A Business Report to Optimize HR Processes at B.N. Foray (Case Study)

This business report focuses on optimizing HR processes at B.N. Foray, an FMCG company facing issues such as reduced employee engagement, lack of integrated HR policies, and long working hours. The report identifies these key HRM issues and proposes strategies like job rotation, reducing working hours, and the implementation of the Kurt Lewin model and XY theory to address them. It outlines responsibilities, estimated costs, and includes a risk register to anticipate potential challenges during implementation. The report suggests human resource planning, performance management, and employee relations as key areas for improvement, offering a comprehensive plan to enhance HR effectiveness within the organization.

A Business Report to
optimise the delivery of
HR Processes at B.N.
Foray

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Present report is based upon identification of HR issues that are affecting B.N. Foray.
The identified issues are reduction in employee engagement, lack of integration in HR Policies,
long working hours etc. In order to resolve all of them, HR Director of organisation is suggested
to implement appropriate strategies and theories such as job rotation, reducing working hours,
Kurt Lewin model, XY theory etc. Along with this, risk register is also prepared in order to
identify the risks which may take place in future in implementing the plan.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Outline of primary HRM issues in B.N. Foray............................................................................1
Proposal to optimise delivery of HR processes at B.N. Foray....................................................2
Implementation of the plan that includes outlining of responsibilities and costing....................3
Risk register.................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management can be defined as a strategic approach which is focused by
managers in the business entities for the purpose of managing employees effectively (Butler and
Callahan, 2014). If they are not able to perform their responsibilities properly then it may result
in HR issues such as staff turnover, low engagement in job etc. The main aim of this report is to
develop an understanding about management of individual and teams. This report is based upon
B.N. Foray which is a global company and carry its operations in FMCG sector with 9000
employees. This project covers various topics such as outlining of primary HRM issues,
developing proposal to optimise deliver of HR processes etc. Additionally, implementation of
plan that outlines costing and responsibilities along with risk register are also covered in this
report.
MAIN BODY
Outline of primary HRM issues in B.N. Foray
B.N. Foray is currently facing different issues related to human resource due to poor
management. All of them are resulting in improper management of work within organisation.
These HRM issues are described below:
Lack of integration in HR policies: There is a lack of integration in HR policies of B.N.
Foray, as team of organisation is focused on centralised processes and there is less presence of it
in regional centres. Due to this, staff members are not having detailed information about their
roles and responsibility which is affecting their work quality.
Reduction in employee engagement: One of the main issues which are affecting B.N.
Foray is decreasing staff engagement which is affecting overall productivity of organisation.
Reason behind this issue if lack of job rotation at work place because continuously performing
same job results in reduction of interest of employees in their job.
Long working hours: In B.N. Foray working hours for employees are very long for all
the employees which affects their productivity. It is also affecting their work life which is not
managed as they have to work for almost 12 hours a day and sometimes they also work in
rotational shifts which are not suitable for employees.
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Proposal to optimise delivery of HR processes at B.N. Foray
For Chief People Officer of B.N. Foray, it is very important to deal with all HR issues
which are arising within organisation because ignorance of them may result in lower productivity
of company. For this purpose, managers are required to deliver HR processes appropriately.
Some of them which are required to be focused properly are as follows:
 Human resource planning: There are various processes involved in HRP such as
recruitment, selection, induction, training, orientation, lay off, promotion and evaluation
(Dickmann, Brewster and Sparrow, 2016). By using these processes in systematic manner
managers of B.N. Foray will be able to properly manage employees at workplace.
 Performance management: It is the procedure of making sure that all staff members are
performing well according to guidance of their superiors because it can help in
monitoring efforts that are made by each and every individual towards organisational
goals (Johnson, Lukaszewski and Stone, 2016). It will be beneficial to enhance employee
engagement by offering them rewards according to their performance.
 Employee relations: These are the efforts which are made by human resource managers
of organisation to establish positive relations with employees so that they could be
motivated to work productively (Hunter, Saunders and Constance, 2016).
In order to optimise the procedures of delivering all the above described procedures the
human resource managers should focus on the below proposal:
Issues Strategies to
overcome
Theories and
approaches to be
implemented
Time Cost
Lack of
integration of HR
policies
Implementing
new HR policies
X Y theory 6 months 5000 pounds
Reduction in
employee
engagement
Job Rotation Democratic
leadership
approach
4 months 2000 pounds
Long working
hours
Reducing
working hours
Kurt Lewin
Change model
2 months 8000 pounds
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Implementation of the plan that includes outlining of responsibilities and costing
In order to deal with all the issues which are affecting B.N. Foray the HR Director can
implement the proposal which is formulated above. With the help of it, the issues which are
affecting the company could be resolved properly. The implementation of plan could be
understood with the help of following discussion:
Lack of integration of HR policies: The Chief People Officer of B.N. Foray is
responsible to make sure that this issue gets resolved with the application of appropriate theory
and strategies. In order to deal with it, new HR policies could be implemented under supervision
of HR director. It will help to make sure that all the staff members are guided properly to
perform all their jobs in systematic manner. With the help of it, it could also be assured that all
the operational activities are performed under business standards and principles.
The theory which could also be implemented for the resolution of the issue is XY theory
which is described below:
XY theory - It was developed by Douglas McGregor for the purpose of facilitating the
managers to determine behaviour of employees so that it could be used while formulating
organisational policies (Gürbüz, Şahin and Köksal, 2014). With the help of it, Chief People
Officer of B.N. Foray will be responsible to analyse the responses of staff members on the
decisions which are taken by them to perform operations. The X theory in it states the negative
behaviour of workforce in which they do not want to work and try to escape, they resist change,
dislike their responsibilities etc. By implementing this theory, the issue could be dealt as it will
guide HR director to formulate new policies on the basis of such factors which are resulting in
negative behaviour of staff. On the other hand, assumptions of theory Y demonstrates favourable
response of staff on policies. Under this component of the approach they become committed
towards their work, perceive their jobs relaxing and normal etc. In order to reduce the risk
properly the organisation may have to spend 5000 pounds.
Reduction in engagement: Currently B.N. Foray is facing the reducing staff engagement
issue which is leaving negative impact upon its productivity and profitability. In order to deal
with this problem, Chief People Officer of the company will be responsible to implement the
strategy of job rotation. It will help to enhance interest on employees in their responsibilities by
rotating their jobs (Hendriks and Karsten, 2014). Along with this, the old leadership style could
be replaced with democratic approach.
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Democratic approach - Under this mode of supervision, motivation level of employees
could be increased by considering their opinion in decision making. It will also help to increase
engagement of workforce because all of them will work productively when, they are motivated.
Cost of resolution of this issue will be around 2000 pounds.
Long working hours: It is the major issue which is faced by B.N. Foray and it is
resulting in decreased productivity as when staff have to work overtime, they become unable to
perform all the tasks properly. In order to deal with this problem, HR director of B.N. Foray
must implement strategy of reducing working hours as it will enhance their work quality and
motivate them to work effectively (Kurt Lewin's Change Model, 2019). The theory which could
be used for same purpose is Kurt Lewin's Change model that consists three different stages i.e.
unfreezing, changing and refreezing (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown, 2016).
At first stage, which is Unfreeze Chief People Officer can prepare for change which is
reducing working hours. It may result in impatience, doubt and denial of other top level
executives and employees because they may not be in the favour of this decision. At the second
stage, desired change will be implemented in which the time of staff to work will be reduced.
This stage will be very complicated for the management as it may result in increased cost due to
decreased working hours. The third stage is “refreeze”, where HR director will be required to
make sure that change is reinforced and sustained properly. Here, the employees and other
members of the organisation will become habitual to the new working hours. It will cost around
8000 pounds for the organisation.
Risk register
The documents that contain information regarding all the risks which are affecting the
organisation are known as risk registers (Pritchard and PMP, 2014). One of them is also
generated for B.N. Foray for the purpose of listing all the risks that are related to the plan of
implementation which is as follows:
Risk with description Rating
(Out of 5)
Impa
ct
Likeliho
od
Steps to Mitigate
Higher cost of change
implementation is one
of the main risk which
4 High High HR Director of B.N. Foray can pay
attention towards the cost which may take
place due to decreased working hours and
4

may affect budget of
the company
other changes to the organisational
processes and other non required
expenses could be controlled so that this
cost could be recovered.
Increased
responsibilities of HR
officer can result in
low functionality of
other areas of
organisation
2 Mode
rate
Low In order to deal with this risk HR Director
can recruit an assistant who will pay
attention to the areas where change is not
implemented so that the possibility of
decreased functionality of them could be
reduced.
CONCLUSION
From the above project report, it has been concluded that for all the organisations it is
very important to analyse all the HR issues so that effective strategies and theories such as
democratic leadership, Kurt Lewin's change and XY model could be implemented. For this
purpose, HR directors are required to create a proposal first and then apply the plan so that
reduction of problems could be assured. In order to record the risks which may take place while
implementation a risk register could be created that covers impact, likelihood and steps for
mitigation of the identified risks.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Butler, M. G. and Callahan, C. M., 2014. Human resource outsourcing: Market and operating
performance effects of administrative HR functions. Journal of Business Research.
67(2). pp.218-224.
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. and Brown, K. G., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps:
Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Human relations. 69(1).
pp.33-60.
Dickmann, M., Brewster, C. and Sparrow, P. eds., 2016. International human resource
management: contemporary HR issues in Europe. Routledge.
Gürbüz, S., Şahin, F. and Köksal, O., 2014. Revisiting of Theory X and Y: A multilevel analysis
of the effects of leaders’ managerial assumptions on followers’ attitudes. Management
Decision. 52(10). pp.1888-1906.
Hendriks, F. and Karsten, N., 2014. Theory of democratic leadership. P.'t Hart & R. Rhodes
(Eds.), Oxford handbook of political leadership. pp.41-56.
Hunter, I., Saunders, J. and Constance, S., 2016. HR business partners. Routledge.
Johnson, R. D., Lukaszewski, K. M. and Stone, D. L., 2016. The evolution of the field of human
resource information systems: Co-evolution of technology and HR
processes. Communications of the Association for Information Systems. 38(1). p.28.
Pritchard, C. L. and PMP, P. R., 2014. Risk management: concepts and guidance. Auerbach
Publications.
Online
Kurt Lewin's Change Model. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0018726715577707>
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