Organization Development HRM Projects

A Comprehensive Definition of Organization Development

The theory of Organization Development relates to an organization’s process and efforts to change the organization for the better. The process includes several steps that must be performed as a continuous cycle to keep the organization at its most efficient in order to achieve the goal of ongoing success.

Organization Development is an organization’s ongoing exercise in planning processes that span the organization, in order to execute effective change in the organization. This process includes a diagnosis of how the organization and its employees function harmoniously or not. This is followed by identification of the specifics of successes and failures within the organization through data analysis. Armed with this information, planning for necessary changes within the organization may begin. Once a plan is in place, it must be executed. Finally, after this implementation, the organization must again make assessments to determine if the desired change was realized. Organization Development is not a one-size fits all solution for an organization, nor is it a singular process; but one that is ongoing and continually adapting to achieve organizational success.

Organization Development Opportunity

Often Organization Development begins in an organization when an opportunity for improvement is acknowledged by management and a positive change is sought. The function of Organization Development is to focus attention on improving the abilities of the organization and its employees to allow the organization to make positive changes from within to achieve its ultimate goal of success. Whether an organization utilizes the contracted services of an OD practitioner from outside or an OD practitioner that is already on its team, the functions and processes along the way will be similar. The first step taken is known in the Organization Development world as entering and contracting.

Organization Development
Organization Development

Entering and contracting is very much as it sounds. It starts with making clear the organization’s issue that needs improvement, deciding who will represent the organization in the process, and choosing an OD professional that is equipped with the appropriate experience and know-how to guide the process within the organization. Following these decisions, comes the contracting phase, in which, the parties involved establish how the Organization Development process will move forward. Roles are determined, expectations are stated, timetables are determined, and rules are outlined. This phase can be as formal or informal, depending on the desires of the organization, but most organization find that the more detailed the contracting phase the more likely the process is to stay on track and be successful.

After the entering and contracting phase is formulated, the second action to be performed is known in OD as diagnosing. This process is the examination and determination of how the organization is functioning in the present – right now. The OD practitioner and the organization’s team collect the relevant data via interviews, surveys, observations, and reports. Once the data is collected, it is analyzed through the lens of the appropriate diagnostic models which help to recognize and identify trustworthy data. There are several diagnostic models that are commonly used; diagnostic models including the Open System, organizational-level, group-level, and individual level. The OD professional must make the selection of diagnostic model that is most significant and will yield the most advantageous information for the organization. Ideally the model will be selected prior to the data collection so that the data can be collected more accurately, but the data collection can be done and then paired with the most effective diagnostic model. With this fresh data and subsequent analysis the OD practitioner and the organization team can determine what is working well and where improvements are needed. From this diagnosis, the necessary intervention can be developed.

Organization Development Planning

The Organization Development intervention is the development of the plan to be used to generate change that will allow the organization to improve both the organization and its employees and develop more positive interaction between the two in order to drive success. In order for the Organization Development to be successful, the intervention must suit the needs of the organization, founded on fundamental knowledge of the desired results, and be assured that the change-agent can convey the vision to all of the members of the organization. Intervention, execution, and change management must go hand in hand. The fitting intervention must be found for the unique organization from among the four major types of Organization Development intervention: Human Process, Techno-structural, Human Resource Management, and Strategic. After the suitable intervention is chosen, the OD profession must be alert to the organizations readiness and ability to make the changes, the cultural environment’s potential influence, and the expertise of the change agent. Once the execution of the intervention has begun, the process of transition requires close attention and must be carefully managed so that the change momentum can be maintained and resistance to the process can be overcome. As these guidelines are followed, Organization Development can be the coordinated transition by which an organization accomplishes effective and lasting change.

The final stage of Organization Development is the evaluation of the implemented changes and their potential incorporation (known as institutionalizing) into the organization. At this point feedback is gathered and evaluated to determine if the desired outcome for the organization’s improvement has been successfully achieved. If the desired outcome has not been achieved, the OD practitioner and the organization team must return to the previous steps and go through the process again until anticipated result is accomplished. If on the other hand, it is found that the change is effective, the changes will then be made a permanent function of the organization. These changes must become a part of the shared culture of the organization bringing the organization and its employees together. As employees are included in these positive changes, they become more dedicated, more loyal, and ultimately more flexible as change is implemented. With the leadership of the organization and the organization’s employees on board with the institutionalization of the changes; the ultimate goal of organizational success is achieved more efficiently and more rapidly.

The Organization Development process typically begins when someone, management or employee, uncover a need for improvement within the organization. The anticipated results of the OD process are to accomplish positive change for the organization and the employees; as well as any stakeholders related to the organization. For the process to accomplish a best case scenario outcome, everyone within the organization needs to back the process. The OD process begins with the entry of an OD professional, either internal or external, and outlining of the contract between the organization and the OD practitioner. The diagnosis phase follows with information gathering and analysis in order to formulate an intervention. With a plan in hand, the OD professional and the organization team implement the recommended changes within the organization. After the changes have been implemented, they are analyzed again for effectiveness and the determination of their success or failure. If successful, the OD intervention changes become a component of the function of the organization. It is evident that the Organization Development process is unique to each organization, customized just for it, and a process that must be ongoing and adapting constantly to keep the organization moving forward successfully.

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Strategic HR Roadmap

Strategic HR Roadmap – Toyota

Bohlander (2006) when analyzing the development of the manufacturing system at Toyota, interprets it through the formation of peculiar organizational capabilities at three levels: manufacturing routines, learning routines and evolutionary learning. In them, the decisions also appear implicitly; especially in learning routines, considered as a specific organizational ability of Toyota to perform troubleshooting cycles more competitively than its competitors consider. Bohlander (2006), a former Toyota executive in Canada, has approached more of the operative question with the publication of his experience and reading of how Toyota plans and deploys its values to the rest of the organization (Bohlander, 2006).

Discussion – Strategic HR Roadmap

The HRM is the administrative process applied to increase and preservation of effort, practice, health, knowledge, skills, etc., of the members of the structure, the benefit of a subject, of the organization and the country in general. Similarly, we can say that through the process of helping employees achieve a level of performance and quality of personal and social behavior that meets your personal needs and expectations (Boudreau et al, 2003).

The HRM is to plan, organize, and develop everything related to promoting the efficient performance of staff making up a structure. The Human Resource Management in an organization representing the medium that allows people to collaborate on it and reach directly or indirectly with work related individual objectives. Managing Human Resources means conquer and keep people and members of an organization, in an atmosphere of harmonious, positive, and supportive work. Represents all those things that make staff to remain in the organization. The objectives of the Human Resource Management derived from the objectives of the organization (Jackson et al, 2011).

Strategic HR Roadmap

The prime HR functions are:

  • Create, maintain, and develop a set of people with skills, motivation, and satisfaction sufficient to achieve the objectives of the organization.
  • Establish, maintain, and cherish organizational conditions that allow the implementation, development and the satisfaction of the people and the achievement of individual goals.
  • Achieve efficiency and effectiveness of human resources (Strategic HR Roadmap)

The Human Resources Management performs the integral management in different functions from the beginning to the end of an employment relationship as:

  • Recruit and select staff with the selected profile
  • Training and coaching
  • Evaluating job performance
  • Describe the responsibilities that define each position in the organization
  • Develop programs, workshops, courses, etc., and any other programs that vallan commensurate with the growth and improvement of the insights of staff.
  • Promote leadership development
  • Provide counseling to employees based on maintaining a harmonious environment together.
  • Resolve conflicts and problems that cause the staff
  • Inform employees either through newsletters, meetings, memos or via mails, policies, and procedures of human resources.
  • Oversee the management of test programs
  • Develop a personal framework based on competencies
  • Evaluate the Strategic HR Roadmap
  • Endorse the variety of jobs as a form or via a company’s success in different markets.

Toyota Strategic Planning

In recent years, the search for efficiency and cost savings has led many organizations to implement processes of implementation of methodologies and tools like Lean, Kaizen, 5 S`s, Six Sigma. Furthermore they are effective, often have not yielded the expected results, not going linked to a process of transformation of people. This model, applied to leadership, will enable the deployment of Lean in the company sustainability and with guaranteed success.

The Strategic HR Roadmap. Toyota continues to re-validate, year after year, his position as one of the first global companies investing in R & D. Toyota Motor Manufacturing France SAS (TMMF) was established in 1998 in Valenciennes (France), near the border with Belgium, as the second Toyota manufacturing base in Europe. Production began in January 2001 and since then has applied TMMF slogan ‘Green, clean and adjusted’ to reduce the environmental impact, based on the Toyota Production System, which seeks to eliminate muda, mura and muri (disposal practices generating waste, irregularities and unreasonable requirements). These are key features of the Strategic HR Roadmap at Toyota.

HR Efficiency

One of the basic concepts of Toyota is that the quality must be part of the process of production. This concept, known under the name of Jidoka, guarantee that problems have no impact on the chain from one job to another. Its principle is to stop work when a problem arises, in order to avoid the production of defective items (MacDuffie et al, 2011).

The Jidoka is also used when a team member encounters a problem in your workplace. The rest of the team has a responsibility to correct the problem. Failure to do so could indicate a problem pulling a Andon cord, which makes the number of jobs in the panel optical control lights, so that the team leader deal with the problem while the chain keeps moving.

Strategic HR Roadmap
Strategic HR Roadmap

If the team leader fails to fix the problem, the chain stops at the fixed position following the end of a process. After solving the problem, the chain restarts. Jidoka can also refer to the use of integrated security to prevent human or mechanical error. In this empirical study, Strategic Human Resource Management stands as precedent Balanced Scorecard model. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between Strategic Human Resource Management implemented in organizations with the three perspectives (customers, finances and processes) of the Balanced Scorecard.

Another perspective of the BSC is the customer. Modern organizations have to identify market segments, existing and potential customers, and then select the niches you want to compete. In this sense, should have a set of core indicators both client (increase, acquisition, satisfaction and profitability) and market share, and product / service must also be assessed the intrinsic attributes and their expectations, and prestigious image thereof.

The final perspective of BSC is critical to getting the previous three. It is the prospect of learning and personal growth. The BSC makes explicit reference to the importance of human resources in achieving business goals. This perspective touches on three key aspects. On one hand, it seeks to enhance the capabilities of employees, improvement ideas should come from employees who are close to the processes and customers. Otherwise, organizations must acquire information systems towards employees regarding their satisfaction, retention, and performance. Members of an organization must be motivated, should be free to make decisions and act (empowerment), and should have a consistency in its objectives. To evaluate the parameters of the BSC we built a scale called BSC-14 (Boada and Gil, 2007a).

Toyota Decision Making Policy

The decision-making process in the lean production model appears as a factor scarcely studied. The elements that make up the decision-making process appear marginally when discussing factors such as just in time, partnerships with suppliers, product development and the built-in quality in the process. Regarding the way, authors who, within each content are concerned with structure it analytically, with greater or lesser wealth of details, setting the process in phases and describing it now in order to explanatory goals, sometimes taking in view prescriptive actions (MacDuffie et al, 2011). On the other hand, there are those that shape the content focusing more on the context of the aspects involved in the process, exposing the structure or system that supports it, and wait for results (Strategic HR Roadmap). If we understand that everyone living in society participate in each moment a certain level of organization, Simon’s contribution was fundamental to inaugurate the decision studies with broader perspectives and next of social life and its complexity.

Conclusion

The decision-making appears as an unexplored factor in the work of diffusion of lean production model in which Toyota is the recognized worldwide as a pioneer in creating a production system focused on continuous improvement of productivity and quality indicators. Thus, even in works that are more recent that recognize the model of lean production as a broader model, organizational or business, clear link elements with the decision structure arise identified over the design elements aimed at troubleshooting.

References

Bohlander, G., & Snell, S. (2006). Managing human resources – Strategic HR Roadmap. Cengage Learning.

Boudreau, J., Hopp, W., McClain, J. O., & Thomas, L. J. (2003). On the interface between operations and human resources management – Strategic HR Roadmap. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management5(3), 179-202.

Jackson, S., Schuler, R., & Werner, S. (2011). Managing human resources – Strategic HR Roadmap. Cengage Learning.

MacDuffie, J. P., & Krafcik, J. (1992). Integrating technology and human resources for high-performance manufacturing: Evidence from the international auto industry. Strategic HR Roadmap and Transforming organizations, 209-226.

Yeung, A. K., & Berman, B. (1997). Strategic HR Roadmap – Adding value through human resources: Reorienting human resource measurement to drive business performance.

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Effective Team and Performance Management

Effective Team and Performance Management

This article is intended to evaluate the case study on Electron Corporation and highlights main key points pertaining to team building as well as enhancing the effectiveness of team productivity, established team environment and performance. Building of teams and effectiveness of team performance can be derived from various primary attributes (Zaccaro & Klimoski, in press). Teams are firstly needed to successfully contribute their individual efforts because their certain needs and responsibilities will form the basis of the collective success of the team. Secondly, since teams need to operate in complicated and ever changing organizational environments, they need to tackle multiple organizational team characteristics such as conflicting agendas, load of greater information, swift changes in the situations as well as enhanced dynamic changes (Zaccaro, Rittman & Marks 2001).

A small overview of the company includes; Electron is a small manufacturing organization established in 1997 in North of England. It manufactures components for telecommunication division. It employs 150 people along with 90 people in the manufacturing division. It was originally a department of a huge telecommunication organization and the Electron’s team bought the component manufacturing section as a portion of an outsourcing plan presented by the parent company in 2007. Electron has acquired both full time and part-time employees. In 1990s, its management realized that the company was striving for increasing competition and innovation in the industry. So in order to enhance their competition in the market, they have found the need of a more proficient and effective production procedures while emphasizing on enhancing organization’s culture, customer services, improved performance and responsibility and loyalty towards teamwork.

However, the subsequent sections of the assignment involve literature review which will cover the benefits and dysfunctions of teamwork. The Tuckman’s (1965) model of team building is also been employed in relation to the case study which demonstrates how teams must be efficiently formed. Whereas, the last sections will demonstrate the conclusion of the study as well recommendations on how to enhance the team performance more effectively and the steps that need to be taken for creating a subtle team environment.

Literature Review

The use of teams seems to provide several advantages; they may not be the most appropriate tactic for all types of organizations and not all of the organizations face similar and all challenges imposed by the teams. The influence of teamwork (both optimistic and pessimistic) is dependent upon several features such as company’s culture and environment, efficiency of team leadership, company’s efforts etc. Primarily, a team can be described as a small group of people along with a set of performance objectives, who are responsible to a common goal and the attitude they carry themselves mutually responsible (Katzenbach & Smith 1993). This definition explains that organizational teams should be of a manageable size and all of the team members should be accountable to achieve the shared team objectives. Moreover, all of the team members should be mutually responsible towards their activities and the results of those activities.

The Enticement of Working with Teams

The power of team work roots from several factors particularly when teams are employed. Various researchers demonstrated that teams are increasingly being employed as a response to ever increasingly global marketing competition (Heap 1996; Roufaiel & Meissner 1995; Sundstrom, De Meuse & Futrell 1990). Because of this increase in competition, it is also viewed that catering niche markets is also a growing concern. Since, electron emphasizes on enhancing organization’s culture, customer services and improved productivity; as a result, Electron manufacturers not only need to compete on cost but also strive to compete on innovation by establishing distinctive goods and services that could not be countered by the other rivals in the market. However, this will originate a problem where the company is not supposed to rely on mass production as well as economies of scale in the industry.

Most organizations still believe that working with teams is the only answer to this problem (just as Electron did). In their view teams are the source to optimize company’s innovation as employees have increased self-sufficiency, increased involvement and autonomy for making decisions (Harvey, Millet & Smith 1998). The employees no longer need to be guided about what is required to be done. In fact, they are provided with the objectives or develop objectives along with their team leader and then give autonomy to choose the best way in order to accomplish those objectives. Additionally, organizational innovation can also be optimized if teams are able to provide other enticements to the organization the situation in which they operate.

For instance, firstly, teams can optimally utilize human resources since they permit companies to achieve access to a person’s knowledge and capabilities (IRS Employment Review 1995). Albeit, the enhanced intricacy of the companies means that not all the managers know everything regarding each and every facet of the company’s operations. In this circumstance, it is important to utilize knowledge and capabilities of the employees/teams. Secondly, teams can be utilized to optimize company’s learning as employees are capable to design best strategies being suited to their work objectives (Wageman 1997). Thirdly, Teams are also capable to enhance individual’s performance levels and his/her efficiency, thereby establishing a synergy (Katzenbach & Smith 1993). Finally, team work is greatly associated with various numbers of objectives, tasks and additional accountability for each member of the team, which in turn resulted in enhanced job satisfaction, employee motivation and more work commitment. This will also result in lower employee turnover and absenteeism, thus, decreasing company’s costs and enhancing company’s knowledge base (Kirkman & Shapiro 1997).

Dysfunctions or Challenges Accompanied Teamwork

The employment of teams is primarily a change to an organization as well as a developmental procedure. Thus, teams can be easily affected to any challenge that might emerge during an organizational change. Particularly, resistance among employees may occur when they are needed to work along with other employees who are unfamiliar to them. In this way, teams are more likely to have broken established social relationships. This has already done in the Electron when huge number of new employees was hired and was integrated into one of the Electron’s teams. Those workers were new to their team’s values and consensus where they exerted greater challenge to the already existed relationships among the older employees.

In accordance to Bettenhausen (1991), one way to cope this problem is by forming teams. Building of teams will enhance group productivity by enhancing communication, minimizing conflicts and establishing greater bonds and commitment among all the working team members. Resistance among employee can also occur as a result of other factors. For instance, teamwork may need job enlargement where each team member is required to perform his/her conventional role along with his/her team role (IRS Employment Review 1995). In this circumstance, it is essential to minimize their certain responsibilities or to change the structure of their rewards or compensation.

Besides job enlargement, team work is also coherent with autonomy, ownership and additional commitments. Managers frequently perceive that employees must participate in decision making instead of simply being directed of what needs to be done. However, this might be true for certain situations but not for all situations. This will, in turn, may resulted in employee job dissatisfaction, increased employee turnover and/or reduced work productivity. The similar case is also viewed in Electron, when it hired new employees on temporary basis and let the managers to decide who must be hired on as full-time employee. Those workers initially were also unfamiliar with the team procedures and were expected by the managers to know the team’s values and conform and act accordingly to their team’s norms. Teams at Electron started exerting their concertive control over the new individuals which as a result new employees began controlling themselves and those norms and values become rationalized rules for the new members. There is no simple solution for catering such problem; however, training or changing positions can be probable within the company.

Other associated problems with “empowered teams” originate when there is a lack of trust in the team when they are no longer trusted enough to participate in decision making. This will result in teams and organizations losing full potential to accomplish their desired objectives. The situations in which teams are needed to seek consent before executing any idea or timeliness, ownership is likely to reduce. Organizational innovation will also decrease as teams are compelled to suggest ideas that will be likely to accept (Nahavandi & Aranda 1994). Moreover, team members may also perceive that their management is paying insincere respect to their proposed ideas of teamwork which will certainly result in reduced employee morale.

It is also viewed that when teams are involved in making decisions, they take more time than the system they reinstate. This is also needed where team coordination is required and where team members are independent. This issue can be partly cope by the formation of the team, but this also requires continuous training and development of groups teams. Such kind of training can be specifically appropriate for the new hired staff as there may be no established procedures for them to follow. Also, for effective teams, there must be strong coordination among them (Harvey, Millet & Smith 1998). Similarly, the lack of participation in decision making and coordination among employees for building of more strengthened team culture is seen in Electron’s eight teams (red, blue, white, green, silver, aqua, purple and yellow). This is due the fact that the older and long tenured employees have tried to impose strict concertive rules and procedures to conform to the group norms.

In case of organizational environmental changes and developmental initiatives, culture of the organization and environment must also be considered. It must not be perceived that the objectives and values of the individuals are similar to those of their management or congruent even across the entire organization. The attitude of individuals towards teams will demonstrate the success of those teams. If teams need to be executed more successfully, the extension of already existed values must be there (Carr 1992). Therefore, Electron when working with teams also demand shift in attitudes that a company may turn to it when it wants to accomplish a cultural shift, for instance, when it becomes more quality or customer oriented (IRS Employment Review 1995).

Five Team Development Phases as Proposed by Bruce Tuckman

This model as proposed by Bruce Tuckman (1965) tends to highlight and guides the areas where teams can be successful and/or become failure to achieve desired team goals. For forty years, Tuckman’s classical model of team development delivers ease and new perceptions to managers to either charge to run a team or attempt to function within a team while assuring each member that they are not alone and that the uneasiness is a normal part of the team journey towards an efficient and pleasant unit. Tuckman speculates that these stages are essential and unavoidable. In order for the Electron teams to grow, to face the hurdles, to cope up with the problems, to search for solutions, to organize work and to deliver desired outcomes; these five phases can be elaborated as follows.

Phase One: Forming

In this first phase of team building, Electron teams must be formed. Where the attitude of the individual is driven by the desires which are likely to be accepted by the other individuals and prevent any controversy or conflict. Solemn problems and attitudes are prevented and people are required to concentrate on their busy work routines. Individual members also try to gather knowledge regarding each other, regarding the scope of the task and how to reach it. This phase is considered to be an easy stage but prevention of controversies and conflicts mean that not much objective is actually accomplished. The teams will together meet and learn about various opportunities and confront and then agree on objectives and start to tackle the tasks and objectives. Members of the team will quite behave autonomously.

Each team member must concentrate on his/her team leader by accepting the leader’s guidance and authority while maintaining a respectful distant association with other individuals. At this phase, the leader must open two way communications and be ready to reply any of the queries that may come on his/her way; limitations, potency and vulnerabilities must also be tested including those related to the leader.

Phase Two: Storming

Each Electron group then will enter into the next stage where different ideas for competition are considered. The teams address distinct issues such as what kind of problems they need to solve, how they must function autonomously as well as mutually with each other and which leadership model they must accept to follow. Each team member will have the privilege to confront others’ ideas and perceptions. In most cases storming is solved more quickly while in others, most of the teams never leave this phase (this depends on the maturity of the team). Most team members concentrate on the ins and outs to dodge the problems. This second phase is essential for the teams to grow which could be controversial, distasteful and often excruciating to the team members who are opposed to the conflicts. Tolerance of each team member must also be emphasized because without patience, teams will likely to fail.

This stage can be proved destructive for the teams if they are permitted to go out of control. Managers/supervisors of the teams might be more accessible but need to be directive in their professional and decision making attitudes. The teams therefore, will solve the problems and differences and contribute more comfortably with one another. In this way, they cannot be judged and can share their stand points and ideas easily with each other.

Phase Three: Norming

At this phase of team building, Electron managers will set one objective and one mutual plan for the team to accomplish. Some of the members will be motivated to give up their certain ideas in order for the team to effectively function. At this phase, each team member feels his/her commitment to the team and has the aspiration to work towards the success of the team’s objectives.

Phase Four: Performing

It is probable for certain teams to reach to this stage. The high performing teams can be able to work as one unit as they able to identify best approaches to get their job done mutually, comfortably and without irrelevant controversy or the requirement of any external management because they become motivated and knowledgeable by this stage. When the members of the Electron teams are now skilled, independent and experienced, they can tackle the process of decision making without the burden of any supervision (however, supervisors are also directive and participative at this stage but team make more appropriate decisions). The Electron teams must pass through this stage several times because of the global and organizational dynamic changes.

Phase Five: Adjourning (and Transforming)

This stage involves un-forming the groups which sometimes create a sense of loss often feel by the team members. This stage will include ‘dissolution’ which leads to the end of the Electron team members’ roles and responsibilities, the accomplishment of objectives and minimization of reliance. This procedure can be traumatic specifically when the dissolution is not planned. Thus, team members must be acknowledged at this phase that at the successful achievement of the productivity levels and outcomes, teams will be dissolved and that new teams will emerge for new targets.

Conclusion

In order to execute and sustain teams to operate effectively within the organization, sufficient organizational changes are required to be considered as well as various issues required to be catered. Those changes not only influence team members but also the responsibilities and commitments of the supervisors and managers, the organizational framework, work procedures and techniques and employees’ social bonds. That’s why due to the dynamic environmental changes, Electron manufacturers also face multiple challenges which occur as a result of teams’ implementation. However, it is also evident that in case of teams’ implementation, various organizations will not opt for going back to their prior organizational frameworks (IRS Employment Review 1995). Consequently, it is also seen that teams, in spite of the emerging challenges, are capable enough to offer several advantages to firms in the long run.

In case of Electron manufacturers, new hired team members were unknown of the team’s values, norms and consensus that proved greater challenge to the already existed relationships among the older employees. Moreover, managers were also expecting that each new member must be familiar with the procedures and norms of the groups to act accordingly and conform themselves to those groups. However, besides the implementation of their concertive procedures and motivating employees (by providing them rewards), Electron teams still lacking certain key aspects which formed the basis of a strengthened team. Such as two way communication, participation of employees in decision making, lack of trust among team members, sharing of opinions and ideas among each other to resolve any critical issue regarding production and enhancement of work performances and employees’ morale.

Thus, as a result of this, Bruce Tuckman’s (1965) model of team building is employed in the context of Electron manufacturers. According to his model, teams are to be developed step by step by ensuring performance effectiveness in each team building phase. This model consists of five stages i.e. forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. This can be concluded as Electron must forge its eight teams in a manner such that each individual must know his/her accountability, change his/her attitude according to the organizational culture so that teams will effectively function with minimum conflicts and controversies (forming). Second, teams must be encouraged to share their wide scope ideas and opinions and can confront the other’s ideas for making better decisions and improved productivity (storming).

Third, Electron managers must establish one objective and direct the team to mutually accomplish the objective which enhances the members’ sense of responsibility towards the team success (norming). Forth, when Electron’s team members become more experienced and capable enough, they will be able to make decisions without any supervisor which in turn, gives employees more autonomy, understanding of each other’s roles, increase employee social relationships, enhance their morale as well as enhance work productivity (performing). Finally, when the production target is successfully achieved, teams will be terminated at the final stage so that new teams will be developed to achieve new production targets with the passage of time and make the organization subtle to dynamic industrial changes with the help of new teams’ formation.

Recommendations

Following are some of the recommendations that can be further considered for making organizational teams more strengthened and intensified.

  • In accordance to Tuckman’s strength deployment inventory (SDI) model, employees must be nurtured with the help of managers without directing rewards in return. They must be motivated to enhance their self-worth by accomplishing tasks and other significant orders.
  • Fulk, Bell & Bodie (2011) also employed Tuckman’s five stages of team development to enhance team performance. According to them, the first stage ‘forming’ must also involve hiring and selecting right individuals at the right time who also possess the qualities of solving critical problems, controversies, communication gaps, decision making, setting of plans and goals and organizing tasks within teams.
  • At the second stage ‘storming’, managers must anticipate to unexpected events that are likely to lead the whole team to the conflicts which are likely to arise as a result of differences in opinions, styles of working and priorities. The managers must be vigilant to take all those conflicts into consideration and encourage teams to take appropriate and productive actions towards mitigating those conflicts.
  • The third stage ‘norming’ must involve working with teams with specific as well challenging goals and those goals must be present in writing. Here team performance can be enhanced if teams revisit their initial goals, clarification of the goals and the commitments towards those goals.
  • At the fourth stage ‘performing’, managers must monitor their teams ‘objectives and their feedback on a regular basis in order to enhance teamwork. That feedback must be timely basis as well as concrete to be acted upon.
  • At the final stage ‘adjourning’ the team members instead of felling a sense of loss, team members must be expected to enjoy their success resulted in successful completion of the task.

Bibliography

Bettenhausen, K.L. (1991) ‘Five Years of Group Research: What Have We Learned and What Needs to be Addressed’, Journal of Management, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 345-381.

Carr, C. (1992) ‘Planning Priorities for Empowered Teams’, Journal of Business Strategy, vol. 13, no. 5, p. 43-47.

Fulk, H.K. (2011) Team Management by Objectives: Enhancing Developing Teams’ Performance. Journal of Management Policy and Practice, 12(3), 17-26.

Heap, N. (1996) ‘Building the Organisational Team’, Industrial and Commercial Training, vol. 28, no. 3, pp.3-7.

IRS Employment Review (1995) ‘Key Issues in Effective Teamworking’, no. 592, pp. 5-16.

Katzenbach, J.R. & Smith, D.K. 1993, The Wisdom of Teams, McKinsey & Company, New York.

Kirkman, B.L. & Shapiro, D.L. (1997) ‘The Impact of Cultural Values on Employee Resistance to Teams: Toward a Model of Globalised Self-Managing Work Team Effectiveness’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 730-757.

Nahavandi, A. & Aranda, E. (1994) ‘Restructuring Teams for the Re-engineering Organization’, Academy of Management Executive, vol. 8. no. 4, pp. 58-68.

Performance Coaching Training (2010) Bruce Tuckman’s Forming, Storming, Norming & Performing Team Development Model.

Roufaiel, N.S. & Meissner, M. (1995) ‘Self-Managing Teams: A Pipeline to Quality and Technology Management, Benchmarking for Quality, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 21-37.

Sundstrom, E., De Meuse, K.P. & Futrell, D. (1990) ‘Work Teams: Applications and Effectiveness’, American Psychologist, vol. 45, no. 2, pp. 120-133.

Teambuilding Solutions (2011) Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI).

Wageman, R. (1997) ‘Critical Success Factors for Creating Superb Self-managing Teams, Organisational Dynamics, vol. 26, no. 1, pp. 49-60.

Zaccaro, S. J, Rittman, A.L & Marks, M.A (2001) Team Leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 12, 451-483.

Appendix A

Performance Management
Performance Management
Effective Team
Effective Team

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Recruitment And Selection Dissertation

Top 5 Recruitment And Selection Dissertations

Recruitment And Selection Dissertation 1

Title: Recruitment And Selection Dissertation – A successful occupation in Human Resources Management (HRM) begins with your ability to draw the best candidates for any given vacancy. There are many principles, issues, trends and legislative requirements that will improve your organization’s recruitment and selection processes. Improve your overall business effectiveness and prevent potential HRM issues from the outset by identifying, reaching and employing the people best suited to your organization. I hope you find this post on Recruitment And Selection Dissertations useful.

Dissertation The Use Of Ability Tests In The Selection Process At GE Capital

GE Consumer Finance is concerned with card and payment protector insurance for private label credit cards. They have over 10 million active cardholders with their major clients consisting of the Arcadia Group, House of Fraiser, Debenhams, and Harrods. GE Consumer Finance has 5 different departments: Auto, Risk, Operations, Front End and Finance. Auto consists of the sales centre, Risk involves quality and legal aspects, Operations is concerned with collections, call centres / customer services and new accounts, Front End is concerned with marketing, card services and client management and finally Finance incorporates all the IT processes.

Psychometric tests are tools which have been developed by psychologists in order to gain an insight into aspects of human psychology that are not immediately apparent.  Psychometric tests can work very differently from each other. Some, for example, are purely concerned with looking in detail at a particular individual and how that individual sees their world. These are known as idiographic tests that allow therapists to gain insight into an individual’s ideas or problems. Other types of psychometric tests are used to compare individuals with each other and therefore involve measuring individuals on scales. These types of psychometric tests are known as nomothetic tests and it is these tests which are used in employee selection which is the focus of this study.

Psychometric tests consist of personality tests and ability tests. The focus in the selection process at GE Consumer Finance is on the ability tests. Ability tests are concerned with innate mental facilities. They are designed to test intelligence, skills and aptitudes. Due to the high validity, they are used widely in the selection of employees. There are many different types of ability tests such as job specific tests, for example short hand tests for secretarial positions, or more general tests, such as verbal, numeric, spatial and perceptual skills. This dissertation focuses in particular on the verbal and numeric tests that are used in the selection process at GE Consumer Finance.

Currently at GE Consumer Finance, the verbal and numeric tests are used as part of an assessment centre for candidates applying to the company. The group of candidates that this dissertation focuses on is Interns. Interns are undergraduates who are employed by the company for one year as part of their university course.

They are incorporated into the company and are on a salary. They are usually given a mentor when they start to enable them to integrate into the organisation with as much ease as possible. Interns have to apply for their position in the same way as everyone else. They are required to attend assessment centres where they have one to one interviews, ability tests and group tasks to carry out. They are marked on a range of aspects and the results from these various selection methods are gathered together and used in order to make decisions as to who is best for the job. It is the use of the ability tests in the selection process for interns that is being investigated here in terms of whether they add value to the process.

This will be done by conducting interviews with assessors from the various departments in the company in order to find out what the current system of ability tests entails and their opinions on the areas.  Ability tests scores for the interns will then be obtained and these will be compared to their current performance in order to determine if the tests were able to successfully predict job performance. Finally, if necessary, suggestions will be given as to changes that are required in the company.

Recruitment and Selection Dissertation
Recruitment and Selection Dissertation

Recruitment And Selection Dissertation 2

Dissertation Recruitment and Selection Methods Deployed In the Growing Indian Information Technology

In recent times, some development took place in recruitment and selection practices. These include the E-recruitment which is a good way to deal with some problems that arise during recruitment and selection practices. E-Recruitment is very effective for all organisations but those that fall under the IT sector in India need further development because the older practices are not good enough to find capable candidates for organization. New techniques should be found to screen capable candidates. Similarly, small companies are now looking to stand and compete with big firms. These small organizations are conducting more researches in recruitment and selection practices. Aligning the current HR practices with the global standards is indispensable for survival in highly competitive business environment.

IT firms have to chose and recruit highly sophisticated and capable candidates. Small firms could use recruitment and selection methods in a better way as compared to multinational firms. As previously mentioned, recruitment practices and processes were not effective for many IT firms. Also, in recent times, new development in HR practices will provide a good chance to small firms to play their role more effectively in industry and establish a strong position in the field of human resource practices. In the past, small organizations were not getting positive attention for their recruitment processes. The small and medium IT firms overlooked the importance of best HR practices. An effective recruitment and selection process plays a vital role to enhance the success ratio of a small and medium business organization lacking a good HR structure and framework.

Many management article reviews provide evidence of poor follow up of best recruitment practices. Furthermore, only a few out of the two hundred academic HR journals take small organisation as a research sample and conducted any research on recruitment and selection practices in small organizations. An observation suggests that small organizations like to have an informal recruitment procedure. On the other hand, big organizations like to go with formal way of selection.  A formal way of selection attracts more and more job applications and gives wide and better options to HR team screen out suitable candidates for the available job.

Recruitment And Selection Dissertation 3

Dissertation Recruitment and Selection Processes Impact Organisational Objectives

Recruitment and selection forms a core part of the central activities underlying human resource management. It frequently forms an important part of the work of human resource managers or designated specialists within work organisations. However, and importantly, recruitment and selection decisions are often for good reason taken by non-specialists, by the line managers. There is, therefore, an important sense in which it is the responsibility of all managers, and where human resource departments exist, it may be that HR managers play more of a supporting advisory role to those people who will supervise or in other ways work with the new employee.

As Mullins (2010) notes that ‘If the HRM function is to remain effective, there must be consistently good levels of teamwork, plus ongoing co-operation and consultation between line managers and the HR manager’. Recruitment and selection is often presented as a planned rational activity, comprising certain sequentially-linked phases within a process of employee resourcing, which itself may be located within a wider HR management strategy. The overall aim of the recruitment and selection process should be to obtain at minimum cost the number and quality of employees required to satisfy the human resource needs of the company.

The recruitment and selection process constitutes the most important aspects of HRM because the cost of poor Recruitment and selection process is tremendously high. If an organisation fails to select right person, it has to suffer as long as those persons in the organisation. Moreover, the quality of service is strongly influenced by the recruitment and selection process of the organisation concerned. Sunseekers Tours Limited is not an exception to this truth. It recruits different categories of professionals who influence the company’s products. Recruitment and selection are two important aspects of the overall manpower planning of Sunseekers Tours Limited.

Generally, Manpower planning is the process by which an organisation ensures that it has the right number of people with right skills at the right time. The objectives of manpower planning are to ensure the use of human resources currently employed and to provide for future manpower needs of the organisation in terms of skills, numbers and ages.

Recruitment And Selection Dissertation 4

Dissertation Impact of Effective Recruitment and Selection Practice on Business Growth. A Study of McDonalds

Research on HR functions shows that recruitment and selection is the most important function performed by HR professionals and ineffective performance of this HR function results in serious business related issues. The HR management process of the company starts with recruitment and selection of team members after that orientation and appropriate training is given to the employees according to the job requirements and after training the employees will be working in their respective departments for which they were hired. If the HR department will not recruit quality employees according to the organizational requirements then the cost associated with the recruitment of the employees will be wasted.

The organizational resources will not only be wasted but also the employees which are being recruited will become a burden on the organization. Therefore, it is essential the HR professionals who are involved in the recruitment and selection function are capable enough to ensure scrutiny of the best candidates from the available pool so that those employees can play their part in the growth and development of the business. Academics have highlighted the importance of the recruitment and selection function by stating that the role of the recruitment function in the organization is same as role of the heart in the human body. The heart is supplying blood to different parts of the body in order to ensure the effective functioning of the human body and same the case with recruitment function as it is providing human capital to different departments of the organization.

If the heart in the human body will not supply blood to different parts of the human body effectively according to the requirement then the human body cannot be alive. Similarly, if recruitment and section function of HR department is not providing  effective people to different sectors of the organization then it would be impossible to ensure the survival of the firm. An important aspect which needs to be considered before finalizing the recruitment strategy of the organization is organizational resources because if the organization does not have sufficient resources then the desired outcomes of the recruitment strategy cannot be achieved. Therefore, it is important that leadership of the organization should consider the different aspects before formulating and implementing the recruitment strategy because of its serious impacts on the organizational outcomes.

Research shows that a well developed recruitment strategy of the organization can results in significant improvement in business outcomes. Therefore, organizational focus in order to ensure the effective performance of the recruitment section function will impact the business of the organization positively and will support the management in the long run because employees being recruited by the HR professionals could be working in the organization for a quite longer period of time and if they are capable then they will be a source of continuous profit for the organization in the long run.

Recruitment And Selection Dissertation 5

Dissertation Recruitment and Selection Practices. A Case Study of ASDA

Recruitment and selection is the most important part of the HR planning of the firm and can assist the management in order to achieve competitive advantage over the competitors by ensuring the availability of high performing individuals. The recruitment and selection function not only hires the high quality individuals to achieve business objectives but also creates a pool of candidates which are readily available to take up the business challenges.

The recruitment activities are also helpful in selecting the high profile individuals for the firm. By realizing the increasing importance of recruitment and selection function of the firm and its direct link with the organization’s objectives, the researcher has selected this topic. Another important reason which motivates the researcher to select this particular topic is that there are few researches which are focused on the implementation of recruitment strategies in the retail industry. This research will provide a broader perspective about the recruitment and selection function and importance of effective implementation of the recruitment strategies.

This dissertation consists of total five chapters which include Introduction, Literature Review, Research Methodology, Research Findings and Conclusion and Recommendations. In the first chapter of the study, an introduction about the importance of the recruitment and selection activities of the organization is provided and the researcher has tried to identify the link between recruitment activities and business profitability of the firm.

The background of the study is also provided by the researcher in the first chapter of the study and the researcher states that that recruitment activities of the firm are not only helpful in fulfilling the staffing needs but it also help to improve the employee retention level and minimizes the staff turnover.

The research objectives and questions of the research are also provided in the first chapter of the research. In the second chapter of the research, the investigator has presented a literature review and the conceptual framework of the study. The point of views of different authors are presented and discussed in the second chapter of the study. In the third chapter, the research methodology is presented and the researcher has presented the different research methods which could be deployed in order to conduct the research and collect the research information. In the fourth chapter of the study, the final research findings are presented and analysis of the first hand information is discussed. In the last chapter, the final conclusion of the research is presented and researcher has also provided some recommendations in the last chapter of the research.

I do hope you enjoyed reading this post on HRM recruitment and selection dissertations. There are many other titles available in the HRM dissertation collection that should be of interest to human resource management students and CIPD professional. There are many dissertation titles that relate to other aspects of HRM such as employee engagement, HRM Theory, absenteeism, training and development to name a few. It took a lot of effort to write this post and I would be grateful if you could share this post via Facebook and Twitter. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments section. Thank you.