self development, Business, College Term Papers.com


		Data Bases
		• Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism?

		Links
		• Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com

		Free Essays
		• Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers

Search Lots of Essays

Back to Subjects - Business

self development

self development The purpose of this report is to deliver a professional critique of the HRM Management function and self-development, highlighting the importance of the organization and how companies link the HRM Function to their strategic planning. The author will also try and discuss the concept of organizational structure and the role of continuous professional development and how organizations profit from developing their entire operations population. The report is for the attention of Mrs. C Ginger HRM D4 Module Tutor at Darlington college of Technology, along with Mr. D. Newbery the authors Manager at TKA Chassis Tallent. It is envisaged the intended outcome of the report will identify both strengths and weaknesses of the author’s employers in the area of Human Resource Management and it association with manufacturing operations, while at the same time linking the company strategic direction to various authors’ theoretical discussions and guides. 1:0 The Link Between HRM And Strategic Planning 1:1 Competitive Dimensions Of Human Resource Strategy 1:2 Limitations Within The Relationship Between The Functional Areas Of Manufacturing And Human Resources 2:1 Benefits Of An Open Systems Approach 3:3 Types of Organisational Structures 4:0 Continual Professional Development 4:5 Learning Theories: Philosophies Of Learning And Competence 4:6 Learning Theories: Behaviourism And Transfer Of Learning 4:7 Learning theories: Vygotsky and Kolb 4:8 Organisation Change And Development 5:0 TKA And How They Have Adapted To The Environment 7:0 HRM Parallel Business Objectives 7:1 Competitive Priorities Of Manufacturing Strategy 7:2 Competitive Dimensions Of Human Resource Strategy 8:0 Self Development And How It Is Aligned With The HRM To research the integration of human resource management and manufacturing it is necessary to consider the competitive priorities of manufacturing strategy, which are directly related to the competitive potential of this functional area. Two evolutionary stages of manufacturing, which may enhance other functional areas, are considered in this study. First, the internal integration stage occurs when the functional areas carry out their activities based on the performance objective established either by the company or each of their divisions, but without participating in their formulation. Second, external integration happens when manufacturing area and other functional areas support the formulation of strategies externally, e.g. they participate in the generation of competitive advantages based on a diagnosis of the competitive environment of the company (Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984). The external integration stage of manufacturing is facilitated by the creation of business units, which become responsible for the competitive strategies (Porter, 1980). A business unit or strategic business unit is the grouping of similar activities related to a specific business which allows the company greater interaction with its competitive environment. A business unit represents a very useful way of optimizing the results of the company because its homogeneous products are managed with a business objective and they are challenged to present the respective results (Oliveira, 1995). The upgrade of manufacturing management requires its integration into strategic business management and it is substantial that the level of importance of its sub-areas (process and product engineering, quality and logistics) becomes equivalent to those of other functional areas (human resources, marketing and finance). Within this context, the relationship between the sub-functional areas of the manufacturing function and human resource management are established based on their competitive priorities and dimensions which are a set of options with which a business unit has to compete in its markets during a period of time. 1:0 The Link Between HRM And Strategic Planning Among several approaches of competitive strategies (Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984; Slack et al., 1995), the following are adopted (Pires, 1995):  Costs, which means seeking a lower manufacturing cost;  Quality, which implies offering high quality products and services to the customers;  Performance delivery, which represents the accomplishment of two basic objectives, i.e. lower and more reliable delivery deadlines;  Flexibility, mainly related to the innovation of products and services, the product mix and the production volume. Competitive priorities aim at drawing manufacturing function attention toward a range of market demands. 1:1 Competitive Dimensions Of Human Resource Strategy Similar to the manufacturing function, the main concern of the human resource functional area is to be included in the company management as a whole and specifically in the strategic business management. The main strategic purposes or competitive dimensions of the human resource strategy considered in this paper are presented as follows.  The formation of a network based on teams, which make the integration of competencies, skills and technologies into, the core competencies related to the competitive advantages of the company strategy (Mintzberg, 1993; Hamel and Prahalad, 1994).  The renewal of their employees’ professional competencies, which consists of organizational learning in order to create organizational capabilities and then to cope with the challenges of the competitive environment (Senge, 1990).  The individual and collective learning requires proper structures, incentives, and management, which can help firms, generate innovation and build knowledge assets (Teece, 1998).  The organizational culture management, which means the elaboration and monitoring of the organizational values with the aim of guiding and coordinating the various experts’ and their teams’ tasks instead of carrying out any other kind of work standardization (Burack, 1991). Business units may employ two basic strategies with a broad or restricted scope in order to develop and attain competitive advantages within their competitive environment (Porter, 1980):  Cost reduction, in which the company seeks to position itself by practicing the lowest cost in the competitive environment, which may imply the offering of goods and/or services with the lowest prices in its market.  Differentiation, which aims at offering differentiated goods and/or services generally to niches of a market. A price policy with a greater unitary profit margin could be practiced.  Focus, which selects one or more segments of the company’s markets and tries to develop competitive advantages (focusing on one of the two previous strategies). As these advantages are focused on a few segments of the market, no general competitive advantage is attained. Competitive advantage is commonly defined as a position attained by a business unit and perceived by its customers when it is compared with its competitors. They may be characterized as lower cost or differentiation (Porter, 1980). Both manufacturing and human resource strategies support the development of a competitive or business unit strategy. Based on the definition of corporate and competitive strategies, it is possible to start the formulation of its manufacturing strategy and the choice of its competitive priorities as well. In this way, there is a natural alignment of competitive strategies with competitive priorities of manufacturing strategy. The choice of certain competitive priorities and dimensions of the functional strategies requires the capability of the sub-areas of the manufacturing function (process and product engineering, quality and logistics) to co-ordinate the efforts of the various functional areas during the planning and execution of the programmes in order to achieve the capabilities and objectives related to the competitive priorities. Similar to the manufacturing function, the human resource area needs to coordinate the cross-functional efforts to promote the formation of network based on teams, organizational learning and organizational culture management. The concepts of competitive priorities and dimensions of the functional areas are directly related to the resource-based theory of competitive advantage because their main purpose is to support the formulation of functional strategies by exploring the functional resources and capabilities and creating competitive advantages for the company (Grant, 1991). 1:2 Limitations Within The Relationship Between The Functional Areas Of Manufacturing And Human Resources Owing to the possibility of arranging the competitive priorities within one manufacturing strategy, it is difficult to associate a competitive strategy exclusively with quality, delivery performance, flexibility or cost. However, in the international literature, human resource management is linked to competitive and manufacturing strategies based on a single competitive priority of manufacturing, usually named business strategies or strategic choices. In addition, human resource management is linked to strategic choices of quality, flexibility and cost reduction by the use of a functional approach. In other words, the competitive priorities of manufacturing strategy are usually related to performance appraisal, work design, career management, training and development and compensation, but not to the competitive dimensions of human resource strategy. 2:0 Systems And Ecological Thinking There are both orthodox and alternative views of systems: within this section the author has examined the kind of systems thinking that concerns social phenomena and challenges Western orthodoxy. Checkland (1981), for example, adopts a phenomenological approach in his soft systems methodology', employing systems not as 'descriptions of actual real-world activity’ (1981: 314), but as 'tools of an epistemological kind which can be used in a process of exploration within social reality' (1981: 249). A system thinking, moreover, shifts our attention from what orthodox thinking allows us to see. It allows us to see the whole rather than just its parts, interconnectivity rather than isolated elements, and to recognize that we are a part of that whole. It registers patterns of change, relationships rather than just objects, a web of interrelationships and reciprocal flows of influence rather than linear chains of cause and effect. The similarities here with Marshall's (1989) view of feminist thinking raise some interesting questions about how systems thinking could gain greater acceptance. However, it is Senge's (1990) 'fifth discipline' and in his view it is essential for the development of the learning organization; “At the heart of a learning organization is a shift of mind - from seeing ourselves as separate from the world to connected to the world, from seeing problems as caused by someone or something 'out there' to seeing how our own actions create the problems we experience. A learning organization is a place where people are continually discovering how they create their reality. And how they can change it.” The concept of system denotes a whole and coherent entity that can be distinguished from its environment and may comprise a hierarchy of subsystems, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Much of what has been written about systems draws upon General Systems Theory, a meta-theory that offered a way to conceptualise phenomena in any disciplinary area. Very importantly, the systems approach does not argue that social phenomena are systems, but rather that they can be modeled (conceptualized, thought about) as though they had systemic properties. The concept of system used in the social sciences is, therefore, a very abstract kind of metaphor. Morgan (1986) and Senge (1990). Systems may be 'open' (like biological or social systems) or 'closed' to their environment, like many physical and mechanical systems. As shown in Appendix 1, the open system imports from, exchanges with, its environment what it needs to meet its goals and to survive, and converts or transforms these inputs into a form that sustains its existence and generates outputs that are returned to the environment and can be used to exchange for further inputs, along with waste products. The environment itself comprises other systems that are also drawing in inputs and discharging outputs. Changes in remote parts of any given system's environment can, therefore, ripple through its environment to affect it eventually. There is a feedback loop that enables the system to make appropriate modifications to its subsystems in the light of the changing environment. Thus the system constantly adjusts to achieve equilibrium internally and with its environment. Reflecting upon the TKA management approach, we can now recognise that the scientific management, human relations and perhaps also the humanistic approaches treated the organization as a closed system, whereas the human resource approach recognises it as open to its environment. Brunsson (1989) identifies of the 'action' and 'political' organizations could also be seen as an open system approach. The significance of systems thinking, then, lies in its ability to conceptualise complex, dynamic realities - the system and its internal and external relationships - and model them in a simple, coherent way that is yet pregnant with meaning and capable of being elaborated further when necessary. This means that we can use it to hold in our minds such complex ideas as those discussed in this section, without diminishing our aware- ness of their complexity and interrelationships. If we construe the contextually- embedded body of HRM thinking to be a system, then the ways of seeing and thinking being discussed in this section, the socio-historical issues and the nature of organizations and management, are all inputs into it from its wider environment. It 'converts' them to produce the HRM philosophies, policies and practices, these outputs themselves influence, indeed change, the wider environment by their effects upon, for example, the labour market, management-union relationships, or changing values about employment. We can also model the HRM of an organisation in a similar manner. In this case its inputs would include the outputs of the labour market, the policy outputs of the organisations business strategy, values about people and employment, the existence of the specialist HRM personnel. The conversion process transforms these inputs through many other processes, such as recruitment and selection processes, training and development processes, disciplinary and performance appraisal processes. The outputs of this organisational HRM system are the kinds of personnel and skills, attitudes and conditions of employment required to service the organisation. The 'waste' by products may be ineffectual personnel systems; highly trained staff that decide to leave the orgnisation, or poorly motivated, exhausted or stressed staff. We could also conceptualise an organisation as a system in a complex and dynamic relationship with its complex and dynamic environment. Changes in one part of the environment - the collapse of a supplier, for example, or the reduction of energy sources will change the nature of the inputs and lead to the need for adjustments in and between the subsystems, either to ensure the same output or to modify the output. The environment consists of other organisations, the outputs of which - whether intentionally or as by-products - constitute the inputs of others. A change in output, such as a new or improved product or service, however, will constitute a change in another organisation's input, leading to a further ripple of adjustments. 2:1 Benefits Of An Open Systems Approach Adopting an open system approach to management or organizational development offers a number of benefits;  A broader set of strategies polices and plans are developed that take fuller account of the organizations unique situation and its specific requirements in respect of managerial skills and knowledge.  An open system view identifies the way management development contributes to overall organizational development and effectiveness.  By identifying, analyzing and monitoring the complex network of influences and patterns of relationships in managerial work, development programmes can become more adaptable, flexible, responsive and proactive in the face of organizational change and turbulence.  Viewing management development in open systems terms reveals the full extent of its influence on the organization and is likely to lead to more detailed and objective assessment of performance and overall effectiveness. The word organisation has two different meanings in this area of study.  An institution or functional group such as a business or a society  The process of organising. This is the way in which work is arranged and allocated among members of an organisation so that the goals of the "organisation" can be most efficiently achieved. The process of organising is dividing up the work that is done among areas and employees and linking together these areas and jobs in order to form a unified whole, (a single working unit where all of its parts work together to achieve the organisations goals). The division of work is the breaking down of the jobs that your organisation needs to do in order to achieve its goals. A craftsperson that is making, selling and designing chairs would do a lot of different things in the course of that activity. If the chair was being mass produced in a large company the tasks would probably be broken down into smaller sections handled by different people such as purchasing, design, sales and marketing, production etc. All of these areas could be broken down even further. It is believed that job specialisation leads to greater efficiency and higher output per person than a more general approach but it does have its problems such as creating boring and repetitive jobs, but there are strategies for helping to deal with these problems. In order to structure your organisation you need to take these divisions of work and organise them into logical groupings. You need to show how these areas are linked to each other, the hierarchy, levels of authority and responsibility and its formal channels of communication. 3:3 Types of Organisational Structures One of the ways in which we can explain the structure of an organisation is through an organisational chart. Figure 1 shows the title of each manager’s position and using connecting lines show who is accountable to whom and who has responsibility for which department. It doesn't tell you everything about the organisation such as the communication channels and liasing between departments but it is a useful conceptual tool so that one can think of the organisation as a whole and understand how all its parts fit together. Towards the top of the structure is usually centred most of the power while as we move down through the structure there is less authority and status. In this type of organisational structure the division of work is the most important part. Jobs and activities are grouped together. This is called departmentation. This is a very popular model. This structure may be varied in a number of ways. Here the organisation is divided up according to the product (such as in a supermarket - toiletries, fruit and vegetables, etc.) or the service (such as a local council's sanitation area including waste disposal, recycling, street sweeping and maintenance etc.) This could include a sales business, which is divided into wholesale and retail sections to cater to the needs of the public and businesses. A printing firm, for example, may use this sort of division in order to keep all of its printing functions in the one area, for example a screen printing department for T-shirts and a card section for the printing of business cards. As a firm grows it sometimes needs to set up branches in other locations. (Figure 2) Figure 2 A firm may wish to allow these branches to work as autonomous units, that means that they are like little organisations of there own making local decisions but guided by the policy decisions made at the head office. For example some large 'fast food' chains often work in this way with a head office and suburban branches, which are run by a "manager". The head office provides services and support but is not closely involved in the day to day running of the branch. (Figure 3) While the branch manager does have scope to make decisions this is limited as compared to a completely separate business. Sometimes an organisation needs to run according to what projects they have to do. In these situations people usually work together in a team to achieve their projects goals. A person working on a project would have two bosses, the boss of the department that they work in and the leader or manager of the particular project that they are working on at the moment. A project may cover some or all of the organisations departmental areas. (Figure 4) For example in the aerospace industry (manufacture and development of aeroplanes and spacecraft) the government might ask for a space shuttle type aircraft to be developed and manufactured. Another government department might ask for a spacecraft to go to Mars. Obviously these craft would be very different. How could an organisation set itself up to complete both projects? Well it might set up two project groups. The Mars group and the shuttle group, both of which would utilise resources, staff etc from all of the different departments in the organisation. When the projects are completed, these project groups would be disbanded. 4:0 Continual Professional Development Continuing professional development is an essential element in any over-all strategy for lifelong learning. However, there are currently a number of political and economic pressures, which result in such development being seen increasingly in terms of discrete, usually accredited courses rather than as something embedded in on-going professional life. These pressures have certainly impacted upon the automotive sector and engineering disciplines where the author has allegiance. CPD means the whole range of activities, formal and informal, which professionals undertake to continuously improve performance. It can be as simple as having a discussion with someone you meet socially, or as complex as undertaking a major research exercise to develop new (professional) knowledge. Much more important than definitions is to evolve a shared concept of what CPD is all about. CPD is, of course, a much more complex set of ideas than those associated with simple everyday objects, and it is also relatively new (at least as a term if not as an activity). Therefore it is not surprising that as yet different people assign different meanings to the term. If we are to develop a shared concept, then we need to agree on  The purposes of CPD – what we are seeking to achieve,  The stakeholders – who will benefit, and  How best to achieve the purposes for the stakeholders. Put another way, in terms of a journey, once we know what the destination is, and who the travellers will be, it then becomes possible to sort out the best way to get there – the means. i. The primary purpose of CPD is economic ii. The stakeholders are those who need to develop professional competences iii. The means consist of a complex set of circumstances and activities, which can be summed up as the learning environment. These assertions provide three dimensions on which to work and gain a measure of consensus: (Figure 5) The advantage of using three axes is that it allows us to plot an individual position against three measures, giving a more accurate fix. Is it either practical or sensible to attempt to develop professional competences without reference to the learning environment, and to a measure of economic gain? For the individual, economic aims are variously  Or to re-commence earning after a break in employment or self-employment Organisations have a very similar set of economic aims, which vary dependent on their status (public, private or voluntary), and the organisation’s raison d’�tre:  To increase revenue or profit  To maintain levels of revenue or profit  Or in the case of start-up organisations to begin earning revenue or profit There are, of course, a few exceptions, but the aims above are valid for the majority of individuals and organisations. The point to make about economic aims is, of course, that CPD programmes, which do not take these into account, are liable to be rejected. Calibrating the economic aims axis is not too difficult using measures such as career progression, stability of employment, or finding a new job at a professional level. In the case of organisations, measures of revenue or profitability can be used. This is not to imply that CPD will be the sole cause of improvement in economic circumstances, but merely that economic measures should not be overlooked. If the economic aims axis is relatively easy to calibrate, professional competences are rather harder if only because we are dealing with a vast array of different occupations. Two questions arise here: what occupations are ‘professional’, and what is the best method to define the competences needed? If certain jobs are labeled as professional, others (presumably) are non-professional. A doctor is a professional, possesses higher education, and membership of a professional body, which among other things seeks to validate and control the competences needed to be a doctor. A similar situation exists with the Law Society, with the Institute of Chartered Accountants, and with the engineering institutions (though membership of engineering institutions is voluntary rather than mandatory). We could conclude that professionals are professionals because they are members of professional institutions and they attain this status because of their initial formation, which includes (the equivalent of) higher education. Therefore, as long as we are engaged in developing doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers etc. we are carrying out CPD. A large number of non-professional occupations now require high-level skills. In my experience of the manufacturing industry, craft engineers frequently solve problems, which require high levels of conceptual and analytic skills, at times rectifying errors caused by their ‘professional’ engineering colleagues. We know quite a lot about how people learn. Firstly, it is an intuitive process – whether we want it to happen or not, it will happen. Secondly, it happens through interaction, most often with other people. Thirdly, it is decided by the individual – people control what they will learn and how they will learn. Work-based learning is not new. Learning at and from work occurs naturally: people are sophisticated learners and the workplace provides a multiplicity of opportunities for the interactions, which produce learning. What is new is a concerted effort to engineer the workplace to provide an effective learning environment, and to accredit the learning which employees acquire. There are good reasons for deliberately planning programmes of work-based learning, rather than isolating staff development from the day-to-day working routine. These reasons can be grouped under the three headings of  Economic analysis and priorities  Organisation change and development 4:5 Learning Theories: Philosophies Of Learning And Competence There are two approaches to the philosophy of learning. The 'Classical School' (for example, Paul Hirst ) argues that knowledge is per se valid, and can be analysed into distinct forms: mathematics, science, ethics, aesthetics etc. To be a complete, balanced individual you need to acquire (and presumably continuously update) knowledge in all the categories. The 'Rationalist School' exemplified by Foucault , argues that knowledge is only valid when applied. Thus, as an example, the management skill of knowing how to calculate a P/E ratio is only valid if use is made of the knowledge in some way. The dichotomy between the two approaches is evident in the current debate surrounding assessment of training and development, particularly the assessment of NVQs at higher levels. The proposition that competence should be measured as the application of knowledge and skills in a workplace context conforms to the rationalist understanding of knowledge. Against this, the practice of professional bodies is to require assessment of knowledge and understanding in their own right, and to complement this assessment with evidence of sound professional practice . Moreover, a growing number of companies have adopted broadly based HRD strategies to enhance personal development in the "Classical School" mode. Examples include the Ford EDAP scheme, and the Rover Learning Business programme. 4:6 Learning Theories: Behaviourism And Transfer Of Learning Closely allied with the rationalist philosophy of learning is the behaviourist approach to training and development. Outcomes are specified in terms of tightly worded "behavioural objectives" , rather than ideas of knowing and understanding, and the task of training is to condition employees into adopting specified behavioural outcomes. This matches well with much HRM practice, which puts into place a set of processes (e.g. the appraisal interview), rewards such as performance bonuses, and sanctions (for example, disciplinary procedures) to condition workplace behaviour. The behavioural theories of learning, which propose how learning can be achieved, may well be successful in off-line, classroom contexts where the process can be controlled in an artificial environment to achieve the desired objectives. Gagn�'s model of instructional design has been very successfully applied to both classroom based and distance learning instruction. 4:7 Learning theories: Vygotsky and Kolb Vygotsky is best known for his work relating language development to learning. Perhaps more significantly for training and development his ideas on the "zone of proximal learning" can be adapted to offer explanations when off-line training and development appears ineffective in producing change, and can point to design parameters for the development of work-based approaches. In diagrammatic form, the idea of the zone of proximal learning can be seen represented by (Figure 6) Acquired knowledge  experience Provided the new experience matches with existing knowledge it will be assimilated and produce new knowledge, defined in rationalist terms as knowledge applied. However, if there is too big a gap between the new experience and existing knowledge, the new experience will be rejected and there will be no new knowledge gain. Central to Kolb's thesis is the idea that learning is a proactive skill, which allows us to shape our environment. People learn constantly, and are highly sophisticated at the skills of acquiring knowledge and applying this knowledge . In other words, people will learn whether or not there is a training intervention. However, if there is a training intervention, and the aims and content are remote from existing experience then the new learning will be initially rejected or supplanted by experiential learning within the workplace environment. The second proposition for the development of work-based learning is that it must conform to the prevailing stream of experiential learning within the work place, and this conformance will engender a higher incidence of effectiveness than off-line training and development. 4:8 Organisation Change And Development It has been argued above that experiential learning is derived from interaction with the working environment, and that this may often be a more powerful influence than off-line training can provide. Secondly, there is at worst a strong suspicion that an under-trained workforce is a contributory factor to poor economic performance, and that the priority should be to target the workforce in employment to redress this situation both for demographic reasons and to create a learning culture in the work environment. From a theoretical perspective, the development of work-based learning therefore offers substantial potential. There are, however, a number of as yet unanswered questions regarding practical implementation of work-based learning. The first of these concerns the type of organisation, which will most readily adopt work-based learning. The literature on organisation development and its relationship with HRD is somewhat unhelpful. A typology of organisational approaches to HRD, based on personal experience, suggests four categories:  Pre-historic: either predators solving skills shortages through recruitment, or simply ignoring the need to develop staff and thus doomed to extinction  Opportunist: reacting to HRD needs on an ad hoc basis  Juggernauts: have an established pattern of HRD which is represented most evidently by the annual training budget, and by a parcel of courses offered each year  Strategic: HRD is planned and accords with business, market, and technology aims. Following this typology, target organisations to develop work-based learning would be those, which have a strategic orientation to HRD, linked to other aspects of organisation development. In the main it is larger organisations, which possess the resources to plan in this integrated way. The second unanswered question concerns current changes to workplace organisation. The process of downsizing in large organisations has meant fewer people are in permanent full-time employment : On the one hand, the prospect that work-based learning involves less time away from the workplace is an advantage; against this, the extent to which resources are available or can be developed for planning learning programmes, mentoring, and assessment remains unanswered. Finally, the area of assessment raises questions in its own right. A measure of the attainment of the workforce is desirable at national policy level. Individuals also see benefit in acquiring recognised qualifications. Employers, however, may be rather more sanguine about financing qualifications for staff in employment. Additionally, where competence is to be measured, there needs to be an allocation of resource to carry out assessment in the workplace. The final proposition for work-based learning is that it will successfully develop in organisations which already possess sophisticated HRD strategies, can offer facilitative HRD resources, and (for purposes of national measurement) will encourage employees to gain recognised qualifications. The arguments I have used are perhaps not well founded in terms of conventional academic research. They are personal and meant to be provocative. I have suggested that effective CPD should  Be related to economic aims at individual and organisation levels  Be ‘vertically integrated’ allowing substantially more people to acquire high level skills  Be primarily defined by the individual rather than the organisation  And be a function of opportunity and learning support. 5:0 TKA And How They Have Adapted To The Environment There has been growing recognition throughout the 1990s that the financial measures of performance that companies have traditionally used are inappropriate for manufacturing businesses (Geanuracos and Meiklejohn, 1993) with there being many cited examples as to what are the specific limitations: “Many companies now recognise that their cost systems are inadequate for today’s powerful competition. Systems designed mainly to value inventory for financial and tax statements are not giving managers the accurate and timely information they need. Many companies have been relying too much on summary financial measures and have ignored the powerful opportunities for continual improvement that a well-constructed set of non-financial operating measures can give them” (Kaplan, 1988). Today’s powerful competition has been termed global competition (Kanter, 1995), with very few industries being unaffected by the term. This is based on the premise that the world is becoming a global shopping mall in which ideas and products are available everywhere at the same time. This puts the power of choice in the hands of customers, changing the terms of competition forever. To succeed, Kanter claims that companies need abundant stocks of three global assets – concepts, competence, and connections – which derive from investments in innovation, education, and collaboration. The company have a clearly developed mission and strategy. From a review of the business situation a mission and vision of the company was established. Our vision is: “To be a successful, competitive, best-in-class supplier”.  To be a world-class supplier of high quality, competitively priced manufactured products and engineering services.  To continually improve our products and services, to satisfy our customers and make a profit.  To prosper as a business to the benefit of our customers, shareholders and employees alike. The company derived a manufacturing strategy (Strategic Business Plan – Manufacturing Division), which has been developed to satisfy the mission statement. The strategy was based around four competitive priorities: Quality, Cost, Delivery, Skill, and Moral. Under each competitive priority a number of objectives were established. With careful consideration management came up with the following measures from each competitive priority:  Quality. Staff attitude survey, supplier quality PPM, and number of customer complaints and cost of quality.  Cost. Absenteeism, type of accidents and rate of, most frequently dialed telephone numbers with associated costs, scrap, repair/rework, direct labour productivity and stock turns and number of days of stock.  Flexibility. Percentage of workforce cross-trained.  Time. Manufacturing lead-time.  Delivery. On time supplier delivery and schedule adherence.  Future growth. Number of new product launches. Mission, and the resulting strategic objectives are the foundation of any global organization. Global missions are concerned with: the best development and growth opportunities; investments with the highest returns at the lowest risks; manufacturing, production and marketing locales that are the most efficient and effective; the most competent and capable technical and personnel capabilities. Objectives operationalise, or provide clear, measurable results with accompanying deadlines and accountability (Moran et al., 1993). Here the company audit strict business objects, which are generic to all the Business Group Managers and are in line with the corporate global strategic plan. The company view is to benchmark ourselves with world-class figures in the automotive sector EG Toyota, Honda, Nissan and measure our performance through PPM (Parts Per Million) and overall cost. To allow TKA achieve the business objectives we promote a Lean Manufacturing philosophy, which we are convinced the principles of can be applied equally in every industry across the globe and that the conversion to lean production will have a profound effect on human society – it will truly change the world. The lean production model relates manufacturing performance advantage to adherence to three key principles (Womack et al., 1990; Womack and Jones, 1996)  Improving flow of material and information across business functions;  An emphasis on customer pull rather than organisation push (enabled on the shop floor with Kanban) and;  A commitment to continuous improvement enabled by people development. The TKA global mission and objectives generate strategic alternatives, and strategy should help determine the structural characteristics of the organization. The results of this funnelling process vary, as there is no universal global strategy or structure. Flexibility underlies successful global strategy (Wortzel, 1991). “The key is to constantly identify and to capitalize on new sources of competitive advantage, and to be faster and more adept at identifying and implementing opportunities for change. Taking advantage of the opportunities requires … flexible strategy” (Wortzel, 1991, p. 366). 7:0 HRM Parallel Business Objectives This section highlights the relationship between the functional areas of manufacturing and human resources by analysing the practices of human resource management associated with the competitive priorities of manufacturing strategy, e.g. quality, delivery performance, flexibility and cost. Within strategic business management, both the competitive priorities of our manufacturing and the practices of human resource management need to be observed by the whole organisation. In this way, TKA shows how human resource management practices are aligned to business strategies based on cost reduction, quality, and delivery performance and product innovation. These practices may also be arranged in different ways in a particular competitive strategy. 7:1 Competitive Priorities Of Manufacturing Strategy Among several approaches of competitive strategies (Hayes and Wheelwright, 1984; Slack et al., 1995), the following are adopted (Pires, 1995):  Costs, which means seeking a lower manufacturing cost;  Quality, which implies offering high quality products and services to the customers;  Performance delivery, which represents the accomplishment of two basic objectives, i.e. lower and more reliable delivery deadlines;  Flexibility, mainly related to the innovation of products and services, the product mix and the production volume. 7:2 Competitive Dimensions Of Human Resource Strategy Similar to the manufacturing function, the main concern of our human resource functional area is to be included in the company management as a whole and specifically in the strategic business management. The main strategic purposes or competitive dimensions of the human resource strategy for TKA are presented as follows:  The formation of a network based on teams, which make the integration of competencies, skills and technologies into, the core competencies related to the competitive advantages of the company strategy (Mintzberg, 1993; Hamel and Prahalad, 1994).  The renewal of their employees’ professional competencies, which consists of organisational learning in order to create organisational capabilities and then to cope with the challenges of the competitive environment (Senge, 1990). The individual and collective learning requires proper structures, incentives, and management, which can help firms, generate innovation and build knowledge assets (Teece, 1998).  The organisational culture management, which means the elaboration and monitoring of the organisational values with the aim of guiding and coordinating the various experts’ and their teams’ tasks instead of carrying out any other kind of work standardisation (Burack, 1991). 7:2 Arrangement Of Competitive Priorities Of The TKA Manufacturing Strategy And Competitive Dimensions Of The Human Resource Strategy Business units may employ two basic strategies with a broad or restricted scope in order to develop and attain competitive advantages within their competitive environment (Porter, 1980):  Cost reduction, in which the company seeks to position itself by practicing the lowest cost in the competitive environment, which may imply the offering of goods and/or services with the lowest prices in its market.  Differentiation, which aims at offering differentiated goods and/or services generally to niches of a market. A price policy with a greater unitary profit margin could be practiced.  Focus, which selects one or more segments of the company’s markets and tries to develop competitive advantages (focusing on one of the two previous strategies). As these advantages are focused on a few segments of the market, no general competitive advantage is attained. Competitive advantage is commonly defined as a position attained by a business unit and perceived by its customers when it is compared with its competitors. They may be characterised as lower cost or differentiation (Porter, 1980). Both manufacturing and human resource strategies support the development of a competitive or business unit strategy. Based on the definition of corporate and competitive strategies, it is possible to start the formulation of its manufacturing strategy and the choice of its competitive priorities as well. In this way, there is a natural alignment of competitive strategies with competitive priorities of manufacturing strategy 8:0 Self Development And How It Is Aligned With The HRM Strategic Objectives Self-development is the term used to denote both 'of self' and 'by self' types of learning People developing themselves take responsibility for their own learning and identify their own learning needs and how to meet them, often through the performance of everyday work, monitor their own progress, assess the outcomes and reassess their goals. The role of others in self-development is not to teach or to train, but perhaps to counsel or act as a resource. In the absence (or paucity) of the training and development of employees (especially managers) by their employers, the need for self-development has long been recognised. It has also been regarded positively as proactive and entrepreneurial, but for it to receive some form of accreditation, it has often involved arduous part-time study, which can increase the pressures on and conflict between the individual’s work and home roles. Such programmes of study have in the past been largely dictated by the traditions and values of the educational providers, rather than the specific needs of the learner. This is now changing with the establishment of the Credit Accumulation and Transfer Scheme, the Accreditation of Prior Learning and of Experiential Learning. Moreover, the approach and framework of S/NVQs is now allowing individuals to gain recognition for aspects of their work performance. The existence of the TKA employee development scheme also helps individuals in their self- development, whether systematic or sporadic. What is now becoming widely recognised is that, with the increasing flexibility of organisations and their contracts of employment, individuals need to engage in lifelong learning - and many will find that they will not receive from their employers the continuous development they will need. The need for self-development, associated with the need for employability, is likely to be seen in the future as greater than ever. I have always consulted at the highest level as to how my career path and development is progressing with my role predominantly Training and Cost Reduction my own development plan is more aligned to the business strategy than any other individual. Bibliography:

Word Count: 7346