Human Resources and Management Control Essay

An International bank, Santander Ltd. Has taken over the Abbey National bank, due to this take over, the Abbey National bank has been subjected to change you are the nominated senior managers at Abbey National bank ( at strategic level) using the available public domain information kindly execute the following takes in your role as strategic HR manager / change consultant. Human Resource Management (HRM) is the function within an organization that focuses on recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization and also HRM is the organizational function that deals with issues related to people such as compensation, hiring, performance management, organization development, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation, communication, administration, and training. As Abbey National Bank is one of the largest banks in UK. The bank provides banking and insurance services nation-wide and is the backbone for country’s banking infrastructure despite arrival of a dozen other banks, including giants like Barclays and Nat west. The characteristic of human resource management are by no means universal. There are many models and practices within different organizations are diverse. The most significant feature of HRM is importance attached to strategic integration, which follows from top management‘s vision and leadership and which require the full commitment of people to it. There are different models of HRM Fiedler Contingency Model The contingency theory allows for predicting the characteristics of the appropriate situations for effectiveness. Three situational components determine the favourableness of situational control: Leader-Member Relations: Referring to the degree of mutual trust, respect and confidence between the leader and the subordinates. To build a strong team: There should be a great relationship among the employee, manager and the general manager because it is the foundation of the organization. Without a great relationship, the general manager or the manager cannot qualify to speak into the lives and influence the employees. It is communication that brings life into relationships. When communicating a lot with a particular person, the person will grow closer. From the case, there’s a lack of communication leads to a breakdown in relationship which leads to a loss of leadership. The manager needs to rebuild the relationship with his staffs and also communicate much more effectively than before. That is why if you want to make any organization work, communication is the key. David Guest’s (1989, 1997) model of HRM it has 6 dimensions of analysis * HRM strategy * HRM practices * HRM outcomes * Behaviour outcomes * Performance outcomes * Financial outcomes The model is prescriptive in the sense that it is based on the assumption that HRM is distinctively different from traditional personnel management (rooted in strategic management, etc.). It is idealistic, implicitly embodying the belief that fundamental elements of the HRM approach (essentially those of the Harvard map) such as commitment have a direct relationship with valued business consequences. However, Guest has acknowledged that the concept of commitment is ‘messy’ and that the relationship between commitment and high performance is (or, perhaps, was – given the age of this material) difficult to establish. It also employs a ‘flow’ approach, seeing strategy underpinning practice, leading to a variety of desired outcomes. We have discussed two model of HRM both are good but as Abbey National is a growing company so that the D.Guest’s model of HRM is best for Abbey National so if Abbey National follows this model it must be succeed to ach ieve its goal. HRM leads to improvement in organizational performance. HR practices have the quality to improve the employee attitude and behaviour, impact of technology, increase the efficiency of employees , higher levels of productivity, quality and customer services, Assess the impact of strategic human resource management activities in Abbey National and evaluate the contribution of strategic human resource management to the achievement of a Santander’s objectives at Abbey National In today’s businesses, the right approach and management of the company’s employees can greatly affect the company’s overall performance. A strategic approach in Human Resource Management is vital especially in growing companies. Through the adoption of best human resource management practices the Abbey National bank aims to make a real difference in people’s lives. Skilled people combined with other resources have the capacity to generate value. First and for most , people in work organization set over all strategies and goals , design work system , produce goods and services , monitor quality , allocate financial resources and market products and services. Human beings therefore become a â€Å"Human resource â€Å". The efficiency and performance of staff and their commitment to the objectives of the Abbey National bank are fostered by good human relationship at work. Due to this fact, it is necessary to give proper attention to human resource management and harmonious employee relations. The human resource management of Abbey National not only helps to establish, develop, maintain and communicate office policies throughout the entire company and also to represent, help, advice and consult with the most important asset of the company â€Å"the employee†. Abbey National ‘s human resource management team develop hiring plans and recruiting policies, it also works for employee relations, separations, contracts, performance, reviews, benefit and pension plans. The purpose of Abbey National’s human resource management team is basically to utilize an employee‘s ability effectively by coaching them to improve those abilities and at the same time improving their working environment so that they feel satisfied with their job. The purpose of an organization is to accomplish the goals and objectives which indicate within the organization and human resource management indicates how they plan on reaching those goals and objectives. Strategy planning is indicating where Abbey National is going over the next year or more, the focus of a strategic plan is depending on the entire organization. There is a verity of perspective, models and approaches which used in strategic planning. The strategic plan is developed on the nature of the Abbey National’s leadership, culture of organization, complexity of the organization’s environment, size of the organization, expertise of planner etc. Companies fail because a number of reasons and mismanagement can be one of them. Operations may spin out of control if personal agendas and politics are placed, and in growing companies, this should be monitored and prevented. Developing not only management but also its employees is significant. To keep up with competition, employees should be given with a number of reasons to stay with the company, and do their jobs exemplary well. Their continuous growth, the right compensation and benefits, and Work-life balance is just some of the things that motivate employees to perform better, producing better results for the customers and ultimately, the company. Abbey National‘s human resource management should increase the interest return on the investment in the organization’s human capital and decrease the financial risk. According to Armstrong 2006 human resource management policy refers to â€Å"the continuing guidelines on the approach the organization intends to adopt in managing its people† Abbey National‘s human resource management policies reflect the values and philosophies of the organization. Abbey National‘s human resource management policy is notably a reference point when employment practices are being developed and during decision-making regarding the people in the organization. Abbey National ‘s human resource management provides guidance on implementation of procedures and what actions should be taken in line with the policy to effectively carry out day to day taken. Before establishing a new work system or change process, a careful evaluation of operating policies is vital to determine their impact on employee attitudes and behaviors. It is important to note that human resource policy is the key to a successful change effort, resulting in greater acceptance and a more positive, motivated workforce. So first Abbey National evaluates the operating policies of change and after that they can apply the same and for this purpose Abbey National mu st know the following:- Analyse the business factors that underpin the new human resource planning in Abbey National and assess the human resource requirements for next two years for the process of developing a human resource plan for Abbey National Ans. Human resource planning is a process of evaluation and identification of HR requirement to achieve the organizational goals to ensure competitive advantage in the market place. Human resource planning is a key component of every corporation’s strategic business planning. Human resource planning describes the organization’s objectives and plans and helps the workers to achieve these objectives. HR Planning involves gathering of information, making objectives, and making decisions to enable the organization achieve its objectives. HR have an enormous task keeping pace with the all changes and ensuring that the right people are available to the Organization at the right time. It is changes to the composition of the workforce that force managers to pay attention to HR planning. The changes in composition of workforce not only influence the appointment of staff, impact of technology increase in productivity but also the methods of employee development and changing nature of work. It becomes very critical when Organizations merge, plants are relocated, and activities are scaled down due to financial problems. The most important reason why HR Planning should be managed and implemented is the costs involved. Because costs forms an important part of the Organizations budget, workforce planning enable the Organization to provide HR provision costs. When there is staff shortage, the organization should not just appoint discriminately, because of the costs implications of the other options, such as training and transferring of staff, have to be considered. There are many business factors in Abbey National bank that underpin human resource planning, some of them are the stage of business, business growth, business change and decline, labour cost control, labour budgeting, labour market trends and regulations and demographic trends etc. Human resource requirement HR Planning requires that we gather data on the Organizational‘s goals and objectives. Once Abbey National understands where the Organization wants to go and how it wants to get that point. The needs of the employees are derived from the corporate objectives of the Organization. They stern from shorter and medium term objectives. Therefore, the HR Plan should have a mechanism to express planned Company strategies into planned results and budgets so that these can be converted in terms of numbers and skills required. The HR profession has undergone some changes in recent years. There has been some movement away from staff welfare and administration-centered activities towards strategy and planning. HR departments are now expected to add value to the organization they support. The exact nature of the work varies according to the organization, but is likely to include: Working closely with departments, increasingly in a consultancy role, assisting line managers to understand and implement policies and procedures; Developing with line managers HR planning strategies which consider immediate and long-term staff requirements; Planning, and sometimes delivering, training, including inductions for new staff; the human resource management also know the government policies and internal and external requirement of the organization like labour requirement, skill requirement, labour market and competition. Present a critical evaluation on how the human resource plan can contribute to meeting an Abbey National objectives in your evaluation, analyses the impact of organizational structure and organizational culture? People are the greatest asserts in any Organization. The Organization is at liberty to develop its staff at full pace in the way ideally suited to their individual capacities. The main reason is that the Organization’s objectives should be aligned as near as possible, or matched, in order to give optimum scope for the developing potential of its employees. Once Abbey National in action, the HR Plans become corporate plans. Having been made and concurred with top management, the plans become a part of the company’s long-range plan. Failure to achieve the HR Plans due to cost, or lack of knowledge, may be serious constraints on the long-range plan. Child (1997) defined organizational structure as comprising â€Å"all the tangible and regularly occurring features which help to shape their members behavior†. The structure of an organization can be regarded as a frame work for getting things done. It consists of unit, functions, divisions, departments and formally constituted work, teams into which activities related to particular processes, projects, products, markets, customers, geographical areas, or professional disciplines are grouped together. The structure indicates who is accountable for directing, coordinating and carrying out these activities and defines management hierarchies, the chain of command as who is responsible to whom for what at each level in the organization. The organization has to design the organization structure. It may be hierarchical or flatter. It may, also, be, traditional, line and staff organization, Functional organization Or modern viz, Project organization, Matrix organization etc. Weber‘s bureaucratic theory emphasized the need for a hierarchical structure of power. It recognized the importance of division of labor and specialization. In functional organization a form of departmentalization in which employees engaged in functional activities such as marketing or finance are grouped into one unit. In divisional organization under the structure, activities and people are grouped into divisions according to products, market or a combination of both with each division self-managed and operating as a profit centre. However, there is overall control which comes from the corporate headquarters. In here, financial as well as R&D activities are centralized in order to profit from economies of scale and reduced cost. In project organization a team is formed temporarily which works with restricted resources within a defined time to accomplish a certain task and after the task is achieved the team is disbanded. Matrix structure involves dual hierarchy that is balance between project and functional departmentalization. In a matrix organization each employee reports to both a functional or divisional manager and to a project or group manager. Research has shown that structure plays a vital role in human resource performance, for example, the level of management, grouping of people and tasks will determine the amount of relationships and co-ordination in the organization. However, structure does not act in isolation as the link to performance. According to Galbraith and Nathanson, they noted that high performance is achieved by congruence between structure and other variables such as culture, reward system and business strategy. Therefore, organization should align all these factors in order to enhance organizational performance. Organizational culture is the pattern of values, norms, beliefs, attitudes and assumptions that may not have been articulated but shape the ways in which people behave things get done. There are a number of ways in which to classify different types of organizational culture. Handy (1981) describes four main types of organizational cultures * The power culture is one with a central power source that exercises control. There are few rules and the atmosphere is competitive. A power culture is frequently found in small entrepreneurial organization and relies on trust, empathy and personal communication for its effectiveness. Control is exercised from the centre by the selection of key individual. * Role culture is one in which work is controlled by procedures and rules and the role description, is more important than the person who fills it. Role culture rests on the strength of strong organizational pillar. For example, finance, purchasing and production. * Task culture is job oriented or project oriented. It is one in which the aim is to being together the right resources and people and utilizes the unifying power of the group. * Person culture is one in which the individual is the central point. The organization exists only to serve and assist the individuals in it. For example architects, doctors or consultant. Culture is an important factor in successful technology, implementation, innovation, mergers, job satisfaction, organizational success and team effectiveness and to the importance of determining whether organization has an organic or mechanistic culture. Culture impacts most aspects of organizational life, such as how decision are made, who makes them, how rewards are distributed, who is promoted, how people are treated, how the organization responds to its environment and so on. Culture is clearly an important ingredient of effective organizational performance. Chatman and Cha refer to the use of the following three managerial tools for managing and changing culture and if Abbey’s human resource management follow these tools they should succeed in achieving its goals and objectives. Examine how the effectiveness of human resources management could be monitored in Abbey National and make justified recommendations to improve the effectiveness of human resources management The goal of human resource management is to help an organization meet its strategic goals by attracting, developing and retaining employees and also by managing them effectively. It aims to achieve a fit between managing the organization’s employees and the overall strategic direction of the organization. Abbey National‘s human resource planning deals with recognizing and fulfilling the human resource needs of the organization. In order to meet the effectiveness objectives of management control, Abbey National’s human resource plan should be formulated in such a way that it conforms to the organizational strategies and corporate plan. At the micro level, Abbey National needs to do career planning for employees and succession planning for key positions in the organization. At a macro level, Abbey National needs to carry out workforce planning and salary planning; the nature of the human resource planning process is primarily dependent upon the organizational size and the hierarchical structure within the organization. For the Abbey National‘s human resource plan to be successful, it has to be supported fully by the top management, the Abbey National‘s human resource department, and the line managers. Recruitment and selection, training and development and compensation management are some of the areas over which the organization needs to exert control. One of the effective ways of assessing human resource functions is to use metrics in the control process. Abbey National ‘s evaluation of the recruitment process will help in exercising control over certain aspects of the recruitment process like the costs incurred on the recruitment process, the people involved in the process, the quality of the new recruits, the final number of recruits selected, and the success rate of each sourcing channel. The effectiveness of training and developing activities of the Abbey National can be assessed by monitoring job-impact indicators. The returns on the investment made one the training activities can also be measured by using quantitative tools like benefit to cost ratio. The attrition level in Abbey National can be assessed by using two metrics employee turnover rate and employee retention rate. These metrics are periodically computed and the values compared with the industry average and with the past records of the Abbey National. Abbey National‘s human resource auditing/ accounting refers to the process of identifying measuring, and communicating the value of the human resource of the Abbey National. Various human resource accounting models have been developed to aid managers in valuing their human resource assets. Employee engagement has to distinct yet related main factors employee satisfaction and employee commitment. Employees who are both satisfied and committed to the Abbey National are said to exhibit a high degree of engagement with their employer. Employee’s engagement levels can be periodically assessed through surveys. High levels of employee engagement are characteristics of the Abbey National which is considered by employee s as a great place to work or as an employer of choice. The workforce scorecard approach views the workforce in term of the contribution made by it instead of cost incurred on it. It makes use of metrics instead of benchmarking. It also makes the line managers jointly responsible with the human resource professionals for execution of the Abbey National‘s strategy. The workforce scorecard has four dimensions. Workforce success, leadership and workforce behaviour, workforce competencies and workforce mind set and culture. All these four dimensions help in assessing workforce effectiveness. Abbey National’s human resource information systems are specialised application software built for implementing, monitoring and benchmarking human resource processes in Abbey National. At an operational level, the HRIS is used for transaction processing and administrative purpose. With a change in the competitive scenarios Abbey National is using the HRIS for strategic human resource management and decision making. The HRIS is useful for controlling human resource management in the Abbey National and achieving its management control objectives of efficiency, effectiveness, disclosure and compliance. References and Bibliography 1.Abbey National Bank 7,Dec 2012 web.7,Dec 2012-12-07 http://www.banking-business-review.com/companies/abbey_national_plc 2.Human Resource Management 7,Dec 2012 web.7,Dec 2012-12-07 http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossaryh/f/hr_management.htm 3.Contingency Model of HRM 7,Dec 2012 web.7,Dec 2012-12-07 http://www.studymode.com/essays/Fiedler-Contingency-Model-666139.html 4.Guest’s model of HRM 7,Dec 2012 web.7,Dec 2012-12-07 http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/introduction_to_hrm/guest-hrm.htm 5Human resource requirement 7,Dec 2012 web.7,Dec 2012-12-07 http://www.prospects.ac.uk/human_resources_officer_job_description.htm 6.Basic information of human resource management 7,Dec 2012 web.7,Dec 2012-12-07 http://humanresources.about.com/od/hrbasicsfaq/a/hr_faq.htm 6.Strategic approach to human resource management 8,Dec 2012 web.8,Dec 2012-12-08 http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HxRaqrcGn-0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=true 7.Importance of human resource management 8,Dec 2012 web.8,Dec 2012-12-08 http://www.aimpapers.com/samples/Strategic_Importance_of_Human_Resource_Management_1_.pdf 9.Armstrong’s policy of human resource management 9,Dec 2012 web.9,Dec 2012-12-09 http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Armstrong_s_Handbook_of_Human_Resource_M.html?id=vZHCLf0YJpcC&redir_esc=y