ASSIGNMENT 1- Strategic Human Resource Management

Company:
Hijab Fatima 09361

1. How has HR function evolved in the company you have selected

for doing research in the term? Is it a mature Strategic Human
Resource Management function?

Introduction:
The organization selected for this assignment is Berlitz. It is a multinational
language and training organization, ranging across 70 countries. In Pakistan,
it offers multiple languages, along with cross-cultural and man-management
training, etc. It provides translation services as well.
Berlitz has helps individuals; travelers and employees achieve their language
goals quickly and efficiently. The language school is founded in 1878. It has
evolved over the years, from teaching travellers and private individuals to
teaching businessmen and women who need to develop their language skills.
It introduced in Pakistan in late 2000’s. Major languages taught in Pakistan
are English, Chinese, Mandarin, Urdu, French, German/Deutsch, Spanish,
Arabic.
Berlitz has expanded from a language center to a multinational education
organization worldwide today, and Berlitz Pakistan has grown with it. They
teach their students to become adept at every facet of their daily
communication. Berlitz takes pride in its emphasis on children and youth,
along with educating businesses, government officials and executives,
shaping them to become better global citizens.
Berlitz works to promote human progress, expanding everything from people
to the global network. Communication is the key to opening the doors to the
global village, with the world increasingly becoming more and more
connected, and this is the guiding philosophy that Berlitz Pakistan started
with: to help the world communicate.

Date: February 1st, 2020

ASSIGNMENT 1- Strategic Human Resource Management

Company:
Hijab Fatima 09361

HR Evolution

The concept of people working for organizations spans across centuries but
the awareness about the well-being of the workers emerged around 19 th
century. The mid-20th century saw considerable research on the motives and
needs that drove human behavior. This was eventually how most researchers
would broadly define motivation i.e. “The reason driving a certain behavior”.
Organizations started to show interest in learning about this phenomenon of
driving behavior or “motivation” of their employees because awareness
regarding a link between this motivation and the organizational well being had
emerged. Organizational well-being is inevitably the result of organizational
and individual performance, which gives rise to the phenomenon of
productivity. The field of human resource management (HRM) has gone
through several transformations from time to time. Until the 1980s, HRM was
known as “Personnel Management” and merely dealt with formation and
implementation policies regarding recruitment, performance appraisal, health
issues of employees and decision-making. In 2000s, personnel management
transformed into strategic human resource management (SHRM), having
utmost importance in an organization as a department, which, together with
the management, formulates long-term goals for the business and creates
strategic plans in order to carry it forward. Therefore, as organizations started
to learn what drove the behavior of their employees, the link between this
driving behavior and productivity also became an essential focus for
organizations and researches. However, majority of the researches have
studied this link and the drivers of motivation in organizations that are involved
in producing products/goods.

Date: February 1st, 2020

ASSIGNMENT 1- Strategic Human Resource Management

Company:
Hijab Fatima 09361

Evolution of HR function evolved in the Bertlitz Pakistan.

If we talk about Berlitz in Pakistan, HR is at primitive level, taking its steps

towards mature Strategic Human Resource Function. It has evolved to some
degree because it’s been only a few years since it came to Pakistan. In the
beginning there were very few people working, so HR functioned at personal
level only i.e. hiring, firing etc. As soon as their business grew in Pakistan,
they made their KPIs, ethical code of conduct, policies and procedures. They
made commission based structure, pay scale and hierarchy levels were
defined. Compensation based on performance began. Training and
development programs were implemented for instructors and other
employees especially sales teams to help them learn specific knowledge/skills
to improve performance in their respective roles and help them increase their
future growth and performance. HR also does rotations e.g. Employees
working in B2B gets shifted to B2C in order to make their work more exciting.
There are still very few employees at Berlitz Pakistan and it’s located in
Karachi only. Therefore, HR lies somewhere between basic and mature level
i.e. taking its steps towards mature level.

2. Are the company's business strategy and HR strategy both linked

and aligned?

Berlitz sells its services to its customer. Their business strategy is more
towards push strategy that involves taking the product directly to the customer
ensuring the customer is aware of their brand. Their HR strategy is very much
aligned with their business strategy. They hire young, confident and energetic
people.
They claim that their HR culture is open, friendly and promotes innovation,
just as sales companies’ culture.
Their main business strategy is sales driven. Sales is their main function, all
other functions including HR are supportive functions.

Date: February 1st, 2020

ASSIGNMENT 1- Strategic Human Resource Management

Company:
Hijab Fatima 09361

HR tries to make all their strategies aligned with their core business that is,
sales. All their KPIs, remunerations and compensation factors are commission
based. Their pays are Commission based that is employees get paid with
compensation after completing a task, which is, often, selling a certain
number of services. Employee gets a rate or percentage on any sale that he
or she makes. They also get promoted based on their sales.
HR makes sure that their mission and vision values cascade down the
departments.
VISION
To be the global leader in delivering highly effective instructor-led and
personalized solutions for language, communication, intercultural and
business trainings.
MISSION
To enable people to communicate with confidence in a global environment in
order to achieve their goals in life.

Company’s main focus is to maintain their quality. Throughout their portfolio,

they are driven by their commitment to the quality of their service. Their main
focus is to make sure they have best instruction because it demonstrates their
lasting relationships with customers and bring them the results they promise.
They give close attention to the molding of their instructors. Each instructor is
trained in globally acclaimed and proven Berlitz method, which evolves
continuously with the intense research and development in the global
community of Berlitz.
They train individual students who soon grew to instruct teams of employees
from major corporations who found their services useful in shaping their
careers in an increasingly diverse corporate environment
Berlitz as a company believes that language is the backbone of human
progress, both at home and at the workplace and that Berlitz is honored to

Date: February 1st, 2020

 ASSIGNMENT 1- Strategic Human Resource Management

Company:
Hijab Fatima 09361

lead this progress, by innovating how they interact as a country and a people
worldwide.

HR team is responsible for all this. To maintain the quality of the firm by
implementing proper training and development programs for instructors. And
they keep a close check on instructors on the quality of their education. They
make sure that they recruit right people according to the job description. Its
HR duty to make sure that profile of potential candidates applying for any role
must be inline with the job description. Employee’s performance is measured
on driving quality sales. Hence, quality is their main priority and it comes from
mission and vision statement. It is also defined in their KPIs, commission
structure and job roles. Also HR structure is all sales driven very much linked
to its core business strategy. KPIs are all commission based. Employees get
bonuses and promotions based on achieving targets.

3. What are the barriers, reasons for any misalignments and weaknesses?

 There are few gaps, which cause misalignments between HR and

business strategy. Employees are at constant fear towards
victimization in the wake of failures. Since Business strategy is sales
driven and there is cut throat competition for sales, employees get
highly under pressure. Too many employees get kicked out on this
basis, which also lowers motivation of other staff since they feel like
working on thin ice, which can break anytime.

 Company’s culture is open, friendly, relaxed and casual but on the

other hand they put penalties on getting late. If they claim that they
have open relaxed environment then they must not be so inflexible with
latecomers.

Date: February 1st, 2020

ASSIGNMENT 1- Strategic Human Resource Management

Company:
Hijab Fatima 09361

 Lower level of employees do more work but their financial growth is

very little which causes them lack of motivation and eventually causes
barriers for organization because of lack of cooperation from them.
Where employees at upper level, whose work is not so physical and
mostly office based instead of on-field, get high remuneration and
bonuses. Some higher levels are also given with cars.

 One more barrier is that they get their employees work more than they
can which affects their efficiency, performance and eventually their
pay. This leads to employee demotivation and eventually affects the
company.

 Their compensation in the beginning of the years increases at very low

pace where workload is higher in the beginning. Overall there is very
low rise in compensation

 They don’t focus on monetary difference and increase monetary more

which can increase motivation among employees. Their focus right
now is to change commission structure, switching from fixed
percentage to variable percentage, which doesn’t impact much.

 There’s no mechanism for conflict resolution. When a dispute occurs,

which is quite often because of the stressful environment, there is no
proper mechanism of controlling it and it affects whole organization and
cause embarrassment to the involved parties.

 No team building activities are implemented. Employees get to work in

team but company does not work on team building.

Date: February 1st, 2020

 ASSIGNMENT 1- Strategic Human Resource Management

Company:
Hijab Fatima 09361

 No recreational activities are planned. Employees have stressful

working hours. They are in fear of losing their jobs, trying so hard to
achieve targets not caring about their health and family. Still company
does not take any measures about their employee’s mental health.

 There’s no concept of work life balance. Employees are not

encouraged to have balance between career and family. Company
cares only about sales of their service and nothing else.

4. What remedial measures should the company's management and HR be

taking to ensure complete fit between its business and HR strategies?

 Employees are always at the skin of their teeth, which gives them a lot
of tension because their performance weightage is 100% based on
sales and nothing else like ethics, prompt, behaviors, discipline etc. So
they should incorporate such things in the weightage so employees get
motivation to work for the company and make it successful in the long
run.

 Encourage employees to maintain work life balance. Offer flexible

hours, focus should be on productivity rather than working hours. A
happy employee is the best asset for a company. Supporting work life
balance for employees will increase their performance and productivity.

 Other social recreational activities should be encouraged which help

employees to meet each other outside the work environment, help
them to connect with each other in a better and more personal way and
help them to relax and enjoy outside the stressful working hours. With
friends work becomes easier and more fun. Implement team building

Date: February 1st, 2020

ASSIGNMENT 1- Strategic Human Resource Management

Company:
Hijab Fatima 09361

activities so employees get close to each other which will make them
work better and at ease.

 Team building activities should be promoted because overall

company’s environment is very stressful. Team building activities work
to strengthen tasks in the workplace that require collaboration because
it makes the teams understand better each other. Employees
understand each other's strengths, limitations, and desires better after
completing team-building exercises together.

 There must be some Conflict Resolution/Grievance Procedure in order

to cater the disputes among employees. It is a way of seeking a
peaceful solution to a dispute between two or more parties. It may be
intimate, economical, political, or emotional to disagree. If a conflict
occurs, negotiation to settle the disagreement is always the best
course of action. Otherwise it can affect environment of company and
other employees.
 Benefits should be increased. Benefits include other monetary rewards
such as paid leaves, gratuities, or insurance, and tangible rewards
such as access to company-owned assets including vehicles, laptops,
or accommodation. Benefits increase both motivation and productivity.

 Compensation involves all the monetary rewards that employees can

receive depending upon the employment contract. It includes hourly
wages, monthly salaries, commission, and bonuses, etc. This is a
motivating factor, and that it also enhances productivity. There should
be consistency in rise in compensation since compensation in the
beginning of the years increases at very low pace where workload is
higher in the beginning.

Date: February 1st, 2020