Internal and External Constraints Affecting Top Gear plc Essay

In this task I shall discuss the many difficulties facing Top Gear plc and the internal and external constraints that may affect the company. I will also include constraints that the Personnel Manager will have to keep in mind when he is preparing job advertisements, and, use examples to show how these constraints will affect the decision makers of Top Gear plc. I will discuss internal constraints first and later go on to discuss the external constraints that affect both Top Gear plc and the Personnel Manager. When preparing a job advertisement the Personnel Manager will have to look at several internal constraints before hand. One thing the Personnel Manager may do is check there is actually a job for a new employee or that a new employee is needed. There is no point in recruiting more employees if there are already sufficient employees to do the amount of work that needs to be done. He will also have to look at the payment of new employees. The Personnel Manager will have to discuss this with the manager of the department looking to recruit new employees, or whichever department is paying for the new recruits, and see whether their budget can afford to pay for a new recruit. Another area the Personnel Manager would have to think about is whether the company can accommodate new employees. For example if the job required an office to work from, and Top Gear plc didn’t have any offices remaining, they would be unable to accommodate a new employee. Also the company may be required to have parking spaces for each individual employee’s. Also the Personnel Manager would have to examine if there are enough resources for a new recruit to carry out the job they have been hired for. If Top Gear plc hired someone to make deliveries, and then found they did not have enough vehicles for the new recruit and existing staff, they would be paying for someone who was doing nothing. The Personnel Manager would also have to consider, if there were an inadequate amount of resources, whether it would be cost-affective to buy more of the required resources or whether it would be cheaper to not recruit any new employees. Another constraint may be that the company uses a specialist type of equipment or software package and the Personnel Manager would have to include this as part of the job advertisement. For example, Top Gear plc may use a certain graphics package when designing new clothes, so, new employees involved in the design department of Top Gear plc would have to be able to use that certain graphics package. If they could not use the graphics package then they would require training and this would cost more money, and, if Top Gear plc was only looking to recruit one employee it may be considered a waste of time and money to train one individual employee. Internal constraints also affect other areas of the company. One instance in which the directors of Top Gear plc are going to have to take internal constraints into very serious consideration will be when they put their idea of introducing a website to the company into practice. Top Gear plc will have to recruit new people and buy new equipment to use and maintain the new website and other things associated with the introduction of the website such as more vehicles for the expected extra deliveries. Also new recruits, and current employees, if they are to be used, will have to have the right skills and qualifications required to make the new website work. These are just a few of the internal constraints that would likely affect a company such as Top Gear plc. There are also many external constraints affecting businesses such as Top Gear plc. When preparing a job advertisement the Personnel Manager will also have to take several of these into consideration. Some of the major constraints that will have to be focused on are included in Employment Legislation. Such legislation includes Acts such as the Health and Safety at Work Act, Race Relations Act, Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act. These mean that the Personnel Manager cannot be either sexist or racist in his advertisement and that he will have to be careful that he doesn’t inadvertently produce an advert containing anything that could be interpreted as though he was being racist or sexist or discriminate to other such individuals as disabled people. The Personnel Manager must make sure the payment for the job is fair otherwise he is going against the Equal Pay Act. If one person is being paid à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½500 a month in Top Gear plc and a job vacancy appears for someone to do the same job for only à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½400 this would be unfair to the new employee. It is very unlikely an employee would work for less money than someone doing the same job and would be a bad idea to pay them less as Top Gear plc would get into trouble and would soon find themselves with one less employee and another vacancy. The environment were the company is based will also have an affect on the company. If Top Gear plc were based in an area with high employment, such as London, the chances of getting a high skilled worker for a low payment are quite slim as there will probably be many other jobs that are willing to pay more to have highly skilled employees, so the Personnel Manager will have to take this into consideration when deciding and publishing the amount which the job will pay. If the vacancy requires new offices to be built, or an expansion of factory space, Top Gear plc will have to adhere to local government planning regulations and may also annoy some local environmental pressure groups which will try and stop the new buildings being built. The Directors, as well as the Personnel Manager, would have to decide whether it is worth having new buildings, or current buildings extended, and whether the possibility of causing local pressure groups to take action against the company is likely. Top Gear plc want to have a good reputation. If environmental pressure groups take action against the company it will spoil Top Gear plc’s reputation and construction would be slowed if not completely stopped as the people complain about the company. Other pressure groups will also be considered in decisions of the company such as Trade Unions and Consumer Groups. Top Gear plc will not want Trade Unions taking action against them so they will probably employ people to make sure the work environment is as safe and as fair as possible so that Trade Unions are happy. Consumer Pressure groups will also be taken into consideration and so Top Gear plc will do their best to make sure products conform to Consumer Legislation such as the Trade Descriptions Act, Sale of Goods Act and the Weights and Measures Act. This means that goods sold by Top Gear plc must be as described, be free from any defects, be of a decent merchantable quality and must be the correct measurement labelled on them. The Finance department also have certain external constraints such as Taxes. There are many taxes including corporation tax and VAT. Top Gear plc has to pay these taxes on the profit they make, the things they buy such as equipment, vehicles etc. Top Gear plc can claim VAT back from customs and excise. The Finance department will also have to take exchange rates and interest rates into consideration when buying or selling items abroad or when taking out loans or other such borrowings. A big external constraint is competition. The Personnel Manager may have to take this into account when preparing a job advertisement as if a competing company also have a vacancy for a similar job they may try and make their job seem more attractive by offering better payment, better bonuses or other such things. The Personnel Manager may take this into account and try to make the job sound as interesting as possible. Competition will also affect the prices Top Gear plc sells its products at and may be the cause for a reduction in prices as Top Gear plc are competing to have more customers than other companies. In conclusion there are many types of internal and external constraints that affect any company especially one like Top Gear plc. The Personnel Manager will have many constraints to consider when preparing for the advertisement and must think carefully about what is included within his final advertisement. The directors of Top Gear plc, who are the main decision makers, will also expected to put a lot of thought toward external constraints also as the wrong decisions could mean disaster for the company.