Case Study on Cafe Espresso Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

On Cafe Espresso - Case Study Example Thus, from being the number one in the market, Caf Espresso has slipped to the number three position. Internally, the company suffers high staff turnover and low employee morale thus, hampering the ability of the workforce to convey excellent customer service. In this situation, two personalities have been instrumental in regaining the leadership which had been enjoyed by the specialty coffee retailer-the charismatic Chief Executive Officer Ben Thomson and the new global HR director Kam Patel. In solving the problem that the company faces, Ben Thomson has drawn the company's intended direction while Kam Patel aligned its workforce with the identified goals and objectives. This example illustrates how strategic human resource management works in a business organisation. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2007) defines strategic human resource management as a "general approach to the strategic management of human resources in accordance to the intentions of the organisation on the future direction it wants to take" adding that "it is concerned with longer-term people issues and macro-concerns about structure, quality, culture, values, commitment, and matching resources to future need." What becomes apparent in these definitions is the function of the human resource department to align the company's workforce for the attainment of its goals. Human resource alignment calls for the integration of people with the results the company is trying to obtain (CIPD 2007). Doing this provides various benefits for a business organisation. In the case of Caf Espresso, this is manifested by the competitive advantage that it enjoys from the alignment.The importance of human resource in a business organization is emphasized by strategic human reso urce management. John Purcell who is known to have pioneered in this field, highlighted the importance of employees in his research which emphasized the huge role played by the company's workforce as "strategic partners." This research strongly supports the highly economist viewpoint of Grant (2002: 219) of "aligning employees with organizational goals." Schuler and Jackson (1987) gave a more precise description on how management should "align" their workforce to support the company crafted strategy. Their conclusion was: If management chooses a competitive strategy of differentiation through product innovation, this would call for high levels of creative, risk-orientated and cooperative behaviour. The company's HR practices would therefore need to emphasise "selecting highly skilled individuals, giving employees more discretion, using minimal controls, making greater investment in human resources, providing more resources for experimentation, allowing and even rewarding failure and appraising performance for its long run implications" - on the other hand if management wants to pursue cost leadership (the model) suggests designing jobs which are fairly repetitive, training workers as little as is practical, cutting staff numbers to the minimum and rewarding high output and predictable behaviour.