Assignment task: Company Z has been in existence for 20 years and its core business is the manufacture of conductors and spare parts used in manufacturing. It has a staff base of 700 staff, most of whom have been at the company since inception. Current turnover is at 2% for the current year and 2.5% for the year before that. 90% of the company is in the factory with a focus on production with about 8% of the company being in support departments and 2 % in middle and top management including shift supervisors. The company has faced a number of challenges in the past 4 years. It is becoming harder to remain profitable given the increasing competition in their industry with 3 new entrants in the past 2 years, high costs of production and the fact that the company need so many people to keep the production lines running. The past 2 years have been loss making. Employee costs are also sky-rocketing, and the company is considering the need to automate some of the very manual processes to increase turnaround time in the factory. A company has been selected that will change and automate the production line for XYZ. HRHR functions have been handled by Finance since inception under the Finance Manager. However, the XYZ Managing Director and the Finance Manager are unsure how to begin the process of getting staff to understand the new systems and to ensure that they learn the processes very quickly in a way that will not impact production. Additionally, they are trying to assess whether they will need so many staff in the factory or whether they should re-deploy some of the staff within the company. They are reluctant to look at putting in measures to reduce the number of employees in the company despite the high employee costs, which are quickly becoming unsustainable. They would prefer to look at changing systems. To help with this transition, XYZ Managing Director has decided to leave HR operations in Finance meaning recruitment, employee relations, payroll and reporting and to hire you as the Manager Learning and Organisation Development. He has brought you in and would like you to take care of training, talent management, succession planning, organization design, employee wellness, performance management and employee engagement. Most of these have not existed before under Finance as the department is too stretched and there are almost no records that have been kept of previous activities, if any. Most of the support departments say they are overwhelmed and can just do the bare minimum that they can do to get by and this includes Finance.
Questions (to be answered on score card) prepare a few slides addressing the following as the Manager Learning: The MD and Finance manager want to allocate you a budget to begin to work but are unsure how much. They would be interested in seeing your plans to begin with and then negotiate with you based on the potential cost impact and the needs of the business. Additionally, they are more inclined to spend towards staff salaries and so would like to minimize costs in your area as little as possible. Please prepare the following slides for your discussion with them:
a) What steps can be taken for staff to transition to the new machinery and change from the old production line.
b) Between 1 - 3 slides what is needed to achieve this and when should the t activities begin?
c) Does XYZ have a problem with their structure or are they likely to have any future problems? If yes, what are the problems? What assessments can be made make and any potential steps that can be recommended?