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Cpis 352

HR Failure – A case study

Abdulaziz Al-bogami
HR Failure – A case study
by NABOMITA MAZUMDAR on NOVEMBER 1, 2010

in GENERAL / INTERESTING ,HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

An organization has a problem categorized under the HR department. The situation is


mapped to the leading and the lagging factors in different areas. The key problem area
remains the guideline. Suggestions are made to resolve the situation.

Situation: A Business units, sized small to medium, earns a new project hence
increase its headcount. This entails hiring a new HR Manager support to the HR
department. The existing team requires leadership capabilities to manage the
challenges to be faced during the expansion. Hence an HR Manager is hired from a
bigger organization, to deliver in the role and manage the team. This role further
includes all the tasks which run parallel to what are practiced in the industry. The key
performance indicators included managing ramp-up within the time frame, minimizing
attrition, managing organizational development initiatives, contributing to the existing
processes and leading the HR team to better efficiencies. The hiring were done
matching fitment to the role. The talent with similar prior experience from a bigger firm
was resourced to join in the role. The delivery began with priorities on hiring, followed by
initiating new organizational development program. The hiring programs began and the
initiatives functioned well showing results. Suddenly, the situation hit the rock within a
month.
Problem: The problem that arose could be classified under three different areas:
 Attrition: The market changed rapidly with other industries offering higher salaries,
for the same business roles which the company employs. This triggered the attrition
with the leading factor coupled with the lagging factors within the organization. The
organization received higher volume of work with lesser people on board. This
increased the stress leading to greater loss in headcount.
 Compensation: The business unit had an audit which required it to redesign the
salary structure cutting benefits and packages for the new hires. The firm did this to
maintain the profitability ratio.
 HR Processes: The HR processes came at a greater halt when the key members in
the HR team met with an accident and had to go for an undefined medical
sabbatical.
Judgment given to the situation: This was termed as an HR Failure. The HR
manager was held responsible for the fiasco and declared a bad hire in the following
month.
Suggestion: Here we suggest few solutions to these problems.
 Attrition: This scenario can be countered by maintaining a talent pool, forecasting
the attrite and planning continuous training programs for the employees. It would be
imperative to estimate the loss of talent through early warning signs and landmark
the employee strength. This would help in planning the work volume within that
duration. For e.g.: If the average duration for a talent spending within the company is
6 months, the work volume would required to be managed in an alignment to it.
Furthermore planning continuous training program to balance the distribution of skill
within the team would lessen the impact of frequent attrition.
 Compensation: The salary structures for hiring new talent in the market would
continue to rise to attract them. This situation can only be countered by offering
meaningful benefit in case the current salary levels cannot be increased. Benefit
such as loyalty bonus can be considered to be disbursed at the end of 1st, 3rd and
5th year. Certain other non-monetary offering such as training and career
progression can be offered. This would require customization at several stages to
keep it ahead of the competitors.
 HR Processes: Scaling up the HR team’s capability with training should have been
targeted. This could have been done through hiring senior external consultant with
specialized skills for a definite duration at every fixed interval. The team further
required to maintain a back-up of capabilities internally, to shock-proof every change
in the environment. Continuity of the process should remain the focus with a
constant creation of a buffer talent from other vertical such as Admin.
Conclusion
The company was in the small to medium segment. A small company have end-to-end
tasks managed by fewer people. The scale and the relevance are quintessential to the
delivery of the processes. The existing knowledge in the team had to be transformed
from tacit into explicit in order to bridge the skill-gap and manage sudden
disappearance of the team members. Consequently performance areas for the HR
Manager should have been more focused on managing challenges within the
environment rather than expansion and new initiatives. The time duration to measure
performance should have been based on the number of risks mitigated and disasters
avoided. These measures would require a defined duration to show results.
A problem may get categories under a definite department, yet it have contributing
factors from every other sources. Hence support from all the vertical would be required
to show results. In Edward De Bono’s words “We may need to solve problems not by
removing the cause but by designing the way forward even if the cause remains in
place. Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain
way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the
problem no longer exists.”

Source :- http://www.citeman.com/11664-hr-failure-a-case-study/

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