Task Coates Case Study PDF

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UNIT 3: Manage Workforce Planning Assessment Task 1: 1. Explain the nature and structure of the Coates Hire business. You may elect to visit the website to further explore the business listed as part of Coates Hire. www.coates.com.au  Through my research and learning from case study, I find the quality of Coates is apprehended about engaging its people and delivering a positive employee experience in order to achieve its goal. Through human resource management, Coates provides a positive employee experience under an approach called the Coates Way. The Coates Way is a cultural change program that ensures all employees have a consistent, clear and simple message that states where Coates is going and how they will get there. It is designed to ensure that all employees, whether they work in head office or at a regional branch, understand how the company's vision, purpose and values apply to them on a day-to-day basis. The human resource body is the structure of the Coates Hire Business. The HR function at Coates operates at both corporate and business unit level. The corporate HR office is responsible for setting overall HR strategic direction and monitoring organisational effectiveness at a group level whilst supporting the HR managers in the business units. The HR managers of the individual business units implement the strategic direction within their business units, are responsible for day-to-day HR responsibilities, and provide feedback to the corporate HR team. Human resource management is critical to achieving company objectives.

2. Discuss how Coates’s strategic intent and vision may influence its workplace planning. 

Coates’s strategic intent and vision such as positively influencing staffs engagement, developing capability of all staff at all levels, improving workplace flexibility and organisational effectiveness and enabling employees to experience a working environment and culture of safety can bring various influence in the workplace planning which are listed below:    

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The benefits of having engaged employees will them ‘go the extra mile’ for customers which will contribute to over all business success. It will inspire people to do their best work every day and motivates them to contribute more than is normally required to complete their work. A long-term intention developed by management will affect the activities and actions of the business. Progressively build people capabilities from an individual level through training and development programs

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3. Comment on how the four outcomes of HR support the strategic intent.  The aim of the outcomes is to create a company culture where employees are committed to fostering the company vision. Coates aims to do this by providing the necessary training and support in order to develop employees’ careers and skill sets in a safe environment. So with excellent training and clear and measurable goals will improve how effectively people do their jobs. Essentially, Coates also wants people to understand exactly what is required of them, enjoy their jobs and be good at them. So these all clearly can say that the four outcomes of HR had supported the strategic intent.  The four outcomes of HR support strategic intent are as follows:    

Positively influence employee engagement with more employees striving for Coates Develop and leverage the capability of our people (at all levels) Improve workforce flexibility and organizational effectiveness Enable employees to experience a working environment reflective of the Coates Way and a culture of safety, which will attract and retain the best performers.

4. Evaluate the level of employee engagement at Coates Hire based on the data provided.  Based on the data provided, the level of employee engagement at Coates Hire was incredible. This benchmarking process involves using a set of measures, applying them internally through its own ‘Climate Survey’ and then using them to compare performance with other companies. The results show that Coates has achieved a solid level of engagement. In particular, the survey showed that Coates has performed better than other businesses in areas such as career opportunities, quality of work locations and work tasks. Some areas for improvement included work/life balance, recognition related activities and the physical work environment. The process of engagement at Coates is an ongoing journey as part of the Coates Way.

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Task2: Workforce Planning Challenges in the current economic climate.  One of the centered issues that human resources professionals are talking about ‘Workforce Planning’ these days. Many of the organization are facing overwhelming and complicated challenges in these days, no matter how big or small they are. Every workplace is facing internal and external challenges such as lack of integrity and regulatory changes. Inadequate workforce planning can hit headlines for the wrong reasons and cause significant reputation and financial damage. Overcoming these challenges is what separates those companies that become successful from the companies that fail.  Some of the huge workforce planning challenges in the current economic climate are listed and discussed as below. [I] Company culture The way in which employees receive company culture is one of the toughest and most important aspects of running a business. When the workforce is happy and they enjoy their environment, the atmosphere as a whole is more productive. So company’s culture also plays a great role in workforce planning challenges.

[II] Organizational change and job satisfaction Organizational change is an interdisciplinary concept which consists of various fields such as psychology, sociology, economics and management. Organizational change can be either continuous or for certain period of time. Mainly, organizational change leads to adapting new plan and policies to meet the purpose set for implementation of organizational changes. Sometimes these organizational changes can bring lots of negative impact in the organization. Employee disagreement and dissatisfaction may even lead to resigning of employees which is considered as challenge for organisation.

III. Technological advancement Technology continues to advance at a rapid rate, and a competitor might wait for the next-generation tech, which could just be one year away, and then use it to their advantage. But being that competitor also has its risks. It can be hard to master the company’s current technology and stay informed about emerging technology at the same time

4. Labour Supply Shortage The shortage of labour is also one the huge challenge in planning workforce in this economic climate. Lack of skilled workers and poor recruitment process may also affect workforce management. Some organisation finds difficult to hire perfect candidates for the role.

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[V] Workforce diversity issues: 

Language and communication

Communication barrier is one of the biggest diversity problems in most of the companies. Language and understanding can lead to miscommunication and affect productivity as well, so company often provide training for particular work so that everyone can perform efficiently. I Australia, the are immigrants from different parts of the world with different mother tongue and their tendency to communicate in English varies from one person to another. So in workplace where there are workers with different language background, it’s a big challenge in communication among employees. 

Gender Equality

We can see that more men work in delivery of letters and parcels than women, while they work in customer service. So, employers need to prevent gender discrimination and maintain equality while hiring, salary and job responsibilities. 

Acceptance and Respect

The key factor that contributes for successful workforce is respect among workers and employees. Often conflicts can arise at workplace but acceptance of views among employees can decrease conflict and help in better productivity. However, when there is lack of acceptance of the diverse culture in the workplace, conflicts may arise. 

Physical and emotional challenges

Some the employees might be disabled so navigating around the workplace might be difficult so proper accommodation such as wheelchair ramps can help them to work properly. Company can implement new plans and policy to make better workplace environment for employee with physical and mental disability.

[VI] Management change As a business grows, its strategies, structure, and internal processes grow with it. Some employees have a hard time coping with these changes. A lot of companies experience decreased productivity and morale during periods of change. Management change is also one of the critical challenge for staffing and workforce planning.

[VII] Workforce training and development Investing in the training and development of lower-level employees is another common HR problem. Some businesses have trouble finding the resources to do so. Employees on the front lines are some of your hardest workers, and may not have the time to take a training course. Because of this reason, HR can have hard time in resourcing and managing employees, which can be considered as workforce planning challenges.

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[VIII] Compensation Many companies are struggling with how best to structure employee compensation. Small businesses have to compete not only with businesses of a similar size, but also with corporations with big payroll budgets. Plus, you have to factor in the cost of benefits, training, taxes, and other expenses, which can range from 1.5 to 3 times the employee’s salary.

[IX] Recruiting and retaining Talented employees Attracting talent is a huge investment of time and money. It’s difficult for entrepreneurs to balance between keeping a business running, and hiring the right people at the right time. In addition, it’s impossible to know whether a candidate will actually be a good fit until they’ve worked for you for a period of time. Moreover, retaining and keeping talented employees in the organization is another challenge.

[X] Adapting to innovation Technology is constantly changing. Businesses must be quick to adapt, or risk being left in the dust by their competitors. The challenge for small business owners is getting employees to embrace innovation and learn new technology. During workforce planning, this factor also creates huge distraction and obstacles.

Reference

http://www.villanovau.com/resources/hr/human-resource-management-challenges/ https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0316/pages/the-big-issues-facinghr.aspx http://www.managers.org.uk/insights/opinion/2013/april/the-most-common-issues-facedby-human-resource-managers http://www.eremedia.com/tlnt/new-study-the-top-10-best-practices-of-high-impact-hrorganizations/

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Task 3: Develop a Workforce plan. Workforce planning refers to the process of ensuring an organisation has current and future access to the human capital it needs to perform effectively. Workplace planning involves identifying current and future personnel needs and exploring the most appropriate and costeffective methods to recruit and retain these individuals. There is also an element of continual analysis of workforce effectiveness and implementing the necessary measures, such as learning and development initiatives, to ensure the workforce remains efficient. So cooperate with various issues during the peak hour of service, like Sodexo has to apply various feasible demand forecasting techniques: 1. Recognizing the Gaps One of the first and most important steps to workforce planning is recognizing any existing gaps in the workforce. This applies to not only talent gaps, but also process gaps and skill gaps. By recognizing these gaps, company will begin to gain a better understanding of the changes that need to be made to drive improvement. 2. Work load forecasting Also named as work load analysis; this method uses the method to determine the stock of workload and the continuity of operation and accordingly the number of labor required id estimated. It is also known as work study technique where workload becomes the base for workforce analysis for the upcoming years. It also considers the number of an individual can work in terms of man hour. For a particular task, the required number of man hour is evaluated and then number of required employees is calculated. 3. Executive Judgment This method is particularly economical for small enterprises in which the executives sit together and determine the future number of manpower. Once they determine the requirement. They submit the proposal to the top management level for approval. This approach can also be taken as bottom-up approach. 4. Statistical technique This method helps to determine requirement of long range human workforce. It is more responsive to statistics and mathematical techniques. In this process, management normally feed data to computer to generate outcome. It consists of normally two types: A)

Ratio trend analysis

B)

Econometric models

C)

Burkes Smith Model

References: C.Nouri(2018). 6 Ways to overcome the obstacles of Workforce planning. Retrieved on December 1,2019

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