BBS013-1 - Luton Town Residences: Case Study on HR and Remote Work

This case study analyzes Luton Town Residences (LTR), a housing association in Luton, focusing on the impact of COVID-19 on its HR practices and the challenges of remote working. The report examines issues such as recruitment difficulties, lack of funds, absence of strategic planning, challenges in reaching vulnerable individuals, operational communication problems, and lack of awareness among the target demographic. The study further provides recommendations to improve remote management, including building trust with employees, promoting transparency, maintaining a feedback-friendly culture, facilitating in-person meetings, and leveraging technology. The analysis highlights the need for LTR to adapt to the changing work environment and address the evolving needs of its employees and clients in the wake of the pandemic. The report concludes with the importance of strategic planning, effective communication, and employee support to ensure LTR's continued success in providing housing and support to the local community.

CASE STUDY LTR

TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Impact of Covid-19 on HR practices...........................................................................................1
Issues face by LTR regarding remote working............................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
This report deals with the case study of Luton town residences. It is a housing association
which is operating in the Luton town. They work with a mission for providing suitable housing
conditions for the people from local community. The company handles its operations from their
central office located in the Luton town centre (Kaushik, and Guleria, 2020). The main purpose
of the company is to provide housing and support the housing conditions for hostel or
transitional flat people. This report forms a consultancy on the pandemic effects on the HR
practices of the LTR. It also portrays the major issues faced by the company because of remote
working. There are some recommendations provided at the end of the report which helps in
improving the new style of working conditions.
Impact of Covid-19 on HR practices
This pandemic has caused many problems in the operating procedure of Luton town
residences. The imposing of nationwide lockdowns and the threat of the safety of the employee
was increasing. Large population of the workers from around the globe were unable to commute
with their work. Employee looked for some alternate ways of working arrangements. The direct
of Luton town residences ordered the employee working in the organisation to work from home.
And the workers who were working on site were supposed to follow all the safety precautions
allow them to work from the site (Wang, and et.al., 2021). The departments which handle the
finances of the company, which deals with customers and provides those services along with the
administration and management departments, were all asked to work remotely. Maintenance and
the support teams on the other hand were required to work o site as much as it was possible.
The mandatory work from home conditions to avoid the Covid-19 has become a new
normal. The HR practices by the company are affected majorly by Covid-19 pandemic. The
challenges coming up pandemic has dawned on the HR professionals. The sudden adaptation of
new working culture is not easy. Pandemic has taken a toll over the employee’s health and
mental wellbeing. Stress and anxiety have always been part of the worker’s mental state. The
company has always supported its employees by giving them security and many other health
benefits to overcome their issues. But this pandemic outbreak has increased the metal problems
of the employees. When people are working in a positive work space, management can
understand the sensitivity of the problem and help in solving the raised concern. But when the
employees are working from remote areas then they being compromised which makes the
1

managers helpless and less conscious about the problems. The HR professionals from the
company believe that the health and well being of the employees working for the company is
becoming a major concern. Working in isolation can be difficult but the company can help in
forming interaction and connection among the employees and put their focus on inclusion will
help the employee be motivated. The leader from LTR can promote breaks which will the
employee refresh and work again with high efficiency.
The transition from working from office to working remotely is not easy as it looks. It is
hard for the company to come up with remote working strategies so immediately. This has lead
to many new problems faced by the HR managers (Dwivedi, and et.al., 2020). They are trying to
build new strategies which will help the company overcome the challenges and issues related to
pandemic. The main focus is on the employee productivity and ascending their engagement.
Providing the employees with right set of tools can help n collecting the real time updates and
time to time support services.
Pandemic has altered the world and accelerated the digital transformation. The workings
from home conditions are based on the technologies. It is becoming important for design and
regulations. Monitoring the employee and dealing with technological issues will always be a
problem. Adding to this there are high chances of having online fraud. Regardless of this, the use
of technological advancements has helped the company a lot. All the meeting and discussion
were done with the help of video conferencing having so many new features. The technologies
which are cloud based or machine learning has helping the in decreasing the workload of the
company. Technology has created many opportunities for the company to develop a secure and
trusted information control mechanisms.
With the help of technology it was easy to allocate work to the employees working on different
projects and has increased the sources of collaborations. Using digital means to connect with the
customers is also helping in reaching to maximum people. Pandemic has affected the whole
country majorly. LTR is lacking in the communication and collaborating tools for working
remotely for a long period of time. Covid-19 is shifting the ways of doing business to some next
level approach (Collings and et.al., 2021). Fuelling the company with smart technologies such as
artificial intelligence and cloud computing will help in making the working conditions easy. This
pandemic can be used as an opportunity to rethink the assumption on the products and services
2

by LTR. It helps in defining new roles within the organisation and gives the benefits of re-
skilling and transforming the corporative learning and understanding.
Issues face by LTR regarding remote working
Luton Town Residences (LTR) is an association of housing which operates in Luton as
the mission of providing proper house for the locals. Particularly LTR focuses on the individuals
which are vulnerable and are unable to support them. This is an organization which faces certain
issues prohibits LTR for certain actions. These issues are regarding the remote working are,
Recruitment :
Recruitment is important for an organization which is into following the responsibility of
vulnerable individuals. This happens because it is believed among the society that those
organizations which are working for the social welfare are not earning lot. Therefore, the
individuals are not keen as the salary and wages in this organization will not be as high as it
could be in MNC. Regarding the recruitment the issues of this organization do not end just
finding the employees. For LTR it is important to hire individuals which understand the social
responsibility. Getting an employee which do not care about the job role will be bad for the
practices of the company (Tumwesigye, 2021).
Lack of Funds :
For a company whose main purpose is fulfilling the social responsibility. There fore the
generation of revenue in not there for the organization. This is one of the reason why this
company face major issues. The funds which it generates is mostly from the personal capital of
the owner or donations received from other companies. The lack of fund means that the
organization faces issues in the operations. For taking care of the vulnerable individuals LTR
require food, shelter and medicine for aiding them. The main aim of the project is to do social
service thus the organization will always have the scarcity of funds in its operations (Menon and
Padhy, 2020).
No Strategic planning :
These organizations as they do not have a specific goals lack planning, because there is
not strategy to the operations of LTR it becomes difficult for it to successfully complete all its
projects. In some scenarios the members of the organization gets confused on what they have to
do and thus the ultimate goal is left unsatisfied. For the management of the vulnerable
individuals there should be a procedure which the organization should follow. The lack of
3

employees in the organization also makes it hard for the organization. Without proper planning
there are complexity to the tasks of the organization (Schiller, 2017).
Reaching the vulnerable individuals :
For this organization one of the biggest issues is that it is unable to locate and find out the
individuals which are facing issues and need food and shelter for their safety. These issues occur
because these vulnerable are not aware of this organization and the services it provides. Thus, for
this the best solution has to be spreading awareness in the state so that anyone who finds such a
person can hand them over to LTR. This does not work out all the time as people are very selfish
in the current situations, and they do not want to help each other without any benefit. If this
organization do not find individuals which it can take care of then there is no point of carrying on
this activity.
Lack of awareness :
This organization has to face most of its clients which are in the age of 16-25. The
younger generations are seen to get themselves in trouble more than old generation (Donaldson,
2018). Specially the young mother which are unable to support themselves and their upcoming
kid are one of the priorities for LTR. However, the company faces a big issues in this as the these
young people are very emotional and not very smart, and they try to hide themselves from the
world. This can create further damage. For the organization its is very important to reach these
individuals and make them realize that help is available for them if they need.
Operational communication :
This organization has not more than the 50 employees operating in various departments.
Yet the operational communication becomes an issue for the organization. The employees and
the department of this organization are situated in different locations. Thus, most of the
communication happens with the help of emails. All the latest information of the organization is
transferred in the morning with the help of an email. Email provides and overview of the
situation but the key information of the scenario is often missing during these communications.
Emails are also ignored by the employees which is very bad for the operations of the
organization. In an emergency case when its is important for the employees to communicate this
can result in major operational issue, which in the case of LTR can cause damage to the life of
the vulnerable individual (Van Hook, 2019).
Recommendations
4

Trust employees: the first and foremost a way to a successful remote management is to move
ahead with the formulation that a required to gain trust and confidence over the employees. It is
not until when the management trust its employees and monitor every little detail that will fall in
their regard of experience for their talents that the organisation cannot move ahead with the
remote management practices. Promote transparency: transparency is required in order to move
ahead with the policies as well as the work performance. The management will have to make it
clear such that every employee of the organisation will be able to understand what is pertaining
in the organisation and they will get to understand their responsibility and that specific goals up
to which they will have to work for (Morgan, 2020).
Maintaining a feedback friendly culture: environment can only be possible if employees feel
comfortable about their feedback that are being received from the management. When a
management is being able to deliver the pros and cons that are in relation to the employees and
their work then they will have to be in a state of accepting and will have to correct them at
regular intervals of time. This will help them to maintain a friendly working culture which is
necessary in the organisation.
Meeting in person: communication is the key aspect of every organisation. When a business is
dealing with a management team as well as the employees then it will have to meet the people
with which the transactions are being carried such that a healthy working relationship will be
maintained. This working relationship is necessary in order to exhibit the policies that are
required to demonstrate ideologies.
Using different Technologies: Technology is at perk now a days. Technologies of the software
that are embedded in your organisation are required in order to go with the collaborative means
to deal with employees. It is not until when the employees get to understand the working
methodologies that they can incorporate the same in working (Rodeghero and et.al, 2021). The
tools are required in order to move ahead with the work such that it becomes easier for them to
carry forward the work activities.
Create a dedicated workspace: space must be such that the employees will have to stay
dedicated and patience towards the work that is being stipulated to them. The management will
have to design means to indicate the functionalities of every employee such that they feel
refreshed and enthusiastic about the work they will have to commit. There are a set of entities
that are to be practiced by the management in order to bring this dedication into existence
5

because a friendly working culture can only be possible when management moves ahead with an
ease to finish the task (Charalampous and et.al, 2019). This is also regarded to be one of the
micromanaging aspect of the organisation because employees are monitored at regular intervals
and their engagement towards work will increase based on the clear and that is being provided by
the organisation.
CONCLUSION
With the help of this project it can be concluded that the operations of LTR good for the
society although it faces major issues into its operations. In this project the impact of covid-19
and Brexit on the operations of this company is understood. This project also explains the HR
practices of this company and how this company utilizes the technology for the improvement of
its operations. In this project the motivation of the employees of this organization is also
highlighted. With the help of this project the issues which LTR faces for remote working are also
explained. This organization is then recommanded with strategies which can help it in resolving
its issues in its operations.
6

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Collings and et.al., 2021. Leading through paradox in a COVID‐19 world: Human resources
comes of age. Human Resource Management Journal.
Donaldson, R., 2018. In the Name of Tourism: Developing an Image and Brand in the Book
Town of Richmond. In Small Town Tourism in South Africa (pp. 45-70). Springer, Cham.
Dwivedi, and et.al., 2020. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on information management research
and practice: Transforming education, work and life. International Journal of
Information Management, 55, p.102211.
Kaushik, M. and Guleria, N., 2020. The impact of pandemic COVID-19 in workplace. European
Journal of Business and Management, 12(15), pp.1-10.
Menon, V. and Padhy, S.K., 2020. Ethical dilemmas faced by health care workers during
COVID-19 pandemic: issues, implications and suggestions. Asian journal of
psychiatry. 51. p.102116.
Schiller, U., 2017. Child sexual abuse allegations: Challenges faced by social workers in child
protection organisations. Practice. 29(5). pp.347-360.
Tumwesigye, K., 2021. Challenges and experiences faced by social workers working with
children exposed to abuse and neglect. Open Science Journal. 6(1).
Van Hook, M.P., 2019. Social work practice with families: A resiliency-based approach. Oxford
University Press, USA.
Wang, and et.al., 2021. Achieving effective remote working during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A
work design perspective. Applied psychology, 70(1), pp.16-59.
Morgan, 2020. Best practices for implementing remote learning during a pandemic. The Clearing
House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas. 93(3). pp.135-141.
Rodeghero and et.al, 2021, May. Please turn your cameras on: Remote onboarding of software
developers during a pandemic. In 2021 IEEE/ACM 43rd International Conference on
Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Practice (ICSE-SEIP) (pp. 41-50). IEEE.
Charalampous and et.al, 2019. Systematically reviewing remote e-workers’ well-being at work:
A multidimensional approach. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.
28(1). pp.51-73.
Online
Bone., B., 2021. Operations of Luton Town Residences (LTR).[Online] Available trough:
<https://boomessaywriters.com/operations-of-luton-town-residences-ltr/>
7