Creating and Maintaining a High Performance Organization
Karen Handall
HRD8319 Introduction to Human Resources
December 5, 2014
Abstract
Helena Chemical is one of the country’s leading distributors of crop protection and crop production services. Helena has over 3,000 employees, located in strategic markets across the nation. The company’s goal is to provide customers with effective delivery of products and services that increase productivity, enhance crop harvests, and provide reliable product performance. Helena believes that its success revolves around: People, Products, and Knowledge. People provide the right combination of Products based on Knowledge of customers’ business and interest in extending and sustaining their success. With full authority as an HR leader, I would devise a plan to enhance Helena’s employee satisfaction, in order to make it a high performing organization for the employees, since profitability and customer satisfaction are well maintained.
Creating and Maintaining a High Performance Organization
Helena Chemical is currently a high performance organization in profitability and customer satisfaction, but lacks in employee satisfaction. Helena's primary offerings are fertilizer products and related services, along with pesticides, seed, and a diverse line of proprietary products. Helena's Specialty Division holds a market presence in turf & ornamental, forestry, aquatics and vegetation management markets with similar product mixes and chemistries that are utilize in agriculture. The growing sales force operates across the country in strategic markets in these unique industries to help farmers meet the demanding needs of the industry. The company is also diversified into other service units such as lending, variable rate technologies, and tissue analysis in order to perfect product application practices and increase productivity. However, from an HR perspective, the organization needs to do a lot of work in order to become an employer of choice and retain its most valuable asset, its employees.
Profitability
Helena currently conducts business in all 48 adjoining states in the U. S. and is expanding its international presence through Europe, Central and South America. Additionally, expansion across the nation is continuing as business conditions mandate. Nonetheless, Helena is currently pushing $5 billion in sales, compared to $1.4 billion about a decade ago. This is in part due to Helena’s speedy response to technological innovations. For example, Helena is ahead of its competitors in implementing the latest precision agriculture, such as farming methods that apply GPS and other technological advancements. The organization also focuses on the analysis and location management of soil, enabling it to provide optimal amounts of fertilizers and agricultural chemicals to individual sites. Therefore, Helena’s exceptional knowledge and advanced technology push the development of the agricultural industry forward, and allow the company to become more profitable, while supporting the food supply and demand issues of the future.
Customer Satisfaction
Across the U.S, approximately 80,000 farmers are among Helena’s customers, giving it the second largest presence in the country. Among the major attributes of the company’s success are its broad community-based business and exceptional employees. For example, the sales representatives do not only sell products, but also act as consultants to provide detailed service in order to answer the needs of individual farmers, such as determining what is essential to increase crop harvests. The sales representatives possess extensive experience; they have familiarized themselves with the characteristics of soil and the farming methods of certain regions, and are highly devoted to the industry. Moreover, in recent years, Helena has dedicated on creating private brands to meet the demanding needs of farmers. These private brand products are specialized materials such