Improving Hr Strategy

Improving HR Strategy

With employee turnover costs high, a company must take steps to keep their best folks. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of making leadership development, team building, and diversity fundamental parts of a company's human resource management strategy. These initiatives help promote belonging, loyalty, and employee development, key factors in retaining quality people. A case in point is Aramark, a leading provider of outsourcing services. The company has made these strategic inputs an integral part of its human resources vision. Aramark is not the only company changing the way they manage their personnel. Their vision is a trend sweeping across corporate America.

As a manager of a human resources department, leadership development, team building, and diversity initiatives would be very important parts of my retention strategy. There are several reasons for this. The goal of retention is to keep your best and brightest folks with your company. Developing leadership can work to align personal goals with corporate goals and can promote allegiance to the organization. It also shows a sincere effort to improve the individual. In his article, "Retention Report Card: Does Your Organization Make the Grade?", Robert Morgan says, "One strategy for improvement would be to increase the development opportunities the organization provides for the future skills needed to do the work required for the next step on the career ladder." (2004) This clearly indicates leadership development would be a step in the right direction in aligning current job needs with employee goals.

Team building helps promote a sense of belonging and solidifies loyalty to the company. People who know each and share a common bond work better together. This will create an environment where it’s pleasant to work and where employees are more inclined to help each other, especially during a crisis. Employees will be more inclined to remain at a company where they are valued as individuals and can count on the support of their co-workers in a pinch. (Herman, 2003)

The third strategic input, diversity, supports the concept of team building. Whether they are Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, women, older workers, workers with disabilities, or gay men and lesbians, diversity abounds in the workplace. A company who fails to cultivate this valuable resource puts itself at a disadvantage. Instead of their differences being disapproved of, people feel comfortable in an environment where those differences are admired. This type of workplace increases productivity, creativity, and improves the competitive edge. (Miller, 2002)

Aramark Corporation is a company that has worked to make the strategic inputs of leadership development, team building, and diversity an important part of their business strategy.

Aramark pursues their strategy of leadership development, team building and diversity initiatives because they really don't have another choice. According to the company website, "ARAMARK is a leading provider of a broad range of outsourced services to business, educational, healthcare and governmental institutions and sports, entertainment and recreational facilities." (Aramark) With such a varied business, the company needs quality employees who have the flexibility to work in many environments. A significant portion of their business is in what are considered low skill, low pay areas. They do a lot of food service, lodging, and conference support activities. Not only are a lot of the workers low skill, low pay, but a significant portion of them are women and minorities. I have worked in and managed these types of activities and it can be hard to keep good people. Aramark has to compete for employees with places like McDonald's, Denny's, or Comfort Inn. While the pay may be comparable, Aramark has to offer a higher level of service to keep their clients which means their employees need to be better. Turnover in these types of jobs can be high. Higher turnover equates to higher costs and ultimately poorer service..."human resources and bottom lines are connected." (Herman) By team building, Aramark hopes to develop commitment to the company and encourage its employees to stay.

With such a high representation of minorities, its critical Aramark promote diversity. There is no way the company can survive by disenfranchising a large portion of its workforce. It has to encourage diverse individuals to apply and provide them with a comfortable work environment. Aramark also has to ensure these employees have opportunities to better themselves personally and professionally. The only way to manage such a work force is by having competent leadership. (Berta, 2003)

Aramark has realized that leaders are not born, they are made. The environment in which the leaders will operate is the best place to grow them. Those who have "risen from the ranks" are often the best leadership candidates. Aramark's leadership development initiatives not only further show company support for its workers career goals, it also makes good business sense. These initiatives are important to the company and I feel they are not just providing "lip service", but have a sincere desire to meld them with their overall corporate strategy. Aramark’s vision on human resources is certainly the right way to go for the company, but they aren't the only ones with this vision.

Throughout corporate America, companies are realizing their employees are a valuable resource that must be efficiently managed and effectively lead. Their goal is to hire the best workers they can and create the type of work environment that will encourage them to stay. (Berta) Organizations are realizing turnover is expensive and are working hard to recruit, develop, and retain quality employees. Flexible work schedules, beefing up rewards, improving training programs, and communicating more with employees are efforts a company can take to show they care. (Herman) Even companies you would think are not normally concerned with retention are jumping on the bandwagon. The Carmichael Company operates a laser tag operation called Adventure Zone and sends its employees to a modified version of Stephen Covey's program, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People." The interesting thing is the company employs