NCR in Scotland Case Study
- In what ways is NCR’s human resource management different from traditional personnel management?
- How did the HRM strategies and policies of the company contribute to its success?
- How did the managing director earn the trust and loyalty of the employees?
- Why did he think their trust and loyalty were important to the company?
Q1. There are significant differences between NCR’s human resource management and
traditional personnel management. These differences exist in terms of scope, approach, and
application.
The scope of Services
NCR CASE STUDY
Generally, NCR’s human resource management (HRM) has a wider scope compare to
traditional personnel management. The scope of the latter involves functional roles such as
planning of manpower, analysis of jobs, recruitment, job evaluation, performance appraisal,
training of administration, and other associated activities. On the other hand, NCR’s HRM
encompasses all these activities and an additional of other organizational developmental duties
such as communicating shared values, developing the culture of an organization, leadership, and
motivation.
Furthermore, HRM approach is integrated into the company’s core strategy and vision. It
aims at optimizing the use of human resources for the attainment of an organization’s objectives.
It is this philosophical context and strategy that makes it become more purposeful, effective, and
more relevant when compared to personnel management approach.
Variation in Approach
The traditional personnel management seems to be more attached to crucial customs,
norms, and established practices. This is different from the human resource approach that offers
accords significance to the values and mission of NCR. The personnel management approach
also involves the establishment of policies, rules, contracts, and procedures. It is determined to
monitor and enforce compliance with these regulations, at the same time delineating from a
written contract. The HRM remains quite impatient with the organization’s rules and regulations.
It is for this reason that NCR’s HR managers tend to relax rules in accordance with the needs of
the business and hence; proceed with the spirit of the contract instead of the letter of the contract.
Difference in Nature
HRM has quite a proactive nature unlike traditional personnel management that is
reactive. Personnel management remains aloof from crucial activities of the organization; it
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functions independently, and uses a reactive approach when coming up with changes in
corporate strategies and goals. On the other hand, is integrated with the organization’s strategies
and makes use of a proactive approach to organizing the employees to work towards attain the
corporate goals.
Difference in Application
Personnel management is devoted to reconciling the aspirations this leads to an instance
whereby there is the fixation of work conditions that is applicable to all employees rather than
being aligned with overall corporate goals. HRM values thrust on handling each worker
independently and accords greater significance to development activities that are customer-
focused. It also promotes individual staff members instead of negotiating with trade unions.
Finally, personnel management lays down strict job description with several grades and a
fixed policy of promotion. This is different from NCR’s HRM that has fewer grades and ranks. It
widely defines job responsibilities hence; offering much scope for using creativity and initiative,
and several career pathways commitment, and talent which are the basic drivers of advancement
of careers.
Q2. The main responsibility of HRM is to distribute duties of personnel departments over
a large number of people so that everyone is responsible for something. HRM also deals with
and decreasing the firm’s costs. Therefore, HRM comes up with policies and strategies that drive
firms towards achieving their goals. For instance, it develops strategies that aid in increasing the
workers’ motivation, thus promoting performance. Another very crucial role of HRM is
financing. HRM deals with wages, therefore, it makes policies that save a great deal of money
and improve the company’s development rather than personnel department saved money.
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HRM policies also aid in improving productivity. Some of its roles include training,
induction, job description, and redundancy. All these help in promoting the product, therefore,
increasing the satisfaction of customers. By doing this, the company benefits by having a good
reputation which offers them a competitive advantage that sets them a notch higher compared to
similar firms in the market. HRM comes up with innovative on record keeping that help the
company with its taxes and how to increase the company’s performance.
Q.3 Trust is regarded as the bedrock of any organization’s success. Mostly, people tend
to concentrate on the issue in terms of clients, and how they have to believe in the company’s
management and their products and services. However, trust within any company is very crucial,
employees must believe in each other as well as their managers. Without trust, there is poor
communication, teamwork this deteriorates performance.
Make a connection
One of the effective strategies of managers building trust is through the creation of a
personal connection. It has been proven that as an individual’s power increases, their perceived
trustworthiness decreases simultaneously. Therefore, managers should counteract this view
through knowing his/her team and allowing them to know him/her too. To achieve this, the
managers can chat about how they share a hometown or how they like some common sports
teams. They can also host regular brown-bag lunches or take part in some activities of their team
members.
Transparency and honesty
Managers should share as much as they can about the current health of the company as
well as its future goals. Without such communication, an information void may develop.
Employees will fill this void and they will do so with negative information. Therefore, managers
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should share some data such as compensation and regularly distribute information pertaining
performance metrics, financial results, and some notes on what was discussed in board meetings.
This helps the employees to trust the manager. As a result they get greater faith and loyalty in the
manager. Transparency also calls for the manager to have the integrity of telling the truth even
though it is a point where the manager is the bearer of bad news. Mostly, employees do not trust
managers that do not tell them the hard stuff.
Encourage instead of Commanding
It is certain that employees can differentiate between being given orders and being
offered an encouragement. Managers should learn that they will not succeed in the long run if
they tell people what to do instead of motivating them to do it. This is because employees tend to
work harder and smarter when they are empowered to succeed and believe the company’s aims
are in line with theirs.
Some other ways through which managers can earn trust from their staff involve taking
the blame during some instances and giving the credit too, they should not favor some
employees, and should be competent.
Q4. Employees depend on their managers for development and guidance on how they
should better their skills. According to PAHL and RICHTER, trust promotes development of
employees by the employees trusting the manager is accurate whenever he is analyzing their
performance and creating a development plan (PAHL & RICHTER, 2009, Pg. 17).
For change to be executed properly, a strong bond of trust should exist between the
manager and the employees. The employees should trust that the information given to them by
the managers for successful implementation of the change. With trust, a manager can ask an
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employee to go beyond is duties and handle an important project. In turn, the employee believes
that she/he can do it and devotes to put on an extra effort.
References
PAHL, N., & RICHTER, A. (2009). How To Gain Trust From Employees. München, GRIN
Verlag GmbH.
