Assignment: Case Analysis/Scenario

The Senior Vice President of Human Resources has just informed you that she would like for you to research various HRM practices of Fortune 500 companies. This research will be presented to the board of trustees next month. They want to review other company's best practices to help them realign their strategic initiatives. In organizational studies, the process of reviewing other organizations' best practices and adapting them to one's own organization is called "benchmarking."

Begin by identifying 2 -3 organizations listed in the Fortune 500. Once you have identified those companies, research best practices used by those organizations, paying particular attention to these HRM functional areas:

• Recruitment/On boarding
• Training & Development
• Employee/Labor Relations
• Performance Management
• Compensation & Benefits Incentives/Practices

Research hints...

In addition to searching for the specific organization name "and best practices" or "best HRM practices," you might find it helpful to search for the specific organization name "and recruitment." "Specific organization name and training & development," and so forth.  For example, if Walmart is one of your organizations, search terms could include:

• Walmart and best practices
• Walmart and best HRM practices
• Walmart and Recruitment
• Walmart and Onboarding
• Walmart and Training & Development
• Walmart and Employee Labor Relations
• Walmart and Performance Management
• Walmart and Compensation
• Walmart and Employee Benefits
• Walmart and Employee Incentives
• Etc.

You can follow the above search patterns for the other organizations you select.

As a result of your research, you should synthesize at least two best practices for each of the HRM functional areas.

To begin your paper, provide a summary of key details about the organizations you are using to benchmark HRM best practices. Who are the organizations? What do they do? Why are they a good candidate for benchmarking? This section of you paper only needs to be a paragraph or two.

For the next section of your paper, evaluate the pros and cons of the best practices you have benchmarked in each functional area. For example, if external recruitment is a "best practice," what are some pros and cons of external recruitment? As a guide, your evaluation of best practices in each functional area should be 1 to 2 pages.

For the final section of your paper, justify the top best practices recommendation in each HRM functional area that you will make to the board of trustees. Imagine that you are actually going to present the recommendations to the board. What will you recommend? Why? How will you link them altogether to form a cohesive and persuasive presentation? Hint: Based upon your evaluation of those best practices in the earlier sections of the paper, summarize the key arguments and research support for your recommended practices to justify them to the board. This section of your paper should be 2 to 3 pages in length.