Part A
Human Resource Strategy
In order for Carpetbaggers to focus more on the president’s priorities which are a) helping sales to become more aggressive, b) more delivery of sales products utilizing independent national transportation carriers and c) creating a new sales division which would grow the marketing efforts significantly.
The components which should be implemented to show support of the human resource department and the President’s priorities are the ROI (Return on Investment), Technology and Budget. The first component, ROI is one of the most important factors for prioritizing Carpetbaggers goals because it compares the overall costs which would fit the needs of the company versus the benefits which are offered. This type of analysis for the ROI would help to appropriately strategize the attention management needs to give, along with resource allocations and investments, if and when needed.
“The factor of ROI may vary greatly depending upon whether the economic environments are fluctuating or stable because when the economy notices an improvement, then certain projects within the organization that profits the most money tend to become favored over other goals throughout the company” ("PMI Credential Passport | How to Prioritize Projects", 2011). Before making the ROI one of the top priorities, Carpetbaggers must use their best judgement to identify both global and economic conditions when using ROI for company goals.
The second component, Technology would help accomplish the President’s priorities at a much quicker pace by ensuring that all of the technology and software including tracking systems for product deliveries, invoicing, payroll, marketing software, office equipment among other technology devices are not old-fashioned, but up to date and ready to take on their competitors. On a further note, it is especially important to hold workshops and training meetings to make certain that employees possess the necessary skills to use these equipment devices so that he or she is able to function or communicate the needs to the customer, supplier or work colleague.
The final component, which is the aspect of budgeting is highly recommended because it enables the company to identify the margin for error within the organizational decisions and reduces the chances of risk exposure. In some instances, the Human Resource Department might have to consider outsourcing some functions to meet these goals which we will explore further in the next part of our discussion.
Recruiting
In order to meet the President goals, Carpetbaggers must hire more professionals with an intensive background in product sales or sales management, preferably bi-lingual salesmen because they would have to communicate with other sales teams throughout the Asian and Australian countries; for the chemicals inside of the carpets and efficient deliveries of these products. Any employees who were already with the company before this significant change must be willing to undergo mandated training for the new sales skills. But if they are not interested, then several of the recruiting efforts would be made by using LinkedIn Recruiter, or Indeed.com to successfully find, interview and hire candidates. Another method of recruiting Carpetbaggers could possibly pursue is by hiring remote workers, or employees online through freelancing sites such as Upwork or Freelancer so that these functions are completely outsourced and hiring costs are much cheaper. Although the old job descriptions will be updated to be tailored to the needs of the President goals, candidates would have the opportunity to submit their resume and human resources will screen the ones who are the best fit.
For the recruiting effort, however, the company would focus on hiring five new sales professionals. Therefore, the total costs involved in this step would be $5200.00, this cost also include each employee pay scale set at $1000 a month if hired in on a commission basis to work remotely which means they would never have to physically come to the Carpetbaggers office. The $200 is subtracted due to the cost of these recruiter employee channels and to market job descriptions. Since these are only projected figures, the actual cost would be thousands cheaper once the company decides to hire exclusively on virtual basis.
This will become the most effective route because it offers several benefits. We will discuss four of these benefits in particular. The first benefit of hiring a remote virtual worker is the total cost savings. For instance, workers in countries such as the Philippines may charge a rate at $5.00 an hour versus a worker in the United States who would charge $13.00 an hour. Overseas workers prefer to charge by the overall volume of the type of work, but depending upon the work volume, the cost could be slightly higher. The second benefit is the level of productivity. Virtual workers are only paid for verified hours. For instance, on Upwork, it takes several random screen shots each working hour so the system can prove the employee is efficiently completing the work and not trying to cheat to receive extra money that is unaccounted for (Davis, 2016).
The third benefit is that it offers Carpetbaggers the opportunity to fully optimize their resources to have the convenient access to these workers who charge pennies on the dollar and yet, be able to direct the savings of these job costs to other important functions throughout the company that may need more attention. The final benefit is flexibility because these workers are in different time zones. The President of Carpetbaggers could be sleeping at home at night, while the worker who is located into a different country will be diligently working on the required job assignments. The need for micro-managing, call-offs, etc. are reduced significantly by hiring with this method.
Compensation and Benefits
The sales professionals who will be hired virtually would not be eligible for any federal mandated benefits like the other in-house workers would receive because they would be considered contractors. Therefore, they would receive the 1099 form at the end of the tax year. As far as the salesforce pay plan, there will be incentives and bonuses for those professionals both in house and virtual who make verifiable sales of the company’s products.
Since many of the existing workers will be shifting their positions from delivery to sales upon successful training, the pay grade would be negotiable based upon their overall experience in the industry. The international sales division would be perceived differently than the domestic sales division due to differences in prices and the charge per volume of work as previously mentioned. In the next section of our discussion, we will analyze the most efficient ways in cross training employees to adequately show off their sales skills, communicate with the transportation companies for delivery of product orders and comfortably adjust to the new change.
Training and Development
Cross training employees is more cost efficient than hiring new employees. However, the President wants a more aggressive sales force and the company will be forced to hire other workers. But in order to keep the existing employees on board, we will adequately cross train them. “Employees tend to appreciate the company and their overall values more when their own skills are broadened because these workers are becoming increasingly important with economic lay-offs and while employer’s financial budgets are being tightened. Additionally, it increases the overall engagement and prevents job stagnation” (Arnold, 2008).
In order to implement the cross training, it has to first begin with two steps. These are identifying the appropriate skills needed for the particular position and cross- referencing the list of skills with the employee’s other proficiencies so that these gaps are revealed to both human resources and the employee; so that he or she is made aware of what they need to develop, or thrive successfully in their new position.
Carpetbaggers could utilize software to automate this process. This type of software is considered performance management and holds the functions to generate employee development plans. It will also carefully analyze the personality characteristics to see whether if the employee would be a good fit for the position in the first place. In some instances, employees may be required to fill out questionnaires. The costs for these assessment tools would be $400 a month since the software requires a monthly fee for maintenance and product improvements or upgrades.
Next, we would have to measure the effectiveness. According to the article, “Kirkpatrick’s Four-Level Training Model”, he points out the required four levels that are needed for ROI on training programs and any other money spent on company needs. These levels are a) reaction, b) learning, c) behavior and d) results. The first level, reaction focuses on the employee’s overall opinion of the training program and whether if they retained the information from it. By measuring their reaction, it helps to create more effective training programs where all employees could learn from.
The second level, which is learning implements the learning objectives at the beginning of the training program. Kirkpatrick mentions that, “this level should be the starting point for the measurement because it is a reflection of the changes in the employee’s knowledge, skills and attitude” (Edwards, 2016). The third level, is the measurement of behavior and this is the trainer’s evaluation of how the program materials changed the trainees and more importantly, how they apply it. An important aspect of this level, however is that in some situations, a particular behavior may not change and this could be the result of a number of reasons such as members of management may not allow that knowledge to be applied at that given time, or the employee may be reluctant to apply it themselves.
The final level is the results of the measuring of the training. This might consist of the outcomes which are determined by the Carpetbaggers such as increased retention, increased production and most importantly, more sales. In the next part of our discussion, we will review the employee relations and how it is important to help the employees of the company to be stress and adjust more appropriately to the new changes.
Employee Relations
Employee relations is an aspect of human resources which will aim to “consult, facilitate and bring resolution strategies to the working environment” (Boyer, 2015). The moment when employees learn of the great amount of changes throughout the company, some employees might feel very stressful or full of anxiety. Members of management and human resources have a responsibility to help place their workers minds at ease and not be worried.
This could include sending out daily memos with information about special incentives that may contain attendance bonuses, monetary rewards, open positions, etc. Some employees may need to be pulled aside for conferences on adjusting to the change, but most importantly, they have to feel as though they are equally important as the organization goals, so that they could successfully embrace that change and just accept it as a learning curve.
On a further note, grievance policies would be handled accordingly, or depending upon the scenario. For instance, once the employees merge from their delivery positions to the sales positions, some actions will not be tolerated because there will be a daily sales quota to become the aggressive sales force that the President has envisioned, therefore there will be a higher level of pressure on both in-house employees and the remote workers to meet the expected sales figures or projections.
Global HR
As previously mentioned, over fifty percent of our sales division will be virtual based and have to work remotely. The remote workers must be familiar with the languages of the popular countries where the carpet is higher in demand within Australia and Asia, in addition to being one hundred percent fluent in the English language. Some of the challenges that the company must be prepared to face are tracking the number of phone calls and to be certain that they are actually being made to the carpet chemical suppliers and the transportation companies to meet the sales quota.
Some ways we will overcome these issues is by asking the right questions during the interview process. Our company should only choose the best team players who are self-motivated and actually prefer to work independently, rather than hiring someone who needs constant attention or need someone to check in on them. The virtual worker must have excellent communication skills because they will be a representative of the Carpetbagger company and we be selling our products.
In addition, the worker must be results-driven and be able to furnish actual documentation of their sales background. Therefore, the new virtual employee is expected to be as honest as possible about their work history because the company will diligently conduct background checks. For the final part of this discussion, we will review both the organizational chart and overall expenses.
Part B: Organizational Chart
Part C: Overall Costs and Expenses
The overall costs are as follows:
Recruitment Process (Hiring Five New Remote Sales Employees @ $1000.00 a month at commission level). Total amount: $5000.00
$200.00 for recruitment/job channels such as LinkedIn and Indeed.com. (As needed).
$400.00 monthly for cross-training and assessment software. Total amount: $4800.00
Monthly Training Sessions: $50.00 per employee (Average between 16-18 employees). Total amount: $10,800
Delivery of Chemicals: $3000.00 or more per trip traveling to various countries (As needed).
Total of all cost and expenses= $23,800 (projection).
References
Arnold, J. (2008). Kicking Up Cross-Training. SHRM. Retrieved 22 July 2016, from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/0808hrtech.aspx
Boyer, M. (2015). Employee Relations. Hr.usu.edu. Retrieved 22 July 2016, from https://hr.usu.edu/employment/current-employees/employee_relations
Davis, G. (2016). The Benefits of Hiring Remote Staff. Outsourceworkers.com.au. Retrieved 21 July 2016, from http://outsourceworkers.com.au/benefits-hiring-remote-staff/
Edwards, S. (2016). Kirkpatrick's Four-Level Training Evaluation Model: Analyzing Training Effectiveness. Mindtools.com. Retrieved 22 July 2016, from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/kirkpatrick.htm
PMI Credential Passport | How to Prioritize Projects. (2011). Pmi.org. Retrieved 21 July 2016, from http://www.pmi.org/passport/mar11/how-to-prioritize-projects.html
