Downsizing plan of human resources

Human Resource Management

Human resource management is the mechanism by which an organization acquires, deploys, and dismisses staff using different strategic approaches. These activities by any human resource department should strive to ensure full productivity of all staff members, thus the throughput of the whole enterprise or organization, which is then converted to the sales and income acquired by the corporation (Bamberger et al., 2014).

When a business is successful, a company may want to hire more people and redeploy the current team to spend more on a more profitable department or product. The aim is to reap as much as possible from economic prosperity. When things change to the worst, firm executives respond by either adjusting the human resource to reduce the number of employees on the payroll or by redeploying existing staff to more profitable departments to distribute human resource efficiently. The practice ensures that a business always stays afloat even during times of economic crisis thus allowing its survival and a second chance to rise once more. Such a strategy involves careful and meticulous planning to ensure a smooth transition both for the company and for the individual employees so as not to affect their productivity or/and marketability (Belcourt & McBey, 2013).

Citrix Solutions Inc.

Citrix Systems Inc. is a company that offers cloud-based software solutions as its primary product. The company also provides other in-house software services for various small and medium-sized enterprises. These software solutions are used extensively in the day-to-day activities of businesses globally. The company is a source of employment for up to eight hundred people. However, these numbers have drastically reduced in the past few days in various cities where the firm has set up shop. This decline is mainly due to the announcement made by C.E.O. David Hensall that stated the company's intention to lay off several staff members. The C.E.O. said that it was because the company intends to shift focus from in-house software solutions to cloud-based software solutions that are now preferred by many big businesses due to the battery of advantageous features the software solution presents. Following this announcement, staff population in the Raleigh offices reduced from eight hundred to just over six hundred employees. The company also expressed interests in venturing further to offer their software solutions to big enterprises in a move that aims at attracting more significant business for the firm hence bigger profits.

Description of the plan

The plan to lay off staffers involves a well thought out and comprehensive process. This process first identifies the areas that need restructuring. These departments need to be adjusted or dissolved to shift focus to much more lucrative offices. A termination plan is then developed and analyzed first to ensure its implementation will not harm the economic and social standing of the enterprise. The practice allows the program to undergo suitable alterations based on the analysis until the aims of the business are in alignment with the termination plan. The organization then implements the plan and afterward, analyzes it to ascertain that its implementation was concurrent with the aims of the business agenda. This analysis also helps inform the executive on what redeployment measures should be taken in subsequent steps of the plan to ensure strategic distribution of the human resource(Belcourt & McBey, 2013).

The department then analyzes the needs of the surviving employees to ascertain that the remaining workforce is sufficiently equipped to accomplish the needs of the firm even after the reduction of the workforce. A support plan is then developed and implemented for these surviving staff members to compensate for any deficits that may have arisen from the termination of other employees. This support plan describes managerial roles and addresses moral issues as well as providing stress counseling and information on any new positions for surviving employees. The method ensures no vacuum is left in the daily operations of the firm that could cause further collapse of the plan. On top of this, the program seeks to retrain to both exiting and surviving employees as a means to ensure they all retain marketability and productivity. This retraining also appeals to the loyalty of surviving employees as the promise of job security is no longer real, and no employee would want to lose their jobs. This commitment could be useful during tumultuous times in the business. This process is a cyclic one that involves many cycles of the described steps. These sequences in planning and implementation of the actions above occur until the business is satisfied by the result of a particular implementation cycle(Belcourt & McBey, 2013).

Aims of the plan

This restructuring process in human resource aims to cut costs on salaries and remunerations to direct this financial resource towards maintaining and improving the systems of the firm(Belcourt &McBey, 2013). These funds are used to enhance the cloud-based operations for the company as well as cover the deficits that may arise from discounts that Citrix solutions Inc. intends to introduce on their products. The restructuring process also allows the company to concentrate their efforts on more lucrative niches such as cloud-based software solutions by reducing the number of traditional in-house IT experts. This restructuring also enables the company to adjust to the changing nature of customer demands from conventional software solutions to cloud-based solutions, especially for big businesses. This helps maintain the business and keep it relevant in the market of software solutions. The plan also ensures that terminated employees retain their marketability, as they will need a living after termination. Surviving employees also maintain a level of productivity that does not threaten the day-to-day operations of the company, and the redeployment plan for surviving employees addresses these concerns wholly.

Rationale for the plan

This plan is most useful for the firm. This is because of many common factors that call for the move to terminate some staff members to ensure business objectives are met. One such element is the increasing popularity of cloud-based software solutions. This factor makes it imperative that the business shifts focus from traditional in-house software solutions to the more efficient and versatile cloud-based software solution (see Appendix). This move will require specialized staff that understands the workings of cloud-based software systems thus eliminating the need for generalized software experts. Another such factor is the drastic change in customer needs as experienced very often in the business of software systems. The dynamic trend is because these systems are always improving and customers want every new feature available in the market to be incorporated in the operations of Citrix Solutions Inc. thus making it necessary to direct more focus or shift it entirely to the niches that customers want to be addressed. These changes in consumer needs inform the processes of any business, and it is thus imperative that Citrix solutions also adjust accordingly to meet them. Citrix solutions also target to expand their scope of operations to target big enterprises. This move will ensure the business acquires large software contracts and deals that translate into higher revenue and profits for the company. However, these significant corporations prefer cloud-based software systems. The successful development of such systems requires that the business adjusts its workforce to retain only specialized staff to reduce the cost of production of these systems. This move not only attracts more prominent business deals but also helps to reduce the amount of money spent paying developers and other support staff. Furthermore, the resultant number of workers will make administration and supervision more efficient thus directing more focus on the quality of work done which will be reflected in the quality of the resultant product thus giving it an advantageous edge over the competition in the market(Belcourt & McBey, 2013).

Merits of the plan

It is essential that this plan work towards achieving business objectives of the firm (Yu et al., 2013). This termination plan is quite beneficial to the operations of the company. It helps to reduce the cost of production of software solutions as it eliminates the need to pay money in salaries and remunerations. The plan also helps reduce the workload on managerial staff thus directing more focus towards the quality of the product that makes it more appealing to the target market than the competition. The downsizing plan also brings to perspective the strengths and expertise of all staff members thus allowing efficient redeployment of staff members according to knowledge and experience. This translates to the better productivity of the entire workforce that is essential in any business enterprise. This plan is also well structured to allow a smooth transition for all staff members as it provides sufficient remuneration for laid-off staffers as well as ensuring it does not affect productivity and morale of surviving staff members. This lay off also provides the firm with a source of funds to cover the various discounts offered by Citrix Inc. until such a time as the deductions will no longer be necessary. This ensures products of the firm are not sold at a loss that would harm the financial position of the company. Retraining programs also help all the employees retain marketability that increases the productivity of surviving employees and eases the job seeking process for existing staff members.

Demerits of the plan

This plan, like many things in life, is imperfect. This is because it causes a loss of employment sources for many people that affect their economic, social and even emotional well-being of the affected people. This is despite the remunerations made to them as they will still have to go searching for new jobs. Furthermore, the plan to lay off such a large number of employees from the firm gives the semblance of impending economic weakness within the company. This would be very harmful to the business as it may cause the competition to begin a series of activities aimed at taking advantage of the state of the firm during this transitional period. The implementation of this plan also causes an increase in the workload of other non-managerial staff members to compensate for the reduced number of employees. This could inadvertently cause increased stress among essential staff members that could affect their throughput and consequently harm the daily operations of the business. The plan also involves termination of several contracts between the firm and some of the laid-off employees. This may present some legal issues that would require the attention and funding from the company thus diverting attention and financial resources from the primary objectives of Citrix Solutions Inc.

Conclusion

In summary, human resource involves acquiring and allocating human resource effectively and efficiently throughout all the departments of a company. The process is subject to many economic and social conditions. Downsizing human resource in a group is a meticulous process that involves various steps and procedures. All these methods need to be aimed at retaining the economic, social and environmental stature of the firm. This is done through careful analysis and gradual implementation to keep the firm intact and efficiently running during the transitional period. This process of downsizing a human resource department is done to ensure that the business still stands a good chance to attain its business objectives while at the same time earning the business revenue and profit. The process is not a perfect one as it causes social and economic challenges for laid-off staffers but is essential if a business is to survive. A company would instead stand to serve much more in future by sacrificing a few in the present instead of collapsing and in its wake harming the economic and social well-being of many people.

Appendix

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source: Google Images

References

Bamberger, P. A., Biron, M., & Meshoulam, I. (2014). Human resource strategy: Formulation, implementation, and impact. Routledge.

Belcourt, M., and McBey, K. (2013). Strategic Human Resources Planning, fifth edition. Nelson, ISBN 978-0-17- 650694-0.

Yu, M. M., Chern, C. C., & Hsiao, B. (2013). Human resource rightsizing using centralized data envelopment analysis: Evidence from Taiwan's Airports. Omega, 41(1), 119-130.

Cloud Computing Trends: 2017 [Table of trends in cloud based software solutions]. (n.d.).

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