1. Introduction
People have an important role for the project's success. Resources restrict the projects. Human resource management has an important effect on the project's success; so by its effect, project can be achieved or failed. Human resource management is planning, orienting, acquiring, and releasing the staff over the project life cycle. Also, in our solar power project, human resource management is very important for the project's success. Number of people employed, their competency trainings, their adaptation, and their selection criteria are big concerns and one of the most important parts for the solar power project.
Human resource management is mostly related to the people who are included in the operations of the company which communicates, motivates, leads, builds teams, recruits etc... This knowledge is used for managing and leading people who are in the project; and project manager's main responsibility is being acquainted with it.
2. Rainbow Company's Solar Power Project
Solar power is useful, because;
As Rainbow Company, we are in solar power industry. We sell, install and commission solar power projects which are clean and renewable energy. We have lots of projects ongoing. However, we are mentioning our solar power project in Niger.
Telecommunication industry is growing day by day. And base stations which has a vital role fort he GSM operators, need too much electricity. Sometimes these stations are far away from the city or towns; these times, it costs really a lot to provide electricity for these stations. Niger in which the weather is sunny most of the year is a strategic country for Rainbow Company. Moreover, sun light's coming angle is very appropriate for using it as a source for our solar panels. This document includes our human resource management about our solar power project in Niger.
3. Challenges in Solar Power Project
For the solar power project, there could be the following challenges
4. Rainbow Company's Management and Controlling Strategy
As project managers, we have management and controlling philosophy which we are using in our project to achieve the success that we are aimed to reach.
The Tayloristic way of management is an old way which is certainly not accepted by the new management paradigm thinkers nowadays. Hence we have humanistic agenda in our management philosophy.
a. Motivation
In the humanistic agenda, the individuals of the team have the freedom and autonomy to act in their fields and tasks. It is seen that the members of the organizations, want to feel free in their areas and to improve their selves.
We do not have the right and ignorance to keep them in a cage. It is better to use their skills for our projects. That is the reason we give the jobs to fit the people skills and interests.
The project manager needs to provide the motivation of the team members. The working life is an important part of the individual's life. When the managers supply the needs of the individuals, the more performance will be gained. Hence, it is decided to benefit from some theories and thoughts to have the vision in the management.
According to the Hawthorne studies, there are three paradigm for the motivation theory. These are content theories, process theories and reinforcements.
1. Content theories
Content theories gives attention on the things that are motivated the individual during the working time. There are two theories belong to content. One is Maslow's 'hierarchy of needs' theory.
According to this theory the individual firstly wants the basic needs which are in the bottom of the hierarchy. When this level is satisfied, the individual will go to the next step and want to be ensured the safety needs. The individual will need the upper level, when previous need is satisfied. In the figure the hierarchy of the needs is shown.
Another content theory is Herzberg's motivation-hygiene'. In this theory, the needs are categorized into two factors which are motivation factors and hygiene factors. Motivation factors can be illustrated as success, recognition, the value of the work, having authority and responsibility, having opportunities to taking promotion or improving yourself etc.. By providing these factors, the individual's desire will increase. Without these factors, their desire and motivation can fall down.
Business policy and management, working conditions, wage levels, level of happiness in the private life, the relationship in the organization can be the examples to the hygiene factors. When hygiene factors exist in the project, the work satisfaction is provided and it can motivate the individuals for working. When these factors do not exist (not good working conditions, not good family life), the motivational effects disappear. According to Herzberg, the hygiene factors does not always affect the individual's motivation, sometimes there is no effect on the individual.
2. Process Theories
As it is explained Herzberg and Maslow were interested on the needs of the individuals when Victor Vroom was interested on the outcomes and improved "expectancy theory". He thinks that effort performance and motivation should be attached to each other. Valence, expectancy and instrumentality are the variables which are suggested to achieve this.
If we increase the effort, the performance will also increase. This is the belief of expectancy. Expectancy is affected with some situations which are;
If we perform in a good way, the outcome will be much more qualified. This is the belief of Instrumentality which is affected with understanding well the performance, the outcomes and their interactions.
Sometimes the individual is motivated with money when another individual is motivated with spare time. The belief that motivates the individual with the thing that he/she motivated most is valence.
3. Reinforcements
There are some ways which can be used as reinforcements for the managers to use in their management areas. The five basic ones are as follows; "be specific", "be immediate", "make the targets achievable", "remember the intangible", "make it unpredictable".
b. Management Style
With cooperation, the individual is educated in the way of their interests for joining your group and working with you. When it is needed to use the skills of the individual as they want, it is a very effective way. It is more humanistic.
With coercion, as like in Taylorism there is forcing the individual to gain the tasks that they should do. It is not a humanistic way of course, but it works well when you do not need the individual to show his/her skills, just to do the work which is clarified well.
As good project managers we try to have the cooperation between our team members. But sometimes when the time is too short and there are certain tasks and more stress on the project managers, coercion is unavoidable.
c. Cultural Implications
According to some studies, there are four different kind of cultures that can be observed in the organizations. These are named by the name of some Greek gods who are Apollo, Zeus, Dionysus and Athena.
Apollo culture is the culture mostly seen in the project management. Because in Apollo culture the tasks are more stable, predictable and visible which are mostly seen in the project management environment.
5. Organization Chart of Rainbow Company Solar Power Project
6. Roles and Responsibilities
• Operational manager:
Responsibilities: General Management of the whole project.
Authorities: Go / No-go Decisions
Competencies needed: Leadership, communication, financial and management skills
* Installation dept 1st line manager
Responsibilities: performance of his dept, coordinating with other depts.
Authorities: can take important decisions within his dept.
Competencies needed: technical awareness, Leadership, communication, financial & management skills
• Installation team leader engineer
Responsibilities: Following up on his team's KPIs, coordination within his own team.
Authorities: dividing team members upon different tasks.
Competencies needed: High technical awareness, Leadership, communication skills.
• Installation Engineer
Responsibilities: Following up on installations performed by technicians, quality assurance.
Authorities: subdivision of work within his team of technicians.
Competencies needed: High technical awareness, Leadership, communication skills.
• Installation Technicians
Responsibilities: Equipment installation
Authorities: None.
Competencies needed: High stamina, ability to understand what is needed to be done.
* Commissioning dept 1st line manager
Responsibilities: performance of his dept, coordinating with other depts.
Authorities: can take important decisions within his dept.
Competencies needed: technical awareness, Leadership, communication, financial & management skills
• Commissioning team leader engineer
Responsibilities: Following up on his team's KPIs, coordination within his own team.
Authorities: dividing team members upon different tasks.
Competencies needed: High technical awareness, Leadership, communication skills.
• Commissioning Engineer
Responsibilities: Software installation and configuration.
Authorities: only within his task.
Competencies needed: high technical awareness.
* Power dept 1st line manager
Responsibilities: performance of his dept, coordinating with other depts.
Authorities: can take important decisions within his dept.
Competencies needed: technical awareness, Leadership, communication, financial & management skills
• Power team leader engineer
Responsibilities: Following up on his team's KPIs, coordination within his own team.
Authorities: dividing team members upon different tasks.
Competencies needed: High technical awareness, Leadership, communication skills.
• Power Engineer
Responsibilities: Determine and follow up installation of the power needed.
Authorities: only within his task.
Competencies needed: high technical awareness.
* Program Manager
Responsibilities: Managing/coordinating multiple projects
Authorities: upper level decisions, for example, which project needs to be prioritized?
Competencies needed: All Project management skills.
• Project manager
Responsibilities: Managing only one project most of the time.
Authorities: project level decisions.
Competencies needed: All Project management skills.
• Project coordinator
Responsibilities: Assistance to the project manager
Authorities: low level decision with regards to the project he/she is involved in.
Competencies needed: basic project management skills.
7. Competences Required for Solar Power Project
There are various methods to present the competence of a team. Most widely two methods are competence chart and the matrix method. As the name sounds matrix method is a matrix with the required level and present level of competence which allows for an easier way to distinguish the areas that needs to be worked on. Since it's a numerical representation, we will look at the graphical method which is also known as Spider-Web chart as it's easier to read and to present for a quick over view.
For the project we will divide the team broadly into two and examine the needed competencies for the group.
1. Technical Worker
For the technical staff the important part is that they are experts in their individual areas. This much more important compared to other competencies like business understanding, financial understanding etc. For example someone working in internal IT service doesn't need to be a expert in project management as long as he does his part in the project. However competencies like communication, performance-orientation etc becomes very important.
2. Middle Managers
Considering the impact a manager makes in the life's of people working under him it's very important that his level of competence is much higher than average and especially for the areas which would eventually decide if a project would be success or failure. In the middle management it's more important to have interpersonal skills that can be used to motivate, guide and communication skills rather than pure technical knowledge. An understanding of technical knowledge is good since it will help to gain respect from the people working in the department. Also a bad middle management can make many people leave the project making the whole project in jeopardy.
3. Top Management
The top management guides the project. Hence it's necessary to have a good over view of the various financial and business of the project as whole. The technical understanding for this level is very less and it's more global than focused. For this level, strategy, finance, business understanding etc becomes more relevant. A broad over view of technical knowledge will be enough for them.
References
