Examining roles and responsibilities Human Resources in BMW

Human resource management (HRM) is the function to meet the current and future resource challenges of the information society. In words of Taylor Human resource management is the range of people management functions, process and activities which involve more than one national context. It is the policies and practices involved in carrying out the people or human resource aspects of management position, including recruitment, screening, training, rewarding and appraisal. The concept of Human resource management in BMW cars is different as it concern with the change in perception of management and staff. They demand the intelligent graduated employees which can think differently and flexibly to change and compete with the other companies with their human resources. Human resource management includes that the people at work should think differently with innovation and creativity and with team work. HRM is the very important for the success of any firm in business because it places the management and the workforce with all the strategies. It not only makes the people at work but also maintains the relationships and culture among the staff. HRM has the applications at every level in the organisation and the proper role is to think before doing and the create mind set of workforce. HRM also solve the problems and conflicts between the managers and employees as they have to report everything to the HRM department in the organisation.

INTRODUCTION OF HRM IN BMW

BMW is the basically German company with vast experience in the field of cars and was introduced in 1981. This company spends more money on its human inputs to add value and also its complex contribution of human resources creates its competitive advantage. BMW’s specialized staff which are able to offer superior quality of product and services in the market with the customer experience. Human resources plays important role in the BMW even in the time of recession as they have invest on the human inputs. But this depends on the financial condition and capabilities of the market as they had invested in training development and recruitment of the new management teams in their organisation. Earlier BMW was not giving importance to its customer services and its staff only focusing on its products and places for its expansion but later on they realise that human resources and their management is important for success in the market and competition. In BMW the goal of human resources is to change and improve their markets by using the new methods of production and materials and organise them into the excellent way of customer servicing. As always in BMW the goal of human resource management is to add more value and improve the ratio of cost in the added value of its car products. The main goal of HRM in BMW is to make people more productive and creative for the long term standing with them and when the management staff will be more productive then the jobs get more skilled. In recession also this company had constantly invested in the human resources and its development.

HUMAN RESOURCE STRATEGIES IN BMW

BMW is company which carries out very well planned strategies in its organisation. In this organisation the human resource strategy is applying to the whole organisation and BMW is improving its products and making a proper customer satisfaction by applying this strategy. This strategy is plays a very vital role in the BMW organisation and its employees. It helps them to innovate and create new products and services to their customers and making its products available and delivered in all areas where they are expanding their activities. Earlier BMW was making their products wrongly and not understanding the capabilities and needs of its customers as they were not giving importance to its human resources so after sometime they realise the exact meaning and importance of its resources so now they can focus more on markets and its customers. BMW is now making its organisation and its employees flexible so that they can change according to the technology and the needs of its customers in the market. Human resource strategies help them to take the proper care of people issue for the long term by providing best quality products and services, making long term commitments and needs for the future. The aim of BMW in this strategy is not to give them low cost products. Their main aim is to provide the high capable workforce and making its products unique in the competitive market. BMW is concerned with its managers and the staff to make them more innovative and developing their skills so that they can achieve a high task goals and objectives. The following are the Human resource strategies of BMW:

Recruitment and Selection: The selection of the candidates is the first task and strategy of BMW. This is the most important element of the BMW’s human resource management. In this they have to select the candidate who can match up the requirements of the job role. This includes the person who can identify the market conditions, attract customers to sell their products. The first process in this process is to analyse the role and then they develop the person’s specification of that job satisfaction and then he going to identify the market condition to attract customers and then screening of applications. In screening of applications they short list the selected candidate whether to select or reject. After this they conduct interviews, assessments and tests of the candidate to decide select or reject. When candidate pass this interview then they check the references in the resume of the candidate and after above all they offer the person to work in the organisation. BMW is following a very good selection technique with their clear specifications and procedures in a long term. They judge the candidate according to the suitability of the role which provides them necessary benefits. Suitability of the role in the job includes the knowledge, skills, experience and personal attributes of the person which help him to perform according to the specifications of the job. All this process of selection and recruitment is properly planned in an organised way considering their future needs. Attracting the customers which is a part of selection process plays an important role as it does not include selling their products but also includes advertising the brand BMW in the newspapers, magazines, internet, television etc. and making awareness of the luxurious comforts and safety of the products of BMW. It includes the heavy expenditure in advertising the brand but they need to be more careful in spending on advertising anyways this strategy for marketing their employment.

Screening: in this step of recruitment and selection of BMW human resource management the candidate have to fill the application form which shows the subjective quality of the person for the role and also helps in improving the quality of the process and increase the consistency. In application form the person has to fill up his bio data and other questions which show the difference of higher and low level of performers.

Interviewing: Interviewing person who had applied for the role is very important otherwise they can’t judge the mental and physical capabilities of the candidate. This process is conducted by the line managers of the BMW. In this interview they have long discussions, questions about the previous experience, favourites. This is the most commonly used technique in every multinational organisation which helps the interviewer to make a judgement about the candidate specialization for the job. They can judge whether the person can satisfy the job or not? The questions in this interview are properly listed to get specific information about a standard of judgement or criticism and the candidate get a score against the answers he had provided in this interview.

Testing: Another process followed by the BMW human resource department is testing the ability and personality of the candidate. In the ability test they test or measure the aptitudes like knowledge, vocabulary, typing speed, awareness about the products and accuracy of the candidate. On the other hand are the personality tests which show the personal characteristics, attitude, behaviour and values of the candidate. In this they also test the individual beliefs and the capability that how they deal with problems in selling the products or their convincing and marketing power in the organisation. In this process of testing the candidates in BMW the ability tests are more consistent and free from errors than the personality tests.

Checking References: After testing the candidate then the manager or the interviewer has to check the references of the educational qualifications, eligibility, work experience, licences and the special check on the criminal records and health problems. After checking the references they give the offer letter whether it conditional or unconditional.

Training and Development

Once candidate pass the above steps of recruitment and selection then he has to undergo from the training of the role offers to him. This training process is essential to improve the performance of the job which helps to develop their personal and professional characteristics of candidate. This training involves coaching and development of the professional skills which are more efficient and effective in learning and development of the individuals. The different types of training are informal training, on the job or off the job training, product and skills training, behavioural development and technical training. They give the training to their employees for how to develop different styles of learning, materials, design of the products, and also look after their personality types. In this training also involves use of heavy and expensive equipment and machines and provide stipend in between their training. This training on machines and equipment improves their performance of the job. BMW teach their employees the easy and small steps first and cover their health and security issues and make their employees proud to be a part of this organisation. In this training the line managers face the major challenges to develop the confidence, personality and skills to solve and find the solutions to the problems in the organisation. Managers want their trainees to be creative, innovative, productive and sufficient to operate at tactical and strategic level in the company. They trained them to seek the responsibilities of the task given to them and never be step back in any problems. After the trainee complete the process of his training and development of the specific role given to him then the line managers give them a pat on their back and recognise them for their successful completion so that they motivate in performing their tasks well on the job.

In conclusion we can see that there is an increase in proportion for training at both individual and group level at a great value to the companies like BMW by means they can provide satisfaction to the customers about their products. Even the training also undertaken by BMW in the time of recession as they were pressed against by their competitors. The BMW group has opened a training academy near Reading with more than 30 workshops and 20 training rooms which recruit the skilled workers. BMW is planning to increase the number of workers to 2000 in their dealerships to increase their growth in the UK. BMW is training their trainee practically and theoretically by the Trainee Promotion Programme (TPP) and PC programmes with the benefits of pay like bonuses on Christmas, New Year etc. with free meals. They are providing the best training programmes with the best facilities to their trainees to make them more confident and motivate them to improve their performance of work.

Performance Management

In BMW the performance of the managers and staff is initially important to achieve the goals and objectives of the organisation. Performance management is the essential and organised process that carries the success and helps in developing the capabilities and performance of the individual or work team. The strategy of human resource management is to develop the managers or leaders in the organisation who can help their employees or subordinates to make their performance effective and efficient. The managers are the only ones who can manage the performance of the workers by understanding and knowing what the employees expect from them and engage them in each and every activity and ask them for feedback which can improve their quality of performance in the organisation. The BWM human resource management is working more on this performance by enhancing them to learn their goals and objectives and they recognise that there is a greater need for the management to apply these performance tools in the company through which they can develop their reviews, skills and framework. In this management the employees are sharing their views and ideas with their leaders and managers so that they can find better ways measuring and improving the performance. The performance management of the BMW shows that how BMW is working its functions effectively in the environment. The performance of this company shows how they are executing their plans, goals, objectives and what will be the outcome of their performance? The purpose of the BMW management team is to achieve the better results by managing the performance and maintain the standards of performance of their work team. The main goal of the line managers is to create or develop a relationship or culture between them and their workforce to seek the responsibility for the consistent improvement in the performance and skills of their business procedures and processes. There are certain principles which BMW follows in performance management i.e. line manager transfer their corporate goals in into their human resource department at individual and group level, clarifying the goals to their workers, understanding and sharing the problems and finding solution to improve the performance, continuous feedback, encourage their subordinates for open and honest communication, mutual respect and transparency between them. These all basic principles implemented properly by this company HR team and it surely helps them in improving their performance management. In this we can conclude that performance management is to support by the managers to their workforce to improve their performance, skills, knowledge and experience while doing their job.

Employee Relations:

In modern times relation with employees is essentially important and as a part of human resource strategy. Involvement and participation of both employee and managers in the organisation shows how strong is the relation between them and the difficulty of maintaining this relation for long time. In BMW the managers are constantly involving with their employees in several practices which directly improve their relations and performance in the organisation. The main task of managers is to maintain the employee relations so they can generate more commitments for their work and contribute to their operation effectively. The manager of the BMW focuses mainly on the engagements and commitments of their workers to maintain their employee relations. There are many benefits which BMW provides to its employees when they join the company like medical insurances, annual bonuses, dental and vision insurance, holiday pay, vacation pay, life term insurances which include accidental and death insurance, medical expenses, disability insurance according to long and short term which will be fully paid, personal day pay, sick leave, free education training and development. These all benefits which BMW provides to its employees play a crucial role in maintaining the relation with employees. These benefits also help the organisation to improve the performance and contribution of employees in the production of work. The chief executives of BMW are rising the salary and bonuses of their staff twice to the workers working in other companies. BMW is the only major and first company who had make the bonuses of assembly workers same as of the top managers in the organisation. BMW is showing a great contribution to improve the relations with the employees so that they work with dedication and hard work which increases the sales and production of the company. The spokesman of BMW in his interview said that they are creating transparent and regular relations with their employees so that there should be no gap between the managers and workers. They are giving bonuses to the superiors and subordinates depend on the company’s profit, sales and performance of each employee. BMW is also sharing profits with their line and top managers which is good in business to deal at the time of recession. During the time of recession the profit sharing motivates and encourages worker which is a good way for the BMW to make their workers employed. There are certain factors which BMW has adopted to improve its relation with employees:

Downward communication: The first factor that maintains the employee relation is the downward communication from managers to its subordinates. In this the managers should educate and trained their staff towards their role in the organisation which shows leadership in which employee has to follow his manager for executing the tasks and responsibilities.

Upward problem solving and finding solution: Another factor for improving the relations is not only from managers to subordinates. It also from subordinates to its superiors in which the subordinates participate in the decision making process and support its managers in solving the problems by creating new ideas, opinions and find solution instantly. This motivates them to maintain cooperative relations by different suggestions, schemes and surveys etc.

Task Participation: another category of improving the relations of employees with their managers is the participation and involvement of both of them in task or responsibility given to them. This also involves the job redesign in which they have to extend the task undertaken in work. This task participation involves financial, consultation and representative participation and involvement. Manager and employee are expected to play an important role in the development and maintenance of the tasks in the job. They need to follow the new techniques and strategies to complete and achieve their goals, objectives and tasks of the organisation and share the commitment between them.

PERSONAL MANAGEMENT:

Another important strategy of human resource management in BMW is the personal management. BMW HRM staff is managing the employees in achieving the goals and objectives. In this personal management system the managers manages the education, qualification, training and experience of the employees. This is the process of directing the employees in achieving the long term and short term goals make them flexible enough to deal with any changes in the situation with intelligence and open frame of mind. Personal management includes the following

Team Building: team building also an important task in personal management system in the organisation. The managers have to build the teams according to the experience and qualification of the workforce. The manager has to maintain the understanding between the team and give them edge in the corporate staff.

Effective Meetings: this effective meeting means that the managers have to conduct the interview for the staff and the committee in which they have to focuses on the agenda of meetings, goals and objectives to achieve to be planned and prepared. Discussions and participations of the right people involved in these meetings. While arranging these meetings the personal management has to decide the time, place and venue of conducting these meetings.

Time management: the time management is the most essential point of the personal management. They have to manage the time to prepare and plan to complete their tasks and responsibilities to achieve the goals of the organisations. They have to maintain a balance between their personal and professional lives.

Decision Making: decision making in the management helps to solve the problems to reach their goals and objectives and provide them alternatives for executing their plans. In this managers gives right to their subordinates to participate in decision making process and support their superiors which helps in maintaining the understanding and cooperation between them.

EFFECTIVE DECISION MAKING

BMW human resource team make up the mind of the individuals to make their decisions effective. The effective decision making is dependent upon the HR team performance. The team performance shows the quality of decisions taken to make the products and services better and new which makes the customers attract to buy their products. Now days the faculty members in the BMW is helping the new fresher and graduates to make right decisions by improving their capabilities and confidence while working in the organisation. Decisions can be small scale or on large scale. Both types of decisions are taken in BMW and by the human resource management team as it is the most important part of their strategies and they have to mainly consider the quality of decisions. The small scale decisions are mainly on the location, time and venue of the next meeting which involves resources such as time and energy. The large scale decisions also involves lot of time and energy but decision may be on the designing a project and deciding the alternatives. These decisions are decided by the HR team in BMW which can make the decision effective and efficient for the success of the organisation. The HR team in this organisation consider the three main important things which help them to make their decisions effective and correct. Firstly, they have to consider the environment for taking the decisions. In this they have to see the communication between the managers and the working team so that they can improve the quality and remove the conflicts between them. Secondly, is the method or ways of decision making by SWOT analysis and the last is the tools which BMW is using for the effective decision making.

Recommendations

In terms of strengths and opportunities in the way of BMW instead of this there are also weaknesses and threats which the company has to overcome with the performance of the HRM team. As we know that BMW is having competition in the market so they should not make the prices of their products so high. They should decrease the prices of their products and services otherwise their sales will slow down in the market. As we know that there is economic recession, increase in the price of fuel, globalization of markets and more automobiles companies are expanding in this period so it will be problem for the BMW if they increase their prices and customer will look for the other competitive alternative in the market which will slow down the business sales and performance of the employees. The management team should take some effective decisions considering all the threats and weaknesses mind. The BMW should design new products keeping in mind the pollution. Now days the customers are becoming more aware and knowledgeable about the products so the HR team should develop some strategies to deal with it and should make sure that customer should not loose any interest in buying their products.