Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Table of contents
Introduction History of the case SWOT analysis Vision Mission A strategic thrust HRM objectives Formulating and building employee capabilities strategy Formulating and building commitment of employees Training and development strategy to build employee competencies Recommendations to HMI management Appendix 4 5 7 9 9 10 11 12 13 14 16 17
Introduction
I am working as an external consultant for Herman Miller, Inc, by whom I was approached for assistance in formulating training and development strategies in alignment with their business strategies for the coming year. To achieve the above mentioned objective, I have prepared this strategic analysis of the company which first discusses its history, as it is important to know the true nature of the company and its situation. Afterwards, a SWOT analysis has been done to determine the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats followed by the vision, mission, strategic thrust, HRM objectives and strategies. The strategies focus on formulating and developing employee capabilities and commitment to the organization. This is followed by training and development strategy that focuses on formulating programs through training design process to support the former strategies. Finally, recommendations are given to help in the implementation of the strategy.
competitive advantage. HMI gives its employee owners significant information about the ongoing financial condition of the business, sends considerable amount of effort in training employees in the processes through which they create economic and customer value. The recent adoption of EVA has increased the involvement in business literacy. The firm has developed a number of courses to train the employees and team leaders. HR evaluates every one of its own proposals from the perspective of whether they will create economic value for the business. HMI believes that an equity stake in the company is crucial if employees are to act like owners. HMI places a huge value on becoming a good corporate citizen in the communities in which it operates and a good steward of the environment. HMI has adequately deployed HR fundamentals to employees and has recently tried to integrate more closely the performance management and planning processes and the other elements of the HR system. There is formal and informal training to help employees understand the HMI system and a market based compensation program features unlimited upside potential for all employees. HMI has begun to negotiate innovative and risk bearing partnerships with consultants and suppliers which reflect a natural extension of its focus on values, ownership, equity and participation. The key challenges which the company faces in the future include become intent on proactively managing the change process at HMI by asking itself various questions about different aspects such as empowered environment, communication, integrity, accountability etc. The HR itself is asking questions about its role in the change process. The CEO has made attracting and retaining key talent and a diverse workforce a major initiative consistent with the firms mission, vision and values. HMIs location is a hindrance in achieving this goal but the firm believes that a productive environment based on the culture and value will help in the attainment of the goals.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths:
The customers are exhibiting brand loyalty. The company is maintaining a formidable position vis a vis competitors. HMI is maintaining good company relationship with suppliers, vendors and consulting firms. HMI is maintaining good company relationship with CBR/ union. Marketing strategy apparently seems well designed and well executed. The company has been demonstrating financial strength. Production processes, systems and procedures are of reasonably high standard.
Weaknesses:
The organizational aspects including vision, mission, long term objectives and HRM directions need to be improved. The HRM department needs major overhauling virtually in all the functional areas.
Opportunities:
The economic condition of USA reflects healthy prospects. HMI is internalizing the facets of social shift. HMI is making reasonable efforts to implement the covenants of legislations. In USA, the political environments are portraying stable picture. The company is reasonably equipped in terms of technology. The international environment, where HMIs presence is there, depicts stability in the overall context.
Threats:
The furniture industry is being impacted by the forces of social shift. Social shift includes among others caring the environment, customers value seeking attitude and patronizing those companies who are abide by legislations. In USA, many laws have been enacted relating to industry, HRM, consumers, environment and so forth. The furniture industry is subject to technological advancements.
Vision
To become the worlds largest international manufacturer of office and home furniture, valued by both its customers and employees across the globe.
Mission
Herman Miller inc. exists to make profits by providing its customers with quality furniture that caters to their unique demands in a hassle free manner and by providing employees a productive and healthy work environment.
A strategic thrust
The following will be the driving forces to bring about and manage the strategic business changes in the company: Change management Building employee competency Building employee capabilities Use training and development to support the strategy
HRM Objectives
Prepare employees to meet new challenges that may come along with the changes in technology, economy and society. Support the changes in the business strategy. Identification of the employees competencies. Arrange funding to develop the competencies in employees. Increase participation of employees in order to build their capabilities. Provide employees with knowledge and skills to enhance their capabilities. Provide training to employees to make them work in alignment with the managements strategy.
Provide training to employees and make them accountable for its implementation.
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The training and development programs should also expand beyond employees to include suppliers, vendors and customers themselves. As the company is working on the global level, everyone who is involved in the supply chain should be provided training so as to improve the accuracy of the products and the efficiency of the business. These training and development objectives should be supported by the management and all employees because otherwise, the learning will be obstructed. The training design process also calls for developing an evaluation plan. After every few months, all employees should be tests to see how much training has contributed to their competencies. A cost benefit analysis should also be conducted to see how much return the company has earned on the financial resources that it allocated to training employees. The training methods should be an amalgamation of traditional and e learning according to the requirement of the above mentioned training objectives. The training program that would be designed to implement this strategy should be evaluated to see how much it has contributed to the learning objectives, if the program lacks objectivity or doesnt contributes significantly to the business strategy by improving productivity, the program should be redesigned for improvements .
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Recommendations
After this strategic analysis, it is evident that HMI needs improvement in its HR functions and its mission, vision and strategies. These improvements have been chalked out in this report for the New Year 1998. As it has been put forward in this analysis, HMI should work on building employee capabilities and commitment to the company. Management should focus on the employee capabilities building and employee commitment building strategies that have been outlined and use the cited training and development strategies to achieve this purpose as they lend support to these objectives.
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Appendix
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