Introduction
Employees play the most significant role in the success or failure of an organization. It is, therefore, important for the management of the organization to invent ways of improving the productivity of the employees. One of the ways the management can improve the productivity of employees is by ensuring that the employees are satisfied with the working conditions provided. It is important to note that increasing productivity is considered to be one of the most critical objectives of any business organization. It is considered to be an activity that should be performed by HR professionals. Constant improvement is one of the major objectives of the Toyota Company (Rao, 2004). This is only possible through constant innovation. Technology plays a major role in innovation. Therefore, employees need to be given unlimited rights to technology so that they can be able to innovate and increase their productivity.
Main Body
Technology should be enhanced so that it is adaptable to the work performed at Toyota. Proper technological resources will provide ample support to the employees. Technology should facilitate the integration of the jobs performed by employees, increase collaboration, accountability, as well as responsibility, and excellence. It is worth noting that innovative employees form the foundation of organizational productivity. The organization should focus on hiring employees who are highly motivated and who have exceptional talents and then provide them with the required support to retain them for a long period.
A well-structured staffing system will be a valuable tool in ensuring the organization meets the needs of its employees. Such a staffing system should incorporate technology. The staffing system is entrusted with the roles of recruiting exceptional talents, helping workers develop in their careers, and retaining the existing employees. The system should also help the organization build and improve on its reputation as the best employer. Among the elements of a good human resource, staffing system includes job advertisement, succession plan creation, and employee retention, among others (Rao, 2004).
Toyota is a company that operates in a highly competitive business environment. It is, therefore, the obligation of Toyota to ensure that it survives in the competition. One way to do this will be to implement a staffing system that is highly effective. Such a staffing system will enable the company to recruit top talents and retain them in the organization for a long period. Technology should be a major consideration when implementing an effective staffing system. The technology implemented in the staffing system should be able to support recruitment, planning, and help the organization achieve its goals of satisfying and respecting its customers and improving its performance constantly (Dreher & Dougherty, 2002).
Every employee wants to develop their career. The organization where the employee’s work has the responsibility of helping them in developing their careers. Any organization that successfully supports the career development of its employees always reaps the benefits. Such a firm is able to retain the employees for a long time and improve their productivity. Most organizations rely on technology to facilitate career development support for their employees.
Toyota should acknowledge the importance of technology in providing career development support for its employees. One of the ways to achieve this would be to provide self-assessment tools that help the employees in self-assessment. Organizations should offer programs that support career development. There are automated self-assessments that are considered to be the cornerstone of these development programs. For instance, there is a software known as Career Development Software that enables employees to assess various self attributes such as skills, values, reality, as well as personality. These are the programs that need to be implemented by Toyota.
Training is an important role that HR should play to ensure that employees perform to the required standards that can help the organization achieve its objectives. It is the role of the managers of the HR department to ensure that they understand the training requirements for employees and offer the training. According to Dreher and Dougherty (2002), it is important for managers of successful organizations to know the factors that make employees improve on their know-how and skills related to their work. Technology can be highly helpful in offering employee training. The world today revolves around technology, thus training should also be supported by technology to facilitate employees’ understanding of the same. Training of employees is considered to be vital for the success of the organization.
Toyota should develop a training program supported by technology. The training program should incorporate general skills. These are skills such as technical skills, literacy, and organizational orientation. The training program should also incorporate programs that will help the employees prevent themselves from getting into lawsuits and help them perform audits properly (Rao, 2004). Ethical training is another aspect that should be included in training programs. With increasing technology, most organizational activities are being performed online. In response to this, Toyota should offer training on how employees can perform such activities online. For instance, web conferencing will help employees perform online meetings. This will save time and reduce operational costs.
Aligning Performance Management with Strategy
The performance of an employee should always be in line with the strategies of the organization. The performance should help the organization achieve its objectives. The performance evaluation system should, therefore, promote roles, behaviors, and work outcomes appropriate to achieve organizational strategic objectives throughout the firm. The performance evaluation system should have five stages: development of an evaluation form, identification of performance measures, providing guidelines for feedback, provision of procedures to be followed in disciplining and terminating employments, and finally setting a schedule for evaluation. Such a system is similar to the one that is currently used at Toyota Company. One of the major tools that should be used by the company is the Modern Integrated Computerized HR Management System. This will facilitate performance evaluation for employees (Khosrowpour, 2006). Management by Objectives could also be effective in aligning performance with strategies.
HRM Adds Value to the Firm
HRM is important to an organization since it provides the most valuable assets (humans) to the organization. The HRM adds value to the organization through the proper development of competent employees. It helps in getting the best employees who have the most competent skills. Such employees will put in a high performance if they are provided by the favorable conditions by the HRM of that organization. This way, the HRM adds value to the organization. Marginal utility analysis is the analysis of the additional satisfaction that a customer gets from an additional unit of a commodity (Mukherjee, Mukherjee & Ghose, 2003). HR should ensure that the employees perform better, especially in innovation, to improve the consumption and marginal utility. This way, the HRM will again be adding value to the organization because it will increase its performance. However, HR should also be supported by the other departments.
References
Dreher, G., & Dougherty, T. (2002). Human resource strategy: A behavioral perspective for the general manager. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Khosrowpour, M. (2006). Cases on information technology and business process reengineering. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Pub.
Mukherjee, S., Mukherjee, M., & Ghose, A. (2003). Microeconomics. New Delhi: Prentice-Hall of India.
Rao, T. V. (2004). Performance management and appraisal systems: HR tools for global competitiveness. New Delhi: Response Books.