This report is about critical evaluation of people management done in ABASCO. There are different sections of this report. First of all, the internal context of organization has been analyzed in which culture and strategies of people management have been analyzed. After analysis of internal context of ABASCO, one of the key function of human resource management has been identified this is learning and development. Learning and development is an important function of human resource management which is lacking in practices of ABASCO. The strategic alignment and need for learning and development with respect to its various benefits have been analyzed. After analysis of learning and development, various recommendations have been given which must be followed by ABASCO for effectively managing the skills and expertise of its employees. In the end, cost and resources required for implementing learning and development practices have been examined.
ABASCO is a successful wholesaler of fashion products which is doing its business in retail industry of clothing. The firm was established five years ago. The operations of company were started in 2009 with the help of a merger which was done between three small firms. These three smaller firms were operating in the form of entrepreneurs separately. The owners of company are John Stone, Harry Silverman and Mark Cliffe. In 2009, for expanding the business globally, the owners of business decided to amalgamate its operations for surviving and prospering in global markets of clothing. The integrated name of firm is ABASCO which means A Big and Successful Company. The firm was formed as a private company in which the share of three owners is equal.
The culture of an organization plays a very important role in formulation of various strategies within an organization. Culture is a key aspect which particularly includes shared norms, values, beliefs and behaviours of all individuals working within an organization. In culture of an organization different internal as well as external links are included and it affects actions of people working in that culture. It has been agreed by many scholars that various assumptions regarding relationships among humans are used for setting culture of an organization (Schein, 2010). In ABASCO, the management of firm encourages integration among all departments of organization. All the employees working within an organization have the authority of doing work according to their own style and desire. This helps the firm in gaining efficient performance from all employees (Reid et al., 2004).
In this competitive business world, the culture of an organization is usually integrated with management of firm. There are two important factors needed for effectively managing culture of organization that are structural sustainability and linkage of excellent standard of culture (Dessler, 2013). Different characteristics of culture have been made within organization for setting norms, standards and values (Schermerhorn et al., 2004).
The structure of an organization tells about the framework and ways used by business to manage operations of business. The owners of firms have the responsibility of setting structure of organization. Mostly, the owners set the structure of an organization according to his or her personality, style of management and other related characteristics. Mostly, in organization two kinds of structure are found that are centralized and decentralized structure (Torrington, 2014). In ABASCO, the structure of organization is decentralized. All employees of each function of company have to report to team manager. The team member has a responsibility of reporting to top management directly. In case of decentralized organizational structure, the employees have the responsibility of participating in important decisions of business. Teams are formed in company in the form of various departments for performing different kinds of activities. The skills and expertise of employees are used by management of firm in case of decentralized organizations (Taylor, 2008). In ABASCO, there are eight functions and teams are made for managing all operations of those departments.
In organization the structure is not hierarchical but it is flat according to which the employees of all eight functions report to their team leaders. The team leaders of all functions have the authority of directly dealing with any owner at any time. The appraisal and performance management of employees is also done by team leaders. Team leaders have the responsibility of evaluating the work of employees and to reward them. This helps the firm in retaining the skilled employees, because team leaders recommend top management to increase pay or salary of that employee who is working well but preferring to leave. In this way, the firm is successful in managing the people working in organization (Schermerhorn et al., 2004). One of the issues that company is currently facing is having no human resource management department, which is a major drawback of company. In order to manage employees in an effective way, it is very important to have efficient working human resource management department. In this competitive business world, it is very important to build strong strategic HR plans for integrating personnel strategies with organizational overall objectives. The employees of any organization are served as a competitive edge of that organization. In an organization people management is served as an effective way of getting required outcomes from employees working in an organization (Torrington, 2014).
For ensuring better performance of employees, all management of employees must be integrated with overall strategy and planning of business. The basic function of human resource department is recruitment and selection of employees. In order to ensure quality performance of employees, they must be recruited in an effective way, so that it can be ensured that employees have necessary skills and expertise required to do a specific job. The top management of ABSCO uses a recruitment agency named as Planet 24 for recruitment and selection of its employees. This is not at all good strategy in today’s competitive business world. Due to lack of human resource department, the firm is unable to hire employees by itself through complete analysis of need for employees. The top management does not focuses on demand of people within an organization, rather than that it just focuses on hiring employees with the help of recruitment agency. This strategy results in wastage of enough investment. Due to the use of recruitment agency, the firm has to pay extra costs to that agency (Chenhall, 2005).
Another issue in people management of ABASCO is not offering better salaries to employees. The employees are hired at lower rates due to which they do not feel satisfied with their job. As, the structure of organization is flat according to which people are encouraged to participate in decision making and they can directly give their ideas to top management, so the employees must also be given with high pay scales and wages (Wellington, 2011). The people management of company is not consistent and aligned with overall business culture and strategy. In order to gain better and innovative ideas from employees, they must be paid high in addition to giving authority in order to motivate them. The financial motivation is also very important for retention of employees for longer period of time. In ABASCO, employees are mostly given with salaries and reward on the basis of their length of service rather than their performance.
Another significant function of human resource management of personnel management is training and development. In order to enhance skills and expertise of employees, it is very important to provide them with training opportunities on frequent basis (Ivancevich & Konopaske, 2013). As, ABASCO is a fashion retail firm and its strategy focuses on gaining more market share by meeting fashion demands of customers, so it should focus on training of employees. The top management of ABASCO does not focus on training and development of employees. They consider investment on employees as a cost rather than asset. The employees working in ABASCO are not given with much training opportunities. The management just hires employees on the basis of their skills mentioned in their resumes. Most of the small and medium enterprises put bring investment on training and development of employees, because employees mostly switch the organization after getting from that specific organization. Due to this reason, ABASCO does not invest high on training and development of employees. The employees are hired on the basis of their already present skills and experiences. Most of the employees are not encouraged to learn new and innovative skills and expertise. Only design office employees get a chance of going for comp shopping. In this way, they get a chance of looking around in various brick and mortar and online stores to get an idea about latest designs for sparking more innovation in their work. Due to lack of opportunities for training and development, the employees become unable of bringing innovation within an organization. In order to compete in this business environment, it is very important for firms to consider ways of bringing innovation with in operations of business (Dessler, 2013). ABASCO is unable to bring changes in its operations and products, due to lack of training and development. Employees do not get training opportunities, so they do not learn new skills and capabilities in order to cope up with changing business environment. The firm also does not focus on using latest technology for doing various operations of business. As ABASCO is doing retail business of fashion clothing products, so it is very important for it to adapt changes in fashion industry. The people are not given with training facilities, due to which they are unable to know about latest trends of fashion in market.
ABASCO has set an attractive organizational culture and structure for doing its business efficiently and effectively. There is lack of alignment between organizational overall strategies, structure and culture with people management within organization.
Basically the term training and development is linked with the acquisition of interpretation, practices and techniques. Actually, training and development is one of the most important imperative of HRM as with the help of it, there can improvement in the performance of individuals, colleges, and organizations. As the procedure of enhancing capacity of one person so that he might take decisions effectively, ABASCO is now becoming specific with the learning of an organization. On the other hand, organization learning deals with the “efficient techniques for the process, interpretation and for responding to internal and external data of a predominantly explicit nature. In accordance with Chenhall (2005) when the main idea of organizational learning emerged, it was the centre on the hitherto idea that learning advocacies are likely to have commercial importance. Technically, organizational learning, which transforms development and training into one of different responses, deals with the process of understanding, practices and techniques. These intangibles can be interpreted as organizational resource with the help of people that gain, infer and use them towards acquiring the training and development of an organization (Knies et al., 2013). Training and development are termed as some planned experience of learning, it let the employees know that how to perform their job in present future, effectively. Harrison (2009) led emphasis on that the main focus of training is on current jobs while the purpose of development is to prepare them for future jobs. So generally, the main target of training and development is to make some contribution in the overall objective of an organization. Closing the skills gap is termed as crucial area of human resource development for ABASCO to get into the market continuously. Mainly, skills gap threatens the competitiveness and productivity both in operational and organizational levels. This demands that professionals of human resource management should initiate the workforce cultivation from the period of recruitment. Although, it is not as much simpler, there are many particular tasks which need customization of skills and not all of the newly hired employees get social skills aside from the general skills. In giving respond to the basic challenges of skills deficiency and skills gap, HR professionals should develop some of the programs that will tell about the issues (Sims, 2006). Therefore building of an organization is an imperative for the occurrence and for the survival of all of the new companies. Consistently, organizations are making investments onto the employees or internal customers therefore acquiring benefit from the human capital management. Sense of ownership is also significant; HR professionals should be developed in order to make strategies, thus ensuring superior skills, experience and knowledge to settle within the workforce. Activities of learning shall put development allocations and skills increment at its basic along with career development and empowerment. This is a long going learning which will help ABASCO, mainly its HRM department to do a long investment with the members of its organization and to assist them in making their competencies (Sims, 2006). The main objective of learning according to the employee is to get knowledge and skills to perform his job and to get advance career and promotion. In support of changes of career, training and development also caters for the professional and personal employees’ developments. Learning can be explained as any knowledge which is acquired with the help of experience, self-directed study, or both; the art of getting ideas, attitudes, competencies, skills and knowledge retained and used; or behaviour change with the help of experience. Harrison (2009) believes the learning has not much to do with information; rather it is just like a process that builds up the capacity. Learning is related to the capacity building in order to make that which was not created yet.
The management of ABASCO must align its strategies with learning and development activities of firm. The firm has not strategically aligned the process of learning and development with its objectives. The firm has to make enough investment in learning and development for fulfilling the requirements of organization which are particularly linked with brining innovation within the products. The firm is doing wholesale clothing business, so for this kind of business innovation and creativity is very important. After alignment of L&D, proper steps must be taken for cost-effective implementation of LTD process (Monteiro, 2014).
Source: (Schermerhorn, 2012)
The individual should be provided proper opportunity to avail or to practice something being taught, regardless of biasness and whether some trainee is already learning an advance skill of getting knowledge related to some topic. After the training of an individual, practice is the most important thing (Marchington & Wilkinson, 2002). There are two approaches of practice – over learning and active practice. Active learning permits the people to do some work repeatedly or to utilize the learned knowledge. Over learning occurs at the point where the trainees are given the chance to exercise things far beyond the point where the work turns into ‘second nature’ and is ‘over learned’. The fifth and the foremost one is the application which provides life to other four because training is of no use unless the application of learning. Therefore, training and development is of great advantage not only for the organization but also for the individual employees. On the other side, training and development also proves to be helpful in the improvement of profitability or for positive attitudes towards the orientation of profit, improves the job skills and knowledge at every organization level, enhance the workforce morale and assists in identifying the goals of an organization (Harrison, 2009). On the other hand, training and development helps individual to make even better decisions and to solve problems effectively, helps in achievement and encouragement of self-confidence and self deployment, assisting employee to handle conflict, frustration, stress and tension, enhancing satisfaction of job and identification and moving the person to goals while making improvement in the interaction skills (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010).
ABASCO has to focus on learning and development of employees in order to adapt with changes. It is very important aspect of people management. The change is very important for any kind of organization for becoming successful. The organization has to follow Kurt Levin Model (Dumas & Beinecke, 2015). Change management is significantly linked with learning and development of employees. Following model must be implemented by ABASCO
The unfreezing stage is one of the significant stages for understanding the change require in an organization. This stage involves making the organization ready to adapt change. In case of ABASCO, the change has to be analyzed by top management of firm in order to understand the need for learning and development. Learning and development is very important factor of change management. In order to bring change effectively, first of all ABASCO should analyze the need for change. The company has to make necessary preparations for brining specific change.
According to Kurt Lewin, change is not a single activity, but this whole process needs to be followed by whole organization. In order to implement effective learning and development within organization, the overall strategies of business must be aligned with that learning and development process. The management of ABASCO must change or move the internal activities of firm for reacting to change. In this stage of change model, the firm takes steps for bringing changes within operations of organization. At this stage, the employees of organization are unfrozen to make them capable of moving towards innovative ways of doing things. In order to bring change in an effective way within all strategies and operations of organization, training and development is very important. Employees must be provided with opportunities of training for making them capable of implementing that change within their activities of job. This stage of change management model is tough as employees have to learn about the changes implemented in organization and they must be given with time for understanding and working with them. In this case, it is very important to support them through proper opportunities of training and development. The employees have to be guided for any kind of mistake that they do while doing their job. The employees can also learn through different role models and giving them chance of developing their solutions through which they can easily understand the change. Communication is a very important aspect of learning and development. The employees must know about the benefits of change that has to be brought in organization (Dessler, 2013).
This stage is the last stage of change management model. After giving opportunities of learning and development to employees, they must be provided with that working environment in which they can create stability in their working. The change must be aligned with strategy and it should become a norm for organization.
ABASCO is a wholesaler of fashion clothing products, so it is very important for all of its employees to have latest information regarding fashion trends and customers’ demands. In order to have enhanced skills of employees, it is very important for an organization to do investment on learning and development. The employees must be provided with different learning and training opportunities in order to make them capable of learning new skills and technology. In today’s competitive world, there is a significant role of technology for gaining competitive advantage by companies. In order to make employees committed and motivated, they must be given with moral support and accessibility to training. The companies which are capable of creating an environment in which significant support to training is given and employees are provided with value are able to gain greater motivation in the form of outcomes (Mullins & Christy, 2013). Hashim et al (2012) found that training is the capability of getting to the professional level. It is very important to take learning and development opportunity and in addition to this, feedback should also be given to employees. ABSCO should make enough investment on learning and development for achieving aims and targets of organization. Apospori et al. (2008) found that there is a significant effect of training on performance of employees. Learning and development is a significant activity for increasing the performance of employees which in result enhances the outcome of employees (Sims, 2002). ABASCO should adopt hard approach for enhancing learning and development in organization. According to hard approach, the company considers its employees as a key resource for achieving objectives of firm. In addition to this, ABASCO should also adopt soft approach for enhancing the performance of employees in which the employees are considered to be valuable assets which have capability of bringing development in organization. ABASCO should increase percentage of investment on learning and development in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness of employees. In order to increase productivity of firm, the company should give appropriate opportunities to employees for training. There is a relationship between actual performance of employees with their level of commitment with organization and this commitment level can be increased through learning and development opportunities. The firm should focus on development of employees by giving them authority of taking part in decisions. If a company wants to enhance the competitive edge then through learning and development it can be gained and it assists the company in retaining the core skills and competencies.
Source: (Harrison, 2009)
The most significant reason like why learning needs to be assess is that when learning is being assessed it will tend to change the practice. One of main challenges being faced by educationalists is to change the exercises of physicians, so anything that assists is the paramount. Identification of the learning can be fun as well as challenge, there are rare chances of already knowing it, mostly people are not even aware of it. For instance, of one of the patients asks a very serious question related diabetes, then there is a need of learning. Once a person realized this need, learning becomes even more personal which in turn enhance the motivation. Same like that, if some work is being audited and it is sorted out that heart patients are not getting good as they are required to, then the person should realize that he has a need of learning in that particular area (Ivancevich & Konopaske, 2013). Of course, the poor result is not mainly linked with the quality of personal work: it can be like the care structure in that hospital is required to have improvements. The alternative way to assess the learning requirements is to return to some old system in which learning was ‘one size fits all’ process. Some of the practitioners understood the flaws in the system and then threw them out. Some of the doctors still need to collect few points but now all of the royal colleges has identified that to collect the points is just one side of professional education but it should be seemed as an end. Assessment of learning requirements can assist organization along with individual. It can also assist the ABASCO to balance the requirements of the individuals and the group requirements of all of the members. Studies have shown that are doctors are likely to get more education related to the topics they already know a bit about. Learning requirements assessment is a very good way for the discovery of limits of comfort zone and for the motivation to move out of it. The worst cause behind doing something is there is need to do that thing. The goalposts of revalidation and appraisal are moving but it should be realized the assessment of the learning needs tends to remain a major part of official policy in development of profession (Monteiro, 2014).
E-learning is one technology and methodology in order to enable and deliver learning. E-learning initiative is termed as the application of training and collaboration in most of the organizations that is being given to workers over the intranet, and therefore it is available for the people in accordance with their convenience. While e-learning can actually work as the replacement of classroom training, in most of the conditions it is being designed to increase the training and to take it to a large number of audience, while saving the costs. Basically the perfect place to start e-learning is the central learning firm because it can get approach to most of the people in the firm, and can be cost-effective. However such unit tends to have the required budget, this type of budget is vulnerable and visible to senior executives’ whims (Chenhall, 2005). The department of IT and its people facilitation is the major element for the prosperous of implementation of e-learning. E-learning is termed as an important event and it requires support at the chief executive officer (CEO) level- getting them to get the course of e-learning in order to make them acknowledged of what they are talking about. It also requires some high level expert who do the task in order to see it through prosper, but beware of some of the experts who own believe that it will replace all types of training. This type of person can prove to be harmful. The fact is this that training led by any instructor will not disappear (Robbins & Sanghi, 2007). There are many things which are not done well, for instance, face-to-face interactions and laboratory work. There are few people who can never get enough able to utilize the learning idea at computer. Learning is like a social event for them. The best solution to this is a multi-option, solution like the one being offered by North West Airlines, which gives classroom training, personal training plan, computer-based training, mentoring and checkout library with audiotapes, videos, magazines and books (Hashim, 2013).
In order to ensure effective implementation of learning and development in ABASCO, the firm has to follow some specific ways. Through the use of different ways, the firm can train their employees regarding new and innovative skills and capabilities. The employees must be made capable of learning new skills and techniques in order to cope up with changing environment. One of the significant methods required for implementation of learning and development practices is learning need assessment (Hashim et al, 2012). Learning need assessment requires enough cost and resources for its better implementation. For assessing learning need investment, ABASCO can use tools like 360° appraisal, self assessment, observation and critical incident reviews. These tools can help the firm in analyzing the need for learning and development in organization. The firm has to spend some cost on this, but this is not to be taken as cost, rather than this, it is an investment done on employees of firm for taking return in future. Through effective learning and development, the employees give return to organization in the form of productivity and performance (Harrison, 2009).
Another way of adopting learning and development in ABASCO is e-learning. E-learning is helpful in saving the company a good deal of money for long term, but there is a need of initial investment to be done in start. So, for implementing e-learning, there is a need of knowing the budget culture of organization. In initiative of e-learning, the firm has to face challenge from the side of learners. An organization has to put a lot of effort for identifying learning management system for suiting their needs. While implementing E-learning, the management of firm has to identify the course and area on which training has to be given (Hall et al., 2014).
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