HR Strategies for Addressing Demographic Changes: Wesfarmers Limited

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report analyzes HR challenges at Wesfarmers.

Course Title: Human Resource Management
Course Code:
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Table of Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................3
1. Introduction..............................................................................................................................4
2. Discussion................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Emerging challenges in the internal & external environment...........................................5
2.2 Impact of external & demographic challenges on the HR planning.................................6
2.3 Impact of demographic challenges on job design.............................................................7
Justified recommendations to address the identified impacts..........................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10
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Executive summary
The process of “Human Resource Management” is the strategic way or approach which leads to
the way of effective management of all those people working in the business organization in
order to enhance the high level of competitive advantage. For increasing the level of employees’
performances, the concept of human resource management in all the business organizations are
being designed so that all the defined strategic goals & objectives of the companies can be
achieved in the effective as well as in an efficient manner. Nowadays, with the high level of
increased competition, the success of all the organizational HR practitioners depends upon all the
prevailing challenges in the competitive business environment. The complete assignment
examines how the various changes at the demographic level affect the effective planning of the
HR & their innovative designs in relation the job within the chosen business organization or the
business industry (Hernaus & Pološki Vokic, 2014). The effective recommendations are also
being included under the assignment which can be implemented effectively & efficiently by the
HR practitioners in order to respond appropriately to all the identified demographic changes.
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1. Introduction
“Wesfarmers Limited” is one of the top companies in the country of Australia which deals in the
products of chemicals, coal mining, safety as well as the industrial products & the fertilizers. In
terms of revenue, this is the largest company in Australia. Around 220,000 employees work in
the business organization of “Wesfarmers Limited”. It was established in the year 1914. The
respective chairman & the CEO of the company are “Michael Chaney and Rob Scott”. The main
motive & aim of Wesfarmers Limited is to provide effective services & the merchandise to all
the farmers living in the Western part of Australia. The company has also been listed on the
“Australian Securities Exchange” in the year 1984. It has also expanded into the major retail
conglomerate. The internal, as well as the external environment, is also being studied & analyzed
in the assignment in the context of the chosen company of Wesfarmers Limited along with the
implemented practices of HR in order to lead towards attaining the competitive advantage & the
organizational success.
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2. Discussion
2.1 Emerging challenges in the internal & external environment
There are different challenges which are being faced by Wesfarmers Limited at the internal level,
i.e., within the business organization. Some of the internal challenges include that some of its
branches in the other countries are not equally profitable; the suppliers are found at the local
level, high level of competition in the different segments of retail & the lack of effective
performers in the diversified portfolio. All these are the emerging challenges that are being found
& faced by Wesfarmers Limited internally. Apart from these, the Wesfarmers Limited also face
the wide number of external challenges at the different levels such as the working hours of
trading is restrictive, identification of the tenancy leases in terms of planning, retailing & zoning
and the various regulations of Adhoc at the political level. The economic challenges include a
lower level of the rate in the growth of the overall business industry, a higher amount of cost of
the wages as compared to the level of the Global market. The social challenges include the
average rate level of expectancy highly increased (Du Plessis & Chui, 2015). The environmental
issues include the reporting of the emissions by the company under the act of “NGER
Reporting”. There are multiple demographic challenges include the various aspects of human
development in terms of both the education of health & the growth of the overall economy,
concerning about the gender & the related challenges which can create the hurdles in ensuring &
enhancing the high level of success for all the professional HR practitioners in the business
organization of Wesfarmers Limited. Both the internal as well the external challenges may affect
the wider level of HR planning & the effectively executed job design by HRs along with all the
identified demographic challenges. Sometimes, it became very difficult for professional HR
practitioners to strategically respond towards all the identified challenges at the level of the
external business environment & also in relation to the demographic challenges. The
management of Wesfarmers Limited should understand that it is very essential to enhance the
favorable behavior & attitude while implementing the effective strategies for resolving the major
challenges at the internal, external as well as the demographic level. There are certain laws also
which can be implemented by the government of the Australian country in relation to stop the
usage of particular fertilizer or the chemical, then the HR managers or the HR practitioners of
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Wesfarmers Limited need to formulate & develop the effective strategies to maintain the amount
of increased amount of organizational sales & revenue along with enhancing the high level of
retention of various farmers towards the company (Gunasekaran & Irani, 2014).
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2.2 Impact of external & demographic challenges on the HR planning
The effective process of human resource planning enhances the deep identification of all the
respective needs of organizational human resources including both the current as well as the
future needs so that the overall defined goals & the objectives can be achieved effectively &
efficiently. The standard link is being generated between the management of human resource and
the strategic human resource planning with the help of the “human resource planning” within the
whole business organization of Wesfarmers Limited. The demographic challenges are the major
reason for implementing the effective practices & the HR strategies in order to effectively
respond to the high level of increased diversity within the various labor markets. In accordance
with the changing internal & external business environment, strong & effective planning is being
formulated & implemented accordingly. It has been noticed that the different demographic
challenges or the demographic changes greatly influence or affect the overall internal
organizational climate of Wesfarmers Limited (Wolch, et.al. 2014). The overall business
organization should effectively address all the basic needs & requirements of all the employees
working under the business organization. The HR planning includes the overall planning for the
development of the business organization of Wesfarmers Limited so that the effective & efficient
skills can be developed of the organizational staff in accordance to the different external changes
prevailing outside the business organization of Wesfarmers Limited.
The external needs & basic requirements of the people gets changed very frequently, because of
which the effective & professional HR practitioners need to renew their complete process of
planning to achieve their respective organizational goals & objectives in accordance to the
identified basic needs & requirements. An effective example of it includes that as per the needs
of the farmers, the HR practitioners need to plan out their activities for the complete business
organization of Wesfarmers Limited. Apart from the various challenges at the economic level,
the planning of HR practitioners of Wesfarmers Limited can get affected by the identified
challenges at the technological level also. For example, the new technological advancements
within the business organization of Wesfarmers Limited can encourage the renewed planning of
HR practitioners in terms of saving the overall organizational cost at the internal level of the
business organization. Acquiring the newly trained business professionals is also required in case
of the old professionals get retired (Pimentel & Burgess, 2014). Therefore, the HR professionals
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should attract the most talented as well as fully trained professionals, so that the training &
developing professionals of Wesfarmers Limited should not involve in investing the huge
amount in their training. This saved amount of training & development can help in saving the
overall organizational cost of Wesfarmers Limited with the help of the effective & professional
HR practitioners.
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2.3 Impact of demographic challenges on job design
The concept of “job design” is the core function or the process of the human resource
management which is related to the specification of the job relationships, contents & different
methods for ensuring & enhancing the high level of satisfaction in terms of both the
technological as well as the organizational requirements. While designing the specific jobs, the
various kinds of social as well as the personal requirements are also being identified in the
effective & in an efficient manner. The effective stage of job design is the very essential stage of
the complete staffing stage/ process. The reason behind this is that the properly designed job will
call upon the highly professional, skilled as well as the trained managers & employees in the
business organization. With the help of the job design, all the business professionals are highly
motivated in improving their high level of organizational productivity along with the maximum
amount of profitability (Paillé, et.al. 2014). It is very essential to possess the various effective &
efficient skills & abilities of the employees for enhancing the concept of job design.
In the absence of these professional skills, the overall organizational productivity & profitability
will get reduced. The design of the job should be formulated while considering the mode of
different assessed expectations in terms of the social, economic & cultural level. The main
reason behind this is that in today’s’ world, “the job is more employee-centered rather than the
process-centered”. As per the new skills & level of professionalism, the job is to be designed by
the HR practitioners of the business organization so that they can easily get attracted to the
company. The complete process of job-design should be able to meet up the different level of
expectations of all the employees working in the business organization. The social expectations
should also get fulfilled or else it may result into the increased level of dissatisfaction of all the
employees which is very harmful to the overall organizational productivity & profitability
(Butler & Callahan, 2014).
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Justified recommendations to address the identified impacts
Following are the effective & the justified recommendations which can be implemented
effectively by the HR practitioners of Wesfarmers Limited in order to minimize the level of
impacts of major external, internal & demographic challenges:
 Updating & reviewing the necessary information to be provided under the job
description.
 Adapting & reviewing the new methods for selecting, recruiting & providing the training
to all the fresh candidates in the business organization of Wesfarmers Limited.
 Considering all the basic needs & requirements of all the employees, as the employee’s
satisfaction will directly lead to increased organizational productivity & proficiency.
 Identification of all the issues prevailing at the all the internal, external as well as the
demographic level which can result into the increased organizational cost & can hamper
the overall organizational growth & profitability (Lu, et.al. 2014).
 Regularly analyzing the job along with the different job specifications & the job
descriptions so that the job can be designed in the effective as well in an efficient manner.
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Conclusion
It has been concluded that the HR practitioners & other professional HR managers should
effectively identify & analyze the various different challenges at the internal, external & the
demographic level. The lack of identification of all these challenges can result in the failure of
achievement of organizational goals & objectives & can along with the lower organizational
growth& development. Therefore, all these challenges are to be effectively identified by the HR
practitioners as the effective planning of HR & the job design of the business organization can be
hampered very badly. The different identified impacts can get reduced with the help of
implementing the effective & justified recommendations by the HR practitioners. All these
impacts were being analyzed in the context of the chosen business organization of the top
Australian Company for all the Australian farmers of Wesfarmers Limited.
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References
 Du Plessis, A., & Chui, C. (2015). Strategic human resources partnerships with business:
Cambodian banking sector experience.
 Gunasekaran, A., & Irani, Z. (2014). Sustainable Operations Management: design,
modelling and analysis.
 Wolch, J. R., Byrne, J., & Newell, J. P. (2014). Urban green space, public health, and
environmental justice: The challenge of making cities ‘just green enough’. Landscape
and urban planning, 125, 234-244.
 Pimentel, D., & Burgess, M. (2014). Environmental and economic costs of the
application of pesticides primarily in the United States. In Integrated pest
management (pp. 47-71). Springer, Dordrecht.
 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, 121(3), 451-466.
 Butler, M. G., & Callahan, C. M. (2014). Human resource outsourcing: Market and
operating performance effects of administrative HR functions. Journal of Business
Research, 67(2), 218-224.
 Lu, C. Q., Wang, H. J., Lu, J. J., Du, D. Y., & Bakker, A. B. (2014). Does work
engagement increase person–job fit? The role of job crafting and job insecurity. Journal
of Vocational Behavior, 84(2), 142-152.
 Hernaus, T., & Pološki Vokic, N. (2014). Work design for different generational cohorts:
Determining common and idiosyncratic job characteristics. Journal of Organizational
Change Management, 27(4), 615-641.
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