Human resources plays a crucial role in recruiting, training, performance management, compensation and evaluation of organizations’ manpower. These functions are essential for an organization’s performance, and therefore, they form part of an organization’s critical plan for service delivery. According to Kapoor (2015), empowering the human resource department adds value to an organization’s strategy, and make sure that it can carry out its responsibilities in a way that supports the development and success of an organization. However, an effective human resource should have a clear relationship with the organization’s strategy to allow an organization to support its function better within its human resources. Mostly, human resources understands what a company’s business strategy demands, and it makes sure that a company has the right people in place (Kapoor, 2015). People who can help an organization achieve its objectives and support its growth as well.
It is important to align the human resource functions with a company’s strategic plan because the HR department is the department that lays down the groundwork for the building of the strategic plan. The human resources derived the vision so that all the HR policies can be applied to outline the strategic plan for the company, which can benefit the organization. Therefore, human resources outlines the strategic vision and strategic goals of a company and hence allows the organization to achieve its set strategic goals.
Aligning the human resource function with Maersk’s strategy would allow the company to have the right manpower with the ability, skills and experience to drive the growth plan of the company. It would also make sure that Maersk’s human resource department is integrated into the highest rank of the organization, which is a senior strategic management committee and therefore, HR can work across the company to ensure that human resource needs are given consideration with other organizational investment plans. It would make sure HR requirements are included in Maersk’s strategy so that the company does not feel the lack of certain HR requirements during the process of implementation of the strategies. The human resource would provide training and assessment to ensure that everyone recruited meets the demand of the Maersk strategy. It would make sure the company achieves the objectives and goals set without setbacks.
However, for successful alignment of the business strategy with HR, the use of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs could address issues that can improve performance, hence the smooth implementation of Maersk’s strategy. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs addresses the needs of employees through motivation, and this can be implemented as the organization aligns its strategy with the HR department. Without motivation, the key organization’s strategy would be realization since working with demoralized employees is not an easy task. Therefore, besides conducting staffing, performance evaluation, training and performance management, the HR department will also motivate employees to ensure that set strategies are achieved within the given time frame.
The latest or current global condition in Maersk impacts the human resource management (HRM) practices within the organization. First, due to the fact that Maersk is an international company, it should be fully aware of global conditions that affect human resources and the kind of effects that such conditions can have on the company. It is therefore, advisable for the human resource department to remain flexible to allow it to be ready to adapt to any global condition which might take place. It will help the organization to do away with policies that are very stagnant. For example, Maersk had always hired a pool of young graduates with little experience and then subjected them to training before assigning them responsibilities. However, due to the high turnover expected from employees, the company must reevaluate its training and hiring policies. The actions taken to conduct reevaluation indicate that Maersk’s human resource department can adapt to any changes that are realized in the global condition to make sure that the company stands vibrant in the industry in service provision.
Staffing
Staffing is an important part of HR responsibilities and the quality of employees depends on the methods applied by an organization to recruit workers. However, Maersk has developed a tendency to hire young and inexperienced employees the train them to grasp the working ethics and adapt to the working environment to help drive the company’s agenda. The company has built an atmosphere where employees will work for over forty years without leaving. The company management usually finds it very difficult to hire underperforming employees because of the family atmosphere which have been built in the company. This aligned with Maersk’s vision and goals by having a homogenous family-focused culture.
It makes sure that employees serve the company for a longer time and enjoy working without getting worried about getting fired, as happens in other companies. It is not about whether to buy or build employees to be able to deliver the service required by the company; it is about maintaining employees to feel motivated to perform better. Therefore, Maersk took advantage of its internal and external recruiting strategy to hire talented, experienced and skilled employees. After the recruitment of employees, Maersk provides efficient training to ensure that new employees have a grasp of the goals and objectives of the company.
Therefore, Maersk believes in creating a family environment where employees do not feel threatened. Internal recruitment is the idea of promoting employees who are already working for the company to fill the newly created positions. The biggest advantage of practicing internal hiring is that the internal employees are already aware of an organization’s practices, and therefore, extra training or coaching might not be needed, and it will be easily for internal employees to adapt to the new position than a newly recruited employee from outside. Internal candidate might limit the company, though an internal candidate understands the working around the company, such a candidate might not understand the global business and therefore, it might make the company to loss having all around employees who can face the new global conditions. The internal recruitment of employees might disadvantage the company since the employees might not understand global operations such as tax law, global shipment law and other laws that guide international business operations.
However, the external employees have positive views and are ready to adjust to deliver so that they can meet the goals set. The external employees must learn about the company, working culture, and the corporate structure to be able to deliver. The company is likely to benefit from new ideas, skills and experiences which can help the company achieve its objectives. Once they learn about the company’s way of operations and can effectively discharge their duties, the company can benefit from diversity, which shall be brought in by the newly recruited employees. It is important to include both internal and external processes of approach when recruiting doing staffing so that the people coming are diversified and also have enough experience to face the new global conditions.
In order to recruit new employees, Maersk created a recruitment team called Human Resource Business Development, which comprised twenty-four experienced staff. This team often consulted the board of directors often the type of employees which were needed since they were in charge of recruiting one hundred and twenty employees. The consultation was also done with the board to determine their positions and other terms of the contract, and therefore, this helped the company to recruit the best employees who could align with the company’s strategic objectives.
Training
The need assessment is important to the organization since it determines which employee needs training and which specific area. The HR must identify the gaps in the personal and the current capabilities to assess whether an employee needs training or not. The company must also conduct an analysis if those gaps which to be trained the new employees are needed or not. The training should be based on what the company desires so that every employee trained by the company adds value to the workforce.
The organization must make sure that every department is properly accessed to come up with the needs of the company. So that employees are trained on the specific issues or fields that are required by the company? The venue of the training would be close and accessible so that the identified employees can access and get trained without any delay. The assessment on deciding the venue to be conducted is based on the number of people to be trained and the cost which shall be used to cover the training.
The learning activities are importance because they make sure that the right information is provided to the employees. It contains detailed training schedules and materials and therefore, it makes training easy and efficient.
Compensation
The compensation policy is a philosophy that contains the way an organization plans to make certain payments and benefits. The company compensation philosophy is derived from the Danish Companies Act of 2010. The act illustrates that the agreement there must a set agreement for incentive pay for members of the board and there must be away to decide on the payment methodology which should be through vote. The decision on all payments should be made by the board in the executive board meeting and must be decided by a vote. This philosophy is affected by the status of the market in several ways, and it is always based on the market performance and the profit generated by the company. It is, therefore, affected by the market success and the profit margin that the company has generated in a given period. The compensation agreement should, therefore, include all payments that an organization intends to pay an employee,e including bonuses, incentives and other allowances that might be decided at a later time. The compensation philosophy is also affected by the market performance, and the payment to the employees is also determined by the market performance. However, when the market performance is good or successful, the compensation is high and reduced when any changes happen to the market.
Salary Survey
The salary survey is usually conducted by an organization so it can understand the payment criteria being used by other organizations to pay employees. This survey is usually focused on how other organizations pay for specific job groups with specific qualifications. It also helps in understanding the way bonuses, incentive allowances and other payments are done by similar organizations in the market. This salary survey adds a lot of value to the company since it makes the company understand the gaps in the payment so that it can implement competitive payment to employees. However, it is important to conduct a salary survey at the beginning to make sure that the salary standard is set to indicate the strength of the organization when compared with other companies. The utilization of this survey provides an employee with an opportunity to gauge whether the company is worth being employed to, and therefore, the survey is essential in the organization for the growth of employees and the company as well.
Advantages Of Discretional Benefit Which Maersk May Benefit
Discretionary is beneficial to the company if it is utilized properly. This can be achieved when the detailed information is given to the personnel. The discretionary includes child care benefits, a pension plan and health insurance coverage. However, Maersk Global Company might utilize the discretionary benefit to help uplift the morale of employees and, therefore, it helps in building good relationships in the company and, therefore, is likely to make employees perform better so that they can keep their work.
Evaluation
Role in performance management
HR plays a critical role in making sure that employees are developed so that they can perform and deliver. The HR focuses on organizational development, employee development, relations skills and promotion. These functions are actively done by the HR managers to ensure that all employees are up to the task and can deliver specific assignments. It also manages the relations between employees and also records the performance of every employee, which is used for evaluation. This is because the world is constantly evolving and the business changes, and therefore, the role of human resources must also revolve around meeting the expectations in the market. The human resource is also responsible for ensuring that the process of management is aligned with the strategic plan of the company. It is because it determines the direction which the company intends to take. The needs of the company must be identified so that the recruit must be individuals who can help address those needs.
Bibliography
Kapoor, B. (2015). Impact of Globalization on Human Resource Management. Professor and Chair, Information Systems & Decision Sciences, 2-34.
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