Tony Nyumba Apindi

 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AT MAERSK By: Tony Nyumba Apindi 10/01/2021 Human Resource Management at Maersk Human resource is the group of people that comprise of the workforce making up a business, organisation, industry, or an economy. The human resource management is used to manage the people effectively so that the specific department or people can work at their best and provide their organisation with a competitive advantage. The human resource department at Maersk strives to manage its workers and provide them with the necessary skill and knowledge required to undertake their duties. This report will analyse the department's methods to manage their employees, the problems that the company encounters while managing their workers, and finally the recommendations that can be utilised to make the workforce more efficient in its duties. A.P. Moller-Maersk Background and Timeline Maersk is a Danish company that was made by A.P. Moller and his father Peter Maersk Moller in 1904 in the town of Svendborg (Maersk, 2012). The company grew in size over time, and in 1962, the company was granted concession in Denmark for 50 years (Maersk, 2012) and was now able to extract raw materials from the Danish underground. This move marked as the landmark for the company to engage in the exploration of oil and gas. As demand grew for the good supply, the company started to ship container vessels in 1975 (Maersk, 2012). Over the remainder of the years, the company sold some of its subsidiaries like the Maersk Tankers in 2017 to APMH Invest and Maersk Oil to Total SA in 2018 to separate itself from the oil industry (Maersk, 2012). The company also made significant acquisitions like that of the German Shipping company Hamburg Sud in 2017 (Maersk, 2012). Strategic Approach to Human Resource at Maersk Proper strategy, planning, and approaches used to manage the workforce have long been important in having a successful workforce that achieves its goals. The Maersk Group adopted the People Strategy Session (PSS) leaning towards trainees and its workers' individual development process. The individuals are identified under the Key Performance Indexes, KPIs. According to Holt Larsen (2010), competence is explained as the learning development. Using this ideology, the employees at Maersk learned how to improve their skills and knowledge. In this way, the workers' knowledge within a specific area of work is increased through specialisation and thus improves their output significantly and allows them to become more elaborate in their work. The new knowledge obtained is subsequently converted to action within the work area with an unknown outcome or entirely new scenario to the worker. If they can utilise the gained skills, then the training will be deemed to be successful. If the method does not work out, then the employee will be deemed incompetent (Holt Larsen, 2010) and hence the training a loss to the company due to the employee's inability to finish the task. The company also invested in the Matrix set-up method (Hill, 2014), which is utilised to increase workers' productivity. The method was also used to maximise the use of global resources while remaining close to its customers. Since this method utilises different leaders with the same workforce, the man focus was thus placed upon the leadership for the method's effectiveness. Due to the method, the plan's main focal points were placed on workforce planning, talent management, and tightening mobility frameworks to improve the quality of serviced delivery (Cappelli and Keller, 2014. Pg. 305). This method helped the company's different departments share resources, communicate easily, and collaborate and help projects much more easily. Any issues arising with the company are also resolved much, more easily and quickly due to employees' increased interaction. For a company's success, it needs to acquire the best employees to do its duties diligently and in the highest levels so it can get the maximum result out of it. In this case, the Maersk Group used to acquire and train its own staff with the tasks that they were to get. Thus, the company resolved to hire and train its employees who stayed with the company for many years (Groysberg and Abbott, 2012). Thus, the firm grew with employees who were used to the culture and knew exactly what was needed. The extensive time spent by some of the firm's employees created a strong bond with it that improved the relationship between the company and its workers and brought forth a feeling of conviction and devotion. The recruitment process also assists the company is doing a job analysis. It entails the actions, responsibilities, and its relevance to the operations of the company. The company engaged in internal and external recruitment for its staff through critical evaluation of its staff. Main Problems and Challenges that Maersk Faces with People Management and Staff Engagement Recruitment Recruitment pertains to identifying, shortlisting and interviewing the candidates that are most suitable for a job. The process is one of the most crucial to an organisation since getting the right and qualified people for the job will ensure that the company's objectives are reached and handled with the best-qualified people. Within Maersk, the company decided upon attracting and recruiting its own personnel straight from high school or college (Groysberg and Abbott, 2012). The process was successful since the personnel hired grew with the nature instilled with the company and got used to it. The company was also able to assist the recruits in training them according to what they wanted them to do in the company, and it led to greater success in the specialisation. However, over time, the company started discovering the downside to the process, such as the length of time spent working there destroyed their work ethics. For some of the employees who did not perform well as expected, they were still retained by the company due to the large amounts of time they spent working for the firm. The attachment formed between the management and the workers was strong, making them assume some of the workers' inconsistencies, creating room for further negligence. The strong bond formed also restricted the managers in making the right decisions (Inalhan, 2009. Pg. 17) since they could not reprimand their workers accordingly due to the fear of destroying the bond. Maintain the workers for a long time without proper and different training restricted them from making any changes within work areas. The specialisation reached by the workers through the training makes it hard for them to do much since they work at the same place for many years (Olaniyi and Reidolf, 2015). It creates monotony among the workers, who cannot work anywhere else within the sectors available in their work areas. The workers are also hard to let go since they have gained a vast wealth of experience in their work areas that letting many of the unproductive workers for new ones would cripple some of the company's activities. Again, training a whole new lot of workers would be expensive and time consuming for the company. Retention Retaining the workforce in the organisation started to become difficult over time. For instance, some of the employees used to get attractive offers from other organisations, which some took full advantage of. Stopping an employee from taking on such new ventures proved to be difficult for the firm. The employees used to be lured by attractive offers such as better pay, better working environments, or even improved statuses and positions within the new prospective companies (Reis and Braga, 2016. Pg. 103). With the company's growth into newer ventures like the oil and gas, the company had very few personnel in their midst to cater to the needs of the growing company. Development The company thrived at gaining ‘home-grown talent’ as it used to acquire its workers fresh from high school and colleges and provide them with the training they required them to have. The process was time-consuming, with the earliest graduates only able to complete the process within 12 years. For most people installed within the system, it took them an average of 15 to 20 years. The company also had to oversee that they received the best training; hence they provided the prospective employees with training schedules that were rigorous and shaped to their desire. Over the years of continuing the training programme, the process was discovered to be too expensive for the company to maintain and was also not very profitable due to the high attrition rates that it was undergoing. The employees did not get to work for the company as expected, hence not benefiting the Maersk Group. The training offered was also not sufficient to produce better leadership for the company. The available workers did not have the right leadership mentality, leading to many pitfalls for the workers once they were left to think for themselves. Some of the previously offered training was also found not to be helpful to the trainees as it was better suited for individuals rather than a group, which resulted in wasted time and money during the training process. Evaluating Employees Learning is a process that enables the competencies of an individual. Through talent intimacy, the company reached high levels of development incompetence since the managers acted on behalf of Maersk to get to know about the individual employees; hence, the organisation is described as learning. The process hence allowed the managers to be agents of the company. The newly adopted process got recognised as a shift from the evaluation process that the company used before the 2008 era (Maersk Group, 2017). The learning occurring got done vertically and hence done in a subjective means to observe the employees. The company also increased monitoring the KPIs of its employees which would hinder the flow of information horizontally. The method could hinder the organisation's productivity if the organisation's behaviour got influenced by defensive communication. This move would occur since the separate departments' managers assumed that they stood to lose from sharing information to the other sectors at the same level. The move would remove the emphasis on finding errors within the company and move towards protecting their own interests that would lead to the firm's destruction in the long run. The group size could also worsen or help to solve the problem created by this method. An individual evaluation would create a chance for distortion of the individuals' incentives hence make fewer incentives for the employees within the organisation to work together with one another. Measuring the group's performance would also lead to the rise in the risk of controllability of the measurement. Recommendation to the Problems Identified For the organisation to function effectively and at a maximum level, it needs to find solutions to the problems that may cripple it. These solutions include: Proper Evaluation of Employees The organisation would have to look for better parameters to measure the performance of their employees. Employees within an organisation are usually divided into the top performer and the poor performers. In the case of Maersk, the employees were categorised as High performers, successful and less successful. Therefore, it stressed the reason for employee retention and nurtured to take the helm on higher duties that are availed by the company. The poor performers should get continuous training and development for better development. The company should also identify the skills that separate the top workers and poor performing workers. If the company did this, it would get the right fit for its employees regarding giving the employees the right jobs. The company would also advance in succession planning, give a high level of job satisfaction, and find out the employees' accurate training and competence needs. In the objective perspective, talent is objectified and measured, grouped and categorised; hence talent management can be used as a fit tool (Schuler and Jackson, 2008). Through this means, talent is reduced to smaller pieces that the management can find it easier to collect and assemble all the parts they require in a manner that goes in line with the strategies put aside for the business. As such, subjectivity gets ignored. If the company has no alternative but to divide the groups, the management should use a generalised model (Haskins and Shaffer, 2010). The company could use the 9 grid talent matrix, which is advanced but still straightforward at evaluating its talent (Taylor, 2018). The horizontal axis explores the performance while the vertical axis considers the leadership qualities of an individual. The method is suitable for identifying individuals' development needs and provides an adequate assessment for the employees. 9 Grid Talent Matrix Tackling Development Problem The strategic processes used by Human Resource Managers to optimise the output of workers are referred to as High-Performance Work Practices, HPWPS (Murphy and Torres, 2018). The methods provide better working conditions for its workers such as: giving the employees compensation incentives, giving employee training that is new to them and allows them to do new tasks in line with their jobs, allowing them to work better in their respective tasks and create a sense of belonging to the company. Having higher flexibility on the job also allows the employees to be more satisfied and motivated in doing their jobs, hence reducing employee turnover (Al Mamun and Hasan, 2017. Pg. 63) and the attrition rates within Maersk. The Human Resource Department can also incorporate the following practices that will improve the performance of the employees: employment security, selectiveness in hiring new employees, decentralised decision making and self-management of teams (Pieterse and Hollenbeck, 2019) within the company, pay-for-performance, providing extensive training, reducing the status differentials and improving sharing of information within the firm. Resolving Retention of Employees Maintaining top employees is paramount when it comes to maintaining the leadership position within a market. For instance, the Maersk Group could use the following methods: The company should start the process by recruiting the right employees for its firm. The company can emphasise the culture that they require their employees to have and instil them in the employees as soon as the recruitment process begins (Ashton, 2018. Pg. 175). The company should also ensure that the employee is also engaged fully with the company's goals and hence manage to steer the company to its success. Secondly, the company can also provide ongoing education and provide clear paths to advancements in the company's ranks (Noe and Kodwani, 2018). Promoting from within the company gives a clear path for greater compensation and makes the workers more responsible. The employees will feel that they are appreciated and hence work harder in their jobs. Promotion goes alongside development hence assists in the retention of employees. Learning by the employees needs to be the core of the company. The company should make sure that the employees are constantly in a learning environment and are exposed to the newest modes of learning and findings within their study areas. The employees will always be at the top of the pecking order and always want to associate themselves with the company. The company can also provide the best benefits to its employees so that they feel appreciated. For instance, the company can provide its employees with flexible working hours, the opportunity to work remotely and get generously compensated during the leave. The company can also have open and transparent engagements with its employees (Kang and Sung, 2017). It will foster greater ties between the two factions and bring a sense of community between the employees and the management. Regular interaction between the employees and the management can create opportunities to share new ideas that may be beneficial to the company. Tackling Recruitment Problem Gaining the right kind of workforce is essential to a company, and therefore they need to get the best for their activities to go through well. The company can utilise the following methods to source for the best employees: The company can build a strong brand by increasing its existing performance (Foroudi, 2019. Pg. 271). A strong brand will make any prospective candidates interested in the firm since they would want to be associated with the best firms around. The company can engage the current workforce and use them as a scout force for the company. The company can switch from reactive to proactive recruiting strategy by readying itself to meet prospective employees' hiring needs. The company can also spot the top candidates and to fill the requisition. The company can also create a consistent candidate experience (Kirkland and Coppock, 2018. Pg. 571) that is short and accurate to the point. The company can do this by making an interview evaluation process that is inclusive and offers the same experience for all the prospects. Conclusion Due to the dynamic nature of managing a huge and diverse company, the Maersk Group needs to stay in the forefront of managing their workforce. This realisation is because the employees are always considered as the most valuable assets of a company. 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