HRM POLICIES AT WESTPAC

Posted: January 4th, 2023

HRM POLICIES AT WESTPAC

By (Name)

Course:

Professor’s Name:

University:

City (State):

Date:

Table of Contents

1. Executive summary
2. Introduction
3. Diversity policy
4. Content
5. Accessibility
6. Efficacy
7. Effectiveness
8. Legal Compliance
9. Consistency with other Policies and Contemporary HRM Policies
10. Remuneration and Reward
11. Content
12. Accessibility
13. Efficacy
14. Effectiveness
15. Legal Compliance
16. Consistency with other Policies and Contemporary HRM Policies
17. Possible Recommendations
18. Selecting a Suitable Recommendation

Executive Summary

The study elaborates how Westpac tries to develop HRM policies that would improve efficiency among the workforce. The group tries to employ a diversity policy with the objective of creating a work environment where the workers are from different backgrounds. The inclusion and diversity policy at Westpac increases the employees’ productivity, and also improves the likelihood of being innovative. The study further elaborates how the financial company tries to offer appealing remunerations and rewards to retain the employees, and increase their desire to serve. Westpac, however, could improve the way it diversifies the workplace and rewards its workers by training the HR personnel to achieve the best outcome in both the areas. The research also recommends learning from other companies and conducting a SWOT analysis as alternatives to improve diversity and remuneration practices.

HRM Policies at Westpac

Introduction

The report pays attention to the human resource management (HRM) at Westpac Banking Corporation in Westpac Place, Sydney, Australia. Though founded in 1817 as Bank of New South Wales, the name changed to Westpac Banking Corporation after its merger with Commercial Bank of Australia in 1982. Today, Westpac is one of the big four financial institutions in Australia, and the oldest bank in the country (Westpac Banking Corporation 2019). The company has more than 40,000 employees, and serves at least 14 million customers. The mission of the entity is to offer the best service for every consumer and community in the world, so that they can grow and prosper (Westpac Banking Corporation 2019). Westpac has five main divisions that offer a wide range of services to customers, and these include Commercial and Business Bank, Consumer Bank, Westpac New Zealand, Westpac Institutional Bank, and BT Financial Group (Westpac Banking Corporation 2019). In addition to developing strategies that improve its operations in various areas, the corporation develops human resource management strategies to enhance efficiency among employees. The company knows the significant roles its workers play, and strives to formulate and apply policies that improve their wellbeing. The study pays particular attention to the way Westpac strives to achieve diversity, and remunerates and rewards its staff to improve performance and competitive advantage.

Inclusion and Diversity Policy

Impartiality

The methodology adopted by Westpac to keeps its workplace reward diversity and inclusion is vast. The idea is to ensure that everyone benefits from its service and prospers. The inclusion and diversity policy seeks to harness different abilities, experiences, and views to drive innovation and allows its people to bring their entire selves to work by respecting and valuing them for their abilities and talent (Westpac Banking Corporation 2019). The company’s approach to diversity and inclusion is created for extraordinary outcome from its customers, workers and communities.

Accessibility

All the stakeholders can access the inclusion and diversity policy through various avenues. It is possible to retrieve the document through the company’s website and by visiting the HRM offices. The group also tries to enlighten its members of staff and all the stakeholders about the procedures during general meetings and other formal and informal conventions. The company, however, should consider other ways of improving accessibility to the inclusion and diversity guidelines for better outcome in the area.

Efficacy

The diversity and inclusion policy by Westpac has the ability to achieve the desired results as the group involves all the stakeholders in accomplishing the objectives. All workers, from the executive team to the team members, play a part in creating a culture that appreciates diversity and includes everyone (Westpac Banking Corporation 2019). Furthermore, the Westpac Group has established various bodies to oversee and support the implementation of the company’s inclusion and diversity guidelines. The group, for example, formed the Westpac Group Inclusion and Diversity Council that serves under the Westpac Group Executive Team to implement the inclusion and diversity policy in a way that would yield the anticipated outcome (Westpac Banking Corporation 2019). It would be possible to achieve better efficacy by developing more oversight bodies to make it easy to identify loopholes that need more managerial attention.   

Effectiveness

Several factors make the inclusion and diversity plan by Westpac effective. The policy, for instance, is effective in the way it strives to create a workforce that encourages competitive advantage through the ability of creating a deeper understanding of the buyers’ needs (Westpac Banking Corporation 2019). The procedure is also helpful as it strives to form an inclusive workplace where every person can excel, regardless of gender identity, ethnicity, cultural background, disability, religion, or sexual orientation. The policy by Westpac proves effective in the way it leverages the importance of inclusion and diversity for all its stakeholders to deliver the most suitable customer outcome and experience, advanced financial outcome, and better company reputation (Westpac Banking Corporation 2019). The firm’s leadership, however, should identify newer ways of making the policy more effective.

Legal Compliance

The national and state laws in Australia cover anti-discrimination and equal employment opportunity at the workplace. Therefore, it is important to understand one’s responsibilities and rights as an employer or employee as enshrined in the human rights and anti-discrimination laws. For example, The Anti-Discrimination Act makes it illegal to inconvenience workers and job seekers in any manner due to their gender, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy, physical or mental disability, or social origin, among other factors (Allen 2011; Smith n.d.). It is due to this reason that Westpac hires employees without paying much attention to the background. The group’s inclusive policy also adheres to the Fair Work Act that advocates the formation of a culturally and linguistically-diverse workplace (Walpole 2015; Walpole 2016). The prevailing guidelines at Westpac meet the requirements of the Fair Work Act in the way it hires workers who can speak many languages, and belong to different regions and religious groups.

Consistency with HRM Policies

Importantly, the inclusion and diversity policy at Westpac appears to be consistent with other policies and contemporary HRM practices. The guidelines are in line with the prevailing HRM practices in the way it focuses on improving the selection processes at the company and strives to improve relations, which are some of the areas that receive much attention from many HRM teams (O’Riordan 2017 and Wolfe 2015). Above all, the inclusion of employees from all backgrounds, and the presence of a guideline to determine how the plan takes effect makes the policy consistent with modern HRM activities.

Remuneration and Reward

Content

The group believes the benefits and work environment are testimony to its commitment to the workers. The leadership understands that the wellbeing of its staff members depends on how well they are appreciated, and it is the reason why the firm seeks to improve the workers’ health, finances, value, working opportunity, family and community (Westpac Banking Corporation 2019). The management recognizes the continued vagaries of personal life and work, and the need to support the people as complete human beings.

Accessibility

The employees and other stakeholders can access information about the remuneration and rewarding approaches from various sources. The corporation’s website serves as a good avenue to access the policy, in addition to the regular meetings, especially while addressing certain issues.

Efficacy

The effectiveness in the remuneration and reward policy at Westpac lies in the way the group adopts various approaches to incentivize its employees. The management seems to understand that different motivational methods work best for various individuals, which make it necessary to employ diversified mechanisms to achieve the best outcome (Westpac Banking Corporation 2019). For instance, the group offers 12 weeks of break every year, flexible working hours, paid parental leave, career break leave, and counseling services, among other benefits.
Effectiveness

Even though the rewarding system could be termed as being efficient due to its diversified approach, the efficiency would improve by exploring other ways of rewarding the members of staff. The effectiveness, for instance, would increase by offering free food to workers, and sponsoring their training to equip them with better skills (Boxall & Purcell 2016). Nonetheless, the firm is trying its best to improve its rewarding system.

Legal Compliance

Westpac’s approaches to reward its workers are consistent with the legal requirements. The Fair Work Act (2009) requires the employers to offer wages that would sustain the employees’ needs, and Westpac accomplishes this effectively. The group’s HRM understands the legal problems it would encounter if it fails to make the payments as stipulated by the Fair Work Commission (International Labour Organization 2019). Therefore, the firm strives to offer satisfying remunerations and rewards, even though it might experience some hurdles in planning and implementation.

Consistency with Contemporary HRM Policies

The remuneration and reward system at Westpac could be termed as being consistent with contemporary HRM policies as employee motivation levels are the key to achieving a competitive advantage. Many companies try to explore various ways of making the members of staff feel satisfied, and attached to the firm (Newstrom 2017). The increased desire to satisfy and impress workers is due to the realization that employees are a vital part of the organization’s performance (Sabir et al. 2014).

Possible Recommendations

Westpac should consider various ways of improving inclusion and diversity in the workplace, and come up with more effective ways of remunerating and rewarding its workers. One possible way to improve both these areas is to emulate some leading companies that use effective and remuneration and reward policies. Bland and Ostewalder (2019) support the approach of sharing and exchanging ideas when operating within the same field, but inform the firms to only adopt mechanisms that would be beneficial to them. McShane (2015) argue that learning from others does not display any form of weakness, but rather exposes a firm to more effective operational techniques and ideas. Another approach that could help Westpac enhance its inclusion and reward initiatives would be to train the members of staff, especially the HRM on ways to achieve the best outcome in these key areas. Even though coaching the employees could be costly (Bashir & Jehanzeb 2013), it exposes them to new and better insight that would increase the likelihood of becoming more innovative. Training the employees, for example, may offer insight on the ways to use technology that will improve both HRM practices and equip them with better problem-solving skills (Bashir & Jehanzeb 2013). The third and final option that could help to advance the inclusion, diversity, remuneration and reward policies at Westpac would be to perform a SWOT analysis to detect the areas that require adjustments or improvements (Armstrong & Taylor 2015). This form of assessment will offer valuable information about the strong areas that could help the firm achieve its goals, and learn about the weaknesses that need to be minimized (Ommani 2011; Oreski 2012). The examination may also offer information that could foster improvement as it becomes easier to find the opportunities and threats that could promote or affect growth and development in the two HRM areas (Gurel & Tat 2017).

Selecting a Suitable Recommendation

Based on the evaluation of the three options, training the workers proves to be the most effective and suitable way of improving the inclusion and diversity policy in addition to the remuneration and reward system. Training the workers result in greater productivity, and uniformity of procedures about implementing policies on inclusion, compensation, and rewards. Often, an employee who is trained well displays higher quality of work and productivity than the workers who lack training (Elnaga & Imran 2013). Coaching the employees also improves their skills, which makes it easy to enhance their quality and quantity (Armstrong 2016). Training the staff further makes it possible for the HRM team to develop policies that promote diversity and improve the remuneration approaches without much managerial supervision (Alshuwairekh & Alshuwairekh 2016; Alvesson 2009). Training, however, does not do away with the need for supervision, but lowers the need for constant and detailed oversight. Westpac is more likely to benefit from training its workers as the empowerment could foster innovation, and improve the morale among staff members (Saleem et al. 2011). Therefore, the business leaders should place considerable investment in training its workers if they hope to witness improvement in the way they promote diversity and reward their employees.

Reference List

Allen, D 2011, Strategic enforcement of anti-discrimination law: A new role of Australia’s equality commissions. Available from: <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228124566_Strategic_Enforcement_of_Anti-Discrimination_Law_A_New_Role_for_Australia’s_Equality_Commissions> [7 December, 2019]

Alshuwairekh, K, & Alshuwairekh, K 2016, ‘The effectiveness of the training programs on employees performance: An empirical study at private sector companies in Saudi Arabia,’ International Journal of Business and Management Review, vol. 4, no. 9, 1-23.

Alvesson, M 2009, Critical perspectives on strategic HRM, in The Routledge Companion to Strategic Human Resource Management, ed. J Storey, P M Wright and D Ulrich, pp. 52-67, Routledge: Abbington.

Armstrong, M, &Taylor S 2015, Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice, Kogan Page, London.

Armstrong, M 2016, Armstrong’s handbook of strategic human resource management, Kogan Page, London.

Bashir, N, & Jehanzeb, K 2013, ‘Training development program and its benefits to employee and organization: A conceptual study’, European Journal of Business and Management, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 243-252.

Bland, D, & Ostewalder, A 2019. Testing business ideas. New York: Wiley.

Boxall, P & Purcell, J 2016, Strategy and human resource management, Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Elnaga, A, & Imran, A 2013, ‘The effect of training on employee performance,’ European Journal of Business and Management, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 137-143.

Gurel, E, & Tat, M 2017, ‘SWOT analysis: A theoretical review’, The Journal of International Social Research, vol. 10, no. 51, pp. 994-1006.

International Labour Organization 2019, National labour law profile: Australia. Available from: < https://www.ilo.org/ifpdial/information-resources/national-labour-law-profiles/WCMS_158892/lang–en/index.htm> [7 December, 2019].

McShane, S 2015, M: Organizational behavior, McGraw-Hill Education, New York.

Newstrom, J 2017, Organizational behavior: Human behavior at work, McGraw-Hill Education, New York.

Ommani, A 2011, ‘Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis for farming system businesses management: Case of wheat farmers of Shadervan District, Shoushtar Township, Iran’, African Journal of Business Management, vol. 5, no. 22, pp. 9448-9454.

Oreski, D 2012, ‘Strategy development by using SWOT – AHP’, TEM Journal, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 283-291.

O’Riordan, J 2017, The practice of human resource management, IPA, New York.  

Sabir, R, et al. 2014, ‘Impact of employee satisfaction: A study of Lahore Electric Supply Company of Pakistan,’ Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research, vol. 4, pp. 229-235.

Saleem, Q, Shahid, M, &Naseem, A 2011, ‘Degree of influence of training and development on employee’s behaviour,’ International Journal of Computing and Business Research, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 2229 – 6166.

Smith, B (n.d.). Australian anti-discrimination laws – Framework, developments and issues. Available from: <https://www.jil.go.jp/english/events/documents/clls08_smith%20.pdf>[7 December, 2019].

Walpole, K 2015, ‘The Fair Work Act: Encouraging collective agreement-making but leaving collective bargaining choice’, Labour & Industry: A Journal of the Social and Economic Relations of Work, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 205-218.

Walpole, K 2016, ‘How is employees’ input and influence over collective agreements shaped by

            Australia’s Fair Work Act?’ Labour & Industry: A Journal of the Social and Economic Relations of Work, vol. 26, no. 3, pp. 193-201.

Westpac Banking Corporation 2019, Westpac Group. Available from: https://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/westpac-group/> [7 December, 2019]

Wolfe, B 2015, The little black book of human resources management. The Expressive Press, London.

Appendices

Number of employees at Westpac – More than 40,000

Policies under investigation – Diversity policy and remuneration and reward policy