Jinnikins Jeans

HRM Analysis of Jinnikin Jeans

The responsibilities of the Human Resource Department:

The Human Resource Department is required to carry out several responsibilities. This department is of a vital importance to the whole organization as it helps bridge the gaps between the employers and the employees acting as a mediator between the two. The needs of the employees are communicated to the employers and the expectations of the employers are communicated to the employees clarifying many misunderstandings of the two parties. The human resource management if effectively lead can remove any needs for a worker's union as it represents both the work force as well as the organization. Although, the human resource or the asset of the employees is the most vital for any organization, it also creates many problems and performance issues for the company as a whole. If not attended to with care and attention, these labor issues can result into serious retaliations such as strikes, rioting, go-slow attitude and work to rule policies which can seriously affect the productivity of a business (Borrington & Stimpson 2006).

The responsibilities of a Human Resource Department are as under:

* To recruit and select new employees.

* To train and coach staff members who need training in their respective fields

* To pay wages and salaries to members of staff (prepare payment packages including perks and benefits)

* To ensure health and safety policies for all members

* To develop policies of redundancy and dismissal

* To deal with labor unions or with any other representatives of the workers.

(Borrington & Stimpson 2006)

However, according to the case study many of the above policies were not being carried out by the HR department headed by Etty who was a family relative of Trevor and George. Moreover, there were many flaws from the end of the HR department as it worked on a reactive approach than a proactive approach. The bank's brokerage service needed to develop an automated system to make reliable investment recommendations for its clients. The problem was critical because the banks clients expected timely, valuable investment advice customized to their individual needs. Providing it would require operations research expertise in reviewing numerous investment options, generating potentially successful investment portfolios, and decision making.

Jennikins Jeans' Human Resource approach was very unprofessional and incompetent. From the case study it seems that the organization had no set approach of carrying out its human resource functions. Sandy, the Financial Director, seems to have some idea of a policy that should be laid down for the organization to become more organized and ordered; however, Trevor and George seem to renounce this idea as this would stifle the creativity of its employees. This idea was advocated by Etty, the HR manager who believed that the employees would feel suffocated with a strong policy and hold of the HR department. Hence, no strong policy had been formulated governing redundancy or induction of new employees and had no legal procedure of its own to handle such issues.

Good HR Techniques Lacking Direction:

The HR department did seem to come up with good and innovative ideas such as sending employees to Milan and Paris in fashion shows to reward them, however, such motivation techniques did not seem to work as the performance was not closely linked the rewards. Moreover, job rotation allowed workers with diversity of work but due to mismanagement and lack of training to workers on other diverse jobs would usually end in wastage of a lot time and ended up in lower overall output. Although these concepts were great and had they been employed effectively they could have helped immensely in boosting up the employees' morale and would motivate them to produce efficiently. (Mathis & Jackson 2007).

Inter-Organization Politics:

Another main issue was the politics with in the organization which was a big hurdle for better ideas and creativity to emerge. Firstly, Sandy tried to demean Etty as she did not have the proper CIPD qualification to suit the role of the HR manager. Moreover, he would always suggest policies to suit the HR department rather worrying about his own financial department. Etty, on the other hand, would not interfere in Sandy's department; however, she would also not accept Sandy's suggestions as she was aware of his effort to demean her which hampered in the success of the HR Department. This political approach also wasted energy and time of both parties as they both were working on reactive approaches to counter each other rather than working to improve their individual departments.

Barriers of Communication:

Etty, as the case study suggests, was dominant and loud when it came to voicing her opinions in front of the management. Her attitude discouraged many people to speak in front of the management. This was especially true for Dan who wanted to speak up in front of the management as he was facing problems with the IT department but he could not do so as he was intimidated by Etty. Moreover, Lionel could not voice out his dissatisfaction to his employers as he knew that his voice would be given no ears as the harm was already done by setting up plants in different countries with little control over them.

Strong Centralization of Decision Making:

One of the main problems with the policies of Jennikins was the strong control of decision making powers with Trevor and George. This centralized decision making did not allow individual departments to make changes to the policies to suit their respective departments. Their hold on major decisions was so centralized that they would not even discuss or refer to the management of the concerned department. The Production Director, Lionel, felt left out and useless as he was not included in the overseas sourcing decision taken by the owners and now he was responsible for managing and coordinating with the overseas factories. He felt miserable having to sort out management problems which did not involve his consent. Also, he felt responsible for the outsourcing as he had given a feedback to the owners suggesting that the local plants were causing uproar from the unions so they should shift to countries which did not involve workers' unions. This approach taken by Trevor and George was very unfair and ‘dramatic' as this would discourage other employees from giving honest feedback regarding their departments as Lionel's problems would set an example for them and they would avoid giving new ideas to the management. (Mathis & Jackson 2007) Decision taking is also an arduous and long process and is a big stifling factor for creativity as all ideas and decisions are enforced by Trevor and Geroge only. No individualistic approach is encouraged in separate departments as all ideas are to be vouched by the owner alone.

Moreover, lack of departmental control and lack of cultural policy does not allow the Managers to dictate their terms to the employees. As it can be seen from the study, individuals do not follow punctuality and often turn up as late as 10:00 am and all departments fail on effective communication as some people turn up earlier than the others and overall productivity is affected.

Low Morale Among Employees:

Even though, the workers were heavily paid and were awarded with exceptional rewards and perks, they were heavily dissatisfied. A main problem among the employees of Jennikins was that of the low morale experienced by all staff members. After making the UK manufacturing plants redundant, workers in other branches also felt extremely threatened as they did not rely on the policies of Jennikins. People were scared that they would soon be made redundant as Trevor and George had already specified that they would make any one, who would not show creativity or conformity to the organization, redundant. Although Etty and Sandy both advocated formulating policies which laid out proper acts and regulations of redundancy and recruitment, but the owners did not want to burden themselves with loaded regulations.

Disagreement and Unresolved Issues:

One of the main unresolved issues in the organization was the disputes and fights amongst workers. One such dispute was related to the creative heads and the financial heads of the organization. Their non cooperation policy and unwillingness to communicate with each other ended up in delays in production and design making.

Part: 2

The Training and Development Policy:

Training and Development are highly important for workers. Training not only helps workers in their respective field by helping them to become productively efficient but also gives them confidence and exposure. Employees get a chance to interact with employees of other departments from their organization and other organizations during their training programs which helps them to learn self confidence and makes them more interactive and helps in boosting their morale. From the perspective of productivity benefits, an employee can perform much better with relevant training programs if he is given a encouraging environment to practice what he/she learns at their training program.

The case study suggests that there has been a considerable investment in the training and development programs for workers, however, the study also reveals that Etty, the Human Resource Manager would send anyone and everyone who wanted to attend the training program. Etty collected training program brochures and then forwarded them across the staff with a training newsletter describing the different forms of training courses and who would benefit from them. This allowed all the staff members to apply for whichever course they wanted to go. There was no connection or planning between the needs of the employees, that is, what they should learn to maximize their potential output, and the needs and requirements of the organization. All the training was based on ‘suit yourself' basis and Etty strongly believed that there was no requirement for a training policy as she assumed that everyone would know what training course would benefit them the most. Moreover, Etty believed that workers would ‘figure' out themselves about what training programs to choose from by reading the brochures and contacting Etty if they felt they wanted to get trained on some programs.

There a lot of problems with the approach and policies of HR department given above. Firstly, the ‘choose-as-you-see-fit' approach is extremely costly and damaging for the financial department of Jennikins. The role of the HR Manager is to analyze each job and the skills of the employee working in that position. If the employee has the required skills to perform the job efficiently then money should not be wasted in giving him/her training and development programs in areas which would not help him perform better in his/her job. For instance, if an accountant is sent for a marketing training program, if he/she sees it fit for him/her self, then it would just add up to the training budget rather than doing any good to the organization as the accountant would be of no use if he would attend marketing programs instead of accountancy training courses. This ‘suit yourself' approach would not just add up to the training costs, rather it would also waste a lot of time of the worker who has chosen to go for a wrong course; this time could have been spent in working efficiently at the workplace (Denissy & Griffin 2007)

Training programs are extremely costly but organizations are willing to spend in them only if they are convinced of the value addition that the employee is going to give to the organization once he/she has been trained through a specific program. However, the HR Manager Etty seems to have a different opinion as she doesn't value the resource of money and instead of allocating it efficiently to benefit worthy employees she misuses it by allowing anyone, without a proper selection criteria, to benefit from the training program. While many employees may go for a wrong program, many may not even attempt to give the training course a chance unless and until they are forced to enter into it. Moreover, the management did not encourage feedback on training programs to learn what benefits had a employee gone through after the specific training program. (Dessler 2007)

In an attempt to save effort and energy, or simply due to lack of awareness, many employees may not even try to enter their names for the training programs which may help them greatly in their respective field. Therefore, Etty should organize and manage her resources more fully allocating a training budget for each department and analyzing which department needs more attention in terms of training, which department can bring the greatest benefit to the organization with better training programs and which department needs the least training. For example, the Design Department of Jennikins needed a few training programs as people like Asha and Trevor were the creative heads of the department and were well educated and up to date with the latest designing techniques. However, on the other hand, the warehouse and distribution department lacked greatly on IT skills and relied heavily on outside IT consultants to provide the department with quick fix solutions and temporarily problem solving techniques. The case study clearly narrates about the technical issues that the distribution department, even the Distribution Director Dan, had in dealing with computers and advanced technology software, moreover, even the Financial Director, Sandy was incapable of handling with the technologically advanced programs. Providing training and development programs to such people would benefit greatly to the organization as these areas require people with a greater grip on technology so that they are better aware of the running of their departments.

To keep track of how an employee is performing after the specific training course, a feedback should be taken from the employees to know how beneficial can the training programs be and how can they be implemented in their daily work.

Work Cited from:

Borrington, K. & Stimpson, P., 2006, ‘IGCSE Business Studies', Paperback.Wiley Pg 224-230, 198.

Denissy, A. & Griffin, R.,2007, ‘Human Resource Management 3e', Hardcover. Prentice Hall

Dessler, G., 2007, ‘Human Resource Management', Hardcover.Wiley.

Mathis, R. & Jackson, J., 2007, ‘Human Resource Management'. Prentice Hall