How HR contributes to competitive advantage

In medium to large organisations there are many different jobs and roles. The structure is complex. So, the individuals within the business need to understand their roles and responsibilities. This enables the whole workforce to work together and achieve the organisation’s aims and objectives.

Operations is a key functional area. This is where a number of processes come together to make the products or services to fulfil customer needs. I don’t use the word ‘satisfy’ or ‘satisfaction’ when applied to customers because this is the word attributed to customers of brothels or shady massages places. I rather stick with words like ‘delight’, ‘surprise’ or ‘fulfilment’. Operations have support services in:

• Finance manages monitor the flow of money across the business. The finance team produces financial and management accounts and supporting information. Financial accounts deal with financial transactions, such as profit and loss accounts. These satisfy the organisation’s legal financial requirements. Management accounts look forward and contribute to the strategic decision making process by forecasting financial performance.
• Human Resources (HR) include planning for and forecasting staff requirements and managing recruitment and selection. The HR team ensures that managers apply HR policies and procedures consistently across the business. The development of staff should be a key priority.
• Strategy, Marketing and Technical must understanding customer needs. The marketing function can inform the overall business strategy. It also ensures that the organisation’s image and brand reflect its high quality and success. The technical team looks for innovative solutions to keep their organisation’s profile high in the market.

Within these functional areas, an average organisation has three main levels of staff:

Managers: organise and plan their departments to exceed the expectation of internal and external customers. They work closely with other managers across the company to promote a range of benefits, including:

• reducing or eradicating the need to repeat work
• continuous process improvements
• improving accuracy
• driving up efficiency year on year.

Supervisors: work with managers to ensure that operators (battleground staff) apply procedures and practices consistently. This involves using best practice to create value-added services across the business.

Operators: are responsible for day-to-day operations of the business. This is the level at which a graduate might enter the organisation in order to learn all aspects of the business. The role requires accuracy, efficiency and a high level of individual responsibility. Graduates can achieve rapid progress to more senior levels in the business.

Progressive and Learning organisations believe ‘in bringing out the best in their people, allowing them to realise their full potential’. Organisations should promote and encourage a culture of learning and development throughout the organisation through its Organisational Development team.

This team leads and coordinates training, learning and development opportunities. These enable people at all levels to acquire and practice high levels of skill and expertise. This means individuals can achieve their personal goals, as well as contributing to the wider mission and vision of the organisation.

The Operations function

The Operations function brings together raw materials with the production process to make products that customers need. It also shares ideas across the company about how to improve processes or achieve cost savings. This is known as best practice.

The benefits are wide-ranging, such as increased efficiency and more effective management of health and safety and environmental issues. It is not an unusual practice now where companies work with its suppliers to make the movement of goods more energy efficient.

For instance, a graduate recruit ‘shadows’ a plant manager on entry into a manufacturing organisation. After 18 months, a graduate can expect to become a Zone Manager. A zone is a defined area of the business.

Zone managers

A Zone Manager’s job includes managing operational performance in that zone to meet or improve targets for cost, quality, delivery, safety and business integrity. The long-term aim is to develop high performance teams who work within a culture of quality and continuous improvement.

Zone Managers have a set of agreed key performance indicators (KPIs). These show targets that they need to achieve. All staff in the zone needs to understand their roles in helping to meet these KPIs. It is the manager’s job to help them get the best performance by:

nmotivating the team through coaching and leadership

• encouraging and rewarding staff who contribute improvement ideas and actions
• identifying priorities for continuous improvement
• emphasising the importance of developing skills and capabilities

Employees of successful companies have the opportunity to contribute their ideas on how to achieve results. This helps individuals gain a greater understanding of the business. Employees are more motivated because they feel a part of the whole structure and not simply a small fish in a large pool.

The Financial function

Finance is critical to any business. All areas of the business need to have up-to-date information about its financial health. Financial reporting is a major part of this function. Most companies have different routes for people to join the company, at both graduate level and through apprenticeship schemes. Graduate trainees enter this support function at Operator level.

Operator level

Juliana Solomons – Accounts Executive, McQuire Rens & Jones: “I originally joined McQuire Rens & Jones (Pvt) Ltd., 10 months back on an apprenticeship scheme. I love the business and I am very happy here. I was made Accounts Assistant after eight months based upon my speed of learning and contribution, not on how long I was in a position. I have a very clear focus. My job is business critical because I carry my own responsibility in addition to supporting the Accountant. My favourite parts of my job are definitely the ‘people contact,’ plus seeing the rewards of what I do immediately. Every day brings a different challenge. I need to be flexible to find solutions to whatever problems come my way.”

Standards of reporting and accounting need to be the same across all parts of a business. This is so that the organisation has a clear and accurate picture of its performance. This is a huge task and good team working is essential to ensure that operators, supervisors, managers and the financial controller all follow the same practices.

Ajith De Alwis – General Manager, McQuire Rens & Jones: “I joined McQuire Rens & Jones (Pvt) Ltd. because I liked its approach although it is the leading business education through public programs company in the country. It has a very cooperative spirit. Every time I see a McQuire sign, I get a sense of pride at being a part of the company. In my job I need to balance the expectations and desires of top management and the staff who make things happen. I deal not just with budgets and people management but also with McQuire’s customers and this gives me the biggest buzz.”

The Human Resources function

Human Resources Management is an important asset to any business. It provides expertise in:

• Organisational Development
• pensions and benefits
• managing change and facilitating training and development
• recruitment, selection and employee relations
• communicating with employees
• Organisation behaviour

Building the capacity and capability of its people to achieve their full potential strategy strengthens the business in the long term.

HR management

An HR manager’s role is to ensure that business managers apply HR policies and procedures consistently through all business units. This helps to develop partnerships across different teams, which supports corporate aims and objectives.

Change management

Businesses have to respond to rapidly changing markets and conditions in order to remain competitive and grow. Developments in technology, competition from new or emerging markets, changing tastes and fashions, and changes to the law can all affect a business.

Successful companies have put in place a program of Change Management to respond to these issues and to improve performance and motivate staff. To make this happen, several companies are training managers to move from an autocratic (or top-down approach) to a coaching style of management.

• An autocratic manager tells people what to do and how to do it. This may be necessary if a job is urgent or needs to be done in a particular way, for example, for health and safety reasons.
• A coaching manager focuses on developing employees to manage themselves rather than managing every task. This means that they can find a way to achieve results and learn from the experience. This makes employees more motivated and better able to deal with future situations.

I have seen the transformation in my coaching sessions that I have run for top and senior managers of Multinational, conglomerates and leading blue chip companies. I am thankful that several top managements of companies have now begun to realise the critical value of executive coaching.

My frustration

I am utterly sickened by the very dormant, submissive and ‘living to please line management’ attitudes of several HR managers in organisations. They play the organisation’s waste paper. If any problem does not fit into Marketing or Finance, then it is thrown into HR. This is the wrong practice and happens when the HR manager lacks assertiveness.

HR managers must assert themselves and become business advisors/consultants to the CEO and HODs. To do this they must have a fair knowledge and understanding of their businesses. They must move from psychomotor to strategy… from living to please others to doing what is best for the business. I believe that the new Council appointed to the Sri Lanka Institute of Personal Managers (IPM) will beef up the curriculum and learning content in order to produce better qualified HR managers in the country.

(Nalin Jayasuriya is the Managing Director & CEO, McQuire Rens & Jones (Pvt) Ltd. He has held regional responsibilities of two multinational companies, of which one, Smithkline Beecham International, was a Fortune 500 company before merging to become GSK. He carries out consultancy assignments and management training in Dubai, India, Maldives, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh. Nalin has been Consultant to assignments in the CEB, Airport and Aviation Services and setting up the PUCSL. He is a much sought-after Business Consultant and Corporate Management Trainer in Sri Lanka. He has won special commendation from the UN Headquarters in New York for his record speed in re-profiling and re-structuring the UNDP. He has lead consultancy assignments for the World Bank and the ADB. Nalin is an executive coach to top teams of several multinational and blue chip companies. He is non-Executive Director on the Boards of Entrust Securities Plc and Eswaran Brothers Exports Ltd.)