Thesis on "Barclays Human Resources Strategy Analysis"

Thesis 8 pages (2171 words) Sources: 5 Style: Harvard

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Barclays Human Resources Strategy Analysis

Human resources represent the most valuable resource a company can

exploit in its activity. Other resources, like financial, technical, or

informational ones, are useless unless properly managed by qualified

personnel. Barclays makes no exception from this situation. Even more,

since Barclays' activity is not based on the production of goods where

technical resources are prevalent, but on providing financial services for

individuals and businesses, it is imperative that the company's staff is

highly educated, thoroughly trained, and constantly monitored in order to

provide the highest quality financial services.

Barclays' staff recruitment, training, and motivation strategy

In Barclays' case, before and during the personnel recruitment process

the company aims at responding to the following issues: identifying the

qualities and aptitudes and selecting the candidates that best correspond

with the requirements of new or vacant positions; identifying and

attracting competitive candidates using the most adequate methods, sources,

or environments for staff recruitment; respecting legislation in the field

and attempting to diminish and to eliminate any kind of discrimination.

Some of the difficulties encountered by Barclays' HR professionals

consists in identifying the real necessity for hiring someone to occupy a

certain position within the company, in determining whether the vacant

positions are really necessary or they are just designed to fill in some

spaces in the organizational chart, and in determining whether the

recruitment necessity is somewhat exaggerated.

Barclays' recruitment activity comprises all the basic steps

identified by David J. Cherrington as being imperative for the success of

the recruitment activity (Cherrington, 1991). These steps are represented

by: human resources planning, recruitment, and selection. In addition to

this, the company's human resources recruitment process also includes the

analysis and projection of positions required in the company, staff

orientation once the candidates have been selected in the case of external

recruitment.

In the case of internal recruitment the process includes activities

like transfer, promotion, qualifying existing personnel for other

positions, restructuring, and development. This recruitment process

projection is in full agreement with theoretical findings displayed by L.

A. Klatt and R. G. Murdick in Human Resource Management (Klatt, Murdick &

Schuster, 1985).

Barclays' long history and impressive performance throughout decades

on the financial market is also based on the fact that the company has

focused its activities and processes on long term strategies that worked no

matter how the times changed. The company's human resources recruitment

strategy has changed very little over the decades. Barclays found a simple,

yet successful strategy for recruiting, retaining, and motivating its

employees.

For example, from the beginning Barclays recruited very young

candidates, most of them being still students or fresh graduates.

Initially, Barclays recruited many of its employees at the age of 16, when

they were still in school. Afterwards, the lowest recruitment age became

18. In such cases, employees were expected to spend their entire career

working for Barclays (Ackrill & Hannah, 2001).

Most of Barclays' staff at the time consisted from such candidates.

Other than this, the company only recruited a few specialists in certain

fields that required a more thorough and specialized education, therefore

not allowing Barclays to recruit them at a younger age.

Nowadays, Barclays' recruitment process is similar, but not in all

aspects. For example, Barclays still recruits young employees, not as young

as in previous decades, but orienting very much on fresh graduates or

students. The difference is that such candidates no longer represent a

majority in Barclays' staff. The company understood the fact that the

complexity of today's financial operations requires employees with

experience and specialized education rather than young, inexperienced ones,

and has oriented its recruitment and selection process in this direction.

The downside of this situation consists in the fact that the banking

environment hs not always been as attracting as it currently is. In past

decades, the banking system was considered by employees as being a secure

one, suitable for those who wanted a secure, long career in the same

company, with clear prospects of promotions and increasing wages. This

meant that brilliant candidates most often avoided the banking system,

being drawn to more exciting areas.

But modern times have changed this perspective on the banking system.

The global banking market has increased, the services provided by financial

services companies have significantly diversified in the past decade, as a

response to new requirements of the market as a whole and of customers in

particular.

This allows Barclays to diversify its human resources recruitment

process. The candidates that currently enter in the selection process for

the company are more specialized, the company orienting towards more

experienced candidates and towards those that present brilliant potential

that the company can exploit on medium term and on long term.

The company's trend in retaining its employees is continued in the

present also. For example, Barclays' professionals in the field are

developing strategies for providing long term carriers within the company

for most employees, in other words for "building an engaged workforce"

(Barclays, 2009). The reasons behind this strategy consist in the fact that

such a situation would allow Barclays to benefit from lower staff turnover,

higher sales growth, and consequently to increase customer satisfaction,

which in turn leads to higher business performance.

Barclays' attitude towards its existing and future employees seems to

lead to the conclusion that the company follows that stakeholder theory,

rather than the shareholder theory. As mentioned above, employees are a

company's most valuable resource. Barclays has made it very clear that its

employees are one of the most important stakeholders, and, as a

consequence, they should be treated "as an asset not as cost" (Barclays,

2009).

By implementing such an attitude, Barclays is trying to develop a

similar response in employees' attitude towards the company, determining

them to be loyal to Barclays. In other words, the company's professionals

expect to retain their most valuable employees by treating with respect,

acknowledging their merits, and rewording them in consequence.

Even more, in order to show its employees that Barclays cares about

their future and well-being, the company encourages and helps them in

developing their own Personal Development Plan. As a proof, the company

invests important amounts in training and development programs that are

intended to meet their professional desires and plans, and to improve their

skills and knowledge.

The main principles upon which Barclays builds its human resources

strategy includes: winning together, best people, customer and client

focus, pioneering, inspiring trust (Barclays, 2009). Barclays has

implemented a differentiated rewards system.

In the UK, Barclays' human resources can be described by the following

figures: FTE reached 60,700 in 2008 compared to 61,900 in 2007; the average

length of services is of 9.2 years. The percentage working part time is

16.1%, a value that has remained constant over the past few years. The

turnover rate has increased 19.3% in 2008 from 16.6% in 2007. The

resignation rate has remained slightly constant around 12.2%.

As mentioned above, Barclays aims at eliminating any kind of

discrimination regarding human resources. In this area, Barclays is

actually a pioneer, being one of the first financial services companies to

hire female employees and to promote female employees to top management

positions.

For example, women's percentage of all employees reached 56.1% in

2008, percentage of management grades reached 28%, while the percentage of

senior executives reached 14.6%.

Ethnic minorities represent 12.3% of all employees, 11.5% of

management grades, and 8% of senior executives. The Barclays UK Retirement

Fund currently has 58,316 active members. The company has 50,499 current

pensioners.

Integration of the rewarding system

The global economic and financial crisis has left its mark on

Barclays' activity. The staff rewarding system has not remained indifferent

to these changes. Before the crisis, Barclays was seen by its human

resources professionals as a company that provided real rewards that

significantly stimulated employees to improve their professional

performance within the company. But the crisis has determined Barclays'

managers to rethink the rewarding system.

Barclays' financial performance in 2008 had immediate repercussions on

the company's staff rewarding system. Barclays' profit in 2008 was 14%

lower that the company's profit in 2007. As a consequence, a series of

remuneration levels have been reduced. For example, a final dividend for

2008 was not paid. Even more, the company did not pay any performance

bonuses in 2008. Also, the company has announced that wages will not be

increased in 2009. Executive directors will be mostly affected by this

situation (Barclays, 2009).

The signal sent by these measures might translate in a feeling of

insecurity among the company's employees. However, such measures are

implemented in most companies during the crisis. The effect of these

measures might consist in lower efficiency for the company's employees.

Human Resources Strategy Discussion

There are three main types of human resources strategies: pthose

oriented towards investments, those oriented towards value, and those

oriented towards resources. Barclays implements a combination between the

strategy oriented towards investments and the strategy oriented towards

value.

In other words, the company does not limit its investments to economic

and technical aspects,… READ MORE

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