MGMT6009: MiningCo Case Study - HR Strategies for People & Teams

This case study delves into the HR challenges faced by MiningCo, a mining company operating in isolated locations with a fly-in, fly-out workforce. The analysis covers three key scenarios: improving employee motivation through performance management initiatives, addressing the lack of coordination and staff rotation between isolated sites, and responding to potential crises, particularly in the context of economic instability and security threats. The report explores strategies such as employee rewarding programs, enhanced security measures, and the formation of a crisis management team. The goal is to provide actionable recommendations for the senior HR executive to improve employee retention, coordination, and overall organizational resilience. This document is available on Desklib, a platform providing past papers and solved assignments for students.

Running Head: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT
Report on HR manager’s activities
Case Study Analysis and Consultative Report
Australia
4/24/2018

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT 1
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Case 1.........................................................................................................................................2
Importance of motivation.......................................................................................................2
Rewarding the employees......................................................................................................3
Case 2.........................................................................................................................................4
Security and safety of employees...........................................................................................6
Compensation.........................................................................................................................7
Case 3.........................................................................................................................................7
Formation of crisis management team...................................................................................8
Format of the team.............................................................................................................8
Criteria for the selection of leader and team......................................................................9
Function of the team...........................................................................................................9
Rewarding the team..............................................................................................................10
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................12

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT 2
Introduction
In the competitive market scenario today “Human Resource Retention” is one of the major
problems faced by the human resource management in order to improve their managing
activities. Researchers have found that Human Resources are the key source of any
organisation. In this context the Human Research Management is considered an advantage in
the competitive market. Mining being a global industry, most of the companies in mining
industry operate internationally or at multiple locations within the nation. In this report there
is a thorough discussion about three different scenarios in which the Human Resource
Management has to respond in an effective way to motivate the employees to retain them for
a long time period, in the company and took the essential initiatives for the coordination of
different sites for an effective output for the company. In this report there is also a discussion
about the methodology and implementation of new management task force for some specific
crisis situations. The senior HR executive has to perform all these tasks with the help of
whole HR management team.
Case 1
Importance of motivation
Mining companies are facing some major challenges like an effective employee motivation,
lack of co-ordination between different units etc. These issues sometimes led to the
unnecessary strikes, high labour turnover and low production for the company. Motivation
plays an important role in the production rate of the organisation, work morale of the
employees, and may led to high performance of the employees (Samwel 2017). In this case I
am working as a senior HR executive and I found the same issues at my location of the
company unit. So I decided to initiate a new programme especially for the motivation of

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT 3
employees. Even some researches also show that motivation is one of the key alternatives for
making the employees work efficiently and enhancing their productivity. The process of
motivation starts with the psychological or physiological deficiency or need which activates
the behaviour of employees or sometimes a drive which aimed at a specific goal
(Bhattacharya 2009). The work motivation is mostly categorised into two categories as,
intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. The intrinsic motivation deals with rewards as
the activity of motivation itself and extrinsic motivation is concerned with the external
variables like explicit rewards (threat, money etc.) (Kuranchie-Mensah & Amponsah-Tawaih
2016).
This study led me to initiate some effective motivational programmes for the motivation of
employees working in my unit. From a deep analysis of the unit performance I found that
there was a lack of efficient performance from the employee side and this issue had to be
seen with in priority to increase the productivity of the unit. And a complete analysis took me
at the conclusion of starting some motivational programmes like rewarding my employees
and appreciating their work for the company. So I decided to start a new motivational
programme named as “Our Employees, Our Strength”. This name was finalised in order to
reflect the motivational aim of the company to create a motivating psychology for the
employees. This programme has got success as the total expenditure for this programme was
less than the profit growth of the company.
Rewarding the employees
After enhancing the productivity of employees now there was another challenge of retaining
the employees in my unit. A direct relation between retention and the pay has been the major
subject of different studies (Kossivi, Xu & kalgora 2016), (Das & Baruah 2013). In the
company scenario as a senior HR executive I found the company is spending a significant

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amount on the recruitment process every year for the vacancies available due to regular
resignation of employees. Therefore, I came up with the solution of retaining the working
employees in the company, introducing an annual rewarding programme and named this
initiative as “My Employees, My Responsibility” In this programme there is a provision for
rewarding the efficient candidates based on over-all performance. This initiative make the
employees work more efficiently for the company and retain the employees as this reward
make a psychological impact on the thinking of the employees. Both the initiative being
successful made the company growth rate high and helped me to perform other HR activities
with a higher degree of effectiveness.
Case 2
In 2001, when Greece joined the EURO group, there was a hike in the confidence of the
Greece economy. But in 2008 after the financial crisis, the scenario of the Greek economy
has completely changed and this results in the high unemployment rate which has reached to
208% in 2013, which was the worst of all time with higher than that of the US during the
Great Depression period (Lee 2015).
On the other hand, in the last few months, the Islamic State has inspired or directed the terror
attacks in Paris, Beirut, San Bernardino, and Sharm el Sheikh. Although the ISIS has its
priority targets as US, Italy, France, and UK, but it doesn’t mean that other countries should
feel that they are terror proof countries. Especially Greece is the perfect example of this kind
of false security sense. In the last few months, on 24th November 2015 a powerful bomb
exploded in Greece, fortunately that explosion caused no injuries (Guitta 2015). But this was
the clear indication that Greek is the only Gateway of ISIS to its primary targets that is the
biggest threaten for the country.

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT 5
These two major factors are affecting the GDP and over-all economic growth of the country.
In 2014, for the first time after 2007, there was an increase in the GDP of Greece that was
0.8% increase (Hasstorun 2017). In 2013, total turnover of Greece’s mineral industry was
€2.1 billion, and for 2014 this turnover was anticipated to reach €2.3 billion. Still this
turnover in 2013 was 15% less than that of in 2009 (IOBE 2016).
This economic crisis in Greece caused changes in pension plans, employee transfers, salary
reduction and all this made the voluntary resignation of the employees in private sector, led to
234,857. And at the end of 2015 this number of voluntary resignations in private sector had
reached to 630,296 (Chrysopoulos 2015).
This mass voluntary resignation made the mining industry to think about the retention of their
employees. Employee retention concerned with encouraging or keeping the working
employees in the company for a long time period. Employee retention is defined as “the
technique opted or adopted by the company to maintain the efficient workforce and to meet
the requirements of the operations for the business (Mehta, Kurbettti & Dhankhar 2014).
Retention factors include benefits and remuneration, fair and equal treatment, training
opportunities, organizational culture etc. (Ghapanchi & Aurum 2011). Whereas other factors
of retention are relationship with colleague socialization, management style and leadership in
order to increase the retention capability of the organisation (Allen & Shanok 2012).
As a senior HR executive I had to take care of different factors in order to retain the
executives in our company. Professional development of the executive is a major retention
cause in any company. Professional and personal growth of the executives is one to the major
determining factors of retention and the opportunities of promotion can increase the
executive’s commitment to stay for a long time period working in the company. In case of

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT 6
my location of the company unit scenario was quite difficult for promotional activities as the
company was suffering from the economic crisis and the increasing terror activities of ISIS.
This scenario at the location of unit under my control has made a requirement of staff rotation
or cross over with the other units. And the environment in unit was completely against all
these practices. This lack of staff rotation or cross over working between the units was
influencing each isolated site to operate as a single entity without any rotation of the
employees. This issue was concerning the low co-ordination between the executives of other
units which was resulting in the poor production of the unit. This issue was equally
considerable for the cause of executive’s leaving the company. Therefore, retention and
managing my staff was a major challenge for me.
Main cause, executive leaving the company, was the current scenario at the location. For the
retention and regular cross over or rotational problems of the staff I practiced some activities
which were implemented with proper strategic analysis and implementation. In this scenario
the best retention activity as a senior HR executive I practiced was providing the safety and
security of the employees working in my unit.
Security and safety of employees
In this scenario safety of the employees was the top most priority other executives were
looking for, from the company. So I decided to revise the safety and security policies for the
employees working at the site location. Safety is defined as one of the major factors for job
satisfaction and this was the most important requirement so I started working on this aspect.
In this context I revised all the previously implemented security arrangements at the site
location and provided an additional security with advanced technology in order to ensure the
security of employees working at site. This advancement was done in terms of preventing the
suspected entries at the site location and providing a better security environment around the

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT 7
workplace with the help of some advance local security providers. This practice included the
sorting of the suitable security services agency available and suitable for the company as
well.
Compensation
Improved compensation to the employees can retain the employees for a short time period
(Karatepe 2013). And the post economic scenario of the country was considered as a short
time issue therefore, I adopted this as another way to retain the executives leaving the
company just because of above mentioned issues. Therefore, I needed to provide the required
compensation for the employees working in such economic scenario where the country is
suffering with the post economic crisis situation. In this practice in manages to convenience
the board of directors to provide the compensation to the employees for their work.
Both these initiative for the retention of other executive in the company were successful.
Although both the initiative were impacting the expenditures of the company but the outcome
from these initiative could be seen on the over-all outcome of the company in the annual
growth report. The retention or those executive was the key point of this growth.
Case 3
In the recent years citizens have seen the vulnerable side of the organizations and people
whenever a crisis occurred. This has shown that we are living in a very turbulent and
dynamic environment across the globe in which the crisis potential has been increased
dramatically (Spillan 2008). The scenario at my site location was not secure in terms of
threatening as well as the economic crisis as the Greece, county of my location, itself
suffering from the past economic crisis. Therefore, there was a requirement of a response

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT 8
team to respond at the time of crisis at any site location of the company. In order to form this
crisis management team I practiced the following activities
Formation of crisis management team
Sometimes there may be a situation of crisis for the business. This crisis is due to lack in the
target achievements of the employees in their given time. This situation will require an
emergency response team in order to help the management team in improving their efficiency
for the better production. In mining sector any lack in achieving the target will not only affect
the business economy of the company but also affect the economy of the country as the
mining is interrelated with other sectors too. Therefore, company does not want to take such
risks where the company business as well as the social reputation may fall down. This team
will play the following roles
 Detection of early signs for the crisis
 Identification of the issue areas
 Prepare an effective plan which will work effectively at the time of emergency
situations
 Providing the essential training to the employees on the identifies areas of the
problem
 Encouraging the employees to deal the problems at such crisis situation with
determination, and courage. Also motivate them for better performance without losing
hope for the best work delivery
Format of the team
This crisis management formed in my leadership is including
 Head of the department

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT 9
 Chief executive officer (Leader)
 Board of directors
 Media advisors
 HR representatives
Criteria for the selection of leader and team
The company has spent a lot to prepare a response team in order to respond at the time of
crisis or any disruptive event occurring at the site location. Being the senior HR executive for
the company this formation has to be done by me only. This selection of the individual,
leading the crisis management team of the company, is the major factor of determining the
success or failure of the team in time of crisis. This selection would be based on the
leadership ability and the key skills essential to lead a group in most stressful and sometimes
ambiguous situation to deal with. Before finalising the team leader I had few points to be
considered
 Involve my organization’s continuity steering committee in this process.
 The culture key. Each organization makes their own decisions in their perspective so I
had to choose a leader who will complement the culture of decision making in the
company.
 Team leader’s role is to set the goals/objectives for the team and eliminate the
difficulties in the progress of team not performing the team tasks. Therefore, I ensured
that the selected leader is provided with the knowledgeable and cross-functional
representative from the company (Ladley 2012).

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT 10
Function of the team
The individual leader appointed to take the charge will immediately respond to the
management and the team members. In the very beginning he will understand the areas of
high concern at the time of emergency situations.
Then after, he will lead the team working on the different problems, which led the situation at
workplace. He will ensure that each team member has understood that in which areas they
need to work and how can they provide the essential training on site to improve the current
process. It is very important to prioritize the problems and then the team should work on the
basis of this priority list. After this the team will create an effective plan to be executed for
better response and the leader will cross check the plan before execution. Now at this point of
time after preparing the plan team will execute the plan immediately to get the results on
time. In this way the team formed by me will help the company to tackle such emergency
situations when needed at the different site locations of the company (TRP 2012).
Rewarding the team
Rewards can be the major source of motivation for the employees of any organisation. These
rewards are different for different individuals respective to their role in the organization.
Although the company is getting the significant benefits from this team but there may be
some problems for the companies while facing such problems and taking some tough
decisions. At such situations employees or team members may not want to involve in such
kind of stuff. Therefore, companies need to motivate the team members with some kind of
rewards. These rewards man be in terms of promotion, bonus etc. (Jiang 2010).
People in my team will be provided with desired promotional and bonus rewards for their
motivation. For this I made an additional fund deposit for this purpose only.

CASE STUDY ANALYSIS AND CONSICUTIVE REPORT 11
Conclusion
The above report has discussed three scenario can be faced by a senior HR executive of the
company. The report concludes that there may be any type of crisis in the business at any
time independent of the possibilities. These situations must be handled in a strategic manner
and the essential actions for the betterment of company in long terms must be taken whether
these actions may be beneficial or not, for short term. And if the company is dealing with
some crucial situation it is HR manager’s responsibility to form a crisis management team to
deal with such situation. This team should also be rewarded on regular basis for their
motivation.