Case Analysis
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 organizations listed in the current Fortune 500. Once you have identified those companies, research best practices used by those organizations, paying particular attention to these HRM functional areas:
Recruitment
Training & Development
Employee/Labor Relations
Performance Management
Compensation & Benefits
Research hints…
In addition to searching for the specific organization’s 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 CVS is one of your organizations, search terms could include:
CVS and best practices
CVS and best HRM practices
CVS and Recruitment
CVS and Training & Development
CVS and Employee Labor Relations
CVS and Performance Management
CVS and Compensation
CVS and Employee Benefits
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 your 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 CVS uses external recruitment, what are some advantages and disadvantages of external recruitment? This should be synthesized from our textbook and lecture readings. 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. What type of recruitment, training, employee/labor relations, performance rewards, and compensation will you recommend based on the best practices of the two organizations presented in your paper?
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.