British Engine Limited Essay

BEL, British Engines Limited is a privately owned organisation which has six companies; BEL Valves, BEL Engineering, Rotary Power, CMP, Stephenson Gobin and Stadium Packing Services. BEL in total currently employs 800 people globally; each company has its own senior management team that reports into the BEL board of directors. Each company has its own mission statement and specific industry, but all six companies share a common Human Resource department.

BEL’s HR department consists of the HR director, HR Manager and HR consultants. The HR director is responsible for the strategic Human Resource Management and participates in the Executive Board of BEL’s Directors. The HR consultants are responsible for both strategic and operational HR activities.

Buckingham (2005) defines First line managers as the lowest line managers at the operational level, who manage a team of operational employees on a day-to-day basis and are responsible for performing HRM activities.

A line managers daily tasks include: day-to-day people management, managing operational costs, providing technical expertise, organisation of work allocation and shift patterns, monitoring work processes, checking quality, dealing with customers/clients and measuring operational performance.

The belief that operational HR activities should be located with line management rather than HR specialist functions is now widely held, because line management has direct and constant contact with the organisations employees (Nehles et al., 2006). These operational HR activities include; coaching and guidance, undertaking performance appraisals and dealing with discipline and grievances. Due to role HR departments moving to a more strategic one, day-to-day HRM&D work should be integrated to line operations where it is best suited (Brewster et al.,

Ulrich (1997) defines strategic HRM&D is an outcome: ‘as organisational systems designed to achieve sustainable competitive advantage through people’. The responsibility for the HRM&D strategy implementation lies with the line managers of an organisation since they have to execute the HRM&D practices on the work floor. Indeed, Schuler and Jackson (1987) argued ‘HRM should ensure that HRM practices are accepted and used by line managers and employees as part of their everyday work’.

David Guest (1987) argues the practices and behaviours of line managers will affect the level and focus of employee commitment to the organization intended goal from the adoption of human resource management policies, thereby ensuring more satisfied, more productive and more adaptable employees, therefore providing managers with the authority and responsibility for HR activities means that the organization is more likely to manage its resources