The business factors that underpin human resource planning in terms of recruitment, retention, training and development in Business organizations

Answer the following questions given below relating to your chosen organisation in the Task 1.

1. Analyse the business factors that underpin human resource planning in terms of recruitment, retention, training and development in your chosen organisation.

Assess the human resource requirements in a given situation (recession or expansion or diversification or divestment or downsizing or layoff or retrenchment, or any other situation) in the chosen organization. (AC: 2.1Analyse the business factors that underpin human resource planning in an organization and AC: 2.2 Assess the human resource requirements in a given situation). 

In Oman Arab Bank, there are a number of factors affecting human resource planning and lead to its success in relation to recruitment such as the needs of the organization for new employees, competition in the banking market and financial services organizations in Oman, the availability of some specific qualifications out of the bank and the lack of the same qualifications in the bank; other factors can be as the budget of the bank and if it can cover recruiting new employees or not and to what extent; another factor is the bank's levels of skills and experiences and the number of retiring employees currently or soon as this can identify the number of new recruited employees and the level of skills required in the bank. Productivity is another factor that can underpin recruitment in the bank. Retention of employees of OAB is underpinned by some factors including the strategic changes that are occurring in the bank and its capabilities in managing human resources as talents should be well recognized and motivated well as motivation is a main factor that supports employees' retention as the bank depends on a very strong motivation program that tends to retain employees and reduce their turnover rates, another factor is rewarding systems as the bank has a rewarding system that supports employees with regard to their work levels and rewarding systems include monetary and non monetary rewards, there is also an important factor which is employees' level of job satisfaction and also communication that can help employees express their needs and complaints which helps them to be more effective in the bank and feel as they are part of the bank as a whole and not only employees. Factors underpinning training of employees include the size of skills and experiences existed in the bank and the needed skills and experiences as this can support the management of the bank to identify which parts of skills are needed to be focused on in training programs in addition to recognizing the employees who are in need of training and what levels of training are needed to be delivered to employees, another factor is if the trainers can be found inside the bank or outside it as this can tell if the employees will be trained in the bank or outside it and who will train them, the budget is an important factor that underpin training as a part of human resource planning as the budget can tell how far the bank can provide employees with training, time is another factor as employees are in need for time to receive training in. Development in OAB is affected by some factors such as the goals and objectives of the bank, future needs and current needs of the financial market of Oman and new banking services can tell how the bank can develop its current services and human resources to cope with such new services and modern requirements of the market. The bank has to discuss all these factors as according to Sikorova, (2015) human resource planning should be based upon realizing the current and future potentials of the business organization and there should be enough knowledge for factors affecting it.

In Oman Arab Bank, there are many situations that the bank discussed and coped with their needed requirements related to its human resources such as when the bank tended to have expansion plans he Latest Version of Misys Equation in 2008 as the bank was among the first Arab countries to have such retail system and this required the bank to make a workforce plan for training employees on such global retailing software and the workforce plan included identifying for the bank's human resources to identify those who will need to be trained on the system and the right number of employees needed for training and where they will receive training on the latest version of the Misys technology and in what time. The bank also included recruiting new employees who are experienced and skilled in dealing with the new expansion to ensure providing its customers with the best services. The bank also considered external factors such as labor market supply as the bank made an analysis for retirement, education, changes in technologies and employment in the Omani market in order to suit these factors with the new change in the bank and then it adopted some human resources approaches to align its strategic human resource planning with the market needs and changes. (prnewswire, 2008).      

2. Based on the objectives of the chosen organisation, develop a human resource plan for recruitment, retention, training and development in your chosen organisation.

Critically evaluate the HR Plan, to identify its contribution towards meeting the chosen organisational objectives. (AC: 2.3Develop a human resources plan for an organization and AC: 2.4Critically evaluate how a human resources plan can contribute to meeting an organisation’s objectives).

AC: 2.3 Develop a human resources plan for an organization.

According to Rndhawa, (2007) human resource planning can be defined as a process for defining the requirements of human resources of a specific organization and setting plans for managing them and satisfying them. In Oman Arab Bank, a human resource plan can be set for recruitment, retention, training and development under the regarding of its objectives and goals in order to provide the bank with a better opportunity for managing its human resources. Oman Arab Bank HR plan can include the following processes: 

Organizational Strategic plans

Oman Arab Bank can use such strategic plans for redefining its corporate objectives and analyzing the bank's current situation in order to set future plans based on future needs and ambitions of the bank in relation to its financial services and human resources aspirations. The bank can set the challenges that can be faced when trying to redefine objectives and set future plans and then to propose solutions to face such challenges. The bank should study its human resources well in relation to their potentials, skills and cultural backgrounds in order to manage differences in concepts and face any challenges that may block future changes. 

Resource Strategy

This strategy is based on achieving the needed levels of competitive advantage through developing the bank's intellectual capital and the bank can analyze its needs of employees and talents and then employ new employees who are more capable of invading the market with their creative ideas and suggestions in banking field and financial transactions as they have to be more educated on using the latest versions of banking technologies and financial services used globally and locally and they have to maintain specific skills and a set number of years of experiences in certain skills and abilities.  

Scenario Planning

This scenario planning can set the bank's requirements related to its human resources and then to assess them in order to try to meet these requirements by different solutions and implications as the bank can make changes in the organizational culture by developing more helpful and effective customer service culture that can add more accuracy and validity for the current customer service and can make amendments in the online services provided by the bank to its customers in addition to make improvements in transactions system to become easier and more flexible to be dealt with by customers instead of using other services such as Western Union and other foreign services for money transfer as the bank can also make deals with such types of money transfer companies in order to be working through its own branches in a way that facilitates the money transfer process on clients. 

Forecasting of Demand and Supply

The bank can here expect what future potential its human resources may have and need and how to satisfy these needs of human resources in the near future and on the long term as the bank can estimate these future needs of human resources and aligning them with the number of employees who may be in need for training and the number of employees who can be assigned or hired from outside the bank and then to set a strategy for training those people either inside or outside the organization. Costs should be evaluated and set for such training or hiring processes in order to make a balance in the bank's budget.

Labor Turnover Analysis

This analysis can be a method for ensuring having the best human resource strategic practices by regarding employees in all their needs and complaints as this can give the reasons for any turnover of employees and then the bank can set a plan for retaining employees by motivating them and ensuring their job satisfaction and meeting their needs and requirements as the bank should ensure the employees are working in a comfortable work environment that is characterized with being cooperative and communicative as this helps maintaining employees as basic assets of the organization and at the same time this can raise their morale which is a factor for retaining employees in the bank and keeping the intellectual talents for competing the market using them.

Work environment Analysis

This analysis can study the bank's work environment referring to its advantages and disadvantages in order to recognize how far it can be helpful for the bank's human resources and how far it can lead to successful employees who are beneficial for the bank and who can raise its competitive advantage. This should include measuring levels of training, communication and cooperation in the work environment and how far managers can meet the needs of employees and fill the gaps that may appear from time to time.

AC: 2.4Critically evaluate how a human resources plan can contribute to meeting an organization's objectives

The plan can be evaluated in reference to the following:

Objectives of the bank

The plan is effective in identifying the required human resources needed for meeting these objectives and how to achieve the bank's goals on all levels as the plan can tell how many employees are needed to be recruited from outside the bank, hired or assigned and how many employees can be trained and what levels of training and what type they are in need of. It can also determine the requirements of human resources in relation to their needs in the work environment and their ambitions related to the business field and the current and future position of the bank, the plan can also give an idea about the different processes needed for achieving the bank's goals and objectives such as training budget and the amount of required workforce to achieve competitive advantage that leads to success and profitability of the bank. The plan can present an idea of the different business approaches that the bank can use but it needs to be more specific regarding this issue and to suggest new approaches for managing human resources strategically. There can be some steps in developing the HR strategy of the bank that can be added to the HR plan which are the following ones:

1. Setting the bank's strategic direction
2. Designing the bank's Human Resource Management System
3. Planning for the bank's total workforce
4. Generating the needed human resources of the bank
5. Investing in the bank's human resource development and their performance
6. Assessing the organizational competence of the bank and maintaining sustainable performance and competence

This can simply suggest some issues that can be dealt with specifically by the bank's strategic management and can provide a chance for success in other HR plans as it identifies the basic elements to be dealt with by the bank in order to achieve competitiveness in the financial services and banking services field. Motivation should be more stressed in the plan as there should be more motivation plans that ensure more employees' satisfaction and can raise their morale effectively. The plan is effective in its analysis of human resource needs and requirements as it provides a good strong overview of what the bank can do to understand the needs of employees and then how to plan to make them aligned with the bank's objectives and goals. Yet there should be more clear idea about employees' goals and objectives themselves and ways to meet such goals by integrating these personal and professional employees' goals and objectives within the bank's general goals and objectives.

3. Explain the purpose of having human resource management policies in your chosen organisation (you can concentrate on recruitment policy, selection policy, retention policy, training and development policy, leave policy, career growth and promotion policy, compensation and benefits policy).  (A.C 3.1 Explain the purpose of human resource management policies in organizations).

Deb, (2006) discussed the purpose of human resource management policies in business organizations as he referred to their role in decision making and supporting the performance management, administrative personnel functions, employee relations and resources and how far the organization can make use of these policies in making the right decisions related to its human resources and how to control and monitor their performance as the bank's business strategies can focus on these policies to achieve its goals and objectives. OAB should choose a suitable human resources management approach in order to be suitable with its nature and requirements and it can focus on specific areas related to recruitment and selection policies as they are very important to grab the most effective talents for the bank in financial services, customer services and other different banking services, recruitment and selection are effective in bringing the best employees to the bank and ensuring its competitive advantage levels in the Omani market. The bank can also focus on employees' promotion through team work activities, encouraging employees to be more creative and innovative and improve their performance via different training activities and practices in addition to change management processes that can bring in the best results in managing changes the bank is in need for. There are other policies such as employees' retention policy as the bank can present new motivation programs that can help in employees' retention and at the same time the bank can improve the employees' relations with each other and with their managers as this helps in retaining them and reducing any possible conflicts or problems that may occur between them. Compensation and benefits policy can be effective in making the bank make for any loss in its human resources and this by analyzing its current human resources capabilities and then to measure its needs for more employees to benefit the bank; this can also be regarded from the bank's point of view as the bank can compensate employees for extra work hours and provide them with educational grants and scholarships or monetary and promotion rewards in order to raise their benefits levels from being a member of the bank's human resources.

4. Choose a minimum of three or more major regulatory requirements which are influencing your chosen organisation’s HR policies, and analyse the impact of these regulatory requirements on your organisation’s human resource policies. (A.C 3.2 Analyse the impact of regulatory requirements on human resource policies in an organization).

According to Erasmus, (2005)all business organizations are in need for regulatory policies and OAB needs such policies as they affect the organization's human resource policies too much as the bank has many regulatory requirements that affect its human resources policies such as the following ones which are :

Oman Labor Law 2003:  as it deals with all the main aspects of the Oman employment laws and it is based on the different Omani Decrees related to its work force. It aims at raising protection for all native and foreigners workers in Oman and making the load for Oman businesses easy to abide.

Royal Decree Number 35/2003: It is related with all employees' rights, work hours, women employment, different labor laws in Oman and how to follow them and wages and salaries for both native and foreigners employees.

International Labor Law: as this gives employees the right to have different employees' rights such as safety, security, humanity, monetary rights and other different rights.

Oman Arab Bank gives much interest to such laws and regulations as the bank is keen on ensuring all employees' rights and respects them and providing them with the different needs they should have. The bank finds great impacts of applying these laws on its human resources policies as when the bank ensures the rights of employees, they feel satisfied and find safety and security in the bank which raises their morale and job satisfaction and at the same time they become more feeling belonging to the bank. The bank also finds it easy to retain employees with the existence of such regulatory as they feel safe when working with a bank that respects human rights, labor laws and ensures their safety and respect them. The bank is doing restructuring plans that aim at updating the different human resource practices to suit the new updates of laws and decrees as this helps in raising employee's satisfaction and retention levels. The bank is also keen on recognizing all employees with their contracts and labor rights and also informing them with any updates in Oman or international labor laws in order to make them aware with their rights legally and at the same time to recognize them with their duties and limitations set by laws.

5. Organisational culture has a major impact on management of human resources in an organisation.

Choose a minimum of three or more major cultural factors which are prevalent in your chosen organisation and analyse their impact on the management of human resources in any of the three following functional areas: - Team Work, Employee Engagement, Adaptability, Responsibility/Accountability, Decision Making, Productivity, Transparency). (A.C. 4.2 Analyse the impact of an organizational culture on the management of human resources).

In Oman Arab Bank, there are many different cultural factors that leave impact on the bank's human resources management in the different functional areas. The bank has three main cultural factors which are language, gender and race as the bank includes high diversity of employees from different countries of the world as there are Arab employees from countries such as any of the Gulf countries as KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and from Oman in addition to employees from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq and all speak Arabic but there are other employees from India, Britain and the USA whose languages are different from Arabic and this makes a problem in language when dealing with human resources of the bank but the bank tries to solve the problem by focusing on the English language and making it a priority in all employees who are recruited in the bank as it is the formal used language with all human resources in meeting, general conferences and discussions as employees who don't speak Arabic complain they don't understand it when it is used by any HR professional so the bank decided not to use it and this helps in simplifying team works and employees engagement in meetings and discussion. Another cultural factor is gender as the bank has a number of women employed in the bank in different positions but the bank tries to set equal rules that are applied equally on both men and women as there are no special rules for women and this raises the effectiveness of employees responsibility and engagement. The third factor is race as many of employees belong to special tribes in Arab countries in addition to the foreigner employees coming from different races rather than Arabic race so this may affect the way managers deal with employees especially HR managers and this leads to setting a general strategy for addressing all employees that is based on respecting all races and religions of all employees without discussing them at all and to let HR professionals and managers have good ideas about the cultural backgrounds of each race of employees in the organization.  

6. How would you like to improve the effectiveness of human resources management in your chosen organisation? Make few recommendations with justification.   (A.C. 4.4 Make justified recommendations to improve the effectiveness of human resources management in an organization)

Banks as any other business organizations need to have its human resources management effective but banks need to focus on its human resource development strictly due to the developments and modern technological changes occurring in the banking field and financial services sector greatly; Sreenivas, (2006) confirmed on this in his book as he stated that human resources development should be fast and accurate in banks and other financial organizations as in banks, developing human resources depend on the great changes and developments occurring in the field of banking and financial services internationally such as the new transaction services, money transfer and other different services that need employees and human resources who are able to update their skills and experiences highly than others. In Oman Arab Bank, the bank is recommended to provide regular training courses for its employees in aligning with the international changes and developments in the field of banking services and financial organizations. The bank is also recommended to make tests and supervision systems on its employees regularly by special consultants to make sure they are coping with the required levels of changes. The bank should also ensure that its employees are well educated and having the needed certificates and making the effective researches that can add innovative and creative ideas to the bank. Research is important to be applied inside the bank and employees can do extra researches in different universities and educational centers relevant to banking filed. This can provide the bank with the opportunity to compete other financial institutions in Oman and at the same time can make the bank compete in other countries than Oman and the bank may open new services for money transfer, loans and other banking services which will raise profits and success level of the bank locally and internationally.

Assessment Task 3:

1. Analyse organisational structure impact on management of human resources in Syngenta. (A.C 4.1 Analyse the impact of an organizational structure on the management of human resources)

Syngenta  has adopted an innovative way of not choosing a conventional hierarchical structure but the company tried to focus on authorizing its employees for using their power in certain specified limits in order to be able to control their work. The company adopted a culture of innovation in order to be aligned with customers' needs and the changes that should be done to meet them. It stressed on adapting a matrix structure that can be the best method for getting the maximum potentials from the human resources as people from different fields stay together to do a specific tasks and then good efforts results in the best needed outcomes. The company focused on employees' skills and potentials and tried to strengthen them by specializing them in their own specific field and at the same time educating them to handle different situations and time managing in addition to skills related to leadership and tasks motivation. The company adopted a team concept than a concept of groups because focusing on teams concept can make the company get maximum performance of its employees as each member can use its own capabilities and compete with others using his own skills and experiences and these cooperated efforts are able to provide better results and outcomes than other ways of groups can provide. Yet there are disadvantages such as focusing on product divisions for long term growth as the company has to focus on market division as well, another thing is its technique in modifying its cooperative form of its structure which is multidivisional with accordance to its strategy and also the impact left on the divisions individual performance. 

2. Examine how the effectiveness of human resources management can be monitored in a company like Syngenta. (A.C. 4.3 Examine how the effectiveness of human resources management is monitored in an organization).

The effectiveness of human resource management can be monitored in an organization by many different methods such as measuring success of outcomes and results as in an organization such as Syngenta, this can be done by analyzing the results after applying innovation techniques and by measuring the work of purpose project teams and if the trams are presenting more effective results than groups or not. This can also be monitored before results are provided as through the process of applying innovation, there could be a committee for monitoring the work of human resource management and the committee has to do certain jobs and tasks such as reporting the work of the managers and comparing it with results and the degree of their effectiveness and then to compare results to past results before innovation was applied. Another method for monitoring the work of human resource management is to apply a team for monitoring and supervision that consists of consultants from outside the organization as they can be very neutral in their judgment and decision making processes and there can be consultants and advisors who can guide employees and managers during applying the new innovation techniques as this ensures better results as when monitoring is aligned with advice, better results can occur. This can ensure the best results for mentoring and can at the same time add skills and experiences for employees who are applying change and innovation within the organization to ensure better results and success.