Operations Management: Midas Case Study Analysis
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Operations Management: Midas Case Study Analysis
Introduction
It has not been once that we hear how employees are organization’s biggest asset. This is the reason why organizations invest a lot of money in ensuring that is able to attract the right people every time it conducts one of the most important business processes that organizations do on a regular basis—hiring and selection (Kugleryand & Saint-Paulz, 2000). The first purpose of the hiring process begins with the dissemination of information that a job recruitment is currently ongoing to fill out the vacancy in the organization (Hausknecht, Day, & Thomas, 2004). This process should ensure the right people reached by the advertisement. Otherwise, the organization will be wasting its time screening people who are not qualified or does not meet the qualifications and their expectation. The most unfortunate thing that could happen if this initial process becomes unsuccessful is that the organization will be forced to hire from these people and eventually incurring more losses than if the position is kept vacant.
Many organizations complain that a number of individuals from the pool of applicants are not qualified. While majority claims to have the proper education, they are missing out on skills and experience which are integral to success and productivity (Fitz-enz, 2000). Thus, many companies would rather keep their old employees or hire seasoned employees than hire new graduates who does not have the proper experience. Managers are often concern that new graduates do not have the proper training and actual work experience to deliver what is necessary for the position (Heneman III & Judge, 2002). In addition, the newbies’ inexperience provides for their poor foresight which is very crucial in ensuring the success of an organization.
After forwarding the invitation or the advertisement regarding the recruitment process, the next biggest challenge that organizations need to address is selection. Selecting from a pool of applicant is just as excruciating as making sure the information reaches the right people. Organizations need to ensure that the person they select is the best from everyone else who applied. This task is awarded to the human resource department. The HR should be able to formulate the right tool that would measure the compatibility of the applicant’s education, skills, expertise, and experience to the job they are applying (Bohlander & Snell, 2003). In addition, the applicant’s personality should also be considered during the selection process.
After selecting the best person and hiring a person to become a part of the organization, the next biggest challenge is retaining this employee. Majority of employees report discontentment from their job. When this happens, they become unproductive. In other cases, some employees perform very effectively during the first few months until such time that they reach a plateau. A plateau happens when the employees is no longer challenged to exceed performance. During this stage, an employee will no longer be productive. On the other hand, some employees would just decide to quit and begin scouting for a new job or they would decide to transfer to another organization that offers a bigger incentive or a much better reward. This is referred to in the business world and the human resource as “retention issues.” Retention is the effort of the organization to maintain their workforce under their umbrella and create for them an environment be conducive for them to work (Heneman III & Judge, 2002).
Thus, a successful approach to recruitment would be ensuring to know what the organization needs. Establish what are the roles and responsibilities that need to be met. In addition, enumerate what skills, abilities and experiences are needed to perform these roles and responsibilities. Finally, formulate an attractive employee salary and benefits that any highly qualified applicant would find hard to resist.
On the other hand, in a study conducted in 2012, researcher Neal Goodman made some remarkable realizations. According to Goodman, organizations could prosper in bring their business offshore if they can instill cultural intelligence into its workforce (Goodman, 2012, pp. 48). Goodman define cultural intelligence as cultural awareness of self and others, learning ways to promote effective working relations, styles of doing business around the world, cultural differences in communication styles, and the impact of virtual communications on intercultural understanding (Goodman, 2012, pp.47-48). To put it simply, cultural intelligence would imply that one needs to assimilate and adapt to the culture of the nation where the firm conducts its business. In the process of assimilation and adaptation, one must be able to respect the difference they have with the others and work efficiently and effectively amidst the difference.
While it is not easy to instill cultural intelligence into the workforce because of existing challenges, managers should find clever ways to doing it if they want to succeed without much difficulty in transacting business offshore. Among the challenges typically experienced in an attempt to foster, cultural intelligence is the difference in learning styles and approach in communication. The western culture is more direct to the point and are inquisitive. Given these characteristics other nations who are more indirect and less confrontational might feel offended when questions are raised and pointed out. Hence, virtual communications or face-to-face trainings are preferred that simply relying on voice calls and exchanges of private messages. It would also help if the person giving the training would get to know the learners or offer to present their expectations before the start of the discussion. Another challenge typically experienced in this effort to gain cross-cultural competence is harmonizing the skills of the employees towards the cultural practices and decorum of the culture. The need for a strong management system is especially necessary to address this issue (Goodman, 2012, p. 50).
Recommendations
Given the result of the performance appraisal system, it has revealed that Midas associates are not fully trained to handle hostile customers. The company should capitalize on training their associates how to handle such situation. Associates should be taught how they can transform a hostile customer to a calm customer because it will trigger a domino effect. It also revealed that employees are more effective when they are knowledgeable about the product that they are offering. Hence, it is necessary to ensure that associates are assigned to post that they have personal interests in because it will reflect their behavior and attitude.
It is also recommended that employees be acknowledged for their performance particularly in handling a hostile customer. In addition, those who performed well in the concluded Performance Appraisal System should be asked to share their experience and their technique to help other employees.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the proposed Performance Appraisal System has been effective at finding out the effect of the different scenarios in evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each associate. It was also effective in trying to understand how customers respond to feedbacks coming from fellow customers. It showed that the feedback coming from other customers have a strong influence in fostering a similar reaction to other. Thus, Midas should ensure that in such cases, customers will always have a favorable in-store experience because it will reflect a lot with the company’s image.
References
Bohlander, G., & Snell, S. (2003). Managing Human Resources (13th ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Cengage Learning.
Fitz-enz, J. (2000). The ROI of Human Capital: Measuring the Economic Value of Employee Performance (1st ed.). New York: AMACOM Books.
Goodman, N. (2012). Training for cultural competence. Industrial and Commercial Training, 44(1), 47-50.
Hausknecht, J., Day, D., & Thomas, S. (2004). Applicant Reactions to Selection Procedures: An Updated Model and Meta-Analysis. Personnel Psychology, 57(3), 639–683.
Heneman III, H., & Judge, T. (2002). Staffing Organizations (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Kugleryand, A., & Saint-Paulz, G. (2000, February 28). Hiring and firing costs, adverse selection and long-term unemployment. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from https://repositori.upf.edu/bitstream/handle/10230/652/447.pdf?sequence=1
Vonderembse, M. A., & White, G. P. (2013). Operations Management. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
