Module 8: Portfolio Project

Running head: CT2OP2: SELF-MANAGED TEAMS 1

CT2PortMile2Op2: Self-Managed Teams

Sean Bender

HRM570 – Global Human Resource Management

Colorado State University – Global Campus

Dr. Tiffanie Deloach

February 22, 2019

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CT2Milestone2: Self-Managed Teams

Globalization and the benefits of economies of scale have resulted in a higher degree of

internationalization of domestic firms. Expansion of international markets and successful

operations results happen because of the synchronization of all working departments of the firm.

In this respect, Human Resource Management (HRM) plays a vital part in the worldwide

industry and market of the firm; hence its pursuits are well-known as International Human

Resource Management (IHRM). Diverse IHRM applications such as international staffing,

training, wages, cross-cultural and diversity issues, performance management (PM), and the like,

become more and more strategically relevant, so the firm meets the goals of the organization as a

whole. Various past researchers have provided significant literature on the practices of IHRM.

The following is a study on some essential contributions of past researchers reporting on

functions of IHRM, particularly concerning the management of staffing, training, development,

compensation, cross-cultural matters, and PM.

Alignment of HR with Strategic Business Units

Alignment is a process of warranting that workers all pull towards the same goal(s),

which are those of the firm. Strategic planning is a means of determining the firm's long-term

objectives while establishing the goals necessary to achieve them. This process comprises in-

depth analyses of current and foreseen stipulations that could affect the firm's capacity to

accomplish its mission. Consistency between HR personnel's strategy with that of the firms is a

long-debated and vital subject, which is a crucial component affecting the performance and

productivity levels as well as improving those levels in firms.

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According to Murray & Kotabe (2005,) achieving a higher degree of productivity and

better performance in firms necessitates more consistency and coordination among the overall

strategy of the firm with functional procedures in HRM. HR must maintain a robust

administrative foundation and use this regard to help secure their place at the strategic decision-

making table. Keeping HR is best when included in strategic planning in its firm gaining total

admittance and complete involvement with the development of strategy, to recognize its current

functions and when it needs to address to continue providing full benefit to its organization's

(Righeimer, 2004) bottom-line. After this gap gets recognized, HR needs to measure itself to

guide itself and prove its worth as an ongoing strategic unit. Strategic approaches aligned with

HR secures that a firms' employees, skills, and abilities contribute to achieving its business goals

(Huselid, Jackson, & Schuler, 1997).

According to Othman (2002), 'for successful integration and alignment of HR strategies

with organizational strategies, HR managers should be seen as part of strategic planning

mechanism for internal alignment between HR policies and strategic initiatives made by senior

managers.' Some benefits come as a result of this alignment of HR strategies and organizational

strategies. This alignment includes leading solving some complex organizational problems, and

it ensures that all human, technical, and financial resources play a role in goal-setting, as well as

measures to implement assessments of these goals. It decreases negligence to human resources as

an indispensable source for expanding organizational competency with organizational benefits.

Talent Acquisition and Retention Programs

Talent acquisition is the way toward enlisting a professional for a required organization.

It is usually conducted by the Human resource professional who ensures that the right kind of

people get the right type of job. The overall strategy for an international talent acquisition

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program involves aligning with the business goals, using data and marketing for better

acquisition materials, expanding outreach strategies, focusing on employer branding, and valid

onboard program. Since international talent acquisition is interested in finding the right

employees to assist the business to expand, the HR must consider future goals. The use of data

and marketing helps in the better acquisition process by a convincing international talent to join

ones' organization. The use of data and marketing is vital in determining where to get the

required skills. HR should engage the marketing department for job description refinement and

use data to figure out what may prevent or attract international talents in ones' organization.

Employer branding is essential for international talent acquisition as it is the deciding factor

when professionals are applying for a job. Global talent will always tend to prefer companies

with the best cultural and work environment are those that can be created by a good employer

branding (Forsey, 2018). It also ensures an effective onboarding program to facilitate employees'

retention. The onboarding program results in employees receiving personalized and targeted

training for their development. When employees get opportunities and experience self-

development within the organiza tion, the retention rate raises.

When creating a workforce development and training program to apply in the

international HR sector, the process would involve performing training needs analysis,

identifying metrics to measure the progress, and performing task analysis. Training needs report

helps pinpoint the problem that needs resolution before forming the solution. The review also

helps determine the business goals to be achieved within the organization. Identifying measuring

metrics help determine the effectiveness of the training and development program to know

whether or not there is a need for more effort. In many instances, the foremost objective of

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worker training is to equip them with new talents or fashions of completing a job while also

preparing them to take a higher degree of responsibilities (Dalto, 2017).

Self-Managed Units

Self-managed group units and teams become empowered in making corrective actions to

resolve everyday issues and they also have direct access to information which further allows the

HR personnel to spend more time planning, controlling, and improving the firms' activities. In

short, workers in self-managed teams (SMTs) manage themselves. SMTs offer more methods of

putting concepts of job-enrichment as well as enlargement of jobs into action and practice. The

British and Sweden developed the notion of the SMT in the 1950s.

One of the earliest firms to adopt the idea was Volvo, a Swedish automobile maker. The

Swedes made initial efforts of Pioneering the development of SMTs, which Procter & Gamble

made in 1962 as well as General Motors in 1975. The American developments were coincided

with developments of Japanese team quality which, in some instances, do not qualify as true

SMTs due to their restricted independence. SMTs started to gain traction and popularity in

America in the late 1980s, and currently, many industries employ their use.Some of these

industries include the processing of food, automobile-related firms, petrochemical companies,

glassmakers, as well as other miscellaneous ones. In 1994 the 3M Corporation created and built a

new facility in Canada, which was entirely based on the concept of the SMT.

Features of Self-Managed Team Units

SMTs possess the following attributes:

• Empowered to share diverse leadership and management functions.

• Plan, manage, and enhance their individual processes of work.

• Set distinct aims and look into their work.

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• Often design their schedules tailored to themselves and review group

performance.

• May develop their budget plans and organize their tasks to fit with other

sections.

• Usually purchase goods, maintain inventory, as well as handle suppliers.

• Frequently responsible for obtaining new training needed.

• May select their own replacements or appropriate obligation for training

and controlling their members.

• Take accountability for quality levels of products and duties.

A good example of an SMT in action is found at AT&T Credit Corporation.

In many commercial businesses, the jobs in the back positions consist of processing applications,

claims, and customer accounts or tasks similar to production manufacture lines like boring and

repetitive tasks.

There are various benefits offered by the use of SMTs including the facilitatation of

continuous development, afford a more prominent flexibility, as well as a speedier reply, offering

workers a higher degree of engagement and job fulfillment, enhance organizational engagement,

and help to entice and retain the most desirable workers. SMTs also have achieved many positive

results. Authorities figure that SMTs account for 30 to 50 percent higher levels of production

than traditional units. Another example is FedEx, where they saw a reduction in service errors by

13%. Also, one 3M facility increased production levels by 300%; and, in a Mercedes-Benz plant,

SMTs reduced defects by 50%. One study of 22 manufacturing plants that employed SMTs

found more than half of them improvemed quality and productivity, removing, at least, one

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management stratum or supervision, as well as decreasing their worker grievance levels,

absenteeism, and turnover rate.

How to Transition to Self-Managed Teams

A lot of firms progress from plain quality circles to more complex Self-Manageming

Teamss. The process of shifting from quality circular-kinds of teams to SMTs comprises.

Development Dimensions International completed a study conducted by the Association for

Quality and Participation, and Industry Week identified four critical factors associated with

successful SMTs. First, the more extended teams have been in place, the more positive the

reported results are. This observation suggests higher benefits occur with time and companies

need to practice patience. Second, the extent of job rotation is directly positively correlated with

the reported results, which suggests that teams with a higher degree of understanding of the

processes of the business, have a more significant impact on quality and productivity. Third, the

capabilities of the leadership of supervisors and leaders of group units or teams by providing

direction, resources, and trust. Information, coaching teams, and recognizing contributions lead

to an increased degree of team member satisfaction levels, quality of work, and productivity.

Finally, team units that had accountability for both production and personnel duties reported the

most positive results. These factors provide crucial guidelines for firms that plan to use SMTs.

Integration of SMTs with the processes of HRM

Teamwork for most organizations is a fundamental part of ensuring that the work gets

done, with some operating in face-to-face scenarios and others distributed geographically. An

SMT is a collection or group of workers who are responsible and dependable for all delivered or

other specific goods or services, producing distinct products. In SMTs, technical responsibilities

and management become shared between team or members of the units.

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Human Resource personnel have essential tools in providing technical assistance to self-

managing teams, disciplining the workers, or their training. HR also assists in recognizing good

behaviors crucicial to their SMTs, like transparency, accountability, and managing in a more

participatory manner. Some SMTs and HR processes and procedures that are essential in the

strategic planning aspects of HRM including recruitment and selection, staff induction, training,

and development. When transforming firms into ones made up of SMTs, HRM must consider

personal and personnel leadership, the culture of their organization, and the organization's

processes and procedures. Workers having high qualities of personal leadership will easily fit

SM since they already have a high degree of committment and goal-setting, have a high degree

of self-confidence, and are very collaborative, which is a primary ingredient to high

performance. SMTs lean on an instrumental background of accountability, and thus, the

structures of a firm provide clear objectives for measuring their development.

For SMTs to be successful, it is essential to integrate them with the HRM processes as

part of the initiative. A firm's strategy should include training on ream member activities,

increased collaboration, as well as conflict resolution, in support of the team's cohesiveness.

HRM should provide training in varying roles, aiding in an easier integration with teams as well

as helping to maximize the contribution of the individuals' attributes and positive traits in SMTs.

Training assists in the recognition of various issues that team member may face, and equip the

worker with the know-how to respond to such issues. Another strategy is a collaboration to bring

the skills and experience of different team members to create a more effective and productive

team.

For a more attractive strategic plan, the HRM should help in the facilitatation of positive

discussions, together with the members of the SMTs to ensure that their goals are tuned for

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maximizing efficiency, which is likely the overall goal of the firm. Facilitating better and more

transparent communication is another strategy for integrating SMTs with HRM procedures to

ensure a freely flowing information stream within and between the team and the management of

the firm. Communication should involve a strong and honest synergy between the different

parties involved with the organization and its SMTs. It is the obligation of HR to help provide

communication training to guarantee transparent transactions and interactions. Another strategy

for integrating the SMTs with HRM processes involves decent and on time conflict resolution.

HRM assists in resolving conflicts using various and diverse tools used to recognize people's

dispositions, cultures, and differences to further improve such self-managed teams in

understanding each other to improve and maintain their high-performance (SHRM, n.d).

Rewards Programs

Rewards programs, defined as both monetary and non-monetary rewards and recognition

presented to workers with the fundamental goal of generating valuable business results. The

method of total reward renders some advantages, mostly to the firm, where administrators must

foster a personal rapport with their workers in a positive fashion. Such advantages include the

retention of workers, controllable expenses, workers' performance, and program administration.

The transparency affected by the total reward memoranda guarantees good working statuses

between managers and workers, and thus, the firm experiences a high retention rate.

The main objectives of driving the structural elements for the total reward program are

awareness, understanding, affection, duty, and retention. Workers must be fully aware of what

they will receive as a reward so that they recognize the nature of the firm's reward system. All of

these intentions can further help in the refinement of the approach of the total reward program,

how its communication, and how the derivation of its components like salary, benefits, work-life

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balance, and recognition of performance as well as career development (Employee-

benefit.blogspot.com, 2019).

Critical components for a total rewards program to increase worker achievement include

benefits, work-life balance, career development programs, and public recognition of

performance. The advantage is a critically vital component of a rewards program, and ranges

from health incentive programs to insurance plans. It is critical to contemplate offering a variety

of benefits from simple retirement accounts to well-thought retirement benefits plans and 401k

programs. Compensation is another prominent component of a reward program, with the primary

aim of motivating workers to work harder. These and other mthods of compensation will include

short-term incentives, which includes compensation for less than one year of high performance

as well as long-term incentives for workers wremaining with the firm for longer periods,

typically longer than one year. Additionally, a healthy work-life balance is an essential

component which signifies the promotion of a healthy balance between personal time and work,

which this is done by creating a work atmosphere which ensures workers have enough time to

rest through a flexible schedule. Promoting wellness in the workplace can be promoted through

different methods like providing health screening, stress-reduction workshops, and nutritional

counseling, which are all part of work-life balance. Career development and performance

recognition helps to foster workers' loyalty and boost their morale. Firms can develop workers'

careers through various methods of training, like outside lessons and technological training

(Johnston, n.d).

Agile Culture of Firms

It is evident that in such a dynamic corporate world, change has changed, and, therefore,

the speed of information flow has surpassed the current organizational abilities to filter and make

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the best of the available pieces of information to facilitate better decision-making. Ensuring

decisions made quickly are part of the organizational culture, frameworks developed must

incorporate optimized systems, which can meet challenges of agile approaches while hitting

constraints imposed by traditional hierarchical structures. With that, the new framework has to

check the problems of either strong hierarchical leadership with weak participatory decision-

making or vice-versa, and instead strike a balance between the two (Esser & Coldeway, 2017).

This is because such a challenge raises more problems related to speed, autonomy, and alignment

issues which result in the skewing of decision-making processes, which forms part of the culture

of a firm. Therefore, the only way out is to develop a framework that merges agile with ideas

from sociocracy with the chief aim of creating and maintaining alignment between the needs of

the firm with a clear hierarchy and more agile ecosystems.

The framework should ensure that the line between policies and execution is one that is

well-drawn. This is because policies should be agreements which provide mandates and set

boundaries for people responsible for the execution of policies and offering the potential of one

to delegate decision-making power to the subordinates. It should also ensure that the policies

must have an agreement in a more participatory manner. A team of members should then be

delegated the authority to execute the policies within set constraints of the aligned policies

(Nink, 2019). The framework ensures that when it comes to participatory decision-making on

policies, the principle of governing consent should be applied, which could include exercises like

a majority vote or autocracy; this is to ensure that the members-only agree to proposed policies

that they are willing and able to execute. The framework should apply the principle of consent

when it comes to the distribution of both tasks and roles, which might play a significant role in

the facilitation of everyday coordination of work (Esser & Coldeway, 2017).

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Reward Systems Linked to Innovation of Products

A worker reward system refers to the rules, procedures, and standards followed when

allocating benefits and compensation to workers. Rewards are separate from salary but can be

monetary in nature, vacations, product discounts, or bonuses. The purpose of reward systems is

to show appreciation for efforts made by individual workers, units, or teams. Reward systems are

based mostly on performance of job duties and results yielded, but can also be determined by

other factors such as superiority in the firm or duration of employment, although seniority is

increasingly becoming less important. Effective reward systems serve to attract, motivate, and

retain workers while promoting collaboration and competence in the business. Implementing

reward systems increase effectiveness because rewards for personnel achieved the organization's

objectives.

Clear and concise strategies are necessities when employing compensation programs,

especially ones based on innovation, and launching new products. Innovation is crucial to an

organization as it helps grow and sustain a business while increasing its competitiveness. A firm

can be innovative through the use of new production processes, manufacture of new goods,

development of new supply or sales market, or restructuring. The process also involves

determining the criteria to base the reward system on and the appropriate rewards. The managers

should also consider individual, and team rewards, whether they implement variable pay, profit-

sharing, stock options, or bonuses. The manager should effectively communicate about the

program ensuring the employees understand what is expected of them to receive the rewards

("Employee Reward and Recognition Systems", 2019).

Linking the reward system to product innovation means that employees who launch new

products get various incentives. To emphasize innovation, the business can include innovation as

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part of the evaluation of executives so that they motivate colleagues to come up with new ideas.

The compensation program undertaken must put into consideration the different processes of

innovation and provide adequate and fair compensation for each participant. Launching and

marketing of the product is an equally important task that should be acknowledged and

incentives given for successful efforts.

Human resource management function plays a significant role in ensuring that the reward

system is deployed internationally successfully. The role of the human resource function is to

ensure that the reward system meets its goals through constant communication with personnel to

obtain feedback and clarify the process. The managers should encourage a workplace

environment where there is acceptance of failure and risk tasking to cultivate an innovation

culture in the company. Cohesive teamwork and individual career development are fostered

through such incentives as various groups are determined to get the benefits. Considering the

information provided, I would recommend linking an effective reward system for product

innovation and product launches (Reguia, 2014).

IHRM FRAMEWORK FOR ADDRESSING CULTURAL CHALLENGES

Currently, there are more mergers and acquisitions due to increased globalization and

internationalization of businesses. Mergers and acquisitions are done to increase profits, venture

into a new market, or to implement vertical integration. Merging eliminates competition, reduces

the cost of operating a business, and provides an opportunity for growth and improved

efficiency. Acquiring another company gives access to its employees, technology, research, and

development resources. . Where the companies merging is from different countries, international

human resource management has to be implemented for a smooth transition. Cultural challenges

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are likely to arise because of the differences in corporate cultures of the companies and national

cultures.

The framework for mergers and acquisitions involves three steps pre-merger, integration

of companies, and post-merger. In the pre-combination stage, after a suitable company has been

chosen, and the negotiation is done, human resources should conduct a due diligence process.

This is done by evaluating the human capital of the firm and understanding the current culture

and improvements that can be made. The internat ional human resource management function

should also consider the laws and regulations of a country and make an integration plan in line

with those laws. This way, employees feel that their heritage is not disregarded by the

corporation and does not develop a negative attitude towards the merger. Communication should

be clear on the companies' plans in terms of the employees to be retained, those to be reassigned

and those who are to be promoted. This prevents uncertainty, which can affect employee

productivity and their levels of motivation. At this stage, an inclusive corporate culture can be

developed based on what will ensure smooth acclimatization (Teerikangas, et al, 2014).

After the merger has been announced and all legal procedures completed the combination stage

begins with the implementation of the agreed strategy. The approach that is most likely to bring

the two workforces together and address cultural issues is the creation of a new company that

could take on a new name. In this way, new cultures can emerge as part of the identity of the new

corporation, and all units work together without either party being blamed. The process should

be conducted as soon as possible, and employees made aware of what the workers' firms expect

of them and what they should expect from their company.

The most vital stage is the post-merger phase. This stage determines the success of the

business. IHRM can implement cross-border training and development projects to help address

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cultural issues. The programs could include language learning, immersion in other countries,

cross-culture training, and mentoring. Following this framework will help the IRHM function

manage cultural issues because a new corporate culture is created, and the employees' national

culture preserved and respected. Teamwork is also encouraged because the employees are

motivated to achieve the company’s objectives. Honest communication creates proper and

functioning human relations throughout the corporation.

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