HRM Assignment: Career Planning, Competitive Advantage, Succession

This document provides a comprehensive solution to a Human Resource Management (HRM) assignment, focusing on career planning, competitive advantages, and succession planning within the context of the Al Nawaf Company. The assignment explores the benefits of career planning programs, including attracting and retaining skilled employees, providing promotion opportunities, and improving employee morale. It also delves into competitive advantage strategies such as cost leadership, differentiation, and defensive strategies. Furthermore, the solution outlines steps for developing a succession planning component, including self-assessment tools, career planning workshops, and individual counseling. The references provided support the concepts discussed, offering a well-rounded understanding of the subject matter.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management
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Answer 1
There are various advantages of setting up a career planning program, which will
benefit the Al Nawaf Company. The advantages of the program are being discussed as
follows;
 Career planning is highly necessary as it helps in attracting and retaining competent
and skilled individuals into the organization. This in turn, provides the employees
with suitable opportunities of promotion. Moreover, this enables the employees to
develop them-selves to meet the future challenges.
 In addition to this, career planning increases the utilization of the managerial reserves
within the organization. It provides the employees with correct placements. Moreover,
it also reduces employee turnover and dissatisfaction and improves employee morale
as well as motivation (Cascio, 2018).
 Career planning will prove to be highly beneficial for the Al Nawaf Company as it
will analyze the individuals’ skills, abilities, knowledge, aptitudes and more. The
overall procedure of career planning enables the individuals to gain knowledge
regarding various career opportunities, priorities and more.
 Gaining knowledge helps the individual to select the career which is suitable for
his/her life styles, family environment, preferences, scopes for self development and
more. In addition to this, it will also help the Al Nawaf Company to identify the
employees who can be promoted to the higher positions (Parkay, Anctil & Hass,
2014).
 Up-gradation, internal promotions as well as transfers will motivate the employees to
boost up their morale. This in turn, will result into increased satisfaction in job.
Moreover, increased job satisfaction will enhance the employees’ commitment and

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create a sense of belongingness as well as loyalty within the organization (Rothwell et
al., 2015).
Answer 2
Businesses and organizations constantly seek competitive advantages at the
marketplace. However, there are various ways by which it is done and majority of the
businessmen focus on the tried and actual methods of gaining a competitive advantage within
the business environment. The methods, which the Al Nawaf Company can utilize, are
generally classified into four primary categories, which are discussed as follows;
Cost Leadership
The first and foremost competitive advantage of any business is the cost leadership.
Businesses often attempt to gain the cost leadership as it occurs when the organization is able
to offer same quality product as that of its competitors, however, at low costs. It occurs when
the company finds a way to produce the goods at lesser costs through perfection or utilization
of resource in much effective as well as efficient way than their competitors (Caffarella &
Daffron, 2013).
Differentiation
This is the second strategy which various organizations often utilize in order to set
their business apart from their competitors. In the differentiation strategy, lesser cost of the
products is the only possible factor, which can set the business apart from its competitors.
The Al Nawaf Company can adopt this differentiation strategy in order to differentiate its
company from others (Parkay, Anctil & Hass, 2014).
Defensive Strategies

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The other way of gaining a competitive advantage into the business is by utilizing a
defensive strategy. This strategy will help the business by further disassociating itself from
the competition.
Alliances
In addition to the above strategies, businesses can also gain competitive advantages
form other businesses within the similar industries that seek strategic alliances in the related
industries (Jehanzeb & Bashir, 2013).
Answer 3
In order to begin developing a succession planning component part of Al Nawaf
Company’s career development program, the company needs to adopt certain steps. Three of
them are;
Self Assessment Tools
This is the most important technique which the company can utilize in the efforts of
managing the career of their employees. It is regarded as an exploration tool of individuals’
career in which the employees complete their self assessment exercises and also fill up
information related to their competencies, interests, skills, preferences, work attitudes,
obstacles, opportunities and long as well as short term goals. This entire exercise enables
them to understand their own aspirations and desires as well as likes and dislikes (Rothwell et
al., 2015).
Workshops for Career Planning
Once the employees get through the self assessment tests, they share the findings
along with their colleagues as well as supervisors in the workshops of planning careers. It

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also allows the employees to receive feedbacks from other employees and supervisors. It lets
them check the reality of their aspirations as well as plans. They might alter their plans when
it becomes unrealistic for them and move into a new track (Cummings & Worley, 2014).
Individual Counseling
Individual counseling is most common activity, which is undertaken by the
organizations for developing their business. Counseling to the individuals is generally
provided by the human resource specialists, career development specialists, development
trainers or life skills. Few organizations hire the employees from outside source, while some
organizations have fully fledged departments for recruiting purposes (Cascio, 2018). It assists
the employees to understand their own aims, making changes when required.

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References
Caffarella, R. S., & Daffron, S. R. (2013). Planning programs for adult learners: A practical
guide. John Wiley & Sons.
Cascio, W. (2018). Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage
learning.
Jehanzeb, K., & Bashir, N. A. (2013). Training and development program and its benefits to
employee and organization: A conceptual study. European Journal of business and
management, 5(2).
Parkay, F. W., Anctil, E. J., & Hass, G. (2014). Curriculum leadership: Readings for
developing quality educational programs. Prentice Hall.
Rothwell, W. J., Jackson, R. D., Ressler, C. L., Jones, M. C., & Brower, M. (2015). Career
Planning and Succession Management: Developing Your Organization's Talent—for
Today and Tomorrow: Developing Your Organization’s Talent—for Today and
Tomorrow. ABC-CLIO.