Human Resource Management Issues in Geothermal Development Company - Case Study Example

STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT By: Course: Tutor: University: City: State: Date: Strategic Human Resource Management Geothermal Development Company is a Kenyan based organization that specializes in the generation of geothermal energy (www.gdc.co.ke/ ). It deals with the production of green energy while providing the specialists with the opportunity to expand their career potentials through their comprehensive work assignments. The organization runs a website from which most of the proceeds, work and roles of the organization are outlined. Apart from involving the qualified staff the organization, they also train, examine and assimilate people looking to start a career in green energy production. This training is also done online with an educative learning center providing the reading materials of the course work and a set of examination question offered to test the applicants of the knowledge learned from the training. They provide a platform for them to create the basis of their career prospects. They offer payments through the many online banking systems (digitalpoint.com, 2013) and as such instrumental in propagating the prospects of online banking and online money transfer. The Geothermal Development Company is a government parastatal and as such its clients are referred to as the public as it serves the citizens of the country Kenya. The job prescription of the organization is provided in uniquely coded documents referred to as projects that are doctored by the ministry of energy and petroleum in the country. The origination often communicates to its employees through an online support team that is a team of individuals that run the organization and are dedicated to providing around the clock support to the employees in form of responses to burning questions the employees might have, they conduct the allocation of work, provide support after job allocation and the instruction on any rework requested by the clients. Each running organization has a Human Resource center that is concerned with the management of the human resources, employees, in the organization (Henry, 2012). The evaluation of employees’ performance in line with the employer’s strategic objectives is what is referred to as human resource management (Johnason, 2009). This is carried out by the human resource manager who is in charge of the people within the organization ensuring that work is done according to the policies and systems of the organization (Collings and Wood, 2009). Human resource managers, apart from sourcing and employing new talent, they also perform recruitment for the organization, assess the employees’ productivity, train the incoming employees on the ideals of the organization and how to comply with the organization’s set standards (Sheehan, 2013). They also ensure that the work place is healthy and safe for the employees and that there is no discrimination by employing people of diverse ethnicity and uphold the work discipline among the employees. These are the main issues that describe the human resource manager job description and may prove troublesome for the organization at times. The Geothermal Development Company, as any organization, cannot lack its human resource management issues. The human resource management issue affecting this organization is performance management. Performance management refers to the process by which employee’s work objectives are planned and productivity and/or their overall contribution to an organization is monitored and reviewed (Bacal, 2012). The organization has employed many individuals to run its support center and as a result, these possess a big problem to the performance and responses availed to its employees. The workers in the support team report to work based on a schedule that allows for the change in shifts, at least two shifts per day. The people on the first shift, morning shift are supposed to monitor the previous day’s work and ensure flow of that day’s work. Thus these individuals are supposed to have concrete criteria that they use to bring themselves at par with what was being done the previous day. This is, however, not what is seen in the organization as the support team is often confused and relay very confusing messages. If a project was assigned to a team, for example, yesterday and is to be completed the next day, three different support team members attend to one employee team in the course of this project. The understanding of these members of the ideals of the project is not the same, and as such, each member will try as much as possible to have the project done to their liking and in so doing cause chaos instead of solving their problems. This depicts the lack of a control system to bring the support team members at par with the day’s work and the lack of a set criteria that determines how a project should be done. A control system is important as it directs the scope of work for the employees and provides guidelines on how certain important aspects of the organization’s work is to be done in line with the policies and objectives of the organization (Seleshi, 2006). The lack of these control systems brings inconveniences to the employees of the organization making them feel frustrated. They keep changing the proceeds of a project some times as per the directions of the support team members which not only affects the quality of work produced but also the possible completion of the work and the production of quality work at the predetermined deadline. The frustration of employees also acts as a demotivation scheme as they lose their morale to do the work due to confusion and unintended victimization done by members of the support team. To the organization, this delay the rate at which things are done and as such delays the proceeds of the organization. It also has a negative impact on the quality of work produced making the organization lose their esteemed customers. This loss of customers reflects negatively on the organization’s financial statement as work coming in is limited, limiting the income received by the organization whereas the employees are many who require monthly payments. This creates an imbalance in the organization’s cash flow system as they spend more than what they earn leading to possible bad debts. These bad debts are also reflected in the increased debts reflected in the balance sheets of the government as it provides subsidies to the company to ensure it continues in the business of energy production. This specific performance issue is however not seen in other government parastatals. These companies are the sole market competitors of Geothermal Development Company and provide various services as do Geothermal Development Company. They are not faced with this specific performance management issue as they are well managed with predetermined controls that ensure good performance of the organization as a whole. The companies such as KENGEN are well managed with timely and carefully laid out responses that ensure the flow of activities day in day out that is not seen in Geothermal Development Company making the organization less preferred in comparison to the competitors (Ndetto, 2017). They also pay well as their control systems are well implemented and followed to the later making them generate good percentages of profits annually to be able to comfortably pay their employees and shareholder's dividends. This human resource management issue is critical as it affects directly the finances of the organization. This is because bad management practices decrease employee to drive to get the job done causing stress that might result in health issues and cost the company regarding high employee turnover (Hanly, 2017). Most organizations in the business sector that are not government owned or not-for-profit entities are out to seek the continuous increase in their profits (Business Dictionary, 2017). These organization’s policies also ensure that their sole aim is to make profit and in so doing provide the dividends required by their shareholders (Worth, 2016). The issue of poor performance management affects the achievement of this set aim (Zabihollah, 2009). This can cause the shutdown of the organization as it starts to lose customers and thus its sole source of income, go into bad debts and the shareholders withdraw their support from the organization. Therefore, in an attempt to maintain the integrity of this organization, help it achieve its set objectives and remain in the market for many years to come, the performance management issue must be addressed. To address this resource management issue, the organization has to put in place a good control system. This system should be designed to monitor the schedules of the members of the support team and put in place a rubric-like directive that provides good guidelines on how the work submitted by the employees should be analyzed. This control system is there to ensure smooth flow of the work and comfort ability of the employees in the organization. In monitoring the support team schedule, the system should always provide a concise summary of what was done in a shift and make it always available and the first thing the team members look at when they report to work. This is to enable the incoming members to know where to pick from the day’s work and not start undoing what was already done by the outgoing member in a change of shifts. This will ensure that there is a concise and smooth flow of work in the organization reducing the chances of confusion and frustration on the employees and the employer’s sides. This will, as a result, enhance a healthy working condition for the employees in the attempt to complete their work effectively. Also, the control system should allocate a certain team of employees to at least two support team members ensuring that not just anyone can monitor the work done by the staff. This will build the levels of confidence in various employees and help the organization to properly and effectively monitor the progress of the employees making it easy to assess the performance levels of each employee and determine the rewarding system to competent employees as a form of motivation and appreciation for work well done. As a result, close monitoring of employees will improve the productivity of each employee, increasing their contributions to the organization and as a result, increase the performance of the organization with quality output and consumer satisfaction. The other way to address the issue is by putting in place a concise rubric-like control for the ideals of any project. Setting up rules to govern the rules of engagement between employees as far as the quality of the projects is concerned is of grave importance. This is because rules provide a basis for law and order and also a forum for accountability (reference.com, 2017). They also instill discipline in a work setting and help establish trust and fairness to the employees. The rubric to be developed should be made available to both the support team members and the employees. It should contain clear and straight forward guidelines on how to oversee and proceed with the implementation of the proceeds of any project. The basis of any project should be carefully outlined regarding the assignment description and the solution requirements. This rubric should cover all aspects of project management, execution and implementation without leaving any item to chance. The availability and installation of a guideline will direct the support team members on how to help the specialists in the completion of an assignment and also guide the writer on what should be done for the assignment. Working together as a unit will improve the performance of the organization and help them produce quality work which will keep the customers coming back with more projects, increasing the organization’s income and as such also improve the percentage profit made by the organization. This way both the customer and the organization are kept happy. In a nut shell, the business sector is dominated by various organizations that have different aim and objectives. These organizations can be for-profit (profit oriented) or non-profit organization concerned with the needs of the society (Rosenthal, 2012). Geothermal Development Company is one such organization that seeks to make a profit for itself from the generation of green energy. It employs professionals and also provides training to the newbies in the industry looking to make a living through expounding on their career in energy production. The company has a human resource center that manages its employee’s number and performance. This department also offers training and an examination sector to ensure that the organization employs skilled personnel and not jokers. The organization has many systems that ensure a flow in its operation, but loop holes do exist in the control system of the organization. These loop holes are in the performance management sector of the human resource management that impairs the organization performance. These issues are brought forth by the lack of a good control system that manages the support team operations and the ideals required of any project. This is a big issue not to be ignored as it has a negative impact on the financial proceeds of the organization but can be corrected by the incorporation of a new and comprehensive control system that addresses these issues to uphold good performance and quality output by the organization. References Business Dictionary. (2017). For-Profit Organization. Retrieved from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/for-profit-organization.html. Accessed on 6th April, 2017. Bacal, R. (2012). Performance Management: Manager’s guide to performance management. Second edition. New York: McGraw-Hill. Collings, D. G., and Wood, G. (2009). Human resource management: A critical approach. In D. G. Collings & G. Woods (Eds.), Human Resource management: A critical approach. London: Routledge, 1-16. Digital Point. (2013). Payza to PayPal Money Transfer? Retrieved from https://forums.digitalpoint.com/threads/payza-to-paypal-money-transfer.2671445/. Accessed on 6th April, 2017. Johnason, P. (2009). 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