Overview of the Problem

Human resources are one of the major building block of any organization. The potential of an organization depends not only in its ability to optimize the allocation of its materialistic resources but also to utilize effectively the available human resources. In the process of ensuring the optimization of human resource utilization it is also important to identify the factors that is rendering restraint upon the channelization of human resources (Albrecht et al. 2015).

It is necessary to make the human resources adapt with the new changes that are taking place within the market where the organization operates its business. In order to implement the action plan based on the analysis of the flaws and fortes of the organization human resources needs improvisation from all respect to raise their operational effectiveness as well as performance efficiency. For ensuring smooth functioning of the human resource management it is essential that the managerial endeavors should work in favor of the labor force of the organization from top to the bottom level and vice-versa within the employee hierarchy.

In this case it is been observed that Brain Lam, the owner of Big Bytes is confronted with a lot of issues related to the management for the organization as put forth to him by Samantha, who was earlier the retail manager of a departmental store and joined Big bytes as a general manager later. Big Bytes which is a chain of stores that deploys into the market products like computer equipment and information technology related accessories along with providing repairing and maintenance support (Albrecht et al. 2015). The paper delves into this aspect of human resource management and recommends action plans, execution of which may ensure long run sustenance of the company in the competitive market place.

Overview of the Problem

The background of the problem relates to the endeavor of the general manager Samantha who is a newly recruited professional in Big Bytes. The issues that are being highlighted by Samantha is in putting forth the issues that questions the relevance of laissez faire approach within the organization. Brian lam asked Samantha only to report about the performance of each of the stores which was rather imprecise (Bratton and Gold 2017). Samantha scrutinized the flaws and fortes in each of the stores where she comprehended that:

• there is deficiency of commitments by the store managers
• word of mouth was the medium through which recruitment use to take place
• Ambiguity exits behind high absenteeism and lateness
• The manager’s styles use to influence the morale of the staffs
• Online sales renders substantive competition for which the sales margin were confronted with downfall
• Training regarding financial management was a pre-requisite which were not found to be accomplished
• The formal appraisal process as at an halt due to operational ineffectiveness internally
• Staff turnover rate is high as retention of employees where low
• Based on the annual opinion survey, it was been found that the employees were unsatisfied with the lack of training opportunities whereas allocation of funds for trainings were implemented

Based on these aspects of concern the statement of the problem can be incorporated.

Statement of the Problem

Statement of the Problem

In order to ensure future success of Big Bytes, the implication of current situations reveals that there exists necessity of emergence of the company from it operational, managerial and financial perspectives. The statement of the problem comprises of ensuring that the human resources of Big Bytes are optimized and proper performance management system is being incorporated along with training and development opportunities.

Diagnosis

The issues that are a matter of concern for Brian Lam, the owner of Big Bytes is comprised of the existing problems that are prevalent due to traditional business approach. The laissez faire approach is being maintained where it is being believed that things will automatically come to their places where it is required. However, the sales are declining, the staff turnover is risen, store managers commitment towards maximizing the objective of the company has been reduced, etc. These things are the outcome of ineffective performance management system and improper channelization of the available human resources.

Along with that, effective grievance management of the employees are required based on understanding their perspectives regarding organizational culture and feedbacks regarding training needs (Marchington et al. 2016).  Samantha have utilized her 10 years’ experience in retail industry based on which she is interested to remove the constraints that exists within the organization and restructure the laissez faire approach towards an innovative one and improvise it in an employee friendly and quality work environment that enriches the organizational practices. It was been found that there is availability of funds that may support the expansion of the business through the chain of stores.

However, there were lack of proper managerial endeavors that will ensure that the allocated funds are properly utilized as well as the expansion of the business if effectively monitored. Increase in the number of the chain stores do not reduce the customer share and also the market capitalization of Big Bytes (Donate and Guadamillas 2015). Thus the major problem is related to high employee turnover which makes the company to loose skilled employees as well as potential customer base. Moreover, if a company earns profit or is able to maximize its sales volume then these are not the only parametric factors that determines the growth and development of the company.

Rather it is to be understood as reflected by Samantha that the organization should be internally strong and stability should prevail regarding its financial health as well as it should be able to optimize its allocated funds and resources irrespective of the fact that the resources are materialistic or human resources. Meeting the tax and other regulatory prerequisites may make Big Bytes financially clear and transparent form all respect that that does not ensure that the company will be stable in the long run or has a successful future sustenance.

Diagnosis

As highlighted by Samantha, it is important for Brian Lam to focus much more in boosting the Big Bytes organizational culture and human resource practices intrinsically. This may include the understanding employee grievances and responding them back, effective communication and work oriented training, facilitation of awareness generation programs for motivating employee willingness towards their work as well as boosting their expertise, developmental planning, performance appraisal, rewards & bonuses, raising employee engagement as well as implementation of successful recruitment endeavors, etc.

The SWOT analysis invigorates into the prevailing strengths, weaknesses of Big Bytes while focusing into the upcoming threats and how to capitalize them into opportunities.

Table 1: SWOT

Force Field Analysis (driving & restraining Forces)

The force field analysis focuses upon the driving and restraining forces that maximizes the opportunities for Big Bytes based on its strength and weaknesses while minimizing its threats. Majorly the effectiveness of the company to support its potential clients through sufficient technical assistance is a vital component that drives the business of the company. Apart from that the presence of skilled technicians in the various stores of the company ensures that the prospective customers will get quality services (Paillé et al. 2014). The expanding approach of the company into the market is another driving force for Big Bytes. The number of stores have increased from its previous state this outweighs the possibility of the firm to remain unrecognized among the target consumer base. The restraining forces on the other hand is the lack of commitment within the employees and the inability of the organizational entities to maintain a disciplined work culture.

Diagrammatically it can be shown as follows

Implications of Assessments

  The issues that are needed to be addressed can be sub-divided into short term, middle term & long term basis.

Short Term

The commitment level of the store managers should be boosted in the short run and facilitation of effective training and development initiatives is essential. The commitment level of the store managers will get increased if their willingness and involvement towards the company increases. The target consumer base will be effectively reached if and only if the bottom line effective interacts with the prospective consumers (Marchington et al. 2016). The important aspect of utilizing the business expansion by Big Bytes should be utilized and the diversified products and services like the IT accessories and computer equipment should be advertised and marketed effectively within the target consumer base in such a way that it can satisfy the consumers based on their feedbacks and needs.

SWOT Analysis

Middle Term

Beside annual plans and the midterm reviews are concerned with the issues of high employee turnover and hence low employee retention. The employees are being recruited based on word of mouth for which the skill levels of the employees and not been tested and hence unskilled labors are getting employed which are not able to perform at the time of necessity (Banfield, Kay and Royles 2018).

The word of mouth process encourages recruitment of employees but the human resource managers are not able to measure that whether the new recruits requires effective training or not. Rather it becomes tough for the management to identify the areas of expertise of the recruits and where they exactly lacks. Effective performance management initiatives accompanied by proper appraisal and penalizing system will help the organization to nullify the gaps that exist between the expected level of performance and actual level of performance.

Long Term

It is important that the laissez faire approach should be reduced and a more innovative approach should be incorporated in the organizational culture of big bytes. The problem that persists with laissez faire approach is that in this approach the managers use the leadership technique where they provide a very little guidance to the subordinates and the employees are supported with complete freedom to make and implement their own decisions. Due to this reason the senior employees are found to perform for the organization based on their will which hampered the progress of the organization and ensure its smooth pace (Gutierrez, Barrales and Kaynak 2018).

Notably, the store managers rises through the employee hierarchy based on their number of years of serving to the company. However, their existing level of skills are not tested periodically which sometimes underestimate or overestimate the performance level of the human resources. Apart from that, the staff morale is not rising and for which the organizational culture is deteriorating. The employee engagement and willingness towards working for the company is reducing and hence issues like absenteeism and lateness are rising.

Performance Management

The process of performance management is very essential in case of Big Bytes. This is due to the reason that the company have all the requisite resources in terms of funds as well as human capital. Designing a credible and feasible performance management system and resolving the prevailing issues within Big Bytes followed by earning competitive advantage from the rivals in the existing industry and ensure market penetration and maximization of financial profitability and business sustenance can be done. However, it is needed to motivate the employees by effectively handling the grievance management of them as well as of the manager and process the promotion of the work force based on skills and merit but not on seniority of the employees.

Force Field Analysis

Since effective training, rewards and appraisal mechanism is not implemented so the store manager are not being penalized for their lack of commitments and the bottom line employees who are found to be strongly adhered with Big Bytes for raising its quality of production and practice effective organization culture are not found to be rewards. This are working as demotivating factors as they are not founding any form of career growth opportunities. On the other hand, the management of the organization is not able to mobilize the resources optimally coupled with effective managerial and operational endeavors.

The main reasons are lack of employee commitments from the store managers who are promoted to their post not based on their merit or ability to take responsibilities but on the basis of their seniority. Thus many people who may are junior than them yet possess greater skills that is necessary for the post though opportunities are not given to them due to the reason that they are not seniors. Hence, the progress of the organization is dependent upon the traditional aspect of seniority and not the innovative aspect which is concerned with the employees that may not be seniors yet possess greater expertise that are requisite for respective positions of store managers (Shields et al. 2015).

They should be recruited based on their commitments towards the organization, their merits, managerial outlook, analytical thinking abilities and innovative approach towards mobilizing human resources. The process of performance management that is discussed by Samantha endeavored to monitor the allocation of funds and ensure utilization of the human resources to optimize the overall business functionality.

The planned structure as provided by Samantha incorporated the areas upon which actions are needed to be taken by Brain Lam so that the existing problem within the organization may take a halt. It is been highlighted that certain elements should be effectively taken care of regarding the aspect of performance management that will allow to maximize the overall performance of the organization (Chelladurai and Kerwin 2017). Every store managers will be responsible to communicate regarding the existing state of performance of all the underling employees. Along with that the employees should be trained effectively so that their morale remain strong and their commitments towards Big Bytes should be raised.

The store managers will be motivated through training and development of skills and managerial understanding. Proper performance planning thus includes effective goal setting for the employees from the managers as well as enhancing their willingness for the work that they render for the organization (Collings, Wood and Szamosi 2018). Traditional approach should be replaced by innovative approach for which the employees will work due to their willingness and not will be forced to work for the organization.

Effective feedbacks will be undertaken from the top level as well as bottom level employees based on which the loopholes of the organizational practices will be identified and resolved through performance communication and bringing improvement in the performance standards undertaken to estimate performance of the employees as well as the managers.  Human resource management is an essential aspect of concern for any organization. Every organization may possess sufficient funds to support its activities (Jackson, Schuler and Jiang 2014). However, allocation of human resources needs to be optimized to ensure that the utilization of the funds are effective.

For smoothing the functionality of the human resource management initiative sis is also important to assess the employee morale and their endeavors to meet organizational commitments. When the resourceful working force of a company will find that there is enough provision for them to optimize career growth then they will be willingly obedient towards organization objective and would not be forcefully obedient towards it. It is important to delve into the aspect of Big Bytes, a company that deals with computer equipment and IT related accessories.

The manager of the company Brian Lam have faced several challenges from the newly recruited professional Samantha who put forth the existing flaws and fortes within the organization regarding its human resources (Zhao  2015). The organization is in the process of facilitating effective training and awareness generation program that can motivate the employees and the store managers towards practicing an efficient organizational culture and human resource allocation mechanism.

HR Plan

The human resource plan should be in accordance with the objective to mitigate the problems related to the current situation of Big Bytes and the state of the existing market. The human resource management plans are based on the following issues which are deficiency of commitments by the store managers. Word of mouth was the medium through which recruitment use to take place. Ambiguity exits behind high absenteeism and lateness. The manager’s styles use to influence the morale of the staffs.

Online sales renders substantive competition for which the sales margin were confronted with downfall. Training regarding financial management was a pre-requisite which were not found to be accomplished. The formal appraisal process as at a halt due to operational ineffectiveness internally. Staff turnover rate is high as retention of employees where low. Based on the annual opinion survey, it was been found that the employees were unsatisfied with the lack of training opportunities whereas allocation of funds for trainings were implemented (Haneda and Ito 2018). The issues of concern and the respective human resource plan should be accompanied by an appropriate performance management system coupled with training and development initiatives for the employees of the organization which can be incorporated as follows:

Conclusion

Conclusion can be done based on the flaws and fortes that exists within the organization. There is necessity to implement effective performance management system and ensure proper channelization of the available human resources. Along with that, effective grievance management of the employees are required based on understanding their perspectives regarding organizational culture and feedbacks regarding training needs.

 It was been found that there is availability of funds that may support the expansion of the business through the chain of stores. However, there were lack of proper managerial endeavors that will ensure that the allocated funds are properly utilized as well as the expansion of the business if effectively monitored. Increase in the number of the chain stores do not reduce the customer share and also the market capitalization of Big Bytes.

Thus the major problem is related to high employee turnover which makes the company to loose skilled employees as well as potential customer base. Moreover, if a company earns profit or is able to maximize its sales volume then these are not the only parametric factors that determines the growth and development of the company. Rather it is to be understood as reflected by Samantha that the organization should be internally strong and stability should prevail regarding its financial health as well as it should be able to optimize its allocated funds and resources irrespective of the fact that the resources are materialistic or human resources.

Meeting the tax and other regulatory prerequisites may make Big Bytes financially clear and transparent form all respect that that does not ensure that the company will be stable in the long run or has a successful future sustenance. Hence, it is important for Brian Lam to focus much more in boosting the Big Bytes organizational culture and human resource practices intrinsically to ensure their survival in the long run.

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