Analyzing HR Sustainability Initiatives at HerbaLine: A Case Study

This case study provides a comprehensive analysis of HerbaLine's HR sustainability initiatives, emphasizing their impact on employees and management. The firm prioritizes employee-friendly policies, believing motivated employees deliver quality services. Key initiatives include extensive training based on attitude rather than skills, and rewarding exceptional performance with incentives and promotions, fostering employee loyalty and leadership development. The study examines how these initiatives enhance positive social and human outcomes by improving employees' financial conditions and career prospects. It also contrasts the potential outcomes of similar initiatives in a different business context, such as BlueScope Steel, highlighting the importance of tailoring HR strategies to specific organizational needs and operational scales. The analysis concludes that employee motivation is crucial for achieving organizational objectives, and HerbaLine's culture promotes employee well-being and quality service delivery, ensuring sustainable growth.

People, Work and Employment
1

Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Issue 1: Identification of HR sustainability initiatives.................................................................................4
Issue 2: Authenticity of the identified HR sustainability initiatives.............................................................5
Issue 3: Contribution of initiatives to enhancing positive social & human outcomes for the case
organisation’s human resources...................................................................................................................6
Issue 4: How outcomes might differ for the similar initiatives in a different business context....................7
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................8
References...................................................................................................................................................9
2

Introduction
This case study contains a detailed explanation regarding the HR initiatives taken by HerbaLine
and its impact on the staff and the management. The firm has developed employee-friendly
policies and the management believes that the quality services can only be provided if the
employees feel motivated. The benefits of this approach to the management have also been
discussed and the ways in which these initiatives enables to enhance positive social and human
outcomes. The benefits to the employees because of increased pay have been discussed along
with explaining the benefits to the customers. Also, the possible outcomes for BlueScope Steel
for implementing these policies have also been explained.
3

Issue 1: Identification of HR sustainability initiatives
As per Guerci and Pedrini (2014), the organisations develop HR policies for motivating the
employees to perform better and to gain their support and confidence while performing various
activities. Formulating employee-friendly policies is important because the actual tasks are
performed by them thereby helping the management to achieve the goals and objectives. This is
the reason that HerbaLine has developed a culture wherein, the management considers training
the staff before they commence the operations and they hire candidates based on their attitude
and not on skills. The concept of designing such strategy is that the staff with the right attitude
can be trained since they have the motivation for learning new concepts related to health and
beauty care.
The motivation to learn and build career enables the staff to learn and improve their
performances which has enabled the firm to expand its operations. Another motivational factor is
providing increment and incentives to staff for rewarding the exceptional work performed by
them. The employees can be rewarded by offering cash incentives or promoting them to the
higher levels (Sparrow and Otaye-Ebede, 2014). This is important for any firm since rewarding
the employees enables the management not only to retain the experienced employees but it also
ensures creating the second line of leaders. This is one of the major reasons for the success of
HerbaLine since the employees are rewarded both in cash as well as they are promoted based on
their performance.
The staffs working at HerbaLine usually are from a humble background and they want to work
because of growth prospects. This ensures their long-term association with the company and the
management is relieved from hiring new staff at regular intervals. Hence, extensive training is
provided to the staff for developing a customer-centric approach and educates the staff for
providing quality services to the customers. Maintaining the quality of the services is an
important factor for the firms because of increasing level of competition and availability of
various alternatives to the customers. The companies can survive only if the customers are
satisfied with the services and they feel that the products and services designed by the firm are
the solution to the issues faced by them. Also, the quality can only be maintained if the
4

employees are aware of the importance of performing the tasks and the ways in which the quality
can be enhanced.
Issue 2: Authenticity of the identified HR sustainability initiatives
The HR initiatives of HerbaLine are effective since hiring the right person for the right job is
very crucial since it decides the future operations of the firm. By recruiting right candidates, the
firm will be able to provide effective training to the staff since they are motivated to perform
better and they just have to be guided for performing the tasks efficiently (Chou, 2014). The
management always select a candidate based on the knowledge and expertise; however, they also
look for the positive attitude while selecting the candidates.
As per Torres and Kline (2013), training and development activities are an important part of any
firm since without providing adequate training the management will not be able to communicate
the job requirement effectively to the employees. Also, there may be wastages in production as
employees will not have knowledge of performing the tasks. Training is vital particularly for the
service industry since it deals with providing facilities to the customers and if the customers are
not satisfied, the firm may lose its goodwill and reputation. Hence, HerbaLine provides extensive
training to its employees so that quality services can be provided which enhances the
competitiveness of the firm. The primary motive of the firm is to maintain the quality of the
services throughout the operations and this can only be achieved by providing appropriate
training. Maintaining quality ensures demand for the services offered by the firm and enables the
firm to grow and sustain on the competitive market scenario.
Another factor is the reward and recognition policy developed by HerbaLine since staffs are
rewarded based on their performance and they are rewarded with both cash rewards and
promotion. The firm has the practice of promoting the staff within a short period of time and
hence, the firm offers career prospects to its staff. This ensures that the employees stay with the
firm for a longer period of time and the firm will be able to minimise the expenses of hiring new
staff regularly (Arabi, et. al., 2013). The firm will be able to reduce recruitment and training
costs since it minimises hiring new staff regularly. Also, the firm has the policy to recruit the
family members of the staff which again reduces the efforts of finding new candidates.
5

6

Issue 3: Contribution of initiatives to enhancing positive social & human outcomes for the
case organisation’s human resources
The HR initiatives formulated by HerbaLine not only enables the management to achieve the
overall objectives but also ensures positive career prospects of the staff. The staffs working at the
firm comes from a humble background but they are motivated to enhance their financial and
career position. Though the initial pays are lower as compared with their competitors, the staff
will be able to earn more after completing few months in the firm and their pay depends on the
performance (Arabi, et. al., 2013). Also, the staffs have the opportunity of earning huge
incentives and bonus which improves their financial position in a short period of time
considering the amount of time taken by their counterparts working with other competitors.
The improvement in the financial condition helps the staff in resolving their issues and they will
be able to resolve all their financial issues. The society benefits since they contribute towards the
growth and development of the region by paying taxes and they will be able to lead a luxurious
life. Since the main objective of the firm is to provide the services to the customers, the firm will
be able to expand its operations and people will be able to avail the quality services. Also, the
firm will be able to gain the trust and confidence of the staff and the management will be able to
implement the policies effectively (Arabi, et. al., 2013). Modifying the policies is very important
because changes in the trends and expectations of the customers have to be met and these can
only be done by implementing changes related to the performance of various activities.
7

Issue 4: How outcomes might differ for the similar initiatives in a different business context
It is very well established that the policies of one firm cannot be implemented by another firm
because of nature of operations and size of the firm. This can be explained by considering the
HR initiatives of HerbaLine related to hiring new staff. The company hires the staff based on
their attitude and not on the skills and this may not be effective for the firms such as BlueScope
Steels which deals with producing flat steel. The firm has to consider the expertise of the
candidate while hiring since the expertise of handling operations is one of the criteria. This
ensures that there are no wastages in the production since this may result in increasing the input
costs and the firm will not be able to sell the products at competitive rates (Kim and Sung-
Choon, 2013). However, the employees have to be properly trained for enhancing their skills and
minimising wastages.
Also, the reward and recognition policy followed in HerbaLine cannot be introduced in
BlueScope because of the vastness of the operations of the firm. The firm has a global presence
and in order to provide suitable rewards, employees have to work for a longer duration since
there is a complex mechanism developed for ascertaining the actual level of expertise acquired
by the employees (Ceylan, 2013). Additionally, the hierarchy model of HerbaLine is simple
because of its size whereas, the hierarchy followed in BlueScope Steel is complex and the
performance of the employees are ascertained by their supervisors and line managers before
rewarding the employees.
Hence, there are different factors which are responsible for the companies to develop different
strategies for rewarding employees and the strategies are designed which are best-suited for
them.
8

Conclusion
From this case study, it can be concluded that the management can only be able to achieve its
objectives if the employees are motivated to perform better. Hence, HerbaLine has developed its
culture for promoting the well-being of the employees and it has created the employee-friendly
working environment. Also, the company hires the staff based on their attitude rather than
ascertaining their skills and provides adequate training aiming at providing quality services to the
customers. Quality is an important factor which drives the customers for availing the services
provided by the firm since it differentiates good firms from average ones. The company can only
continue its growth trend only if the quality parameters are maintained throughout the operations.
9

References
 Aarabi, M.S., Subramaniam, I.D. and Akeel, A.B.A.A.B., 2013. Relationship between
motivational factors and job performance of employees in Malaysian service
industry. Asian Social Science, 9(9), p.301.
 Ceylan, C., 2013. Commitment-based HR practices, different types of innovation
activities and firm innovation performance. The International Journal of Human
Resource Management, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 208-226.
 Chou, C.J., 2014. Hotels' environmental policies and employee personal environmental
beliefs: Interactions and outcomes. Tourism Management, Vol. 40, pp. 436-446.
 Guerci, M. and Pedrini, M., 2014. The consensus between Italian HR and sustainability
managers on HR management for sustainability-driven change–towards a ‘strong'HR
management system. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol.
25, No. 13, pp.1787-1814
 Kim, H. and Sung-Choon, K., 2013. Strategic HR functions and firm performance: The
moderating effects of high-involvement work practices. Asia Pacific Journal of
Management, Vol. 30, No. 1, pp. 91-113.
 N. Torres, E. and Kline, S., 2013. From customer satisfaction to customer delight:
Creating a new standard of service for the hotel industry. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 25, No.5, pp. 642-659.
 Sparrow, P. and Otaye-Ebede, L., 2014. Lean management and HR function capability:
the role of HR architecture and the location of intellectual capital. The International
Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 25, No. 21, pp. 2892-2910.
10