Human Resource Management Strategies in Practice - Assignment Example

Q. 2. Explain three ways that reading the newspaper and business journals might help someone become a more effective HR/ER manager. Give examples The answer is - The linkage between human resource and firm performance dominates most of the literature debate within the literature on Human resource since the mid-1990s. Despite many researches conducted on the same, paradigm to help uncover a set of high-performance or commitment work practices focusing on aligning HRM strategies well with organizational strategies to create superior firm performance the relationship is still broad on the side of human resource (Warner, 2007). In increasing the organization’s performance, the HR is therefore with a big responsibility of propelling the organization to success. Therefore, he or she should gather enough information to help the organization strategize on the progress. Out rightly, it is arguable that reading the newspaper and business journals might help the managers become a more effective in their operations with the HR department. In looking at what reading the newspaper and business journals may help for a HR as increasing his or her effectiveness, it is crucial to look into the roles that HR plays within the organization. The largest part of the HR department role in many organizations is the ‘administrative expert.’ This is a process-orientated in a day-to-day operation focus, which is why the manager should have the information at hand on how to manage the same. Managing the firm infrastructure is not an easy task if the HR does not have adequate skills to do the same (Warner, 2007). The other crucial role is the process-orientated role of a ‘strategic partner’, future-focused, and mainly basing on the strategic management of the employees and aligning strategies of HRM with business strategy. These are the roles, which a HR has to perform in the daily duties that newspaper and journals contribute to heavily. With such an understanding, it is now possible to look into what reading the business journals or newspapers may contribute to increasing this effectiveness. Newspapers and business journals are significant sources of management skills and expertise. From this knowledge acquired through these sources, the HR can increase the ability to operate within his roles and diverse forms of management. The HR departments as well as line management thus have a critical role to play to help stimulate appropriate employee behaviour ideally on behalf of the overall firm (Ramlall, 2003). In this context, knowing how to stimulate appropriate behavior will require knowledge on the same of which the business journals can provide to the HR. it is out of this that the HR ensures high-firm performance related to achievement of sustained competitive advantage using internal resources and this poses and effective HRM (Ramlall, 2003). From the same journals, the HR can learn more about Human Capital. Human capital is generally, the employees in terms of individual skill, knowledge and experience, which have substantial economic value to the organization (Ramlall, 2003). For the HR to effectively, choose to invest particularly in the recruitment or employees’ development and achieve the desired skill and knowledge level, the first thing is to have the knowledge on how to do it. It is from these sources that a HR will have access to workforce availability. In all cases of an organization, the HR has the mandate to make sure he recruits qualified personnel with excellent skills and knowledge relevant for working and completing the respective tasks in the organization. It therefore means that the HR has to be updated on where to outsource the information on the availability of labor force. Normally, newspapers and such journals are the source of information and as said, it is knowledge and this is what the HR requires in all situations to help him come up with such solutions to sources of chief information on the required labor force (Warner, 2007). Additionally, competition is eminent across the globe for all companies. For any HR, he knows quite well that there is a need to develop a competitive advantage over other organizations in the same field of production. To understand the competitiveness of the field and know how to handle the same, it is only possible through outsourcing such information (Ramlall, 2003). This is why newspapers are of value as well as business journals because they have such information as companies operating in the same line of production, their operating strategies, their plans as well as many other attributes, which are excellent for helping strategize and fair in the competition (Warner, 2007). For instance, a company such as siemens producing mobile phones requires knowing what other companies for instance Nokia, Samsung among many others, are doing and how much they have the grounds. The HR will therefore need to make strategies and streamline the Siemens operations making them better than the competitors and therefore achieving a competitive advantage. Q. 9 – What are three changes in the external context of organization in the last 10 years that present Important challenges for HR/ER staff with regard to employee recruitment and selection? Explain The answer is - Recruitment and Selection are part of an organization supremely relevant in building the success of an organization. This is why strategies of recruiting and selecting are excellent as they result to the result to the best of employees precisely within the organization. Better processes are notable as they result in excellent organizational outcomes. The more effective the recruitment and selection is for the organizations’ candidates, the higher the likelihood that they are to retain satisfied employees. However, for the last ten years there have been many organizational changes especially in the external environment, which are subject to determining whether and organization will have successful selection and recruitment. Three precise changes in the external context are relevant in presenting challenges to HR/ER staff with regard to the two processes. The three external changes include culture diversity, technology, and market force. Market forces are one of the ideal factors externally that have challenged many human resource staffs in their recruitment processes. Within the markets, forces as competitive shifts, price pressures, customer demands and many others create business tensions posing as a challenge for the HR when recruiting employees because they need employees who can deliver (Chew & Frank, 2004). Competition in the market is on a high due to the globalization processes. This has featured abundantly in the ten-year span and posing a considerable challenge in selecting employees as well as recruiting them because the HR is liable to whoever it recruits to deliver and give the organization the ability to compete with others in the market. Evans (2005) reflects that due to the globalization, the Pacific Rim and East Asia countries are experiencing a greater influence upon human resource management and economic power, arising from the relative complex nature of the business, several sizes (population and physical geography) of the markets, as well as different governments within the region. Lundy & Cowling (2001) reflects that China’s economy has been experiencing growth remarkably fast in 2006 with 40 million jobs desired to be, “created” every year to reduce unemployment (Lundy & Cowling, 2001). In addition, more educated countries, for instance Japan and South Korea already have developed HRM systems in which countries such as China are developing perfect HRM procedures. Asia shows an admirable example of the growing service sector comparing to Global markets but seeing faster decline in agriculture sectors (Chew & Frank, 2004). The respective sectors compete with the industrialized world precisely for professional as well as educated labor (Lundy & Cowling, 2001). Again, China is seeing more growth percentage that is meaningful to productivity as well as market growth, and therefore, a growing service sector in China soon will overshadow those in greater and more developed Asian countries for instance South Korea or Taiwan. On the other hand, technology has been on the verge of advancing for the ten-year period across the globe meaning that the HR staff have a challenge in recruiting or even selecting workers who learn the technology with ease or who have the skills required within the advanced technology work environment. Four trends seem extremely critical to HRM future including globalization of companies, particularly moving jobs globally, the rise of high competition will affect some economies’ ability to capitalize within the fast developing markets, education and age playing a valuable role in the qualified workforce development and technology accelerating more developments in companies and becoming technologically advanced (Chew & Frank, 2004). The respective trends mark enormous challenges to global and domestic organizations with respect to respective workforce development, recruitment and retention. Programs in the 21st century will need to cater for the development of workers encouraging the continuous training as well as education to meet the global needs of the fast technology as well as global expansions. These trends influence human resource management and over the next years, they will be having a drastic turn. Lundy & Cowling (2001) identified several of the trends with the identified trends correlating with issues around the globe as well as within any country. Awareness of the respective trends helps human resource management (HRM) to foresee purposefully potential changes within any given work environment. The trends also mark noteworthy challenges to global and domestic organizations with respect to a given workforce development, recruitment and retention of employees. It is due to globalization that technology has featured in these organizations bringing about challenges in recruitment and selection of employees. Globalization that has brought in technology is affecting organizations to use resources precisely from around the world as well as take advantage of available cheaper labor in foreign countries or relatively to do business in other countries. For instance, Western companies, such as Fiserv, Inc, are using substantial outsourcing of labor in the development of their companies, for instance Citigroup attempt to position themselves, taking advantage of respective global markets. Additionally, some of the organizations use a combination of respective principles (Lundy & Cowling, 2001). Lundy & Cowling (2001) reflects that developing countries for instance China and India were, at a time, taking away just low-wage job employees, but for now they are relatively taking more skilled as well as higher paying jobs directly from the industrialized world. This is because the technology has posed as a challenge that requires individuals that are more skilled and expertise in the same field (Chew & Frank, 2004). In addition, skill gaps in respective industrialized world causes HR Staff of different companies to as well as hire immigrants and undertaking tasks in the respective industrialized world, and the immigrants, after spending time in the West and gained valuable skills, return to their respective countries with the acquired knowledge and training. In addition, organizations, particularly crucial tech companies, open development centers and research laboratories in foreign countries taking advantage of the available lower cost skilled labor within the location. Lundy & Cowling (2001) have suggested that this actually accounts for a relative decline in computer science graduates within the domestic institutions. Culture diversity is the third significant factor leading to many challenges for the HR in recruiting and selecting employees. Globalization brings about culture diversity in organizations demanding that global organizations hold the ability to manage teams effectively in worldwide and maintain effective communications throughout the organization’s operations. It therefore demands that the HRD understands or accepts diverse cultures, which is critical for any given successful organizations (Lundy & Cowling, 2001). This is posing as a great challenge in selecting and recruiting employees for respective tasks in organizations because culture diversity poses as a absolute determination factor. The HR has to develop powerful strategies as to incorporate everyone within the organization and master the approaches to promote teamwork within the recruited employees subject to culture diversity. Q. 13 – Using examples from the required reading (Taylor and Connelly 2009), Illustrate the characteristics and consequences of a poor safety culture The answer is - A poor safety culture in a working environment is a culture that promotes or allows poor values regarding to hazards, safety and risks. A poor safety culture generally perpetuates a working climate in which many at-risk practices, behaviors, values, at-risk language, and attitudes thrive and pose as a danger to the all the workers in the same environment (Taylor & Connelly, 2009). A poor safety culture ideally is detected quickly in how employees normally talk about risk and safety, how they also prioritize safety processes for instance training, alerts and committees and commonly evident in skepticism language, fatalism, negativity and double-speak mainly directed towards the other person. More to this, the poor safety culture includes the wrong practices, structures and equipments and this is the subject of this article. There are outright characteristics of a poor safety culture in an organization because it is all about mismanagement within the operations of the organization. In exposing poor working conditions, a testimony from Laurence suggests that the effectual causes of the disaster mainly cannot be separated ideally from the mismanagement of safety and health at the organization. A crucial characteristic is the Systematic legislation breaches including the failure to accept or go in line with the Safety and Health Consultation with established Employees’ Regulations (Taylor & Connelly, 2009), or failure of supplying workers with the Control of Substances results that are Hazardous to their Health as well as inadequate and ineffective conduct of risk assessments. Therefore, the interrelationship mainly between the employment unit of a small unit, the absence of trades unionism, as well as management’s unilateral health and safety determination characterizes poor safety culture in a given organization. They characterize such a workplace as mainly constituting ‘potential injurious structure[s] posing as vulnerable.’ Owing to a poor safety culture within any given organization, there are significant consequences that befall the practice. This is why any given organization should foster a healthy working culture to help come up with solutions to leading challenges as well as the aftermath, which are severe consequences. One of the consequences of the poor safety culture in any organization is poor healthy of the employees. This is a severe consequence because it leads to high rates of turn over and absence of employees in their places of work owing to nursing their ill health. It might not seem a problem to the organization but it brings down the production rate at the organization therefore lowering the returns (Taylor & Connelly, 2009). Such consequences are subject to poor structures at the work place, which is a outstanding characteristic of many work places. In his narration, Laurence Connelly reveals that in their work places the main hazard particularly was the fumes. He further says that there was no ventilation, or even any windows in the work place, which means that employees are vulnerable to diseases some of them that are incurable. On his count, the place had two vents on the low roof. However, they were blocked due to the letting excess heat out. One of the people working with him actually had gone to the safety and health monitors regarding the same but there were no appropriate measures taken. Laurence says that he even got the blame solely for it, of which it had nothing to do with him showing signs that the place was, poorly managed. However, someone phoned the safety and health monitors because the place was freezing and this was posing as a danger to human health. Laurence confesses that they had three little heaters overhead at one side of the structural building and nothing categorically anywhere else for at least 40 ft building (Taylor & Connelly, 2009). There was even no insulation, meaning that any heat went straight out the main roof. On the same note, they were not allowed to even, open any locks to the doors because if they did the fumes would go up to the offices and the staff complained. It is a clear indication that their life was at risk health wise and the place depicted precise characteristics of poor safety culture. Another more serious consequences and a horrifying experience of not looking into a safety culture within an organization is loss of workers through incidences that lead to death (Taylor & Connelly, 2009). It may sound abstract but it is supremely evident from many organizations with poor safety cultures. They experience many disasters, which lead to deaths of many people within the working environment. According to Lawrence, in 2004, 11 May, nine workers died and forty severely injured in an explosion that was havoc to Grove Park Mills plant of ICL Plastics Ltd in Glasgow. This was rated the worst safety and health incident in Scotland after Piper Alpha in 1988 a case where 167 died (Taylor & Connelly, 2009) and therefore showing the serious consequences of such a poor safety culture. The poor safety culture in an organization can also be extraordinarily expensive and costly not only due to loss of labor force but also in terms of resources. In many countries across the globe, there are monitoring boards for work environments that are responsible for verifying the conditions in which respective employees work under in given circumstances. In case of any complain, it means that the board takes the initiative of investigating the scenario and this is where the danger lies. If found guilty of risking employees lives in such poor working conditions, companies can be charged heavy fines of which this is unbudgeted expense that reduces the companies capital and profits. In some circumstances, the company might pay hefty fines and ultimately ending bankrupt of which it risks the closure of all company operations (Taylor & Connelly, 2009). A joint investigation precisely undertaken by the Safety and Health monitors and Executive, the Procurator Fiscal and Strathclyde Police, led to criminal charges eventually against ICL Tech Ltd as well as ICL Plastics Ltd because they had breached many protocols in Safety and Health legislation. In 2008, late August, the companies pleaded guilty therefore each fined £200,000. Such an amount is a blow to the organization and severe consequences of avoidable poor safety culture (Taylor & Connelly, 2009). Q. 3- Use an example from the required reading (Chew and Horwitz 2004) to explain how HR practices relate to organizational strategy The answer is - Creating organizational commitment is an organization strategy and it is extremely relevant in any kind of organization. This is only possible through HR practices that lead to the effectiveness of such particular achievements. Siemens as a global company knows that one of the critical human resource practices in organizations is building of strong values or principles driven in creating cohesive culture, as well as the value to create culture organizational commitment. Siemens Company’s HR goal primarily is for HR to provide substantial support to its units in the business (Chew & Frank, 2004). It has an extensive network of at least 447 000 employees in at least 190 countries benefiting their customers, help in winning new business and living up to the ideal motto: ‘Siemens – the ideal global network for successes.’ Therefore, the company works hard to see such goals through and help in managing the organization. This is why the organizational strategy of siemens must rely on its human resource practices. Among other key organizational strategies include, global competencies, high retention, technical, and resource development of business as well as social skill. For such a strategy within the organization, excellent HR practices are of value in achieving the same. For instance, Siemens continues strengthening its business portfolio particularly with the main aim to position all its businesses as key players in the extensive global market (Chew & Frank, 2004). The reshaping of Siemens as a mobile company to become a global and leading e-company is therefore dependent on the organization strategy and this is a subject of human resource practices. Siemens is currently networking the entire value chain of the company, externally and internally including customers, partners and suppliers. The link of organization structure and HR practices is therefore more evident in the workplace. Siemens applies its core competencies mainly through e-business a potent strategy enabled by the HR practices of transforming the company substance (Chew & Frank, 2004). It is also seeking to enable its respective employees to duly access the pool of knowledge from the company and market their e-business expertise to other external customers. This means that the HR practices have a strong focus mainly on requisite skills and flexibility either internally grown or acquired and this is what the overall strategy involves. High-performance standards, performance management, motivation & work commitment is a dream of any successful organization, which works as a fanatical organization strategy meant to achieve success. In accomplishing such a strategy, integrated alignment of career development for the staff is a human resource practice that works to achieve the desired goal. For a company like Siemens Singapore, it has roughly 5455 employees engaged in a variety of activities, which include engineering, software development, design, marketing, manufacturing and maintenance (Chew & Frank, 2004). Every ninth employee of Siemens Company works in a particular research and development sector. This is one redoubtable practice within the organization to help in career development and ultimately improving the workers capacity and skills relevant in the working environment. The aim is solely encouraging employees to precisely, be involved actively in company activities through the submission of programs and ideas, impulses, as well as several initiatives commonly designed in contributing to the success suggestions of the company. High employee involvement in any given organization is excellent as a practice that necessitates the employee commitment strategy. Involving the employees especially in decision making within an organization has always been a success. It is what motivates the employees and gives to them the spirit of ownership (Chew & Frank, 2004). This is a key strategy that many organizations use in several circumstances to help build teamwork in employees and motivate them in improving in every sector of the organization. It is out of this that an organization can deliver and achieve its goals with ease. Finally, a look at the major relationship between HR practices and organizational strategy, it is convenient to note that the overall goal of any organization is succeeding in expanding and moving internationally. This is therefore the organizational strategy set in a particular time and design to help achieve the goals and objectives laid at the begging of the organization. For instance, the reshaping of a company such as Siemens to be worldwide a leading e-company entered a characteristically crucial phase. This is what is called international growth and it is a strategy of any given organization. With proper HR practices, it is possible and succeeds with minimal challenges. For instance, the HR of Siemens is networking the entire value chain, both internally and externally, which is why the company is expanding fast within the global market (Chew & Frank, 2004). References Chew, K. & Frank, M. (2004). Human Resource Management Strategies in Practice: Case-Study Findings in Multinational Firms. Asia Pacific Journal of HumanResources, 1(2). Evans, B. (2005). General Issues in Management: Problems & Perspectives in Management, Retrieved 14 July 2010, from Business Source Complete Database Lundy, O. & Cowling A. (2001). Strategic Human resource Management. London: Rout ledge, 2001 p. 341–381 Ramlall, S. (2003). Measuring Human Resource Management's Effectiveness in Improving Performance. Human Resource Planning, 26(1):51-64. Taylor, P. & Connelly, L. (2009). Before the disaster: health, safety and working conditions at a plastics Factory. Work Employment Society, 1(1). Read More