Human Resource for Megamines International - myassignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about theHuman Resource Management for Megamines International. Answer: Introduction Megamines International is a mining company that is facing a tough situation in the market. Due to the changing market conditions, the company is losing its competitive edge in the market and wants to bring about some serious changes in its Kookaburra mines but is facing a lot of internal issues in executing its change strategies. Therefore, this strategy is aimed at gaining a deeper insight into the case of the company and making suggestions to deal with the situation. SWOT Analysis A SWOT analysis is a framework that allows business organisations in analysing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a business project and understand the feasibility of a project for taking better business decisions (MT Team, n.d.). A SWOT analysis of the companys present situation is given below: Strengths: First of all, the company has a great team of senior managers. The president of the company, Jake Andrews, is a tough no-nonsense guy who is an exceptional leader. He is a democratic leader who takes decisions only after consulting his subordinates (Raza, 2017). Secondly, the company has a talented pool of employees who have a lot of market information. The employees are aware about the conditions that are prevailing in the market and in the company itself. They also have certain solutions in mind that will help the company in dealing with its problems. Weaknesses: First of all, a major weakness of the company is that its Kookaburra subsidiary is under a great influence of the labour unions. Labour unions are playing a dominating role in the subsidiary and making it difficult for the management to operate properly and achieve better profitability, productivity and efficiency. Secondly, the company has a huge redundant workforce working in its Kookaburra subsidiary. The Kookaburra subsidiary currently employs 2,000 employees who are adding up to the operational costs, which is making the company less profitable and efficient. Opportunities: First of all, a great opportunity that lies in front of the company is to implement technological solutions to solve most of its problems. Implementing technological solutions will allow the company to cut down its operational costs, become more profitable and ultimately to outperform its competitors. Secondly, the present situation is an opportunity for the company to deal with redundant workforce using various measures and overcome the negative conditions to become more profitable and productive in the future. Threats: First of all, the mine at Kookaburra is highly dominated by the labour unions and the management of the company has a lower hand in the decision making process. Further, even the political scenario is not in favour of the company as the politicians are more inclined towards the workforces welfare, which makes it impossible for the company to reduce the size of its workforce so that it could survive in the market. Secondly, the market scenario of the business is changing drastically. The prices of the companys core products have hit a 10-year low and the pressure is mounting. China, a major customer of the business, has stopped buying products from the business, which is posing a great threat to the existence of the business. Human Resource Management Problems The mining company is definitely facing a number of human resource management problems, which is having a toll on its competitiveness and profitability. The human resource management problems being faced by the company are discussed below: First of all, the company lacks a system of workforce planning. If the company had a system of workforce planning, it would not be having such a large redundant workforce as it would have allowed the company to forecast the human resource needs and ensure optimum number of employees in the workplace (Vorhauser-Smith, 2015). Secondly, the company is has failed to maintain strong relation with the employees because of which, there are multiple trade unions in the workplace and they have a upper hand in the negotiation process. As a result, the company is failing in implementing any change strategy and reduce the size of the workforce to become more profitable and efficient (O'Brien, 2014). The labour unions are tough and act like militants who can go to any extent to get their demands fulfilled (Lombardo, 2015). Thirdly, the company is also facing an issues related with its compensation and benefit management. The company has a workforce that is more in number than required and paying them high wages is making the company less profitable. Megamines Business Strategy Megamines is facing a tough market situation. The industrial scenario is changing rapidly and is making it tougher for the company to stay profitable. The workforce of the company is more in number than required and high wage rates are making the company less profitable. The strategy that the business management is looking to implement in the workplace is corporate downsizing. Corporate downsizing is a strategy that business organisations often use in adverse economic conditions. Corporate downsizing involves cutting jobs in order to decrease the operational costs in order to remain competitive and profitable. Downsizing can result in a large number of employees being laid off from their jobs (Snyder Welch, 2015). In a downsizing strategy, a human resource manager can implement different strategies to deal with the adverse economic conditions. In some cases, the managers can permanently lay off the employees whereas in some conditions, the managers might rehire the laid off employees after a predefined period of time. Corporate downsizing strategy is one of the toughest organisational decisions as it can create a number of social and legal issues for a company. Laying off the employees is considered to be unethical and against the corporate social responsibility of a firm. As a result, business organisations try to achieve a reduction in their workforce using other methods, such as job sharing, sending the employees on holidays, temporary leaves, etc. rather than laying them off permanently (Doyle, 2016). Recommendations for Solving Human Resource Issues Human resource management issues can have a great deal of impact on a companys work operations, efficiency, productivity and profitability. The condition of Megamines can, to some extent, be attributed to the human resource issues that the company is facing. To become more effective and to deal with the human resource issues, the company can look into the following recommendations: The management of the company needs to address the issue of redundant workforce and high compensations. It is not always beneficial to stick to organisational downsizing as a strategy to deal with adverse economic conditions because it can involve a lot of social and legal controversies. Therefore, the management of the company needs to look out for alternatives that will help them in avoiding permanent layoffs. To address this issues, the management can inform the workforce about the alarming condition of the industry and how every employees job is at a risk, which is creating an urgency to bring about a decrease in the compensations and benefits that the employees are getting. This way, the employees will get a clarity that if they do not except some cuts in their wages, the entire workforce will lose their job because of the company being shut down (Gandolfi, 2008). Once the employees have peacefully excepted a cut in their wages and benefits, the next and an immediate step should be to implement a performance management system in the workplace. A performance management system will help the company in fostering a performance oriented environment in the workplace and increase the competition amongst the employees. On the basis of a performance management system, it would become easier for the management to take actions against those employees who are failing in meeting their performance objectives and slowly and steadily, the company will be able to deal with its redundant workforce. Further, to deal with the redundant workforce, the company can also offer early retirements to certain employees who are about to get retired in the near future and can make its strategy more appealing by offering them a special retirement plan (Sozo Firm, 2017). The company can also freeze all its recruitment and selection programs in the future until it has dealt with its redundant workforce so that the issues do not pile up with new workers joining the mining company regularly. Another way to deal with the redundant workforce can be to transfer some of the employees to different facilities where the operational costs are less and the employees are paid less wages (Thebalance, n.d.). Such strategies will allow the company to avoid laying off its employees permanently and avoid the legal and social issues related with it. The company will also be able to hire these employees back in case the economic conditions start to improve in the future. Thus, such a strategy will help the company in dealing with most of the human resource issues that it is experiencing at the present. Bibliography MT Team, n.d. SWOT Analysis. [Online] Available at: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_05.htm[Accessed 22 May 2017]. Raza, A., 2017. 12 Different Types of Leadership Styles. [Online] Available at: https://wisetoast.com/12-different-types-of-leadership-styles/[Accessed 22 May 2017]. Doyle, A., 2016. What Happens When a Company Downsizes?. [Online] Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/what-happens-when-a-company-downsizes-2061972[Accessed 23 May 2017]. O'Brien, P., 2014. Why Strong Employee/Employer Relationship is Important and How to Achieve This? Read more at https://www.business2community.com/strategy/strong-employeeemployer-relationship-important-achieve-0876781#j8WHH4o2fHk5ZRkC.99. 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