Human Resource Development Case Study Report


 


 


Table of Contents


 


 


 


Executive Summary                                                                                      2


Introduction                                                                                                   3


Scope/Aims                                                                                                     4


Main Body                                                                                                    4-7


Induction of new staff


Customer service


Interpersonal skills


Development of team skills


Development of leadership skills


Evaluation of interventions, determine level of effectiveness                  7-8


Discussion and explanation of appropriate evaluation methods             8-9


The human capital monitor


The balanced scorecard


Recommendations                                                                                       9-10


Conclusion                                                                                                  10-11


References                                                                                                  11-13


 


 


Executive Summary


The report is about HR development needs investigation and the evaluation of methods, discussing in lieu to assessing certain HRDNI – Human Resource Development needs Investigation also, the demonstration of knowledge as appropriate for the latter with steps, processes and methods that Mr. Ian Vaughan and the rest of the senior management team of Ford Australia could adopt into and follow accordingly. Aside, the noting in understanding as well as awareness of various interpersonal skills which are related to the process of leadership and team development which implies an analysis of the issues through known cases and literature research that have ample relevance to the topic focus and pressing in desirable and accurate ideas and concepts achieving in effective. This report will be presented to Mr. Ian Vaughan as well as the senior management team of Ford Australia, recognizing and identifying several human resource developments to be applied and executed for Ford Australia, creating and determining effective engineers as part of the Ford’s management process allowing in impetus assimilation and success towards leadership skills and team skills from within interpersonal skills are linked into the communication as well as the known stature of development. There has to be learning strategies or interventions to adhere about with several discussions for introducing new staff, customer service skills and others. Thus, methods for evaluating the strategies at hand are needed to be achieved within the company, determining ample level of effectiveness from within HRD aspects for Ford Australia to comply with.  


 


 


 


Introduction


HR development needs are identified and the value based indicators of learning strategies for introducing new staff, customer service, interpersonal skills, team skills development, leadership skills development pressing in critical areas and role regarding to the evaluation of methods upon determining effectiveness of the case research as presented accordingly. The gaining of HR success in terms of several aspects and ways will be conforming to the overall structure and paradigm for Ford Australia to use and apply, for the engineering management team to follow and the rest of the senior executives in various levels of the company. Thus, to come up with useful recommendations in order to achieve effective stance of certain skills needed for Ford Australia human resource to function well according to the standards of leadership, team as well as interpersonal skills as positive as possible. The introduction of new staff, conforms to proper employee and work orientation so that the other Ford staff can easily adjust to the coming of the new staff and lines of communication are open with ample space to work, perform and grow within the team. Customer service is imperative sense it may impose the core cycle of interpersonal skills needed by the Ford management, as business key players will be of effective formation through customer service at its best shape, team skills and leadership skills development unites the overall aura and stature of Ford’s human resource development needs such as those that signifies winning and ideal relationship pace with the rest of the company staff and management mostly, to the technical division of Ford. Learning how to apply, execute and handle all those areas mention deserves a one definite reality to the human resource impetus not just for Ford’s case but as well as others.


 


 


Scope/Aims


            The aim/scope of this report is amiably to bring in effective and spontaneous case study information and the encountering of detailed content analysis of such human resource development needs investigation, from within several evaluation of methods linked into learning intervention of certain interpersonal skills through team and leadership skills development and assimilation and be able to create useful recommendations for Mr. Ian Vaughan to consider and utilize from the senior management of Ford Australia.


            The sub-sections of the report, in the main body adhere to the following points: Induction of new staff; Customer service; Interpersonal skills; Development of team skills; Development of leadership skills


 


Main Body


Thus, if Ford engineers are to be more than technical functionaries in the next millennium, there is a need to provide young engineers with an understanding of the social context within which they will work, together with skills in critical analysis and


ethical judgement and an ability to assess the long-term consequences of their work. Engineering in the modern world also involves many social skills, the ability to understand and realize business goals; mobilize and coordinate human and physical resources; to advise social, environmental aspects of their work (Webster, 1996). There is also an increasing need for Ford engineers to choose technological solutions that are appropriate to their social context and to give consideration to the long-term impacts of their work, if only because the work of engineers can have wide ranging effects as technologies can affect the whole globe and future generations. Never before has there been such a moral imperative to consider what may have been thought of as unintended consequences in the past. Engineering (1995), noted that, “recognition of the responsibility of engineers to consider the social and environmental impact of their work” (p. 14). For HR development needs at Ford Australia, there accounts for new staff needs, customer service needs, and needs geared for interpersonal skills also ample needs for team skills and leadership skills with a touching indicative recognition towards human resource management areas as effectively identified along with several learning strategies at hand. 


Induction of new staff


There is importance to introduce new staff with formal interaction at Ford staff as they cannot occur in a vacuum; such interactions are influenced by the situation in which they take place. As one significant influence on the interaction is the goal or purpose of the encounter. It is possible to identify a number of situations all of which will have a slightly different influence on the interaction process Aside, in the case of dealing with complaints, it is imperative that the staff member concerned receives training on how to handle this kind of situation. There will be better atmosphere to the orientation of new staff as Ford team can be  amenable and open to communication if they approach them on their territory rather than summoning them into their managerial space. The interaction will be affected by the roles that people occupy at a particular time and their relative status. A role can be defined as the pattern of behavior typical of people


occupying a particular position (Brown, 1986).


 


Customer service


Customer service has become a critical success factor for many organizations today (Phillips, 1990; Schneider and Bowen, 1985). Indeed, realized importance of customer service has led to a great deal of research, especially in the marketing area. Most research focuses on the different types of services, the organizational dynamics of the service sector (Bowen, Siehl and Schneider, 1989; Schneider and Bowen, 1985), marketing aspects of customer service design, or design and delivery systems (Klaus, 1985). Thus, measurement of customer service orientation has created more confusion that definitive answers, difficulty of measuring customer service orientation stems from the ongoing debate in the industrial literature on the use of broad versus narrow measures of personality (Ones and Viswesvaran, 1996) for Ford, such narrow approach to customer service orientation is to be preferred over the broad approach since traits are better able to retain specific variance that can enhance criterion-related validity. This will help to ensure greater uniformity in terms of Ford’s quality service criteria, to know the cost of providing quality service so they look for ways of measuring quality through quality assurance schemes and standard systems, should seek to create an Ford environment which supports quality and enhances communication between employees and customers.


 


Interpersonal skills


The incorporation of multiple measures of customer service performance in attempting to establish concurrent validity. Including in subjective and objective performance measures is beneficial from a customer service orientation perspective, since it provides a measurement of differences regarding the performance factors that a measure of interpersonal skills impacts. Expecting interpersonal skills to impact both subjective and


objective measures of performance and that, dyadic interaction between customer service providers and customers is an important determinant of a customer satisfaction with service (Solomon, Surprenant, Czepiel and Gutman, 1985). Ford’s interpersonal skills provide narrow focus, it is expected that it will better correlate with specific measures of service performance than broader measures such as extroversion or general disposition.


 


Development of team skills


Research has been encouraging in that the use of teams has led to desirable performance improvements for numerous organizations in a variety of industries (Banker, Lee, Potter and Srinivasan, 1996), although teams obviously do not always work well (Hackman, 1990). The scientific base for understanding teamwork has relied heavily on social models derived from laboratory research with short-lived groups of students that often poorly mirror organizational environments. Research needs to identify the mechanisms that make teams work, as well as how to make them more effective (Cohen, 1993; Sundstrom, de Meuse and Futrell, 1990), the increasing Ford reliance on teams, coupled with literature criticized for limited utility to real-world problems, is pushing practice that favors approaches that do almost anything imaginable in the hope that something will work.


Development of leadership skills


McCauley et al (2000), implies leadership development as expanding the collective capacity of organizational members to engage effectively in leadership roles and processes, come in with formal authority, focuses on performance in formal


managerial roles and the need to work together in meaningful ways (Keys and Wolfe, 1988). Leadership development is thought to be similar to the notion of cognitive and behavioral complexity in that expanded capacity provides for better individual and collective adaptability across a wide range of situations (Hooijberg, Bullis and Hunt, 1999),  good example is found in transformational leadership theory, as the leaders engage in behaviors related to the dimensions of Charisma, Intellectual Stimulation, and Individualized Consideration (Bass, 1985) and in building Ford leadership capacity it maybe necessary continually to reinvent themselves, organizations need to attend to both individual leader and collective leadership development (Brower, Schoorman and Tan, 2000).


 


Evaluation of interventions, determine level of effectiveness


 


For, intervention evaluation, it is ideal to assume and recognize measures towards human resource capital along with sufficient support of research preciseness and spontaneous delivery of related ideas and concepts towards HR development needs and other important specifications. For leadership effectiveness authors such as, Sweetland’s (1978), have reviewed managerial productivity asserted that effective leadership and increased group output were function of interaction between managers and their subordinates. Murphy and Cleveland (1991) noted that the evaluation of manager’s performance depends, in part, on the relationships that the person has established with his or her subordinates. There has to be self-ratings of leadership being used as evaluative criteria (Farh and Dobbins, 1989) and clear that self-ratings tell us little about leader effectiveness. But there is a kind of manager who routinely over evaluates his or her performance, and that tendency is associated with poor leadership (Nilsen and Campbell, 1993; Van Velsor, Taylor and Leslie, 1992). The one aspect of strategy effectiveness is talented personnel as being equal, a more talented team will outperform a less talented team. Talented Ford personnel are to be identified by good selection methods, and recruited by good leadership. Next, is the motivated personnel, Ford staff who are willing to perform to the limits of their ability as the team will outperform a demoralized team. The level of motivation in a team or organization is directly related to the performance of management (Harter et al., 2002). Furthermore, the effective strategy for outperforming the competition that depends on systematic research and deep knowledge of industry trends and will allow Ford’s senior leadership to keep track of the talent level of the staff, the motivational level of the staff, the performance of the management group, and the effectiveness of the business strategy.


 


Discussion and explanation of appropriate evaluation methods


The need for human capital measurement, case for evolving methods of valuing human resource needs upon identifying people management drivers and modeling the effect of varying them. The issue is to develop a framework within which reliable information can be collected and analyzed such as added value per employee, productivity and measures of employee behavior. Becker et al (2001) refer to the need to develop a ‘high-performance perspective’ in which HR and other executives view HR as a system embedded within the larger system of the firm’s strategy implementation. High-performance work system is crucial part for Ford to apply as there links to selection and promotion to validate competency and develop strategies that provide timely and effective support for the skills demanded by Ford HR implementation, the measurements can be used to monitor progress in achieving strategic HR goals and evaluate effectiveness of HR practices as described below.


 


The human capital monitor


Mayo (2001) has developed the human capital monitor serves as weighted average assessment of capability, potential to grow, personal performance and alignment to the organization’s values set in the context of the workforce environment. The absolute figure is not important. What does matter is that the process of measurement leads you to consider whether human capital is sufficient, increasing, or decreasing, and highlights issues to address. Mayo advises against using too many measures and instead to concentrate on a few organization-wide measures that are critical in creating shareholder value or achieving current and future organizational goals. Mayo (2001), believes that value added per person is a good measure of the effectiveness of human capital, especially for making inter firm comparisons. But he considers that the most critical indicator for the value of human capital is the level of expertise possessed by an organization.


 


The balanced scorecard


The balanced scorecard as originally developed by Kaplan and Norton (1996) is


frequently used as the basis for measurement. Their aim was to counter the tendency


of companies to concentrate on short-term financial reporting. They take the view


that ‘what you measure is what you get as the proponents emphasize that ‘no single measure can provide clear performance target or focus attention on the critical areas of the business. Managers want balanced presentation of both financial and operational


measures’, Kaplan and Norton emphasize that the balanced scorecard approach ‘puts strategy and vision, not control at the centre, assumes that people will adopt whatever behaviors and take whatever actions are required to achieve goals as the measures on Balanced Scorecard should be used as the cornerstone of a management system that communicates strategy, aligns individuals and teams to the strategy, establishes long-term strategic targets, aligns initiatives, allocates resources and provides feedback and learning about the strategy.


 


Recommendations


For recommendations, it is imperative for Ian Vaughan and Ford Australia to do the following:


-          to have staff and manager brainstorming sessions with the team executives to identify areas where they could improve their service to customers. The key items detailed in these and subsequent training sessions that occurred during the intervention stage that will focus on job-role knowledge, customer relations and HR needs investigation


-          To ensure Ford’s customer service quality interaction to be rated by Ford customers on such greeting of customer, eye contact, speed of service, degree of help offered, personal recognition of the customer and appreciation for the customer’s business


-          To achieve in baseline data on the quality service as operationalized by dimensions gathered from customers immediately after the interaction


-          To complete in customer ratings and be aware of HR understanding and such points as related


-          To assure in training and development in order to achieve points mentioned in the main body as the training technique to be used in intervention may consists of structured training sessions in social skills relevant to the service encounter


 


The orientation toward human capital emphasizes the development of individual capabilities such as those related to self-awareness, self-regulation and self-motivation that serve as the foundation of intrapersonal competence (McCauley, 2000) upon underlying assumption that effective leadership occurs through the development of individual leaders that leadership is something that can be added to Ford Australia in order to improve social and operational effectiveness. HR development needs to evolve to level of contribution whereby it is considered an investment in the social capital of the organization, to complement its human and intellectual capital (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998).


 


Conclusion


The conclusion can be implied within the HRD needs of Ford Australia, and be noted that the company have such acknowledged commitment to HR ways and processes linked through better management service through such Ford management HR policies and committing in significant resources to staff interpersonal skills, team skills and leadership development from within matters known for rigorous staff training and development at Ford. It is reasonable to suggest that the competitive edge in a service environment may be considerably enhanced by appropriate training and development activities.  Training and development can be used to reinforce certain behaviors and attitudes which contribute to effective service while stressing the need for improvement in behaviors which do not facilitate the attainment of desired service quality goals. Such training and development interventions are posited on the assumption that employees have capacity for change, moderator on Ford staff’s ability to adopt HR needs and certain change facilitation. Ford may recognize balanced scorecard as mechanism for implementing HR needs, interpersonal skills strategy and measuring performance against Ford objectives and critical success factors to achieve the strategy as cascaded throughout the company to measure the operational activities at Ford. The HR measurement is concerned with the impact of people management practices on performance so that steps can be taken to do better. It is not just about measuring the efficiency of the HR department in terms of activity levels. It needs to be value-focused rather than activity-based. For example, it is not enough just to record the number of training days or the expenditure on training; it is necessary to assess the return on investment generated by that training. Ford need to do better in stronger connections between production and application of knowledge, team development is prime content area to examine ways to improve strategy connections from ways to create better HR development links regarding their work teams into various HR areas and content.


 


 


 


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