Management - Hosie, P, J. Forsyth and M.Baird - Video Business Case - Report Writing Assessment Answer

Management Assignment

Assignment Task

Researching and Writing a Video Business Case Report

This assignment challenges students to formulate a professional response to in-depth issues contained in a real-life Video Business Case available in a non-searchable YouTube video. Students will act as an independent professional business consultant reporting to senior managers of the company concerned. Students are expected to provide informed and robust advice to this business client. A sophisticated understanding of the critical aspects of this Video Business Case needs to be demonstrated. A succinct and high impact report is expected.

The report is expected to be 2,000 words, including an Executive Summary but excluding References and Appendices. A table of contents is unnecessary. Students need to display their correct name (underline Lastname), Curtin University ID number, Industry ID, tutor’s name, tutorial day, time and the total word count on the top right side of the cover page of the assignment submitted.

To support assertions made about the case being critiqued refer to the Required Readings provided in the Unit Outline Program Calendar. Students are strongly advised to refer to a minimum of five relevant and credible sources. Extension Reading information is provided in Blackboard. Video Business Interviews (Background Questions and Video Business Case) are available through links in Blackboard.

Video Business Interviews will be available from the commencement of semester in Blackboard > Video Business Interviews. The Video Business Case to be critiqued will be announced by Seminar 03. Students are strongly encouraged to review the Background Questions segments for the Video Business Case selected for analysis a number of times.

An electronic copy of the assignment needs to be submitted by the Sunday following the week of Seminar 09 in Blackboard as an attachment, via the Plagiarism link in Assessments > Video Business Case Report. Assignments may be resubmitted once to Plagiarism to overwrite the initial ‘Originality Report’ to modify the ‘Similarity Index’ until the due date for submission.

An excessive Similarity Index score may indicate a breach of Curtin University Plagiarism Policy and Procedures. Failure to submit an assignment to Plagiarism will result in marks for this assignment being withheld or the assessment failed. Plagiarism's electronic closing date is not the due date.

Students must ensure the following file naming convention is used:

IntroductionA case study is a detailed illustration of a real life administration challenge which requires a crucial decision to be made and effected to rid the business of the trial (Soy 2015). In the following essay, I will use the Human resource problem that faced one of the World’s Biggest Automobile Company, Toyota Company in my case study. A few years back Toyota has had to recall a large number of their vehicle due to defects associated with poor human resource management. These recalls caused the company huge losses and the hard earned reputation in the Automobile world giving their competitors a chance to outshine them (Hammond 2013). Some of the human resource issues attributed to this phenomenon are training, reports associated with performance management, hiring an employee, and corporate culture.

Functions of Human Resource

The human resources are tasked with work supervision, staff recruiting and training, establishing a healthy working conditions, management of employee compensation, payroll and benefits, promote high levels of performance, handle personnel discrimination and issues pertaining to performance, ensure that all employees abide by labour laws and most of all ensure that all staff is motivated.

Video Business Case Report Issues

How Human Resource Management Caused Toyota to Crash

Back in 2009, Toyota Automobile Company went through a great ordeal after some models of their cars were found not to be fit for their consumers. This ordeal made the company lose billions of money not forgetting the company’s reputation, which they have built over the years. This unfortunate incident happened when a driver died in California as a result of faulty acceleration from the Toyota car that he was driving (Matsuo 2015). This event made the company recall a large number of its vehicles in the United States. According to James and Robert (2014), Toyota has been sued 400 times on the same incidence.

Poor Critical Analysis and Management of the Issues Facing Human Resource Management

One of the reasons that can be attributed to the downfall was poor risk management. This was as a result of the inefficiency of the personnel to access the problem before it got out of hand. In his article, Matsuo (2015) blames this onto the weak management; he further asserts that mechanical problems that the company’s cars faced were known before they even occurred. However, instead of mitigating the problem, the management took time before handling the situation. This made the problem grow with time and when the need for curbing the problem arose it was too late.

Fig. 1.1. Toyota Company Governance system

Cooperate Culture at Toyota Company

Corporate culture is the behaviour and beliefs that dictate the interaction between the workforce of a business entity and its management. It is usually developed over time. The primary purpose of corporate culture is to make sure employees conduct themselves in a way that correlates with the corporate values. The business culture needs to be closely observed and assessed time to time. “The culture of an organisation is a set of guidelines that stipulates the goals of a business entity” (Schultz and Tor 2013, 14).

Importance of a Healthy Corporate Culture

A corporate with a detrimental culture does not value the contribution of the employees to the success and existence of the corporate. In this unhealthy culture, workers act as individuals. A healthy culture, on the other hand, treats all the employees with the same respect irrespective of their duties in the business entity. This promotes teamwork in the business entity, which in turn improves the company’s performance. The following are the benefits of a healthy corporate culture.

Employee retention: Valuing the contribution that a firm employee offers boosts their morale and improves their attitude towards the enterprise. This will, in turn, results in a reduction of turnover in the company due to loyalty fostered by the high-culture. As such, this will aid in reducing the cost of acquiring new workers.

Maintaining a firm’s reputation: A business that has a healthy culture wins the loyalty of its workers, which will, in turn, build its reputation. Thus, this aids in attracting potential highly skilled workers when the trust that a company has among its clients improves, its value increases in the market. Consumers prefer consuming products from companies with a good reputation than companies without (Janssen and Ulrich 2012).

Recalling of the Vehicles

In the case of Toyota Company, the junior managers communicated to the senior executives informing them about the poor quality of products long before the recalls happened. The senior management did find it crucial to act on the matters raised by the junior managers who were better placed since they were dealing directly with production. The upper-level management was busy cutting cost while compromising the quality of products produced and the repercussion that these actions would have on the company. Thus, this led to the deterioration of the company’s reputation, which lowered the trust that the consumers had to the enterprise’s products. During the process of recalling the vehicles, the Company did not respond to the matter due to ethical responsibility, but rather due to the force of law. Had they realized the ethical responsibility of their problem may be they would have solved the problem and avoided damage to their public image.

Personnel Training and Supervision

One of the most vital components of the success of a company is the level of skills of the manpower. The standard of expertise can be improved through training and development. This is through the procedure of enhancing knowledge, skills, and capabilities of the workforce of a business entity. It is usually the next stage after orientation. Proper training improves the thinking of the employees, which translates to increase in the quality of the work. The process of training employees is perpetual; there are two types of training which are on and off job training. On job training is whereby the workers are trained while working, it is considered as cost effective as compared to off job training which involves training away from the place of work. It is most appropriate to employees who have been newly hired. It is costly and efficient in case the company is training a large workforce. This method is also called vestibule training; the real working environment is mimicked in the area of training, which makes this process very expensive (Kaslow 2014). The progress of a company is largely dependent on the level of skills of its employees, as this will ensure that employees are able to deal with production challenges as they arise. The world is a dynamic place especially technology, with the invention of new and sophisticated machines being built almost every day. Customers’ needs and preferences are also dynamic in nature, for a company to be able to satisfy the needs of its customers they need to have employees equipped with the right skills.

The Importance of Training and Development

It aids in curbing the weakness of employees, provides stability in the performance of duty, promotes workers satisfaction, Reduction into cost of production, reduce employee supervision

The Following Factors Dictate the Need for Employee Training

Boosting productivity: to be able to compete with other companies in the market, a company needs to maximise production and reduce cost efficiently. This can only be realised if the employees are in a position to provide the right kind services needed (Caplan, Saurav, and Raef 2016).

Reducing the accidents and time required to learn new skills: occasional training of employees ensures that the time spent to teach employees new skills is significantly reduced. Employing trial and error method may take time, consume resources, and may not even work. Highly trained employees will not be susceptible to accidents. In turn, this reduces time wasted when an employee takes time off due to an accident. As such, the absence of an employee would deprive the company skills (Gao and Sui 2015).

To match up with the current technology: the technology is ever changing; in order for the company to keep up with the current world of technology, highly trained personnel would be required. Therefore, it is crucial for the employees to be trained regularly to match up with the current needs of the market (Brunet-Thornton, Michal, and Vladimír 2016).

Toyota Company was not able to match up with its fast growth; they did not train their employees to enable them to match up with the current needs of the market. The increase also led to the rise of the problem employee’s supervision. The human resource department failed once again to determine the right number of workforce and skills that were required. Thus, every company should anticipate growth and plan for it early in advance. The human resource department at Toyota Company neglected this role, which resulted to poor performance among the employees since they could not provide the level of skills that were needed in the market. Supervision would have identified the problem before it happened and taken the right precautions. However, lack of proper supervision gave room for errors.

Solutions to the Issues Identified In the Video Business Case Report

Recommendations Adopted by Toyota to Curb Poor Human Resource Management

The Process of Selecting Employees has been improved

The company prefers to hire operating personnel whose work ethic is not questionable. Employees who are highly motivated and ready to work hard are given priority (Moore, Javier, and Joseph 2016). For employees hired to act as the team leads, they must be able to accommodate more than one skill. This way they will be able to hand over their skills to newly hired employees. In turn, this would promote a healthy corporate culture.

Performance Appraisal

Toyota Company emphasises on the fulfilment of a system instead of focusing on the individual efficiency. It is crucial to concentrate on the overall performance of the entire system as this will help decide whether teamwork is being practised on the workplace (Govindan et al. 2015). Through the partnership, the employee can interact, share problems, and improve each other. Furthermore, this may help spot and deal with a problem before it grows and becomes a major issue (Moore, Javier, and Joseph 2016).

Improving Corporate Culture

According to Schwartz (2013), Toyota has developed a culture that challenges its employees to develop a problem solving and creative attitude. This culture has ensured that the company is in a position to deal with the ever-changing market preferences and challenges. The Toyota Company believes that efficiency on its own cannot lead to success. Having this in mind has enabled the company to value information and inputs from all levels of management. It has helped improve the worker's morale, which in turn increase the quality of work they produce (Bhasin 2013).

Conclusion

It is clear that, a case study is one of the most effective methods that a business enterprise can employ to solve administrative problems facing it. It is hence crucial for every business entity to conduct case studies frequently. As such, it helps to determine problems facing their management and possible solutions.