COOPERATIVE STRATEGY ASSIGNMENT

Cooperative Strategy Assignment

Cooperative Strategy Assignment

Introduction

Human resource management (HRM) refers to the design of formal programs to enhance the effective and efficient use of employees to achieve organizational goals. In essence, it is the people practices and ranges from hiring new employees to developing them into successful organizational members to managing their separation from the company. Human resource (HR) professionals administer these programs and can be generalists or specialists (Cascio & Aguinis, 2005). Generalists have some knowledge about each HR function (i.e., jack-of-all trades), while specialists are experts in one particular function such as recruitment, labor relations, or training.

1. What Major HR Problems Do You Have?

When dealing with practice management and development issues in medium sized practices some of the most difficult problems to face up to and handle are those caused by what can best be described as 'the human factor'. We are not talking about general HR problems here, but rather situations that have the potential to undermine the practice, either through lack of communication between partners or because the senior or managing partner had tried to avoid unpleasant confrontations and allowed a molehill to turn into a mountain (Cascio & Aguinis, 2005).

In firms where one or more of the partners are approaching retirement such problems can be acute. Trying to persuade older partners that they should adopt more modern management modern in order to provide a better service to clients as well as making the business more efficient is often an uphill struggle. A typical situation is the older partner with a sizeable portfolio and a protectionist attitude. He will resist all attempts to integrate him into a departmental management structure as it would mean giving other partners or specialists within the practice access to 'his' clients (Mondy & Noe, 2005).

At best, this means that the firm is missing opportunities to sell added value services such as corporate finance, specialist tax advice or financial services, but there could be far worse problems to be dealt with in the future if he is offering clients advice that he is not qualified to provide. It is not unusual for such partners to discuss 'hypothetical' situations with colleagues who are blissfully unaware that the solutions they propose will be taken straight back to a client and put into practice (Mondy & Noe, 2005). One day factors that should have been taken into account but were never revealed may cause some thing to go horribly wrong, leaving the firm checking the small print in their professional indemnity insurance.

Another problem with older partners clutching all their clients firmly to their bosom is the can of worms that is likely to be revealed when they are eventually prised loose. Where a difficult partner loose. Where a difficult partner is due to retire in a couple of years his colleagues are very likely to allow him to carry on doing things the way he always has rather than cause a lot of unpleasantness and aggravation, but they could be in for a ...