Germany's Deutsche Bahn Set For 'longest Rail Strike' Term Papers Example

1. Analysis of business issue
a. What is the situation in the industry? Trends? Competition?
Deutsche Bahn is a multinational company that performs its operation almost all over Europe and in many other countries all over the globe. It mainly deals with the logistic industry that serves its customers by providing transport services and also helps them to reduce the distance between their loved ones all over the world. It is a young company that steeped in the tradition. It is the merger of the Deutsche Bundersbahn and Deutsche Resichsbahn. The both company together merged to form Deutsche Bahn AG that officially came into force from 1st January, 1994. The railway industry in Germany has 390 railway undertakings and one of it is the DB and the company has faced an increased pressure of competition in the year 2014 due to certain incidents that has affected the industry adversely. The company is a growing one that performs in a volatile market and the rising factor costs and few events have made the year 2014 difficult for DB to compete. The major problem was the flooding and the rail strike that has reduces the shares of the company and made the company develop new strategy for survival and further growth. It has been found that around 60 million more people have chosen to use its services this year as compared with the previous year. Hence, though the company is facing a huge competition in the market it is seeking growth because of its high quality services and customers satisfaction.
b. What is the business strategy of this company?
Deutsche Bahn works on maintaining three dimensional strategies. The main strategy of the company is to maintain the customer’s satisfaction, and then is to maintain the satisfaction of its employees and maintain the environment around which it is performing.
c. What are the main reasons for the development described in the article?
The company faced a huge trouble due to the longest strike by the train drivers ever in the railway industry in Germany. The company faced a huge loss due to about 200000 passengers missing their journey because of the strike. It’s not only the company which faced a huge loss but also the passengers who are dependable on the company for their daily journey. This has basically created a gap between the customers and the services of the company. Apart from the loss of the company the goodwill of the company has also been in stake just because of the rail strike. The company is a growing one that ranks top on providing its services to its customers and also is the number one logistic company in Germany. The strike took place between the Deutsche Bahn and the German Driver Labor Union which broke down on Wednesday on 5th November and continued for about 50 hours that caused a lot of difficulty for the passengers and the company. The company has to face a major turn down in financial ability and also the services for its passengers. It also affected the economy of the firm and the industry. German Labor Union wanted 5% increase in the pay of the 20000 drivers that works for the company throughout Europe. The strike mainly affected the economy because it was the 25th anniversary of the company. It was thought of bringing better services for its wide based passengers on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the company. But the strike has totally been the spoilsport which totally created a massacre affecting the major economy of the company, goodwill of the company also harming its wide range passengers those who regularly use the services of Deutsche Bahn.

HR strategy

Which strategy does HR need to embrace to support the business strategy in the given context?
Deutsche Bahn is one of the biggest multinational companies that work all over the Europe. With the company facing a tough competition from all its rival companies the company must change the strategies and apply new prolific strategies to bring out the major growth of the company. The HR in this situation must play a prolific role to bring up new ways to implement new strategies to embrace and support the business and its new strategies. The major and potential part is to apply new strategies basically when the main strategy of the company is customer satisfaction. To follow the customer satisfaction level Deutsche Bahn must follow the main strategy of providing adequate and proper services to the wide based customers. The company should prolifically look forward for the lookout of the customers and continue to provide the services with real menace so that the company can start earning profits to survive in the market. The company is at stake as because of the huge strike that is going on which actually is a problem to think about. Despite the strike the company should try to re-assure the services of logistics and transport services to the customers. The company should try to implement a major theory of cutting down the unnecessary costs by two prolific methods that are job evaluation method and job ranking method. By this two prolific technique or strategies all the look out of bringing back the initial positioning is considered so that the company may easily note down the major and potential ways to bringing back the company profits. Job evaluation and job ranking methods will help to know the standardized ways of evaluating major employees and try to motivate the employees in boosting the services as before. The job evaluation and job ranking method will bring the goodwill into factor which will help the company to continue its business and hold the precious position in the market. By these two prolific strategies and cutting down the unnecessary costs will help to know the major areas where implementation are needed By this prolific means the company would be able to survive in the market providing edge to its fierce competitors.

Which chapters of the text book help address the issue?

Chapter no. 13 that is HRM in Action, Compensating Human Resources; Base wage and salary systems are the chapters that address the issue. The issue which is prolifically very important aspect which deals with the functioning of Human resource management and its major delegates and authorities functions are the major and prolific segment that is needed in this issue of Deutsche Bahn railway strike. The strike deals with a major conflict which resulted major consequences in both economic sector of the company and also the goodwill of the company and the services it provides. The strike resulted in major consequences so the HRM needs to play a prolific role to bring out major strategies, techniques to bring back the company in its initial stage of earning profits and customer satisfaction. This chapter majorly deals with the action of the company that is prolifically needed in the stated issue to deal up the things and bring back the company’s original state.

HR implementation

What are the next steps that the HR should take?
Deutsche Bahn is facing major crisis in their business concern of logistics and the transport service that they provide for their customers and passengers. Due to the railway strike Deutsche Bahn was not available to provide the services of transport for the passengers which basically resulted in huge loss. According to major sources and calculations that was done it was seen that the company was not able to provide services for about 50 hours which resulted adversely in huge loss of the company as about 200000 passengers couldn’t get proper transportation and missed their journey. The company is now facing a economic crisis along with the share prices have gone down in a huge rate. The human resource management has been deeply involved to figure out the major situation. In this case the management of the human resource should take a prolific role to note down the wants of the German driver labor union. It is seen that the major strike issue was because of the talks that breakdown between the German Labor union and Deutsche Bahn. According to sources it was noted that the German Labor Union wanted a hike of 5% in the pay of the 20000 drivers that work in the company throughout Europe. Now the major steps that should be taken is to have a look out for the wants of the labor union. The issue should be prolifically deal to avoid major mishap in near future. Due to the major loss the company should potentially make a note down to cut down unnecessary costs so that the economic crisis of the company should somehow stabilize (Armstrong, 2008). Secondly a major thing that should be taken into concern that is the railway services should again be started with real menace so that no more complains should come off from any sources. If possible few services must be provided adequately for the passengers so that the goodwill of the company doesn’t gets fade away. The Human resource management should keep apply some major strategies like evaluation of the work, employee concern and mostly customer satisfaction in mind to bring back the situation in hand.

How should HR go about it? Who does what? Who is involved?

HR is the main authority that should deal with the situation. To listen to the wants of the Labor union, employees, major steps that must be taken into consideration etc. In this scenario the HR should make a prolific and potential step to bring back some major changes in the company to uplift the company’s prospect in the market and also upgrade the level of customer satisfaction. Due to the railway strike and the stiff competition the company is facing it has made the company authorities mainly the human resource management to think up some major alternative strategies and techniques to deal up with the situation. Firstly the HR should survey down the major needs of the company. The HR should always keep in contact with the market and the services that the other competitors are providing. This will naturally help to know what the main areas Deutsche Bahn needs changes. These changes will help to make down some major decisions, strategies, and techniques to be implemented for the benefits of the company in the long run. Starting from the CEO to the employees of the company should take up the prolific role to uplift the services and the goodwill of the company. The CEO, the board of directors, stakeholders should hold up a meeting and study and come up with major recommendations to apply in the field. Along with this it is quite mandatory to deal up with the labor union and fix the issue as soon as possible. The needs should be taken into concern but the increase in salary must be dealt with minimum percentage so that the company’s economic sector does not get more irresolute. The employees should take up the prolific role of pushing the company services more efficiently to hold on to the goodwill of the company along with the customer’s satisfaction. This will help to hold on to the customers and passengers. For being stable in the market the charges, the fare should be somewhat kept low to compete in the market along with the fierce competitors. The company executives should take up the role to bring back the company’s reputation. In this aspect mostly the issue is somewhat arise due to the involvement of the authorities of the company of totally neglecting the Labor union’s wants and not prolifically studying the market (Torrington and Hall, 1995). So, to dissolve the issue the authorities and the HR must take up the above explained steps with major importance.

Alternative Solutions

Could the company have done something differently?
Looking into the situation the company could have easily took some major decisions before which may have stopped the labor union to call for the strike. If we see on a general note the situation have arise just because of the company’s avoidance to the wants of the German Labor Union. If the company wouldn’t have avoided the created situation by the German labor union then we can say that the company would not have faced such fierce consequences. On the other hand about the stiff competition of the market since 2014, in this matter the company should have studied the market by time to time surveys which would have easily helped Deutsche Bahn to avoid all the problems. By the steps, strategies and techniques that have been prolifically taken into consideration are the best choices in this situation there is no chance the company could have done something else.
Avoiding the wants of the German labor union of an increase in the salary of the drivers by 5% was totally a wrong thing to do. Its’ all because of the avoidance the adverse situation has to be faced by the company which directly led to the closure of the railway services for about 50 hours and which resulted in affecting the economy and the share prices. On applying the necessary strategies and techniques for making the company bring back to its original state of flourishing profits the above stated steps and decisions are the best.

What else needs to be taken into consideration?

According to the situation the human resource management and the authorities of the company have taken the major steps to upgrade the situation that the company is facing. There are two major things that must be taken into consideration are:- the services that Deutsche Bahn use to provide must continue to do so to make the customers and the passengers happy and gain the goodwill which will help to bring the company back from the adverse economic situation and secondly the company should always keep an eye on such major consequences that can actually affect the company adversely.

Work Cited

'2013 Annual Report'. Duetsche Bahn Annual Financial Statement (2014): n. pag. Print.
BBC News,. 'Germany's Deutsche Bahn Set For 'Longest Rail Strike''. 2015. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.
Byars, Lloyd L, and Leslie W Rue. Human Resource Management. Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2008. Print.