DBN 507 Team Management And Cooperation In Westpac Assessment 1 Answer

Answer :

Task 1: 

Encouraging the staff to fulfill the organisational goals through the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in Westpac:

Westpac’s goal: Westpac is New Zealand’s most famous and leading bank. There are various objectives of Westpac among which one is to help people and business to achieve their financial goals  (Westpac, 2019). The vision of Westpac is to become the greatest bigger company in the world which will grow along with the community, its people also the customer. This makes them the important player in the financial segment.

For achieving this objective, the company needs to have motivated staff. The motivated staff can lead to the efficient and effective performance of the company. There are many theories by which the staff of Westpac can be encouraged to perform effectively and efficiently to achieve the organisational goal. One of the theories is Maslow’s Hierarchy of the needs. In this theory, there are five basic needs namely psychological, security, belonging, self-esteem and self-actualisation needs that are responsible for the encouraged workforce, like, if the employee’s basic needs are fulfilled then it will encourage the employee to perform good ( Business Consulting Solutions LLC , 2009-2019). There are five needs which motivates the employees are given below: 

Physiological needs: These are the basic needs including the salary to survive and a stable job. In Westpac Bank, there are many employees hired and they are motivated because the company has fulfilled the survival needs of employees, like, they earn salary and have job surety through the contract. Through this the bank encourage the staff to work to earn more salary and to complete the organisational targets.

Security needs: These are one the second number because these comes when the person has enough to survive but he/she want the security of the life, like, health insurance plans, pensions, fair work environment etcetera. In Westpac, there is health cover given to the workers which means that the bank motivates the employees for doing hard work to achieve the organisational goals. The employees get satisfied and work for the efficient and effective performance of the Westpac. 

Belongingness needs: These needs come when there is no fear of the personal or private security. This means to fulfil the social friendship goals, co-operation on work to earn respect and praise, social acceptance etcetera. Westpac motivates the employees by arranging the events where two communities (Maori and Pakeha(others)) can communicate the Westpac goals. Thus, the employees working in the bank feel important part of the organisation and perform efficiently and effectively to meet the organisational goals. 

Esteem needs: These needs mean to build the positive self-image of oneself. In this stage the person wants respect, recognition, promotion and good job title. By all this the worker gets satisfied and contribute more to the organisational goals. Westpac motivates the staff by giving recognition (certificate), like, employee of the month etcetera. Also, there is performance appraisal given to the employees in form of intrinsic rewards, like, promotions etcetera. By this, the employees become encouraged to work hard of the company to achieve the targeted goal.

Self-Actualization needs: These needs arise when there is no need of money and experience certificates of the employee and all the employee need is the workplace autonomy, challenging work, expert status, etcetera. Basically, these needs are needed by the CEO, Managing director etcetera. Westpac provide the challenging work to these shareholders or stakeholders and these employees gets motivated and accept the challenging work and try hard to complete the challenge. Thus, the bank makes the employees work in challenging way to achieve the organisational goals.

(b) Five HRM functions to positively influence the staffs of the organisations.

The main five functions of the HRM are as follows: 

1. Recruitment:

This means to recruit as well as select the candidates from the applications receives. It is one of the major task for HRM. It is main duty of HR manager to introduce the strategies for hiring right people for the right position. In this process the job description is designed and candidates are hired on the basis of the job description. The HR department of Westpac is using CV scanner which helps to match the job applications with the criteria feed into the scanner and this provide the ease in the work of studying hundreds of applications. Recruitment is the main responsibility of human resource management within the organisation. Therefore, the HRM has developed the plan and strategy in order to recruit the efficient people for the organisation. Moreover, the design of the requirement contains the specification and entire job description (Gardner et al. 2017).    

2. Employee Training and business Development: 

The functions of directing of HRM involve encouraging the employees to work more willingly and efficiently for the organisation. The personnel programs of the employees are achieved by the guidance and motivation of the employees by the HRM. This leads to positive working environment for the workers where the know how to do the tasks and these actions has led the company to develop the business.

3. Job Analysis: 

Job analysis is divided into three parts, like, job description, job analysis and jb description. Westpac uses three of the parts for hiring right people at right place in right time. HR manager of the company ensures that there is proper job description including tasks to be performed, duties related to the job and responsibilities regarding the job. Also, he designs the criteria of job specification in such a way that the employees can escape from unnecessary applications by mentioning the qualification, skills and experience. Moreover, after the selection process HR manager of Westpac ensures that the employees are not bored from the same shifts. For this the manager does job rotation where the employees are given different shifts at different times or extending he shifts or shortening the shifts. By these ways Westpac make the staff to achieve the targeted goals of the organisation (Westpac New Zealand Limited., 2019).

4. Employee relations: 

As every company somewhere suffer from bad employee relation, Westpac has also affected with this, with an incident of leaking personal data of the employee, different work styles of employees, level of experience between the employees etcetera. There has been a policy set up to solve the matters in between the two employees and HR manager by arranging a small meeting. This has led the company to restore the positive work environment.

Task 2:

a) Analysing one moral issue and two practical issues about the recruitment process that Westpac can apply for the position of the sales manager to encourage compliance with external needs 

Recruitment is the process of attracting a group of qualified people to apply for a particular job position in a company. Hence, for recruiting a sales manager in Westpac, the organisation needs considering some moral and practical issues associated with the recruitment process, so that it can comply with the obvious needs.  

Moral issue- Not considering equal opportunity

One moral issue that Westpac ay face welted to the recruitment process is not considering the equal opportunity for all the applicants irrespective of their age, gender, sexual preference, region, disability and other protected characteristics. Liebkind, Larja & Brylka (2016) stated that when job applicants, who are equally qualified applicants for the same job position and they face discrimination hugely due to their different nationality, ethnicity or gender, gives birth of moral issue.

As per the New Zealand discrimination law, the Human Rights Act 1993, it is illegal discriminating people on the ground of protected features (HRC, 2019). Hence, Westpac must no carry out any such discriminatory practice while recurring a sales manager, as it may affect the company image as well as it may cause legal action against the employer too.

  Practical issue 1- recruitment sources

When it comes to practical issues, Westpac can experience problems related to recruitment sources and budget. Shenoy & Aithal (2018) remarked that recruitment sources are main ways a company can obtain qualified and skilled employees. However, in case the recruitment sources whether it is internal or external sources, it can create problems in getting skilled employees. For example, if an employee is sourced from internal sources and is given some higher post where the employee is unable to suit the post, it can be create issues for Westpac in its business performance. The main reason is that organisational performance depends on qualified, skilled and loyal employees. 

Practical issue 2- recruitment budget

Recruitment budget includes agency cost, advertisements cost and others. Failing to act according to the budget may create an issue in conducting the recruitment appropriately. According to Phillips & Gully (2015), strategic recruiting involves identifying and toning individuals with a determined set of attributes and skill to a specific job besides properly allocating sourcing expenditures. 

However, due to the urgency of recruiting a sales manager, Westpac may face difficulty in conducting recruitment within the allocated budget, which may incur additional recruitment cost. For example, if a sales manager is required, the HR manager needs to put advertisements based on which applications can come and shortlisting of candidates can be done. This process is lengthy as well as costly. Therefore, the recruitment budget is also another practice issues facing by Westpac. 

b) Analysing one ethical and two regulatory problems related to the selection process 

Ethical issue- Not mentioning tasks clearly 

Ethical issue that Westpac can face during the selection process is mentioning tasks unclearly in the job description. It may create conflict and confusion for the appointed candidate, as he will have to perform tasks different from the job description mentioned during selection. It is unethical giving additional duties to present to the employee after screening. According to Picillo et al. (2015), it may affect the performance of the selected candidate as well as the overall performance of the company negatively. Employers often do not update the job description, so that it does not have to offer increased wages to the applicant. 

However, such a mistake can incur even more cost in future, if Westpac does not provide a clear job description of a sales manager. This may lead to selecting an incompetent sales manager with a lack of knowledge as expected by the company.

Regulatory issue 1- Not implementing standard selection process

The regulatory issues related to the selection process that Westpac could experience are not adopting the standard selection procedures and processes and noncompliance of NZ regulations such as Employment Relations Amendments Act 2018 and the Immigration Advisors Licensing Act 2007. 

Good employee relations starts with an effective hiring process including some stages such as preparing the process, describing the job role, advertising, receiving job applications, conducting an interview, selecting candidates and appointing (Employment, 2019d). Not following the standard process of selection may result in beaching regulation. 

Regulatory issue 2- Non-compliance with NZ regulations 

As per the Employment Relations Amendments Act 2018 aims at promoting fairness in the organisation and offering decent working condition and reasonable wages (MBIE, 2019) Therefore, Westpac needs following the regulation while selecting the sales manager, deciding his/her wage and working conditions. Providing fewer wages compared to the standard salary agreed by the law, the company can face fines and contrary publication. For example, before making any recruitment decisions regarding the sales manager, Westpac needs to ensure that equality, fairness and transparency is present in the recruitment process. Further, equality and fairness in offering wages is also another requirement that Westpac needs to comply with. 

Task 3:

a) Analysing one ethical and two regulatory issues related to reward and compensation management 

Ethical issue- Not motivating employees by rewarding effectively 

Compensation management is the process of setting up and managing compensation procedure and policies including pay scales, rate and graduates and whole compensation package. For improving employee performance, besides, basic salary, incentives and other non-financial rewards are offered to the workers. While compensating and rewarding employees, not able to motivate employees can be an ethical issue for Westpac. According to Thompson (2019), for promoting and maintaining effective employee performance, employees need to be motivated time-to-time by offering extrinsic and intrinsic motivations to them. Approaching the problem of employee motivation from an ethical viewpoint can help to overcome the dilemma of the motivating workers genuinely. The main ethical issue while rewarding the sales manager may come up from the financial rewards. The sales manager is liable for increasing sales though the sales manager is not the only person responsible for increasing the sales, it is the entire sales team. Therefore, providing financial rewards to only the sales manager can be ethical issue rather than providing the entire team. In this context, financial reward to the sales team and non-financial benefit like recognition and promotion to the sales manager can be effective in avoiding the ethical issue. 

Regulatory issue 1- Discrimination in compensation and rewards 

Two regulatory issues that Westpac needs taking into consideration are not discriminating in rewarding and compensating employees and offering lawfully entitled benefits to them. 

As of 1 April 2019, the minimum wage for adults in New Zealand is $17.70 per hour for a standard workweek of 40 hours. Hence, all the adult employees in a company, including Westpac need, are entitled to obtain this compensation. Differing the wages or rewards on the ground of gender, race and other factors is prohibited in the law (Newzealandnow, 2019). While compensating or offering prizes to the sales manager, Westpac must remember the consequence of conducting any discrimination; otherwise, the legal issue can be the result of such an action.

Regulatory issue 2- Not offering entitled benefits to the worker 

Further, the benefits that are determined during the employment agreement have to be provided to the employees. It is mandatory to give a written agreement to every employee and failing to do so can lead to a fine of $1000 for the employer. The agreement must include the minimum wage and benefits such as annual holidays and other benefits (Employment, 2019a). Westpac must offer such an employee agreed to the sales manager with the salary and other benefits he will be provided. Not giving these benefits to the sales manager after appointing can be legally harmful to the company as according to employment laws, employers are needed to treat each employee equally irrespective of gender, age, ethnicity etc. In this context,  for avoiding regulatory issues and suing from the employees, the company needs to provide equal benefits to all. 

c) Analysing one moral and two practical issues related to health and safety within the workplace 

Moral issue- Not providing equal opportunity 

Moral issue linked to workplace health and safety can be discriminating people based on gender, nationality, race or religion in terms of offering them the health and safety provisions. Robroek et al. (2012) stated that assessing and reducing health and safety risks by implementing measures for individuals working in the organisation is a moral duty of the employer. 

Not offering equal opportunity in terms of health and safety provisions and training to the sales manager will be against the moral values of business for Westpac. Westpac needs to take this in consideration that Sales managers are generally on the edge of constant pressure from the top management which creates mental health issues by violating work-life balance. Westpac needs to ensure that the sales manager is not pressurised so that a work-life balance is present which can help in improving the performance level of the manager. 

Practice Issue 1- No Review of health and safety at work: 

Regulatory issues that Westpac can encounter linked to health and safety are not ensuring the employer does proper review and scrutiny of action under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. The regulations in the act demand that the employees and others are provided with the topmost level of the guard from health and safety risks, including mental and physical health (Employment, 2019c). Westpac must ensure that all the workers, including the sales manager, are protected from any bullying, harassment or physical harm.

Practical Issue 2- Failing to give a fair and realistic workplace representation 

Failing to offer a realistic and fair workplace representation, cooperation and consultation to the sale manager and resolving the problem can also rise regulatory issue for Westpac.

For example, while taking any action against the sales manager, the company must consider the Employment Relations Act 2000. It means not giving adequate explanation and time to the manager on the disciplinary action to be taken and not listening to his side before taking action is illegal and can create legal offence against the employer (Employment, 2019b). Further, the company should also take the Health and Safety Act 2015 in consideration to ensure that the sales manager is put under extreme pressure to increase sales, neither is asked to work more than the designated work hours. This will help the company to avoid any practice issue related to the recruitment of the sales manager.