Introduction
The company that is in need of a comprehensive HR plan has been in a constant state of expansion during the last couple of years. The team, which initially consisted of 3000 people, has recently been joined by 1600 new employees. Moreover, the prediction is that soon, 7,200 workers will be needed to maintain a high productivity level. While at the moment, the corporation has offices in multiple European cities, the aim is to expand globally and reach a high position on the market in Asia, Africa, and America. At the moment, the HR department has seven employees who mainly operate administrative tasks. It is essential to create an HR plan that addresses the business aims towards expansion, a delivery service model, and monitoring measures to create a human force able to keep up with the company’s objectives.
The Ambition of the HR Area
As the company keeps expanding and aims to reach the global market by opening offices on multiple continents, new HR needs appear. The current Human Resource department cannot keep up with the corporate objectives, which is why it is important to make new implementations and create a structure that can operate in such a big organization. Due to the fact that there are more than 1500 new employees and the human resource is expected to increase with 2500 more people, new strategies have to be applied in regards to recruiting, selecting, hiring, training, and improving performance. Thus, based on the high ambitions in terms of new locations and market expansion, the urgency for addressing the current HR issue increases.
Global HR Practice
As one of the objectives is for the corporation to open offices on different continents, it is essential to have a globalist approach when it comes to HR practices. The company’s strategy is “Playing to Win”, and one of the aspects of this business model is figuring out how to win in different locations. Thus, a unique technique has to be implemented based on the country where the corporation operates, yet certain centralized elements have to link the departments together. This does not mean that all the new employees have to be screened, selected, and hired by the main office. Instead, each office has to have a separate HR department that takes into consideration national factors. Researchers mention the relatively divisive HR model as an effective one for global companies (Brewster, 2017). However, all the employees have to be monitored in terms of efficiency and productivity of the HR techniques managers from different locations use when selecting new team members. Thus, global HR practices include monitoring assessing, and evaluating the situation without being too intrusive due to cultural differences that may occur in different countries.
Organizing the HR Department
Another ambition is having a well-thought-out and defined HR structure. Currently, the department cannot keep up with the significant influx of new employees and the need to expand the human force. The current circumstances highlight that having seven HR employees all operating in the realm of administrative tasks is not an efficient model. Instead, the objective is to create a system in which each team member is responsible for a particular task that is essential for the company. Thus, different positions will be implemented, and after an evaluation, the current team members will either succeed and receive the jobs or maintain administrative duties. Thus, having a well-structured HR structure contributes to a more organized and smooth environment and minimizes the risks of shared responsibilities or inefficiency. Having such a system will facilitate the acquisition of new valuable employees and the increase in the morale of the current team members as a result of safety, health, and training initiatives.
Expand the HR Department/Workforce
A company with the ambition of having more than 7000 people as workers in the following years cannot operate with an HR department consisting of seven employees. As mentioned prior, one of the objectives is to create a proper structure so that each team member is assigned with relevant tasks depending on their professional and personal traits. However, hiring new people to source the job market, find candidates, perform interviews, select the most promising ones, and assist them during training is essential. As soon as more individuals are able to designate their time to look for potential employees, post relevant ads on websites, and recruit workers, the organization will expand drastically. Moreover, new additions to the human resource are needed as the organizational needs keep growing, and the production levels can be kept high only if more individuals participate in the work process.
Defining HR Activities
There are several activities that have to be implemented for the HR area to change and improve. These activities have to be aimed at the overall structure, the company’s ambition for expansion, and the increasing need for more employees to be hired. The strategic plan involves alterations on multiple levels. First, it is essential to evaluate current workers in regards to their skills. In case their personal and professional traits align with the newly implemented job positions, they will be able to acquire them. Moreover, a new HR structure will be created will well-defined roles and objectives assigned to different individuals. In regards to hiring, a new sourcing and monitoring strategy will be applied. Last but not least, HR managers will learn about selection guidelines and the distribution of human forces.
Evaluating Current HR Employees
The current HR department is operated by seven employees. However, the circumstances illustrate a situation in which none of them are responsible for selection, training, screening, and interviewing. Instead, the tasks are administrative, including payrolls, contract management, and other similar activities. While these are essential, it is redundant to have seven people doing the same thing, especially in a large company aiming for further advancement. Thus, the current employees have to be evaluated before the next moves are applied. All seven workers will be interviewed in regards to their daily tasks. Their professional record will be examined in regards to prior experience, education, personal traits, conflicts within the organization, and ambitions. This will be an excellent opportunity to find out whether the current employees are fit for the new HR structure. Thus, the most communicative one can be responsible for interviewing and recruiting potential workers. Researchers point out that communicative individuals are incredibly successful as employment managers (Singh, Verma, & Agarwa, 2017). If the evaluation shows that one participant is proficient in creating meaningful professional connections and has a talent for motivating others, the proper position would be training manager. Thus, those who show themselves as efficient in specific fields will continue working but under different circumstances and structural aspects.
Creating a Proper HR Department Structure
It is certain that the current HR system is not efficient since there is no emphasis on recruiting and hiring new team members. Instead, a company that keeps advancing in terms of new offices, employees, and markets needs a proper HR structure with positions that take into consideration different factors. First, there is an urgent need for a recruitment and selection manager. The employment manager will be in charge of recruiters who will look for potential employees. Recruiters are aware of all the existing websites where companies post ads and are able to create interest around the brand they represent. Besides building a base of potential employees, recruiters can examine current trends and efficient ways of attracting an audience. Selecting the right choices for further interviews is another essential task implied by the job.
A hiring manager is another vital position that covers the process of picking the right individuals for specific jobs. Hiring managers examine which positions are to be fulfilled and what future job positions will appear. Another structural addition is a remuneration manager. Moreover, performance and employee relations managers will also be a part of the HR department.
Implementing Sourcing/Selection Guidelines
The employees will receive the necessary education in regards to sourcing and selection techniques. This includes the platforms and the activities that create a pool of potential employees, interviewing techniques, and selection practices. The HR managers from the offices that will open in Africa, America, and Asia will receive the same guidance from the general managers. Thus, the sourcing and selection guidelines will change depending on the national specifications of each country. Depending on the particular domain where they operate, HR managers will have the necessary tools to do the best job possible. It is especially important in regards to hiring new talent due to organizational expansion.
HR Structure
The current HR department has no structure as it consists of seven people with similar tasks. The administrative work is currently the only objective in the area of human resources, which is why a new, improved structure is needed. By creating a comprehensive plan with designated roles and well-identified objectives, every manager will have a specific field within the HR domain that will be addressed. Moreover, employees will be less confused in regards to who to contact in case the issue is related to compensation, internal conflicts with other team members, or training opportunities.
The new HR structure, as per usual, starts with the CEO, the person in charge of all organizational processes. The following high-level function is the HR director, who is in direct contact with several employees responsible for the HR area of the organization. The employee relation manager is the position that correlates with addressing conflicts within the organization, building a corporate culture, implementing policies, and conducting internal research. The compensation manager will be in charge of wages, bonuses, penalties, and other financial operations. The health and safety manager will have the role of maintaining a safe workplace, ensuring employees are not at risk for health issues, and sharing information about the corporation’s guidelines in regards to specific policies. The employment manager, alongside multiple recruiting coordinators, will be responsible for finding potential employees, interviewing them, assessing the current job opportunities within the company, and picking the people most fit for the positions. These particular objectives are imperative due to the fast organizational development. Last but not least, the training and development manager will have the tasks of teaching new employees about the nuances of their jobs and improving the knowledge and skills of existing team members by choosing training programs and courses. Thus, the workforce will be highly skilled and able to maintain high production levels.
All the job positions can be categorized by dimensions. These include managing the workforce, preparing and hiring, assessing and developing, and compensating the human force.
Thus, based on the proposed framework, the health and safety manager and the employee relationship managers are included in the environment coordination dimension (Figure 2). The employment manager will operate the domain which covers the hiring and preparing of new team members. Assessment and development will be the responsibility of the employee dealing training and development, while compensations will be the task of the compensation manager.
HR Service Model
Due to the fact that the company aims to open offices in new locations, opting for a multi-tiered service model is essential. According to researchers, Ulrich’s model implies a centralized system consisting of three levels, each with unique tasks and objectives (Yusuf, Fidyawan, & Wekke, 2017). Every office will have the same HR structure that was mentioned before (Figure 1). In order for the operations in different locations to be monitored by the central office, specialized software can minimize risks and create fewer challenges for the HR employees. Thus, day-to-day inquirers and requests that do not require additional dialogues will be introduced in the system through the computer or smartphone. Thus, the shared services are the most common and the least challenging operations in regards to HR involvement. The next level, which contains centers of excellence, is designed for situations that need to be addressed by HR specialists rather than the general team. Some examples are training operations, compensations, performance evaluation, and others. This applies to each office no matter the location, yet the general guideline under which HR managers operate will be approved by the CEO. Last but not least, the main structural issues will be addressed through the group of HR business partners.
Monitoring Indicators
In order to make sure the plan has been successful, it is crucial to determine the areas that need to be examined. First, it is vital to evaluate the project inputs. Specifically, this measurement illustrates whether the investments did not exceed the initially planned resources. Thus, the budget, timing, and human resources initially approved by shareholders have to be in line with what was discussed during project development. In case the measurement shows no deviation, the inputs can be considered as reasonable and well-planned out.
However, it is also essential to examine the outputs, specifically, the objectives that have been fulfilled. Suppose the evaluation shows that the company has a well-defined HR structure, new guidelines in hiring and improving the workforce, and proficiency in finding new talents. In that case, the outputs can be considered fulfilled. Moreover, as one task is to create an HR structure that would be able to centralize workforces from different offices, this is another output that has to be analyzed. Thus, it is critical to measure the level of fulfillment of each objective that was initially established and coordinated during the plan implementation.
Last but not least, a measurement that assesses outcomes has to be addressed. Many factors may be included in this category. For example, as the HR department applies new techniques of developing and improving the workforce, employee turnover shall decrease. In this case, the rate of turnover before and after the implementation has to be compared and the difference analyzed. Another indicator of success or failure is the number of interviews performed by managers. While interviews are not the best measures for looking at the level of competency of potential interviews, it shows hard work and desire to expand the team. In case the measurement shows that more interviews have been performed, this would suggest that managers are actively trying to attract and assess individuals looking for jobs.
PMO
The need for structural changes in the HR area of the organization in question is inevitable. However, a global company requires an organized and well-planned approach to such a critical subject. Designing a Project Management Office (PMO) may significantly decrease the possible risks and adverse outcomes while maximizing the possibilities for success. A PMO can maintain the project’s efficiency in terms of implementation, operation, and development. Moreover, it may be challenging to monitor the success of the HR departments from the offices on different continents. The most beneficial aspect of designing a PMO is the possible long-term management success. Since HR will always remain a significant area in any company that strives for expansion and high productivity, it is essential to create an environment in which the system is able to maintain longevity. Another positive outcome from designing a PMO is the ability to coordinate the work of HR departments from all over the world. Since some of the leading frameworks consist of evaluating and coordinating, the risk of a particular office implementing unsuccessful HR practices is significantly less critical.
Last but not least, a project management office can keep track of all the organizational changes once the project fully operates. As a result, shareholders will be able to see all the negative and positive outcomes, evaluate the project’s success, and plan future policies in case the implementation turns out to be beneficial. Since there is a multitude of positive aspects correlating with designing a PMO, it is certain that the plan would have more chances for success if a project management office is applied.
Conclusion
A company that aims to acquire a large number of employees, expand, and open offices on different continents is in need of a well-planned HR strategy. First, creating an efficient structure with job positions with designated roles is vital for having more organized hiring, selection, and employment policy. Moreover, the global needs of the corporation have to be considered from both a centralized and a divisive perspective. Thus, each office should have a unique HR department, yet the system and the general policies have the remain the same. Moreover, as the managers are expecting to be in need of a lot more new team members, each recruiter and the employment manager has to learn strategies and techniques aimed to create a talent pool and attract new potential employees. It is certain that a company with big ambitions has to take into consideration the importance of the human force and the significance of the HR team that is directly responsible for creating it.
References
Brewster, C. (2017). Human resource practices in multinational companies. The Blackwell Handbook of Cross-Cultural Management, 126-141. doi:10.1002/9781405164030.ch7
Singh, S., Verma, N., & Agarwa, A. (2017). HR hunting- A competency development perspective. Proceedings of International Conference on ‘Research and Business Sustainability’, 521-523.
Yusuf, R. M., Fidyawan, S., & Wekke, I. S. (2017). Ulrich model on practices of human resource strategic roles. Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 12(6), 1657-1661. doi:10.31227/osf.io/ysnu8