Human resource plan Assignment

Task 1

1. Identify targets and goals of human resource plan

VTI group’s main strategy is to add an additional selling line by selling their products online and implementing an e-commerce strategy to increase market share and satisfy customer needs, thereby increasing overall profitability which will be in line with the company’s strategic direction.

Targets:

• Recruiting 8 online sales and customer service staff to manage online customers.
• Out of this, 4 could be recruited from to office existing stores as few stores are over staffed.
• Train current staff in online customer service skills.
• Management will train existing staff to handle online sales.
• 6 delivery trucks needed for distribution.
• Ecommerce website should be developed in 50 days.
• Office space will need to be re-managed and configured.

HR Goals

• Recruitment
• Retention
• Training
• Succession planning
• Career Development
• Pay and reward
• Performance management
• Motivation and employee engagement

2. How will above policies and procedures can have an impact on staff

Recruitment

Recruiting 8 online sales and customer service staff to manage online customers and out of this, 4 could be recruited from to office existing stores as few stores are over staffed. It is important that VTI performs internal recruitment before doing external recruitment. This involves analysing the business plan or maintaining contact with operational managers about their requirements. Recruitment activities need to be timed to allow for the recruitment process and any training activities required to make the personnel ‘job ready’ when needed.

Training

Since entry level, low-skill jobs are usually easier to fill than positions for skilled employees, training existing staff to meet future needs is a valuable strategy. These employees can then be monitored to identify suitable candidates for training and development to move into more skilled positions. These individuals may be identified at the initial recruitment phase or through their work appraisals. This process of identifying and training internal personnel to fill vacancies is also called succession planning.

Internships

The strategy of setting up recruitment centres at universities and other training organisations is very similar to the way national sporting associations recruit; they source the best candidates before anyone else has the chance to do so. Usually the organisation first in with the best offer gets the recruit. Selecting the candidate with the best potential and signing them up for an internship allows the organisation to prepare them for a graduate role while they are assisted through their studies.

Pay and reward

Constant changes in legislation or changes within the market may wish a definite approach to pay and reward at within the organisation. These strategies ought to be economical or modernised to mirror current trade norms and thus the expectations of the personnel.

Professionalism

When representing VTI group, staff should dress and behave appropriately. Employees should choose to dress in a manner which presents a professional image to the public and is respectful to others. Excessive use of profanity is neither professional nor respectful to co-workers and will not be tolerated.

Hours of work

The regular office house of VTI groups will be 8am to 4:30pm Monday through Friday with core operational hours being 9am to 3:30pm. During core hours it is expected that more stuff will be available. All employees are expected to work 7.5 hours per day.

3. Identify and perform research on economic trends, labour market trends, new product or services to be introduced.

Strategic HR planning should not be placed in isolation from what's happening outside VTI. To do so would be to miss opportunities and failed to take account of learn from a wide range of external factors. An environmental analysis would have to be taken place as part of the VTI’s overall strategic plan. Indeed it would be very unwise for VTI to plan for its future whilst ignoring what's around on around it.

Economic

• Economic growth and decline
• Interest rates
• Wage rates
• Minimum wages
• Working hours
• Unemployment
• Cost of living

Social

• Culture norms and expectations
• Health consciousness
• Populations growth rate
• Age distribution
• Career attitudes
• Emphasis on safety
• Global warming

4. Analyse any impact on employees due to any technological, political or legislative changes

Political

• Tax Policies
• Employment laws
• Environment regulations
• Trade restriction
• Tariffs
• Political stability

Technological

• Mobile Phone technology
• Web 2.0
• Social networking websites

Legislative

Commonwealth and state laws cover EEO and anti-discrimination in the workplace. All employees should be able to participate in and comply with a workplace free from discrimination and harassment. It is important that as a leader, you understand your rights and responsibilities under human rights and anti-discrimination law. By putting effective anti-discrimination and anti-harassment procedures in place in your team, you can ensure compliance with the law. The Australian Human Rights Commission can provide information and advice for workplaces and the Fair Work Ombudsman provides resources about how to prevent discrimination in the workplace.

5. Identify staffing needs due to the above said changes

• 6 delivery trucks
• E-commerce website
• 3 forklifts
• 4 additional warehouse for workers
• Office space will need to be re-managed configured
• Human resource management
• Store manager
• Team leaders

6. Discuss the impact of new technology on job being performed and related employee.

Technology is advancing at a rapid pace. The job roles in VTI that exist now are not appropriate in the future due to technology advances as it is focusing on E-commerce. When considering the HR strategy planning process it is important to consider how technological advances might change the ways of working. When considering the impact of Technology on job roles it may be useful to think in terms of how the technology will affect:

• The work people do
• The number of people required to do the work
• The location of people doing the work
• Working practices and procedures
• The knowledge and skills required to do this work

Digital technology will enable workers to work from remote locations to exchange data more quickly. This efficiency will increase the productivity of VTI group. This will not impact on the number of workers but it will impact a significant way of working which will lead to changes and procedures in HR planning.

Task2

1. Memo and meeting minutes

10:00am: Introduction

10:15am: Objectives and targets discussed

10:30am: Internal and External environments were analysed

11:15am: Current Employees skills

11:45am: Discussed additional human resource requirement

12:30pm: Discussed cost-benefit analysis of new technologies

1:00pm: Agree on HR philosophies, values and policies with relevant managers

1:20pm: Discussed recruiting options

2:00pm: Conclude the meeting

2. Define HR objectives and targets

Objectives

• Customised engagement through marketing research and personalised services
• Improve employment satisfaction by 25%
• Reduce direct and indirect cost of operation
• Support people to improve via training and performance management
• Increase online sales revenue

KPIs

• Increase quality of online sales and service information and decrease order mistake to 1%.
• Speed of online service : Average time of completion less than 10 minutes
• Target average speed of delivery within 3 days
• Increase online sales revenue to $300,000
• Increase Profits to $ 80,000
• Budget 10% overrun
• Implement e-commerce strategy in October

3. How will you make managers agree on human resource philosophies, values and policies

VTI group wishes to maintain a work environment that fosters personal and professional growth for all employees. Maintaining such an environment is responsibility of every staff person. Because of their role, managers and supervisors have additional responsibility to lead in a manner which fosters an environment of respect for each person

• Foster cooperation and communication among each other
• treat each other in a fair manner with dignity and respect
• promote Harmony and teamwork in all relationships
• strive for mutual understanding of standards for performance exceptions and communicate routinely to promote that understanding
• encouraging consider opinions of other employees or members and invited application in decisions that affect their work and their careers
• encourage growth and development of employees by helping them achieve their personal goals and the organisation and beyond
• seek to a wide workplace conflict and if it occurs respond fairly and quickly to provide the means to resolve it
• administer all policy secretively and fairly recognising that job are different but it is important that individual performance should be recognised and measured against printer to my standards and that each employee has the right to fair treatment
• recognise that employee in their personal lives may experience crisis and show compassion and understanding

4. Develop cost benefit analysis on new technology and resources required to support human resource plan

Cost of E-commerce strategy
Resource	Costs
Plant and equipment	Delivery Trucks $75,000X6=$450,000 Forklifts $20,000X3=$60,000
Promotional Costs	$500,000
Web Developlers	Contractors $2000X50=$100,000
Staff Training	Online customer service training $3000 per staff $3000X8=24,000

Cost of E-commerce strategy (initial investment)
Resource	Costs
Recruitment cost	$30,000
Management change leadership training for store managers and team leaders	$3000 each = 1 Melbourne CBD store manager, 4 Melbourne CBD team leaders, 1 Melbourne Suburban Store manager and 3 subarban team leaders X $2000=$27,000
Warhouse and office reconfiguration	$50,000
Total	$1,241,000

Additional Staff:

$55,000 year average = (4+4+6) x $55,000=$770,000 per year for 3 years=$2,310,000

Benefits

Year 1	Year 2	Year 3
Cash flow from operations (minus ongoing operational costs associated with e-commerce such as additional staffing	$500,000	$700,000	$1,000,000
Present value of futute cash flows (discount future cash flows with respect to opportunity cost, inflation)	$420,000+$600,000+$880,000=$1,900,000
Present value of initial investment	$1,241,000
Profitability index	1.53

5. Determine different options of hiring

There are several options available for the provision of HR services including:

• External provisions by consultant or contractor
• Having the work performed elsewhere
• Internal human resource provision of the service
• Internal non-human resource provision of the service
• Merging of business units

6. Develop risk management plan for HR and plan to manage contingencies.

Risk	Risk Treatment	Contingencies
Training program not adequate to cover required skills and knowledge	Provide intensive training sessions to develop online skills.	Hiring External contractors to fill in temporary positions
Training too short and insufficient to be effective	Evaluate employees corresponding to training and provide extra days if necessary.	Hiring skilled professionals and providing them with the best training
Staff unable to perform roles due to lack of support in job roles and on-going training, coaching	Constantly re-enforce objectives and company culture with the new and existing teams.	Outsource skilled professional in E-Commerce and web development
Website downtime contributes to increased service and sales disruptions	Fix issues immediately not to lose any online sales	Automating online services and hiring skilled engineers to fix issues.
Sales continue to perform under target	Use web analytics to predict and understand customer behaviour	Due to constant changes in customer needs, keeping up with trends in online sales.

Task 3

1. Develop a communication plan defining the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the HRSP implementation process

All roles for implementing the strategic HR plan must be clearly described, explained and agreed to. This can be achieved by creating a matrix that defines roles, expectations and levels of accountability. The following is an example of a responsibility matrix that outlines key roles and responsibilities in a development plan. This matrix allows you to clearly identify and communicate who is responsible for what part of the implementation process:

• A: defines a responsibility for approving (they have ultimate accountability).
• R: defines a responsibility for reviewing material that will be distributed, which may include reports, documents, workbooks or key information.
• C: defines a responsibility for creating or developing. This should only be the person who is ultimately responsible, not people in the team who might participate in or contribute to this.
• I: defines key people who provide input.

Core Activities
Roles	Implementation plan and development	Budget	Communication and engagement	Implementation	Evaluation
HR director	A,I	A	A	A	A
HR manager	R,C	R,C	R,C	R,C	R,C
HR team leader 1	C	C	A,C	R	C
HR team leader 2	C	C	C	C	C
Leaders/Area managers	I	I	I,C	I	I,C

The schedule should include the activities required to implement the HR strategies and services, with assignment of each activity to HR team members. Start and completion dates for each activity and the required resources should also be identified. The HR team should identify a number of milestones, or achievement dates, throughout the implementation process. A milestone might be the approved design for the restructure of the marketing team. These milestones need to be monitored to ensure activities and tasks are tracking according to identified organisational time frames. The schedule is often presented in the form of a table, but some managers may develop a Gantt chart. The bar shows activity start, duration and completion, so long as the project manager regularly updates the chart.

2. Develop and conduct a survey and collect a data regarding success of the plan.

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you at work?

To get employee engagement right, VTI group must start with this question and ask it regularly. It's undoubtedly the most direct of questions to ask employees regarding workplace satisfaction. Regularly finding out where your company’s morale falls on the 10-point scale allows you to track morale over time. The key, however, is consistency.

1. Would you refer someone to work here?

How likely an employee would refer someone is a reflection on how satisfied this person is at their job. If they’re unhappy with their job, you can bet they don’t have much good to say to their friends about the company.

1. Do you have a clear understanding of your career or promotion path?

Employees who get the opportunity to continually develop are twice as likely to say they will spend their career with their company. Find out if your workers have a clear understanding of what lies ahead of them. If their answers are negative, VTI group needs to start offering developmental opportunities to prevent people from quitting in rapid succession.

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your work-life balance?

Employees need to balance work and their personal life in order to be productive and engaged. If employees are feeling lopsided, then that’s a red flag that signals burnout is right around the corner.

1. Hypothetically, if you were to quit tomorrow, what would your reason be?

Bad communication, lack of transparency, feeling unvalued — these can all be uncovered by asking this question. Responses to this ultra-insightful of engagement questions will inform you if your employees feel like they’re there to stay or if there are underlying issues that are driving them to look elsewhere for work.

Questions to ask employees about their manager

1. Do you feel valued at work?

Our research has revealed that only 21% of employees feel strongly valued at work. Use this question to gauge how valued workers in your organization are feeling.

1. How frequently do you receive recognition from your manager?

Find out how the leadership team is doing with recognizing their employees. If the majority of workers have said they’ve gone more than two weeks without recognition, there’s a good chance morale is dropping. And that can lead to disengagement, loss of productivity, and attrition.

1. The last time you accomplished a big project, did you receive any recognition?

Feeling valued at work is a huge motivator. This question will help uncover if leaders (or peers) have missed the mark when it comes to recognition. If employees don't feel their hard work is properly recognized, you can work together to find a solution to this problem.

Employee Retention

1. Do you believe you'll be able to reach your full potential here?

Employees want to work at a place that will nurture their desire for growth. The more opportunities for growth your organization can offer, the longer employees will stick around.

1. If you were given the chance, would you reapply to your current job?

This is a tricky question — the happier an employee is at their current job, the more likely they would be to reapply to that very same position. So if an employee rates on the lower end of the spectrum then they’re most likely unhappy and won’t be at the job for long.

1. Do you foresee yourself working here one year from now?

A question like this is pretty self-explanatory. However, it can say a lot about your retention rate. If a majority of your employees are saying they don’t see themselves working here in one year, you’ve got some changes to make.

1. Do you believe the leadership team takes your feedback seriously?

No one wants to work at a place that ignores their employees. When leaders don’t take feedback or suggestions seriously, it shows that they’re not committed to making improvements. And frankly, it makes employees feel unvalued.

3. Develop a review and provide a suggestion for continuous improvement

A number of methods can be used to measure the progress of the strategic HR plan, but a commonly used technique is to perform variance analysis between the planned and actual performance outcomes. VTI can compare metrics results from the period before introducing the service to the period post-implementation. The HRMS should be able to generate variance reports related to services performance. VTI can also gather feedback evidence from discussions and surveys to determine reasons for variances. One of the key activities of the implementation process is monitoring the budget allocated to the strategic HR plan.

Monitor the budget

Monitoring the HR budget is an essential process as it allows you to identify how the HR function is tracking based on its spending. This will give you an indication of whether or not the HR strategies are effective. Variance analysis is the key method used to monitor budget performance, where the planned amounts of funds used are compared against the actual amount used. The root causes of variances or issues identified from qualitative data need to be determined and addressed. For example, if there is a significant decrease in the use of WHS training funds from one month to the next, it may be due to a problem with managers ensuring staff are undertaking their required training.

Milestones review

A review of the effect of any barriers to reaching milestones is also required. If objectives or milestones are not reached, you need to identify the reasons why and develop solutions to the challenges and issues, which may include implementing new or additional actions. For example, if a target is to have 95 per cent of staff using the self-service function by month six of introduction, and your HR system reports indicate that only 80 per cent have used the service, you would follow up with a discussion with managers and perhaps an online survey of employees. Feedback may indicate that some of the self-service features are difficult to use. This will mean that features will need to be redesigned, and training on how to use the new features will need to be implemented. Another example might be that the wrong metrics are being used to determine results, and new metrics will need to be identified to effectively measure performance. Any adjustments will need to ensure that corrective action activities and tasks are incorporated into the plan and that the changes are communicated effectively to all stakeholders. It is important to note that corrective actions will generally need to be approved by senior management.

4. List the steps/plan that should be implemented, should any circumstances changes

The most stringent planning process can still be affected by unforeseen circumstances. A range of factors may affect implementation of the strategic HR plan, including changes in both the internal and external environments. Here are some of changes and impacts.

Changes

• An increase in turnover – due to the changes being implemented, staff decide to leave the organisation
• Time lines for implementation of the strategic HR plan are extended due to an inability to retain expert consultants
• Inability of staff to use new services due to lack of skill
• Changes to workplace legislation requiring a change in one or more HR strategies or services
• Other projects in the organisation impacting on its ability to resource implementation of the strategic HR plan
• VTI has an opportunity to merge or acquire another company
• Insufficient experience in the HR team to service new HR strategies due to staff leaving unexpectedly

Impact

The changes mentioned would require adjustments to the implementation plan, such as:

• changing the implementation option to a partial rollout instead of a full organisational rollout
• increasing or changing the training for staff in how to use the new HR processes and practices being introduced as part of the strategic plan
• changing the HR service to ensure it meets legislative requirements.

5. Evaluate and review the performance of the plan against objectives

The plan has introduced changes to increase productivity, improve staff morale, decrease the number of staff, increase workforce diversity, provide a staff incentive scheme or offer redundancies. Corresponding changes may have involved a restructure or the introduction of a reward system, a redundancy program, a redeployment scheme or a training and development program.

The outlined objectives of VTI are increasing market share and profit through the new internet store of the corporate. The performance of the online store has been effective up until currently and also the teams are performing effectively. The new employees might find it troublesome to cope up with the prevailing teams however the management has determined to begin associate informal program for new recruits. Up until currently the profits haven't increased as a result of the new store is functioning on the purpose of break-even however the feedback coming back from the shoppers is positive and it's expected within the next around the company can begin to form profits and lower their operational costs.