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Major issues in US foreign policies, factors that influence factors that influence foreign policies and critiques to the US
Major issues in US foreign policies, factors that influence factors that influence foreign policies and critiques to the US foreign policies.
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Foreign policies of United States of America government are set up by the governments to how they relate with foreign countries. The government sets standards that also guide how it relates with her citizens and also the organizations in the countries. Different regimes come up with different foreign policy strategies depending on the issues that arise or occur at that time. (James M. McCormick 2009)
First in reference to President Bush administration, the foreign policy of his government policy changed after the terrorist attack on November 11th 2001.
The focus of his government was to shield the Europe country from attack of missiles by North Korea and Iran. This was not to be the case after the terrorist attack. Bush made a speech and vowed that United States of America would use all resources including Intelligence and financial resources at her disposal to fight global terror. He further stated that his government would work to fight against any foreign nation that offered financial aid or was home to the terrorist groups. This action by the Bush Administration came to be known as the ‘Bush Doctrine’ in which the government vowed to work on preventive measures to secure its citizens. It became clear that the change in any of the government policy focused more on preventive action rather than preemptive action.
The other issue on US foreign policy was the on the humanitarian assistance that it offered to different people across the world. Non Governmental organization have also developed whose aim is to give humanitarian aid to different sensitive regions but this has also failed due to government policy which demands that the said organizations comply with anti terrorism policy in the country.
Even with these foreign policies in Bush administration, there were questions on the seriousness of his government to fight terrorism. The critiques had the idea that some of US allies had questionable characters as how they could help the country fight terrorism. Pakistan was such a country. President Bush developed a cordial relationship with President Pervez Musharraf. This was in order to have the support of his government which was a neighbor to Afghanistan which was seen to be the home to the Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Questions arose as to the commitment of the Pakistan government to help fight war against terror as it was reported that the country had in different occasions been a home to the Osama bin Laden.
Obama Administration on the other hand had to invent more strategies in order to complete the Afghanistan war. He ordered 30,000 troops to be Afghanistan. This tripled the number of troops that he inherited from the previous administration. This policy was not welcomed with majority of the citizens but he insisted that the mission of his government was to deny the Al Qaeda group any safe heaven. Most argued that the previous government had used a lot of money in funding the fight and increasing the number of troops would increase the cost of fight too
References
James M. McCormick, American Foreign Policy and Process (2009) ch 7-8
usforeignpolicy.about.com › … › US Foreign Policywww.huffingtonpost.com/…/obamas-afghanistan-plan-o_n_374995.html
Major Issues in the HR Department and Proposed Solutions
Major Issues in the HR Department and Proposed Solutions
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The human resource (HR) department deals with a wide range of activities related to hiring and management of employees within the organization. Some of the responsibilities of the HR include job designs which involves job description, strategic prioritization as well as recruitment ads (Stone, Cox & Gavin, 2020). Other major functions include performance management, compensation and benefits management, maintaining health and safety of the employees, training and development of the existing employees, and navigating legal requirements in regard to the employees’ issues. The HR department faces numerous problems as they try to comply with their tasks including employee retention as well as ensuring workplace diversity. The significance of retaining employees in an organization is that saves the time and other resources that are used to train new employees. On the other hand, recruiting diversity helps in improving the image of the organization, allowing the society feel represented in the organization. However, keeping up with these two tasks is a major challenge for the HR.
Employee retention is one of the major challenges that face the human resource department (Irabor & Okolie, 2019). Losing an employee whether through resignation or termination can be a great loss to an organization as the cost of rehiring another employee are so high. For example, it is estimated that an organization has to spend more than 4,000 dollars to hire a new employee and this can be attributed to the associated costs including recruiting, hiring and training of new employees. Besides, the costs continue to escalate especially when the organization has to pay workers for overtime which they have to cover after one of the employees has left the organization. In addition, there are costs that can add to the high cost of hiring a new employee including hidden costs to turnover, and this impacts to the overall budgeting of the organization. As a result of this, the overall employee morale as well the brand image of the organization can suffer. Resignation or the termination of the employees’ contract may result to resentment within the workforce, with the remaining employees becoming disengaged and may began to seek new employment elsewhere, especially if they fell that they are not valued or motivated in the current place of work.
There are various solutions that can be used to solve the employee retention problem in an organization. One of the solutions include starting the employees with a strong onboard process upon hiring. Many employees often feel that they are not properly welcomed in their place of work, and this might encourage early resentment to the job position. According to statistics, only 12% of the employees feel that their organization does a great job of onboarding after hiring; this is a very low number, and this may be one of the major reasons why many employees resign or terminate their contracts (Anton & Ryan Cox, 2019). An effective onboarding process for the employees can be one of the best tools that an organization can use to increase employee retention in the organization, as it helps to get the employees on the job quickly and efficiently, encouraging employer-employee engagement right from the beginning. Due to effective engagement, the employees are already made aware of what they are expected to do and the organization is aware of what to expect from the employees in regard to performance and productivity. Based on this, an effective onboarding process is one that outlines the jo requirements, goals as well as the organization polices and procedures.
Another solution to improving the retention rates among the employees include offering a competitive pay (Zaharee et al., 2018). Many employees resign from their work because they feel that they are underpaid, while people from other organizations working under the same job description have a higher and better remuneration. Based on this, an employee will quit working from their current organization and seek new employment opportunity from the competitive organization. It is important for organizations to research what their competitors pay their employees and make an increment to their current workforce as this will play a major role in improving the relationship between the employer and the employees. Salary increment can help reduce the number of employees seeking better employment opportunities from well-paying organizations, and this will eventually work in reducing the extra cost incurred from hiring and training new employees.
Another solution to improve the retention rate among the employees include holding regular performance reviews (Khayinga & Muathe, 2018). The HR is responsible in evaluating the performance of the employees and rewarding them through various rewards including promotion and recognition. Lack of employee performance reduces the HR’s ability to recognize areas in the employees that require to be improved to help improve their performance and the overall productivity. Performance evaluation and reviews can be conducted quarterly, semi-annually and even annually to help provide the managers with information regarding the performance of the employees, and this will work to help improve areas that show weakness. Employee performance reviews helps the employee to set goals, understand what is expected of them in the organization, and help the managers in offering rewards for better performance for meeting the set organizational goals. Based on this, the HR department can set a performance system that will help in simplifying the process of evaluating the performance of the employees and provide valuable feedback that will help the employees improve their productivity.
Workplace diversity is another major problem that face the HR department; this is a common problem in many organizations across the globe (Cletus et al., 2018). Every organization requires to have a workforce that is representative of their society. However, this is not the case in many organizations as they tend to hire the same type of employees with the same ideas; this way of hiring is not only bad for the organization, but it is illegal, especially if the organization has no varied reason for rejecting candidates from other races or gender. Equality is one of the major issues in the contemporary society and this means that every organization need to employ at least a specific number of people from various ethnicities and gender to be termed as representative of the society in which the organization is build. Besides, lack of diversity may impact negatively to the organization through stifled creativity and innovativeness.
A major solution to improving workplace diversity includes training the HR managers on diversity and inclusion (Kang & Kaplan, 2019). Most recruiting managers are not aware of the benefits of diverse recruitment, which means that the organizations become the losing side. Training the managers to become race and gender tolerant can be a major step towards increased diversity in the organization, as the managers are able to identify and address diversity issues in the organization and act immediately. With diverse knowledge on diversity and inclusion in the workplace, the HR will begin looking in new places to find a more diverse pool of candidates. They can also engage in referral programs to help attract more diverse workforce.
In conclusion, the HR department has one of the most challenging roles in the organizations which includes managing employees and hiring talents that will help achieve the set goals. As a result, they face major challenges including employee retention and lack of diversity in the workforce. These two challenges have proven to be costly to the organization as they help in building the organization’s image to the consumers. Lack of diverse recruiting in an organization is illegal, and this may open the organization to a possibility of law suits, and this can damage the image of the organization.
References
Anton Shufutinsky PhD, D., & Ryan Cox, M. B. A. (2019). Losing talent on day one: Onboarding millennial employees in health care organizations. Organization Development Journal, 37(4), 33-51.
Cletus, H. E., Mahmood, N. A., Umar, A., & Ibrahim, A. D. (2018). Prospects and challenges of workplace diversity in modern day organizations: A critical review. HOLISTICA–Journal of Business and Public Administration, 9(2), 35-52.
Irabor, I. E., & Okolie, U. C. (2019). A review of employees’ job satisfaction and its affect on their retention. Annals of Spiru Haret University. Economic Series, 19(2), 93-114.
Kang, S. K., & Kaplan, S. (2019). Working toward gender diversity and inclusion in medicine: myths and solutions. The Lancet, 393(10171), 579-586.
Khayinga, C. M., & Muathe, S. (2018). Human Capital Development and organizational performance: review & critique of literature and A research agenda. International journal for innovation education and research, 6(2), 144-153.
Stone, R. J., Cox, A., & Gavin, M. (2020). Human resource management. John Wiley & Sons.
Zaharee, M., Lipkie, T., Mehlman, S. K., & Neylon, S. K. (2018). Recruitment and Retention of Early-Career Technical Talent: What Young Employees Want from Employers A study of the workplace attributes that attract early-career workers suggests that Millennials may not be so different from earlier generations. Research-Technology Management, 61(5), 51-61.
Major Individual Assessment 1
Major Individual Assessment 1
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Case Study 1
Question 1:
The contribution of the lower-level employees to the strategic direction of the business is beneficial to the business since it encourages innovation through the inclusion of the ideas of everyone in the organization. The contribution of lower-level employees is contrary to the usual functioning dynamics in an organization where the highest-paid person makes the decisions. Allowing lower-level employees to contribute to decisions on the strategic direction of the business overturns the strict organizational format for the potential to strike gold through innovative ideas presented by lower-level employees (Spreitzer & Mishra, 1999). An organization is dependent on the human personnel working therein; therefore, every person in the organization is responsible for steering it towards its goals. A company that allows lower-level employees to have a say in its strategic direction can essentially tap into all parts of the organization through the opinions of lower-level employees and make appropriate strategic decisions. Since lower-level employees are more involved with the circumstances of the day to day functions of the organization, they are in a better position to understand a situation and provide a suitable solution (Hamdan & Alheet, 2020). Therefore, the potential for innovation is one benefit of allowing lower-level employees to make decisions about the strategic direction of the organization.
Additionally, allowing lower-level employees to contribute to strategic decisions breeds inclusivity and belonging among the lower-level employees. Once a business shows all employees that their ideas are all considered with the same weight, it gives everyone a sense of importance and value. When all the employees feel valued, they are more loyal and work harder towards the attainment of the business’s strategic goals. Inclusivity allows the employees to feel part and parcel of the business and hence increases the potential for success (Spreitzer & Mishra, 1999). Lower-level employees may also help the top-level management in considering ideas that may not be apparent due to different interactions in the company and different positions of observation. A lower-level employee understands the day-to-day challenges experienced in the business, which may not be the case with the senior employees.
However, including the contribution of lower-level employees to a company’s strategic direction is time-consuming. Decision making is a complex process that, in some cases, demands the leader to make urgent choices (Park, 2015). Suppose the organization would have to include or listen to the contribution of all employees with proposed solutions in the event of an emergency. In that case, the organization will miss the small window of opportunity for making that decision. Such a time-consuming decision-making process is likely to cause losses to the organization, although it breeds inclusivity and teamwork. Additionally, an organizational culture that allows for the inclusion of employees’ contribution demands that all employees be treated equally (Hamdan & Alheet, 2020). This form of equality does not work well in the contemporary bureaucratic employment environment since it either brings about insubordination or creates cracks in the system. Some type of employee discrimination is justified. For instance, some confidential information about the company should not be availed to all employees due to the notion of equality. Therefore, such an organizational culture places the company at risk of exposing confidential data to the public.
Question 2:
The innovative strategy employed by Shutterstock’s executives exposes the company to reputation and compliance risks. Reputational risk is a threat to the goodwill of a business, and it can occur either as the direct result of a company’s actions or as the result of the action of an employee (Hillson, 2006). Shutterstock’s collaborative experimentation encourages the involvement of lower-level employees in decision making. This strategy is contrary to the strict and organized bureaucracy of modern organizations. The bureaucracy in place has the capacity to streamline the company’s objectives to ensure that the entity portrays a suitable image to the rest of the world (Hillson, 2006). Therefore, a strict and structured organizational culture plays a crucial role in creating and enforcing the company’s reputation. Shutterstock collaborative experimentation poses a reputational risk since it intends to try out innovative and experimental ideas.
Although some of the company’s innovative ideas may prove profitable, some ideas are likely to generate losses and additionally damage the company’s reputation. This reputational risk can be minimized by a functional and critical assessment of all innovative initiatives (Nielsen & Randall, 2012). Additionally, when the initiative is assessed, and the company decides to move on with it, Shutterstock should roll a test initiative or program out to a select group of individuals to receive feedback before extending the initiative to the general market. This test launch will allow the company to obtain as much feedback and reaction as it needs to make sure that the initiative does not threaten the reputation of the company (Hillson, 2006). Shutterstock’s collaborative experimentation also poses a compliance risk. Since the company intends to set itself apart from the rest of the competition innovatively, it will most likely venture into industries or sectors that are regulated by specific laws. Therefore, Shutterstock should ensure that they are not fined or locked down for failure to comply with the legal regulations of the sector to which the initiative belongs. Shutterstock should either have a competent legal department or hire competent lawyers to ensure compliance and avoid compliance risk.
Case Study 2
Question 1:
After WWII, Coles experienced rapid expansion and adopted a more advanced horizontal organizational structure. With the rapid expansion of Coles into a series of self-service stores, some additional activities became the company’s concern. For instance, logistics, warehousing and distribution became increasingly critical to the success of the business. Therefore, these activities required more of the business focus.
The horizontal organizational structure is a simple organizational format with two or three layers of command. The top position in this structure is occupied by George Coles, the owner of Coles; the second layer is occupied by different managers, while the third layer is occupied by the employees who report to the second layer managers. The horizontal organizational structure is a simple structure that is exceptionally functional in small startups and is usually maintained by these businesses even as they expand until when it becomes necessary to switch to a different organizational structure (Lunenburg, 2012). Coles used a horizontal organizational structure from its inception due to its simplicity, and since it was a small startup, the structure was functionally efficient. The middle layer level of the organization had fewer managers since food retailing was Coles’ central function. After WWII, Coles experienced rapid expansion, transforming it into a self-service grocery store. Therefore, the organization necessarily developed new functions such as logistics, warehousing and distribution. Coles increased the number of managers to include a logistics, warehousing, and logistics manager to cater to these functions.
Although they experienced rapid expansion, Coles retained the horizontal organizational structure since the requisite functions had not yet exceeded the structure’s capacity. Additionally, this structure eliminates the need for a middle man and hence was the cheaper option for the expanding Coles. The horizontal organizational structure is appropriately flexible and can be adapted to suit any situation that the organization faces (Lunenburg, 2012). In this case, Coles only had to adjust the number and functions of managers to maintain a functional organization after expansion. Finally, the horizontal structure is employee-focused and hence contributes to a sense of belonging in the employees, which nurtures the attitude of collaboration in the organization. This attitude contributed to the further success of Coles.
Question 2:
The product organizational structure best describes Coles structure following the incorporation of the internet and the eventual diversification into Coles service stations. Coles had expanded beyond a specific region and could access a significantly larger market than before these significant advancements. Expanding into a different venture increased the complexity of Coles organization and, therefore, justifies Coles use of a product organizational structure (Lunenburg, 2012). A product organizational structure is similar to a functional organization culture; however, it is more suitable to organizations with multiple differentiated products.
Coles operates grocery stores and service stations; therefore, these form the two divisions into which its product organizational structure is divided. Under these two divisions are separate and distinct functional departments such as sales, marketing and such departments as are necessary to operate Coles adequately (Cabrera et al. 2003). Coles is likely to have selected the product organizational structure model since it allows the business to operate as a single entity while its grocery and petrol station services are differentiated. This differentiation shields the organization from complete failure in case one division fails. Failure in the Coles service station does not affect Coles grocers. Therefore, this structure assists in minimizing the risk of failure.
In addition, a product based organizational structure facilitates the flexibility of the organization. Although Coles activities and operations are becoming increasingly complex, the selected organizational structure allows the company to exercise flexibility. By dividing Coles into two major divisions, the grocery stores and the service stations, these divisions can function as separate entities in their day to day functions since they will all have departments responsible for the core functions of each division. Every division is responsible for its success; hence this facilitates the overall success of Coles. Product organizational structure is essential since it allows employees to specialize in one product hence increases the employees’ experience and expertise to serve the company. Therefore, Coles is likely to select the product organizational structure due to the numerous benefits guaranteed by this organizational structure. Coles is likely to merge the technological innovations with the product organizational structure in place. Since the internet is essential in marketing and advertising, Coles marketing departments in each division will have a social media marketing sub-department to exploit the potential of the internet.
References:
Cabrera, E. F., Ortega, J., & Cabrera, Á. (2003). An exploration of the factors that influence employee participation in Europe. Journal of world business, 38(1), 43-54.
Hamdan, Y., & Alheet, A. F. (2020). Influence of organisational culture on pro-activeness, innovativeness and risk taking behaviour of SMEs. Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 8(1), 203.
Hillson, D. (2006). Integrated risk management as a framework for organisational success. In Proceedings of the PMI Global Congress.
Lunenburg, F. C. (2012). Organizational structure: Mintzberg’s framework. International journal of scholarly, academic, intellectual diversity, 14(1), 1-8.
Nielsen, K., & Randall, R. (2012). The importance of employee participation and perceptions of changes in procedures in a teamworking intervention. Work & Stress, 26(2), 91-111.
Park, R. (2015). Employee participation and outcomes: Organizational strategy does matter. Employee Relations.
Spreitzer, G. M., & Mishra, A. K. (1999). Giving up control without losing control: Trust and its substitutes’ effects on managers’ involving employees in decision making. Group & organization management, 24(2), 155-187.