A Report on Volvo Corporation’s People Management Approaches (Essay Sample)

A Report on Volvo Corporation’s People Management Approaches Introduction In recent times, people management strategies have evolved because of increased competition and technological advancement. Volvo Corporation is a globally recognized manufacturer of automobiles like; trucks, buses, and construction equipment among other industrial applications. Volvo’s major market segments are in North America, Europe, and Asia, with the latter currently experiencing tremendous growth as well mergers and acquisitions (Silviera et al., 2022). According to Pattanayak (2020), a global establishment is vulnerable to people management challenges like; limitation by cultural diversity, geographical differences, training and talent nurturing capabilities, and administration of ethical issues and policies, and Volvo Corporation is not an exception. However, Volvo Corporation’s success is attributed to its project team development and later performance because individuals undergo a thorough onboarding process, continuous motivation, and learning phases. Moreover, smooth communication structures and investment on training and team-building have contributed to the success of human resource tactics at Volvo Corporation because they have eased the management of diverse workforce distributed across the globe. Excellent human resource management improves employee retention and sustains enterprise functionality while increasing leads and revenue amidst challenges. This report encompasses a through interrogation of Volvo’s human resource management challenges as well as a detailed analysis of resolutions taken while weighing their effectiveness. People Management Situation at Volvo Corporation: Employee Engagement At Volvo Corporation, employee engagement is a key challenge naturally attributed to working in large teams of individuals in different parts of the world with different beliefs, personalities, behaviors, goals, and expectations. Employee engagement is multi-faceted and it rides on the workers’ contentment and their passionate commitment to the job. Employees need to be assigned meaningful duties, work in cooperative environments, and get recognized or appreciated for their efforts and contributions. For instance, in the 1990s, Volvo was registering high absenteeism cases across their manufacturing plants because employees were dissatisfied with the working environment adopted (Silveira et al.,2022). Moreover, employee personal and career growth, autonomy, and fairness also define employee engagement, thus, underlining its overall importance. Inappropriate employee engagement can result to barriers like; improper organizational planning, policy making, communication, employee demotivation, performance management, skill development and training (Andersson and Weiland, 2023). Volvo is a global establishment and these challenges can overwhelm and mess up the complex business activities. Proper people management planning involves aligning the workability of an organization now and in the future to realize the business goals. Therefore, organizations should engage and organize the staff to make people resourceful while aligning their behaviors towards realization of corporate goals. Engaged employees behave better because proper relations influence their motivation towards their jobs. Motivation is a repetitive process because expectations spur people to act to fulfill their goals. Corporations should create incentives that drive their employees to perform excellently to achieve the set global standards. According to Morris, Grehl, Rutter, Mehta et al. (2022) motivation can affect the team performance depending on whether it is done extrinsically or intrinsically. The latter boosts individual satisfaction thus increasing commitment to work and the moral determination to see the project out successfully. According to Maslow’s theory of motivation, people have levels of importance because they always yearn for more success based on their achievements (Noltemeyer et al., 2021). Therefore, organizations must align their motivation and reward initiatives towards increased employee engagement. For instance, some employees prefer financial incentives that reward them based on individual job output as some exceed the basic standards. However, certain reward systems like piece work could interfere with quality and production standards because they only equate to quantitative performance. Also, some employees may become inflexible to switching jobs according to organizational arrangements or introduction of new processes or technological systems. Organizations must evaluate the reward systems to avoid violating the employee engagement doctrines while boosting productivity and prosperity. Motivated team members are willing to participate in brainstorming forums with their managers to find solutions to upcoming challenges. Moreover, these team members publicize and celebrate the small project successes that drive them to realize the goals and objectives. Excellent employee engagement begins with recruiting the right individuals and organizing them in teams. The team structure needs frequent assessment to strike the right balance and ensure compatibility of skills and levels of experience. At Volvo, just like other multinationals, incoherence and inconsistent performances are witnessed because bigger and imbalanced teams struggle to make decisions and find long lasting solutions (Toldbod and van der Kolk, 2022). At Volvo Corporation, the situation was worse because before 1971, the company had and an individual-based and less-productive monotonous working style that comprised employee satisfaction and economic growth. The company exploited people’s specialization skills and compromised collective growth and the future exploration. Therefore, Volvo Corporation employees experienced boredom and unfair job distribution that made them prioritize quantitative performance over qualitative service delivery. Moreover, managers struggle to recruit new team members because inconsistent results disrupt forecasting strategies that determine the kind of positions to fill as well as the rightful candidates for them. According to Mr. Petersson, a long term serving project manager at Volvo, it is hard to alter teams because some staff members are unchangeable while others are not skilled enough to handle particular tasks (Shurrab, n.d.). Volvo Corporation was experiencing high absenteeism as many employees were taking sick leaves, so teamwork was not fruitful (Oudhuis and Tengblad, 2022). The problem advanced because wrong people were hired and Volvo experienced high employee turnover. Performance appraisal and progress monitoring only makes better project teams because imbalance roles and improperly defined working methods are recognized in time and corrective measures taken. Streamlining the team chemistry builds individual employees and boosts their productivity in meetings. Critical Analysis of Job Enrichment In response to employee engagement challenges witnessed at Volvo Corporation, the management adopted multi-dimensional HR initiatives to upgrade the workability of the teams and the general environment. Volvo Corporation resorted to job enrichment as a solution to motivating a dissatisfied lot through setting up new challenges, increasing autonomy, employee responsibilities, and fostering better relationships (Marta et al., 2021). At Volvo, job enrichment was anchored on Herzberg’s Two Factor theory of motivation comprising of hygiene and motivation (Pattanayak, 2020). The theory highlights that the management must engage the workers and inspire them to take responsibility and accountability of their performances, and this should be accompanied by conducive working environments and satisfactory remunerations. At Volvo, this motivation strategy was employed to restore interest at work, a special element that was eroded by intensive specialization. According to Silveira, Quental, and Van Heck (2022), in 1974, three years after Gyllenhammar became president, a new plant was established and it worked differently because his vision was to provide better working conditions. The president retaliated that work satisfaction could be accomplished by altering certain organizational practices while still upholding economic growth. Moreover, Volvo Corporation feels like home for all the staff members regardless of their contributions. Project managers are encouraged to follow up all matters including employees’ private lives even if certain aspects are irrelevant to the company vision. According to Mr. Petterson, employees feel the company concern and are motivated to the course even during the tough times (Shurrab, n.d.). Sometimes, a deep-rooted business culture could limit behavioral change because it instills fear, uncertainty and reluctance to accomplish organizational objectives. Therefore, the president oversaw a paradigm shift from specialized monotonous working strategies to group works that exemplified tremendous success at the Kalmar plant. According to Ellegard (2020) Volvo Corporation succeeded in adopting autonomous and innovative project teams at their Kalmar and Uddevalla plants where work groups with well-stipulated and interrelated tasks were developed to replace the dysfunctional specialization approaches. The groups were comprised of 15 to 25 members and they autonomously shared responsibilities and could manage the work seamlessly without affecting other teams (Flores and Bauman, 2024). Moreover, Volvo embraced job rotation plans at the two assembling plants to alleviate boredom and make employees more flexible to the work. Also, job rotation helped to disseminate jobs and tasks fairly while upholding qualitative and quantitative standards thanks to well spread out physical demands. This approach reaped more benefits to Volvo Corporation because the employees were more productive in quality assurance such that...