40 page paper

Founded in 1833, McKesson is a major player in the supply chain of medical equipment and technology. The company serves a wide range of customers and clients. In particular, McKesson has a global footprint where it serves the majority of North America and Europe. To facilitate service delivery, the company employs over 10,000 people across all its subsidiaries in North America and Europe. This includes the employees working at the headquarters in San Francisco. With such a huge workforce, human resources management is quite a critical matter for McKesson. It obviously needs a sound posture in terms of how it deals with issues of manpower. As the nature of the workforce changes, the company has to be able to correctly align human capital with an artificial workforce. This is because most of the supply chain is undergoing fundamental shifts in terms of how technology is leveraged to enhance speed, quality, and integrity of products along the supply chain. Considering that McKesson is always at the forefront of technological adoption, this paper examines how it interacts with its human resource posture. Specifically, the paper will examine benefits and compensation of employees, business leadership strategy, diversity in the workforce, employee relations, ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR), organizational and employee development, talent management and adaptation to technology in the context of human resources.

Benefits and compensations

Normally, organizations use various strategies to keep good employees (Lazaroiu, 2015). Basically, the benefits aim to motivate the employees towards good productivity. McKesson has in place such perks and benefits which it manifests in various forms. Firstly, the company cares much about its employees’ health. The company has health assessments program that aims at helping the employees maintain mental well-being. This program is part of the larger Total Rewards package that caters to other employee needs. Some of the other benefits under the Total Rewards package include web-based resources where employees access healthcare and wellness resources. Further, the package incorporates lifestyle programs where employees get telephonic and even face-to-face counseling sessions. In addition, the program extends legal consultations and even financial consultations. McKesson also provides child and elder care to help the employees maintain a healthy work/life balance.

In 2000, McKesson offered an option to its employees to purchase the company’s stock in a compensation plan. According to the employee stock purchase plan, the employees would get the stock as part of creating buy-in and motivating them to high productivity. The program is still ongoing and employees have the option of getting a part of the company stock in exchange for a certain amount of their monthly or annual benefits. Interestingly, the non-executive employee stock option is one of the greatest innovations that help to create a loyal workforce that works not for the good of the company but for the prosperity of all (Chang, Fu, Low & Zhang, 2015).

Business leadership strategy

Every organization has an elaborate strategy which is the vehicle that helps it achieve set goals. Usually, a business leadership strategy is the most enduring aspect of an organization’s culture. Interestingly, CEOs mostly come and go but if an organization has in place an elaborate leadership strategy, the organization will continue to prosper. Sparrow (2017) noted in his study that leadership strategies are very crucial towards facilitating employee performance. According to Fortune 500, McKesson has displayed excellent business strategies that have propelled it from a mere shop into the world’s 15th largest company. In particular, the company has had in place business strategies that have worked well for it. This is especially on the part of cultivating employee productivity and buy-in.

Interestingly, McKesson has really succeeded where many companies fail. This is in terms of aligning employees’ skills to where there is the highest demand. In particular, the company employs workforce management tools just for this purpose. Another strategy that is working for the company is the ability to cultivate employee leadership. In this light, McKesson empowers the employee to be decision makers and not decision takers. This business strategy is aimed at reducing reliance on the top management and boosting efficiencies at the organization. Further, the organization has in place a compensation model that rewards higher-value performance by employees.

Diversity

Even with the improved technological applications in various organizations, including at McKesson, human capital is still essential. This implies that the human resources department must ensure that it optimizes the productivity of human capital. Maintaining a diverse workforce is one of the ways through which an organization can optimize employee performance (Benschop, 2016). A Diversity and Annual Inclusion Report indicates that McKesson scores very high in that area. According to the report, McKesson scored 100% for the fourth straight year on the basis of the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index. Further, the organization ranks favorably in terms of the suitably of its workplace for people with disabilities. These and other achievements place McKesson at the front of competitors in terms of providing an inclusive environment for a diverse workforce.

In 2015, McKesson launched a Diversity Blueprint. In particular, the program seeks to accelerate its Diversity and Inclusion goals over a five-year period. Interestingly, the organization uses national benchmarks to facilitate setting of diversity goals and workforce representation. As part of the blueprint, the organization has seven employee resource groups (ERG) where each group has various branches. The major ones include, PALMa for the Latinos, OWNIT for Women, OPEN for the LGBT/Straight Allies, MMRG for the Military/Veterans, ASPIRE for the African-Americans, PAVE for the Pan –Asians an Emerging Professionals ERG for the millennials. All these ERGs are aimed at representing issues by the members in a way that can be dealt with effectively.

Employee relations

Speaking about diversity does not fall far from employee relations. In particular, the way an organization handles issues of diversity speaks a lot about how it relates to its employees. However, employee relations leans more on the facilitation of strategies for handling workplace issues. The issues may include workplace conflicts and even the nature of communication between employees and those in supervisory roles. Unlike diversity, communication is at the center of employee relations. The relationship between the management and the employees is as good as the nature of communications between the two groups (Collings, Wood & Szamosi, 2018). According to Collings, Wood & Szamosi (2018), an organization cannot survive without positive employee relations. In particular, positive employee relations have a direct effect on the productivity of the organization and hence its profitability. The nature of the relations determines whether there are rapport and trust between the employees and the management. Usually, there is a challenge in maintaining such positive relations due to the nature of each and every employee at the workplace. People bring their personalities to the workplace which oftentimes may clash with their colleagues. Naturally, this leads to confrontations. In this light, McKesson has employee relations management solutions in place that help to keep the communication channels open.

Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility

McKesson has a Corporate Social Responsibility strategy in place that aims to not only lift their reputation in the eyes of the public but also to extend their growth to the society. In particular, the organization focuses on issues that bring ethics and respect. The organization is guided by the following principles: Integrity, Customer First, Accountability, Respect and Excellence (ICARE). The organization ensures that employees work within the confines of the principles as part of their responsibility to McKesson. Further, the organization has in place a compliance and ethics program that imbibes the principles in the daily operations of the employees. The organization insists that the employees should always train their eyes on the organization’s ultimate purpose: to promote a healthcare system that provides best in class health for everyone. According to the McKesson CSR Report for the 2018 Financial Year, the organization is at the forefront with efforts to ensure that they deliver great quality products while ensuring that patients enjoy the highest levels of safety. Further, McKesson also focuses on the welfare of its employees as well as the welfare of their families and the communities they live in. This is accomplished through various initiatives like medical camps and civic education. In addition, the organization ensures the welfare by cutting down on their carbon footprint. To achieve this objective, McKesson focuses on eco-friendly production processes for their proprietary medical equipment.

Organizational and employee development

The business landscape is very dynamic irrespective of the industry. According to Davidson (2017), the organization has to keep developing its processes to keep up with the changes. This includes developing the workforce in all the aspects of the business. Davidson (2017) acknowledges that organizational development is broad-based and may not only mean training and mentoring the human capital. This is due to the reason that optimum organizational performance is the right combination and alignment of human capital and other resources. As part of CSR, McKesson puts a lot of emphasis on the well-being of its employees. This is one of the ways through which the organization develops their potential. Interestingly, most of the issues discussed above touch on the well-being of the employees. For instance, employee relations develop trust and rapport within the organization (Collings, Wood & Szamosi, 2018). Further, the efforts at diversifying the workforce are aimed at making employees’ life at the workplace bearable and less boring. In developing the employee, whether, via wellness programs, welfare, diversity, employee relations or any other platform, the organization is the ultimate beneficiary. This is because an employee working at his/her optimum leads to the optimum operation of the organization. Evidently, organizational development is also heavily reliant on the effectiveness of the human resource department.

Talent management

McKesson boasts of one of the most elaborate campus programs through which they acquire talent. In particular, most of the talent acquired is from the young millennials who are just getting to learn the ropes of the industry. Interestingly, the organization takes care of such talent by first giving them an opportunity to be members of the McKesson family. Further, the organization has in place the employee resource groups (ERG) that facilitate diversity. Diversity is crucial in this sense because the young talents make up a cohort that is diverse from the already existing workforce. Interestingly, the organization has in place the Emerging Professionals ERG that brings together the new talent and facilitates their welfare. Further, McKesson develops its workforce through elaborate programs that include the Total Rewards package. This is the package that identifies and rewards high-value performance among both the existing employees together with the upcoming professionals. In essence, the packages attract the best talent to the organization while retaining the existing ones. The Total Rewards package at McKesson is an initiative of the human resource department. This demonstrates just how important the department is to the overall performance of the organization (Huselid, 2015). Further, the department uses such programs to shape the human resource posture of the organization which determines the kind of talent that flows towards the organization.

Technology

This is one of the most important determinants of human resource posture in the business environment today (Storey, 2014). Today, technology is playing a major role in globalising human resource and facilitating its effectiveness. Further, organizations like McKesson are able to become industry leaders because of how they are leveraging technology to help in managing the human capital. For instance, McKesson uses software that tracks the attendance of employees. Further, the software is able to determine and compute the number of times an employee has missed work. In essence, the ability to track and evaluate the hours one works helps to easily determine the amount due in terms of salary. With the technology, it is, therefore, possible to fix the grey areas that lead to revenue loss due to payment for services not delivered by the employee.

On the other hand, the human resource department relies heavily on technology to seek out applications by prospective employees. Like earlier mentioned, McKesson is a global company which ranks very high on the Fortune 500 list. Therefore, the organization likely receives thousands of applications which will be difficult to effectively vet. However, there is the employee assessment software that can do the work fast and without much bias as compared to humans. In essence, technology is important in HR to enable it to manage human capital properly.

Conclusion

An organization is normally evaluated in regard to its human resource posture. This is to say that people will depend on how the organization compensates its employees alongside the extra benefits that it extends to the employees. Further, the posture will depend on the efforts of the organization to maintain a diverse workforce. In this respect, McKesson has been able to do well. The organization ranks high in various Diversity and Inclusion reports, which is testimony to its willingness to push the boundaries and be ahead of the competition. In addition, the organization has been able to elevate its human resource posture by maintaining excellent relations with its employees through elaborate initiatives that enhance communication. This is because McKesson appreciates the immensity of the significance of communication in engendering trust and rapport in employee-management relations. Further, the posture is a factor of the organization’s participation in CSR, its business ethics, acquisition and maintenance of talent and how the organization is able to leverage technology to improve the human resource posture.

References

Benschop, Y. (2016). The dubious power of diversity management. In Diversity in the Workplace (pp. 35-48). Routledge.

Chang, X., Fu, K., Low, A., & Zhang, W. (2015). Non-executive employee stock options and corporate innovation. Journal of financial economics, 115(1), 168-188.

Collings, D. G., Wood, G. T., & Szamosi, L. T. (2018). Human resource management: A critical approach. In Human Resource Management (pp. 1-23). Routledge.

Davidson, D. (2017). The organisational development cycle: putting the approaches into a process. In Organisational Development in Healthcare (pp. 77-87). CRC Press.

Huselid, M. A. (2015). Human resource department effectiveness. Wiley Encyclopedia of Management, 1-3.

Lazaroiu, G. (2015). Employee motivation and job performance. Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations, 14, 97.