Research Korner: Human Resource Management Propositions

Human Resource Management: Application of Ideas and Concepts to a Specific Organization

Human Resource Management: Application of Ideas and Concepts to a Specific Organization   Introduction             Every business organization or company has different internal organizations, having a variety of functions, and these internal organizations that comprise the whole business or company are interrelated and are working together to ensure the company’s success in profiting from the market. The more functions each of the organization perform, the better is the performance of the company as a whole. This gives each of the companies their corresponding advantages and benefits from the market and their consumers.             One of the company’s basic internal organizations is the Human Resource Management team, which is highly responsible with the maintenance of the company’s employees. The Human Resource Management team does a variety of tasks and functions, and is crucial in its objective concerning the work and interests of the employees in the company. Oftentimes, they are being encountered during job interviews or job openings, and the people behind this team are performing various activities, including recruitment, training, rewards, performance appraisal, and other concerns, such as the health and safety of the employees of a certain business firm or company. In addition, the team is also responsible for the training and development of its staffs, and promoting effective interrelationships within the company. Being a crucial team in the company, it is essential that they promote the development of their employees, not only in relation to job performance, but in relation to effective communication and interrelations as well.             This report intends to create an opportunity to apply the ideas and concepts regarding Human Resource Management in the analysis of a real organizational situation. In this report, the case of PricewaterhouseCoopers will be discussed. The paper will be stating the profile of the organization in reference with, and will be discussing its current problems in the company. From the discussion of the problems, the concepts and ideas regarding Human Resource Management will be demonstrated. Form this, the analysis will be attained.     Company Profile of PricewaterhouseCoopers             PricewaterhouseCoopers or PwC is the world’s largest professional services firm that was formed in 1998 from a merger between Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand. Its earning aggregated worldwide revenues of $22 billion for 2006, employing over 140,000 people in 149 countries (2006).   History and Services             An accountant named Samuel Price started his practice in London in 1849, and went into partnership with William Holyland and Edwin Waterhouse in 1865 in Southwark Towers in London. In 1874, the company was known as Price, Waterhouse & Co, soon after Holyland left from the partnership. By the late nineteenth century, Price Waterhouse had gained significant recognition as an accounting firm, even in the Americas. As a result of this, the firm opened an office in New York in 1890, being a consequence of the trade between the United Kingdom and the United States of America. The original British firm also opened more offices in the main countries in the British Empire, each time establishing a separate partnership in each country that gave each partner a strong incentive to expand their local practices (2006).             Similarly, Coopers & Lybrand had also originated in the nineteenth century, for in 1854, William Cooper established his own practice in London, which became Cooper Brothers seven years later when his three brothers joined him. In the United States, Robert Montgomery, William Lybrand, Adam Ross Jr. and Edward Ross formed Lybrand, Ross Brothers and Montgomery in 1898. Coopers and Lybrand is the result of a merger in 1957 between Cooper Brothers & Co; Lybrand, Ross Bros & Montgomery and a Canadian firm McDonald, Currie and Co., and in 1990 Coopers and Lybrand merged with Deloitte Haskins & Sells in the United Kingdom (‘2006).             On July 1, 1998, Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand merged to form PricewaterhouseCoopers or PwC, creating one of the world’s largest full-service professional organizations, and this move was an attempt to meet the increasing client needs for scale and global presence (2003). As a result, PwC engage in six lines of business across 24 industries in over 152 countries worldwide, with over 150,000 representatives (2003). According to  (2003), the merger announcement was spurred by this growing need for global scale and presence. The larger size of the new company gave both the firm and its clients the advantage of scope and economies of scale, and in the light of increasing competition, achieving global presence in terms of scale and scope was one way to gain an advantage over competitors. Achieving organizational economies of scale became important, especially as business became more technology-oriented, because in a business environment where speed was one of the important elements for success, companies required new technologies that would enable them to provide better ways to conduct business. Keeping the firm updated in terms of technology required vast capital investments, and consolidation was a solution to boost capital as well as utilizing it efficiently (2003). Moreover, scale also enabled the firm to respond to requests from certain market segments that were not fully covered prior to consolidation, and expanding its scope was important as it enabled clients to be provided with more comprehensive services and solutions. It also differentiated the company from its competitors (2003). The use of technology such as Intranets, and the ability to share information fundamentally improved communication between PwC clients, and its workforce and business clients, organizationally and globally. In addition, the focus of PwC on the knowledge management system would bring value to its clients, by ensuring success to greater resources, with faster deployment of specialists and of new products and services through more efficient management of a larger investment pool (2003).                It has been reported that PwC provided unprecedented service to global, national and local companies in markets worldwide; offering a comprehensive range of business assurance, business advisory, tax, management, information technology, and human resource consulting services and a commitment to helping clients formulate and implement strategic solutions that drive growth and improve business performance (2003). The Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand companies were similar in terms of business lines and geographical coverage; however, they were not similar in terms of industry coverage, and the uniting of the various practices offered by the two firms was expected to bring significant benefits to clients, particularly to industries that were rapidly converging and in which sector distinctions were becoming less pronounced and competition more intense ( 2003). Furthermore, PricewaterhouseCoopers provides a wide variety of industry-focused services for public and private clients in order to build public trust and enhance value through the application of the company’s concept and approach of “connected thinking” (2006). Services include Audit and Assurance, Crisis Management, Performance Improvement, Tax, and Transactions. From these services, the company is committed to serving as a force of integrity, good sense and wise solutions to the problems facing businesses and the capital markets today. Transparency and good standards of corporate governance in both clients and employees are central to the company’s ability to achieve their objectives. In addition, the company also aims to continue to achieve their objectives from a position of strength as the undisputed leader in the industry ( 2006).   Current Organization and Problems             It has been reported that knowledge management plays an important role in the merger process of PwC, as the ability to share knowledge and intellectual capital across the firms was to become the key for successfully achieving rapid integration with continued client service ( 2003). Technical evolution has enabled cost-effective methods of capturing, updating and distributing knowledge throughout by company through the Intranet, and this becomes the entry-point to capture and distribute firm-wide knowledge. It serves to be the foundation for stored knowledge, the core asset of a knowledge-intensive organization (2003).   The Intranet of PwC is named Knowledge Curve or KC, where the knowledge management system of the company is incorporated, including the company’s assets, such as its knowledge and people skills to be utilized by the entire firm. Its use enabled the company its profiling from three dimensions, namely its geography, industry and line of business. Furthermore, PwC also has a global database named ‘The Bridge’, which is a merger product and the first internal communications product. In line with developing the knowledge economy of the firm is the company’s Knowledge Team, a group of consultants, information professionals, and technical experts, who are responsible for conducting research, harvesting knowledge, managing contents, and ensuring an open communication channel between knowledge headquarters. In line with the company’s focus on making the firm a global entity, and since the merger the Knowledge Curve team had been moving towards global repositories rather than small databases, the industry group knowledge workers managed the content that belonged to their industry group within the global repositories (2003).             Although the strength of the function was the involvement of all the different industry and service groups, it was still difficult to coordinate the entire system. Difficulty in coordinating the system lies on the fact that due to its large scale, it is hard to inform and educate every employee on the use of the database and on the available information in the KC, to understand its capabilities and applications. The limitations of the function were mainly related to the team’s ability to create awareness about KC, having a big challenge of going after thousands of staffs, communicate with each one of them, and change over to using the global KC. Moreover, problems also include the limited access of staffs to the knowledge base within the entire system, the difference in IT systems and organizational structure, and integration of databases and servers. Pragmatism was driving the essential forward planning and business culture, the coordination process was streamlined, and there were fewer bureaucratic procedures. In addition, senior people or employees in age and experience, propelled the business, whereas people in support functions would do what they are told to do. Senior people are less involved in decision-making in the day-to-day business, being less in touched with the processes in the company, while younger partners and directors make most of the decisions. With this, a lot of conflicts happen between the two groups ( 2003).               Application of Theories and Concepts of HRM             It has been reported that the idea of a knowledge-based economy, which advances the notion that knowledge creation is the most important source of economic growth, has been around since the 1980s, and the core of this theory was that sustained economic wealth was most effectively created by focusing on knowledge and knowledge-based products (2005). Moreover, knowledge could be applied an infinite number of times with no decline in value, was relatively durable through time and space, and could be stored at very little cost using digital media ( 2005). This is why, PricewaterhouseCoopers has been using a knowledge-based economy to improve and develop their services. An important point to recognize is that enormous emphasis has been placed on the emergence of knowledge networks that facilitate the kinds of interactions between people and ideas, and the diffusion of tacit knowledge is thought to be facilitated in such networks, access to such networks becoming critical for knowledge workers and knowledge transfer (‘2005). From this, it is evident that PricewaterhouseCoopers has been implementing a knowledge-based economy for utilizing knowledge in the company’s advantage. However, problems have been presented, in relation to the management of the company. The first problem or challenged being experienced by PricewaterhouseCoopers is the fact that because of large scale or size, they are not able to effectively communicate with one another. Team leaders are having difficulties in coordinating their subordinates due to their size, in the company’s aim to implement and educate its employees regarding their database. With this problem, the Human Resource Management team has a role of coming up with ways in terms of implementing an effective communication and coordination by building the company’s hierarchy. Being a large company, the issue of control is essential. Because of this, the company must be able to implement and apply effective leadership strategies. The complexities generated by the larger size often lead managers to implement more bureaucratic controls to manage the combined firm’s operations, and bureaucratic controls are formalized supervisory and behavioral rules and policies designed to ensure consistency of decisions and actions across different units of the firm ( 2003). Bureaucratic leadership style has several characteristics, including imposing a strict and systematic discipline on the followers and demand business-like conduct in the workplace, empowering the workplace via and office or position power that they hold, promoting based on their ability to conform to the rules of the office, and obliging employees to obey because authority is bestowed upon the leader as part of their position in the company (2006). This type of leadership will be suitable for a large firm because it entails the immediate compliance from its employees. This is also appropriate when it comes to implementing change, especially when it comes to implementing new technologies. However, it must be taken note of that as time passes; bureaucratic leadership style must not be used for long, as it entails a rigid and standardized managerial behavior. With this, the company must be able to adopt different leadership styles and use them in their advantage for the internal success of the company. In relation to this is the problem of the company regarding its difficulty in creating awareness and educating its employees. This problem is also related to implementing effective communication among the company’s employees. Due to this problem, the company implemented an open database, so anybody will be able to access the data of the company. Moreover, to effectively coordinate with the company’s employees, it would be essential if the company will be able to develop its leadership style appropriate for its team. In this way, team leaders will be able to easily coordinate and educate their teams regarding the new knowledge system of the company.             The third problem presented was the company’s difference in IT structure and organizational structure. It has been reported that the company’s organizational structure depends on the products to be developed, with functional and project organizations are its types ( 2006). Functional organizations are organized according to technological disciplines, where coordination occurs through rules and procedures, detailed specifications, and shared traditions (2006). In addition, the structure of an organization is concerned with the distribution of power and authority in organizations, having dimensions, such as specialization, or the number of jobs and job specialists found in an organization; the span of control, or the number of people reporting to any specialist manager; its distribution of power, which can be both vertical, or the levels of hierarchy and horizontal, referring to how close a particular department or manager is to the core, mission-critical decisions; and its departmentalization, or the basis on which departments are developed (20054). Theoretically speaking, PricewaterhouseCoopers must be regarded as a functional organization, however, due to its difference in organizational structure and IT structure, it attains difficulty in functioning properly. Due to this, the company will be implementing the development of its different teams to develop the technical infrastructure of the company. The focus of this individual team’s development is to develop its internal policies and procedures, and to communicate better with their clients (2003). Given the fact that PwC is a service-oriented organization, which serves a variety of clients and offers different services, it can be taken note of that this difference may be the cause of difficulty in strengthening its internal organizations. However, through the development of the teams, its members can have the chance to coordinate with one another with the use of the company’s new IT systems. In response to this, what the Human Resource Management team can do is to promote employee and organization awareness, through activities such as team-building and employee development. In addition, the resource management team can sponsor leadership-training seminars that will tackle ways on motivating their employees on working effectively. Moreover, the company must be able to enhance the motivation of its employees through job or work redesign. This can be done occasionally to somehow divert the attention of employees to its current work, and give them a chance to entertain change and accumulate new knowledge, information and work experience. Work redesign include a set of principles and practices designed to increase the performance of individual workers by stressing job simplification and job specialization, where job simplification is the breaking up of the work needs to be performed in an organization into the smallest identifiable tasks, while job specialization is the assignment of workers to perform small, simple tasks (). Moreover, the concept of Job Redesign entails ways on enriching the job of employees. <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="disc"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Enriching an employee’s job is by combining tasks, which increases their skill variety and task identity, reduces alienation and increases satisfaction. </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Creating natural work units or teams, which increase employee ownership of the work, making it more meaningful and increase skill variety </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Establishing client relationships, which increase skill variety, task significance and feedback for the employee</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Increasing responsibility and reward for good performance within a specific responsibility</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Aggressive socialization and the creation of a strong corporate culture, which improves task identity and job significance</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Open feedback channels, which include self-set goals negotiated with employees</li> </ul> ().             Another problem to be addressed is the problem with pragmatism, or the collection of many different ways of thinking (2006). Having different ways of thinking in an organization can affect its production and communication entirely because their thoughts and views are not towards a specific goal only. If pragmatism were being observed then, it would be difficult for the organization to adopt with organizational change. An organization must create a shared vision or values framework to direct the culture change effort (). Having several ways of thinking would hinder the company or the organization to arrive at a specific goal, and hinders effective communication due to conflicts. However, it could also invite healthy conversations and debates among employees. This could also be used to brainstorm on certain ideas in coming up with providing solutions to company problems. With this problem, PwC can utilize some of the images of knowledge in their company, namely, embrained knowledge, embodied knowledge, encultured knowledge, and embedded knowledge. Embrained knowledge is knowledge that relies on conceptual and cognitive skills, and is usually abstract and involves higher levels of reasoning and understanding to make connections, and this can be used in relation to embodied knowledge, which is usually acquired in action, and depends on face-to-face interaction and discussion, emotional and sensory information, and many others. By applying this knowledge, the company will be able to develop encultured knowledge, or the process by which a company arrives at shared understandings of the group, organization, or even national, cultures. This involves the concept of socialization, which involves conversation conducted by individuals, and involves learning from experience and from experienced people by sharing such knowledge. These concepts build up embedded knowledge, a knowledge located in organizational routines or capabilities or, in the social and institutional arrangements, and it is found in systems in relations between technologies, the roles of people perform, the formal procedures of the organization, and the emergent routines (2005). This knowledge can be utilized and maximized to lessen pragmatism and promote the unity and harmony of the internal organizations in the company. In relation to this is the problem between the young and the old employees of the company, which triggers conflicts, for the senior employees in PwC are not informed or asked regarding the decisions of young directors and staffs. This presents discrimination among the employees, as each belongs to specific groups, and creates gaps among them. This must not be so, for in relation to the concepts of Human Resource Management, a workplace must be promoting equality and justice among its employees. With this problem, the company must be able to implement a Talent Management Strategy, for with disciplined talent management, through rigorous and continuous assessment, the company can develop the skills of their managers and match them with their jobs. Moreover, the company can retain creative recruitment and retention through refined and meaningful employee value propositions, and attain thoughtful executive development, through coaching, mentoring, and on-the-job experiences at key points in managers’ development (3). In addition, the company must be able to promote effective communication among its employees, including allowing its employees to participate it the decision-making of the company. In this way, every member of the company will be able to have a chance to state his or her opinion regarding problems, and even raise suggestions for solving the problems in the company.   Conclusion             PricewaterhouseCoopers is one of the largest international organizations, which offers a variety of services such as in Audit and Assurance, Crisis Management, Performance Improvement, Tax, and Transactions. Like many organizations, Human Resource Management is also important for this company for this concept encompasses a wide range of ideas that are applicable in assessing the performance and policies of an existing organization.             This paper has presented a variety of problems being experienced by PricewaterhouseCoopers in their organization, and several concepts and ideas regarding Human Resource Management have been used to evaluate the problems and present possible solutions. The main problem of the company is on implementing effective communication among its internal organizations, which was given solution through implementation and development of an effective and efficient information system. Another major problem is in terms of knowledge, which was given solution through providing training and employee development. In addition, through work or job redesign, employees will be given the chance to improve, increase work identification and increase productivity. With the problems presented, it is essential that a company must not only be aware of it and its effects, but its solutions and the concepts that can be used to solve them.

Human Resource Management: Application of Ideas and Concepts to a Specific Organization

Human Resource Management: Application of Ideas and Concepts to a Specific Organization Introduction Every business...

Human Resource Management for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Tanker Shipping Company

Human Resource Management for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Tanker Shipping Company               One of the company’s basic internal organizations is the Human Resource Management team, which is highly responsible with the maintenance of the company’s employees. The Human Resource Management or HRM team does a variety of tasks and functions, and is crucial in its objective concerning the work and interests of the employees in the company. Being a crucial team in any company, it is essential that it will be able to promote the development of their employees, not only in relation to job performance, but in terms of effective communication and interrelations as well. These functions will be useful for the operations of a shipping company, especially in relation to operations in the foreign or international market.             With the importance of such functions, this paper intends to propose Human Resource Management strategies that would be useful in ship management. These strategies would encompass management of tankers, and its crews. In addition, a critical analysis of the strengths and weakness of the proposed strategy or strategy will be indicated, including the reasons why a specific country was selected to obtain labor supply.             International Human Resource Management As an increasing number of organizations seek to operate in foreign markets, it is vital that management practitioners develop a better understanding of, and sensitivity to, the impact of different national settings on the management of tasks (1999). In addition, because HRM it is particularly concerned with all the activities that contribute to successfully attracting, developing, motivating, planning systematic approaches, and maintaining a high-performing workforce that result in organizational success (2002), Human Resource Management then, becomes important in the control of the labor force of any organization, especially in the shipping industry. Moreover, because it gives an increasing emphasis on the personal needs of the organization and its members, the challenge on its functions is to create an organizational environment in which each employee can grow and develop to his or her fullest extent. Its use would contribute to the success of the shipping industry, specifically to the case in point, as it aims at developing strategies for the total organization focused on clarifying its current and potential problems and developing solutions for them (2002). In relation to this, a business organization will not be able to adopt and implement useful strategies without assessing the objectives or aims of the organization. Because the new shipping line is based within the European Union, its level of strategy is based on multiple countries, such that there can be an increased need for integration with different corporate headquarters. Nevertheless, at this level of international strategy, the shipping lines would have significant operations, including assembly, manufacturing, service centers, Research & Development, and branch offices, in many countries and may well reach the condition where half or more of its sales and employment is in foreign countries (2004). With this in mind, an effective and efficient human resource management strategy must be developed, adopted and implemented to ensure and guarantee the smooth operations of the new tankers, and the management of its labor force.   Liquefied Natural Gas             Handling nine new LNG tankers for the new Human Resource Director would be an additional and tedious task and responsibility. Primarily, a Liquefied Natural Gas or LNG is a hazardous fuel frequently shipped in massive tankers in different countries, and is manufactured domestically and stored near population centers (2003). Its infrastructure consists of tankers, import terminals, and inland storage plants and its facilities are receiving great deal of public attention due to their increasingly important role in the nation’s energy infrastructure. Concerns about rising natural gas prices and the possibility of domestic gas shortages have recently been driving up demand for LNG imports. However, liquefied natural gas tankers contain hazardous chemicals transported and stored in large quantities ( 2003), and with its mishandling, it can cause accidents that may bring about serious damages to the environment, to many animals, and to humans as well.             It has been reported that natural gas is combustible, and its uncontrolled release poses a serious hazard of explosion or fire (2003). In addition, the threat for it to cause serious damage is due to its coldness. Some catastrophic events that could arise from mishandling these tankers include pool fires, which is an intense fire, burning far more hotly and rapidly than oil or gasoline fires and cannot be extinguished. Another catastrophic event is the flammable vapor clouds that may drift some distance from the spill site, and if it encounters an ignition source, the portions of the cloud with a combustible gas-air concentration will burn. Though not as toxic, vapor cloud can cause asphyxiation by displacing breathable air. Lastly, accidents from LNGs can cause flameless explosions, and although this may not be as violent as vapor clouds and pool fires, they could contribute to the destruction of the environment, properties, and lives (2003). With the accidents and catastrophic events that could arise from the mishandling and mismanagement of such LNG tankers, the role of the ship crews is highly important in its maintenance.   Human Resource Strategy             The strategy or strategies that could be used by the Human Resource Management team are based on three theoretical perspectives among others. These theoretical perspectives include the General Systems Theory, the Role Behavior Perspective, and the Human Capital Theory. The General Systems Theory is used to describe a competence management model of organizations, where skills and abilities are treated as inputs from the environment, employee behaviors are treated as throughput, and employee satisfaction and performance are treated as outputs (1995). In the Role Behavior Perspective, it shifts the focus from individuals to social systems characterized by multiple roles, multiple role senders, and multiple role evaluators, instead of using specific behaviors and job performances as the fundamental components. By implication, HRM in this perspective, it helps employees meet the expectations of role partners within the organization at organizational boundaries, and beyond (1995). Lastly, Human Capital Theory can also be used as a basis, for human capital or the productive capabilities of people, such as his or her skills, experience and knowledge, have economic value to organizations because they enable it to be productive and adaptable. Thus, all costs related to eliciting productive behaviors from employees, including those related to motivating, monitoring, and retaining them, which constitute human capital investments made in anticipation of future returns (1995).             These theories and perspectives can be used as a basis for the strategies to be adopted and implemented, as they are based on the performance of an organization’s employees. Primarily, the shipping company must be able to generate a highly effective and efficient Human Resource Management team that will contribute to the profitability, quality and safety of processes in the facility, including its close integration, careful planning, and decision-making. This is possible through planning and implementing strategies, in accordance to the improvement of the Human Resource Management team.             In managing the new nine Liquefied Natural Gas tankers, a strategy, which would be most beneficial, includes the improvement of the five strategic areas including leadership, people, policy, partnership, and resources (2003). Leadership – The leadership of the new Human Resource Director must be improved and developed to ensure the improvement of his or her skills in handling new responsibilities in the company. Details of the improvement of the leadership characteristics of the HR Director include the following: Ø  The new HR Director can adopt any or all of the six styles of leadership, namely, authoritative or charismatic, affiliative, democratic, coaching, pace-setting, and coercive leadership styles (2000). Ø  He or she can learn the advantages and disadvantages of handling and mishandling of the LNG tankers. This involves the thorough accumulation of knowledge through continuous research in finding innovative ways to prevent accidents and in maintaining the tankers. Ø  Promoting effective communication between all the members of the team and its director, including consultation regarding issues that affect them and their work Ø  Implementing all the company’s policies and procedures to guarantee the ship’s smooth operations People – The improvement and development of the members of the HR team is also crucial and can be implemented through the following strategies: Ø  Like the new HR Director, because the HR team is under new management, the members or the new selected officers can undergo newly improved employee training and development to help them acquire knowledge regarding the new responsibilities that they have. Ø  The whole team can encourage greater flexibility to meet the service demands through rewards, incentives, and frameworks for career and personal development ( 2003). Policy – the policies in the HR team must be in line with the overall policy of the whole business organization Ø  It must ensure the health, safety, and welfare of all employees through a clear policy framework based upon legislative requirements Ø  Monitoring and review of the effectiveness of all existing policies and procedures for further improvement Partnership – this includes establishing a pleasant and effective relationship and communication with the company’s partners Ø  Developing and maintaining the company’s employment policies and report on the resultant findings and implications Ø  Supporting departmental and corporate initiatives intended to improve access to services and employment by members of disadvantaged and minority groups Ø  Developing a clear policy to balance the changing needs of a diverse workforce with service priorities including a commitment to review work-life balance initiatives Resources – This involves the efficient and adequate allocation of resources, in accordance to the needs of its members. Ø  Identifying the needs, requirements and priorities for all functions in line with corporate objectives, the corporate plan, and the departmental service plans of all departments Ø  Establishing qualitative and quantitative performance targets and indicators to continually improve standards Ø  Promoting the role and continuously developing the members of the teams engaged in service delivery, supporting and enabling them to deliver quality and cost-effective services   Reason for the Strategy             The strategy proposed in this paper is the development and improvement of the five strategic areas in the aspect of Human Resource Management because the development of these areas encompasses the development of the entire HR team and the whole organization as well. The leadership and skills of the new appointed HR Director must first be improved to be able to ensure the development of the whole HR team. If the members of the team will be able to perceive this development, then it would be easier for the whole team to coordinate with one another and promote teamwork. Thus, this will be useful for the management of the whole company’s workforce, and enable the HR Director effectively communicate with employees to manage the new LNG tankers. The continuous accumulation of knowledge of the new HR Director would also be helpful to achieve the loyalty, motivation and satisfaction of the company’s employees, for they can recognize the efforts of the director to help them in managing new responsibilities. This would not be possible without the help and support of the rest of the employees, for their ideas are also crucial for the improvement of its management. The support and help of the rest of the employees can boost the morale of the officers and even complement their actions, thus, resulting to loyalty and satisfaction.             In addition, this strategy would surely promote and encourage efficient and effective management of the new LNG tankers, in accordance to the implementation of effective policies. This can be possible, as these policies serve as guide for the proper actions of each selected officers and the workforce of the company, in encouraging peace and order in the whole organization and in the vessels. With these policies, the partners of the company will be able to perceive security of their assets, as being protected by the management of the company. Thus, the implementation of such policies would also provide adequate and systematic allocation of resources in the company. These effects would surely contribute to the satisfaction, motivation, and loyalty of the selected officers and crew of the nine new LNG tankers. With such strategy, the new crew who would be in charge of the management of the nine LNG tankers would perceive and recognize the efficiency and effectiveness of the whole company to develop, adopt, and implement strategies and procedures, with putting first the welfare and safety of its employees and the reputation of the company.   Strengths and Weaknesses of Strategy             The strengths of the strategy include the continuous development of the skills and leadership of the HR Director, thus, this event would further him or her to lead the company. The development of such skills and talents can be helpful in setting a good example for other employees and leaders of other departments. Another strength in implementing such a strategy is ensuring the continued processes of the company, in accordance to its mission and vision. This would contribute to the continued success of the company in its industry. Third, the development of the five strategic areas of management would enable the company to adopt advanced and innovative techniques, such as adopting new information systems and software programs, which would help the company promote and encourage effective and efficient internal and external communications. Fourth, the satisfaction of the company’s employees and key players can promote employee retention, thus, reducing employee turnovers, which would help the company reduce its costs in hiring employees. In addition, strength of the strategy also includes the maximization of the potential of each employee in the company, to contribute his or her ideas, actions, and skills for the success of the operations of the whole company. The success of the strategy would also contribute to the further establishment of the reputation of the shipping company that would help with its retention in the industry. In addition, the success of the strategy would decrease the accidents or catastrophes related in the mishandling and mismanagement of the LNG tankers that would endanger the lives of many organisms and of humans, including the environment and a number of properties. Lastly, the success of the strategy would ensure and guarantee the overall development of the company, not only in terms of the improvement in its management, but also with the improvement of the allocation of its resources.             However, despite the number of advantages or strengths of the proposed strategy, a few weaknesses can still be identified. Primarily, the rapid and drastic development in the company may lead to the under-development of other employees who may fail to cope with the changes and high standards that the company may employ, thus, leading to inefficiency. In addition, the rapid and drastic changes and development may result to conflicts within teams of different departments, due to the issue of pragmatism and too much involvement in the businesses of others to show dominance. This would lead to the increase in competition among employees, thus, creating more conflict and decreasing teamwork and coordination. Lastly, the use of such strategy may drastically raise the standards of the employees, which may create conflicts within the organization, if their standards are not met or satisfied.   Source of Labor             Because the base of these LNG tankers is in Europe, it would be beneficial for the company to employ or hire individuals near their base. However, employment rates from the countries in Europe are high, compared to the employment rates in Third World countries. In addition, labor is cheaper in Third World or developing countries, thus, enabling the companies from the West to hire employees from developing nations, such in the regions of Asia. It would be beneficial for both parties if the company will be hiring qualified employees belonging to developing nations, such the Philippines, India, Malaysia, China, and many others. Hiring workers from these countries would help with their economy, lessening their unemployment rate, and utilizing their talents and skills in the operations of the company. They will be hired to be responsible for the management of the new LNG tankers for these individuals are used to in working in risky and dangerous environment, thus, working in the new vessels and maintaining them would be much easier for them. In addition, the workforce from these countries are known to be hard-working and intelligent individuals, whose skills and talents can be maximized for the operations of the company.   Meeting the Requirements of International Legislation             To restrict and control the operations of shipping companies, including this company, it is guided by the regulations and procedures under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea or the UNCLOS. This can serve to be a good guide for the shipping company in relation to its proper management to prevent having conflicts with other shipping companies and in passing through territories. In addition, the UNCLOS is a good guide for all shipping companies in terms of committing crimes or violations, which caused water pollution or destruction of the environment and all the organisms in it that, are related to neglect or mismanagement of ship crews and the shipping company. Part of the development of the company and the management of additional vessels, the company will be strictly complying with the rules under the UNCLOS. In addition, the company will also have its strict compliance with the regulations set by the European Union Shipping Laws. As a response to the new initiatives working on by the EU and the United States in relation to making shipping trade and travel more secured (2005), the company will be making sure that the natural gas contents of the new tankers would only be the sufficient amount required for its storage. In addition, the company would be making sure that overloading of supplies and of crew would not be allowed to ensure the safety of the ship and its crew. Moreover, as a response to this, the company would have to make sure that the regular maintenance of the new ships would be done, to guarantee that the vessels are functioning well, without the threat of causing serious and deleterious accidents that may endanger the lives of many individuals, expensive properties, and the environment.   Conclusion             The Human Resource Strategy proposed in this paper would be essential in the operations and management of the new LNG vessels. The company must first focus in internal development and improvement before targeting the overall performance of the company. However, the company must also consider other options to be able to fully maximize the potential and the performance of its employees, which in turn, contribute to the success of the shipping company. From this, it can be deduced that the interaction of all the factors in the company must be assessed before coming up with strategies that would enable success.

Human Resource Management for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Tanker Shipping Company

Human Resource Management for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Tanker Shipping Company One of the company’s basic internal o...

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