Harrison brothers case study

James Harrison, the CEO of Harrison Brothers, knowing the Importance of human resources, did a survey on human resource and other key managers at the store level.

2. Problem Deflation The survey indicates there are lots of problems in the HER department and these problems might indirectly or directly slow down Harrison Brothers’ growth in the future. The major human resource management (HARM) problem in Harrison Brothers is that HARM is still struggling in Its function of maintaining personnel.

For example, since there Is heavy turnover on salesman, Brenda McCain, the human resource anger, conducted about 25 to 30 Interviews a week, and more during the holiday rush. Further, there is only one trainer in Harrison Brothers, causing McCain to spend a lot of time on training, neglecting bigger picture HARM issues.

One of the other problems is that HARM pays little attention to employees’ business skills. This is shown in the survey where HER managers rated importance of both knowledge of business and skills in managing change, as 2. Out of 5. 0, while store managers rated the Importance of those skills as 4. 5. One of Harrison Brothers five strategic goals Is to improve productivity of sales.

Buyers, and department heads. And corporations must prepare their employees to cope with the complexities and accelerated speed of a future economy. If HARM perceives knowledge of business and managing change, as the least important, Harrison Brothers may have a hard time achieving this strategic goal. There are other problems as well.

These include, but are not limited to, supervisors that are reluctant to assess employees’ career planning and professional development, a human resources department which Is constrained by cost incinerations, and low administrative efficiency. These problems currently existing problems.

However, in the long term, if HER in Harrison Brothers remains the same, many more problems will arise. Harrison Brothers may have difficulty in talent retention, it may experience poor employee performance and low productivity, or there may be conflict in the workplace.

In all, the current overall HARM practically not be able to meet the challenge Harrison Brotherhood encounter In the future, and will not help Harrison Brothers to achieve Its long-term goal. 3. Causes of the Problem The main cause of these problems is that there is no HER planning in Harrison Brothers.

HER planning is a way to analyze needs for employee and supply of employees, and then make a plan to make sure the organization have the right amount of employees and skills.

That’s probably the reason why HER department is struggling and spending most of Its time on staffing and training. Another important cause of It Is that human resources department TLD see human resource management Trot a strategic level. As Jennifer Data, ten store manager Salsa, unman source department seem to be struggling to keep up with the day-to-day activities. HARM should free itself from day-to-day activities and become influential in strategic decision-making process. 4.

Alternative Solutions There are several approaches to fix these problems.

First of all, large-sized firms like Harrison Brothers should develop HARM from its traditional functions up to more strategic level management. This would lissomness such as McCain be brought enduring a strategic decision-making process, giving her the ability to make or strongly influence the decision itself. To do this, she must have the skills needed to function as a strategic business partner, which lead to the solution that follows. Second of all, McCain and her HER teammates may need to be trained to learn more about business knowledge, such as markets, finance and so on.

This knowledge can enhance HRS strategic role in the organization. Training programs need to be designed and implemented to identify, coach and develop professional skills in HER. Also, McCain might want to consider transferring the old HER department’s organization to a new one in order to meet the challenges in the dramatically hanging business environment. For example, one of many other forms of HER structure is made up of three main departments: HERB (human resource business partner), CEO (center of excellence/expertise), and SC (shared service center).

This type of organizational structure allows the HER unit to respond to the market rapidly.

Surely there are many other forms, and regardless of which particular one it is, Harrison Brothers needs twofold one type of structure that meets the needs of their own strategy and allows the HER unit a crucial role to play. The fourth solution McCain eight try is to measure HARM by using tools such as Balanced Scorecard, Dollar Value or benchmarking. Assessment of HARM could give the HER manager a new and quantifiable way to view the efficiency of HARM. N this case, McCain can benchmark and analyze competitors’ staffing and hiring by calculating HER indices such as cost per hire by Job level and source, time to fill and time to start. These data can give her a better idea of whether Harrison Brothers is spending more on hiring than other companies in the retail industry. The last solution, but not least, is to enhance HER administrative efficiency.

A centralized HER services department or center should be established.

In this way, McCain and her team can free themselves from repeated daily routines. 5. Recommendations I would recommend transcending and her team to learn more about finance and market, as HER, finance and marketing are all important to understand how to run a business as a whole. Armed with business knowledge, she and her team can bring Harrison Brothers HER unit into a strategic level.

Also, transferring HER structure and enhancing administrative efficiency will help McCain and her team to work more efficiently.