Custom «British Petroleum (BP) Company Analysis: Human Resource Management» Essay Paper

Introduction

Human resource management is an important function of a developing business. It plays a critical role for the success of any business. BP acknowledges the significance of the personnel and for that reason; it views its employees as one of the key strengths. It refers to the human resource as our people, meaning that they are essential to the success of the business. In many cases, the staff is viewed as just a means to implement the company’s strategy. Recognising human resource as a business strength has, however, enabled BP to markedly differentiate itself from its competitors. The company has invested in training, learning and development, rewarding and employee relations, a move that has allowed it to attract and maintain the best employees. This paper examines the above mentioned methods of training, learning, and development, rewarding and employee relations of the corporation and makes the recommendations about the strategies applied.

Training, Learning and Development

Human resource training and development is a crucial activity in the management process. Emphasizing on the development of each separate worker ensures that there is a greater efficiency and productivity for the company on the whole. BP has developed a single and unique strategy that aims at selecting the appropriate training and development to achieve the set objectives (Akhtar, Khan, & Mujtaba 2013). The leadership framework is used as the basis for assessing the need for the development of the staff and for rewarding purposes. BP has partnered with more than 19 institutions to fulfil its development program known as the managing essentials. It runs a continuous professional development program targeted at equipping them with the set of skills necessary for performing their specific roles. The managers are trained on the leadership framework of the company, which they are expected to apply in leading their specific teams. The training manifests itself in a series that comprises of a mix of activities carefully balanced to bring the desired skills. The program is distributed among seminars, short courses, and organising conferences.

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Managers also participate in an informal training that is self-directed. The areas of human resource management course do not work in isolation; therefore, BP has identified the areas that especially require training (Akhtar, Khan, & Mujtaba 2013). Apart from the personnel, the areas of operations and finance are focused on the training and development program. These functions are if vital importance for the excellence of the business. It runs the specialists development programs in the three units to achieve excellence in the three essential groups. To guarantee the quality training especially in operations, the company has set an Operations Academy in conjunction with MIT. The academy is tasked with equipping the mangers with the suitable skills and approaches to safe management and maintaining efficiency in operations. BP has also used coaching as a method of advancing its personnel’s professional level. It also aims at providing the necessary skills to the employees who are in the course of transition to occupying senior positions in the company. In 2007, the company introduced E-learning program for global safety. It was the largest safety program ever implemented by the companies in the oil and petroleum gas industry. Senior management has additionally benefited from the initiative by teaching them with the skill necessary to ensure safety and efficiency.

Human Resource Management, as stated above, emphasizes on the improvement of employees to promote the efficiency and productivity in the business. BP has noticeably excelled in the training and development program as a result of the range of training and developments initiatives.  The Human Resource Department is required to utilize the mechanisms identifying the problematic areas that require training and development measures. After identifying the necessity, the next step is to address the areas with appropriate training (Sharma 2009). BP was voted to be the largest pollutant in the oil and gas industry in the past and has had series of spillages over the years and more recently in 2010. The human resource department discovered the problem with the employees. They lacked the right skills in regards to safety.

It consequently responded to the problem by introducing the operations academy to train the managers on demand to provide the efficiency and safety in the operations department. In addition to that, it launched the E-learning program to force the training on safety and preventative policy. The role of human resource in training and development has thus been observed properly at BP (Sharma 2009). It should be, however, noted that the company still faces challenges in the environmental safety. There is the necessity to generate a more comprehensive training approach on the matter. The training will lead to the introduction of a better approach and therefore to safety, helping the company regain its public trust on the environmental consciousness in its work. For instance, the company can realign its overall strategy and train the employees by the new one. To reduce the spillage rate, the company can adopt a relevant safety plan that ascertains that its main focus is on securing the functioning of all the units. Kuwait oil has followed this strategy and has succeeded in reducing spillage (Timur, Taras & Ponak 2012). However, the company may face certain challenges due to its marked complexity and size. It can, therefore, change some particular clauses to match its operational abilities.

Rewarding

Organisations are all keen to meet their goals through the effective management of individuals. To achieve this, organisations measure their performance (Lane 2012). The employee’s effectiveness forms the basis for rewarding. For a company to excel in performance management, it is required develop the system ensuring the continuous development in the business as a whole. For that performance management to be effective, it should be confident that it promotes the growth of individuals and teams and above all, succeeds in behaviour management (Lane 2012). BP has over the past few years worked on establishing the culture based on employee performance.

The culture has been aligned precisely to differentiate group and individual performances. At BP, business branches have set the goals and objectives that are aimed at the overall corporation objectives. The individuals involved also have their set targets and objectives in line with the specific teams they are a part of. The employees are rewarded depending on how they score against the specific objectives. They predominantly receive the financial rewards on top of their basic pay (Lane 2012). The company is, as mentioned earlier, keen on improving the environmental safety. The environmental performance is an important area of measuring the performance efficiency and rewarding certain individuals on the basis of their work achievements. The performance of the individuals under this category is estimated against the environmental matters such as spill reduction. There are the set targets that help in the continuous improvement of the environmental safety. The company employs the various measurement of performance methods of the top management. Using different approaches, they are evaluated and assessed to ensure that they are suitable can correspond to the advanced roles. Best performing leaders are considered for the promotion into new roles. Using the available techniques, the leaders’ areas that still require training are identified and offered the coaching to guarantee that they succeed in their roles. While appraising senior managers, the BP applies the balanced scorecard (Sharma 2009).

Employee performance evaluation gives an organisation the basis on which to reward individuals and teams for their performances. The reward system in the BP Corporation adheres to the human resource management standards. Rewarding employees practice stimulates the stable improvement of performance. Rewarding grounded on the environmental performance is an important tool in minimising the widespread negative impacts of the company to the environment (Jacobs & Jaseem 2012). The individuals charged with overseeing matters of the environment are rewarded by how they succeeded in preventing environmental damages. Rewarding employees is a practice that the company has implemented well. The rewards are not always in monetary forms but also in non-financial terms. The balanced scorecard approach is the system that is widely accepted in the human resource field, and BP applies it effectively in measuring the success of the activity of the senior employees.

BP’s approach to rewarding its employee is commendable (Jacobs & Jaseem 2012). The company offers attractive perks to its employees. On top of their pay, the most efficient employees are entitled to other valuable benefits such as medical covers. The top management receives both cash and equity rewards in addition to their salary. The reward system is, as it has already been stated, based on the total score of an individual or a team against the set performance measures. The company stands to benefit from the practice in that it will continue to improve its operations. Nonetheless, the company needs to strengthen the performance measurements to improve its services. Despite having introduced the environmental performance measurements, the company is believed not to have recorded any significant success in the environmental matters (Valvi & Fragkos 2013). BP has been blamed for several incidents of spillage compared with its competitors. Increasing the targets for the operation of the individuals in this category can change the image of the company in regards to the environmental matters. The move can significantly reduce the spillage and notably poor disposal of waste by the company. This, however, can have negative impacts on employee relations as it burdens them with extra work. The company can increase the number of employees in the given section to avoid overloading the few workers with additional responsibilities. The non-financial reward system is long lasting and the company is supposed to focus on this form of reward as well. The rewards such as guiding employees on a certain career path, generally has more impact than the financial rewards. The corporation has an option of offering the non-financial rewards to individuals by the safety performance results. The approach will encourage the right engagement and commitment to duties.

Employee Relations

BP employee relationships are among the best in the UK. It entails the matters regarding remuneration, work life balance and the quality of working conditions. The company has accomplished quite a lot in the area of employee relations (Valvi & Fragkos 2013). In human resource management, companies are stimulated to create the environment making the employees feel a useful part of the organisation. The reward system of BP is attractive and sustainable. The employees get the packages catering for their medical cover. The executives are paid by equity at some point, which is aimed at ensuring that they have a feeling of ownership, making them greatly motivated (Valvi & Fragkos 2013). The feeling comes with a sense of satisfaction and responsibility among the employees. The company is keen on the steady improvement of its employees by investing in the training and development of the personnel. Through training and development programs, the employees acquire new skills and hence, can provide high-quality results benefiting the overall advancement of the business. To achieve a proper work-life balance, the company has invented the innovative measures that target at making work enjoyable. The organisation uses the information technology ability it has for minimizing travel through video conferencing. There are also the plans to have part time jobs opportunities depending on the commitments of the employee (Renwick, Redman & Maguire 2013). BP offers some time off or provides additional benefits to the staff working at odd hours. Besides, it has developed different preventative measures to ensure the safety of the employees at work.

The 2007 E-learning training is one of the largest safety training courses around the globe (Singh 2011). It is accessible by all the workers of the company and is meant to help them understand the safety issues they face. The working conditions are secure for all the members of the corporation. Communication is the centre of a good employee relationship; BP communication to its employee is good. Although the company announced that it will retrench some of the employees due to the persistent drop in the oil price, the employees are aware of the move and are prepared in advance. The communication builds trust between the employer and the employee. A good employee relationship should be recognised by the employer. They are supposed to have the mechanisms of assessing the efforts of the employee and thus, either rewarding them for performing effectively or guide in the direction of performance. BP has a performance management program that recognises the employees who have excelled in various fields and rewards them correspondingly.

The employee’s relations at BP are praiseworthy. The company has applied a large percentage of the expected requirements of employee relations. The basic policy of good remuneration, working conditions, and a work-life balance are fulfilled. The company also honours the biding principles of communication and employee recognition. Good employee relations are healthy, that is, comfortable and convenient for both the employer and the employee (Singh 2011). The employer tends to obtain the desired productivity, while the employees enjoy what they do. BP is predicted to benefit from the relations immensely. The company is advised to continue improving the relations for the better results in the future.

In conclusion, British Petroleum has succeeded by a great margin in human resource management practices. It has reached significant outcomes in training and development programs, rewarding and employee relations. The success is vital for the organisation that considers human resource as strength. To fully exploit the potential of the personnel involved, the company is to work on improving every component and seal the existing loopholes. The continuous enhancement of the processes will help the BP corporation compete effectively with the similar enterprises.