).A presentation covering the following
points should be prepared: Provide a brief introduction to the
organisation (it is acceptable to withhold the
name of the organisation). Describe the problem, as much as possible
in terms of the observable or
measurable symptoms it manifests, for
example: employee unrest, frequent
industrial action, high absenteeism,
workplace bullying/harassment, low morale,
loss of profit, sabotage etc.
The issue/problem should then be considered
and analysed in terms of
concepts/models/theories drawn from any two
topics studied as part of this subject.
To give some examples, your group may
choose to adopt different negotiation
tactics, change the existing recruitment
and selection method, or re-design jobs, or
arrange special training program and so on.
Try to choose the topic that seems to
offer the most useful insights into the
problem. Topics must be taken from HRM
course. Design a change program or set of
activities and procedures utilising some aspect
or aspects of your analysis (actual action
plan). The change program should be
intended to solve or improve the situation.
Please note you are not merely being
asked for a list of recommendations.Note: It is not necessary to interview any
managers or distribute questionnaires to
complete this project.A report of 1800-2000 words summarising the
project
Visual material used in the presentation
may be included as an
appendix. The report must have a cover
page- duly completed and it must also be correctly
and adequately referenced using APA style.The report mark (Worth 25%). Each of the
group members generally will be awarded the
same mark unless the lecturer is convinced
that all members did not contribute adequately
to prepare the report. Marks may then vary
among the group members depending on their
degree of contributions.
It will be based on:
 The presence of an introduction to the
organisation;
 The detailed description of a suitable
problem for analysis with pros and cons;
 Effective use of material from two
subject topics;
 Use of analysis in developing ‘change
program’ and apparent efficacy of ‘change
program’;
 Over-all quality and completeness of
response to the presentation topic;
 Clarity of expression and correct
presentation: format, completed and signed cover page,
word count, line spacing, spell check; and
 Use of in-text reference, completion of a
full reference list following APA style (sufficient
and appropriate material from relevant and
credible sources to effectively support the key points.Please note that the sequence and content
of lectures and tutorials may need to be changed
and the following information should be
used as a guide.Week TOPIC READINGS
1 Strategic HRM Reading : Chapter- 1 (Text
book)
Tutorial: Review the course description
(Assessments and
Referencing requirements)
Debate: Arrange a mini debate on the
following topic: 'By
calling itself human resources, HRM
dehumanises people- turning them into
assets'.2
HR planning,
HRIMS
Reading: Chapter 2 & 3 (Text book)
Tutorial: Case study- Jet Red's New
Business Strategies, pp
50-52. Answer questions 1- 4 only
Forum: Conduct a mini survey of class
members, using the questionnaire
on page 88 of the textbook. Critically
discuss the findings. Course Description:
BUHRM 5912 Human Resource ManagementCRICOS Provider Number 00103D Semester 2,
2014 - IIBIT-Sydney Page 9 of 163
HRM and the law,
Job analysis, job
design and
quality of work life
Reading: Chapter 4 & 5 (Text book)
Tutorial: Case study- Outsourcing at OZ
Airlines, pp. 90-91.
Answer all questions
Forum: Conduct a mini survey of class
members, using the
questionnaire on page 115 of the textbook.
Critically discuss the findings.4
Recruiting human
resources,
Employee
selection
Reading: Chapters 6 & 7 (Text book)
Tutorial: Case study- The Hairdressing
Roster on page 156
and Doing Business at OZ Widget Co, pp.
200-201. Answer
all questions.5 Appraising and
managing
performance,
HRDReading: Chapter 8 & 9 (Text book)
Tutorial: Case study- To Quota or Not To
Quota, pp. 243-
244. Answer all questions.
Ethical Dilemma- What's OK for me, is not
OK for you,
pp. 292-293. Answer questions 1- 4.6 Employee
Remuneration,
Employee
benefits
Reading: Chapters 12 &13 (Text book)
Tutorial: What Performance Appraisal; and
The Stressed Sales Representative.
7 Industrial
RelationsReading: Chapters 14 (Text book)
Tutorial: Case Study- To Bonus or not to
Bonus, p. 501.
Answer all questions.
Online exercise: Work in partnership with
another student.
Pick an organisation of your choice and
visit their website.
Take note and report back to class
evaluating the
attractiveness of the employee benefiIntroduction
Headquartered in Victoria, Australia, Kmart is one of the
well known chains of discount stores owned by Wesfarmers.
The company operates through 170 stores in Australia and 20 stores in New
Zealand.
Australia (Official website of Kmart, n.d.). Competitive pricing and quality
products backed by advertisements creates the brand of KMart. The company
focuses on both quality and value for money.Though the company
enjoys prestige in the region, it is hugely challenged by the HR issues. The
company faces huge number of lawsuits by its employees regarding the
compensation structure and gender discrimination. Apart from this, it is also
question on the health benefits provided to the employees and the treatment of
unions. There are also allegations against Wal-Mart regarding undocumented
employees, child and other labor norms.
HR issues in the organisation
The two major HR issues that are identified and discussed
here are issues with compensation strategy and issues with diversity
management.
In the race for providing products at lower prices than
its competitors, KMart reduced its operating costs by giving lesser pay to its
employees and suppliers. KMart in order to reduce costs is hiring more
temporary workers than permanent workers. It was found in a survey that most of
the employees of KMart depend upon the benefits given by the government than by
the company itself as KMart had stopped paying health benefits to workers
working less than 30 hours a week. To maintain the low cost business policy,
KMart tries to keep the health expenses for the employees low. It has been
estimated that the company spends much less as compared to the industry
average. The coverage of the insurance was less and the deductible were as high
as 10% to 15% of the salary of the employees. Complicated and expensive health
benefit policy have left majority of its employees not insured at all.
Kmart
always believed that human resources are the key components which brings
success to the organization, and hence called all its employees as
“associates”. According to the strategy,
KMart plans to hire for the future and for this the company provides training
to its best employees. But the psychological contract with the employees is not
met. Employees in KMart complaints of low wages, lack of health care and poor
working conditions. KMart is witnessing a high labor turnover because of these
compensation issues. There was a huge unrest amongst the employees of KMart, as
the workers said that they were forced to work off the clock without any
overtime. There have be many lawsuits against the company and the company had
to pay hefty penalty and close the cases. The
different issues against which employees agitated are cutting full time hours,
pay caps, new attendance policy, and change in shifts, shifts being decided by
computers at headquarters.
Employees
in KMart claimed that the managers force the employees to work beyond their
schedule time without paying overtime. Store managers are given target to keep
their overtime pay low. To achieve such target the mangers resort to activities
like lock in of stores, asking the employees to work after their schedules
clock out, disciplining them for not completing the work, deleting the records
of overtime and even one minute clock out post lunch.
It
was also found that workers of KMart complained of inhuman working conditions.
Employees complained of working off the clock without any overtime pays, were
not allowed of lunch breaks and not allowed to take rest.
There
have been issues of gender discrimination in the organization too. It was
alleged that KMart employees, during the process of hiring, were subjected to
gender discrimination. In terms of labour conditions and human rights,KMart has failed to live up to this
commitment several times.The women employees have claimed
the retail giant exercises immense sexual discrimination. This occurs for pay
as well as for promotions (Weiss, 2008). The female employees are paid less
than their male counter parts whether they are hourly employees or managers.
Female employees do not get promoted even being well qualified. KMart has
been many a time accused of gender bias in recruitment and promotion of female
employees. There are more than 70% of female
employees in KMart. But when compared with the managerial staff the figure
comes down to 30% (Edid, 2005).Also, the
pay of an average employee is 2/3rd the pay of an employee of any
other similar retail store. The fact that KMart has policies like: “A person
has to relocate 5-6 times to different locations on different posts to get the
promotion” goes against the women who will not be able to change their
addresses that easily as they have to maintain a work life balance (Edid,
2005).KMart
has been facing several charges and lawsuits with respect to labor relations.
Analysis of the issues using theories
Compensation strategy:
Compensation
strategy is a part of Human Resource strategy to attract and retain highly
skilled, talented and ambitious employees in the organization, which also helps
in building competitive advantage for the organization (Zoltners, et.al., 2006). Compensation strategies help in
maintaining the internal equity within the organization and also to balance
external parities in the organizations coming under same sector.Methods
an HR professional could use to determine incentive pay include:
·
Regular
Performance Measurement
The HR professional should measure employees’
performance on regular basis. They should also compare their performance with
the set organizational standards. There should be set incentive for every level
crossed by the employees.
·
Setting
Performance Metrics
There should be fixed incentives for every employee
for accomplishing the set objectives.
The
proposed methods would take into consideration individual, group and company
performance. The incentive pay could only be decided by taking into
consideration the actual performance and present performance. It involves set
organizational standards for every group, individual and company that needs to
be achieved.
Corporations could choose to offer several benefits to
staff members. The first one is the protection programs. This most strongly
parallels legally needed advantages through providing protections to staff
members and family members because of ill health or income loss. The second
benefit i.e. paid time-off, affords staff members time off with pay for a
number of reasons, taking in ill health or celebrating designated holidays(Romano,
1998). Moving ahead, the third benefit i.e. enhancements and accommodation
provides improvements to staff members as well as their families in several
manners. Educational assistance and wellness programs are few examples of
enhancement and accommodation benefits.
Diversity management:
Diversity
is an intricate concept that includes various types of differences like
physical attributes (e.g., race, sex, age, physical ability), social attributes
(e.g., education, income level), and cultural attributes (e.g., beliefs,
values, preferences). In addition to visible and measurable differences,
differences in perceptions also become a contributor to diversity. The dimensions of diversity can be identified
in the diagram below.
.jpg">
Figure 1Dimensions of diversity
The
mentioned differences often create differences in the productivity of
organization as it affects individual performance in a group scenario, as well
as group creativity and cohesion. Diversity management in general consists of
taking hands-on actions pertaining to the organization’s environments that are
able of minimize the threats of diversity and maximize its opportunities for
the organization. Thus, it provides a perspective that though diversity means
differences, it encompasses similarities (Cox, 2001).
Corporate
culture plays an important role in this aspect. Corporate culture can be said
that collective behavior and assumptions that are taught to all the
organizational members and this particular culture has an effect on the people
and groups, stakeholders, etc. It is important for all companies developing a
corporate culture to bind the organization, its philosophy and the employees
together (House, et.al., 2004).
As the modern work requires working
in a team and its importance continuously increasing, organization needs to
encourage its employees to work more as a team. Working together would provide
better results for the organization and each of the employees would better manage then taking advantage of the
team pluses and alleviating its minuses. Of course to obtain this, the differences
of all forms among the employees need to be tended and the team ignores being
compelled by the differences among its team members. Thus the human resource
department should aim to reduce team cohesion. This would help to bring out the
underlying competencies. Proper management of diversity at work could bring
organization advantages in many fronts . There needs to be initiatives which
would help to encourage better interpersonal communication among its people
(Ashley, et.al., 2005). There should be an environment that would increase
creativity and innovation. The organization should be able to manage recruit
and retain better people. All the initiative should be oriented to improve the
performance of the employees for the satisfaction of all its stakeholders.
Diversity is to value every single entity as an individual – valuing people as
employees, customers and clients (Ashley, et.al., 2005).
Recommendations
Developing compensation system
A compensation system has to be devised keeping in
mind the principles of equality and nondiscrimination. It should also be
considered that the employees are compensated for every extra hour they work. Suggested strategy is as follows.
Step 1: Develop a
compensation philosophy: Compensation committee can be
set up to decide whether the positions will be permanent or temporary and set a
budget for the same. Also, if any differences should exist in pay structures
for executives, professional employees or sales employees should be decided (Muller,
2009). It has to be brainstormed whether the salaries
should be set at, above, or below market by the company.
Step 2: Conduct a job
analysis of all positions: Understanding the primary
function for finance, sales, administration, production, and other appropriate
departments and preparing job classification and job description as per the
organization structure.
Step 3: Evaluate jobs: This can be done by ranking the jobs within each
department, and then ranking jobs between and among departments which can be
compared to industry market data (Muller, 2009).
Step 4: Determine
grades:Establishing and assigning the number of levels -
senior, junior, intermediate, and beginner. Also the number of pay grades or
monetary range of a position at a particular level, within each department is
determined.
Step 5: Establish grade
pricing and salary range:
Establishing key jobs
and reviewing the market price of the same within the industry. It is to be
determined where the company wants to be in relation to salary ranges in the
industry.
Step 6: Determine an
appropriate salary structure: Determining the
difference between each salary step and a minimum and a maximum percent spread
(Muller, 2009).
Step 7: Develop a
salary administration policy:
Developing a strategy
for merit raises and other pay increases, such as cost-of-living adjustments,
bonuses, annual reviews, and promotions (Muller, 2009).
Step 8: Monitor the
system: Necessary changes should be made where flaws
or problems in the system is identified and adjust or modify where necessary.
Implementing a diversity management plan
It needs to be ensured that the compensation management
plan that is developed considers equality for men and women employees and
follows a non discrimination strategy. When developing and implementing diversity
management plan, the following components of diversity management needs to be
ensured.
.jpg">
Figure 2Components of diversity
management
Conclusion
In summary, the paper reflected upon the HR issues in
Kmart. The issues that were focused upon
are compensation issues and gender discrimination. In the end, recommendations
were put forward.References
Ashley, M. G., Kotrba,
L.M. and Daniel, R. (2005). DenisonWorkplace Diversity: Is National or Organizational Culture Predominant? Retrieved
from .linkageinc.com/thinking/linkageleader/Documents/Denison_Consulting_Wor%09kplace_Diversity_Is_National_or_Organizational_Culture_Predominant.pdf">http://www.linkageinc.com/thinking/linkageleader/Documents/Denison_Consulting_Wor kplace_Diversity_Is_National_or_Organizational_Culture_Predominant.pdf
Cox,
Jr., T., (2001). Creating the
multicultural organization . Jossey – Bass Publishers, San Fransisco.
Edid,
M. (2005). The Good, the bad, and Wal-Mart. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Institute of
Workplace Studies.
House, R. J., Hanges, P. J.,
Javidan, M., Dorfman, P. W. & Gupta, V. (2004). Culture, Leadership and
Organizations. Sage Publications.
Muller,
M. (2009). The Manager's Guide to HR: Hiring, Firing, Performance Evaluations, Documentation, Benefits, and Everything Else
You Need to Know. Retrieved from Martin, N. (2011). Why the Wal-Mart Case Is So
Important to Women, Minorities. Retrieved from
.org/2011/03/why-the-wal-mart-case-is-so-important-to-%09women-minorities.php">http://newamericamedia.org/2011/03/why-the-wal-mart-case-is-so-important-to- women-minorities.php
Official
website of Kmart. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.kmart.com.au/
Romano, G. (1998). How
not to run an incentive compensation program. Association Management,
50(4): 28-33.
Steenburgh,
T. (2008). Effort or timing: The effect of lump-sum bonuses.Quantitative Marketing and Economics, 6(3),
235-256.
Zoltners,
A.A., Sinha, P. & Lorimer, S.E. (2006). The
Complete Guide to Sales Force Incentive Compensation:How
to Design And Implement Plans That Work.AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.
ts
offered.8 Employee health
and safety
Reading: Chapter 17 (Text book)
Forum: Conduct a mini survey of class
members, using the
questionnaire on page 581 of the textbook.
Critically discuss
the findings.
Tutorial: Case Study- Beaconsfield gold
mine9 Managing
Diversity
Reading: Chapter 18 (Text book)
Case Study: The morning-after email. Answer
all questions.
Tutorial: Project presentation
10 International
HRM, Managing
International
Assignments
Reading: Chapters 19 & 20 (Text book)
Tutorial: Managing diversity and
competitive advantage.
Tutorial: Project presentation
11 Social
Responsibility,
Ethics and
Sustainability in
the context of
HRM
Reading: Chapter 2 (Strategic HRM, 2011 3e
by Jeffrey A
Mello, South Western-Cengage Learning,
Ohio, USA pp. 39-
59.)
Tutorial: Ethical Dilemma- Mixing Body
Parts With Business,
pp. 781-782. Answer all questions.
12 Review Session Course/ Exam review

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