HR's Role in Competitive Advantage: HR4005 Essay - Coca-Cola Focus

This essay critically examines the Human Resource (HR) function and assesses how it contributes to achieving a competitive advantage for organizations, using Coca-Cola as a case study. It explores the nature and characteristics of HRM, people management strategies, procedures, and tools, and the broader organizational implications and contributions of HRM in practice. The essay also discusses current patterns and trends in the approach to HRM within Coca-Cola, highlighting the importance of aligning HR strategies with business goals and adapting to cultural and political differences. It covers essential elements of HR strategy, including forecasting staffing requirements, evaluating the supply of skilled workers, and balancing supply and demand. The essay concludes that HR plays a pivotal role in developing corporate culture and improving financial results and customer satisfaction.

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MANAGING PEOPLE
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Introduction
In recent times, the performance of different organizations is getting more and more vital
particularly in the marketplace with greater dynamic as well as competition. Therefore, roles of
human resource and management in every corporation stay to be the overseas of the human
resource sector along with the insurers of the tasks being conducted by the team of human
resource. For instance in Coca Cola Company, human resource always terms to be the
connection amid the organization management along with its workers, as their responsibilities
run the range from providing consultation on the strategic way of planning operations with top
executives responsible for recruitment, interview, together with activities of the hiring of the
fresh workforce (Wang 2015, p. 12). Moreover, human resource remains to comprise of
professional accountable for attracting, motivating and retaining all the skilful and talented
workers for directing roles of administrative in different departments. Management of human
resource is always the concern with every element on how to manage, employ people, and
develop operations of an organization (Thite 2014, p. 151). Therefore, the primary point of this
paper is to fundamentally inspect the HR work by drawing from the basic standards of HRM and
surveys how the HR capacity can help associations to be more successful in accomplishing upper
hand about Coca-Cola Company.
Nature and characteristics of HRM
The emergence of HR management can be attributed to the literature of the people who
deal with HR that had worked to attach great significance to the human factor. Nature of human
resource management in most organizations has been highlighted in varied ways (Sundar 2012,
p. 2). Human resource management of most companies is inherent in the process of performing
their duties of managing different operations. For instance, in Coca Cola Company, control of

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HR operates by the nature of being a management organ that deals with the process of hiring,
motivating, as well as maintaining the workforce in Coca Cola Company. Besides, HR
management deal with issues that relates to workers like the process of hiring, development,
training, motivation, compensation, administration, and communicating company’s concerns
(Shaw 2015, p. 23). Therefore, HR management ensures that every employee is satisfied and it
also ensures that there is a maximum contribution of employees to towards achievements of
mission and vision of an organization.
Human resource management is based on different policies together with principles that
contribute to the achievement of objectives of an organization. HR management is also a
pervasive function as it is not specific to the individual department instead it remains to be a
broader function throughout operations of an organization (Rao 2015, p. 2). HR concentrates on
the management of all kinds of people right from the lower level to top level department of the
organization. HR is also people oriented and is the continuous activity during operation of an
organization.
The scope of HR is always broad. It focuses on different aspects that include personnel,
welfare, and industrial relations aspects among others. Personnel aspects concerns with planning,
recruitment, placement, selection, promotion, transfer, training, development, of the workforce.
The element also concerns with the layoff of workers and retrenchment, remuneration,
incentives, along with productivity within Coca Cola Company (Mokhov and Ryabukhin 2018,
p. 71). Welfare aspect of HR deals with conditions and courtesies of working, for example,
crèches, canteens, lunch, along with restrooms, transport, housing sector, medical assistance,
education, and healthcare safety among other factors. Conversely, HR aspect of industrial
relations tends to cover management of union relations, joint interview, aggregate haggling,

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grievance, and disciplinary techniques (Parkinson and Taggar 2013, p. 51). Therefore, through
industrial relation aspects, HR management in Coca Cola Company always work by
concentrating on how to maintain co-cordial relation with the union members so that the
company can avoid cases of strike or lockouts by ensuring smooth functioning of the company.
Besides, the use of industrial connection angle covers aggregate deal, joint conference,
grievance, debate, together with disciplinary systems among employees.
People management strategies, procedures, and tools of HR
The presence of strategic Human Resource Management remains to be the practice of
aligning strategy of business with practices of HR to attain the strategic goals of the corporation.
The policy of SHRM continues to ensure that strategy of HR stay not as a means but as an end in
itself as far as objectives of business operations are concerned (Juul and Minbaeva 2013, p. 813).
SHRM plans that every organization must be capable of fitting their HR strategy within the
necessary framework of goals of the general supervision of the business. It also ensures that there
is the alignment that exists between the practices of HR and the strategic objectives of the
company (Ko and Ma 2017, p. 25). Furthermore, HR management is essential for the
management of people when the imperative for the development of the organization as well as
change is ever stronger.
Essential elements of strategy of the HR
HR supervisor in charge of the worldwide measurements of the HR in an association is in
charge of guaranteeing the general coordination, organization, and additionally the assessment of
plans of HR acknowledgment of projects of the organization. The essential responsibility of
every HR manager within an organization consists of the idea of implementing as well as visiting
plan of compensation of an organization (Meijerink et al., 2015, p. 231). Various critical

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elements of HR that every manager of an organization like Coca Cola Company uses during the
process of planning for multiple purposes comprise of the idea of predicting the requirements of
workers within the organization. Other vital features of HR consist of the analysis of the supply
of the experienced workers meet the needs of the manager as well as learning best way to
balance the supply and demand of workers.
The forecasting on needs of staff by HR remains to be an essential element in operations
of an organization. The aspects that deal with prediction of staffing requirement consist of
several approaches that the management can apply in forecasting on the business requirements of
an organization (Cook et al., 2016, p. 567). Besides, in Coca Cola Company, the idea of
predicting on the staffs’ needs assist the manager of HR in predicting the ideal number of
employees the organization might require to conduct its operations efficiently in the competitive
business place effectively. Forecasting on needs of employees allows HR manager of Coca Cola
Company to efficiently understand the functions and responsibilities that every worker needs to
fill to improve the company’s operations (Thite 2014, p. 151). Therefore, HR manager in Coca
Cola Company has the responsibility of considering the element of forecasting on needs of
employees to address some of the factors that influence the company’s operations. The element
of evaluating the supply by HR manager remains to be a vital factor towards the development of
HR strategy that is applicable to management of any organization.
In Coca Coola Company, the instances of assessment of the arrangement of labourers
comprise of the extraordinary or two-prong process. These basic strategies contain the need to
assess inward staffs that occurs as the HR administration gauges on their staffing need or needs
(Cook et al., 2016, p. 568). The element of assessing operations of the external team is another
critical element of HR. The aspect of evaluating employees in different companies allows HR

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managers to need to determine the demographics of the essential workforce present within the
process of operations of organization (Business Intelligence Models For Effective HRM – A HR
Analytics Approach 2018, p. 225). HR concentrates on balancing supply together with demands
during company’s operations. The element allows HR manager has to ensure that there is a need
to adjust the supply of services and demand of workers and consumers to be the critical factor of
the HR strategy (Batool et al., 2016, p. 179). Moreover, the final portion that deals with planning
model of Hr by the manner remains to be the need that aims at determining how the manager of
an organization is going to balance the demand that they have to employ with objectives to
supply available workers. For instance, if HR manager of Coca Cola Company experiences any
form of challenge, at that point the component of adjust supply alongside request as the principal
factor go for deciding the sort of enlistment endeavours the business to contribute in to welcome
representative needs fixing necessities inside tasks of the organization. The component of
balancing supply together with demand enables HR manager to balance their full-time along
with part-time needs in the activities of Coca Cola Company’s business operations (Hyatali and
Fai 2016, p. 91). Therefore, HR management in Coca Cola Company has a universal application
where it can be used for business operations together with the improvement of services delivery
to targeted and esteemed clients.
Broader organizational implications and contributions of HRM in practice
Over long duration, HR has moved beyond management of secret operations and routine
activities that comprise of the administration of benefits and payroll. HR has also been capable of
working in assuming the more pivotal function in developing the strategy for people together
with supporting the business goals of organizations. HR managers have ensured that the
corporate culture stays to be the fundamental component of HR procedure in activities of the

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associations (Shaw 2015, p. 23). The way of life of HR administration keeps on being
fundamental area since it frames the qualities, standards of working, propensities, the vision of
big business, together with the beliefs that espouse the operations of businesses. All these factors
make the HR within Coca Cola Company to have the goals of increasing the organization’s
performance. Therefore, practices of HR are directly or indirectly connected to different
operational outcomes (Hitka et al., 2017, p. 7891). Some of these outcomes include the fact that
the use of HR practices remains to relate to the practical improvement of financial results like net
margin which is measurable. The other consequence of methods of HR includes the improved
satisfaction of clients to enable the organization in attracting the vast customer base.
Current patterns and trends in the approach to HRM in Coca Cola Company
Presently, HR management has been the vital sector for management of Coca-Cola
Corporation. The development of HR department in the company remains to be the initial step
that forms the firm ground on which the future operations of the company depends on in staying
competitive within the global marketplace (Hitka et al., 2016, p. 563). HR management at Coca-
Cola Company has several merits as well as demerits. The use of HR strategy has been
fundamental in ensuring that it is impossible to create particular policies or procedures necessary
in all divisions of the company’s cultural and political differences needed to be taken into
account (Ko and Ma 2017, p. 25). Besides, positive effects of HR strategy are not dependent on
the plan of competition based on different goals of HR policy such as strategic integration,
equality, commitment, along with flexibility.
After the process of stating clear outlines of HR by Coca Cola Company’s management,
the organization together with different stakeholders always focus on completing the assessment
of each operational procedure. Therefore, process of creating company’s objectives by the

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Human Resource manager is vital by assisting in development of typical work plan for global
features of the company’s Human Resource (Shaw 2015, p. 23). The organization concentrates
on developing its operational overview by ensuring that the adequate number of individuals to
receive the chance to operate to attain the fundamental workers in each office with the point of
ordering the characters of the best workers in each position.
Conclusion
Each HR manager in every organization that is responsible for the international aspects of
operations must concentrate on valuing the essential assets that are workers. HR manager aims at
fulfilling their objectives along with the operation of the business. Moreover, it is clear that hired
personnel in operations of the company need to address fundamental components of the HR
methodology where supervisors need to centre on exercises of monitoring as well as maintaining
the labor workforce. Additionally, from the presentation, it is evident that key elements of HR
strategy help in having the practical manner of addressing HR managers along with other
stakeholders of the organization. Therefore, it is the mandate of HR to efficiently learn that
designing along with the implementation of the responsive strategy of HR requires diligence
along with work. The process that focuses on establishing the vision of the company, creating
roles of the HR departments, and developing the plan for the workforce for global features of HR
of the organization are all section of the approach designing the effective strategy. Therefore, the
process of constant evaluation of the HR approaches outlining the viable technique useful in
improving operations.
List of References

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