Introduction
No Name Aircraft is at a low point due to the challenges it is facing. The CEO of the company is under pressure to ensure that the company’s management is operating well. The company actively operates in four countries, with its headquarters in Australia and subsidiaries in China, Vietnam, and Singapore. It is an international company that sells aircraft to 50 countries across the world. However, the company faces a lot of challenges; thus, its operations are affected since all its customers are complaining.
The challenges have been identified as culture, lack of training, poor diversity management and poor international performance. There are a lot of threats from customers, which put the CEO under pressure since he has a chance of losing his job. However, all these issues are associated with the human resource management (HRM) department of the organization. The department has been found to be incompetent and unable to control the activities of the company in its capacity. Despite this, all the blame is directed at the CEO, who seeks a solution to maintain the market and increase the share price. Therefore, this study will analyze the culture, diversity management, international performance management, and training and development of the company in relation to the issues identified in the case study.
Diversity Management And Culture
Organizational culture is constituted by people’s beliefs and values that are assumed to be the way of responding to issues and opportunities in the organization. Hitka et al. (2010) support the view that culture is the company’s component that links relationships within the company and its operations. It holds the important and unimportant aspects of the organization and is considered the organization’s DNA. It cannot be seen with the human eye, but it runs the whole system of the company, shaping and deforming the organization. As argued by Schneider and Smith (2004), it is created by the leaders of the organization and, therefore, transferred to the other members of the company until the lowest level is reached. Still, it begins with those who were first in the company, and the beliefs and values are transferred to the new employees of the company. However, organizational culture does not affect employees’ lives while outside the organization. That is the reason why every organization has its own way of doing things, and it is difficult for a new person to introduce a new culture instead of incorporating it into the existing organizational culture.
Each organization has a distinguishing culture within its operation, although some similarities may exist. However, the similarities mostly occur in companies in the same industry. The organizational culture may have a great influence on the productivity of the company. For instance, some organizations will pay their staff at the end or the beginning of the month, while others will pay salaries in the middle of the month. Besides, some will still pay employees in the middle and at the end of the month, while others will pay on the day an employee joins the company. This may be done to ensure that the needs of the staff are well taken care of within the organization. On the other hand, some organizations tend to ask new employees for a small fee for recruitment.
This may be done to ensure the high performance of the employees and the delivery of quality services (Build, 2008). Some organizations are concerned with the well-being of the staff and support them with medical facilities or medical care, career development training, infected leaves or affordable cafeterias. The similarity of culture in organizations in the same industry normally occurs regarding charges imposed and services provided. However, how the services are deployed and charges are imposed or should be met may be different unless they are restricted by government policy.
Organizational culture is affected by different factors and government policies. Some factors that affect the culture in the organization are the influence of the national culture, events that have happened before in the organization, previous work settings of the individual and different personalities (Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 2007). Such factors may cause a lot of misunderstanding in the organization, as is evident in No Name Aircraft. However, the culture of the organization is a result of such influence on the leadership. It is difficult for a minor member of the organization to influence the beliefs and values of the organization; instead, the organizational culture influences them. For instance, in No Name Aircraft, the staff resists change, which is a result of communication breakdowns from the management spreading across the organization.
To solve a cultural issue in the organization, the leadership should be on the front line to accept the solution, which, of course, is done by some of them. If the leadership is dealt with, the solution will be transferred to the other staff members just as the negativity starts and spreads. Therefore, the cultural issue facing No Name Aircraft is easy to deal with if the management accepts the change. Regarding the same company, they need to change the structure of the organization to help minimize the complaints they are getting from aircraft breakdowns.
For instance, it is evident in the case study that there is a workload among the senior staff where one supervisor is in charge of 11 people in the wire harness assembly team. With such a number, dealing with critical parts of the craft under one person may be the cause of poor work; hence, breakdown reports are received shortly after supply. The communication breakdown in this organization is a problem coming from above since the staff complains of not receiving substantial instructions from their seniors, which implies that serious damage must be expected. Therefore, for No Name Aircraft to save the situation it is facing, the CEO needs to conduct a meeting with the management and senior staff to propose a solution that will last.
Diversity is a range of social groups included within the organization (Miller and Katz, 2002). In an organization, diversity may serve as an opportunity for the company’s growth when it is well managed. If it is not well managed, it may be a source of conflicts, disagreement and unsustainable productivity of the company (Robbins, 2013). Also, poor management of diversity in an organization creates a barrier to the progress of the organization; thus, it may pose a threat to the future expectations of the company. Considering the case study of No Name Aircraft, it is clear that there is discrimination against some groups, as people with disabilities are not being employed even if they best qualify.
Therefore, the company ends up employing incompetent people who are not well qualified, thus leading the company astray. Factors like age, ability, race and work experience, among others, signify diversity in an organization (Lestari, 2015). Therefore, a company that is not sensitive to these factors, such that it employs people of only a specific age or from a given group while others are not considered, is heading in the wrong direction. This reflects No Name Aircraft because it employs people of a given age and experience, and thus, most of the employees are not qualified for the tasks they do. Also, the seniors do not give reliable instructions.
This could be the reason for complaints from both government and non-government entities that purchase or use their craft. Therefore, the CEO should still go back to management and find out their areas of specialization and competence in order to try to solve the question of diversity. Besides, since the company operates in four countries, there should be an allowance for employees from all countries to be transferred from one country to another. Also, the company should be able to employ people with the required skills and qualifications despite their culture, race, ability or age. All these should be well managed by the Department of Human Resource Management.
International Performance Management, Training, And Development
For a multinational company, the effectiveness of human resource management will be assessed through its international performance management. Performance management is a tool that evaluates and improves both individual and corporate performance within the organization (Chiang & Birtch, 2010; Claus & Briscoe, 2009). Human resource management is a very impactful aspect that influences the company’s progress internationally and may also cause stagnation of the company (Nishii, Lepak & Schneider, 2008). It plays a great role in attracting more international customers, especially for aircraft companies like No Name. Other than that, performance management plays a good role in the compensation process (Berber et al., 2012). Therefore, the multinational company ought to ensure that its international operations can be well accounted for to win the trust of the customers.
Regarding the case study of No Name Aircraft, we realize that there is a failure in international management. Since it is a multinational company operating in four nations, the reviews should be done at the headquarters and in the subsidiary companies. This is not the case with No Name Aircraft, where the reviews are only done at the headquarters, and a final decision is made, resulting in conflicting performance. Despite the fact that the company has its own culture of operation, it should not be ignored that there are cultural differences in these four nations that influence the operation of the company. Therefore, it is good for the management to ensure that all the operations in each country are run successfully and effectively so that the company can be considered for a better position. It is also clear that the company operates without a measure, making it difficult to rate its performance. This is a risk to the future of the company since the management has little information about the operations of the company in subsidiary companies; thus, they have no expectations.
Most of the staff of the MNC are expatriates who need to be well informed about the places they are asked to work in. They need good knowledge about the course of work, the culture, and common challenges in the new countries before they leave. Variables that may lead to the success or failure of the expatriate in the foreign country should be made clear both to the management and the expatriate (Brewster et al., 2007). This calls for a one-on-one talk between the management representative and the expatriate so that the necessary information about the foreign country can be tabled. However, this is not common with No Name Aircraft. They refer expatriates to online information, but none of the management is sure whether the employee will read through it since there is no place for confirmation. This indicates that the management of No Name Aircraft is incompetent and shows some laziness in performing its roles, leading to the underperformance of the company both locally and internationally.
Despite the growth in technology, human labour is still necessary for organizations. Even to operate the machines that are involved in doing work, a skilled person still needs to take control of them. However, employers have given less attention to training employees and developing their careers. This is the beginning of poor work and services provided by most companies. Training and development involve an expert and learners working together so that the learners may get the necessary skills from the expert and be promoted to new roles (McNamara, 2008). It is the role of HRM to assign supervisors to learners and to promote well-performing persons. The HRM also ought to plan training sessions for its employees and send some of them to seminars just to ensure that they are equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills.
A company that supports the training and development of its employees has a competitive advantage over its rivals (Kamal et al., 2008). Without the training, the individuals in the company become incompetent and perform poorly, reflecting the performance of the company both locally and internationally. Regarding No Name Aircraft, the recent failure of the company is due to a lack of training and development. First, one supervisor is attached to many learners, causing slowness and ineffectiveness in their work. It seems that the supervisors are also not well informed about the requirements of the work. Thus, they provide little instruction, which is not helpful. Therefore, the staff does the work with little knowledge, resulting in negative outcomes since the company is receiving complaints and threats from customers to withhold up to 100%.
There is no new knowledge added to the employees, risking the company’s future progress. The expatriates receive no training about the work they are sent to do, and thus, they don’t perform well. This implies that the roles of HRM, like training, promotion, benefits, involvement, incentives, health, and safety, as stated by Katou and Budhwar (2006), are not performed well, thus negatively affecting the company.
Conclusion
Human resource management plays a critical role in the company’s development. It has a role in controlling the cultural practices of the company, ensuring that there are no misunderstandings or communication failures. The department should ensure the employment of diverse people and ensure that differences among people will not affect the company’s growth. There should be unity in the differences while at the company. International performance management needs to be measured well to allow the company to rate individual and company performance both locally and internationally. This falls within the roles of human resource management. Since it is the same department taking care of employment, the employees of the company need to be empowered with the necessary skills through training and promotion to give the company a competitive advantage over rivals. The CEO of No Name Aircraft, through human resource management, should make sure that within the little time given, the company values and beliefs will be good and not cause destruction. Therefore, management at all costs needs to be keen on changing the company’s productivity, identifying the loopholes of failure, and creating a positive environment for the company’s growth.
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