Introduction
Organizations grow through various challenges which may include management changes, employees’ strikes, technological changes, natural and man-made catastrophes as well as demise of organization’s mentors and their founders. For organizations to survive from these challenges they must be ready to confront them all, those anticipated and not anticipated that affect the daily operations of their business. Domestic issues, such as stress control and organizational conduct or external matters such world wide competition and business evolutionary courses must be addressed and managed for an organization to be able to trounce challenges and prosper. Most of the organizations develop due to their capability of understanding courses and folding them into their every day operations and at the same time adopting swiftly to unpredicted conditions and using them to learn and develop. Currently, many organizations are faced with varied human resource management challenges which range from technological, managing diverse workforces, cooperating with multiple shareholders, responsiveness problems, rapid changes occurring in their midst and challenges caused by globalization (Oppapers.com 2009, par. 1-2).
Functions of human resource staffs in Coca-Cola Company
Coca-Cola Company is known to be the leading producer, seller and distributor of non-alcoholic beverages in the world. It markets four of the world’s most famous drinks which among them include Fanta, Coke and sprite. The human resource department within this company is responsible with managing cash flow, conducting business transactions as well as dealing with customers’ and employees’ problems. They help in ensuring that employees meet the company’s targets. Since the company has branches in different countries with varied shareholders, it encounters various challenges in its day to day operations (BookRags 2006, par.3&4).
Challenges posed by diverse workforce
With the prospect of most of the employees retiring, employers are bound to rely on minority groups. Recruiting diverse workforce becomes a challenge to Coca-Cola Company. Some organizations argues that having a diverse workforce makes them understand the various groups and hence help them when it comes to competing for market share in regions occupied by these groups. Developing a diverse workforce proves to be very difficult when it comes to its implementation than it may seem. When recruiting staffs, employers are not always guaranteed that they will get experienced people who can competently lead their companies progressively. They are also not assured that qualified personnel will turn up for the recruitment process. Here the Coca-Cola Company relies on having a good organizational image, which compels people to go looking for them. Getting the required personnel might seem difficult but the worst problem occurs in trying to retain these employees within the company. The Company’s output rates generally hinder retaining a significant mass of employees within it as most of them leave the company in search for others that are well paying. Wearing away among the employees has not been officially quantified, but unreliable information from workforce experts states that it has been a problem for a long time (Ruiz 2006, par.1-11).
In most of the organizations in American, labor force has undergone exceptional change over the past few years. There is a clear distinction with respect to diversity in age, speech, gender, race and attitudes. Coca-cola Company is faced with the challenge of managing diversity by coming up with measures to minimize its potentials of creating performance hardships while maximizing its capability in enhancing the company’s performance. Communication barrier resulting from diverse workforce leads to regular conflicts among the employees. Equated to a group of workers who are more identical, employees in an assorted work group usually experience inferior levels of communal attraction thus displaying lesser levels of obligation to the group. Subsequently, other issues related to diversity such as discriminating behaviors and personality persecutions add cost to the company. There have also been common mistakes within organizations when it comes to diversity recruitment. The organizations usually put great emphasize on the visible aspects of diversity especially race and sex. Managers lack the experience of considering issues such as ecological background, way of thinking and communicating among different people, religious beliefs and working styles which greatly affect the diverse workforce. This leads to the organizations having little information about diversity and hence less creative and innovative in harnessing the potential harbored by diverse workforce (Rajar & Shah 2008, par. 4-9).
Again, most organizations assume that diversity is reflected by the number of employees they have. Diversity is hardly manifested as you go up the hierarchy of the organizational management. This leads to many skilled people leaving the organization in pursuit of those ones that encourage diversity in organization management. This has resulted to companies training new employees every year as they loose the skilled workforce and this leads to retarded growth in these companies. To overcome these challenges, Coca-Cola Company needs to come up with policies that encourage diversity not only in the workforce but also in the management hierarchy and decision making. Programs need to be developed where employees will be taught on how to co-exist harmoniously within the company.
Problems resulting from multiple shareholders
Aligning the organizational strategies has also been made very difficult by the fact that the company has to consult a wide number of shareholders. The decision on whether to go by or to drop the strategies has to be made by these shareholders. Most of the organizations have not understood the concept of aligning their strategies to meet the targeted goals. Strategy development involves bringing together facts, knowledge, experience as well as creativity of varied shareholders. In today’s composite organizations, it requires drawing skills from across the organization and all arms of management. In spite of everything, strategy is aimed at developing human resources, information machinery and production enhancement as well as facilitating in financial management within organizations. For company’s strategy to be productive, it has to be communicated and accepted by all the stakeholders within the company. In simple terms, it must be extensively understood at all management levels within the organization so that day to day undertakings and operational plans can be tailored to the organizational goals and aims. However, attaining this is very difficult when it comes to Coca-Cola Company as most of the company’s management experience disagreement among the shareholders with some going to an extent of organizing meeting to oppose the laid down strategies with an aim of being allowed to come up with the final decision. The process of company’s strategy development is usually controversial as managers from various product lines and arms of management, present contradicting views on what to be included in the company strategy and especially on the issue of performance measures that need to be monitored when they realize that these affects their payment policy. Coca-Cola Company needs to come up with a platform where all the shareholders present their views and allow for a common ground in deliberating on what to be implemented.
Challenges experienced as a result of rapid changes
Rapid changes within the company’s environments with respect to technology, competition strategies and management aspects also pose a challenge to the company. These changes demands for a massive change within the human resource department. Most of the times, human resource staffs lack the skills or capacity to meet some of these transformational varies. Often, the emergence of competition occurs at a rapid rate such that the company is sometimes not in a position to withstand them. At such times, the human resource is subjected to pressure of coming up with measures to help the organization come through. Also the rapid changes demands a great swing in way of thinking from the management as well as the employees. Everyone is required to take a different line of thought within the organization which could be difficult to some employees. As most of the employees and management staff are acquainted with the previous methods of management, they fear changing to knew systems. Lack of skilled personnel to cater for these changes has also been a major challenge to the company. As the business environment change rapidly, the rate at which the company transform to counter this is very low. This has been attributed to the nature of the top managers not willing to accept any changes within their company even if it is aimed at enhancing the organization’s productivity. Employees have also been viewed to play part in influencing slow rate of changes within organizations. Most of them are never willing to accommodate changes within their areas of operations as they have defined procedures of operations and the company does not evaluate them to manage poor performance. Instead most of the workforces seek fair relation within the organization as opposed to being paid according to their performance. The company’s human resource department ought to be vigilant in observing various changes as well as anticipating for future changes in order to organize for employees’ training to cater for them.
Challenges resulting from technological changes
In the past few years, the wave of investing on technology by chief organizations has been experienced. Most of the economists argue that technological investments are not viable until a competitive advantage has been identified. With the advent of technological advancements, most organizations are willing to invest heavily on them without knowing whether they will benefit from their investment. Technology has lead to the increase in competition among organization leading to decrements in the Coca-Cola Company’s profit. Information technology sector has been on of the areas where great improvement has been made. Most organizations has transformed from their old system of acquiring and storing information to using electronic gadgets as medium of information collection and storage. Development of World Wide Web, intranets and extranets has seen most of the organizations share information with their trade partners. Despite all the benefits organizations get from this technology, there has been a major challenge in ensuring that their classified information is protected from leaking to rival companies. Coca-Cola Company has lost millions of money through competition edged by its rivals after learning its marketing strategies and other confidential information. Another challenge that has been posed by technology to the company is acquiring skilled personnel to manage the established technological infrastructures. Relying on the technology for day to day operations within the company has sometimes proved unsafe especially when the infrastructure experience technical hitch. Government regulations set to regulate the establishment and use of technology in organization management has sometimes proved hard for the company to meet them (Down 2005, pp. 3-11).
To avert the problems posed by technological advancements, the human resource management department of Coca-Cola Company needs to use the available information technology infrastructures. By using groupware and intranets, the company will be able to exchange information across different branches in other countries efficiently and reliably without leaking to their rival competitors. Development in the mobile IT can also be used by the human resource team to overcome the challenges resulting from technology changes. The company can employ staffs to install and maintain these equipments in areas accessible to its customers. Through these methods the company will be able to automate most of its job handling and allocations allowing most of the human resource managers to engage in other productive ventures. Establishment firewalls and encryption of information when in transit will help in controlling unauthorized access to its information. Through extranets and World Wide Web, the human resource team will be able to reach their customers, enquire on their problems and look for ways of addressing them. This in turn will lead to development of customer loyalty hence overcoming the market competition. It is from the internet that human resource managers can get a wide range of information with respect to management methods, company promotion as well as potential markets for the company’s products (Vinay 2008, par. 2-11).
Globalization challenges
As a result of globalization, issues facing human resource in Coca-Cola Company are predicted to change in the next few years. Some of the challenges brought about by globalization include the ability in changing work structures, job categorization and the company structures to be able to recruit and retain competent information technology professionals. As globalization facilitate in the company’s operations internationally, there has been the challenge of retaining competent staffs within the company as well as managing their performance. There is a great challenge in coming up with performance customs which will pave room for enhancing employees’ performance. Training and developing personnel is another challenge posed to the human resource. Training does not entail looking for training requirements and conducting the required training but also involves anticipating these needs and conducting the appropriate training that will help the personnel handle the challenges. Incorporating varied subsystems within the human resource to facilitate in attaining the company’s goals is another major problem caused by globalization. To create an environment that enhances the growth of knowledge and its retention within the company becomes a big problem. Human resource information system proves to be the viable tool through which the company can be able to overcome the problems caused by globalization. Through it, the human resource managers will be able to develop team work within the company hence increasing employees’ efficiency. By assessing the information obtained from the system, the managers will be able to make viable decisions regarding the management of the company. The human resource department will be able to come up with company’s strategic plan to enhance the performance of the employees by the help of human resource management system (Articlesbase 2009, par. 4-15).
Conclusion
With all these challenges, human resource managers’ role will be transformed from administrative to strategic role. They will be required to demonstrate their competences in managing organizations by promoting cultural multiplicity within the organizations to prove that their work is productive.
Reference
Articlesbase 2009, Challenges faced by Human Resource Managers in the Era of Globalization, Web.
BookRag 2006, Human Resource Management within the Coca-Cola Company, Web.
Down, B 2005, Protecting Investments Through Technology Advancements, Web.
Oppapers.com 2009, Organizational Issues And Trends, Web.
Rajar, SS & Shah, A 2008, The Challenges Of Globalization And The Role Of Human Resources, Web.
Ruiz, R 2006, The Art and Science of Recruiting a Diverse Workforce, Web.
Vinay, M 2008, Managing Information Revolution for Technological Advancement, Web.