Human Resource Management in Practice - Human`s Skills - Assignment Example

? Human Resource Management in Practice Table of Contents Developing the Practitioner 3 Communications and meeting skills 4 Presentation Skills 5 Training and Learning 6 Equality and Diversity 7 Recruitment and Selection 8 Performance Management and Appraisal 9 Absence Management 10 Counselling/mediation-developing skills for the workplace 11 Grievance and Discipline 12 Management of Change 13 Reflective Statement 14 References 20 Developing the Practitioner The competitive environment and the quest for excellence in business organizations has necessitated the need to ensure human resource development. In this regard the role of the practitioner assumes utmost priority in an organization. A practitioner in the area of human resource development should have business, personal as well as interpersonal skills in order to ensure proper communication and better relationship with the employees. Business competencies involve understanding the needs of the business and proposing logical solution to the issues. It also involves business knowledge, efficiency in planning and execution as well as promotion of strategic thought process. In addition to this a development of practitioners also implies that interpersonal traits like the ability to generate confidence and trust, ability to influence the stakeholders, enhancing workforce diversity and proper networking between the stakeholders. Finally a practitioner must also display personal skills including adaptability and the ability to handle disputes and conflicts emerging in the activities among the individuals as well as grooming of the personality and development of individuals. Finally, sound technical skills and domain knowledge along with excellent intellectual abilities is a key towards developing the best practitioners so as to ensure organizational excellence (Erasmus, Loedolf & Hammann, 2010, p.27). The seminar and the analysis of the topic helped in understanding the importance of time management and interpersonal skills that must be acquired for being an excellent practitioner. The importance of proper planning and execution was also understood as it is largely an essential trait towards development of the career as a practitioner. Communications and meeting skills Leadership is one of the most essential aspects for a successful organization. A successful business leader must essentially have excellent communication abilities as well as empathy in his/her behaviour. A leader must be able to effectively communicate in a manner so that the messages are effectively communicated and clearly understood by the employees and other individuals. A charismatic approach and a good persuasive power is one of the key aspects of communications that must be present in a good leader leading a business (Cohn & Moran, 2011, pp.1-3). Certain other aspects of good communication and meeting skills also include an ability to use effective language that induces individuals to listen actively to the communication. In a meeting the communication skills of the manager must be such that tends to capture the attention of the audience. Use of poor language should be avoided at all costs as it is totally unethical and improper to hurt any person’s sentiments. It is also necessary for a manager to have good ability to provide concrete feedbacks; in this context effective leaders also do not devote their entire time in a meeting speaking and relaying his/her own views and thoughts. An effective leader or a good manager always tries to be accommodative and also listens to what is being said and spoken from the other end. Patience is one key aspect that must be followed by a leader in a course of a formal meeting or interaction. These traits along with a proper vision and time management are the key drivers that can help generate effective business leaders (Bacal, 2004, p.140-146). The seminar helped in the learning process by helping analyse the importance communication in an effective leader. Real life role plays also gave a practical understanding of the aspect. The exercise helped in garnering the crucial bits of elements that can help in crafting a true leader and a good communicator. Presentation Skills There are certain key elements which make for a good presentation which has a strong impact on the audience. However, the success of an effective presentation largely depends on the extent to which an individual is able to identify his or her own style of presentation and proceeds accordingly. The trick lies in attaining maximum engagement from the audience by responding directly to their needs and having a favourable influence on them too. The presenter must have a good preparation before beginning his presentation. This requires making thorough research and analysis of the subject and preparing the content and arranging the same too. Presentations must be delivered with confidence such that the presenter can go off his script and deliver the same with sound knowledge and assurance. Good communication skills are a prerequisite for effective presentation. The presenter must allow eye contact with his audience while he presents his subject. Additionally encouraging two-way communication is also a necessary condition for the effectiveness of the presentation. It helps to attain the involvement and participation of the audience and consequently makes the presentation fruitful. A presentation without the involvement of the audience cannot be considered to be successful. Gesture and posture are some of the other components of a good presentation. It is important to keep one’s body firm and straight while delivering of a presentation. Hunched back and improper gesture adds only to ruin the style of presentation and is considered to be a depiction of low confidence and ability. One must have good posture and style and must have the ability to use one’s body language to communicate with the audience well. Expressions such as frown, bewildered glare and thoughtlessness must be avoided. Finally the presentation must be ended with taking feedback and questions from the audience providing them adequate reply (Siddons, 1999, p.49-53). The seminar has been particularly helpful in making me work effectively in groups. Presenting in a group has helped me collaborate work with one another and to coordinate activities so that they can be delivered efficiently without hurdles. The presentation has helped me gain in-depth knowledge of the subject as it required extensive research and understanding of the subject before preparing for the presentation. Training and Learning Training and learning has been considered to be most essential in organizational settings. It is crucial to develop the right skills and equip candidates with adequate knowledge and expertise required for conducting a task properly. It helps to equip candidates with the tools, techniques that the organization needs. Moreover training is an essential component for making employees enhances their efficiencies and effectiveness of performance through the reduction of possibilities of errors and work redundancies. However, the learning styles can be different for different individuals in the organization. Some learners can be imaginative, analytic, common sense learners or even dynamic learners. The style of learning necessarily depends on the personality of the learner. It is up to the individual to decide which learning style he would like to adopt. However, effective training programs must be conducted in organizations by making a thorough analysis of the training requirement of candidates, identifying their shortcomings and loopholes and then providing training to remove the shortages and enhance the skills. Thus a proper training needs requirement analysis is an essential requirement in the process and is essential for fruitful training. Finally the complete training process needs evaluation on the whole. It is important to ensure that candidates are able to receive the training properly and make full use of it. The output of the evaluation process throws light and input to the development of new and revised training efforts (Furjanic & Trotman, 2000, p.2-3). The seminar activity revealed different experiences that candidates encountered and was helpful for learning about the different experiences. It helpful in knowing about the different learning styles such as dynamic learning, analytic learning, common sense learning and imaginative styles. The importance and need of training activities in organizations is also clear and would help me in my future endeavours. Equality and Diversity With globalization and the spread of multinational organizations the issues of equality and diversity have gained importance lately. Various anti-discrimination legislations with regards to race, gender, pay etc have been employed for decades and businesses have been trying to promote diversity and equality in a combined way with the beginning of a number of equality and diversity policies. The advantage of employing diverse resources is that the organization can gain from varied ideas and thoughts gathered from employees coming from different cultures and backgrounds. In the global business environment multicultural organizations enjoy the advantage of attaining competitive advantage in the market through the recruitment, selection, retention and motivation of individuals from diverse backgrounds. In the modern organizations the rates of turnovers and absenteeism remain while the job satisfaction levels remain low, especially among the minorities and the women employees. Consequently the diversity management initiatives such as mentoring, flexible scheduling of work activities and equality of access for training and development opportunities are some of the methods which are effective in retaining the valuable employees or human resources in the organization. This is especially effective and advantageous to deal with the problem of labour shortage in organizations (Ordonez de Pablos, 2009, p.75-76). Recruitment and Selection Recruitment and selection is an important part of the HR functions of an organization. The process of recruitment involves selecting individuals for a particular job assignment. The aspect of recruitment and selection is very important as it is important to ensure a job fit between the candidate’s profile and the job profile so as to ensure better job satisfaction and fulfilment of the organizational goals. Recruitment and selection is a long process that beings with the initiation of the hiring process. The hiring process includes creating a desired candidate profile that contains the job description as well as the necessary skills required by the candidate. This is followed by creating specific profile and formulating other necessary traits that are to be present in a candidate. This is followed by advertising the vacancy in various public forums including job sites. Employee referrals as well as internal recruitment are also some of the techniques by prospective candidates can be shortlisted for a particular job profile. The next process include short listing the candidates that match the requirements of the job profile so as to ensure a good job fit between the candidate’s profile and the job responsibilities. The shortlisted candidates are then subjected to the process of selection using different techniques that include personal interviews, group discussions, written tests, psychometric tests etc that are essentially dependent upon the nature of the job responsibilities for a particular job opening. The candidates are then tested and their results are being evaluated using various techniques so as to select the best possible candidates according to the number of vacancies available for a particular position (Catano, 2009, p.25, 26). The aspect of recruitment and selection is of paramount importance to any organization as the human resources are the most valuable and vital assets of any organization. Presence of a skilled and talented workforce is an absolute necessity for an organization to ensure profitability and sustainability. Performance Management and Appraisal In the age of increased business competition it is very essential to have a talented and motivated workforce. Companies have therefore acknowledged the need to provide rewards as well as ensure career progression and development as a mechanism to attract, motivate and retain the best talents so as to ensure organizational excellence. In order to assess the performance of employees and to provide a career progression, companies essentially use the performance management and appraisal systems. This system involves analysing the evaluating the performance of employees against a performance yardstick standard that has been set by the organization. The performance of the employees in the appraisal system constitutes the basis for providing rewards as well as progression within the organization. There are a large number of methods for conducting appraisals. Some of the popular ones include 360 degree performance evaluation, and feedbacks. However the choice of these techniques largely depends upon the nature of job responsibilities and the organization culture. The development of the performance appraisal systems is directly related to the aspect of management by objectives philosophy. In this regard the most vital aspect of an appraisal system involves setting up of benchmarks and objectives that would be used in conjunction with the basic responsibilities and key responsibility areas. An efficient appraisal system must be such that there is no scope for bias and performance is the only yardstick for analysing and measuring the efficiency of a candidate. There should be no bias and efforts should be made to undertake as much transparency in the entire process so as to ensure equal opportunities to all the employees. Appraisal system should be designed in a manner that an employee views it as a constructive feedback towards development of his/her career rather than as a tool for showing up the mistakes committed. The role of managers and supervisors assume considerable importance in this regard. The aspect of performance evaluation should be a continuous process that would help in overall development of the employee so as to ensure motivation and consequently organizational efficiency and excellence (Mathis & Jackson, 2010, p.342-346). Absence Management One of the most important cost implications for a company involves the cost of bearing an employee. The concept of cost to company is very important as an organization always aims to achieve a significantly greater amount in terms of monetary resources. Employees for specific reasons also need to sometimes take a day off due to personal reasons technically referred to as absence from work. The aspect however becomes significance as the number of days an employee marks as absent from duty directly leads to a loss of the organization. In this regard it is very essential to manage the aspect of absence from duty so as to balance the personal and organizational needs of an organization. A research study has pointed out that absence from duty results in a loss of about 874 pounds per employee on an average. There are certain ways that are popularly used to control absence, with the primary and the most frequently used include a leave policy where the numbers of maximum permissible paid leaves are fixed for an employee. However certain other techniques of absence management include interviews for making employees return to work, attendance reviews as well as disciplinary action for employees taking unwanted leaves from duty. The aspect of sick leaves in organizations can be controlled by having lifestyle and health development programs that can be sponsored by the organization. Promotion of occupational health programs like sponsoring gym packages can help sort and manage the aspect of unplanned leaves within an organization. Fairness in handling the aspect of leaves is also very important. Finally, there should also be a control mechanism for ensuring that employees do not take unwanted leaves and that there is a mechanism for disciplinary action against employees who take unwanted leaves. The role of managers assumes vital significance in this regard as they should try to promote motivation so that the employees are aware of their responsibilities that would help prevent misuse of the aspect of leave in the company (Lewis & Thornbory, 2010, p.133-134). Counselling/mediation-developing skills for the workplace The age of competition in the business environment calls for an urgent need to ensure that the workforce or the human resources are trained and satisfied with their jobs. It has been proven in many cases that job satisfaction has a direct linkage with the aspect of organizational excellence. Job satisfaction is also directly linked with the extent to which the employees are motivated in an organization. The present competitiveness has a huge impact on the stress levels of individuals in the workplace. This requires efforts by the top management to ensure that employees lead a stress free life. One of the most common methods that are in practice includes the concept of career counselling and stress management. Organizations employ counsellors who guide and help employees to get rid of stress in their work life. Training and development is another significant aspect that can help in ensuring positive sentiments in an employee. Counselling sessions must essentially have a problem based approach in which the actions should be based upon the issues faced by an individual. The scope of counselling should also go beyond the realms of organizational issues and should also include personal as well as conflicts that can emerge among the employees or peers within the organization. The aspect of counselling and mediation also assumes importance in case of employee conflicts or during times when the company is forced to downsize the staff. Particularly in sensitive aspects like downsizing the counselling sessions should be extended beyond retrenched employees and should also include the retained employees so that they are not de-motivated about the job. This can help improve the confidence level of employees that usually takes a severe beating when their colleagues are being shown the pink slips. An effective time bound and cautious approach in this area can not only help generate motivation but would also help generate long term sustainable advantage for the organization (Millward, 2005, p.295-300). Grievance and Discipline In any organization it is very normal for employees to have certain grievances, but the challenge for HR managers lies in their ability to help ensure that the grievance issues of the employees are handled properly and that the issues are resolved before taking a shape that can lead to damage in the organizational culture. Grievances in organizations emerge from various areas particularly when an employee is not satisfied or feels that his/her personal career goals are not being fulfilled by the organization. Improper hygiene and physical conditions in the workplace are another area that can induce grievances among the employees of an organization. Employees also sometimes may have certain issues with their supervisors that make it essential for having a dedicated approach towards addressing these vital issues of the most valuable assets for any business organization. The role of managers and supervisors becomes very important in this regard as they should be in a position to ensure that the staffs are satisfied by the job so as to ensure better organizational productivity. There can be two approaches taken up by managers towards addressing grievances among the employees in the workplace. This includes both formal as well as informal methods. Informal methods are rather common and often serve as the first response of managers towards addressing grievances. These include discussions, analysis as well as proper guidance towards making an employee realise the aspect that was wrong and to suggest constructive steps towards addressing the concerns of the employee and to redress the issue. In addition to informal techniques mangers can also take up formal techniques that include sending written notices, show cause notice or other formal methods so as to help resolve the grievance. In addition to this an organization also must have a whistle blower policy where employees can share their grievance about their supervisors as well so as to help generate competitive edge in the market (Martin, 2010, p.74-76). Management of Change Change is perhaps the only word that is constant in the present business environment. The present recession in the markets has shown the need for organizations to be flexible so as to meet the challenges posed by the external environment. However as stated in human nature change is not always being welcomes. In fact every change management policy in an organization leads to confusion among the employees with regards the aspects like job security and other crucial aspects that can help generate considerable confusion within the organization. An effective change management must therefore be transparent to the employees so that they are clear about the objectives of the change management that is being undertaken by the organization. In addition to this there is a very significant role of communication that must be effectively managed so as to help communicate the actual intentions and to reduce any negative thoughts for confusion that may arise in the minds of the employees of the organization. This is because a change management is only successful if all the employees work together in achievement of the objectives of the change management program that is being initiated by the organization. An effective communication must effectively communicate and ensure transparency in the organization. The aspect of this should follow a top down approach with the managers playing a pivotal role in communicating the benefits of change. Employees should be made to realise that change will ultimately help in their overall career development. Finally, the change management must ensure participation from all quarters with regards to the fine details of the programs. Ensuring grass root level involvement would only help in benefiting the organization as the employees would be motivated and not feel threatened about the change that is being undertaken by the organization (Cameron & Green, 2009, p.203-206). Reflective Statement The assignment has made a great contribution to my learning. It has been particularly helpful in enhancing and improving my knowledge about the various subjects that has been explored in the project. I have been quite satisfied with the way the assignment was conducted and extent to which it has been effective in contributing to my knowledge. However, I must admit that it was not a very smooth flow of activities. I confronted with a number of hurdles and eventually sorted them out along with the flow of the project. The assignment was satisfactory with a few drawbacks that I have identified. However, these drawbacks have been especially helpful in making me learn from my mistakes and overcome them. I have particularly gathered sound knowledge about the qualities and attributes which are required for the development of a practitioner. Some of the skills that I have identified as important in this regard are communication skills, interpersonal skills and business competencies. Some of the traits that I have learned to adopt are my abilities to gain the confidence, trust and influence over stakeholders. Moreover, my abilities to handle conflicts and handle disputes have also grown considerably. I have better understanding of how the personality and intellect of people can be developed, enhanced and put to organizational use. Some of the communication and meeting skills that I have adopted are I have particularly realized the importance of communication skills and its importance for the successful running of businesses. The need to use proper and effective language while delivering a message is essential. My personality is such that I often end up persuading people for getting a message across which could hurt their sentiments. The learning was it was it is important to listen to people’s problems, views and opinions and not just impose one’s opinion on them. Communication must be two-was in order to be effective. It is no point communicating a message and not allowing feedback or reverse questions from the audience. A good communicator always tries to attain the participation and involvement of the audience and encourages them to put forth their views on the subject too. During the course of the assignment my presentation skills have got considerably enhanced. Initially I had confronted with the problem of engaging with the audience and attaining their cooperation, involvement and participation. However, I increasingly learnt the skills of communication with the audience while making a presentation. The right kind of gestures, postures and body language which are essential for getting a message across to the audience are some of my learning from the assignment. Initially there certain communication barriers from my side because of which I was unable to connect with them. But they have considerably been removed in the process. However, I am still not quite satisfied with my style of presentation and feel there are certain aspects which need improvement. For example, I fail to maintain eye contact with my audience and often run out of words when delivering information on a subject. This is where I feel I need to improve. In such cases I lose confidence and fail to connect with the audience. My learning is that I need to do thorough research on the subject on which I would be presenting and develop a design and structure of the various topics in order. This would be helpful to make me recall my subject in case I lose track while discussing and at the same time retain my confidence level. I have also learnt that the trick behind good communication is attaining the involvement and participation of the audience and this can be achieved by allowing them to come up with and share their ideas, views and questions. In case they have any queries they must be allowed presenting the same too and the presenter must try to answer their questions as vividly as possible to make the presentation effective and successful. I have also understood the importance of training and developmental activities in the organization. However, my ability to understand the training requirements for each individual is yet to attain perfection. It must be realized that training requirements varies from individuals to individuals and thus training cannot be the same for all. The importance of training needs analysis is thus felt in organizations. It is crucial to make an in-depth understanding of the loopholes and drawback of each and every individual before delivering the training. Moreover, the evaluation of training programs has also been felt. It is very important to evaluate the programs and then redesign and restructure the same in order to attain perfection in the training modules. The importance of managing equality and diversity issues has also got greatly enhanced during the course of the assignment. With globalizations firms have been greatly benefited with the idea of recruiting employees from diverse backgrounds and enjoying their different ideas, views and techniques in the organizations. Organizations have been benefiting greatly from these varied views. However the importance of legislations to maintain equality and justice cannot be ignored the workplace. I have developed in-depth understanding of some of the human resource management skills such as recruitments and selections, performance management and appraisal systems, absence management as well as counselling and mediating at the workplace. The need to recruit the right candidates for the right job position in the organization is one of the most critical issues facing organizations today. It is the quality and performance of workforce which reflects through the organizational performance and productivity. However it is not an easy process. I often come across the difficulty of making the right judgments and decisions while choosing a candidate. Considering the technical expertise and skills of candidates and overlooking their behavioural attitudes at the workplace were some of the issues I had to improve my judgments on. I made the mistake of judging candidates by their skills and qualifications and not considering their attitude, outlook, manners and other behavioural issues which makes significant difference to the working of organizations. It was realized that candidates lacking proper corporate behaviours were less successful despite having great qualifications, skills and expertise. The importance of performance management has also been identified. I have essentially realized that it is no point in having a great workforce if their individual contribution and performance cannot be managed well. I have gained extensive knowledge on some of the technical aspects like performance measures and systems of appraisals like the 360 degree performance appraisal system. Not only is it important to measure the performance level of employees in the organization but it is also important to provide regular feedback and review of that performance. Most importantly in order to improve and enhance the performance levels it is important to make use of the performance measures and provide required training to remove the drawbacks and loopholes of candidates at the workplace. On the whole it can be said that the assignment has been satisfactory. However, I could certain loopholes which were needed to be removed to make it completely successful For example, while delivering the presentation I realised that my knowledge of the subject was not as good as was required for a successful assignment. That is why I had to do a lot of research and analysis of the subject while delivering the subsequent presentations. I also had to improve my body language, postures and gestures in order to improve on my quality of assignments. I had to work on my interpersonal skills in order to improve the way I communicated with people. I felt I had certain communication barriers which needed to be looked into. Firstly I worked hard on improving my vocabulary by increasingly reading articles and newspapers and enhancing my communication with people surrounding me. Also my ability to manage a large group of people and ensure their participation and involvement has got greatly during the course of the assignment. While managing people there were a number of personality clashes between individuals which led to increasing stress levels and the deterioration of work activities and performances. I had to learn to deal with stress and stress management was one of my most important learning. With increasing competition between employees and organizations it is imperative that stress levels were likely to rise and this could hamper work processes. I have tried to overcome this problem by controlling my feeling and thoughts, scheduling my activities such they could be completed within stipulated time, diagnosing my own drawbacks and working on them. This has helped me to handle stress considerably which has further helped me improve my efficiencies at the workplace. Lastly my technical know-how of human resource management has got greatly enhanced while doing the assignment. In the beginning there were a number of subjects on which I had very little knowledge and know-how. However I overcame this problem my making thorough study of the subject and increasing my knowledge level on the same. Some of the technical aspects on which I have gained considerable insight on are recruitment and selection, performance appraisal systems, communications, absent management, training and development activities, mediating and counselling activities etc. Finally I would like to say that this assignment was a major learning process for me and would help me considerably in my future endeavours. References Bacal, R. (2004). Manager's guide to performance reviews. McGraw-Hill Professional. Cameron, E. & Green, M. (2009). Making Sense of Change Management: A Complete Guide to the Models, Tools and Techniques of Organizational Change. Kogan Page Publishers. Catano, V.M. (2009). Recruitment and Selection in Canada. Cengage Learning. Cohn, J. & Moran, J. (2011). Why Are We Bad at Picking Good Leaders A Better Way to Evaluate Leadership Potential. John Wiley and Sons. Erasmus, B., Loedolf, V.P. & Hammann, F. (2010). Competencies For Human Resource Development Practitioners. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.cluteinstitute.com/proceedings/2010_Dublin_EABR_Articles/Article%20146.pdf. [Accessed on December 29, 2011]. Furjanic, S. W. & Trotman, L. A. (2000). Turning training into learning: how to design and deliver programs that get results. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Lewis, J. & Thornbory, G. (2010). Employment Law and Occupational Health: A Practical Handbook. John Wiley and Sons. Martin, J. (2010). Key Concepts in Human Resource Management. SAGE Publications Ltd. Mathis, R.L. & Jackson, J.H. (2010). Human Resource Management. Cengage Learning. Millward, L. (2005). Understanding occupational and organizational psychology. SAGE. Ordonez de Pablos, P. (2009). Knowledge ecology in global business: managing intellectual capital. Idea Group Inc (IGI). Siddons, S. (1999). Presentation skills. CIPD Publishing. Read More