Strategic and Human Resource Planning in Australian Banking: A Case Study of Westpac

In this case study we will discuss about managing people & organizational behaviour and below are the summaries point:- The report discusses the interrelationship between strategic planning and human resource planning in organizations, with Westpac as a case study. Westpac has been effective in its operations and has made the environment a major concern. The report also analyzes ways for Westpac to develop a global mind-set workforce.

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Managing people and Organizational behaviour
2/18/2019

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Executive Summary
Australia’s financial sector has been one of the largest contributors to the national
economy, as it contributes around $140 billion each year. The banking industry or other
financial institutions determine the major drivers of economic growth and success of the bank
within industry. The purpose of the report is to acquire knowledge of the concept of strategic
planning and human resource planning in management organisations. The organisation here
to be used is the bank settled in Australia, Westpac and the link between the strategic
planning and human resource of the bank. Westpac has been one of the most effective banks
in their operations, and in terms of the models applied in this case study it has understood that
the environment has been the major concern for the bank. Therefore, the findings in the
report have understood as the attainment of goals and effective human resource through the
activities performed by the bank. Hence, it can be summarised that the report will describe
about the Westpac bank, which has been the major contributor of success to the banking
industry within Australia.

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Contents
1. Introduction...................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Company overview..........................................................................................................................3
2. Findings and Analysis.......................................................................................................................4
2.1 Strategic Organisational planning and Human resource planning................................................4
2.2 Human resource planning process and methods..........................................................................6
2.3 Developing high performing and Global mind-set employees and managers..............................8
GRPI model of Team effectiveness...................................................................................................8
(b) Global mind-set model...........................................................................................................9
3.Conclusion........................................................................................................................................10
References...........................................................................................................................................12

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1. Introduction
The report brings about the discussion on the aspects of the strategic organisational
planning and human resource planning in context to organisations. Organisational strategic
planning determines the ability to set the priorities, and focus on the attainment of the goals
related to human resources (Davis, Frolova & Callahan, 2016). The report will determine and
explain the interrelationship between both the aspects, i.e. strategic planning and management
of human resource planning. Westpac as the company case study has been given through
which these concepts will be discussed in the report. Thus, in the later part the report will
analyse the ways in which the company Westpac may work towards developing a global
mind-set workforce.
The aspect of global mind-set workforce within an organisation refers to establishing
the openness and awareness of the diversity across different cultures and social backgrounds
within employees working in the organisation. Further leading onto conclusion the readers
will gain an understanding of the aspects of the potential challenges and the strategic ways
for attaining of goals and high performance teamwork within Westpac (Dumay, 2016).
1.1 Company overview
Founded in the year 1817, the company Westpac is the first bank of Australia
headquartered in Westpac place in Sydney. The bank has recognised amongst the big four
banks of the country. It provides financial services and packages to the people towards
supporting them in their personal, business, or corporate banking needs. The company has a
large customer base, with a reach of around 1.5 million customers, operating with around
3000 shareholders and 40000 employees from different countries, and has many subsidiaries.
The vision statement of Westpac is to become one of the best service companies,
which helps customers and the communities to prosper and grow. The case study of the
company describes that maintaining integrity through efficient human resource management
or planning helps in developing strategic plans for achieving organisational goals and
objectives. Thus, the bank has shown effectiveness in terms of workforce evolution,
sustainability, and has worked towards the development of strong organisational structure.
The aspect of workforce planning has often prioritised by the bank, assumed to make

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significant contribution towards the growth and success of the organisation. These concepts
will be demonstrated in the later section of the report (Westpac Banking Corporation, 2018).
2. Findings and Analysis
2.1 Strategic Organisational planning and Human resource planning
(a) In every organisation, the aspect of strategic planning has considered important as
it determines the direction and outlines the goals to achieve. Strategic planning is the tool,
which assists an organisation for guiding toward decision-making process within
organisations. In addition, to decision-making activities the tool also supports in terms of
evaluating progress and making changes in the operation of their business activities. Human
resource planning defined as the process of forecasting the demand and supply of human
resource in the future to attain the predetermined goals and objectives. It consist factors such
as forecasting HR, collecting information, policies, training, and development of the
employees (Davis, Frolova & Callahan, 2016).
The alignment between the concepts of strategic planning and human resource
planning are significant to the organisation thus they represents a symbiotic relationship
between each other. HRP aims to adjust or manage the flow of human resource in an out of
the organisation, which supports the procedure of strategic planning (Nankervis et al., 2016).
In context to the bank, Westpac it has been analysed that the main strategic objective
of the company is to attain organic growth through making growth in the customer segments
through strengthening relationships with them. The bank has established an Accessibility
Action plan, which mentions about the commitment of the bank towards ensuring better
access to services and employment especially for weaker section (Mahiri, 2015). Thus,
Westpac has determined certain strategic priorities crucial to ensure effective strategic
planning which include service leadership, performance discipline, growth highways, and
workforce revolution.
It has found that the strategic organisational planning and human resource planning
aligned strongly, and it strengthens the relationships between the organisational members
and their subordinates.
1. Diversity:

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It has firstly observed as the company has employed a large base of 40,000 employees
towards their different services such as banking, insurance and consultancy services to
around 13 million customers in various regions. Moreover, the Westpac has awarded as the
Diversity Leader in 2015. The gender diversity is quite evident amongst the top executive
positions with a ratio of 50-50 among men and women.
2. Human rights of workforce:
Westpac strives to achieve their goals through creation of an environment, which inspires
employees to show their commitment towards goals. Therefore, this determines a significant
relationship with the workforce planning or human resource management. For an example,
Westpac ensures their employee paydays, leaves, flexible working hours, support against the
issues of domestic violence, and other financial support. In addition, human rights position
statement of the bank, aims at protecting the rights of workforce (Westpac, 2018).
“One-team” approach
The outcome for the aspect of strategic plans and human resource planning, i.e. HRP
leading to SOP to the outcomes, includes two, first as “one team” is one positive outcome. It
states about the bank’s collaborative practices towards delivering the best services to their
customers benefitting the company as a whole.
Diversity within organisation
The second outcome in the context to the relationship between SOP and HRP in the
bank it has found that diversity has been the positive effect on the bank’s operations leading
to the increased performance and higher customer satisfaction. The reason behind these two
positive outcomes or results is that effective estimation of the labour demand and supply
forecast led to practising integration of efforts, of the individuals working from different
cultural and social backgrounds (Golom & Schreck, 2018).
The bank has also achieved efficiency in terms of ensuring capabilities of their
workforce or employees, performance and accountability to their business needs and goal
attainment. Westpac identifies the requirements of workforce and bridges the gap between
available workforce and future needs of human capital. The most significant factor to the
success of workforce planning at Westpac is the engagement of the workforce with the
business, i.e. treated as partners to business (Bryson, 2018).

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The above case of the bank, Westpac has represented effectiveness in their both
aspects, i.e. strategic organisational planning and human resource planning. This statement
supported with the example, as the bank ensures flexible working conditions, such as flexible
working hours, along with different leaves as per the needs of their employees. Another
example, states that Westpac conducts and asks their employees or people to complete an
inclusion and diversity survey, which will assist the organisation to identify their loopholes,
and where they need to revise their strategies for improving organisational performance
(Soutphommasane, 2017). Two challenges faced by the HR professionals of the bank to align
the process of strategic planning and human resource planning (Stindt, 2017).
(a) To embed and practice a learning and positive culture at Westpac: One of the
major challenge to maintain in a diverse, work environment, is to embed a learning and
positive culture within organisation.
(b) High competition from other banks or financial institutions: It describes another
major hurdle or challenge in terms of intense competition from other banks and other
institutions, within the country Australia and New Zealand.
Examples:
The HR professionals to align strategic organisational planning with human resource
planning consist of the technological advancements and globalisation may face the two
challenges. It may also include challenges in consideration to compliance to the laws, and
regulations, and innovations in Australian bank industry (Aldrich et al., 2015).
2.2 Human resource planning process and methods
(a) The company has attained high degree of effectiveness in terms of the human resource
planning, as mentioned in the case study. Westpac characterises one of the most
significant aspect, i.e. leadership that is one effective activity or process leading to the
success of workforce planning. As the company operates or deals in providing the
financial services, thus the company practices service leadership within their institution
(Muenjohn et al., 2018).
Leadership: Service leadership involves fulfilling the financial needs and interests of their
customers, or specifically focusing on the aspect of personalised financial services to the
individuals. Thus, it is one of the aspects of the human resource planning procedures or

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process within Westpac. Another example, which represents the important workforce
planning practice that has observed, is the bank’s efforts towards making investments into
reforming and modernising the network within their separate branches.
Customer Satisfaction: The example of The Professional Qualifications Programme
used by the company under the ‘Best Banker Strategy’ has built the customer satisfaction,
and enhanced the professionalism of the banking personnel of the entity. Moreover, managers
within bank do not discriminate their employees based on their membership or due to lack of
membership, and 2020 sustainability strategy of the bank-determined effectiveness of HRP
practices. To provide a specific example from the case study it has found that Westpac has
focused on fulfilling their 47% of the leadership roles as women within organisation.
Therefore, this strategic activity determines the focus of Westpac towards development of a
people-centred workplace (Begley, Purnanandam & Zheng, 2017).
Labour Planning: The concept of labour planning states about placing the correct or
accurate people at the right place, and at the right time for the attainment of predetermined
goals. It is also known as human resource planning, and requires forecasting the work force
needs and conducting planning to fulfil those positions (Bryson, 2018).
(b)
On the basis of above research and assessment of the company case study of the bank,
Westpac in Australia it is clear that the bank aims to serve their employees in a better manner.
Despite of their effective fulfilment of their duties and responsibilities towards employees
and customers it has found that there are many challenges, which may affect human resource
planning practices.
1. Inaccuracy- is one another major the HR professional may face challenge in the planning
of work force needs. It states about the aspect of acquiring right people, at the right place, i.e.
effective recruitment of the people. This means the human resource professionals may face
issues in matching the demand and supply of the human resources. This creates the issue of
increased costs or expenses, time-consumption for planning and providing training to them as
per their job-roles (Cohen, 2017). Further, it leads to the challenge of employee retention that
an HR professional may encounter related to management of the people from different
cultural backgrounds, and ensures their development.

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2. Lack of support - is one another issue or challenge, which any organisation or their HR
professionals face, as it refers to the insufficiency of the funds and resources (physical and
financial). Management support is one significant problem, which is essential with tangible
gains, forms the base of strong human resources and achievement of goals. Employee’s
resistance is one another issue, faced by the HR professionals towards managing their human
resource and strategic goals (Davis, Frolova & Callahan, 2016).
2.3 Developing high performing and Global mind-set employees and
managers
Westpac operates within service industry, thus they need to focus more on the
development of high performing work team for the multi-cultural workplace. Thus, in context
to the case, some management theories or models can be effectively applied which will lead
to high performance organisation. This section of the report will link the strategic priorities
initiated by the bank, Westpac within industry (Heard, Menezes & Rambaldi, 2018).
(a) One of the strategic priorities i.e. workforce revolution mentions about their customer
focused strategy for which they emphasize on collaborating and working as a team.
Moreover, the bank as an organisation focuses on the enhancement of the skills, and
abilities of their existing staff, and developing their qualities in the future. It represents a
major step towards fostering employee engagement and career progression opportunities,
which aligns their strategic priorities and goals (KPMG, 2018).
Thus, some of the models, which are relevant to the development of multi-cultural
team in the workplace of the Westpac, may include effective leadership strategy has been
linked to the strategic priority of Westpac i.e. Service leadership. Multicultural leadership
involves people from cultural backgrounds working together for the attainment of a common
goal or objective (Chen et al., 2017).
GRPI model of Team effectiveness
In context to the Westpac bank, the model that is relevant for increasing the
effectiveness of teams and development has been termed as the ‘GRPI’ model of team-
effectiveness. Rubin, Plovnick, and fry have developed one of the oldest team effectiveness
model back in the year 1977, and consist of four pillars or elements. These four elements or

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pillars include Goals, processes, roles, and interpersonal relationships (Golom & Schreck,
2018).
Goals defined as the clear objectives, targets or intentions are important as they form
the base for the smooth functioning of the organisation. The goals of the organisation or bank
combined with the effective communication, and the strategic priorities set by Westpac.
Roles, define the responsibilities or duties that the bank performs, and it states the
entire team should have team leader who has responsibilities towards the team members
making them, coordinated towards goals (Cook, 2017).
Processes mean the decision-making and problem solving techniques or procedures
established within the organisation (Golom & Schreck, 2018).
The fourth element of interpersonal relationship refers to the established
communication, honesty, mutual trust, and engagement of the employees within bank. This
leads to the creation of flexible organisation, leading to a multicultural and developed team.
Therefore, the GRPI model of team effectiveness enables organisations to focus on
the attainment of their goals and enhance employee engagement. This will lead to certain
positive outcomes or results such as it will support open communication, and teamwork
within the organisational members. Thus, the model of the group or team effectiveness will
contribute significant towards will bring coordination, and team effectiveness in the
organisation. It will thus, result into establishment of the high performance team or
organisation with the major benefit or aspect of multi-culturalism (Li, Huang & Yan, 2018).
(b)Global mind-set model
In consideration to the company, Westpac it has been analysed that developing a
global mind-set workforce is essential for the development of the overall organisation. The
global mind-set assessment has some certified aspects established by the thunderbird school
of management, which determine the capability of a leader to influence people. The
assessment or GMI includes elements intellectual capital, psychological capital, and attaining
efficient social capital to lead multiculturalism within workplace.
Intellectual capital Psychological capital Social capital
Global business savvy -
knowledge of global business
Passion for diversity -
Interests towards acquiring
Intercultural empathy-
It defines the ability to

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strategies and competition in
the market.
knowledge about different
people, and understanding
diversity.
communicate through non-
verbal expressions, and
working with people across
different nations.
Cosmopolitan Outlook- It
determines the ability of the
brand towards understanding
abstract ideas and concepts,
and grasping complex
concepts easily.
Quest for adventure-
willingness towards taking
risks, and dealing with
challenging issues.
Interpersonal impact- It
includes developing strong
network with people from
different cultures and
countries.
Cognitive complexity -
ability to understand different
ideas, process, and gaining
analytical skills.
Self-assurance – The
confidence of the business
entrepreneurs, and energetic
behaviour (Matthes &
Barbuto, 2015).
Diplomacy- The ability or
skills to collaborate, and
work with diverse people.
Thus, focusing towards two aspects such as global business Savvy and Intercultural empathy
has been an important aspect. These elements applied to the Westpac through performing
SMART objectives for the element of passion for diversity will include:
Specific, identifying people from a particular culture or social background will determine the
strategies towards the areas to be focused.
Measurable, the aspect of passion for diversity is important to understand in terms of the
measurability whether this objective can be measured or not.
Achievable, the element or objective of passion for diversity is achievable through
application of appropriate strategies. Relevant, it defines the significance and relevance of
diversity or diversified workforce within organisations, as it is essential to incorporate and
practice global multicultural team (Cook, 2017).
Time-bound activities: It will determine the teamwork, establish diversity workforce within
team, up to a particular time-period and will lead to creation of global mind-set.

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3.Conclusion
To conclude the above discussion it has been analysed that the Westpac has been one
of the most successful and innovative service business within industry. It has been analysed
from the research that the bank has shown effective performance in maintaining sound
relationship with employees working in the organisation. This major aspect contributed to the
creation of a best workplace with the assurance for assurance for the best financial services
and supports in making financial decisions.
The findings of the report have demonstrated different aspects in relation to
Westpac’s strategic planning and the relation between organisational planning and human
resource planning. The Westpac has attained high efficiency and high productivity in terms
of satisfied employees and greater customer satisfaction. This has achieved through the
application of several management models and Global mind set model or assessment, which
supported towards creating and establishing global and cultural teams or workplace. Westpac
has achieved high growth in retaining their workforce through establishing teamwork and
fostering the growth of multi-cultural teams within bank. Hence, it is concluded that Westpac
has recognised as the second largest business-banking lender in Australia and has attained
sustainability and higher success.

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