ABSTRACT
Abstract India is a very fast developing country. This has given lot of opportunities for our country to grow further but it posed lot of challenges in front of us like Indian companies have acquired foreign giant companies and are trying to establish themselves more competitive than the foreign companies. Moreover, competitive pressures on the organizations have encouraged them to be proactive in diagnosing HR problems and to adopt more innovative HR practices since these were no longer a matter of trend, but rather of survival. Hence the corporate have started formulating and adapting innovative HR strategies. In this paper an attempt has been made to discuss some of the key HR functions where and how innovative strategies need to be developed for ensuring the organizational excellence. It also reviews the various studies done on innovative HR practises. The paper also attempts to find out various innovative HR practises and the leading companies who have adopted such practises.
Key words: Innovative HR practices, competition, resource management 4">human resource management.
Introduction
The past few decades in business have been characterised by a succession of fundamental shifts in the way companies operate and structure themselves. In their search for greater efficiencies, economies of scale or lower costs, companies have embraced trends such as outsourcing, off shoring, and mergers and acquisitions, while rapid technological development has transformed the way information is shared and communicated, and the way business processes and transactions are conducted.
The Essay on Innovative company
?Innovative Engineering Company was founded by two partners: Meredith Gale and Shelley Yeaton, shortly after they graduated from engineering school. Within five years the partners had built a thriving business, primarily through the development of a product line of measuring instruments based on the laser principle. Success brought with it the need for new permanent capital. After careful ...
Although trends such as off shoring, mergers and acquisitions, and large-scale IT projects can have different objectives and require different skills, they are all examples of business transformation. Each type of project requires executives to set clear objectives, to ensure that those aims are understood by everyone in the organisation and to focus carefully on the implementation stage so that the objectives are achieved. In short, each project is about managing large-scale change – something that in today’s highly distributed, global organisation is a complex and demanding undertaking. Business as usual is no longer an option. To succeed in the long-term, companies must safeguard their reputation, maintain a safe, healthy and productive workforce and ensure that the materials they need have been sustainably sourced. So, managing human resource today has become very vital.
Human Resource Practise
As the world is becoming more competitive and unstable than ever before, manufacturing-based industries are seeking to gain competitive advantage at all cost and are turning to more innovative sources through HRM practices (Sparrow, Schuler, & Jackson, 1994).
HRM practices have been defined in several aspects. Schuler and Jackson (1987) defined HRM practices as a system that attracts, develops, motivates, and retains employees to ensure the effective implementation and the survival of the organization and its members. Besides, HRM practices is also conceptualized as a set of internally consistent policies and practices designed and implemented to ensure that a firm’s human capital contribute to the achievement of its business objectives (Delery & Doty, 1996).
Likewise, Minbaeva (2005) viewed HRM practices a set of practices used by organization to manage human resources through facilitating the development of competencies that are firm specific, produce complex social relation and generate organization knowledge to sustain competitive advantage. Against this backdrop, we concluded that HRM practices relate to specific practices, formal policies, and philosophies that are designed to attract, develop, motivate, and retain employees who ensure the effective functioning and survival of the organization.
The Essay on How far is it applicable to management and employee motivation in contemporary Chinese organizations?
Critically evaluate McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y. How far is it applicable to management and employee motivation in contemporary Chinese organizations? During the 1960s the number of psychologists invented motivational theories, which aimed to increase organizations’ productivity. One of those is McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, in which he claimed that people can be managed in two extremes, ...
The practice of human resource management (HRM) is concerned with all aspects of how people are employed and managed in organizations. It covers activities such as strategic HRM, human capital management, corporate social responsibility, knowledge management, organization development, resourcing (human resource planning, recruitment and selection, and talent management), performance management, learning and development, reward management, employee relations, employee well-being and health and safety and the provision of employee services. HRM practice has a strong conceptual basis drawn from the behavioural sciences and from strategic management, human capital and industrial relations theories. This foundation has been built with the help of a multitude of research projects.
Innovative Human Resource (HR) Practices build up competencies and capabilities for performance of today to create long term investment for innovation of business ideas and strategies for the future. Work behaviour which goes beyond the reach of organizational measures of job performance holds assurance for long term organizational success because there types of action are to improve organizational Efficiency and effectiveness. According to Katz and Khan (1978), employees who go extra mile by performing spontaneous behaviours which goes beyond their role prescriptions are valued by the management. This phenomenon is critical for organization effectiveness. It is because managers cannot foresee all contingencies or fully anticipates the activities which they desire from the performance from the employees. The present study investigates the effects of HR practices and leadership styles on organizational commitment and citizenship behaviors.HR practices are more important than leadership style in predicting organizational commitment of valued Human Capital.
HRM as a system
A HRM system brings together HR philosophies that describe the overarching values and guiding principles adopted in managing people, HR strategies that define the direction in which HRM intends to go, HR policies that provide guidelines defining how these values, principles and the strategies should be applied and implemented in specific careers of HRM, HR processes that comprise the formal procedures and methods used to put HR strategic plans and policies into effect, linked HR practices that consist of the approaches used in managing people, and HR programmes that enable HR strategies, policies and practices to be implemented according to plan. Becker and Gerhart (1996) have classified these components into three levels: the system architecture (guiding principles), policy alternatives, and processes and practices.
The Term Paper on Effective Performance Management
Every company/organization has its own corporate mission and corporate vision. To achieve these they do required certain form of resources which can be in the form of land, capital, machinery, material and last but foremost the human capital means the human resource which leads to utilize the rest of the resource through which they can drive the organization on the way to achieve its corporate ...
LITERATURE REVIEW
Providing innovative HR practices help organizations convey an impression of employee orientation through the use of motivational practices that are closely related to the immediate interests of employees, and which are aimed at influencing employee perceptions and attitudes. Moreover, the levels of perceived satisfaction with the innovative HR practices by the employees also encourage employees to be unselfish and altruistic. This turns their emotions into a willingness to engage in extra-role behaviours that are not immediately related to their jobs but are beneficial to their organizations. This would make the organizations more effective in managing human resources especially the firms which are team based. (Dr. Binoy, J., 2012)
According to Nanda, N. & Nanda, I. (n.d.) Innovative HR practices build competencies and capabilities for superior and winning performances today and simultaneously create long term fertility for innovation of business ideas and strategies for future. Some HR practices are better or more important than others (Colbert, 2004; Miles and Snow, 1984; Pfeffer, 1998) and these strategic (in this study “innovative”) HR practices consistently lead to higher organizational performance, more dependent on the environment (Delery and Doty, 1996).
The study also says that people are key to achieving superior Performance.
Tan, C. & Nasurdin, A. (2011) says that one of the ways to heighten the organizational innovation is through effective human resource management (HRM) practices and effective knowledge management. Their study examined the direct relationships between HRM practices (performance appraisal, career management, training, reward system, and recruitment) and organizational innovation (product innovation, process innovation, and administrative innovation).
The Term Paper on Rewarding Employees Behavior Rewards Organization
What gets rewarded gets done Psychological and behavioral explanation The nature of human behavior is, humans do things to satisfy their unmet needs in some way or the other. These needs may vary from the very basic such as hunger to reach the greater heights of life. Whatever it may be, when he realizes that some actions he takes lead to satisfy his needs, he tends to do them in a superior way, ...
HRM practices generally have a positive effect on organizational innovation. Specifically, the findings indicate that training was positively related to three dimensions of organizational innovation (product innovation, process innovation, and administrative innovation).
Performance appraisal also found to have a positive effect on administrative innovation. Additionally, this study also demonstrates that training and performance appraisal, are positively related to knowledge management effectiveness.
Shiakh, M. (2011) says that the adoption of innovative HR practises and strategies have a positive impact on firm performance and productivity. The adoption of these practises not only leads to increased financial performance but also to share holder value. Strategies human resource management are the key source of organisational capabilities, which need to be explored and exploited using innovative HR practises. Moreover, these practises also lead to an increase in product/ service performance. The most popular best practices are related to innovative selection processes, organisational learning, performance base appraisal system and practises related with providing careers opportunities to the employees. The adoption of these practises delivers a value across all the activities of the HR value chain from recruitment to retention and from strategy formulation to implementation.
NEW PRACTISES IN THE FIELD OF HRM
Virtual HRM
The purpose of the VHRM is to assist Human Resource Management (HRM) teams of four to 10 individuals to assess their current HRM system and develop an action plan to improve it.
The VHRM is structured in five modules. The first module offers a general introduction to the program. Participants will have the opportunity to become familiar with the website and the organization of the program. The next three modules explore the fundamental principles of HRM systems, and will culminate in the creation of the action plan. During the VHRM, each participating team will develop an action plan. The VHRM facilitators will support the teams in the creation of their plans, providing guidance, giving suggestions, and answering questions.
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Moon lighting by employees: Blue Moon to full moon
Blue moon to full moon. Employees in most of the organizations realize that all their demands cannot be met by their organization alone. Hence they depend either on some other organizations for part-time job, part-time business or take up a business or start an industrial unit in order to earn more. This type of activity is known as moonlighting.
Blue moon lighting: Some employees will not be happy with level of wages of the company and will not go for second job in future because of their inability. Their effort to earn additional income will not bear any fruit.
Quarter moon lighting: Employee prefers to take a part-time job also to meet his expenses.
Half moon lighting: Some employees will not be happy with their present wage structure, as they cannot live luxurious life. Hence they take up those jobs or business to earn more money to purchase luxury items to lead comfortable life.
Full moon lighting: employees spend most of their time and resources in starting, developing, expanding their business activities. Their financial and social position will almost determined by the second occupation.
Golden Hand Cuffs
A collection of financial incentives that are intended to encourage employees to remain with a company. Golden handcuffs are offered by employers to existing employees as a means of holding onto key employees and increasing employee retention rates. Golden handcuffs are common in industries where highly-compensated employees are likely to move from company to company. Employers invest significant resources in the hiring, training and retaining of key employees. Golden handcuffs are intended to help employers hold onto employees that they’ve invested in. Other forms of golden handcuffs include contractual obligations that specify an action that an employee may or may not perform, such as a contract prohibiting a network television host from appearing on a competing channel, and SERPS – supplemental executive retirement plans – that are funded entirely by the employer.
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Telecommuting Telecommuting starts with the lower level of the working class workers but with the success it has had it's rapidly moving towards the executive level. There are two form of telecommuting the employers use today, one is home telecommuting which is a work arrangement the most people do this is working from home with a computer terminal utilizing today's current technology by ...
Examples of golden handcuffs include employee stock options that do not vest until the employee has been with the company for several years, and contractual agreements that stipulate certain bonuses or other forms of compensation must be returned to the company if the employee leaves before a certain date. Also called golden handshakes.
Golden Hand Shake
A golden hand shake is a stipulation in an employment agreement which states that the employer will provide a significant severance package if the employee loses their job. A golden handshake is usually provided to top executives for loss of employment through layoffs, firing or even retirement. Payment can be made several ways, such as cash, or stock options. Sometimes these golden handshakes are for millions of dollars, which makes them a very important issue for investors to consider. For example in 1989, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco-Nabisco paid F. Ross Johnson over $53 million as part of golden handshake clause severance compensation. Some contracts, along with compensation, include non-competition clauses that state that once employment is terminated the employee is not allowed to open a competing business for a specified period of time.
Employee’s proxy
The Proxy feature allows an employee to authorize another employee to work in their Success Factors account on their behalf. For example, if an employee will be unavailable or absent when a form is due, they can assign a Proxy to complete the form on their behalf. The Proxy is the employee acting on someone’s behalf. The Account Holder is the employee on whose behalf the Proxy is acting. Assigning a Proxy means granting an employee access to another employee’s account. Before an employee can act as a Proxy, they must be assigned to the account. One or more Proxies can be assigned to a single account, and one employee can be assigned as a Proxy for several accounts.
Employer branding
The most commonly used definition of “employer branding” is Brett Minchinton’s from the Employer Brand Institute, which defines employer branding as, “the image of the organization as a ‘great place to work’ in the minds of current employees and key stakeholders in the external market (active and passive candidates, clients, customers and other key stakeholders).” A company’s employer brand is made up of numerous components. Corporate Eye blog breaks these components down quite well. What’s important to realize is that the employer brand is really based on human relationships and human emotions vs. anything else. It’s those companies that think of HR as “Human Relationships” vs. “Human Resources” that are on their way to building and promoting a successful employment brand.
HR data marts
A data warehouse is a collection of data, usually current and historical, from multiple databases that the organization can use for analysis and decision making. The purpose, of course, is to bring key sets of data about or used by the organization into one place.
Bringing together so much data into a data warehouse makes analysis very difficult. To address this problem, organizations use what are called data marts. Data marts are related sets of data that are grouped together and separated out from the main body of data in the data warehouse. Data marts are designed to be made available to specific sets of users. For example, data about manufacturing can be put into a data mart and be made available to the production department. Human resource data can be put into another data mart and be provided to the human resources employees. This approach makes it easier for each group or constituency in the organization to access the data they need.
HR outsourcing
Human resources outsourcing is when a company gets an outside party to perform some or all of their HR functions. Outsourcing can be used for a number of different HR related activities. According to an August 2008 study conducted by the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM), the most commonly outsourced HR functions are background checks, employee assistance programs, and flexible spending accounts that allow employees to use pre-tax dollars to cover medical expenses. HR outsourcing is on the rise. In the same SHRM study, 33 percent of HR professionals who participated believe their company will increase their use of outsourcing within the next five years.
Employee leasing
Leased employees are workers who are officially employed by a professional employer organization, which is responsible for overseeing all HR-related functions, but who actually perform all work for your company. Employee leasing is a contractual arrangement in which the leasing company, also known as a professional employer organization (PEO), is the official employer. Employment responsibilities are typically shared between the leasing company and the business owner. The owner retains essential management control over the work performed by the employees. The leasing company, meanwhile, assumes responsibility for work such as reporting wages and employment taxes. Owner’s main responsibility is writing a check to the leasing company to cover the payroll, taxes, benefits and administrative fees. The PEO does the rest.
E- HRM
The processing and transmission of digitalized HR information is called electronic human resource management (e-HRM).
E-HRM is the application of IT for HR practices which enables easy interactions within employee and employers. It stores information regarding payroll, employee personal data, performance management, training, recruitment and strategic orientation. Information technology is changing the way HR departments handle record keeping and information sharing. It decreases the paperwork substantially and allows easy access to voluminous data. The employee can also keep track of his/her achievements without having to go through litigious procedures. It uses intranet or other web technology channels. It can also be used for implementation of different HR strategies. The authorization of different HR functions can be distributed through E-HRM.
HR optimization
HR Optimization and HR Process Re-engineering are the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business process to bring about dramatic improvements in performance.
There are four key words in this definition: “Rethinking” It is the total rethinking. Beginning with proverbial clean slate and reinventing how you would do your HR work. “Radical”
Means going to the root of the things and not about improving what already exists
“Process” Group of related tasks that together create a value for internal customers “Dramatic” significantly increased labour productivity; simplifying the work; reduced cost; rapidly reduced cycle time; greater accuracy and management of information, reduce non value added activity in the organisation; creating internal customer and end user awareness; increased internal customer satisfaction.
HR Optimization is an important Service Quality management philosophy. It aims to achieve significant and sustainable improvements in performance by re-engineering and co-designing the processes through which an organization operates, maximizing their value-added content and minimizing everything else. This approach can be applied at an individual process level or to the whole organization.
Employee engagement
Employee engagement refers to a condition where the employees are fully engrossed in their work and are emotionally attached to their organization. It is a business management concept that describes the level of enthusiasm and dedication a worker feels toward his/her job. Engaged employee cares their work and about the performance of the company, and feels that their efforts make a difference. An engaged employee is in it for more than a pay check
Employee engagement can be critical to a company’s success. Engaged employees are more likely to be productive and higher performing. Employers can encourage employee engagement in many ways, including communicating expectations clearly, offering rewards and advancement for excellent work, keeping employees informed about the company’s performance, and providing regular feedback.
Work life balance
Work-life balance is a concept that supports the efforts of employees to split their time and energy between work and the other important aspects of their lives. Work-life balance is a daily effort to make time for family, friends, community participation, spirituality, personal growth, self care, and other personal activities, in addition to the demands of the workplace. Work-life balance is assisted by employers who institute policies, procedures, actions, and expectations that enable employees to easily pursue more balanced lives.
The pursuit of work-life balance reduces the stress employee’s experience. When they spend the majority of their days on work-related activities and feel as if they are neglecting the other important components of their lives, stress and unhappiness result. Work-life balance enables employees to feel as if they are paying attention to all the important aspects of their lives.
LEADING COMPANIES FOR INNOVATIVE HR PRACTISES
Marriott International
Marriott International’s (Marriott) various innovative HR practices earned it the reputation of being ‘the best place to work’ in the hospitality industry. Marriott’s has a ‘Spirit to Serve’ culture and the company’s HR philosophy has guided its various HR initiatives. The best practices employed by the company are for recruitment, selection, training and development of employees. The company has reaped a number of benefits because of its employee friendly HR practices.
“That guest’s room may be our product, but our associate’s caring attitude is our value. We can’t measure it with statistics, and we can’t manufacture it. We can deliver that value only if we can attract, retain and inspire the best people – with what we call ‘The Spirit to Serve.”
“The comments from our customers are not about how nice the building is but about how nice the people are, how good the service is, how hospitable the employees are. That is what makes the difference, because people from the top all the way down to the organization really care.”
– JW Marriott Jr., CEO, Marriott International.
Marriott’s history of taking care of its employees dated back to its early days, when its founder, JW Marriott, counselled the company’s employees individually on their personal problems at his first hotel. He valued their presence, kept them posted about the latest happenings in Marriott and gave them excellent training. JW Marriott always ensured that employees who joined the company felt themselves a part of the Marriott family. He made managers responsible for the satisfaction of their subordinates. JW Marriott was always conscious of the fact that in the hospitality industry, providing the best service to customers was paramount.
The HR Practices
Apart from providing a competitive pay package, Marriott strived to give its employees a good work life. The company gave equal importance to non-monetary factors such as work-life balance, good leadership, better growth opportunities, a friendly work environment and training.
Employees stayed longer with Marriott as they are happy with these non-monetary factors and thought them more important.
Marriott’s culture and guiding principles had a significant influence on the company’s HR practices including manpower planning, recruitment and selection; training and development, employee retention and welfare initiatives and grievance redress.
Manpower Planning, Recruitment and Selection
Marriott attached a lot of importance to manpower planning. It started right from entry level and went through to higher positions. Every unit of Marriott (division or department) prepared its expansion plans over the next couple of years, and, in the process, decided on the number of entry level and managerial employees required for the expansion.
Details on the number of new units planned in the given time frame (two to five years), a rough picture of the likely organization structure, the time required to develop employees who could take managerial positions, current availability of employees within Marriott and the necessity to recruit externally – all these were determined during the planning process.
Training and Development
Once the right candidates were recruited, it was important to get them accustomed to the company’s unique work environment. Training and development played a key role here. These programs varied between frontline employees and managerial personnel. Over time, training programs evolved from classroom- based teaching to interactive multimedia training. Fresh recruits went through an eight-hour initial training session, during which they were given an overview of Marriott and their individual roles.
A unique feature was that senior hotel employees served lunch at the first session. During the three- month training period which followed, a mentor, addressed as ‘buddy’ was allotted to each recruit. The mentor guided the trainee. All trainees attended refresher sessions after the first and second months. On the final day of training, recruits enjoyed a sumptuous feast at a Marriott hotel.
Employee Retention and Welfare Initiatives
Retaining employees in the hospitality industry was vital as the cost of recruiting and training new employees was very high. Marriott operated in an industry where every day counted and weekends and holidays generated more business than weekdays. Customer service had to be provided on a 24/7/365 basis. The implication was that employees had to go through a hectic work schedule; an average work week lasted more than 50 hours. With the increasing work load due to rising customers in the late-1990s, several key managers at Marriott left.
They wanted to devote more time to their personal lives and their jobs at Marriott were not helping the cause. Facing this challenge, Marriott launched a new program called Management Flexibility in February 2000 on a pilot basis at three of its hotels. The aim was to assist Marriott’s managers in balancing their professional and personal lives, without negatively affecting customer service or the company’s financials.
Grievance Redressal System
By the mid-1990s, Marriott had a comprehensive complaint resolution system in place, known as the Guarantee of Fair Treatment (GFT), to ensure that employee grievances were addressed. Under GFT, complaints passed through successive stages in Marriott’s hierarchy, starting with the immediate superior, depending on whether or not they said employee was happy with the redress response given at each stage. However, given the decentralized nature of Marriott’s operations, and with managers handling several tasks, resolution of complaints through GFT did not quite produce the desired results. It, therefore, decided to try new methods of complaint resolution while continuing with GFT. These methods included mediation, a toll-free hotline and peer-review.
Marriott’s efforts over the decades to develop an employee-friendly work place earned it widespread recognition in the hospitality industry. The awards it received for ‘the best place to work’ were testimony. The company reaped benefits like higher employee satisfaction and less turnover. Employee satisfaction could be gauged from the 2003 Associate Opinion Survey, in which 90% of employees surveyed expressed great pride in working for Marriott.
IKEA
IKEA was one of the largest furniture manufacturers and retailers in the world, with operations in 32 countries (in early 2005).
The company was well known for its stylish and innovative designs. It was the pioneer of furniture that could be dismantled and packed flat, to allow ease of transportation. IKEA’s main strength was its committed workforce, which was often the source of the company’s innovative concepts. IKEA adopted a positive approach toward human resource management. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the company implemented several initiatives that promoted ‘life balance’ and diversity. Initiatives related to flexible work design, comprehensive benefits, quality of work life, and employee training and development are made by IKEA. The prominent elements of IKEA’s culture, such as diversity, openness, equality, cost consciousness, and competitiveness are also visible.
“Maintaining a strong IKEA culture is one of the most crucial factors behind the continued success of the IKEA concept”.
-Ingvar Kamprad, founder of IKEA.
In January 2005, Fortune, a prominent international business magazine, published its annual list of the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’. IKEA North America (IKEA), a major furniture retailer and the American subsidiary of the Sweden-based IKEA Group, was 62nd on the list.
IKEA won points for its innovative human resource management practices that emphasized flexibility and welfare while focusing on employee development. The company’s unique work culture that supported co-workers (as employees were called at IKEA) and encouraged creativity and diversity was also applauded.
Pernille Spiers-Lopez (Spiers-Lopez), IKEA’s President, said the company was thrilled at being recognized as one of the best companies to work for. “We’re delighted to be among Fortune’s ‘100 Best Companies to Work For.’ At IKEA, we live by the philosophy that when co-workers have the support and flexibility to make their personal lives a success, they thrive in the workplace, too,” she said.
A few months earlier, in September 2004, IKEA was listed as one of the ‘100 Best Companies for Working Mothers’, in a study conducted by Working Mother magazine. It was the second time that IKEA was so listed. Working Mother appreciated IKEA’s efforts at creating a workplace that accommodated the needs of mothers. Three issues were particularly stressed in this study – flexible work scheduling, time off for new parents, and childcare facilities.
IKEA’s popularity as an employer was noteworthy primarily because of the fact that the retail sector, especially in the United States, was not known for being employee-friendly. Many large retailers paid low salaries and offered negligible benefits while expecting employees to work long hours.
This accounted for the fact that the sector had one of the highest turnover rates of all industries. Consequently, it also suffered from high human resource (HR) costs, as companies had to recruit and train replacements at frequent intervals. In this context, IKEA stood out for its employee-friendly policies and generous benefits, which made it the preferred employer in the retail sector.
IKEA was one of the largest furniture manufacturers and retailers in the world and was well known for its stylish and innovative furniture designs. Almost all IKEA’s products could be dismantled and packed in flat packages, making it easy to transport them. In the early 2000s, IKEA was one of the largest privately held companies in the world.
It was rumoured that Ingvar Kamprad (Kamprad), IKEA’s founder, was the richest man in the world, beating even Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. (This however, could not be confirmed, as IKEA was a private company and so was not required to disclose its financials).
Calculating the true value of IKEA was made more difficult by its complicated ownership structure consisting of several holding companies and subsidiaries. IKEA expanded using the franchisee model
Human Resource Management Practices
IKEA’s vision was “To create a better everyday life for the many people.” ‘People’ included employees, customers, as well as the community. The company’s human resource philosophy subscribed to the belief that employees were more productive and committed when the company took care of them and their needs.
IKEA adopted a paternalistic stance toward employees and their needs (as did many other Swedish companies) and promoted employee empowerment. However, although the company had a positive HR philosophy and offered generous benefits, their application was more or less standardized and policies applied uniformly to all employees.
This did not always work well, as different employees had different needs. In the late 1990s, when Spiers-Lopez became the HR head at IKEA North America, she realized that employees were not able to derive the maximum benefit from IKEA’s generous HR policies, as the policies did not always match individual needs and requirements. She felt that employees would benefit more if there were a greater amount of flexibility in benefits administration.
Work Culture
IKEA’s positive HR policies were supported by a strong and nurturing culture that promoted diversity and creativity. Spiers-Lopez said IKEA’s culture was characterized by a family-like quality that made relationships between employees strong and open.
“At IKEA, we think of ourselves as a family. Just as one would look after their parents, siblings or children, our co-worker family is encouraged to and excels at supporting and taking care of each other,” she said.
Kamprad had once written in a manifesto that “the true IKEA spirit is still founded on our enthusiasm, on our constant will to renew, on our cost consciousness, on our willingness to assume responsibility and to help, on our humbleness before the task and on the simplicity in our behaviour. We must take care of each other, inspire each other.”
The Payoff
No doubt IKEA’s generous policies involved substantial costs for the company (sometimes they seemed to be the antithesis of the company’s cost conscious culture), but the pay off far outweighed the costs. For one thing, IKEA’s employee turnover fell drastically, from 76 percent in 2001, to 56 percent in 2002 and 35 percent in 2003. The company’s turnover was also almost half the average industry rate, which hovered around 60 percent. This substantially lowered the company’s costs in recruiting and training replacements.
Take Solutions
TAKE Solutions, Ltd. is a leading global business technology company with domain expertise in Life Sciences (LS) and Supply Chain Management (SCM).
TAKE provides cost-effective and comprehensive solutions for enterprises across diverse sectors including pharmaceuticals, high technology, consumer packaged goods, oil/gas, and automotive. TAKE’s SCM product suite includes distinct technology with embedded IP that spans enterprise mobility, trading partner collaboration, and material tracking. In the LS domain, TAKE offers IP-based software and extensive knowledge-based solutions to enable efficient clinical, regulatory, safety and commercialization processes. TAKE has been recognized as a leader by IDC’s Market Scope Worldwide Life Sciences R&D IT Outsourcing for 2011. TAKE’s global headquarters is in Chennai, India; its U.S. headquarters is located in Princeton, New Jersey. TAKE has a proven track record as a trusted partner in delivering world-class solutions to more than 400 customers worldwide. Innovation rules the roost in every segment of the industry, and Human Resource (HR) is no exception. Take Solutions Ltd, a business technology company with expertise in the fields of supply chain management and life sciences, has received a special recognition for its innovative contribution to HR practices.
Take Solutions recently won the Asia Pacific HRM Congress Awards 2012 in the ‘Organisation with Innovative HR Practices’ category at an event held in Bengaluru, which was organised by Ascent, part of the Times of India Group. The theme for this year’s event was ‘HR – Building Future Leaders’. The Asia Pacific HRM Congress Awards is a well-known forum that recognises contributions of the HR fraternity and helps organisations gain global insights.
According to Ms. Sucheta Shetty, Vice President – HR, Take Solutions, the company advocates and observes the necessity of a holistic framework towards its People Practices. Ms. Shetty added that the Human Capital Function at the company strives persistently to create an environment for promoting and sustaining high performing workgroups through innovation, and adoption of best practices and thorough processes.
Hughes Software Systems
Managers give “Snap Awards” for individual and team achievements to their teams when they excel or do something outstanding. These are usually given during the quarterly staff meetings where all employees participate and this is followed by a party.
There is Annual Achievement Award under four categories:
* Most Initiatives
* Best Customer Orientation
* Best Team Worker
* Most Innovative.
Managers send nominations every year and a task force of senior managers picks the winners. There are Presidential Awards for overall excellence. These are given annually and are in four categories:
* Engineering
* Business Development
* Non-Engineering
* Engineering/Customer Support.
There is an award for Best People and Project Managers, given to two best managers and leaders each year. Popular Awards provide very powerful peer recognition. This is very credible and most satisfying. The winners are then put in special roles e.g. the winner of “Best Leader” award is the one who conducts the session on leadership in the development program for managers. The person chosen as the “Best Mentor” leads the implementation of the mentoring program.
Employees who show capability, initiative and interest are appointed to work and lead in several cross-functional taskforces from time to time.
E-greetings have been operational is HSS through the intranet to send appreciation to other employees. Special cards suited to the HSS environment are available. This is a god way of recognizing and appreciating others, especially for those who find face to face appreciation somewhat uncomfortable.
Recently HSS organized a painting competition for the children of HSS employees. This special even brought forth the talent and creativity of the participating children. The New Year cards for 2001 have been made using eight of the best paintings selected in this painting competition. All the 72 paintings will be displayed at the HSS kids Gallery at Gurgaon and Bangalore. This has helped HSS to build a more family like environment.
Conclusion
New economic realities have put pressure on the human resource function to demonstrate how it can add value to the firm’s bottom line. In such a competitive world, organizations should come up with innovative ideas to run the organization successfully. The study has proved beyond doubt that there is a significant relation between innovative HR practises and firms performance. The adoption of such practises will immensely help and organisation to cope up with the completion and at same time keeps growing. The quality of the employees will also increase which will further affect the firm’s productivity in a very positive manner. The adoption of such practises delivers value to all the activities of the HR value chain which includes recruitment, retention, strategy formulation, strategy implementation and so on. Providing innovative HR practices help organizations convey an impression of employee orientation through the use of motivational practices that are closely related to the immediate interests of employees, and which are aimed at influencing employee perceptions and attitudes. Moreover, the levels of perceived satisfaction with the innovative HR practices by the employees also encourage employees to be unselfish and altruistic. This turns their emotions into a willingness to engage in extra-role behaviours that are not immediately related to their jobs but are beneficial to their organizations. This would make the organizations more effective in managing human resources especially the firms which are team based.
Other Leading Organisations
* TISCO
* Bharat Petroleum Corporation limited (BPCL)
* Mind Tree Consulting
* Air Tel
* BIRLA 3M
* SUBEX SYSTEMS
* Philips Software Centre
* Wipro Technologies
* State Bank of India
* Arvind Mills
* Infosys
References
Nanda, N., Nanda, I., (n.d.).
Enhancement of organizational competitiveness through innovative human resource practices: a case Study on rourkela steel plant, rourkela, odisha, india.
Holwerda, J. (2006).
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