Analysis of HR Practice at a Household Subsidiary

The human aspect of any business is the largest investment any organization can undertake. Management has the responsibility for ensuring their return on investment is solid. On the other hand, human resources must implement strategies that are effective and leads to goal attainment. The human resource strategy and all other human activities along with the programs designed by management are the determinants that will impact the organization success.

Household Sales is an international subsidiary company, with a mission for all employees to exhibit pleasant, courteous and knowledgeable behavior to all customers.  Household Sales fulfills its mission by sourcing household products overseas and locally from the finest preserved raw materials, which complies with recommended environmental standards while attracting the majority of employees locally.

After 15 years, the subsidiary company grew to 14 locations and maintained at home sourcing practices, tapping into overseas market when products were not available locally.  With two large competitors, Household Sales is poised to be a leader in the next generation of top quality household furnishings or lag behind with outdated products.

This subsidiary unlike most of the large ones, encouraged employees to seek employment as soon as they acquire high school diplomas, as an opportunity to build a long-term career within the organization.  Human Resources is an internal department, with 300 employees serving roles in staffing, training, compensation, benefits and partner services.

All the employees who are engaged and identified with the organization will accept recommended workplace behavior and at the same time be very motivated to support the company’s products and brands. This effect will be facilitated by customer orientation presented to the employees. The customer orientation will develop employee identity and research has shown that behaviors will be encouraged that benefits the company as a whole.  In other words, the more employees identify with the company, the more they will seek opportunities to contribute positively to the company’s performance.

Operations and front- line employees will assist the company to maintain and deepen the relationships with their customers by serving and effectively meeting their needs.  This will result in employees seeing their own efforts to contribute to the customers’ loyalty and ultimately drive the company’s long- term success.  Household Sales Subsidiary can remain competitive, acquiring increased market shares and greater profitability, if it keeps its customers and other stakeholders happy.

Companies recruiting and selecting process is a very important part of any human resource strategy.  Changes in the environment including economic predicament, flourishing market, natural disasters or any unexpected occurrences should not affect their ability to have adequate talent all year round in their pool, thus avoiding any opportunity for set-backs.

One way that companies plan, is implementing talent acquisition and talent management strategy as their policy to progress and prosper in any changing situation. Part of the company long term vision should include forecasting, job specificity in design and job description, strong candidate pools, ability to logically assess candidates, securing the best talent, mixing new hires and monitor and evaluate the processes for effectiveness.

Household Subsidiary was forced to close a few stores and reduce staff numbers when there was a turmoil resulting from a changed government.  The immediate strategy taken was to commit all efforts on a sustainable path for long term goals and recruitment. The Balanced Scorecard and new Incentive programs were launched to create a company-wide collective approach for greater effectiveness.

Most companies engage their employees and partners in new learning through training to ensure they acquire new skills to better understand the pathway to efficiency, remain up to date on policies and procedural changes and become verse at technological resources as a form of avoiding failure.  Research and experience have shown that companies that focus on continuous training and development are better positioned to have continuity in business success.  Companies have to take responsibility even though it presents setback to fix unexpected problems.

However, Household Subsidiary has resources specifically available to design and provide training and allow employees to be in attendance without affecting the smooth operations of the business.  This company has the capacity to continuously assess the business needs and develop suitable training programs to ensure the employees remain competent and for this reason they are in a better position to determine efficient outcomes.

The need for continuity in competitiveness give rise to sensible decisions and part of that was set timelines for training and development both locally and overseas.  The focus of being available whenever their customers’ have needs let to shift in hours of operations, which was a distinct deviation from the way business is done in their place of operation.  Positioning of Household Subsidiary was critical to their profitability and employees were brought on board to embrace this new direction for greater return on investment.

Khan-pa has been a household name for generations and well known for offering great products at competitive pricing and seven (7) locations with the largest one being in immediate vicinity of Household Subsidiary flagship store and a second across from the second largest Household Subsidiary store. The other five were in close proximity of the other five large stores. Their stores were modernized and expanded to compete and as part of their changes was sourcing products from the very suppliers used by Household Subsidiary.   Khan-pa recruiting strategy was similar to Household Subsidiary in targeting younger employees, mainly those who recently graduated with their high school diplomas with a focus of seeking and building long term careers in retail.

Another Khan-pa’s strategy that was different was their employment numbers were significantly less  (75 percent of Household Subsidiary numbers).  The complement of front-line employees was the same in five (5) of the seven (7) stores with minimal supporting staff and the absence of Regional oversight personnel. Their Head Office was equipped with a larger team and each assuming generalist role and performed cross functional duties with decision making roles on discounts and other incentives.

The generalist role performed by Khan-pa team was designed to attract and increase their customer base but little attention was placed on a human resources strategic functioning department similar to its competitor.  As a result, they were not positioned to take advantage of market uncertainty or actual market changes by having a talent pool to respond to any unexpected changes.  In addition, their current policies were not consistent in service delivery as practiced by its competitor.  Household Subsidiary, no doubt has a lot more to invest and in various strategic areas including Human Resources, its trusted partner, thus increasing their return on investment.

Household Sales Subsidiary meet with their employees regularly at lunch and learn sessions and off-peak times to reiterate its commitment to their development and long term growth.  This is in exchange for their focus, hardworking, friendly, consistent, results driven mindset and adherence to management systems and policies. The implementation of an incentive structure will provide greater returns to each employee. This win-win for all will allow the company to be better positioned to increase its customer base and gain greater market shares.

Household Subsidiary will continue to be second to none in its overall performance as their Human Resources is capable of functioning under any adverse conditions. However, Household Subsidiary has failed in a few areas mainly because of its slow responsiveness in its earlier stages of business. Since the implementation of a strategic approach and support from Strategic Human Resources model, and finally getting it right with its human capital, it has shown the resilience and success large companies can ask for in today’s changing markets.

References

1. Format and headings adopted from the Writing Center from Aimee Garten original paper.
2. Companies names, location and other company information were changed to protect the privacy of the companies.