202205F0172 - MPHR7113

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT ASSESSMENT 01 – 23
JULY 2022
JANET AND HER DAUNTING HR CHALLENGE: CAN SHE DELIVER?

Sunrise International PLC had fared rather worse than its competitors during the
economic downturn. With revenue, quality, and productivity down, management set
several goals to reverse the company's fortune. One is in need of improvement was
human resources and Ms. Janet, the newly appointed CHRO faced a daunting challenge:
to quickly re-invent the Human Resources function, reposition it a strategic partner to
the business and improve employee perceptions of her department. Her predecessor
retired after leading a major reduction in force and two major divestitures causing a
significant exodus of key talent, some unexpected. Janet was charged with finding a
way to retain top talent and develop a steady but highly-qualified stream of candidates
to fill regular as well as critical positions. Sunrise International PLC’s CEO agreed with
her that differentiating the human resources function was essential for senior
management's plan to succeed.

In her first two weeks on the job Janet discovered:

 Requests for information on several employee categories revealed her

department didn’t have a comprehensive searchable repository of employee (or
applicant) data; unless routine every request yielded spotty information from
several systems, took days to compile and sometimes offered up conflicting
data.
 Job descriptions were inconsistent, long but vague lists of high level "duties and
responsibilities" and qualifications; the terms used were not defined or
uniformly applied; there was little to distinguish junior from senior personnel
beyond years of "relevant" experience; focused on largely technical skills, fuzzy
descriptions of soft skills when offered at all were invariably "boilerplate."
 Job titles didn’t reflect the work people did, used instead as a framework for
budgeting and compensation. For instance, Sunrise International PLC employed
nearly a thousand Business Analysts across the planet, in every sector wherein
it did business, many doing unique work requiring different knowledge and
skills.
 Aside from providing a coordinating function, human resources had outsourced
recruiting to third parties who presented candidates based on their internet
postings and other sources. No matter the level or criticality of the open
position, human resources rarely conducted interviews or assessments before
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or after handing over the third party resumes to the hiring organization and
would get involved again only when a candidate was selected.

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  HR’s participation in the onboarding process of new employees was limited to
having them attend a half-day orientation session where, between a video and a
slide presentation about the company, they filled out benefits-related, payroll,
ID and other paper forms. The new hires’ functional organizations were
responsible for all other orientation and getting the employees to be productive.
 Learning and Development (L&D) had largely been outsourced to several
companies that provided generic on-line courses; function-specific career
development was left to each functional area to manage however it thought
best. Everything reinforced silos.
 The recent departure of several mission-critical employees disclosed no
systematic means of capturing expertise from employees; when they left, their
knowledge left with them.
 The Performance Management System (PMS) didn’t align with anything, was
viewed by managers and individual contributors alike as a burdensome annual
chore that interfered with people’s "real jobs."
 Where process maps existed at all (within and beyond HR), they were scattered
throughout the entire company, had no consistent format, were developed in
various applications, and were unvaryingly out of date.
 Succession Planning was limited to the top ten percent of executive and senior
managers.
 Fortunately, if sadly, Sunrise International PLC’s cost to hire was nearly double
that of comparable global businesses with vendor contracts negotiated and
managed informally, assuring at least a favourable ROI from this area and
provide seed money to initiate HR’s transformation.

The artful management of talent is one of a handful of strategic services human

resources can offer. The waning of traditional HR functions through automation, self-
service and outsourcing demands a "culture change" within human resources: adopt a
business focus by an organization still structured largely around benefits
administration, time and attendance reporting, labor cost processing and similar
transactional operations.

After diligently reviewing the past four years’ budget/actual numbers, individually
confirming these and other observations with her colleagues on the Executive
Management Team (EMT), getting a "feel" for Sunrise International PLC’s senior
management culture and bouncing around some ideas, Janet drafted the plan she
would "socialize" before presenting to the EMT. The elements of her plan, required to
enable human resources to act as a strategic partner included:

 Human resources needed to "know" its internal customers much better if it was
to provide strategic services, realign HR personnel as soon as possible from a
centralized to a distributed model, relocating them to offices close to their
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 business peers and customers. This would require re-skilling some people to
function as single point of contact generalists before dedicating them to
business units and gradually re-insource more of mission critical services like
recruiting.
 Develop a communication plan to present HR’s transformation to first human
resources personnel and immediately thereafter to all of Sunrise International
PLC’s employees. In addition to providing a clear, concise description of what
human resources would "look like" and how it would operate in the future, the
initial communication to HR personnel would stress that the initiative was not
aimed at workforce reduction that, in fact, it presented several opportunities.
 Investigate turning a portion of the company’s well-regarded Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) system inward to regard employees as
customers and business units as clients.
 Liaison with IT to examine implementing a comprehensive, easily queried
application (Enterprise Stakeholder Database -ESD) that drew together all
employee data to promptly answer management’s questions as well as, after
analysis, likely pose some. The design would incorporate a Competency
Management System enabling self-assessment by recruits and current
employees alike against levels of Knowledge, Skills and Behaviors (KSB) that
formed the basis of organizational roles, replace Job Descriptions and link to
(and eventually integrate with) the PMS and L&D applications. ESD would also
be designed to yield Centres of Excellence (COE) in which every employee
would have multiple memberships so that when questions arose, the
appropriate COE(s) could be tasked with refining the knowledge management
required to make data-driven decisions.
 Assure recruiting data of promising candidates is reflected in the ESD so that
periodic communication with them demonstrates on-going interest to generate
a stream of potential pre-qualified and referred applicants.
 Explore how establishing a presence on social networks could support recruiting.

While fixing the broken system and processes is vital to enabling HR to act as a
strategic partner, it is equally important to recognize and develop leaders. As Glenn
Tobe put it, "every company has pockets of excellence, people who informally optimize
the teachable moments. Amplify what works. Leaders need to grow leaders not HR
programs, new methodologies, new models, new processes, and new languages. So,
when you hear ideas like ‘talent stratification, career velocity, high potential,’
remember the human resources department has too much free time..." It is leaders
throughout the organization that enable a business to quickly adjust to foreseen as
well as unpredictable market forces. Flexible tools and a flexible mindset, both are
what human resources need to offer.

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Attracting, helping to manage the productivity, and retaining the commitment of
employees to an organization requires human resources to project a meaningful
people- are-valued-here image into the company as well as out into the recruiting
marketplace, especially with external recruiters if they are used.

Notes of caution: Understand your company’s culture. What’s "right" for some
organizations can yield disastrous results for others. Conduct a survey at the right
time; start from where the organization "is" rather than be lulled into describing it as
you or your boss would like it to be; move incrementally, iteratively in small steps at
least at first if the organization is "anxious"; if complacent, see Jack Welch. In either case
provide a clear vision of where you want to go, be open to advice from anyone and
transparent when you need to change it.

 Understand your company’s strategic plan. What are the hoped-for and actual
trends? What talent was/will be required? Does what will be needed already
reside somewhere among current employees? What likely gaps can’t be
developed from within the current talent pool? What are historic lead times to
develop and acquire the needed KSB?
 Understand your clients and customers: A critical part beginning with the on-
boarding process is getting frequent feedback from and on the new hires. Know
what it costs your internal clients to hire people; what can be done to reduce these
costs? How satisfied are they with the process and the candidates? How satisfied
are they with the new hire or transfer? And finally, how satisfied are your
customers, the new employee, and his/her co-workers?

(Adopted and distributed with permission. Case Written By: George Harth)

Please answer the following questions:

1. The CEO expects Janet to conduct an HR Audit and present to him the
feasibility report with a business case on the HR Transformation Plan.
Identify and elaborate on THREE major issues that Janet must highlight to
her CEO to get his approval and the required budget to undertake this task.
(15 marks)

2. As an experienced HR consultant, what would be your THREE critical

pieces of advice to Janet in order to tackle her daunting challenge to
become an effective HR Business Partner in her company? (15 marks)

Prepared By:
NEELAMEHAN MANICKIAM (3009)
City University Malaysia