Human Resource Management: HR Strategies, Environmental Factors, Job Design Strategies, and Hiring and Firing Strategies of Deloitte

This article discusses the impact of COVID-19 on HR strategies, environmental factors, job design strategies, and hiring and firing strategies of Deloitte. It covers the Ulrich Model, Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna Model, Storey's 27 points of difference between HRM and Personnel Management, and job design strategies such as job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment, and job specification. The article also provides insights into the hiring and firing strategies of Deloitte.

Human Resource Management
1

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Drawing on HRM Models and Concepts, discuss the ways in which HR Strategies had been
modified or changed in response to crisis...................................................................................3
Impact of Environmental Factors on culture and HR Plan.........................................................4
Implement HR Model and state how value is created by Organisation......................................5
Use of Storey's 27 points of difference between HRM and Personnel Management.................6
Analyse the Job Design Strategies of Iceland.............................................................................7
State the hiring and firing strategies of Iceland..........................................................................8
Use Corporate Examples of Firms using good HR Practices.....................................................9
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
2

INTRODUCTION
COVID 19 is a disease that has created a great consequence on economic activity, way of
working and employment. The pandemic has bring a drastic change in functioning and business
activities of organisation due to which the HR has changed the policies and practices of working
(Mao and et. al., 2020). This project is all about human resources management in which the
application of different models and concepts are discussed including the ways in which HR
Strategies are modified. It also covers the impact of environmental factors on cultures and HR
Plan, implementation of HR models and use of storey’s 27 points of difference between HRM
and Personnel management. The project includes the job design strategies, hiring and firing
strategies and some example of corporate firms that has implemented good HR Practices. For
accomplishing this project, the chosen organisation is Deloitte. It is a multinational professional
services network which deals in different services such as audit, management consulting,
financial advisory, risk advisory, legal and tax. Company has changed its HR Policies in order to
survive in competitive environment at the time of pandemic.
Drawing on HRM Models and Concepts, discuss the ways in which HR Strategies had been
modified or changed in response to crisis
The model which must be implemented by Deloitte in order to modify their HR Strategies
is Ulrich Model. The model was developed in 1997 by focusing on categorising each and every
influencer of organisation’s HR Policy into four elements such as strategic partner, agent of
change, administrative expert and employee champion. For implementing the model, CEO and
senior leadership plays an important role. The Ulrich model is also known as business partner
model. It depicts that employees must have voice rather than few organisation influencers and
champions. In the time of COVID 19, it is important for the employees to raise their voice and
share their opinion while working in pandemic situation (Wegmann and Schärrer, 2020). The HR
of Deloitte is focusing on HR Policies and practices in order to run the business in smooth and
effective manner. Ulrich model is helpful to think about HR in terms of employees rather than
focusing on algorithms and process. According to this model, Deloitte must focus on
implementing this model in effective manner as it helps employees to raise their voice and share
their feedback. There are few ways in which strategies had been modified or changes in response
to crisis they are as follows:
3

Implement remote work strategies is one of the way through which Deloitte can modify
their HR strategies in response to crisis. In order to prevent employees from COVID 19 disease,
HR of Deloitte must modify their practices and provide remote working facility so that
employees can work comfortably at their home.
Reinforce new requirements for workplace health and safety is another HR strategy
which must be modified. It is necessary for HR to reinforce the new requirements for workplace
health and safety in order to make their employees feel safe while working in Organisation. HR
must develop health and safety policies for staff in order to prevent them from disease (Shipton
and et. al., 2016). They must provide factual information about the vaccination and also share the
guidelines for preventing employees though COVID 19.
Training and development opportunity is also a HR strategy which must be modified by
Organisation. Deloitte must change the way of providing training and development benefits to
employees, they must provide training through online mechanism so that manager can improve
their skills and knowledge virtually.
Impact of Environmental Factors on culture and HR Plan
The environmental factor plays a great role in influencing the profitability and growth of
business. It also affects the culture and HR plan of Deloitte, due to which the performance and
productivity of business gets changed. Environmental factors generally include the issues which
influences the health and wellness of employees (van der Laken, 2018). It mainly includes
climate change, lack of access to health care, poor water quality and poor infrastructure. In
COVID 19, the environmental factors create an impact on culture and HR plan of Deloitte. The
environmental factors also affect the HR plan of Deloitte by changing in technology, actions of
competitors, legislations and labour market. It also affects the culture of Deloitte by influencing
attitude and value of customers towards the goods and services, level of education and shape the
perception of employees (Hamid, Muzamil and Shah, 2020). HR plan is generally developed for
accomplishing the goals and objectives of business.
Change in Technology is one of the environmental factors that influences the culture and
HR plan of Deloitte. Due to the emergence of new technologies, HR has to make changes in their
plan in order to provide services to customers with advance technology. The new technology
also affects the culture of Deloitte, as the manager has to organise training and development
program for their employees in order to make them aware about the new technology. In COVID
4

19, Deloitte must implement the new technology for offering their services to customers. They
usually provide services such as audit, financial advisory risk advisory and many other services
to their customers so that they can make the decision in effective and efficient manner.
Actions of Competitors is also an environmental factor that affects the culture and HR
plan of Deloitte. In COVID 19, organisations are seeking for new policies and way of working in
order to sustain in market for long run. Companies are demanding highly skilled and expertise
employees who can contribute their best efforts in accomplishing the goals and objectives of
business. HR of Deloitte have to make changes in their HR plan due to high competition in
Market (Zehir, Karaboğa and Başar, 2020). The Culture of Organisation also get changed due to
increase in competition as employees have to contribute their best efforts in order to remain
demanding.
Implement HR Model and state how value is created by Organisation
The Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna Model
The Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna Model is one of the HR model which includes four
function and their connections. Model includes four elements which are interconnected with each
other such as selection, rewards, development and appraisal. Through these four key elements,
Deloitte can improve the performance and productivity of its business. The model lay emphasis
on these four key elements that helps in creating value among employees and customers. The HR
of Deloitte must focus on selecting the candidate with highly expertise knowledge who can share
their knowledge in improving the profitability and attracting more and more customers towards
the services of Deloitte. Employees must be selected on the basis of their qualification,
competencies and experiences so that they can perform well in Company. In order to attract
employees towards their work, it is necessary to reward them on the basis of their performance
and contributions (Al-Emadi, Schwabenland and Wei, 2015). By offering reward, Deloitte may
boost the morale and motivation level of staff. In the tough time of pandemic, employees are
facing difficulty to achieve the target due to lack of confidence and morale. When staff
contributes their productive outcomes, they expect appraisal in order to improve professional
career and growth. Employees get motivated when they appreciated for their performance and
level of contribution. Deloitte must keep regular check on the performance and productivity of
staff in order to improve their skills and competencies. Deloitte must also provide training and
development opportunity to employees in order to improve their skills and knowledge.
5

Employees need training and development benefits in pandemic so that they can enhance their
professional skills and knowledge. The Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna Model helps in creating
value among employees by organisation. Selection, appraisal, reward and development helps in
creating value due to which Deloitte can attract more and more customers towards the services
(Kasemsap, 2016). The value of company is created by understanding the needs and wants of
customers, identify what drives value for consumers, understanding the value proposition of
business, determine the sector that creates more value from competitors and focuses on attracting
maximum number of customers towards the services.
Use of Storey's 27 points of difference between HRM and Personnel Management
Human resource management is an activity of managing people in effective and efficient
manner in order to gain competitive edge. There are various functions which is played by human
resource management such as planning, organising, controlling and directing the overall
activities of Organisation (Yusliza, Othman and Jabbour, 2017). Human resource management
mainly focuses on recruiting, hiring, managing and deploying the employees of Deloitte. They
bridge the gap between the performance of staff and strategic objectives of company. The
effective human resource management team of Deloitte helps in gaining the competitive
advantage.
Personnel management is a process of planning, compensating, organising, maintaining and
integrating the employees for contributing their best efforts in achieving individual as well as
organisational goals. It is one of the business functions that mainly focus on dealing with
employees including hiring, training and paying (Al-Swidi, Gelaidan and Saleh, 2021). The main
role of personnel management is to create and maintain positive working environment due to
which employees can work in smooth and effective manner. Personnel management mainly
focuses on ordinary activities such as employee hiring, harmony, training and remunerating. The
personal manager of Deloitte must build work culture of mutual trust and also focus on employee
strengths so that they can achieve the goals in significant manner. Main purpose of personnel
management is to accomplish the organisational goals by assigning the right job to right
candidate.
Storey's 27 points difference between Human resource management and Personnel
management
Basis of Difference Personnel Management Human resource management
6

Contract There is need of written
document in personnel
management due to which they
perform their activities in
recruiting, training and
remunerating staff.
The Human resource
management doesn’t require
any contract for employing and
managing the employees.
Relations There is a direct connection of
personnel management with
labour management.
The main role of Human
resource management is to
maintain the relationship with
customers and employees.
Role of management Personnel management
focuses on implementing
transactional leadership style.
Human resource management
mainly focuses on
transformational leadership
style.
Skills required The personal manager of
Deloitte requires negotiation
skill.
The human resource manager
generally require Facilitation
skill.
Analyse the Job Design Strategies of Iceland
Job design is an activity of creating job in order to accomplish the goals while rewarding
and motivating staff. The main aim of job design is to optimise and coordinate the overall
working process in order to maximise performance and create value. Job design is a complex
process as it ensures the organisational efficiency and effectiveness. It is a process of work
arrangements that mainly aims to reduce the job dissatisfaction that arises in the mind of
employees due to repetitive task (Guest and et. al., 2021). The advantage of job design is that it
improves the skills of staff and also encourage them to make their own decision. There are four
different job design strategies that helps in increasing the motivational potential of job. In job
design approaches there are two dimensions such as complexity and impact. The Complexity
dimension of job design generally includes the involvement of staff with diverse competencies
7

and high level of decision making competency in successful implementation. In impact
dimension, the job design approach requires customer needs, team composition, reward systems,
norms and organisation design.
Job Rotation is one of the strategy of job design which includes moving employees from
one job to another in order to add variety and overcome the boredom so that they can perform
different tasks (Branicki, 2020). While working from home, employee get bored by performing
same activities. It is the responsibility of HR manager to change the job position of staff at same
level with similar skill requirements as it improves the knowledge and skill of staff.
Job enlargement is also a strategy of job design in which employees have to perform
different task in single job. In COVID 19, job enlargement strategy can motivate the employees
by offering them meaningful work modules, ability utilisation, task variety, worker paced control
and performance feedback (Vivares-Vergara and et. al., 2016). By increasing the number of
roles and responsibilities of staff they become more confident and dedicated towards their work
due to which they perform well in Deloitte.
Job enrichment is another strategy of job design that adds few more motivators to job in
order to make more rewarding. There are few characteristics of enriched job such as direct
feedback, client relationship, new learning, scheduling work, unique experience, control over
resources, direct communication authority and personal accountability. Through job enrichment,
Deloitte can increase the work motivation among staff in COVID 19.
Job specification is other strategy of job design through which the motivational level of
employee gets increases during COVID 19. Deloitte must focus on reducing the stress and
anxiety of staff in pandemic by removing few task from exiting roles in order to attain the goals
and objectives of business (Shahreki, 2019).
State the hiring and firing strategies of Iceland
Deloitte must focus on implementing hiring and firing strategies in order to maximise the
performance and productivity of business. The hiring strategies which is used by company are as
given below:
Employee referral program is one of the hiring strategies which must be used by Deloitte
in order to recruit talented and highly skilled employees. Through employee referral programs,
company can select new candidates with high potential and enthusiasm (Ansari, Farrukh and
8

Raza, 2021). By organising the employee referral program, Deloitte invites new candidates
which is referred by existing staff.
Campus recruitment is another hiring strategy that must be used by company for hiring
skilled workforce. It is one of the easy way for attracting new candidates, Deloitte hires the
employees from different colleges and universities in search of right person for vacant job
position. Due to COVID 19, company is recruiting the staff virtually and conducting automated
interview.
Firing strategies which must be used by Organisation are as follows:
Offering incentive is one of the firing strategy which must be used by Deloitte in order
to fire the employees. Organisation must offer some incentive to their staff for making them to
leave the job (Zaim and et. al., 2018). It also helps in encouraging the employees by
compensating them for their hard work in Deloitte.
Setting target is another firing strategy which should be used by organisation for making
staff to leave the job. Deloitte must set the performance improvement target in order to
encourage their employees for accomplishing the target on particular time period with
measurable outcome. Company sets performance targets when they are confident that employee
is not able to accomplish the target and find more challenging.
Use Corporate Examples of Firms using good HR Practices
The Corporate example of company that has used good Human resource practices is
Asda, it is a one of the supermarket chain that was founded in 1949 by Sir Noel Stockdale and
Peter and Fred Asquith. Asda is considered as second largest supermarket chains that deals in
grocery, financial services and general merchandise. COVID 19 has also created a great impact
on the profitability and performance of business. The HR of Asda has offered some remote roles
to their employees so that they can perform their job from home. HR allowed number of
positions within engineering team to do their job from home including the jobs in web design,
finance and business (Li and et. al., 2015). Asda has offered some of the positions fully home
based and also office based so that employees can experienced best of both world's. Company is
supporting their employees in tough time of pandemic by compensating them for any damage.
Asda has also update the policies and plans in order to cope with the crisis and make their
employees feel comfortable while working in pandemic.
9

Recommendation
 It is important to develop effective communication with staff so that they can know their
behaviour and problem towards the work in pandemic. Organisation must focus on
organising the fun activity virtually in order to make them happy and relax while
working.
 Deloitte must create safe working environment for their employees in order to prevent
them from disease and make them healthy. It is essential to purchase the medical
equipments and supplies for staff for making the workplace healthy and safe.
 Organisation must also develop and communicate proper rules and regulations for the
staff who are at risk including 14 days of isolation, wear mask and gloves while working
and maintain social distancing while working.
 In order to maintain the organisational performance, it is necessary to ensure the safety of
working environment by disinfecting and cleaning the workplace. If an employee is
suspected with COVID 19 disease, organisation must conduct clear process by removing
employee from facility and disinfect the area.
 Deloitte must change their HR policies in order to make their employees feel comfortable
by working from home. HR must provide benefits to their staff by compensating them if
they become the victim of disease.
 Company must conduct regular performance reviews in order to improve the profitability
and performance of business. Employees are not contributing their best efforts in
accomplishing target due to lack of confidence and stress.
 It is important to implement one of the job design strategy in order to maintain the
performance of Deloitte. The suitable strategy which must be implement by organisation
is job rotation strategy, it helps in increasing the skills and knowledge of staff due to
which they also gain experience of different roles.
CONCLUSION
From the above information it is being concluded that companies has changed their
policies and way of working for sustaining in market for long run. COVID 19 has created a great
impact on the business activities of company. The human resource department of organisation
also changed their policies in order to make employees comfortable while working. Companies
are providing opportunity to their employees to work remotely so that they can give their
10

productive outcomes in achieving the goals and objectives of business. Due to COVID 19, the
morale and motivation level of staff gets reduced due to which they are not able to give
productive outcomes in achieving the goals and objectives of business. It is the responsibility of
manager to enhance the morale and motivation level of staff by implementing this model.
11

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Al-Emadi, A. A. Q., Schwabenland, C. and Wei, Q., 2015. The vital role of employee retention
in human resource management: A literature review. IUP Journal of Organizational
Behavior. 14(3). p.7.
Al-Swidi, A. K., Gelaidan, H. M. and Saleh, R. M., 2021. The joint impact of green human
resource management, leadership and organizational culture on employees’ green
behaviour and organisational environmental performance. Journal of Cleaner
Production. 316. p.128112.
Ansari, N. Y., Farrukh, M. and Raza, A., 2021. Green human resource management and
employees pro‐environmental behaviours: Examining the underlying
mechanism. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management. 28(1).
pp.229-238.
Branicki, L. J., 2020. COVID‐19, ethics of care and feminist crisis management. Gender, Work
& Organization. 27(5). pp.872-883.
Guest, D. E and et. al., 2021. Signalling theory as a framework for analysing human resource
management processes and integrating human resource attribution theories: A
conceptual analysis and empirical exploration. Human Resource Management
Journal. 31(3). pp.796-818.
Hamid, Z., Muzamil, M. and Shah, S. A., 2020. Strategic human resource management.
In Handbook of research on positive organizational behavior for improved workplace
performance (pp. 260-275). IGI Global.
Kasemsap, K., 2016. Developing a framework of human resource management, organizational
learning, knowledge management capability, and organizational performance. In Project
Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 371-402). IGI
Global.
Li, Y and et. al., 2015. The influence of collectivist human resource management practices on
team-level identification. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management. 26(14). pp.1791-1806.
Mao, Y and et. al., 2020. Effects of tourism CSR on employee psychological capital in the
COVID-19 crisis: from the perspective of conservation of resources theory. Current
Issues in Tourism, pp.1-19.
Shahreki, J., 2019. The Use and Effect of Human Resource Information Systems on Human
Resource Management Productivity. Journal of Soft Computing and Decision Support
Systems, 6(5), pp.1-8.
Shipton, H and et. al., 2016. Beyond creativity: Implementing innovative ideas through human
resource management. In Capitalizing on Creativity at Work. Edward Elgar Publishing.
van der Laken, P., 2018. Data-driven human resource management: The rise of people analytics
and its application to expatriate management.
Vivares-Vergara, J. A and et. al., 2016. Impact of human resource management on performance
in competitive priorities. International Journal of Operations & Production
Management.
Wegmann, R. M. and Schärrer, L., 2020. Outpacing the pandemic? A factorial survey on
decision speed of COVID-19 task forces. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness:
People and Performance.
12

Yusliza, M. Y., Othman, N. Z. and Jabbour, C .J .C., 2017. Deciphering the implementation of
green human resource management in an emerging economy. Journal of Management
Development.
Zaim, H and et. al., 2018. The effects of knowledge management processes on human resource
management: Mediating role of knowledge utilization. Journal of Science and
Technology Policy Management.
Zehir, C., Karaboğa, T. and Başar, D., 2020. The transformation of human resource management
and its impact on overall business performance: big data analytics and AI technologies
in strategic HRM. In Digital business strategies in blockchain ecosystems (pp. 265-279).
Springer, Cham.
13