Human Resource Plan Essay

Abstract Planning is important in our everyday life. Similarly planning in Human Resource (HR) is significant for an organization wishing to be successful. It is vital for attaining competitive edge in the market. Mostly top management fails to use HR Department more than as administrative support because they don’t realize its importance in managing the most crucial asset of the organization i. e. Human Resource (Rothwell, W. J and Kazanas, H. C. , 2002). In this paper an HR Plan has been formulated for getting a practical view of Human Resource Planning. Super Mart is an American company dealing in chain of departmental stores. Founded in 1972, it is the largest private employer and grocery retailer in United States. It owns 20% of the market share. It is functional across globe in U. K, Mexico, Argentina, China, South America, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Germany and South Korea. The company’s main competitor includes American Superstore, Sellers and Canada’s PurchaseKo (Frank, 2006). Super Mart has developed a frugal culture. The company’s aim has been to keep the prices low and also maintain the cutting-edge technology, a frugal corporate culture and a drive to make suppliers sell merchandise at cheaper prices. The employees are expected to keep the expenses at bare minimum. This shows in the meager salary and health facilities provided to the employees. The culture is present at the Headquarter also which is situated in a suburban location of Arkansas rather than New York. Its executives use coaches and don’t drive limousines and share hotel rooms. They come early, go late and work half day on Saturdays. The company’s main aim is delivering to customers at low cost which shows in its work culture as well (Wilbert, n. d. ). For its internal communication Super Mart has recruited 300 HR personnel, whose job is to communicate the business objectives and growth opportunities to the employees. There also has been an integration of human resource practices with all business strategies for ensuring that all the employees are moving in same direction. An Ethics hotline has been developed where all the ethical issues are reported and promptly investigated (Wal-Mart’s new Communication Plan, 2007). The company has also updated its website to include all issues and controversies. The answer to the question as to why an employee will choose Super Mart as its employer lies in its brand value. Super Mart has 270 stores across America and has global presence. Its initiative in health care and employee benefits are gaining praise. Super Mart has realized that it is successful if its employees are happy, especially as it belongs to service sector, which spells good news for the employees. Recruitment and Selection Recruitment is an important aspect for planning manpower. The recruitment process has been divided into four stages i. e. search plan, selection techniques, timetable and recruitment budget (Human resource Planning, 2006) Search Plan: For attracting the potential employees, media tools like advertising, visits at university and job exhibition are planned. This process is carried on for a period of one month. Selection Techniques: First job specification is designed for a particular position, say for front office employee. Educational Qualification: 10+2 or Graduate Age limit: 25- 30 Qualities: Good communication skills, ready to work in shifts, adaptable to situations, customer friendly and persuasive and eye for detail. On the basis of the above specifications, candidates are shot listed and interviewed. The successful candidates are recommended and unsuccessful candidates are thanked and send back. The selection decision is detained with the area manager only. Timetable: The recruitment and selection process is spread over for four months, from January to April. The recruitment budget covering the advertisement, assessment of applications, interviews and reference checks of employees have been estimated around 2lac. The job description and interview questions have been provided in the appendix. Compensation and Benefits For determining compensation for various posts’ salary, survey is carried out. For making correct comparison, not only matching the job title but matching job duties and responsibilities is also essential. Salary is decided by considering labor market characteristics and cost of living (HR Planning, n. . ). Going by the example taken in this paper for fixing salary for front office employees, their job description is reviewed. Also other components apart from basic salary like traveling allowance and extra pay for overtime have been included (see appendix). Performance Management The performance appraisal of employees is an essential process to keep the employees in check as well as monitor the quality of work. It also provides avenues for development based on feedback and lacunae are identified. Here, as the employees in consideration are front office employees, a simple tool for performance management is selected as the Rating Scale Method. As only basic qualities are expected out of the employees and no technical or high expertises are required, a simple technique like Rating Scale is preferable. In rating scale, the appraiser is asked to rate individual employee on the basis of qualities identified like communication skills, customer feedback, product knowledge, attitude etc. (Sturo, J. , 2006). Employees are ranked on the basis of points assigned to them. Training Program Training is an integral part of HR activity. It is provided not only to new employees but also to the existing employees due to the technological changes or change in ways of marketing or introduction of any new methodology at work. The front office workers are provided training in communication and product knowledge. Certain level of computer education is also given for handling the billing job. The training period lasts for two weeks which includes lectures and simulation program. At the end of the training program, new employees are kept on a probation period of one month where their performance is monitored. Employees showing lack of any learning or scope of improvement are discharged. Retention Program A lot of revenue and time is devoted towards recruiting and selecting people for any position. The story doesn’t end here. The new employee is trained and becomes productive only after a month or so. This adds further to the expenses. Thus, loosing an employee in a short duration after putting so much of money into his/her development becomes uneconomical. This spells more damage for service sector companies because being intangible form of product customers symbolize their experience as equivalent to the standard of service offered. And front office staff is the key to this satisfaction in a big way. Thus, in order to retain the employees, various retention techniques should be adopted, for example incentives for being rated at the top of performance appraisal for consecutive three times, awards for most punctual and well dressed employees, having a star system where employees are given a star badge if he/she has received five positive customer feedback in a month etc. Super Mart is an American Company with global presence. But throughout the years, it is having an approach of ignoring the human resource development by following a frugal system. But with the changing time, it has realized that the best way to succeed is to have happy employees. Keeping this in mind, it has come up with an HR plan which covers areas of recruitment, compensation and benefits, training, performance benefits and retention programs. Hope it will bring smiles for the employees as well as the company in the future. Appendix Job Description: Working hour is 24/7 divided in shifts of 6 hours on a rotational basis. Employees should have good communication skills and identifying products Employees will be expected to deal with customers with patience Assisting customer with making right purchase choice and managing customer flow. Politeness and earnestness to help are other desirable qualities. Interview Questions: Tell me something about yourself? Have you ever lost your cool? When and why? Describe any random product’s features. Compensation Description Basic salary: 9000 Conveyance: 500 For overtime: 500 Total salary: 10,000 Rating Scale for Front Office Employee