Role of Human Resources in Strategic Organisational Planning - A Case Study of Westpac

This document explores the role of human resources in strategic organisational planning through a case study of Westpac. It discusses the HR planning process, potential challenges faced by HR professionals, and strategies for developing high performing and global mindset employees and managers. The document provides insights into the relationship between HR planning and the success of an organisation.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Managing people and organisational behaviour

Executive Summary
With the increased competition in the global business world, there is a consistent
pressure on the entities to devise new strategies, to utilise its resources in the best ways
possible and means to achieve its organisational objectives. The work is aimed at exploring
the role of the one of the chief assets of the entity namely the human resources. The same is
vital because the rest of the management processes are dependent on the efficiency and
effectiveness of the human resource of the entity.
The work makes use of the case study of Westpac to evaluate the above mentioned
aspects. The company was found in the year 1861 in New Zealand. Westpac provides a wide
spectrum of services namely the institutional and consumer banking services, wealth management
services, wealth administration services and insurance services. Westpac has its business operations
primarily in the regions of Australia and New Zealand. The primary data collection method in the
form of case study has aided the evaluation. This is in addition to the secondary data collection
method namely the journals and books are also been used.
The key findings of the analysis is that the HR planning is directly related to the
overall objectives of the business organisations. Some of the vital components of the human
resource asset is planning, process and methods, implementation and review. In addition the
rewards are essential component too. Further to state, the professionals are faced by a number
of challenges that can impact the effectiveness of the HR planning. The work evaluates the
case study of the Westpac on lines of its human resources planning and concludes on its
significance in the success of the entity as a whole. The work concludes that there is a direct
relationship between efficient HR planning and success of an organisation.

Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................3
2. Findings and Analysis............................................................................................................3
(b) Description of potential challenges that may be faced by HR professional in Westpac
in aligning Strategic Organisational Planning and Human Resource Planning.................4
2.2 Human Resource Planning process and methods........................................................4
(a) Analysis of the effectiveness of the Human Resource Planning practices used by
Westpac in developing people-centred workplace.............................................................4
(b) Two potential challenges that may be faced by HR professional in planning for
manpower needs at Westpac..............................................................................................5
2.3 Developing High Performing and Global Mindset Employees and Managers................6
(a) Suggestion on application of a model for developing a high performing work team
for multi-cultural workplace..............................................................................................6
(b) Suggestion on how Westpac can apply a global mindset model in developing a
global mindset workforce...................................................................................................6
3. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

1. Introduction
The strategic objective planning refers to the formulation of the blue print of the means to
achieve the long term and short term objectives of an enterprise to guide the company towards growth
and success (Albrecht, Bakker, Gruman, Macey, & Saks, 2015). The planning further outlines the
identification of the environment of the company, specifics of the objectives, ways to means the
success and failures of the strategies and the identification of the key stakeholders of the entity.
One of the chief stakeholders of the company is the human resource personnel. The planning
for the human resource begins at the top management level. It is significant to note that the human
resource planning is a complex set of practices which further involves forecasting, environmental
scanning, training and development, operational planning and others (Huczynski & Buchanan, 2017).
The work is attempted to explore the various facets of the relationship between the Strategic
Organisational Planning and Human Resource Planning in first segment, the methods and processes
involved together in the second section, followed by the means and challenges involved in developing
high performing and global mind set employees and managers in last part. The work will evaluate the
above listed taking into account the case study of the entity Westpac bank.
2. Findings and Analysis
It is important to note that when a strategic plan is considered at the top level of the
management, the same is floated in the various departments of the enterprise involving the middle line
managers (Bailey, Mankin, Kelliher & Garavan, 2018). The human resource manager of the entity is
entrusted with the responsibility of the management of the one of the primary departments of the
entity that is the human resources department. The human resource manager is being delegated the
authority to work with the various departments to discuss the demands and supply of the employees as
required for the particular departments and as per the desired qualifications. In addition, the
department is responsible for recruiting, training, addressing issues of the existing personnel and other
incidental activities (Binder, 2016). In addition, the functions of the human resource department is to
manage the human and social capital of the entity (Huczynski & Buchanan, 2017). The management
activities include the consideration of abilities and knowledge of the employees, enhancing their
technical and social skills, driving their motivation levels, and boosting their self-confidence and
capabilities to take initiative. In addition, these include inducing team work, collaboration,
participation, empowerment, capacity to volunteer and other social values.
The evidence of strongly aligned relationship of the strategic objective planning and the
human resource planning in the entity is explained as follows.

Reason 1
Firstly, in the given case study, it is evident that the entity has a wide base of 1.5 million customers
and 3000 shareholders to be served worldwide through its 197 branches across the globe. Thus, the
chief aim of the HR planning is the successful determination of the demand and supply of workforce
and the filling of the gaps in the organisation. In order to carry its strategic objectives of serving the
customers in the varied business areas of banking services, wealth management, wealth administration
and insurance services; at New Zealand, Australia and the regions, Westpac has employed whopping
40,000 employees worldwide. Thus, the HR planning is done taking into account the vision of
company.
Reason 2
The second objective of the company is the workforce revolution that is to create an innovative
policies and efficient working place. Further, to state that company has taken the same into account in
HR planning, valuing the individual requirements of the employees and attempts to address the same
in the form of provision of flexible working hours, working from home, mobile working, variety of
leaves as a means of support to human and social values.
Thus, it can be stated that there is a strong alignment of the strategic objective planning and the
human resource planning.
(b) Description of potential challenges that may be faced by HR professional in Westpac
in aligning Strategic Organisational Planning and Human Resource Planning
It is important to note that that as the managers of the Westpac align the strategic objectives
and the human resource planning, they may be faced by a number of challenges, some of which are
listed as follows.
Challenge 1
The first challenge that can be faced by the HR professionals is the external business factors
of the Westpac. In terms of external factors that affect the integration of strategic planning and human
resource planning are the global competition in terms of pay scale, incentives; changing employee
expectations, budgetary constraints of the entity, legislative impacts such as abidance by concerned
statutes of industry and region; and other social and political factors (Griffin, Phillips & Gully, 2017).
An example of the same is that as per the requirement of the law, the entity makes sure to balance the
diversity and gender empowerment in its organisational structure.
Challenge 2
The second challenge can be posed by the internal factors that is in the form of the management style
and organisational structure. In addition, the proper selection, training, recruitment, solving conflicts,

and devising a proper reward systems are also vital challenges (Chowhan, 2016). For instance in
Westpac, in the 2014 Westpac Group Diversity & Flexibility Survey, 25 percent of the employees
desired workplace flexibility and 23 percent of the employees desired for the change in the work place
locations. Thus, taking into account the need of flexibility the company devised various strategies.
2.2 Human Resource Planning process and methods
(a) Analysis of the effectiveness of the Human Resource Planning practices used by
Westpac in developing people-centred workplace
The process for human resource planning is comprehensive in a way that it requires a
number of activities to be undertaken on the part of the managers of the enterprise. The first stage of
the process is to forecast the demand of the labour that is drawing an estimation of quality and
quantity of the employees needed at the organisation (Dessler, 2017). The second step calls for the
forecasting of the internal labour supply by the collection of the qualitative and quantitative data. The
last stage is to fill up the gaps of the demand and supply in order to achieve a balanced level of human
resource within the entity (DeCenzo, Robbins & Verhulst, 2016). Some of the incidental activities that
form the part of the framework of the analysis of the future plans of the entity, assess the employee
needs, review the need on the lines of the internal resources and external resources and finally
devising the organisational employee plan (Rudman, 2017). There is a very effective set of HR
planning process at Westpac, the reasons for the same are listed as follows.
Reason 1: Comprehensive HR planning structure
At Westpac, the eight key elements together constitute the workforce planning model of the
company. The first key element is the assessment of the vision, mission and purpose of the entity. The
second key element is understanding of the organisational goals, followed by the third key element of
knowledge of the current workforce. The fourth key element is identification of future business need
scenarios and capabilities needed in the workforce. This is followed by the fifth and sixth prime
elements that are the assessing the gaps in the existing capabilities and needs, together with a blue
print of means to fill the gaps. The seventh key element is to implementation and investment in the
key strategies and changes, and the same is followed by the last key element that is the evaluation and
review of the strategies and process.
Reason 2: Enhancing the skills to retain the employees
Westpac confers a number of rewards and recognition to its employees such as the
Professional Qualifications Programme under the Best Banker Strategy is aimed at enabling
professional qualifications and training to the for the skill enhancement of employees.

Thus, it is quite evident that the workforce planning practices are quite systematic and follows a
step by step procedure to fill the human resource gaps. Further, the skills are enhanced to fill the skill
gaps. Thus, it would be right to state that a very effective set of policies and processes at Westpac in
terms of human resources.
(b) Two potential challenges that may be faced by HR professional in planning for
manpower needs at Westpac.
Challenge 1
The first challenge that may be faced can be in the form of resistance from employees and trade
unions. For instance, in the given case study of the Westpac Bank, one of the chief strategic objective
of the entity is digital transformation. Thus, with new emerging technologies in the range of
operations of Westpac, managers are faced with challenge to acclimatize the employees with the
same. The employees may be required to go through training to work in line with the innovations.
Challenge 2
The second set of challenges can be in the form of the uncertainties in the internal and external
environment leading to inadequacy of resources such as the budget, HR tools and techniques, HR
expertise and HR information systems (Robbins & Coulter, 2012). For example, Westpac has five key
divisions on the lines of its vision, as stated in the case study, if there is a modification in the vision of
the entity, the impact would trickle down to key divisions and the departments as well. Hence,
integration of the human resources plans with the organisational plans is a key challenge for the
managers, in terms of processes and methodologies (Rudman, 2013).
2.3 Developing High Performing and Global Mindset Employees and Managers
(a) Suggestion on application of a model for developing a high performing work team
for multi-cultural workplace
As a part of the high performance model, some of the factors that influence the
effectiveness of the teams are the adequate resources, abilities of members, size and diversity of
teams, common and specific goals of the team members, conflict levels and others. In addition, the
entity consider the cultural differences of the composition of the employees. The employees must be
individually and in the groups, driven to reach a target or the goal as decided by the management on
account of his capability and job requirements.
In case of the employees it is necessary for the managers for the clear identification of the
goals and that are measurable in order to track the performances. In order to develop a global mind
set workforce in terms of the multicultural context in the entity, it is essential for the entity to
become cross culturally competent. The strategic goal for the managerial context can be in

the form of training of employees focussed towards area studies, critical appraisal of
international performance and to recruit managers from international domain. Some of the
challenges can be in the form of minimization of the cultural shocks, and streamlining the
benchmarking performance over all the branches.
In addition, for the managers it is necessary that the same motivate and train their
subordinates in order to achieve their goals. This can be ensured by setting up the meaningful goals
from the end of the managers.
(b) Suggestion on how Westpac can apply a global mindset model in developing a global
mindset workforce
Thus, applying the principles of global mind set employees development model on the
functions of Westpac, following points are noteworthy. The departmental goals can be set by the
department managers of the company Westpac. It is significant to note that job design plays a
phenomenal role in the development of a high performing team. One of the instance where the entity
Westpac can apply and implement a high performing work team is by the clear description of tasks,
duties and responsibilities to the employees in accordance with their knowledge, skills, abilities and
other factors. The second means of the said development of the high performing team is by
conducting survey of the targets achieved through HR information systems and rewarding the ones
who achieved their goals.
In addition, the company Westpac must be willing to invest the time and money in order to
enhance the skills and resources for the employees. Further, the feedback must be seek. The managers
of the Westpac must indulge into the activities on the lines of the management of work schedules, job
sharing among employees, devising of the flexible workplace programmes for the subordinates.
The Westpac can organise workshops for its managers on best practices for communication,
reporting, seeking feedback, motivating and recognising the subordinates on a consistent basis. In
addition, a code of conduct can be formulated for the managers and employees to regulate the
practices and operations of the employees and managers. The code of conduct can determine the
common and specific departmental objectives. Hence, the global mind set workforce can be
established following the above.
3. Conclusion
The discussions conducted in the previous parts enable us to conclude that human resource
personnel are one of the chief assets of an enterprise and are known to be driving the entity towards
growth, success and competitive edge. It can further be concluded that it is vital to align the overall

objectives of the entity with the human resource planning practice, to ensure that the said goals and
objectives of the entity are achieved.
Further, it would be right to state that the human resource planning is a comprehensive and
detailed procedure and requires dedicated efforts, time and investment from the top managers as seen
from the case study of the Westpac, as explained in the first segment of the work. Further, as seen in
the case study there are a number of challenges faced by the managers at various stages of the human
resources planning, its integration with the organisational goals and the establishment of a global
mind set culture at workplace, the same has been described in the second and third segment of the
work. The entity must consistently review its strategies and amend the same. The effective utilisation
of human resources is key to success for an enterprise.

References
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