OBJECTIVES
As a person with knowledge of staff turnover and retention, the author has always brought up to his superiors the viability of strategy formation regarding staff turnover and retention management and at times fail to understand the reasons or logic behind certain strategic implementations imposed on it.
By delving into this project paper, the author intends to have better insights into how staff turnover and retention is thought up, formulated and then imparted down. The author hopes to have an in-depth understanding as to how the staff members reconcile the need to become more strategic with the demands of managers to carry out the traditional personnel roles.
In order to reinforce the learning objectives, two key focal issues were focused upon, i.e. innovation and diversity. Innovation was discussed with regards to staff turnover and retention where it was renowned for its developmental capabilities to constantly innovate. Diversity came under strategic thinking and formation as the author considered the diverse culture, political climate, economic surroundings, social environment, technological settings, government policies and legal systems in order to understand staff turnover and retention.
EXECUTIVE BRIEF
This essay utilized staff members and professionals as the models to review their turnover and retention, and how they dealt with critical situations. From the analysis, key trends in their needs to become strategic were identified, how they worked and their effectiveness in dealing with critical situations was ascertained. The paper then moved on to assess the staff member’s traditional personnel roles with regard to their suitability to critical situations, during which their internal capabilities in relation to the traditional personnel roles being followed was determined also. An overall analysis on how staff members can reconcile the need to become more strategic with the demands of managers to carry out the traditional personnel roles was also conducted to assess and compare the capabilities of their strategies with those of others. Gaps in their capabilities and the reconciliation process were then identified.
Finally, several choices of strategies to improve the strategic roles and skills of the staff members as effective means in turnover and retention were then recommended and evaluated in terms of appropriateness to the issues reviewed, feasibility in carrying out the options and acceptability within the key stakeholders and decision makers. Several key implementation issues related to managing strategic change was also addressed as well.
INTRODUCTION
All companies and organizations are governed by their basic goals and objectives. These objectives are often regarded to as the “corporate vision” or “corporate philosophy” (Condrey, 2001). Thus, certain strategies are being implemented with the aim of achieving these goals and objectives, and this constitutes a key element in the characterization of a company or organization. Staff members are undoubtedly an important indicator in determining the characteristics of a company or organization.
It is a well known fact that staff members play a crucial role towards differentiation and a potent source of competitiveness for any organization or company. Therefore, any organization must constantly invest in human resource professional development even during periods of recession. However, the determination of the extent to which an organization can invest in terms of staff turnover and retention depends on the financial capabilities of the company or organization (Ulrich, 2004). Finances will also be carefully considered in determining the target for training and development, because it should jive with the basic policies of an organization’s human resource development strategy.
Staff turnover and retention in most organizations and companies in the past decade has gradually transformed from low-level activities into high-profile contributors to organizational success (Connolly et al. 2002). However, budgets are also elevating at a faster rate than the gross national product. In the midst of this growth and increased influence, managers and executives of companies and organizations are left with a confusing question: Who among our staff members should be retained or not?
Goals / Objectives of Staff Turnover and Retention
Staff turnover and retention have four main objectives:
A) Retain the top professionals and let go of underperforming personnel. Being on top of the industry enables professionals and staff members to command the respect and confidence of the public, thereby getting retained in their respective positions. Thus, these professionals and staff members are able to expand their expertise aside from the traditional personnel roles through the acquisition of critical knowledge and skills (Einsestat, 2001).
B) Gain more income than other companies and organizations. The services that are being laid down by excellent and hardworking staff members and professionals are able to meet high quality standards of their clients. As a result, the organizations employing these staff members are able to earn more income as against other companies in other industries.
C) Establish the best brand of quality HR services; and
D) Maintaining the quality of staff members. Having an office with quality professionals and staff members allows organizations and companies to continue their tradition of excellence in both its services by setting new trends and standards.
More often than not, staff members don’t really make an immediate impact upon performance of the traditional personnel roles. Instead, they engage in activities that gradually propel them towards the high level of importance, thereby greatly increasing their chances for retentions. However, the roles that staff members play are not limited to traditional personnel roles. Activities such as educating the public and other social responsibilities are often related with staff members. A great deal of emphasis lies on the efficiency and effectiveness of these roles. Therefore, understanding staff retention and turnover includes the analysis and management of their significant roles (Perry et al. 2003).
Staff Retention and Turnover Criteria
Most companies and organizations’ criteria for staff turnover and retention can be summarized into five (5) main aspects. These are:
· Planning and Strategy Formation Capabilities
Planning and strategy formation nowadays has created the need for staff members to become aggressive especially in the area of marketing themselves. This is because the access to strong distribution channels is critical for their continued retention in any company or organization.
· Decision-making Capabilities
Upon arriving at the correct decision or choice, the staff member now gains confidence in his / her ability to make critical decisions or choices especially when his / her integrity and job retention is on the line. Thus, this staff member will now search for even more challenges and opportunities where he / she could further enhance his / her decision-making abilities regarding current human resource issues.
· Analytical Skills
Through the exposure to various puzzling human resource issues, the staff member along the process is able to develop a holistic mindset regarding the issues surrounding him / her. The staff member now becomes a keen observer of the truths and lies surrounding the issue being tackled, instead of relying on mere hearsays. The continuous pursuit of the truth behind the puzzling issues enables the staff member to consistently practice and enhance a healthy and holistic mindset which makes it difficult for detractors to give influence. Because of this holistic approach, the staff member is able to effectively select the right choice and continue to maximize this potential for future use, leaving their employers impressed and wanting them to stay in their company (Overman, 2002).
· Mental Stability
Mental stability is crucial especially in the pursuit of the correct decision as well as the management and development of the processes accompanying it. It is important for staff members to remain updated with the latest developments to be able to stay aware and knowledgeable in all issues.
· Performance and Credibility
The production of their best human resource outputs comes as a result of well-funded research management and development activities. The strong performance of staff members and their outputs could also be linked to the effective strategic planning and human resource mobilization. Thus, the staff member’s retention status increases as his / her performance becomes better.
Implications for the practice of HRM
1) Staff members and the Need to become Strategic
In lieu of the present developments in human resource professional development, there have been significant visions of learning that evolved. A majority of these learning visions are based on the idea that human resource professional development is a social process where knowledge is denied instead of being acquired passively. Learning, then, transforms into an interactive process. The interaction is being verified through the help of the participants in the learning process such as the human resource professional and the managers. In this framework, becoming strategic would mean the continued guidance and support of the active learning process. Obviously, this would call for an intensive and phased guiding strategy (Heuerman, 2004).
When in the active pursuit to become strategic, the interaction of human resource professionals with the managers forms an integral part towards its success. Collaborative learning as a strategic method is gradually being used by human resource professionals nowadays. Through this approach, the human resource professional can become strategic through the imitation of common human resource development techniques in the socialization processes. In the process, the human resource professionals are able to obtain the chance to see their own ideas in a different aspect and therefore be able to take alternatives into consideration. The relative effectiveness of this approach is determined with the capability of the human resource professionals to continuously challenge their pre-acquired knowledge by trying to adapt to the interpretations of their managers (Gratton, 2003).
Aside from the managers and the staff members, the different resources of strategic learning belong to a third category of factors of a learning environment. Moreover, strategic learning methods have shown signs of significant growth over the past years. Consequently, obtaining knowledge becomes more complicated. This is because the transformation of all this information into strategic knowledge requires the managers to possess the appropriate reference frameworks.
2) Staff members and the Development of Corporate Strategy
Staff members help companies and organizations in aiming for sustainable growth as well as for segment leadership in their respective industries. They help companies and organizations to establish its broad leadership usually by redefining their corporate strategies and their products and services. The changes or redirection of the corporate strategy of an organization or company may include offering training to its employees, improving the company operations, and the introduction of new technologies then reinforces the positions of the various products of the company. This practically results in economies of scale that is able to create a distribution network for both the local and international products of the company.
The role of staff members in the development of the corporate strategy is to help that particular company or organization in securing the growth of their business in a sustainable manner, while at the same time constantly improving the company’s profitability. The strategy being employed by staff members to achieve this involves four elements:
The recent efforts of staff members to reconcile the need to become strategic with the demands of managers to carry out the traditional personnel roles would definitely make progress with the growing role of information and communications technology (ICT) in the human resource development. This fits in with the larger need of staff members towards reconciling with the demands of managers. Therefore, the reconciliation process would become possible if the staff members are fully adapted to ICT. Nowadays, staff members are more and more using artificial intelligence systems in order to carry out their traditional personnel roles (Galpin et al. 2002).
The traditional personnel roles of the staff members are being influenced by the interaction of two major factors. On the one hand, the instructional factors: the human resource philosophy brought about by the staff members and its conversion into didactical ideas. On the other hand, organizational factors: the managers, staff, infrastructure and policies related in this area. It is obvious that the staff members must possess a sound vision of policies and the efficient use of the operating budget in order to effectively reconcile the need to become more strategic with the demands of managers to carry out the traditional personnel roles (Gonzalez, 2003).
Nevertheless, these staff members need an interaction between both factors. This is because in order to respond to the new visions of learning, they will eventually transform into a model together with the various aspects of the reconciliation process. In return, the managers will have to continuously monitor their limitations and along the process introduce innovations.
CONCLUSION
The results of the analysis carried out on the traditional personnel roles of staff members indicated very significant effects, even amidst the threats of unrest. Therefore, we could conclude that the staff member’s traditional personnel roles could still be expected to increase faster than average.
The review of the objectives and criteria for staff retention and turnover revealed very little inconsistencies regarding the needs of companies and organizations to become strategic. This is coherent with their traditional inside-out approach. However, the need to reconcile both the inside-out and outside-in approaches becomes imperative now for these companies and organizations.
The analysis among the reconciliation process as well as the traditional personnel roles of the staff members revealed certain gaps, most of which are biased towards the environment. However, these gaps paved the way towards determining a number of recommended strategic options to secure the staff member’s competitiveness.
Also, the staff member has to find a balance between adherence to internal forces and to the changing forces of the environment in order to effectively reconcile the need to become more strategic with the demands of managers to carry out the traditional personnel roles.
REFERENCES
Condrey, Stephen E. Handbook of Human Resource Management in Government. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2001, pp. 47-48.
Connolly, Thomas R., et al. “Transforming Human Resources.” Management Review, June 2002, issue # 3, pp. 10-16.
Eisenstat, Russell A. “What Corporate Human Resources Brings to the Picnic: Four Models for Functional Management.” Organizational Dynamics, 2001, pp. 6-14.
Galpin, Timothy J., and Patrick Murray. “Connect Human Resource Strategy to the Business Plan.” HR Magazine, March 2002, issue # 5, pp. 16-20.
Gonzalez, Maria. “Synchronized Strategies.” Journal of Business Strategy, May/June 2003, issue # 5, pp. 9-11.
Gratton, Lynda. “The New Rules of HR Strategy.” HR Focus, June 2003, pp. 13-14.
Heuerman, Allan D. “Using Performance Management to Energize the Results Act.” The Public Manager, 2004, pp. 17-20.
Overman, Stephanie. “Big Bang Change: Re-engineering HR.” HR Magazine, June 2002, issue # 4, pp. 50-53.
Perry, James L., and Debra J. Mesch. “Strategic Human Resource Management.” Public Personnel Management: Current Concerns, Future Challenges. Second Edition. 2003, pp. 32-40.
Ulrich, David. “Measuring Human Resources: An Overview of Practice and a Prescription for Results.” Human Resource Management, 2004, issue # 6, pp. 303-320.
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