HRM722: Workforce Behavior Analysis and Proposed Solutions

This report examines workforce behavior within an automotive supplier, specifically addressing issues related to customer service. The organization, a global automotive parts manufacturer with approximately 174,000 employees, is facing challenges in maintaining customer service standards. The report identifies the problem, sets a benchmark for acceptable performance, and explores root causes such as multitasking demands, lack of motivation, and insufficient training. The analysis includes a discussion of the importance of customer service in the automotive industry. The study proposes policies and programs to improve customer service levels. This includes measuring employee performance, providing targeted training, and addressing motivational factors to enhance overall customer satisfaction and maintain the company's brand image and market competitiveness.

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
About the Organization..............................................................................................................2
Workforce Behaviour.................................................................................................................3
Setting of the Benchmark...........................................................................................................5
Root Causes................................................................................................................................6
Policies or Programs..................................................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The main aim of this essay will be to discuss about the workforce behaviour selected
in an organization which needs to be corrected in the human resource department of that
organization. A detailed description will be given about the number of the employees of the
organization, the size of the human resource department, what the organization does and
others. The behaviour of the workforce will be pointed out and reason for choosing that as a
problem. A benchmark would be set as a standard with the discussion with the senior
management and the human resource department of the organization, along with some root
causes of the chosen behaviour and reasons for choosing them as well. At last, three policies
or programs will be introduced in order to achieve the desired outcome or the results by the
organization. They will be listed in the priority order, like the most effective one will be listed
as number one, with factors like costing will be kept in mind while enlisting the policies or
the programs.
About the Organization
The organization chosen for this topic is an automotive supplier company from
Canada. The company has a global presence, and have its headquarter in Ontario. It was
founded in the year of 1957. In the context of its success, the organization became the largest
automobile parts manufacturer organization in North America in terms of selling of original
equipment parts. It is also one of the largest organizations of Canada. The parts manufactured
by them includes seating, steyr, exteriors, powertrain, closures, electronics, mirrors and
Cosma International. The auto parts manufactured by the organization are supplied to some
of the big names in the field of automobile sector, like Ford Motor Company, General Motors
and Chrysler LLC. Apart from these three United states automobile organizations, the other
companies to whom this organization sells their manufactured parts includes BMW, Tesla

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M0otors, Toyota and Volkswagen. In the continent of Europe, the business entity grips
contracts for assembling the parts of the vehicles for the organizations like jaguar land Rover,
Daimler and BMW. The organization, whose one of the workforce behaviour will be
discussed here employs about 174,000 employees in 348 manufacturing units as well as 91
product development, engineering and sales units around the world. The organization is also
known for operating under a corporate culture, where the profits are distributed to the
employees as well as to the shareholders. The business organization has manufactured
various first-to-market technologies along with the manufacturing processes throughout its
journey. Some of these innovations includes stow-into-floor minivan seats, integrated child
safety seat and reaction injection moulding bumpers. The organization believes that unique
ideas arrives from unique perspectives. The human resource department of the company
along with the top management invests on the employees and consists of a number of
development programs in order to acquire the skills that is required for them to become future
leaders. The organization also provides opportunities worldwide reach along with the chances
to become an industry leader, who will have the entrepreneurial culture. They also invest a
good amount of money in students by providing opportunities to improve the expertise and
skills in order to drive the excellence and inspire the innovation, for which the organization is
well known (Akpinar & Zettinig, 2008).
Workforce Behaviour
There are many workforce behaviours within an organization which affects the
overall performances of the organization. But the workforce behaviour which will be
discussed in this essay is the customer service of the organization. It is one of the most
important aspect of almost each and every business entities of the world who are into
manufacturing business. The level of the customer services hugely affects the productivity of
the organization. If the service levels are good, then the manufacturing of the automotive

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parts becomes more efficient to be used by the customers of the company, on whom the level
of satisfaction would depend. Maintaining the level of customer service in the manufacturing
industry is an integral part as well as a major issue in the present day organizations (Bradler
et al, 2016). It has been also found in the researches that maintaining a minimum standard of
customer service by the organizations to its customers or clients stands as a hugely researched
area in the literature of the organizational behaviour along with the human resource
development. Customer service performance by the employees as in the form of performance
assessment and management is a crucial part of effective human resource management
(Siengthai & Pila-Ngarm, 2016). The performances of the employees reflect on the customer
retention as well as customer attraction in this global market place, which is very much
competitive, on whom the satisfaction level of customer service depends. And it is very tough
to attract and retain customers in this highly competitive market, mainly in the automotive
parts supplier industry. The customer service level points out to the work achievement of
individual employees. Effective customer service management system is crucial for a
business enterprise in any sector of businesses. The objectives of the performances of the
employees on the basis of the services provided to the customers are positioned with the
policies of the organizations, so that the customer service measurement system can be
implemented in an effective and efficient way, and the strategies can be designed and
implemented in a proper and ethical way. As the working environment is becoming more
globalized, many employees need to perform some other tasks apart from the jobs assigned to
them previously. The focus has shifted from the task-centric attitude to a broader sense,
where the employees have to do multitasking. And all these are creating problems in the
customer service measurement of this organization. The advancement of technology has
helped the manufacturing part, but at the same time, it has increased the competition between
the companies as well (Reb, Narayanan & Chaturvedi, 2014). So, many employees are

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performing different kinds of job roles in this organization, and as a result, it is getting tough
to provide services to the customers of the employees, mainly for those who are into the
manufacturing unit of this automotive parts supplier organization. The top level management
has also received complaints about the manufactured parts which are supplied to different
customers who are present around the globe. As a result, the customer service level provided
to the clients are getting hampered, which is reducing the number of new orders for this
organization from the unsatisfied customers as well as hampering the brand image of the
organization in the market place (Anitha, 2014).
Setting of the Benchmark
Customer service is a multicomponent concept. Services in the form of solving the
queries of the clients includes job explicit behaviors of the employees of the organizations,
which involves the different kind of job responsibilities assigned to them as a part of the job
description. The skill and knowledge required in order to perform a specified service level is
sometimes pre-assigned, and sometimes allocated suddenly, depending on that particular
scenario or moment where customers are asking for help, regarding usage of the automobile
parts to various cars of their client companies. Customer service requires more cognitive or
awareness ability and is mainly facilitated through knowledge of that task, which is the
necessary technical knowledge or principles to assure level of customer satisfaction and
having the capability to handle multiple clients at a same time, task skill, or the application of
technical knowledge to solve the queries of the customers successfully without much
supervision by the managers or supervisors. In the context of an organization, the word
customer service can be termed as an assistance or help provided by a business house to those
organizations who purchase or use their products or services (Awadh, & Alyahya, 2013). The
level of customer satisfaction helps to decide the number of client retention as well as
attraction of new prospects who could be converted into clients by the high customer

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satisfaction level provided by that organization. And this is the part which has been identified
by the human resource department of this organization, as it is lacking the technical aspects
of the parts which are getting manufactured and are supplied to the different companies in
and around the world. The capability of an employee to understand the issue of the clients
and provide necessary support to them by the employees in an active work situation is termed
as an adaptive performance. It has been found in the studies that once the employee obtains a
certain amount of perfection in providing services to the customers, it automatically includes
in the performance level of that particular employee in an organization. An effective adaptive
performance requires the capability of the employee in order to deal effectively and
efficiently with different levels of customer queries, for example, technological
transformations, which is very much common in this modern word where the technologies
are getting advanced on daily basis (Altındağ, & Kösedağı, 2015). Advancement or
development of different new technological innovation, mainly in the automobile sector, need
employees to engage themselves in new learning and get oneself adaptable with alterations in
an efficient way or manner. The employees are also expected to modify their interpersonal
behaviour in such changed circumstances to work successfully with a broad range of solving
the problems faced by the customers. So, to maintain a basic standard by this organization,
the human resource department need to measure the number of solving the cases of customer
queries by the employees engaged with this department once in a month, and rate them. If
anyone scores below 40%, then that employee should be given proper training and guidance
by the human resource department and other senior level managers in order to solve the
queries of the clients. The employees should have the basic knowledge on order to solve the
problems faced by the customers, which would be reflected on their performances towards
this organization. So, it can be said that 40% would be the benchmark for this organization
(Bedarkar, M., & Pandita, 2014).

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Root Causes
It has been already discussed in this essay that the chosen organization manufactures
various first-to-market technologies along with the manufacturing processes throughout its
journey, and believes that unique ideas arrive from unique perspectives. They maintain a
healthy relationship with the old customers to whom they sell their manufactured automobile
parts. The human resource department of the company along with the top management
invests on the employees and consists of a number of development programs in order to
acquire the skills that is required for them to solve the issues faced by the clients. But, in
recent times, it has been found that the performances of some of the employees in solving the
issues of the clients are going down, and even after they are getting ore training, the
performances are not going up to the benchmark (Dobre, 2013). And this is hampering the
quality of the service provided by them. The senior level management are getting complaints
from the clients or customers. This is actually hampering the overall brand image of this
organization, who possess a terrific brand recognition and brand identity in the automobile
industry globally along with the level of services provided to its customers. The motivational
factor is not working properly for this organization, as some of the employees are not
motivated enough to perform above the set benchmark level, and this is creating a barrier for
the organization to maintain the customer service level of this business entity. Proper training
is also not provided to the new employees who are getting hired with a lucrative salary
package. It is hampering the overall quality of the manufacturing facilities of the
organization, and they are facing a crisis to retain their old clients as well as attracting of the
new customers with this poor customer service management. It has been found in the studies
and researches that customer service management is crucial for an organization, as it help
them to assure that the employees are working hard in order to contribute their part to achieve
the mission as well as business objectives of the company. Proper customer service

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management also help to set the expectation level for the performances of the employee and
motivate them to work hard in ways that is expected by the business entity like this company
(Nath Gangai & Agrawal, 2015). Apart from this, effective customer service management
system supplies a professional and completed management process for the business
enterprises to evaluate and judge the performance results of both the employees and the
company on the basis of solving different issues from the viewpoint of the clients. And
accordingly, the performance of the employees could be anticipated, evaluated and
encouraged. In the manufacturing sector, providing support to the clients is the crucial part
which helps to sustain a competitive place in the market and gain the competitive edge over
others present in the market place where they are running their business operations. It would
also help to assess the performance level of this organization in the context of customer
service management (Decramer, Smolders & Vanderstraeten, 2013).
Policies or Programs
In order to maintain the customer service management of the organization, this
business house needs to incorporate certain policies or programs. They are described as
follows (Dugguh & Dennis, 2014):
1. Understanding the issues of the customers – This is the first and foremost thing that
the organization need to follow. The employees who are dealing with solving the issues of the
clients need to understand the issues faced by them. Otherwise no roper solutions would be
provided to them and the issues would increase rather than getting solved. This would help
to maintain the quality of the manufacturing process as well, as it would help to manufacture
the products according to the issues raised by the clients, for which the company possesses a
top level position in the automobile market.

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2. Solving the issues ethically – The issues raised by the customers need to be solved
properly and ethically, so that the customers get satisfied with the solutions provided by the
employees to them. It would also help the organization to point out the people who are fit for
achieving the business objective as well as the mission of the company, which would help to
maintain the customer service level of the organization. The satisfied customers would help
to bring more business to the organization which would help them to gain the competitive
wedge over others.
3. Training methods – Proper training needs to be given to the new along with the old
employees of the organization who are looking after the customer service department of the
organization. Without these, no productivity level could be achieved by this organization.
This would help to maintain the production of the quality could be maintained by the
organization and there would be no scope for the clients to complain about the quality of the
manufactured parts (Elnaga, & Imran, 2013).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that customer service management is
crucial for an organization, as it help them to assure that the employees are working hard in
order to contribute their part to achieve the mission as well as business objectives of the
company. It would also help to analyse the performance level of different employees engaged
with this department in the organization. The above discussed programs need to be
implemented on immediate basis so that quality is maintained and the company could enjoy
the competitive advantage over its rivals and sustain the superior position in the market place
around the world.

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References
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managers, innovative corporate culture and employee performance. Procedia-Social
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performance. International journal of productivity and performance
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performance. International review of management and business research, 2(1), 168.
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