Implementation Human Resource Management

Question: Discuss about the Implementation for Human Resource Management. Answer: Introduction: It is needless to state that any private organization works with the purpose of profit maximization. Hence, for the sake of enhancing its revenue, an organization formulates various kinds of strategies, the implementation of which however, solely depends on the employees and the working staffs. Hence, motivating the employees to excel in their respective jobs, becomes a matter of utmost importance for any organization, and herein lays the importance of Employee Value Proposition, otherwise known as EVP. The EVP can be offered to the employees in the form of great salary and compensation benefits, bonus and incentives, or work-life balance. The concept of EVP has become an important aspect of any organization, not merely because it helps in employee retention, but also because it helps in creating a strong employee brand, and in re-engaging a disenchanted workforce (Bettencourt et al. 2014). The importance of EVP cannot be overstated because the work in an organization is based on a g ive and take policy. It is only when the organization agrees to offer lucrative salary and other financial benefits to its employees that the employees in turn help the organization meet its mission, vision and goals with the help of their skills and expertise. Each and every organization has an EVP of its own which it tends to follow, even if the EVP is not well-defined by it. However, it is recommended that each organization should have a clearly defined EVP as it serves as a kind of a mutual agreement between the employee and the organization, which in turn helps the employees generate greater productivity, ultimately leading to organizational success (Melton and Hartley 2013). Discussion: Woolworths, established in the year of 1924, has emerged to be one of the largest and most recognized supermarkets in Australia (Woolworths 2016). Woolworths recognizes the undeniable importance of its employees in serving the consumers. Woolworths being a retail store, largely depends on the efficiency, skills and expertise of its employees and hence the organization undertakes much responsibility for ensuring employee satisfaction. It is worth mentioning here that Woolworths does not merely offer competitive salary packages to its employees (Tantalo and Prim 2014). The authority of Woolworths also makes sure that the employees are getting sufficient appraisal and recognition for their professional dedication, and are able to find an amiable work environment to work smoothly in. Woolworths has a clear EVP strategy that intends to offer an experience to its employees, rather than stress and work anxiety. Woolworths has always been known for encouraging diversity in workplace, whereby it has as many as 2000 indigenous employees (Woolworths 2016). Most importantly, among its 1,90,000 employees, the organization never fails to recognize employee skills with the help of various scholarship programs, such as Jack Shewmaker Scholarship program (Santos et al. 2013). The very reason as to why Woolworths has recently emerged to be a successful organization is that the management authority of Woolworths knows how to tap the motivation of its employees. The organization works in accordance with the rules of the workplace science, and hence helps in not only satisfying the financial requirements of its employees, but also focuses sufficiently on the suitable job design for each individual employee. The Employee Value Proposition not only implies valuing the employees in terms of monetary benefits, but also valuing their needs and expectations in the workplace. This is the reason why Woolworths works for employee segmentation, whereby the employee with good social skills and outgoing nature is allotted team work, and those with data-driven, analytical bent of mind are assigned more individual roles, such as the role of a Sales Assistant or Supervisor (Mortimer and Connor 2014). This kind of employee segmentation practice followed at Woolworths is a pa rt of its EVP plan, as this is a way of making an employee feel valued, by assigning him the suitable job role, and rewarding him based on the successful execution of the job. While speaking of EVP, the salary is the first thing that comes in mind, and the salary scale offered by any organization is indeed the most important part of the EVP. Providing competitive salary to the employees helps in greater employee loyalty, and most importantly helps in the retention of the skillful employees. The Employee Value Proposition of an organization should not state that it should keep on inflating the salary of its employees without proper justification. For the sake of retaining employees, if an organization aims to offer competitive salary rates to its employees, it will soon run short of resources. Hence, an organization must create its EVP in such a way that it does not underpay or overvalue an employee. Woolworths EVP financially recognizes the skill, hard work and dedication of each employee. The salary package is sufficiently high, and at the same time the organization offers good amount of incentives and financial benefits to its employees (Balasubramaniam and Raghuraman 2014). The organization also encourages its working staffs not only by providing them the salaries in time, but also offering them high bonus rates during Christmas. In case an employee works on a Sunday his extra effort is always rewarded by Woolworths through additional pay. Each organization has its set of mission, objectives and goals to be accomplished in a given time, but it can achieve the same only if it can sufficiently motivate its employees. Woolworths is well aware of the fact that its team of extremely committed and passionate employees largely contributes to its organizational success. Woolworths provides salary in due time, and at the same time offers variable pay in the form of long term as well as short term incentives (Laddha et al. 2012). It often happens that an employee has the necessary skill and talent, the fulfillment of which however, can come by providing adequate training to the employees. In order to ensure that the employees are able enough to offer productivity, the organization must arrange training programs as well (Byrant and Allen 2013). However, spending money for training inefficient workers is of no use, and hence Woolworths spends enormous amount of money for arranging various training programs for the most deserving employees. It is worth mentioning that the organization in the year of 2013, had invested a lump sum amount of $ 32.2 million for learning and development programs, meant solely for the purpose of enhancing the skills of its employees (Dhar 2015). Any sort of training is an important part of EVP of an organization, as it not only helps in benefitting the organization by providing highly skilled employees, but also helps in nurturing the potentiality of each of the employees. The very po pular belief is that training the employees, ultimately leads to the loss of employees, as once they are trained and skilled, they start looking for better jobs. However, this is indeed a misconception as reports and studies suggest that when an organization decides to invest in necessary training programs for its employees, the employees feel valued, and hence show a sense of gratitude by continuing to work in the same organization. Keeping into consideration the importance of training, Woolworths has held more than 6,60,000 training sessions in the year of 2013, and it surely has required a huge amount of investment (Dhar 2015). However, the management authority of the organization has claimed that each of the training programs is meant to bring about the professional development among the employees, and hence the investment is not a big issue. The organization has also introduced the recent FastTrack Program to Management and Leadership that assists the existent employees in care er and skill development process. According to Nancy Elshami , EVP is a way by which an organization financially recognizes the contribution of an employee in an organization, and hence satisfying the employee expectations is very important if an organization intends to retain its employees (Naqvi and Khan 2013). Elshami maintains that apart from the financial factors, an employee also derives adequate job satisfaction from how an organization treats it and values its skills and hence introducing career development programs or recognizing their talents, is very critical to attracting as well as retaining the employees (Gubler et al. 2016). Woolworths, since its inception, has always encouraged and motivated its employees to think of innovative, novel ideas for future business growth. Once an employee has demonstrated innovation by introducing a business transforming idea, he is rewarded with the help of the Jack Shewmaker Scholarship program. Alan Booth, for example, is an employee who has recently been chosen for th e Jack Shewmaker Scholarship Program, for having provided a more modern trailer design that will assist the organization in fresher delivery of its products (Santos et al. 2014). While discussing the issue of employee welfare, the importance of work-life balance cannot be overemphasized. An organization needs to ensure that the employees are able to maintain proper work-life balance, and they are not being overburdened with long working hours and tight working schedules (Issacs 2016). While framing the EVP, an organization should keep in the mind the issue of work-life balance as well. Woolworths offers good work-life balance to its employees. It allows flexible working schedule to its employees, and the full time workers get to work only five days a week, whereby they can choose to take their week off on either Friday and Saturday or Sunday and Monday. Woolworths not only offers good working conditions to its employees, but also provides sufficient break in between, so that the employees can be refreshed and relaxed. In an 8 hour shift, an employee gets two employee breaks- two 15 minutes break and one 1 hour break (Manne 2015). The organization also offers food and drinks to its employees at free of cost, and is known for meting out good treatment to each of its employees, from working staffs to floor managers. As already being stated, Woolworths has earned much recognition as well as organizational success by offering both financial as well as non-financial benefits to its employees via its strong and effective EVP plan. The employees working at Woolworths enjoy attractive discounts on a huge number of products and services, and can also avail discounts and lucrative offers on cinema, live show tickets, accommodation service and many more. The employees also get a fixed 5 % discount while purchasing any commodity from a Woolworths store (Woolworths 2016). The organization also provides health insurance to its employees, and what is even more striking, is that Woolworths is one of the very few private organizations in the world that is offering paid maternity leave as well (Woolworths 2016). Woolworths works with as many as 85,000 female employees, and hence offering maternity benefits to its employees is an important achievement in itself (Woolworths 2016). As already mentioned, the main purpose of EVP is to make the employee feel valued, and to respect the daily efforts an employee invests for bringing in the organizational success. Hence, it is wrong and highly unjust to terminate an employee, or stop paying her just because she has conceived and wishes to take a leave. Woolworths knows how to retain its employees, and thus offers an eight week maternity leave to its female employees. While for most of the organizations, it is just an unnecessary wastage of money, for Woolworths, it is a way of building valued relation with its employees. The employees are the real gems of an organization, and when the organization is as consumer-friendly as Woolworths, treating the employees in the right way becomes a necessity. The moment an organization starts working towards improvement of the condition of its employees, it starts achieving enormous recognition in the workplace, and hence good EVP is a must for any organization that intends to sus tain itself in future. Offering an employee disability benefit, is also an integral part of the EVP of Woolworths. In case an employee of Woolworths becomes disabled because of illness, or any other reason, and fails to continue to work in future, the organization does not merely accept his resignation, but takes his financial responsibility to a considerable extent (Katz 2014). After sufficient medical tests, if it is proved that an employee is physically unable to continue his job, he will be offered disability fund by Woolworths until his death. Similarly, the organization also provides good amount of retirement benefits, educational fund and similar kinds of benefits to each of its employees (Katz 2014). Woolworths has gone a great way in terms of creating its EVP. However, a few recommendations can be suggested to enable the organization improve its employee experience. The organization has already introduced different awards meant for recognizing the skills of its employees; however the number of awards given can be increased (Gallus and Frey 2015). The organization should offer recognition to its employees for working overtime, or for making remarkable contribution to the business. The organization should also arrange for the best team award as well to ensure great team bonding within the organization. The organization should also increase the number of employee opinion surveys that will help the employees rate their experience in the work culture of Woolworths (Heathfield 2013). Despite the fact that the organization has recently adopted several steps to ensure the work-life balance of its employees, the employees are still found to complain about the excessive work stress at Woo lworths. Hence, greater flexibility of working hours can be provided to the employees, and the employees should also be allowed to enjoy the holiday leave at least twice a year. An effective EVP can only be created by an organization if it can conduct sufficient qualitative internal research that will help them understand the needs and the expectations of its employees. The organization may also plan internal communication programs that will help them understand the requirements of the employees from themselves (Denis 2016). Conclusion: It can be understood from the above discussion that EVP plays an important role in the organizational success of any organization. An organization must take into consideration the benefits of the employees if it intends to operate the business activities smoothly in future. In case an organization aspires to attract as well as secure some of the best and highly priced talent of the market, it must create an impressive EVP plan. It should be remembered that EVP is also an integral part of the marketing strategy of any organization. While creating the Employee Value Proposition, an organization should not merely consider the financial benefits to be offered to an employee, but should also ensure that each of the employees derive job satisfaction. Hence, ensuring good work environment great working condition, introducing ethical policies, opportunity for career progression, are also important factors that should be considered, while drafting the EVP of the organization. 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