Challenges Faced by Darwin Taxi Company Free-Sample for Students

Question: Think about the Organisation where you Currently Work if you do not currently have a job, think of an Organisation where you have worked or would like to work and Identify two Major Challenges the Organisation is likely to Face in the Future. Answer: Introduction. Darwin Radio Taxi is located in Australia, Darwin owned. The company has a fleet of 90 cars, some of which can carry seven passengers. They also have taxis that are accessible by taxi users and operate 24/7.All the taxis contain Eftpos facilities. Currently, they have a mobile app for online bookings. The company has been around for over 6o years and are committed to providing stellar customer service (Tourismtopend 2017). The company has the risk of facing technological and Employee engagement challenges in the Future. Potential Challenges that Darwin Taxi Company Faces Technological Challenges Technology usually affects how people in an organization work. Darwin Taxis faces risks associated with computerization. Computers affect how we work and affect how tasks are designed and performed. One of the challenges is Internet of things. There are more powerful and affordable sensors that are creating smarter devices.Darwin Taxis faces the challenge of understanding which devices to use and how to exploit them for the benefit of expanding the company (Karena 2014). There is also the challenge of self-driving cars. As the years go by, many countries are taking up this technology. This will affect the employees of the company, as self-driving cars will take over their jobs. Some of the drivers are not technologically savvy. Some of the limitations include cancellation of rides, not understanding directions on the map or the customers location. This puts Darwin Taxi at the risk of losing some customers. Some drivers are also not loyal to particular companies. Since the technology is rapidly changing and taxi companies are contracting drivers rather than hiring them, some drivers work for two or more companies. These drivers, therefore, search for customers on multiple applications and also demand more. The taxi-app usually computes fares, but Darwin faces the risk of some drivers demanding extra money hence making customers shy off from using them (Kedia, 2016). Another technological challenge that Darwin Taxi faces is the unreliability of Google maps. Some data is outdated and hence may give wrong directions. Estimated journey time may also be inaccurate. This affects customers and leads to waste of time as multiple phone calls have to be made. Darwin taxi also faces the risk of high data charges encountered by its drivers. There is no Wi-Fi on the road and drivers have to use a lot of data. Internet speeds may also affect service. Connections have to be good otherwise; Darwin Taxi faces the risk of losing customers when drivers are unable to locate them. The company also faces the risk of fraud as customers are also very tech-savvy and some of them can take advantage and use international data to earn a lot of free rides. Technology also comes with security issues. Darwin Taxi faces the risk of systems being hacked through the internet. It can become a reputational issue, for example, if customers credit cards are hacked while using the companys system (Lin, 2015). Mobile payment is a technological initiative that is being taken up. Darwin Taxi faces a challenge on mobile payments as one-touch mobile payment applications usually store a customers credit card and financial details. Consumers are therefore afraid of their information being intercepted. Darwin Taxi, therefore, faces the risk of ensuring stringent procedures of financial security. Some people consider mobile phones as insecure and prefer to stick to credit cards. Some of the older populations also use older phones that do not have applications (Feinstein, 2015). Employee Engagement Challenges Darwin Taxi Services faces employee engagement challenges. Being a taxi company, communication is a key challenge, and the company, therefore, faces the risk of not being able to engage its employees effectively. Communication means like emails and newsletters are not effective in such a setup as drivers are on the road most of the time. It is a great challenge to engage these employees. Employees should also be able to engage with their peers, superiors, and subordinates. Ideas should be shared among employees. Darwin faces a great challenge due to the nature of the companys work. It gets difficult to come up with viable engagement mechanisms that incorporate all the employees (Gingras, 2015). Darwin Taxi faces a challenge of employee motivation and recognition. They need to know how to motivate and recognize employees who are performing well. They also need to come up with motivational packages that will be applied cross-board to be able to engage employees more. Recognition can be formal or informal. Formal recognition can be years of service recognition, employee of-the-month initiatives. Informal recognition Includes such initiatives as thank you cards (Turley 2015). .Darwin Taxi faces the challenge of implementing such programs effectively. Darwin Taxi faces the challenge of developing new employee skills and capabilities.This should be done through training. Employees should constantly be trained and given opportunities to grow. The company also faces the challenge of performance management and ensuring high productivity. These are also related to training and development (Turley 2015). Darwin should also think about how to develop a healthy organizational culture. There should be a great level of openness and exchange of thoughts and ideas. This provides a win-win situation for the employer and the employee. Positive relationships at the workplace should be enhanced (Employer 2015). Darwin should come up with ways of making its employees feel happy and comfortable. Strategic HRM and how it can be applied by Darwin Taxi Company Strategic Human Resource Management involves linking the organizations strategic need with an effective workforce while meeting the needs of the customer. Strategies may be developed at the corporate level, functional level or the business level. Human resource strategies should be mutually consistent and should reflect the overall companys strategy (Kumara Anam 2014). The strategy implementation involves various steps: The first step will be Environmental Analysis. Darwin Taxi Company should perform an environmental analysis to identify threats and opportunities. The company should look at market trends to note the changes in industry, legislation, and policies. The company will look at the taxi industry and identify the current industry trends among its competitors regarding technology and employee engagement (Sikora Ferris 2014). They will also look at legislation and policies regarding technologies that can be applied to the company and any human resource policies that affect its workforce. Darwin will be able to identify weaknesses of its current technology and threats that may affect it. The company will identify what the weaknesses of its mobile application, payment systems used by customers, dispatching system and GPS tracking system are. It can also use the environmental analysis to identify threats like new technology that may render their application obsolete, any potential threats to th eir online booking system and any hacking threats to their system. Regarding employee engagement, the company will be able to identify weaknesses concerning recruitment and selection, motivation, productivity, and performance (Kramar 2014). It will also identify factors that are a threat to employee engagement, for example, cultural barriers and lack of communication The next step will be for the company to look at its organizational mission and goals analysis. Darwin Taxi Company will look at its current mission and goals regarding technology and employee engagement. The goals may include satisfaction of employees, how to attain efficiency using technology and how to adapt to the environment. Darwin Taxi Companys definition of its mission will affect the human resource strategies. The company will look at its goals and determine if they talk about any future technological plans and also employee engagement methods (Paille, Chen.Boiral Jin 2014). This way, they will be able to determine any gaps. Darwin Taxi Company then takes a look at its organizational strengths and Culture. Darwin will only be able to come up with Human Resource strategies regarding technology and employee engagement when they scrutinize their strengths and weaknesses and current culture. The HR department of Darwin should know the organizational character and then determine which objectives to put in place to fit into this efficiently. The company will come up with its strengths in technology and how it engages employees. It will also be able to look at its technological culture and employee engagement culture (Amberg McGaughey 2016). The company will then analyze its organizational Strategies. They will look into current strategies regarding technology and employee engagement. This will help them to identify what is working and what is not working for the company. Under this, they can consider service differentiation strategy. This will involve comparing their technology to those of other taxi companies in Darwin and determining how they can get a superior technology. They can also employ focus strategy and come up with a way to offer exemplary service to its customers through the use of technology (Hill, JonesSchilling 2014). Analysis of strategies will involve Darwin Taxi examining each strategic option for viability. Any strategic option that may seem unsuitable must be discarded. Strategies that are viable should be scrutinized and implemented. In formulating strategies, Darwin Taxi will follow some steps. They will need to plan for human resources. They will do a job analysis of the current jobs, i.e., drivers, dispatchers, and all other employees in the organization. They will look at the behaviors of these jobs and performance standards that are expected. These will enable them to come up with effective human resource plans to facilitate planning of training. These plans should consider the technological and employee engagement challenges. Training should, therefore, involve Darwins employees being trained on the current technology and enabling them to embrace engagement. The company will then need to attract the right human resources. Darwin company should ensure that any new employees coming in ar e the right ones (Herd Alsgaraja 2016). In this case, employees should have knowledge about technology and should be highly motivated and embrace engagement. Darwin should then place, develop and evaluate its human resources to suit its future technological and employee engagement needs. They should do training need analysis for the whole company to identify gaps regarding technology training and also training that will enable effective employee engagement. Career planning should also be implemented so that employees are ready to perform effectively. Performance appraisals must also be done. All these things will assist the company in moving forward. Involving employees will also help to engage them effectively, and they can identify challenges facing the organizations and come up with solutions. The company should then come up with ways of motivating Employees. The employees of Darwin must be compensated accordingly when they perform well. There must also be an enabling environment for motivation to take place (Andries Czarnitzki 2014). Darwin Taxi Company must then strive to maintain high performance. All staff must be encouraged to contribute maximumly regarding technology advancements that the company can make and how better employees feel they can be engaged. Employee relations should be put in place by ensuring there is effective communication throughout the organization; there are counseling systems and effective disciplinary procedures (Kramar 2014). There should be effective union-management relations Darwin Taxi Companys final step will be to review and evaluate its Human Resource Strategies. The company will have to do a periodic examination of external factors that affect the organization keeps changing. Internal factors like processes and procedures also keep changing. Program evaluation should also be implemented, as this will give important feedback to the company that will help it to evaluate its success or even failure (Kramar 2014). The company will evaluate whether the strategies that will affect technology and employee engagement are working.It will keep reviewing these strategies depending on environmental factors Darwin Taxi companies should implement the strategic human resources management model, as it will help the company identify the challenges it is facing. Since the model will involve looking at all aspects of the company, the company can do a thorough and deep analysis and come up with the most effective strategies (Sikora Ferris 2014). This will help the company regarding growth and gain a competitive advantage as strategies will be up to date. The Human Resources Department of Darwin Taxi Company should, therefore, make this a priority, as it will be of great importance in catapulting the company forward. References Amberg, J.J., and McGaughey, S.L., 2016. Strategic human resource management and inertia in the corporate entrepreneurship of a multinational enterprise. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, pp.1-35. Andries, P. and Czarnitzki, D., 2014. Small firm innovation performance and employee involvement. Small Business Economics, 43(1), pp.21-38. The employer, N.d .5 Keys to mastering employee engagement. 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