HRM POLICIES

HRM Policies

HRM Policies

Introduction

Sonoco is one of the largest packaging companies in the world, with 17,300 employees and competing in two segments: industrial and consumer packaging. It was founded in 1899 and, along the twentieth century, expanded its operations globally reaching 285 operations in 32 different countries and total revenues of $2.6 billion, by 2000, and although approximately 80% of the sales were in North America, Sonoco had customers in 85 nations. (David 2008:64)This growth, achieved mainly through acquisitions, explains some of the problems experienced by Sonoco's Human Resources management that, by the end of 20th century, was totally decentralized. There were multiple HR functions in each department, holding each own systems, budgets and performance management. This led to non-cooperative competition among divisions and a loss of motivation among employees, as the HR function was unable to link benefits and compensation plans to a central control and accurate performance measurement which at the time used to be done by the own department management. As the company did well financially during the 1980's and most of the 1990's, there was no big pressure to solve the HR problems, but the packaging industry started to face new challenges at the end of the century. Globalization and the growing availability of new technologies (customized packaging techniques, Internet as marketing channel) forced packaging companies to reduce costs and to be more flexible in order to respond to the desires and needs of an increasingly demanding final consumer. (Porter 1987:65)

Equality and Diversity

Through the involvement of all divisional levels Hartley also gained the support of many sceptical employees. From this process derived the main priorities of the HR redesigning process, focusing principally on continuous personal development through feedback and evaluation, transforming the HR vision into a more supporting perspective for the whole business and more diversity in general (flexible work environments, communication of diversity, team focus, etc.) through: Establishing a link between compensation & performance management system to more accurately reflect employee's performance, providing feedback and promoting the accountability of all individuals. (Collis 2008:98)

There was a concern for the creation of a more flexible work environment, developing a definition of diversity which had to be communicated throughout the company by training programs and setting goals also related to women and minority representation. Especially the more flexible compensation plans with just five broader ranged salary steps contributed to reinforce the new culture of Sonoco which stepped away from hierarchical to performance-related compensation. This is an example of a culture concerned about employee issues, creating an environment in which diversity and collaboration would make part of its core values. (David 2008:64)

Through the new performance management system Hartley also managed to implement feedback as a pillar in employee's development, contributing to the also new career management and personal development programs through the 360 degrees evaluations done by several persons with different perspectives on the employees performance, making it therefore much less subjective. Furthermore, close relationships were maintained among employees to enable an open communication among the various divisions and the ...