Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Environmental Scanning at GM
GM went into bankruptcy and then revitalized through $50 billion government bailout
funds
GM motorists did not realize rising costs of fuel and increasing environmental
awareness would demolish their gas guzzling SUVs
GM looked for clues to explain their efficiencies to improve themselves but Japanese
already started designing next generation of cars
GM cut fixed operating costs and offloaded costly health benefits for retirees
Toronto overtook GM as the largest car maker in 2008
2011 earthquake in Japan impacted the market share of Japanese auto makers
Today, many changes in how transportation is viewed with respect to fuel prices,
energy risks, and climate change
Maybe there will be entrepreneurial ideas from outside the auto industry about
responding innovatively to trends
Fad vs trend
Environment
-anything outside organizational boundaries that might influence an organization
-covers factors in national and multinational contexts that
influence organizations
-Not part of the organization but is tightly integrated
-Organizations do not exist in isolation.
-External environment is everything outside
-Changes in social media?
Mandatory retirement - cannot tell someone who is 65+ that they cannot
retire.
Analysis of external environment consists of these stages/process (PART OF MIDTERM)
-this is an ongoing process and organization are always refining the way their particular
company or business goes through the process
Scanning
- identify early signals of changes and trends in environment. Ambiguous,
incomplete, unconnected info.
-check for early warning signs
Monitoring
-systematic approach to following key indicators that may affect the
organization - legislative changes
-example changes in Employment Standards, the emergence of Cannabis industry (whether
they are legislative, political, technological)
Forecasting
-after monitoring, project the possible impact on the organization/business
-doing our due diligence as good HR people, come up with contingency plan
Assessing
-describe the impact of the monitored trend on the organization and make a judgment of the
probability of possible outcomes
-look at pros and cons, put plans in place, ask what happens if?
Sources of Information
-Know the trends not only in the Canadian marketplace but globally
Publications
-HR professionals can scan newspapers, business publications and HR magazines,
journals and newsletters
-Canadian HR trends however lag behind US trends by a year or two and hence US
trends acts as a warning signal for HR professionals in Canada
Professional Associations
-Canadian HR professionals and executives belong to a number of organizations that
publish newsletters and updates on current events
HRPA and Conference Board of Canada have committees that look for any changes to
track trends
HR Planning Today
Society of HRM tried to forecast workplace through environmental scanning and
Only half of the first page are available for preview. Some parts have been intentionally blurred.
collected results for top ten trends that will have strategic impact on workplace:
Continuing high cost of employee healthcare in US
Passage of federal healthcare legislation
Global competition for jobs, markets, talent
Growing complexity of legal compliance for employers
Changes in employee rights due to legislation/rulings
Too many baby boomers leaving workforce in same time
Economic growth of emerging markets like India, China, Brazil
Greater need for cross-cultural understanding/savvy in business settings
Growing national budget deficit
Greater economic uncertainty and market volatility
Most common actions taken by organizations:
Linking employee performance and its impact on organization's business goals
Increasing expectations of employee productivity
Taking steps to protect employees in case of health epidemic
Implement policies and procedures to protect employees and customers from
identity threats
Update technology use policies for employees
Change company policy in response to federal regulations
Investing in technology and services designed to protect company data in case
of disaster
Increase use of technology to perform HR functions
Implement wellness programs
Increase HR's role in promoting corporate ethics
Methods of Forecasting
Competitive Intelligence
Competitive intelligence - formal approach to obtain information about competitors - critical
for organizations to respond because new offers come up from other organizations
Is the source reliable?
What is the likelihood of the information being correct?
Study their websites for information about strategies and product launches;
Train employees to ask questions from vendors about purchasing decision of
competitors
Hire competitors' employees to get insider information about future plans
Some practices may be illegal/unethical
Most important competitive advantage is our people
Challenges in Environmental Scanning
Isolating the Critical from the Insignificant
Scanners have trouble picking out important events
Four criteria to identify significant trends:
Are there ripple effects (change in one aspect impacts another like social media)
Chapter 4 The HR Forecasting Process
Counterproductive behavior
Insufficient work and too many employees lead to inefficiencies and lower productivity
Employees may become bored and unmotivated and engage in counterproductive behavior
-focus on the day-to-day transactions in the organization and the people who are doing that transactions or
for instance new service or new products in the business
-what are those transactions that occur in our business that impact HR planning
-AH1N1, SARS, introduction of new employment standards, flood, wildfire, etc that may impact the
organization, planning out or thinking about the future
Process-Based forecasting: Not focused on a specific internal organization event, but on the flow or
sequencing of several work activities
-change in the process that we have within the organization may impact the business, for instance it may
mean outsourcing, introduce automation and what to do with the people if we do it. Being able to look at
those activities
Benefits of HR Forecasting
Reduces HR Cost – hire the right people, at the right place, at the right time
Increases organizational flexibility – utilize skillsets inhouse that will allow us to move people in
another function
Ensures a close linkage to the macro business forecasting process – look at HR and business strategy
and link them together
Ensures that organizational requirements take precedence over issues of resource constraint and
scarcity (HR Supply and HR Demand)
-they have designations (CHRL, CPA, etc), forecast the quantitative and qualitative information needed in
the future, recognizing anyone that has a designation is a professional from the perspective of the
organization.
-we are looking at those roles in the org and check if there are needs of these professionals/specialist and
forecast them
-the four designated groups are included (women, Aboriginal people, person-with-disabilities, visible
minority)
Recruits
Determine the net demand requirements that must be met from external, environmental supply sources
Develop HR plans and programs to ensure that the right people are in the right place.
13 Outcomes of ForecastsScenario: A proposed sequence of events with its own set of assumptions and
associated program details Contingency Plans: Implemented when severe, unanticipated changes to
organizational or environmental factors completely negate the usefulness of the existing HR forecasting
predictions or projections; like a backup plan
Ascertain HR supply (includes internal supply and external supply) and skills inventory- personal database
record on each employee
15 HR Shortage or HR Surplus
HR Shortage: Demand > Supply HR Surplus: Supply > Demand
Dealing with Surpluses
Job Sharing: Occurs when two or more employees perform the duties of one full-time employees
Attrition: The process of reducing an HR surplus by allowing the size of the workforce to decline naturally
Internal transfers