Human Resource Challenges at BHP Billiton

This assignment examines the human resource (HR) challenges currently faced by BHP Billiton, particularly in their employee recruitment and selection process. Students are tasked with analyzing these challenges and developing effective HR strategies to mitigate them. The goal is to propose solutions that foster a competent and productive workforce within the organization.

Running Head: Managing Human Resource
Managing Human Resource

Managing Human Resource 1
Executive Summary
Human resource management refers to the process in which the managers are concerned with
initiating activities which are related to personnel of the management. Further two most
important tasks of an HR manager are recruitment and selection process. Talking about the
company BHP Billiton, it is a renowned company in the market who is facing issues in this
process. So, issues in the management of the company strategies which the company shall amend
are discussed below.

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Contents
Executive Summary.....................................................................................................................................1
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Recruitment and Selection issues faced by BHP Billiton..............................................................................2
Recommendation and strategies to reduce the human resource management issue in BHP Billiton.........5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
BHP Billion Company is a multinational corporation dealing in products like iron ore, copper
etc. The company is renowned as one of the biggest profit incurring company of Australia. The
company was originated in the year 1885 in mining town of Broken Hill, and it headquartered in
Melbourne, Victoria. BHP is Australia's largest company which earned revenue in the mining
industry. BHP Billion has actually formed in the year 2001 by the way of merger and
amalgamation of the Australian broken hill proprietary limited company and the Anglo-Dutch
Billiton plc. Further, the company earned revenue of $ 30.9 billion in previous year, through
which can be easily assumed that the country has speared its working in all divisions of the
industry. Thus, the company holds a large employee base of 65000 employees working with
them (BHP Billiton, 2017).
It has been noticed that the company many times face issues in managing the human resource
management practices of the organization. With larger employee, it becomes difficult for the
company to manage and resolve such issues. Further the company BHP Billiton also faces
difficultly in the recruitment and selection process of employees.
Recruitment and selection is an important part of the human resource management program, as it
helps the organization attain efficient labour with the aid of which the company earn adequate
return and place a unique position in the global market. Further the recruitment and selection
issue related to the BHP and its resolutions are discussed below:
Recruitment and Selection issues faced by BHP Billiton
The problem which detracted the growth of BHP due to the recruitment and selection of
employees are discussed below:
 Recruitment of quality people and organizational image: it is considered to be one of
the most crucial issues operating in the internal process of the business which is also
affecting the growth of the company in the external environment. Human resource that is,
employees of a company are the most important asset of the organization with the help of
which the activities are initiated by the management of the organization. Further talking

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about the company BHP Billiton, the company is acquired with labour who does not
match with the job description of the company. The image of the company is not
tempting in the market due to which quality labour does not apply for job in the company
(Campbell, McAllister, & Eley, 2012). Image of the company helps them to attract new
and efficiency human resource present in the market.
 Less gender diversity: gender diversity refers to a state of the company when the ratio of
employees has an equal or almost similar number of male and female employees in the
organization. But the company faces the issue in this case, as there the ratio is high from
the side male employees. It states that the company has more male employees working
with them and less female employee. This somehow creates a bad image of the company
in the market. Female candidates who are interested in the job profile of the company
also do not come with the hiring process, as they feel insecure in the working
environment of BHP because of having more male employees. Also, the company does
not inherit adequate practices for the safety of female workers; they have no adequate
laws which signify the rights of female employees of BHP (Stone, & Deadrick, 2015).
 Cross-cultural management: BHP being an identified company in the market has
personnel from all parts of the world, so the company shall have proper set of measures
which can align the interest of the expatriate with the management of the company. But
BHP's management lacks in this case as the company has no policies to manage the
interest of employees in the working of the company. Further, the company is also
inefficient in aligning together the interest of local employees with the expatriates coming
in organization. Due to having culture difference, it becomes difficult for them to adjust
in current organization, and the local staff of the company does not support and
communicate with them due to which they feel left alone which leads them to leave their
job (Bardoel, et. al., 2014).
 Training process: training is an important part of the human resource practices, s it is
important for the management to refine them with training process so that their efficiency
along with organizational efficiency increases. But this practice is no adopted by the
management of the company due to which traditional techniques are implemented by the
management of the company. Apart from that cross-cultural training process is not

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initiated by the management due to which, cross culture recruitment is inefficient (Alfes,
et. al., 2013).
 Performance evaluation: evaluation of the performance of employee helps an
organization to adequately known about the performance of their employees who have
worked efficiently and who have not. Apart from that it also helps the management to
know about the caliber of the employees and how much they can perform. This factor can
help the company to achieve great success but BHP Billiton does not use such strategies.
Performance review helps the employees to motivate themselves to work better and
efficient to achieve their personal and collectively organization's objective as well. The
evaluation process also improves communication in the organization, and through this
process, the higher management is able to understand the problems faced by the lower
level management and resolve them (Kaufman, 2015).
 Labour supply/demand: it is another key factor which in recruitment and selection of
workforce in BHP Billiton. The company finds it difficult to recruit skilled labour in
organization. Apart from that demand of labour force is more in the company and supply
is less (Paillé, et. al., 2014). .
 Demographic problems: change in demographics affects the business process of the
company. The aspects covered in the demographic factors are age, culture, diversity, sex
etc. These are some of the factors which affect the recruitment and selection process held
in the business of BHP Billiton. Firstly as discussed earlier, the company prefer to recruit
female workers instead of male workers, due which the efficient female workers who can
change the current state of the organization are left jobless due to the typical stereotype
thinking of the company (Marchington, et. al., 2016). Apart from that, the company
believes in hiring older people more, as they feel that they are experienced and they do
not need to provide those training etc. facilities. So due to this purpose, the efficient
young human resource is left idle. Also due to this activity, the innovation practices of
the company also decreases are older staff performs regular day to day functions and do
not think of innovation as well (Zoogah, 2011).
 The inefficiency of top-level management: top-level management includes people who
perform the recruitment and selection process and initiate rules and regulation in the
organization. Further, in the top level management is inefficiency in keeping the

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employees of the company satisfied or recruit efficient human in the organization, then
the business cannot gain competitive advantage in the target market. Thus, for this
purpose, the manager needs to understand the needs and requirements of the human
resource of the company and work according to maximize their benefits as well. They
shall maintain good communication in the management of BHP Billiton (Stone, et. al.,
2015).
Recommendation and strategies to reduce the human resource
management issue in BHP Billiton
There are numerous ways in which the organization and secure their position in the target market
and gain competence by following the below mentioned strategies in their organizational culture.
BHP shall initiate effective recruitment process through advertisement in their system so that all
the candidates are aware of the vacancies present in the company. The advertisement is
necessary for the company so that the information is communicated to all and prospective people
can apply themselves. This will also help the company providing job description to the people,
by looking at which people will apply for the job (Armstrong, & Taylor, 2014).
The process of employer branding shall be applied in the management of the company. It helps
the company to develop the brand of the company as an employer. The company BHP should
communicate with the employees in order to resolve the issues faced by the company. (Budhwar,
& Debrah, 2013). Furthermore it will also assist the company to change the perception of people
and make them work according the requirement of the business process. Apart from that the
company shall also exercise advertisement in order to solve the recruitment and selection
problems.
The company shall initiate the performance reward strategies, as with the aid of such strategies
the employees will get motivated it to work better. Also, it will attract the outsider as they will
feel that with this process they can earn more over and above their basic pay. The top level of
management shall delegate their responsibilities to the lower level of management; this will
motivate them and make them responsible to do certain tasks due to which they will properly
take care of all the activities of the management. Assisting to it they shall also purposefully

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evaluate the performance their employees and provide recognition to people who have achieved
their targets. This will also motivate them and lead then work more of the company BHP
(Sparrow, Brewster, & Chung, 2016).
Equal remuneration system shall be applied by the management of BHP. They shall remove the
gender bias activities from the business, and initiate to equally recruit both the genders in the
management of the company. Women shall also participate in all types of activities which a
male employee performs in the company. Also, laws shall be made to safeguard the interest of
female employees in the business. There should be strict code of conduct for the personnel of the
company, and the top management shall not practice any activity which can harm their interest.
Also, the top level management should responsibly train the staff of the management so that
innovation practices are implemented in the business. Apart from that, they shall also recruit
young talent in the organizational culture so the competitive edge is achieved by the company in
the global market (Jackson, Schuler, & Jiang, 2014).
So, the above mentioned are the following strategies which the company shall apply to remove
the issues faced by BHP Billiton.
Conclusion
In the limelight of above mentioned events, it shall be noted that the company BHP Billiton is
facing issue in recruitment and selection process of employee. Thus, they shall use adequate
strategies to resolve them create competence working of organization.

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References
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resource management practices, engagement and employee behaviour: a moderated
mediation model. The international journal of human resource management, 24(2), 330-
351.
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Arthur, D. (2012). Recruiting, interviewing, selecting & orienting new employees. AMACOM
Div American Mgmt Assn.
Bardoel, E. A., Pettit, T. M., De Cieri, H., & McMillan, L. (2014). Employee resilience: an
emerging challenge for HRM. Asia Pacific Journal of Human Resources, 52(3), 279-297.
BHP Billiton., (2017). Our Company. viewed on September 26, 2017 from <
http://www.bhp.com/our-approach/our-company>
Budhwar, P. S., & Debrah, Y. A. (Eds.). (2013). Human resource management in developing
countries. Routledge.
Campbell, N., McAllister, L., & Eley, D. S. (2012). The influence of motivation in recruitment
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and remote health, 12(3), 1-15.
Jackson, S. E., Schuler, R. S., & Jiang, K. (2014). An aspirational framework for strategic human
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Kaufman, B. E. (2015). Market competition, HRM, and firm performance: The conventional
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Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A., Donnelly, R., & Kynighou, A. (2016). Human resource
management at work. Kogan Page Publishers.

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Paillé, P., Chen, Y., Boiral, O., & Jin, J. (2014). The impact of human resource management on
environmental performance: An employee-level study. Journal of Business Ethics,
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Sparrow, P., Brewster, C., & Chung, C. (2016). Globalizing human resource management.
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Stone, D. L., & Deadrick, D. L. (2015). Challenges and opportunities affecting the future of
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Stone, D. L., Deadrick, D. L., Lukaszewski, K. M., & Johnson, R. (2015). The influence of
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