Tough Mudder Pty Ltd Workforce Management - Case Study Example

Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Tough Mudder Pty. Ltd Workforce management Problem statement Tough Mudder has staged its events for the year 2016 to be conducted in one of the three common areas which is Sydney [Tou14]. All these places for the events are within the Australian continent. The 2016 Tough Mudder event will be managed by an organization known as the Tough Mudder Pty Ltd. The company also managed the Tough Mudder events for the year 2015 in the same places scheduled for the 201 events. These events were first planned and implemented in 2010 by Harvard Business School graduates. The aim of the events is to challenge the participants’ mental and physical capacities. The obstacles such as fire, heights, and water that have so far been used in the event are capable of triggering fears. Tough Mudder Pty. Ltd. has scheduled the event for October 1 beginning at one minute to midnight. The 2016 terrain will be 16-20 kilometers where participants will experience mud as well as numerous obstacles to test the mental perseverance, physic, and comradeship [Tou141]. The participants compete for no specific medal but rather for the best team winning spirit. Tough Mudder has seven official partners which include Virgin Active, Soldier on, 4 Pines Brewing, Ultimate Ears, Cold-Stream Cider, Naked Wines and Microsoft band. Key stakeholders of the event include the participants, volunteers and the sponsors of the event. As far as the event is concerned, the organizer often faces some challenges before success if achieved. The organizer faces some challenges related to recruitment, assigning roles, managing performance, and retention of employees, the motivation of employees, training, and development of employees. Tough Mudder Pty. Ltd. Has a challenge of ensuring that the events live up to the expectation of the participants while at the same time availing adequate safety measures for the participants. Clients of the events expect to meet a challenging course that would test their mental as well as physical strength. In most cases, participants who have already taken part in the event expect new terrains to avoid monotony. Clients expect that the Australian consumer law and the fair trading act of 2012 are implemented by the event organizers. The law requires Tough Mudder Pty. Ltd. To provide its services with due care as well as skill. In addition, it is required by law that the company offers its services to people considered to be reasonably fit for the challenges included in the event. Finally, the law requires the organizer to make the participants aware of what to expect in the terrain. On the other hand, the same act requires the client to understand his or her personal strengths, weaknesses to include health complications before committing to the event. For instance, individuals prone to a heart attack may not be stable in some situations such as heights thus should not participate. For this reason, it can be established that the main problem of the organizer faces is managing its workforce. Literature Review Tough Mudder events are characterized by fear factors that test the brevity and perseverance of the participants. The nature in which the organizer plans for the event proves that the Tough Mudder Pty. Ltd. is an oriented non-profit organization. As a result, the organizer is likely to face the challenge of managing its workforce to deliver the quality they have delivered in the previous events. In addition, new seasons of the events have always been characterized by additional challenges, ideas, and approaches that require implementation. The organizer has the challenge of assembling a workforce that would ensure advertisements are well conducted, all stakeholders are consulted, and funds are collected and adequately managed. Non-profit organizations often find it challenging to manage its workforce, especially when confronted with financial challenges. The main reason for the challenge is because such organizations lack a specific source of income and often rely on sponsorships. This implies the event organizer can at one point have many sponsors which translate to more funds or the inverse of the situation is also possible. This literature review will look at the various challenges involved in managing a workforce of an organization. Recruitment and role assigning According to Thomas and Horman, recruitment is the basic way of selecting employees who meet a certain job qualification while on the other hand; the role assigning is allocating tasks to the entire staff. Any firm intending to recruit competent staff has to have competent remunerations. In addition assigning of role requires the staff management department to understand the technical and physical capabilities of employees. An organization may choose to employ its staff in two main ways that include contractual or permanent employment. Most expatriates are hired on contractual terms since they are more marketable in the job market. In assigning of roles, an organization can develop an organizational chart that can then be used for the role assigning. Some of the factors to consider include hiring, development of the schedule, training of staff, development of occupational health and safety plan for the workers. Managing performance Organizations require their staff to deliver regarding quality, and it is the concern of the organization to manage performance [Aru13]. An organization can manage it workforce performance by motivating, rewarding based on performance, a promotion where necessary, close supervision of employees and establishing the other means of dealing with non-performers. For organizations that are not profit oriented like the Tough Mudder Pty. Ltd., managing performance can be tricky. The organization has to establish a means of collectively managing performance since the organization does not recognize winners or losers but rather team spirit. Regardless of the type of organization, any issues related to misconduct by the employees must be discouraged by all means which include training or firing. It has been established that empowering the entire staff also enhances the performance of the entire workforce while at the same time reduce the need for close supervision. Retention and motivation An organization that has identified quality within its workforce must establish means of retaining the employees within the organization [Jam02]. Equally an organization must establish ways that would motivate the employees thus providing them with incentives to remain as employees within the organization. For the non-profit oriented organizations, motivation retention of employees would turn out to be very challenging. Employees with the best quality would always demand better pay which implies that the organization must have such flexibility. To motivate employees, an organization has to provide them with incentives such as credits for performance, recreational packages as well as providing additional training. An organization has to implement retention strategies at all levels of the organization which includes a bottom, middle and the highest level. Employees are always motivated whenever the organization proves to consider their professional as well as personal life. The HR department has to put in place a strategy that would ensure all employees’ needs are addressed. An organization such as Tough Mudder would find it challenging to provide many packages for its employees and thus require a unique approach to motivating and retaining its employees. Training and development According to Huselid and Becker, training and development can be conducted by an organization for several reasons which include increasing employee competence and enhancing the knowledge of employees. Whenever an organization intends to make developments or improvements in its infrastructure and approaches to customer services, training and development would provide the organization with the best approach of having a competent team. Training and development increase the employees’ technical and physical capacity to complete assigned tasks as well as roles. For instance, when introducing new events for the Tough Mudder, it is important to consider the training staff on several issues such as safety. It is important for an organization to train its new employees. Workforce management is a critical area for Tough Mudder Pty. Ltd. as the organization looks forward to the event of 2016. The organization might have managed past events successfully, but measures in this area have to be considered to ensure that the coming events are conducted under the watch of a competent staff so as to increase the confidence of participants. Data collection and presentation As far as the management of workforce is concerned, four main management practices have been identified as essential. The first three to be discussed in this section include Training and development, retention and motivation, training and development. These three interventions can help Tough Mudder Tpy Ltd. to hold a successful event for the 2016 events. Tough Mudder must have in place a competent staff that would attract and maintain all stakeholders that include the participants and promoters. An incompetent staff would make the event fail to meet the expectations of the stakeholders and this would affect the participation in future Tough Mudder events. In the case of Tough Mudder, the organizer has the intention of achieving success in the coming events as well as future events; these proposed approaches to performance management would be beneficial. The best employees should be identified and recruit from the job market. The new, as well as current employees, should be subjected to training and development to enhance their technical understanding as well as an approach to work [Mar11]. Tough Mudder has to ensure that its best staff is retained for this will ensure success for the future. It would be unmanageable for the organization to retain the best personnel without providing incentives which have collectively been referred to as incentives. Tough Mudder organizers should find it necessary to assign specific roles to individual staff or group within the staff. Research has established that departmentalization eases the task of assigning roles while at the same time increasing specialization among employees. The Tough Mudder event requires experts who understand the current terrain, possible risk, rescue operation as well as execution procedures. Assigning roles would reduce confusion among employees and ensure that every employee is prepared to performing the assigned task. However, it is important to recognize the fact that the HR practices identified have both advantages and disadvantages. However, the advantages from each of the approach to managing performance can be analyzed to ensure that the best HR practice is adopted for the benefit of Tough Mudder event. Retention and Motivation Retention and motivation is a strategy that organizations use to maintain a competent workforce. An organization would resort to the option of retaining employees in situations where the employees have proved unmatched competence or the job market is deficient of quality that the organization currently has. On the other hand, employees require being motivated so that they can develop and maintain the best attitude towards their roles within an organization. The advantages of retention and motivation are that the best employees as retained within the organization which saves money that would have been used for recruiting new staff [Pet16]. Retaining a current staff also saves time for money that would have been used in orienting and training new staff. An organization that retains and motivates its staff finds an opportunity of retaining the unique cultural practices that define the organization. An organization that uses the best motivation approaches provides its workforce with incentives to exercise more dedication towards work. Employees who have been retained understand the ups and downs of the organization and are in the best position to understand whenever situations get out of hand. In such situations, retained employees would contribute towards the development of a solution rather than proliferate the problem. On the other hand, retention and motivation have disadvantages such as the possibility of retaining immoral personnel within an organization [Tho161]. A destructive or undesirable emerging culture is likely to be retained whenever employees are propagating the culture are retained within an organization. Such a negative effect can have a negative influence on new employees as well as the entire staff. In the long run, an organization can record poor results due to the influence of the destructive employees. Organizations often have a choice to fire the employees they consider to have a negative influence on the rest of the team. Some of the motivation practices require costs and retaining employees requires may result in the increase in the cost for motivating the retained employees. It is evident that human desires and interests are elastic and are bound to grow with time. Therefore, an organization should prepare to spend more on motivation when planning to retain employees. Training and development Training and development of staff are other approaches to ensuring that an organization enhances the performance of its employees [Aru13]. Organizations often develop a training and development strategy that aims to improve the competence of employees from the time they are recruited. Development is a continuous practice, where organizations strive to improve the technical competence capacity of employees. One advantage of training and development is that an organization stands high chances of recording job satisfaction from employees [Tho161]. Trained employees have the tendency of developing regarding confidence and independence in solving some technical as well as non-technical challenges while on duty. Training and development increase the creativity among employees which is beneficial for an organization. Best performance from employees encourages clients to maintain links with the organization. Training and development also provide an organization with an opportunity to orient its new staff. Whenever new events, equipment or approaches are to be implemented by an organization, training of staff is relevant. The change will be easier to implement while at the same time reduce risks and uncertainties due to changes. One disadvantage of training and development is that the organization is likely to incur a lot of costs [Pet16]. An organization can spend a considerable amount of money in developing training and development programs or paying fees for employees to train at specific institutions. More cost may be incurred in situations where a training program requires simulation. In-depth Action Plan: Recruitment and role assigning An in-depth plan has to be developed that would ensure the best personnel is in place for the upcoming Tough Mudder event as well as future events. With new roles and development in the industry, it would be necessary to increase the number of current personnel. In addition, the 2016 event expects to attract many participants that might overwhelm the current employees. It is due to this reason that the HR practice of recruiting and assigning of role has been identified as the key focus for Tough Mudder Tpy Ltd. Advantages of recruitment Hiring new employees puts an organization in the best position to realize success provided the fact that the recruitment procedure is conducted in a professional manner [Joh16]. A professional approach involves analysis strength and weaknesses of the current personnel. An organization can decide to conduct internal or external recruitment in an attempt to ensure that the most qualified personnel is in place to handle specific tasks. External recruitment provides the best opportunities for an organization to hire people with the creative and innovative ideas that can help the organization enhance stakeholder satisfaction. In addition, an organization finds an opportunity to identify and recruit the most qualified candidates for the specific roles within an organization. Ann organization can choose to avoid extra costs in training of recruits by hiring the best-suited candidates for organization. According to Kumar and Singh, external recruitment also has advantages such as the ability to retain the best employees at a more improved position. Internal recruitment is an additional source of motivation as there are encouraged to work hard for consideration of better positions within the organization. Best organizational culture and practices are preserved through internal recruitment. The promoted employees have a better understanding of the operations and principles of the organization. Practicing internal recruitment encourages employees to undergo extra training and development to enhance their chances for promotion. Disadvantages of recruitment Despite the fact that recruitment has advantages, several disadvantages are notable within the practice of recruitment. In external recruitment, there is a possibility of misplacement as well as increased costs in the process of recruiting [Joh16]. For instance, an organization has to identify the available places that require employees in the organization and advertise them to the public. Another disadvantage of external recruitment is that the new employees are likely to become a demoralizing factor for the rest of the personnel. Nee trends and culture might affect the existing practices within the organization. In addition, new recruits are likely to fail to blend with the existing staff, which might affect teamwork of the entire staff. Internal recruitment can increase the chance of propagating an undesired culture within the organization [Jam02]. When an organization only focuses on internal recruitment, there is a possibility that the staff will be technically limited regarding creativity and innovation. Tough Mudder would not prefer to lose its current client base but rather increase, which makes innovation inevitable for the event organizers. Internal recruitment also puts the organization in a situation where it will be required to conduct training. Such training commitments by the organization increase the overall cost of the entire process. Advantages of assigning roles Tough Mudder Tpy Ltd can increase the productivity of its workforce by assigning specific roles to either individuals or established groups within the workforce [Pet16]. Assigning roles and responsibilities increase overall efficiency in the management of the various activities in the Tough Mudder event. Given the fact that the Tough Mudder events often involve some activities, it would be important for the event organizers to have a competent team at every point of the challenge. For sufficient support, the organizers would find it reasonable to distribute roles within the member of the workforce. In situations where the organizers fail to distribute roles, tracking of performance and collection of feedback becomes easier. Assigning of roles increases the productivity of every individual which would be beneficial for the event. Whenever workers are assigned roles, they tend to become more responsible and dedicated towards performance. Assigning of roles increases the morale of individuals within the workforce since the individuals tend to have a sense of responsibility as well as task ownership. In addition, assigning roles to the personnel makes it easy to track and discourage complacency. Disadvantages of assigning roles One of the major disadvantages of assigning roles to employees is the fact that it requires intensive training and practice to ensure that each employee is equal to the assigned task [Mar11]. Such training sessions would force the event organizers to incur a lot of costs. Assigning of roles may lead to over exercising of the freedom that comes with the assigned roles. In such situations, the overall grading of the event can be negatively affected. Conclusion Tough Mudder Tpy Ltd. has organized yet another event to be held in Sydney in the year 2016. One of the major challenges likely to be faced by the event organizer is managing its workforce to ensure that the event lives up to the expectation of both participants and another stakeholder. This paper has looked at the various options for managing the workforce, which are Training and development, retention and motivation, training and development. From the three, more focus was on recruiting and assigning of roles to individuals within the workforce. Given the fact that this option has more advantages compared to disadvantages, it is recommended that Tough Mudder Tpy Ltd. should consider adopting the option. Works Cited Cheese, Peter. "Managing risk and building resilient organisations in a riskier world." Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, Vol. 3, Issue 3 (2016): 323-331. Delery, John. "Human resource management practices and organizational effectiveness: internal fit matters." Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, Vol. 3, Issue 2 (2016): 139-163. Huselid, Mark A. and Brian E. Becker. "Bridging Micro and Macro Domains: Workforce Differentiation and Strategic Human Resource Management." Journal of Management Vol. 37 No. 2 (2011): 421-428. Kumar, Arun and Priyadarshani Singh. "Workforce Management Practices: Evolution through Ages." International Journal of Human Resource Studies Vol. 3, No. 4 (2013): 239-29. Thomas, H Randolph and M Horman. "Fundamental Principles of Workforce Management." Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2006)132:1(97) (2016): 97-104. Tough Mudder Pty. Ltd. "Spectator & Volunteer Legal Liability Agreement." 2014. Tough Mudder Pty. Ltd. (ACN 151 871 340). 8 October 2016 . —. Volunteers. 2014. 8 October 2016 . Ware, James. 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