HR Practices to Improve Workforce

Human Resource Advice
Name
Human Resource Management & Psychology - SHR018-2
 Assignment 2: HR issues at R&R Ltd
Date
Identify and explain which HR practices need to be examined further to improve the workforce at R&R.   Discuss what kind of training and development activities (and for whom) might be helpful to assist with this improvement.
 Introduction 
Organizations with greater access to human capital have greater competitive advantages, because of the caliber of workers in the firm who are more productive and efficient.  Success in human resources policies is important since it translates a good investment and there is recouping the costs, and effective HR policies and practices should be part of the strategic management to ensure that there is a favourable working environment, where employees can thrive.   The human resource practices are linked to achieving the strategic objectives of the company, and effective management skills and techniques can help improve employee engagement (Van De Voorde, Veld and Van Veldhoven, 2016, p. 196).  R&R store has performed dismally in her recent past and a look into the company’s human resources development, highlights that there are gaps because of poor employee engagement linked to high labour turnover, a command and control management style, a highly hierarchal structure, ineffective recruitment and selecting as well as failure to prioritize customer feedback.   The HRM practices at R & R need to be reviewed and changed to meet the organization goals and the human resource department needs to work with others to facilitate training and development.
Task 1 Examining HRM Practices 
The labour climate needs to be more flexible to ensure there is better employee engagement since there is low collaboration and open communication among the store employees, supervisors and managers. When there is greater flexibility in the work environment and support for employee engagement, there is greater mutual trust and employees appreciate when their input is valued in decision making (Guerci et al., 2015:330). This is not the case with R & R, as the staff members mostly engage with those in a similar capacity, where employees expected to implement what has been decided by the supervisors and management without necessarily knowing the value of such decisions. Failure to prioritize the labour climate improvement has meant that there is no sense of belonging within the firm and employees do not feel valued.
R & R has failed to prioritize the management and evaluation of performance, which may be one of the reasons for the high turnover as there are inadequate professional development plans.  The case for supporting professional development initiatives is that the wholesaler will optimize productivity when there is greater commitment among the employees (Ramadevi et al., 2016, p. 390). Furthermore, commitment then employees work in teams allows them to acquire more knowledge, which is complemented by training and how they perform their duties. Evaluating employees and adequate compensation is necessary as the employees have a better understanding what is expected of them.
  Employee engagement follow a strict rule based structure where evaluation of performance is slower than expected, while the deliverables are unclear. Evaluating performance is necessary to ensure there is more commitment among employees, but these evaluations ought to be accompanied by a process of dissemination results and feedback. The system focusing more on rules in decision making makes it difficult to create effective strategies to take advantage improvement opportunities and deal with the indentified weaknesses.   To optimize work, the employees ought to know about compliance and adjustments they need to improve their work since they should know about the deliverables.
More than 80% of the employees have worked at R&R for at least 15 years, and this affect talent acquisition and development if not properly managed. When the employees stay in the same position for long, it is likely that they will remain stagnant and undertake the same routines over and over again. While experience is important to ensure efficiency in the workplace, those who have stayed for long in the same position may not be highly motivated. Furthermore, this affects their ability to innovate and experience challenges outside what they are used to, while changes in positions and even locations make the job more interesting.  The culture of recognition at R & R is inadequate and they are still inadequate numbers to meet the stores’ needs. Recognition is an important element to supporting the commitment of the employees. The staff members do not only work for money, as  they also seek recognition  and being valuable in the workplace highlighting the need  for valuing efforts  and compensating them  in any case, recognition affects productivity and motivation. Recognizing and appreciating the employees’ efforts employees need not involve huge compensation as even the small actions will make a big difference. 
  The recruitment and  selection process is inadequate to meet staffing needs with delays of up to may take 12 weeks from the moment a staff requisition requests are made.   Staffing needs are important to the growth of the stores and selecting the right staff members for the right positions influences competitiveness.  The HR has been slow to recruit the most applicable staff members yet selecting the most qualified people fill in positions ensure that the operations run smoothly. Even as there are vacant positions over time, it is the HR department’s job to fill these positions and the selection and recruitment process should help identify the most capable. Similarly, those who are to be promoted need to be trained to gain more knowledge, but this has not been prioritized.
 R &R is not utilizing the feedback from the employees or the customers, which affects the ability of the store management the store to respond to the needs of the various stakeholders. The management ought to rely on objective feedback to aid their decisions and close gaps between the business, customers and employee (Guerc et ll., 201, p. 329).   It is important to deal with the issues, which affect performance in the workplace and satisfying the customers’ needs. On the other hand, if R & R still fails to consider the customers, feedback, this will affect performance and dissatisfaction and may even result in wasting resources as the organizations becomes less competitive. The employees also provide feedback and they feel that their efforts are appreciated and valued if they get...