Ocmara Industries Workforce Perspective

Strategic Positioning and Labour Market

OcMara Industries has established itself as a significant player in the oil and gas industry, producing over 2 billion barrels of crude oil per year. However, shifting the focus to sustainable energy sources will create significant challenges from the workforce perspective. OcMara would likely retain an advantage in the Japanese labor market, but staying competitive internationally would require a thorough analysis of the current talent pool and developing a workforce planning strategy. Otherwise, the company would not attract desired employees or ensure the retention of valuable specialists in the sustainable energy sector.

SAP Strategical Positioning in Competitive MarketPlace

SAP is a multinational IT company best-known for its enterprise software products in business management, resource planning, and customer relations. Whereas SAP’s and OcMara’s spheres of operation significantly differ, one can find certain similarities between the companies’ situations in the labor market. SAP has to attract and retain talented employees in strong competition with well-known brands, such as Microsoft and Facebook (Clark, 2019). The Germany-based IT company succeeded in this department — in 2019, SAP won a Grand Prix of the prestigious Employer Brand Management Awards (Wang, 2019). Therefore, OcMara would benefit from exploring the elements of SAP’s strategic positioning in a highly competitive labor market.

Most importantly, SAP centered its employer characteristics around creating a positive employee image. Large-scale companies can routinely sway the candidates they want to recruit with big salaries; as such, it might be beneficial to focus on a humanitarian aspect to gain an advantage. For example, SAP’s award-winning “Bring everything you are – be everything you want” campaign portrayed work as another element of a person’s life (Clark, 2019). As a result, the potential employees became aware that the company would not treat them as a utilitarian resources, interesting for it only as useful professionals.

SAP also introduced several employee-centered values from the corporate branding and organizational image perspectives. According to Clark (2019), the company offered an opportunity — career development on employee’s terms, purpose — a perceived legacy of work, and growth — a chance to improve as a professional. In addition, SAP’s campaign provided evidence of supporting women and people with disabilities in leadership (Clark, 2019). Overall, OcMara could utilize similar concepts for recruiting new specialists and retaining staff poached by the competitors. These stimuli will make a solid addition to usual financial motivation or if increasing salaries becomes not feasible at some point.

Changing Labour Market Conditions and its Impact on the UK

The labor market can be described as a volatile segment significantly affected by the situation in the global economy. According to Davies (2021a), the events occurring in macroeconomics ultimately determine how many staff members need to be recruited, retained, and developed. As such, a top-level HR specialist must analyze the current and future market trends to organize workforce planning. The balance of demand and supply in the labor market may drastically change due to concurrent economic circumstances. For example, if the demand for hiring is high relative to workforce supply, it becomes more difficult for a company to attract new employees (Davies, 2021a). In this regard, the COVID-19 pandemic made the labor market significantly “looser” as employers had to save funds by eliminating redundant jobs.

The UK energy sector faced significant problems in 2020, and some of the issues persisted in 2021. According to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (2021), energy generation from renewable suffered the most. On the contrary, the share of fossil fuels in UK energy generation rose to 43,4%, the highest share since the second quarter of 2019 (Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, 2021). Therefore, the labor market in sustainable energy may become looser in the short perspective, making it easier to recruit qualified staff.

However, a temporary increased demand and price of fossil fuel creates a window of opportunity for expansion in the sustainable energy sector. According to Higginbotham (2021), 46% of UK businesses planned to invest in a renewable generation — more than in other technologies in the industry. Therefore, the trend in the labor market of the energy sector may change to its tightening. The companies would actively seek professionals in renewable energy technologies. Increased salaries, promises of work importance for humanity, and perspectives of professional growth would likely be used to recruit and retain the desired candidates.

Role of the Government, Employers and Trade Unions

In conclusion, it should be mentioned that the UK government, employers, and trade unions hold responsibility for filling the labor market of the energy sector with a necessary number of skilled workers. The UK economy belongs to a market type with limited government regulation. Therefore, the government can incentivize certain areas of the energy sector by providing the companies operating in them with subsidies. Employers can contribute to the development of necessary skills by organizing professional training for the staff members or making certain skill sets popular by hiring professionals in particular areas. Lastly, trade unions can help the members to meet their skill needs by championing employees’ rights for lifelong professional development.

Workforce Planning and Recruitment Pack

The creation of the strategy for workforce planning and recruitment requires a thorough examination of several aspects. Firstly, it is necessary to understand the possible benefits associated with workforce planning. Secondly, the company needs to assess the current condition of the workforce to reveal problematic spots. Finally, it is crucial to realize the difference between particular techniques used in employee recruitment, selection, and retention processes and the nuances in their application. The lack of understanding may lead to undesirable consequences for the company’s reputation and hinder attracting and retaining qualified personnel.

Impact of Workforce Planning in Terms of Forecasting Demand for Labour

Workforce planning is an essential process in forecasting an organization’s demand for labor in particular segments and aligning recruitment with contemporary trends in the labor market. According to Zimpel (2021), workforce planning is divided into “hard” and “soft” aspects. The hard aspect is focused on the organization’s internal needs, such as predicting how many people must be employed and what skills they should possess. Hard workforce planning deals with metrics and numbers, which are analyzed in order to make accurate estimations. The soft aspect concentrates on defining a strategy used for information assessment purposes (Zimpel, 2021). Overall, two aspects of workforce planning complement each other in acquiring labor market intelligence necessary for supporting longer-term business goals.

Evaluation of Techniques Used to Support the Process of Workforce Planning

Workplace planning can be supported through various techniques, such as analysis of promotion/demotion rates, turnover rates analysis, and critical incident analysis. Promotion rates analysis makes it possible to get an insight into the critical workforce parameters — average promotion time and career path ratio (CIPD, 2021a). This information is valuable since it allows to reveal how much time the employees have to spend in one position and examine the possibilities for alternative career development within the organization. Demotion rate analysis reveals the reasons behind demotions and lets one uncover the possible systematic problems in recruitment. Turnover rates analysis assists with answering the questions of why employees are leaving and what employee types are more likely to leave the organization (Maxwell, 2021). Lastly, critical incident analysis helps support the employees’ professional development since critical incidents provide a dramatic demonstration of the impact caused by specific behavior (Serrat, 2017). As such, this technique is valuable for establishing the difference between positive and negative professional habits and attitudes. Overall, these techniques should be applied during the initial workforce analysis because they provide information vital for making the next steps in planning.

Appraisal in Talent Pools Development

A professional appraisal is a necessary condition for workforce planning and talent pool development. According to Zimpel (2021), successful workforce planning requires workforce analysis, determining future workforce needs, and identifying gaps in workforce skills and knowledge. In the OcMara case, appraisal of employees’ skills, abilities, and talent would allow determining how many specialists must be hired to ensure a smooth shift of focus to the sustainable energy sector. Additionally, the appraisal would help identify the most effective employees and manage possible risks in the transition phase. For instance, scenario planning associated with determining future workforce needs facilitates the formulation of contingency and adaptation plans (Zimpel, 2021). Lastly, the professional appraisal may uncover underlying issues within OcMara’s organizational structure and, consequently, address them. For example, if appraisal highlights a systematic lack of enthusiasm among the OcMara employees, it would become clear that members of the company’s talent pool should be provided with engaging purpose and robust learning mechanisms.

Social Media, Advertising, Interviews and Job References in Recruitment and Selection

UK employers actively use social media, advertising, interviews, and job referencing during employee recruitment and selection. According to CIPD (2021b), 46% of employers attracted new candidates through professional networking sites, and 25% found candidates via social networks. In regard to advertising, 41% of surveyed employers succeeded in advertising to the internal talent pool, and 24% managed to attract candidates by offering flexible working arrangements (CIPD, 2021b). Overall, nearly all attraction strategies were less effective in 2020, except for employee referral schemes (CIPD, 2021b). The reduced job supply induced by the COVID-19 pandemic has left potential employees with limited options.

Candidate selection strategies were mainly based on various types of interviews. The most popular choice among the employers was competency-based interviews (60%), followed by CV content-based and strengths-based interviews used by 49% and 38% of companies, respectively (CIPD, 2021b). Overall, the two-staged recruitment and selection process via described methods allows evaluation of a significant number of candidates. However, such an advantage comes at a price of possible bias and inaccuracies. According to CIPD (2021b), only 68% of line HR managers in surveyed companies followed objective assessment criteria in recruitment. Furthermore, only 54% of line managers were provided with training in recruiting (CIPD, 2021b). Therefore, workforce planning should start with ensuring competency among the line HR managers. Otherwise, the company can miss on recruiting capable and talented candidates.

Use of Zero-Hour and Contractor Contracts

In regard to zero-hour contracts, one should realize that this form of employment is mainly used in the UK. As such, OcMara should not rely on zero-hour contracts in other countries of operation since they might be illegal. In the UK, zero-hour contracts are used when one party may ask another to perform work, but there is no minimum set amount of working hours (Davies, 2021b). Furthermore, the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 banned exclusivity clauses for zero-hour contracts (Davies, 2021b). Therefore, this type of contract allows the employer to save funds when there is no work available at the cost of total employee freedom. Overall, a large transnational company such as OcMara should not hire on zero-hour contracts, especially in positions related to developing a new strategic direction. The employees should be available and ready for work and training, whereas a zero-hour contract virtually contradicts those conditions.

Contractor or self-employment contracts impose significantly more mutual obligations on the parties. This type of employment still does not guarantee those self-employed workers will be available or do the required work (CIPD, 2021c). As such, new important positions in the organizational structure should be occupied by fully employed staff. However, unlike in the case of zero-hour contracts, the employer may still possess a significant degree of control over the employee (CIPD, 2021c). Therefore, OcMara may recruit new self-employed contractors to non-critical positions, but it is advised to include legally-appropriate sanctions in the contract’s text.

Express and Implied Terms of Contracts

Express terms of contracts can be defined as the rights and obligations of the parties explicitly written in the text. According to the National Education Union (NEU, 2020), express terms normally include such information as job title, rates of pay, holidays, and work hours. On the other hand, implied terms remain silent due to their obviousness. For example, it is implied that the employer would not act arbitrarily, and the employee would obey reasonable and lawful work-related instructions (NEU, 2020). Those terms are considered implied in every employment contract; there is no need to express them in written form. In addition, a notion of custom and practice defines an unofficial practice universally accepted within an industry or organization (DavidsonMorris, 2020). Custom and practice act similarly to implied contract terms but differ from them by the smaller scope of application, which may be limited to a single company.

Role Information and Socialisation in Onboarding Programme

Onboarding or induction is crucial for corporate employee retention efforts. According to Green (2020), onboarding can be defined as employee adjustment to the new job and working environment. Therefore, onboarding quality is essential for ensuring solid job satisfaction levels and retention of young and talented but relatively inexperienced staff. Green (2020) recommends spending the first few weeks on spreading role information to new employees personally and through digital tools such as social media. Through this strategy, the company will be able to socialize with new employees and disperse important information regarding the brand values and organizational culture. Larger companies like OcMara may organize onboarding in the shape of an official learning course combining one-on-one and group learning sessions, especially if mass recruitment of new personnel is planned.

Conclusion

In summary, it should be stated that workforce planning and recruitment is a complex effort. The process requires attention in all stages — from the initial examination of line HR managers’ competence and work discipline to selecting the most beneficial contract types with future employees. Furthermore, larger organizations must invest in onboarding and employee appraisal techniques. Otherwise, employee performance would suffer, and the company would also lack the information necessary to make new steps in workforce planning and develop contingency strategies for solving potential problems.

Retention of Talent Proposal Presentation Pack

The company may be able to attract and eventually recruit talented employees. However, the inability to motivate staff members and provide them with development opportunities would create a danger of dysfunctional employee turnover. In this regard, recruitment strategy must be supplemented with talent retention efforts aimed at preventing the loss of the best-performing, most talented people to the competitors. Having an excellent recruitment process would be of little use if the company could not maintain the advantage.

Motivational Issues, Management Style, and Retention Rates

Flaws in the motivational part and management style may produce a direct negative impact on employee retention and turnover rates in OcMara. According to Maxwell (2021), poor relationship with line managers is one of the key reasons for resignation since they lead to growing employee disengagement. The lack of flexibility, fair treatment of personnel, and care for employee well-being may also contribute to lower retention and higher turnover rates. For instance, perceived unfairness in reward distribution on the manager’s behalf is one of the most potent reasons for resignation (Maxwell, 2021). Therefore, OcMara should consider developing means for motivating new employees and providing them with fair and flexible management.

One of the possible motivational tools lies in providing the personnel with opportunities for career and professional growth. Maxwell (2021) recommends maximizing skills and career development opportunities to maintain sufficient motivation levels. In this regard, OcMara can capitalize on the recent focus shift to sustainable energy sources since new employees will be placed at the center of the ambitious plan. As such, they will have no lack of engaging activities and opportunities for career growth.

Training, Development, and Workplace Characteristics

An organization should treat all employees with fairness, honesty, and dignity regardless of their talent level. As such, workplace characteristics should be equal both for the most and least talented employees. However, it would also be fair and efficient to reward staff members whose talent was evaluated through objective professional appraisal with additional training and development opportunities. Gamba Quilliam (2021) suggests involving such individuals in talent development activities — coaching, mentoring, networking, and secondments. Meeting and working with senior members of the organization provides talented employees with valuable professional insights and opens new learning opportunities. Secondments, or “loans” to another part of the organization, such as a branch in a different country, allowing talented employees to increase their network of contacts and gain important experience. In addition, secondments prepare talented employees for assuming leading positions in the organizational structure once they become available.

Overall, talent retention on the group level depends on favorable workplace characteristics, in particular — just and fair treatment for everyone. However, organizations should constantly conduct performance appraisals in order to identify exceptionally talented individuals. Once this goal is accomplished, those employees should be recognized and rewarded with extra training and career development opportunities. In the end, the retention of key individual talents ensures smooth succession of leadership and prepares the organization for various scenarios that may occur in the future.

Coaching, Mentoring, and Performance Reviews

Coaching and mentoring are two seemingly similar yet quite distinctive activities aimed at talent development within the organization. These two measures of talent pool support are based on one-on-one conversations (Hayden, 2021). The key difference lies in the nature of the relationship between the more and less experienced employees. Whereas coaching is an organized activity aimed specifically at producing optimal performance and improvement in work, mentoring can be defined as a less directive and more personal approach (Hayden, 2021). Therefore, coaching should be actively used in a broad talent pool since it would allow for improved performance on the organizational scope. On the contrary, mentoring by the senior employee seems to be more effective in developing individual talents who perform better than others, according to professional appraisal results.

In this regard, performance reviews based on objective criteria can be perceived as a key instrument for identifying the most talented staff members in a broad talent pool. An objective and clear performance evaluation are necessary for preventing unfairness and personal preference bias in talent selection and development. Performance reviews allow us to reliably track high-performing employees and reveal areas in which other staff may be struggling. As a result, it becomes possible to outline relevant themes for further coaching sessions.

Benefits of Diversity in Talent Pools

Diversity rates have become an essential metric in talent pool condition evaluation within modern organizations. According to Wahab and Green (2021), diversity is defined as recognizing differences and acknowledging the benefit of having different perspectives involved in the decision-making process. In addition, diversity in the workforce allows the company to better associate itself with its customer base (Wahab and Green, 2021). Therefore, diversity in the available talent pool would bring two significant benefits to a transnational company such OcMara.

Firstly, having a diverse workforce would underscore OcMara’s commitment to proclaimed work characteristics of equal opportunities in career development. The employees would see that OcMara’s senior management is sincere in its statements, which would likely improve their job satisfaction levels and trust in the corporate values. Secondly, a diverse workforce would be well-suited for working with customers in vastly different markets. Since OcMara operates in Europe, Asia, and America, employing staff familiar with regional market features and national cultures would benefit corporate effectiveness. Therefore, reaching and maintaining a solid diversity rate in workforce composition would be beneficial both from the business and reputational perspectives.

Costs Associated with Dysfunctional Employee Turnover

An inability to utilize appropriate talent retention measures may cause severe negative consequences for the organization. High turnover rates among the line personnel may be problematic but acceptable in certain areas of business. However, dysfunctional or high-performer employee turnover is a significant issue, which would inflict direct and indirect costs on the company. These costs may be high, even crippling for the smaller organization.

In regard to direct costs, the company would have to organize a quick search of candidates to replace the former employee. As a result, time and funds would be lost in the recruitment and selection process (Green, 2020). It would be necessary to proceed through such stages as job advertising, interviews, onboarding, and training. The more important the exiting employee was, the more time and cost it would take to find and prepare an adequate replacement.

However, the indirect costs are likely to be even more severe. Most importantly, the former employee would bring all their professional knowledge to the new employer. This information may get passed to the competitors, especially if the existing staff member was mistreated. In addition, a loss of productivity is likely to occur even if the replacement candidate is competent. Therefore, high-performing staff must be kept motivated and fairly rewarded for their impact.