Strategic Human Resource Management at the Australian Federal Police - Case Study Example

Student’s Name Instructor Course Date Introduction Human resource management is a critical element for success of any organization (Hernandez 47). The human factor is the core to skills and expertise required in organizations to thrive. It is, therefore, important to ensure that the personnel working in a company are recognized and compensated accordingly. In every aspect of work environment, there should be motivating factors aimed at improving or increasing the staff performance. When the human resource department is not keen enough on staff development, there arises many cases of staff discontent with work. The result to that is strikes and industrial action by employees. Any disgruntled worker cannot perform optimally. That cause waste in terms of wages and skills as employees are paid for tasks they never performed. On the same note, skills could be under compensated hence resulting to under utilization of the skills. Project Description This project aims at developing a consulting process for Australian Federal Police (AFP). The AFP is an organization that has a daunting mandate in Australia. The organization is endorsed by the Australian Government to protect the citizens and their assets at all times. This organization has a role to observe the mandate of the government as well as meeting the citizen’s expectation. Therefore, there is a need for solid and properly coordinated human management systems. The case of AFP is an interesting study because of the complexity of handling the employees of this nature. There is a thin line between customer care and criminal justice in such an environment. There is also a slight difference on how the police officers would behave in their jobs and outside the job. Human beings continuously exercise choices in both their private and organizational lives (Perkins and Shortland 8). Goal of the Project The main objective of this project is to develop a consultation matrix, processes and methods. This project aims at developing best practices and processes to adopt when carrying out human resource requirements needs in any organization. The focus will be mapped with the AFP since that is the organization where the study is being undertaken. The outcome of this process will be documented procedures for carrying out any human resource based audit in an organization. It is, therefore, important to consider all the human and any other factors that may contribute to the performance of employees. All employees should be treated fairly and equally at all times. That includes in terms of financial rewards, compensation allowances, training, or any other incentives provided during employment. It is also imperative to note that any form of discrimination in the workplace is a criminal offense according to the Australian labor laws. Development of a consulting process is an important task for any organization. An internal or an external consultant may do this. The major advantage of involving an external consultant is that there are minimal chances of biases, unlike when an internal consultant is involved. An internal consultant is poised well to have a clear understanding of the organization and its people. There are however, no prescribed requirements on the type of the consultant to engage. The main important fact is that any of the consultants engaged must produce a tangible deliverable at the end of the process. This process would be adopted in the organization while carrying out any form of human resource improvement processes tasks. It is important to involve a consultant with an understanding of human resource issues. Manager The word manager is derived from management terminology. Management involves directing, guiding and motivating staff in the organization. The consultancy group will have a project manager whose role will be to offer direction to the overall project. The manager will guide the staff under his authority as well as define the scope and the time line of the project. Projects are always prone to many constrains with major ones including: financial, time constrains, staffing challenges among others. The manager must coordinate the activities of the project and ensure that the objectives of the project are met in good time. Any person who acts as the project manager must be knowledgeable in project management issues. The qualifications of the manager should be relevant to the assignment being handled and for this case, human resource management. The understanding on human relation issues will be critical in the development of a sound human resource consulting design. Human resource issues cut across all industries and it should not be mandatory for the manager to have experience in this kind of environment. The manager should have good recruiting skills in order to have a team with a common goal. Interpersonal skills are also an asset to the manager since he/she would interact regularly with persons from all levels in the organization. Good communication skills should be emphasised if the project would have to succeed. Poor communication would be a hindrance to the progress of the project. The manager, in most cases will act as the owner of the project. This is because after having been entrusted with the process, he is the person in charge. That means that the failure or success of the project rests with him. As such, caution must be exercised when hiring the project manager. Group Members The group member in this exercise should have the capacity and willingness to work as team members. Many projects fail due to lack of teamwork among the project teams. The most important aspect in a project is coordinated and focused efforts. Individual efforts do not do much good to projects due to disjointed efforts that do not deliver the required efforts. The group members should also have a good understanding of the project at hand. When members are unfamiliar with the project domain, they tend to take longer periods in executing projects. Execution Period The period for developing the consulting process should be well thought before implementation starts. This is because too much ambitious time may cause time constraints and other limitations such over stretching the budgets. On the other hand, project time may be projected to take a long time. The effect to that would also be similar to the ambitious time scheduling. It is important to set project time based on proven facts or mechanisms. One the best method to employ would be using other previously done projects or studies as the benchmarks. That will give an idea of the time to be spent on the project. Ideally, this project would not take more than three weeks. That will involve processes like the formation of the project team, gathering requirement and the final execution. Many projects tend to have time delays when a project is not finished on time. As mentioned earlier, there are several underlying factors to that effect. Properly managed projects always manage to finish on time, regardless of the prevailing factors. This is because of the project manager’s ability to mitigate project risks at all times. Time is of great importance to projects since they should always be executed in a timely manner. Justification The project is an important task in Australian Federal Police organization since it will assist in delving more about human resource management in the organisation. It is important to consider the nature of work carried out by the organization as the security arm of the government. Any task carried out to the benefit of the organization does not benefit this organization only but the country in general. Operational Needs The operational needs for Australian Federal Police are various and needs intervention by the human resource department. Others may need intervention by the Australian government. Some of the operational needs include the following. I. Proper remuneration II. Proper housing III. Transport facilities to the force IV. Provision of Training V. Proper medical care VI. Promotion on merit Benefit for the Organization The Australian Federal Police will benefit in respect to the following: I. Improved image II. Motivated staff III. Attract and retain talented staff IV. Government support V. Efficiency in implementation of the organizational mandate Benefit for Employee This project will have a positive impact on Australian Federal Police force in general. When issue regarding human resource are addressed properly, they tend to benefit all the parties concerned. The following are some of the notable benefits the employees are deemed to obtain: I. Improvement in terms of compensation and salaries II. Improved staff morale III. Training to boost the staff skills IV. Promotion in time and on merit V. Health and other benefits would be addressed Affected Operational Process There would be recommendations in this project that would eventually affect some of the operational processes. For example, staff recruitment policies should be changed and geared towards attracting the best candidates. That would be done through introduction of management trainee positions in the force. The programme would only attract the top candidates from the best universities in Australia. This would not only change the citizen’s perception about the Australian Federal Police but also attract the best talent in the country. Foreign recruitment should also be pegged on the same criteria. Promotion would also be carried out on the merit basis unlike in the current system. The police officers stagnate at same cadres for many years without being promoted. This is because promotion best practices in the institution are not clearly spelt out in and do not adhere to the international standards. Evaluation In any change management system, there has to be merits and demerits of the exercise. Australian Federal Police is an organization with a very critical role in Australia. It is important to adopt best practices and procedures in administration of human resource management. Employees in an organization must be handled through adoption of good human resource management methods (Regis 82). The Australian Federal Police organization has a number of core and support departments. The department have various employees of different cadres. Each department handle what it has been mandated to do by the organization, as it is the norm in all organizations. Although there are a number of employees in these departments, the security department has the largest number of staff, which includes the police force. There more than 150, 000 police officers in the force and they have grades ranging from the most senior officers to the junior officers. As part of this project, the focus is more on the police group. The reason for focusing on this group is a result of an earlier study that indicated huge discrepancies in terms of wages and benefits to this particular grip. The junior officers were found to earn almost a third of the salaries earned by the senior officers. The allowances were also found to be discriminative where junior officers do not earn transport allowance while the seniors do. In this regard, the project came up with recommendation for harmonization of staff salaries in these cadres to avoid such huge discrepancies. The terms of service for all these positions should be pensionable. The lower cadre officers are employed on contract basis and that demoralize them in course of their duties. Employees perceive the terms of employment as a form of reward. Poor terms mean no reward while better terms reflect higher rewards. The seniors in the Australian Federal Police need to cultivate a good working relationship with their juniors. There exist many forms of segregation in the organization. Even though there should be seniors and juniors in any working environment, there must be mutual respect among the colleagues. The human resource department must address any forms of intimidation to the juniors by the seniors. If that is not observed, it may breed too many problems in the organization. The juniors should always respect their seniors as required by work ethics. That should not be an avenue by the seniors to exploit the juniors. Any mistreatment in a work place is regarded as a criminal offence in Australia. Work groups must be identified whereby the officers should work as team members. That would promote teamwork and discourage individualism. A winning team in this organization must embrace teamwork in all duties. Team work will play a greater role in combating crimes in Australia. Individual efforts would not only be a very daunting task, but self-defeating in the long run. Work locations for Australian Federal Police are currently conducive. There have been, however, some concerns in relation to housing. The officers in the lower cadres are forced by circumstances to share houses. They also lament the issue of transportation which is not catered for in the allowances. The distances to reach the citizens are at times too long to cover at short notice. The issues need to be addressed by the human resource department. The HR department should consider raising the issue to the strategic management who would in turn involve the higher authorities. Work locations and environment are important considerations for setting up organizations. The responsibilities of the officers should be based on their rank. There should be no cases of adhoc distribution of responsibilities. The HR Department should always ensure that responsibilities are spelt out in the job description. That should be done immediately after the recruitment process during the orientation period. Career progression maps and matrix should be well defined and understood by all the employees (Hendry 92). Employee’s skills and abilities should always be considered when allocating tasks and duties. Inadequate skills or skills mismatch could be disastrous for the organization. Unqualified staff tends to have less confidence while handling their jobs. Employees with inadequate skills and ability should always be empowered through training and mentorship programs. Human Resource Implementation plan The HR staff must form the main component of the team to implement the recommendation. The responsibility of each staff should be cascaded as per the requirements. The team must include members from other key departments. Ensuring balance in the team plays a crucial role of eliminating issues of unfairness and exclusion. The responsible staff’s acts as part of the project team since they ensure the process is concluded with a success. The implementation plan must always work well with the organization and all the stakeholders. As mentioned earlier, there should be a balance between time allocation and resource availability. This project is envisaged to be complete and implemented in three weeks. However, many constraints could arise during the implementation period. The challenges vary from individual staff to the organizational-wide hindrances. Salaries and remuneration are critical elements between organizations and their employees. Any employee who feels poorly rewarded results to being a disgruntled worker. Such workers do not perform optimally at the place of work. There is a need for employers to reward their employees properly based on their qualifications and skills. At Australian Federal Police, the annual pay for a senior police is $75,000. A junior police with the same level of experience and training earns $ 38,000. This huge discrepancy should be addressed by increasing the salaries of the junior police by at least $ 30,000 per year. The implementation of this project will require some contingency measures to cushion the organization and the employees from any undesirable outcomes. Changes have always brought about positive and negative effects in organizations. There might be legal issues during the implementation of some of the recommendations. This calls for the organization to have proper legal redress mechanisms in place. Other contingency plans to consider include ensuring that there are adequate measures put in place to contain security in case of staff strikes. The organization should also be ready to handle any disruption of services through outsourcing some of the noncore processes. Conclusion Organizations worldwide thrives because of proper staff management and administration. Those organizations geared towards staff development and proper reward schemes have a competitive advantage at all times. The need for talent and skills continue to rise in all organizations as competition has taken a new dimension. There are, however, challenges in human resource management which should be handled decisively. Work Cited Hendry, Chris. Human resource strategies for international growth. London: Routledge, 1994. Print. Hernandez, S. Robert. Strategic human resources management in health services organizations. 3rd ed. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning, 2010. Print. Perkins, Stephen J., and Susan M. Shortland. Strategic international human resource management: choices and consequences in multinational people management. 2nd ed. London: Kogan Page, 2006. Print. Regis, Richard. Strategic human resource management and development. New Delhi: Excel Books, 2008. Print. 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