Human Resource Management Case Study: Analyzing Big Bytes' Issues

This case study analyzes the human resource management challenges faced by Big Bytes, a chain of stores selling and repairing computer equipment. The report examines issues such as lack of employee commitment, inefficient recruitment practices, high absenteeism rates, and the impact of store managers' performance on employee morale and overall business success. It identifies short-term, mid-term, and long-term issues, providing strategic solutions and recommendations to improve HRM practices, including addressing absenteeism, enhancing recruitment processes, and developing an HR plan to meet future organizational needs. The analysis emphasizes the importance of addressing these issues to ensure the company's future success and competitive advantage. The student's report highlights the need for improved management, employee engagement, and talent acquisition to drive better performance and profitability.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The main of the given report is to analyse the case study of a business organisation named
Big Bytes. In this connection, with the help of the study, the report examined that the
concerned organisation is suffering several issues due to the managerial as well as the causal
employees related to the company. The employees connected to the organisation were
recorded to lack the sense of commitment and accountability that is essential to perform the
tasks and activities in an effective and efficient manner. With regards to this, the report
analyses the current situation of the concerned company and therefore tends to provide the
necessary implications that would prove beneficial for the future success of the company.
Furthermore, the report is concentrated on differentiating the different issues analysed in the
firm in the sector of short-term, mid-term as well as long-term issues. The given report also
provides the strategical solutions that would help the concerned organisation to mitigate the
risks of the issues as well as to solve the same in a significant manner. Finally, the report ends
with the designing of the HR plan that would be necessary to address the future needs and
activities of the HR in the concerned organisation of Big Bytes.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Current situation of the firm.......................................................................................................3
Analysis of the current situation............................................................................................3
The implication for the future success of the company.........................................................5
The issues in the firm.................................................................................................................6
Human Resource Plan..............................................................................................................13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................16
References................................................................................................................................17

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Introduction
According to the viewpoint of Crane et al. (2019), a Human Resource Manager of any
capable business entity is accountable for every strategic plan and process to be undertaken in
the working condition of any organisation. The Human Resource Manager is burdened with
the responsibility of handling the past as well as the current situations and make necessary
changes as per the requirement and demand of the situation. In case that the manager does not
perform their duty and tasks to the mark, the organisation is known to suffer through huge
problems and failure (Reason 2016). In this connection, the given report is concentrated on
the examining the case study of the organisation named Big Bytes and thereby analysing the
current situations of the concerned company and undermining necessary implications that
would lead to the success of the firm.
Current situation of the firm
Analysis of the current situation
The current status of the company in the discussion, Big Bytes reveals that the
company has been facing a considerable number of issues with regards to the human
resources that are maintained within the organization. The company is known for the
specialization in the sales of the various parts required for the accessories that have been
related to the IT instruments. The company is also known for the repairing of the products
that are used in the hardware parts of the computers and other such devices. The company has
been known to be handled by the owner who preferred the stores to be managed by the store
managers and was content with the satisfactory amount of the profits earned and the turnover
that was acquired by the company. The current situation of the company revealed the fact that
the stores of the company were not appropriately managed by the managers of the store. The
general manager of the company had observed that the laissez-faire approach that was

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undertaken by the owner of the company had resulted in the conditions wherein the store
managers had been managing the stores in a satisfactory manner at best. In the worst-case
scenarios, the stores are operated in a deplorable way. Cohen (2017) opines that this, in turn,
might lead to the loss of the clients of the organization.
The significant issues that were highlighted in the case referred to the lack of proper
commitment on the part of the store managers. The majority of the people employed at the
managerial levels within the organization are observed to be tenured employees who have
been serving the company for a more extended time period (Bailey et al. 2017). Big Bytes
experienced a tremendous amount of nepotism in the recruitment processes. The managers
played the role of the recruiters and were known to have been recruiting the employees with
the process of word of mouth. This led to the lack of skilled employees within the
organization. The other major issue that is faced by the organization refers to the reluctance
of the managers in extending a proper amount of expenditure towards the staff of the
organization (Albrecht et al. 2015). The managers opine that the majority of the employees
are not into the system for a longer duration, and thus the expenditure for the employees of
the organization would be a loss in itself. The company, Big Bytes, also faced a high amount
of the absenteeism among the employees of the organization. The reason that was cited by the
employees for the absenteeism within the organization were observed to be very difficult to
find proof for and very lame in nature (Ruck, Welch and Menara 2017). The employees of
the organization are known to experience very low morale for undertaking the various job
roles that are assigned to them. The morale of the employees who had been serving the
organization, Big Bytes, at the different store locations was known to vary. The variance
depended on the management styles as were demonstrated by the respective store managers.

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The implication for the future success of the company
The company might suffer a significant number of losses in terms of the performance
and the revenue earned in case the company does not take meaningful steps for the changing
of the scenario within the organization. The lack of the commitment among the store
managers within the organization might lead to the lack of the motivation within the
employees of Big Bytes who have been serving the lower ranks in the hierarchy of the
organization (Al Mehrzi and Singh 2016). The managers of the organization are observed to
rank among the oldest members of the organization. The lack of the proper commitment
within the given organization tends to implement the factors that would lead to the lack of the
appropriate engagement of the lower level employees who have been a part of the
organizational workforce (Karanges et al. 2015). The implementation of the nepotism within
Big Bytes leads to the lack of the incorporation of the required talent within the organization.
The integration of the nepotistic values within the organization leads to the lack of the
attraction of the potential employees within the organizational workforce. This, in turn, leads
to the conditions wherein there is a dearth of the diversity within the organization.
The lack of proper motivation among the employees serving the organization might
hamper the overall performance of Big Bytes. The lack of the adequate funding towards the
development of the organizational workforce leads to the condition of dissatisfaction amongst
the employees of the organization thereby leading to the lack of the proper functioning of the
various departments of the organization. This might eventually lead to the lowering of the
competitive advantage of the company as well (Eldor and Vigoda-Gadot 2017). The lack of
training within Big Bytes might further result in the development of the workforce that lacks
the proper skill for the completion of the job duties that have been allocated to the concerned
employees. The lack of appropriate initiatives in the training of the employees of the
organization further leads to the lack of the interest of the employees to continue their service

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towards the concern. This might further lead to an increase in the rates of the attrition among
the organizational workforce. This, in turn, might lead to a decline in the overall
organizational performance of Big Bytes. The employees of the organization face a
significant lack of the boost to their morale. The lack of the proper confidence and motivation
of the employees leads to the conditions wherein the employees tend to lose the adequate
drive to serve the company in alignment with the organizational goals that have been set by
the concerned management. The employment of the students within Big Bytes might in future
lead to the development of the issues regarding the proper and dedicated workforce who
would be capable of serving the organization in a consistent manner (Saks and Gruman
2017). The company should maintain a proper diversity within the workforce in order to
provide uninterrupted service to the clientele, thereby increasing the profitability of the
organization, Big Bytes.
The issues in the firm
As examined by the help of the case study, it can be stated that the concerned
organisation is facing several issues related to the managers and their operations performed.
In this connection, the given report tends to examine the different issues that need to be
addressed in the organisation. The issues that need to be addressed as per short-term, mid-
term and long-term time period are specified as below.
Short-term (within 3-4 months)
Issues
 The people working in the organisation are recorded to remain absent and late at a
high level. The same did not even have genuine reasons. Take, for example; the
employees gave lame excuses like their car is broken down or they not being well
without providing any proper medical certificate. Moreover, the high number of the

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staffs working at Big Bytes are recorded to be students, and therefore, the rate of
absenteeism increased at the time of the end of the semester of the students. Not only
this but the period of Christmas, as well as New Year, proved to be bad for the
organisation with respect to employees being absent in the company.
 The store managers connected to the organisation of Big Bytes work with lack of
prior commitment. They were known to be held in their current designation because
of the long time period they have served the organisation, and till the time the position
of being a manager turned to be vacant in the organisation. This, in turn, resulted in
the lack of prominent store and material management, which affected the financial
management of the company as well.
 The recruitment process of the organisation is recorded to be inefficient and
unprofessional. This is because the managers concerned with the recruitment process
appoints the new employees with the means of the word-of-mouth communication
process. No prior recruitment interviews and official training were held. Take, for
example, a friend of the existing employee of the organisation wishes to work, and the
organisation is complied with appointing the person as their employee without going
through a proper recruitment process.
Solutions
 The senior level management of the company should ensure that there are prior rules
and regulations set for the high rate of absenteeism as well as late arrival (Ansoff et
al. 2018). The employees working at every level in the company should provide a
genuine reason and proof for their absence and late arrival to work. This step will
ensure that the employees’ remains under the strict rules and regulations and
therefore, the unnecessary absenteeism would be avoided.

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 Since the store managers of the company are known to work in the same for a more
extended period of time and are still not committed towards the achievement of the
organisational goal, this issue needs to be addressed in the short period of time so as
to ensure that the loss suffered by the organisation is reduced as soon as possible. The
employees were recorded to serve the organisation for a longer period of time, only
for the self-purpose if being a manager when the designation of the same becomes
vacant or available for the same. In this case, the company should focus on promoting
an employee based on the performance given by the same and not by the amount of
the time the employee has served the company. This, in turn, will help the
organisation to get the store managers committed towards their work in the urge of
getting recognised as well as receiving better monetary and promotion benefits.
 The organisation should ensure that the recruitment process is taken into
consideration with prior legality and official procedure (Berman et al. 2019). This
formal recruitment process would ensure that the recruitment is fulfilled effectively
and efficiently and the, as well as talented employees, are recruited. Instead of hiring
the employees without taking proper interviews and appointing them in a casual
manner, taking official interviews will help the organisation to increase the revenue
generation in the future terms of the same.
Mid-term (within 6-9 months)
Issues
 The training and development program is not given prior importance in the concerned
organisation. The store managers at Big Bytes are recorded to be resistant towards the
idea of spending the funds over the synergy of training the employees. The reason
behind the same was examined to be that the manager has a stereotype belief that the

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lower level and the casual staffs are not committed towards the organisation and
would leave the organisation in a short period of time and providing training to them
would be of no use.
 The sales rate of the organisation has fallen down due to the increasing online
business competition. The in-store technicians of the company were the only positive
presence in the organisation that favoured the working structure of the same.
However, the whole of the organisation failed to meet the desired expectations and the
goals that were needed to gain a compelling competitive advantage in the market.
 The morale value of the staffs differed as per the different stores of the organisation
and also the managerial style in each store differed from each other.
Solutions
 The managers connected to the working structure of the concerned organisation
should understand the fact that training and development program is a necessary part
that is to be taken into consideration (Argyris 2017). This is because the process of
training will help the employees to understand their piece of work and stay motivated
to achieve their target. The managers at the concerned organisation are in an entirely
wrong belief that the training programme is a waste of time and money because the
employees would leave the organisation. Instead as stated by Stewart and Brown
(2019), training and development help in the retention of the employees in the
organisation for a more extended period of time as the same helps the employees to
work with better effectiveness and efficiency. Thus, ensuring a regular training
programme in the firm whenever required will help the organisation in the long run
and also avoid the costs of recruiting employees again and again.
 As examined with the help of the study that the sales of Big Bytes are being affected
due to the competition of online sales prevailing in the business market. In this

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connection, the firm should concentrate on changing their strategical implementation
and sales process as per the synergy of advanced and innovated technology and
market trends and trades (Piercy 2016). This will help the organisation to remain
updated in the business market and therefore compete in a prior manner with the
potential competitors. Not only this, but the same would also help the firm to gain an
adequate level of competitive advantage in the business market and gain brand loyalty
and image for themselves.
 The difference in the morale values of the employees and the managerial style of
work in different stores of the organisation creates a sense of discrimination and
dispute between the managers. Thus, the productivity and effectiveness of the
working capabilities of the managerial level employees are affected. In this
connection, the organisation should be concentrated on setting strategical laws and
orders regarding the ethical values and style of work to be followed by every
managerial employee, no matter which stores the different managers are working into
(DeCenzo, Robbins and Verhulst 2016). This will keep the managers into strict eyes
of rules and laws, and therefore, no unethical behaviour would be practised by the
managers in the threat of getting into legal considerations.
Long-term (within 1-1.5 years)
Issues
 The financial managerial aspect of the organisation was determined to be weak, and
the store managers even agreed that the condition of the financial management skills
could be improved and made useful. However, the managers were not acting upon the
same.

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 The owner of the concerned company stated that the company works under the
process of the formal appraisal, but the real fact remained different from the statement
made. In this concern, it was analysed that every manager working in the firm decided
on their own choice and wish about the process that is to be considered in the working
structure of the same. This clearly proved that the organisation had no formal
appraisal process of work.
 There were employees connected to the organisation which served the same for a
more extended period of time. However, this serving only resulted in an increase in
the turnover of the staff and not the average gain in the goals of the entire industry.
 It was also examined with the help of the case study that during the annual survey
taking of the opinion of the employee, a concern regarding the lack of training was
raised by the same. The owner of the company even funded extra investment for the
same, but the funding was not used for the right purpose by the managers. The
managers still thought that the training program would be the waste of both the time
and money because major of the staffs working in the organisation were casual.
Solutions
 As determined with the help of the case study, it was examined that the sales rate of
the company is affected as well as the financial management of the company is
recorded to be weak due to lack in the skills of the managers connected to the
financial department of the firm. In this connection, the organisation should focus on
re-structuring their managerial level employees in the concern of recruiting the best
skilled, experienced and talented administrative employees (Budhwar, Varma and
Patel 2016). This will not only help the organisation to maintain the priority of
managing the financial issues occurring in the business but also will help in the

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synergy of gaining better revenue as well as sustaining the company in the business
market for a longer period of time.
 The concerned company should work as per the set rules of the formal structure that
every business should follow in the prospect of running the organisation in an official
and ethically maintained manner. Providing a high amount of freedom to the
employees may disregard the formal terms and tasks of any business (Thompson
2017). As examined in the study that the employees of the concerned organisation of
Big Bytes performs the activity of appraisal as per their wish and will and not as per
the demand of the situation or the set time of assessment. In this connection, setting
up a formal environment of work and strictness to the follow-up of the timely basis of
work will help the organisation to achieve the synergy of desired goals and objectives.
 The employees of the Big Bytes Company are only focused on the individual
turnover, which has resulted in failure in the average turnover of the concerned
industry. In this connection, the company should set their strategic plans in a manner
that it would leverage the employees to give productivity to the organisation and also
earn personal monetary benefits from the same (Cohen 2017). Take, for example; the
company can provide the employees with specific incentive schemes on the
overachievement of individual targets. Therefore, this strategical implication will help
the company to get the set target and goals of the organisation achieved along with the
personal purposes of the employees.
 Every productive business entity should be accountable to listen to the feedback given
by its employees, so as to make the required changes that would help in the
betterment of the business organisation (Doppelt 2017). Understanding, analysing and
acting upon the feedback provided by the employees makes them feel valued in the
organisation. Not only this, but the employees also feel satisfied to work in the

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organisation when their problems are listened to and acted upon appropriately. This
will help the organisation to sustain its employees for a longer period of time. With
regards to the concerned business entity of Big Bytes, the employees had raised a
concern of being trained and developed and the same was not fulfilled due to the
negligence of the higher authority managers and their stereotype thinking. This
resulted in the loss of the employees as well as productivity and finally, the revenue
earning capacity. Thus, implementing the strategy of acting upon the feedbacks of the
employees in an effective way will help the concerned organisation to solve its
current issues and perform its tasks effectively and efficiently.
Human Resource Plan
Goals to be
achieved
Skills and competencies
required
Resources Time Taken
Performance
Management
 Timely completion
of the task given to
the employee.
 Over-shooting the
given target and
leveraging more
efforts for
increasing the
productivity of the
company.
 The effective and
efficient
workforce
required.
 Advanced and
modified form of
innovated
equipment and
types of
machinery.
 6-9
months

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Employee
Management
 Setting a prior set
of strict rules and
norms to keep the
employees under
standards and
regulations of
maintaining ethical
behaviour.
 Recruiting the
employees with an
unbiased basis and
judging them based
on their skills,
experience and
talents.
 Treating every
employee with
equal right and
freedom to perform
the tasks and
activities with
regards to the
designation
provided to them.
 The competent
team of Human
Resource
Management that
would recruit the
needed
employees.
 The required
amount of money
needed to fulfill
the purpose of
recruitment, take,
for example, the
advertisement
costs spreading
awareness about
the vacancy.
 Six
months
Training and  Measuring the  Professional  Three

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Development performance of
each employee
connected to the
organisation and
understanding the
need for the
required training to
be given to them.
 Realising the need
for providing
training to the new
employees in order
to make them
understand their
tasks and activities
to be performed as
per the requirement
of the organisation.
 Regularly check
out to the need for
providing training
and development
program to the
employees as per
the change in the
trainers and
managers who
excel in the tasks
and activities to
be performed in
the organisation.
 Ample amount of
monetary funding
that would be
needed to train
the new as well as
the old
employees.
months

16HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
market structure
and even the trend
in the technological
advancements.
Conclusion
Hence, based on the understanding of the above report, it can tend to state that the
managerial level of employees working in any organisation are the most integral part of the
same. The organisation concerned here in the given report is known as Big Bytes, and the
same is recorded to face issues because of the manager as well as the connected causal
employees and their lack in the commitment to work effectively in the organisation. This
clearly depicts that the human resource management needs to be strict and prominent enough
in any business entity if the same is neglected, the organisation fails to achieve the desired set
of goals and objectives.

17HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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