MANAGEMENT ANAGEMENT COLLEGE OF SOUTH AFRICA (MANCOSA) ASSIGNMENT GNMENTCOVERSHEET SURNAME
MBELE
FIRST NAME/S NAME/S
MFUNDO PROFESSOR
STUDENT NUMBER NUMBER
120606
MODULENAME NAME
STRATEGIC HUMAN HUMAN RESOURCE OURCE MANAGEM MANAGEMENT ENT
ASSIGNMENTNUMBER NUMBER
01
TUTOR’S NAME
NONE
EXAMINATION AMINATION VENUE
26 SAMORA AMORA MACHEL STREET, TREET, DURBAN, MANCOS M ANCOSA A CAM CAMPU PUS S (SA)
DATESUBMITTED MITTED
07 SEPTEMBER SEPTEMBER2012
SUBMIS UBMISSION (V)
1ST SUBMISSION
YE YES
RE-SUBMISSION
P.O P.O BOX1978
POSTALAD ADDRESS
ESTCOURT 3310
E-MAIL
[email protected]
WORK: 034 261 1000 / 2781 CONTACT NUMBERS HOME: 076 375 0721 0721 (cell) (cell) MOBILE: 072 395 6685 or 084 891 8078 COURSE/I E/ INTAKE
BCOM (HRM) HONOURS-JULY2012
DECLARATION: I hereby declare that the assignment submitted is an original piece of work produced by myself. SIGNATURE: Mfundo Mfundo P. Mbele Mbele
DATE: 07 August 2012
TABLE OF CONTENTS BCOM HRM (HONOURS) UNIT
SUBJECT
A
Table of Contents
B
Executive Summary
C
Scope of the Assignment
D E
PAGE 02 03
Question 1
04 & 05
Question 2
05, 06 & 07
Question 3
07, 08 & 09
Question 4
09, 10 & 11
List of references
11
Appendices
12
B: Executive Summary
Strategic Human Resource Management can be defined as major pillar of strength in today’s world radical human capital methodology. According to Antony, Perrewe and Mechele (1999: 06) Strategy is a way of doing something; it is a game plan for action; it
usually includes the formulation of a goal and a set of action plans for accomplishment.
The fundamental factors to be considered during the management forums as a strategic think tank of the organisation must be namely; short, medium and long term strategic plans, annual review of the plans, turn around strategies aimed at revamping functional duties of the workforce in particular and objectives of the organisation in general. In respect of the betterment of employees, such reinforcements shall be engaged in order to achieve employee job satisfaction and productivity i.e. performance appraisal, long service awards, and necessary salary and or wage increments at certain intervals thus in line with budgetary allocations of the company.
A Skills Development Facilitator has a major part to play during the development of employees in terms of skills in order for the company to achieve more positive results. This can be done through preparation of Workplace Skills Plan, Work enrichment and Multiskilling or Job rotation. According to Milmore, Lewis, Saunders, Thomhill and Morrow (2007:4) strategic management focuses on the scope and direction, and often involves dealing with uncertainty and complexity. Johnson and Scholes (2002) (cited in milmore et al., 2007:4) define strategic management in terms of the following three main elements; 1. Understanding the strategic position of the organisation 2. Management exercising ‘strategic choice’ about possible future strategies, In order to seek competitive advantage 3. ‘Translating strategic into action’
“In view of the strategic Human Resource Management all of the above information must serve to execute the objectives of the organisation”. C: Scope of the Assignment
Question 1
The Strategic Human Resource Development can be also defined as the plan used to integrate the organisational goals and policies (vision and mission) into a rational whole Assignment 1 | Strategic Human Resource Management – MANCOSA 2012 3
according to Anthony, Perrewe and Michele (1999:12). They further state that Management By Objectives has three steps namely; mission or purpose, setting goals or objectives and determining action plans to achieve the goals or objectives, therefore the strategic focus must accept these three basic ideas of Management By Objectives but goes beyond them by giving explicit recognition to both outside and competitive environments.
The SAB’s Strategic Human Resource Development approach has led to winning of the ASTD Best Award in 2006 and placed them at 8th in the world. Therefore the importance of learning culture in the organisation is undisputed, given the fact that the Strategic Human Resource Development implementation depends on the line managers. This is because the SHRD is mostly consolidated and valued as a top down method with more or less 5 (five) years plan and the line managers are there to ensure execution.
Rothwell and Kazanas (1994:21) concur and describe the value of SRHD in the following manner: •
“First it makes HRD activities proactive rather than reactive;
•
Second, SHRD ties learning to a comprehensive instructional planning process that supports and relates to Strategic Business Plans and Human Resource Plans;
•
Third, businesses known for their excellence in productivity improvement handle their human resources strategically ; and
•
Finally, HRD practioners will increasingly have to think strategically if they are to enjoy long term career success.
The first approach of ensuring that their employees are well equipped to perform and deliver the results is by conducting a skills auditing as a measurement to identifying skills the organisation have and the skills the organisation requires, therefore SAB should have undertaken that exercise before any learning or training interventions and perhaps this could have led the organisation to be number 1 in the world during the American Society Training and Development best awards.
However, although the SAB’s Strategic Human resource Development is well and good but could not be documented and tabled to the entire employees, so that every employee could fully understand and marry themselves with the vision, mission and values.
It is critical that all employees in the HR division to be involved in aspects of the development of the HRD. Implementation of e-learning by SAB was performed at a later stage and could not be pro-active towards learning and development programmes because this could determine what are the human resource issues related to achieving the business strategy and the selection of suitable persons in developing SAB’s SHRD.
In conclusion the SHRD has to be communicated, documented and cascaded down to line managers for implementation where duties and responsibilities will be assigned to individuals as a result of that the SHRD will be linked with business strategy objectives. There should also be a training workshop to be conducted aimed at obtaining inputs from all departments and buy in implementing SAB’s SHRD and since that it is not only just the HR division’s responsibility but the entire company must be involved.
B: Question 2
Peter Senge's Definition of a Learning Organization (Senge, Kleiner et al., 1994) a Learning Organisation is "an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future. For such an organization, it is not enough to merely survive. 'Survival learning' or what is more often termed 'adaptive learning' is important - indeed it is necessary. But for a learning organization, 'adaptive learning' must be joined by 'generative learning,' learning that enhances our capacity to create." From internet searching.
Brian (Bo) Newman, (1991) Knowledge Management is the collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination, and utilization of knowledge. From internet searching. The world class standards have to be attained through properly trained Assignment 1 | Strategic Human Resource Management – MANCOSA 2012 5
workforce in order to execute organisational goals and objectives. Using certification and linkages to the National Qualifications Authority (NQF) where appropriate as one of the best practice learning system with SAB ltd as according to the SAB’s Skills Development Facilitator, is categorised as one of the major reinforcements for the employees in the organisation. The significance of the learning organisation and knowledge management to Strategic Human Resource Development of South African Breweries (SAB) has contributed positively towards the excellent understanding of the SAB’s business strategy and therefore resulted to be perceived as strategic thinkers. The Skills Development Facilitator has a crucial role to play in the capacitation of all organisational employees using a Workplace Skills Plan (WSP) as a training tool to achieve performance management and more productivity at the same time.
According to the Skills Development Act of 1998, the Workplace Skills Plan was introduced in order to address the historically disadvantage individuals during training interventions by the organisation and SAB’s SDF should then align the organisational concept with the skills plan and affording learnerships as such implementations will be recorded and captured in a form of a template on the hr system with the assistance of recognised union shop stewards representing employees in the organisation.
In terms of the handbook the SAB is utilizing learning and development specialist wherein they operate as business consultants whose key focus areas are knowledge management, performance management and behavioural change and recognise the fundamental of maintaining a learning culture in the organisation.
Learning organisation has an impact on the introduction of new technology whereas such practice may result in the compromise of the labour intensive and if such occurs in the company, a consultation approach with employees through trade unions in terms of the section 66 of the Labour Relations Act of 1995 must be undertaken in order to determine subsequent aspects such as termination of employment.
In conclusion, on job learning and skills training are the fundamental features in the learning organisation and knowledge management because workforce normally gets to be developed on individual capacities. Therefore the significance of learning organisation and knowledge management to SHRD at SAB must focus on the worldclass manufacturing standards in order to be international, national and local competent. This will involve introduction of new technology in organisation and more skills and on-job trainings rather than just any training interventions.
Question 03
It is merely not justifiable to position SAB at the Strategic Human resource Development end of the HRD strategic maturity continuum. To substantiate that SAB has proven records in the international market which is not fairly well acclaimed in a sense where you could label it at a maturity stage.
Learning and Development specialists of the SAB still require more tangible sense of observing in terms of learning and development practice and wherein according to the guide they also need to understand the business strategy fully, as well as the HRD strategy to match the vision, mission and values, and the necessity to get buy in from senior personnel and line managers to implement the learning solution. The following diagram illustrates the position of SAB Ltd Strategic Human Resource Development end of the Human Resource Development strategy maturity continuum.
Knowledge to be acquired Performane in 2006 (ASTD Awards) Skilled Workforce at SAB
Figure 1-Diagram: SAB's maturity position emanating from 2006 ASTD awards.
Assignment 1 | Strategic Human Resource Management – MANCOSA 2012 7
The SAB’s SHRD has to engage in the learning programme which has to be evaluated. According to Local Government Sector Education Training Authority (LGSETA) learner guide on Occupation Directed Education and Training Development Programme for Skills Development Facilitators, the following evaluation checklist has to be designed. Evaluation Checklist:
ITEM NO. 1.
CRITERIA Does the learning programme address skills needs
2.
as listed in the workplace skills plan? Does the learning programme make provision for
3.
lifelong learning (progression routes for learners)? Does the learning programme provide for individual
4.
encouragement i.e. (learner centred programme)? Does the learning programme cover for all relevant
YES
NO
information including (outcomes, priorities, learning activities, learner support)? Does the learning programme qualification in line
5.
with regulatory bodies such as SAQA, NQF In conclusion, there are more requirements for learnership design to cater for individual development for business needs, so that SAB could be playing part in terms of Globalisation standards.
Question 04
According to Pieterse (1996) (cited in Varley 2001: 66) Performance Management is a process in which the leader: •
Plans (decides on the standard and timing of outputs)
•
Organises (the availability of timing of necessary resources)
•
Leads (observes performance, evaluates it, recommends improvements and
provides support) and •
Controls the performance of team members (evaluates whether the
performance results comply with the set standards)
Armstrong and Baron (1998:7) cited in Millmore et al., 2007:317) define performance management as:a strategic and integrated approach to delivering sustained success to organisations by improving the performance of people who work in them and by developing the capability of teams and individual contributions.
SAB’s performance management approach is therefore aligned to the learning and development culture of the organisation because their ultimate objective is to be measured in terms of Return on Investment (ROI), performance gaps and added value created. A SMART approach will have to be introduced as standing guideline in achieving their targeted objectives and where this approach can be stretched as follows; Specific; Measurable; Achievable; Realistic and Timeframes (SMART).
In principle, an employee performance has to be measured after satisfactory engagements of trainings afforded by employer and if no signs of improvement obtained thereof, a decision to discharge or redeploy an employee may be undertaken.
This means that learning and development culture of SAB has to put more focus on individual response during learning programmes and if there are positive outcomes during those learning programmes that will mean performance growth by organisation which will contribute towards the Return on Investment.
Every organisation has its own culture and this is similar to individual personality, so Senior Managers of SAB has to drive the process by making sure that Learning and Development Specialists are equipped with necessary information and resources in order to implement performance management down to line managers because the management system in the learning institution can only be effective and efficient if the people running the organisation are well trained, motivated and informed about what is expected of them.
Performance appraisal system is normally used to determine or rate the performance knowledge of the individual and such system has to be part of aligning performance Assignment 1 | Strategic Human Resource Management – MANCOSA 2012 9
management to the learning and development culture of SAB using a rating scale or score cards in terms of categories for example; 5 points - Outstanding; 4 points - Good; 3 points – Satisfactory; 2 points – Fair and 1 point – Unsatisfactory or poor.
This could further attract other skilled employees to join SAB because to Pearce and Robinson (2003:83) a firm’s ability to attract capable employees is essential to its success. According to SAB Ltd learning and development Specialists they do not want to provide training solutions for the sake of addressing gaps but their key focus is on performance management and fostering learning culture in the organisation.
This will be done in the following to name the few:
•
Identifying, evaluating and implementing measurement systems for current and future job/team performance (as a Process plan);
•
Ensuring performance feedback is an integral part of the organisation’s learning, development and training information system (after Workplace Skills Plan has been implemented);
•
Establishing measurement tools and processes to evaluate development programmes for effectiveness relative to the needs of the organisation (through Assessments criteria)
•
Helping Supervisors or Managers to identify career options for employees, which are consistent with the organisational needs and strategy (through Learnerships)
In conclusion, it is ideal for SAB Ltd to undertake to resolve in the signing of performance contract with senior personnel and line managers which will be used as a tool to measure and appraise the performance of these key personnel in the organisation, however this could not be achieved without the co-operation and commitment of everyone in the organisation. The alignment to learning and development culture of the organisation requires more training on specific skills in order to accomplish organisational goals and develop personal skills and qualities to match with relevant positions for example decision making skills.
D: List of References
1. William P. Antony, Pamela L. Perrewe, K. Mechele (1999) Human Resource Management, third edition: A strategic Approach. 2. Pearce and Robinson (2003) Strategic Management, eight edition: Formulation, Implementation and Control. 3. Dorothy Varley (2001) Fundamentals of Human Resource Management. 4. LGSETA (2010-2011) Leaner Guide, Skills Development Facilitator 5. Brian (Bo) Newman, (1991); (Senge, Kleiner et al., 1994) internet referencing
6. Armstrong and Baron (1998:7) cited in Millmore et al., 2007:317) Study Guide 7. Skills Development Act of 1998 8. Maya Fisher-French (10 Aug.2012) understanding retrenchment offer:City Press E: Appendices
Please note that no attachments had been made on this Assignment.
I therefore duly declare that the information contained in this assignment derives from my understanding of the concept and some was further collected from various sources of knowledge or information for referencing purposes.
Compiled and Prepared by,
Mfundo Professor Mbele (Mr) Student number: 120606 MANCOSA: SHRD Assignment 1 Bcom. Honours HRM-2012
Assignment 1 | Strategic Human Resource Management – MANCOSA 2012 11
