Efficacy of the Human Resource Department
When large companies get larger, it sometimes raises
unexpected issues. When that growth takes place by acquisition and merger, the
consequences can be historic, or historically funny. Let’s say you work for
Company X, a Fortune 500 company with sales of $450 million a year and 20,000
employees. In the space of less than a year, through a series of interesting
events, your company acquires Company Y ($110 million in sales, 8,000
employees), Company Z ($150 million in sales, 4,000 employees) and Company B
($450 million in sales, 17,000 employees). So now you have a company with $1.16
billion in sales and 49,000 employees. It operates world-wide, in all kinds of
product and service markets. All HR functions are run separately, but that is
going to change. A new Corporate Vice President of Human Resources has been
hired (formerly a consultant to Company B). He has convinced the Board of
Directors that the Company should start to create standard corporate approaches
to the various HR functions. Like most Boards, the Board here is concerned with
spending money, so they decide to move the whole company to one salary
structure. Currently, there are 17 distinct compensation systems among the four
divisions, supported by what seems to be a million different job analysis
programs. Think about how you are going to get that down to one job analysis
process to set up one salary structure encompassing all 49,000 employees
located everywhere from Miami to Timbuktu.
Most organizations need a professional HR department that
seeks the best for both the employees and management. This is a particularly
thorny issue for organizations — in part, because most organizations follow a
hierarchical structure. Acting as an “intermediary” requires that the
HR department have the ability to act outside the scope of where it may fit in
the hierarchy. Based on what we have covered so far in this course and
information you have from experience and other coursework, I would like to
explore this topic in more depth. What does an organization need to do to
ensure an effective HR department? What can the HR department do to ensure its
effectiveness? And what role do employees play in helping to achieve this goal?
Be sure to support your responses with appropriate material from references.
