A Successful Transformation of an Organization - Essay Example

Critically evaluate the role and function of personnel departments within organizations and discuss ways that they can improve their strategic value to the organization with reference to case examples. Today, the personnel department in the organization as opposed to the human resources department functions quite independently and does not participate well in the overall strategic aspect of the organization as its job is more administrative in nature, whereas human resources focus is more developmental in nature. Personnel management department is concerned with the staffing function which screens the applicants, interviews them as per set standards and then recruit them if they are as per organization's requirements. Personnel department helps in formulating the company's policies and procedures; these include guidelines for hiring, firing, bonuses, salary, commendation and the disciplinary procedures. But today, personnel departments are replaced or merged with the human resources departments; (Is there a difference between human resources and the personnel department) hence the demarcation between the two functions has been eliminated. Therefore, now personnel departments in addition to recruiting and selecting personnel, it maintains employee records, helps in career development and training of employees, handles and enforce all kinds of laws and regulations as put forward by the state administration, and moreover, also deals with individual and unionized employees in their personnel actions. The staffing function of personnel department has three parts to it namely, selecting, hiring and training. After the organizing function of the management determines the places and the jobs that are critical for the organization performance of its functions, the role of staffing comes into play. Thus, personnel managers recruit a new pool of individuals from outside if they see no internal fillings can be done. The recruiting may begin with the ad for a job vacancy, referral etc. The short listed applicants are screened through interview and other tools that are used t evaluate such as projective techniques etc. Management discharges, dismissals, transfers are also a part of it. The handling of personnel records help the company generate weekly or monthly activity records for these to be monitored, in light of all the rules, regulations and the ordinance requirements put forth. Various documentation that is required as a part of daily operating process such as subpoenas, employment verifications and also the unemployment compensation is handled. Besides, evaluation of employees and the maintenance of data is also handled as a part of record and data base of the employees by this department. In short, it has all the classified information of all the employees that are a part of the company be it temporary, permanent, seasonal, or part time etc. Another issue that relates to the function of the personnel department is the workers compensation. Normally, under the worker compensations acts as different states' requirements puts responsibility on the personnel department. This requires the personnel department to determine the compensation - weekly, monthly or the daily wage basis. Besides, benefits such as compensation for permanent or temporary disabilities, work related injuries, other than that medical, vocational rehabilitation, insurance, or other kind of benefits for the family members of the workers is also managed by the personnel managers. It also handles workers' compensation claims, issues related to sick or annual leave, etc. Fringe benefits are also administered under this role. One of the primary functions of the personnel department is the training of employees and the workers. This helps the employees achieve the maximum level of competency and assist employees that lack in certain areas to polish and brush up their skills. The training may be aimed at conducting work out sessions for employees at the entry level position and also the managers as they climb up the ladder. The training should not only be technically oriented in nature but should also facilitate in development of management related and the leadership skills. The training so provided may on site or off site training, with work shops, academic type sessions or by experimenting and performing the jobs in actual. Next, employees' occupational, health and safety issues have created a great hype for sometime. This helps ensure well being and health condition of employees, prevent injuries on job such as inhaling of dangerous chemicals, or certain manufacturing process related uncertain happenings. On spot, ready medical staff is present on duty all the time, regular employee check ups for any diseases, allergies is performed which helps in avoiding any long term employee health issues. Ensuring compliance with legal requirements is also done; regular inspections, audits and checks are performed to avoid any unbearable consequences. (Performance Audit of Workers' Compensation Administration) Career development initiatives as taken by the personnel department includes job rotation, increase in job depth, empowerment, mentorship programs, performance appraisal. Performance appraisal is gaining popularity not just the traditional way it was done but the 360 degree feedback, self evaluation, peer and colleague evaluation are also becoming a part of it. Personnel department help in deciding which peers and colleagues are best suited to evaluate an evaluatee, and then gathering data of appraisal from different sources prepare an evaluation and the development summary and rank employees according to the given scale that is according to the organizations' standards. To improve the strategic value of the personnel department some of the goals that need to be followed included by the department are as follows: The services of the personnel should be directed to improve customer service, collaboration and communication throughout the organization The strategic workforce should be trained and staff and placed in strategic key positions Training and development opportunities should be provided Design of human resources lever in such a way that each action contributes to the bottom line of the organization Mentoring programs should be designed to develop skills that are really required Allocation of resources to increase costs Analyzing of worker's compensation, injury related or any other compensations To conclude it can be suggested that the Personnel department should function as Human Resource Management department by consolidating the existing departments that are all administrative in nature. It will help to provide an integrated focus for human resource management. The representative of Personnel department should be trained in the promotion rules and procedures of all departments and knows the key positional characteristics for each position with prescribed rules and guidelines. The effectiveness of the personnel department can be measured on the basis of: 1. outcome 2. efficiency 3. workload The outcome or the effectiveness measures areas such as the number of the days that are taken to recruit and screen a regular position; and also the number of audits completed, number of conflicts resolved etc. The efficiency of the personnel department's process is measured by the number of employees that are benefited, average cost of each vacancy, the marginal cost. The workload is measured by the number of employees served including all temporary, permanent, seasonal or part time workers, the number of positions for which recruitments were done; number of dismissals, promotions etc. managed. Laslty, all budgeted targets and goals are handled as per set standards and procedures. The role of personnel department should not be undermined, but today it is better that it should be linked with human resources so that proper management and administration should be done. You have been invited to a management discussion forum with an invited audience of general managers. The theme is 'Creating a learning organizational culture' your role is to present the case that HR systems can a make a difference to the creation of such a culture. Prepare a case for this that also addresses problematic areas of human resource development activity. A learning organization is one where people are fully awakened and work hard trying to exploit the maximum potential that they possess. The characteristics of an organizational culture that is aimed to be a learning organization is that people in the organization share a vision, the people in the organization possess mental models that guide them all the way so that they can achieve the personal mastery and in such organizations the individuals' goals are perfectly in line with the organizational objectives and goals. Learning organizations' culture is opposed to traditional organizational culture; they are not at all bureaucratic, in fact foster creativity and innovation by empowering the employees with all the resources, decision making; these organizations usually operate on the frontiers of technology, management supports the subordinates in the process and never refrain from trying being afraid of failures. The human resources' role is very important in the building and fostering of such a learning culture in the organization; since in today's culture human resources is aligned with the strategic level decisions and targets of the organization. Hence the five learning disciplines that Peter Senge put forward for their implementation and flourishing needs human resources' support at all levels. Vision setting though the sole responsibility of top human resources normally puts into words which then have to be floated down towards the whole organization. Therefore, the first step in the procedure is that the human resources' administrators should have the clear vision of the organization and should be particularly clear on the fact of how the learning organizations are like. Thus, it helps the human resources to recognize the expectations that are put forwarded by top management of the learning organization and moreover, top management support is also important to help clarify the goals and objectives (Larsen K., McInerney C., Nyquist C., Santos A., Silsbee D. 1996) Next, the vision should be communicated to the whole organization. And human resources when takes in inductees and new hires should see the fit of these people to the adaptability of the organizations' culture. And thus communicating the organization vision downwards let the subordinates see the same picture and also and thus move forward to achieve a common goal. Then the step is followed by the promotion of systems thinking in the organization; this lets the employees in the learning organization move to common reality. The important are of human resources focus in learning organization is the creation and development of leaders in the learning organization. This leadership is necessary as it is required for dispersion of the culture in the organization; (The Gain group 1992) the leader should be the one who creates a vision, share it with the people who trust him, and then focus on activities that are required to embed this culture within the organization. Taking the example of Dutch Royal Shell, different methods are adopted to implement the five principles of Peter Senge, to formally make it a part of culture for example, the development of mental models through out the organization, scenario planning was used that facilitated employees in selecting the different paths that led them to future by considering several different alternative courses of action. Then further they were shared throughout the organization by presenting them as alternate strategies. Human resources should conduct special planning sessions in the organization that involve all the employees; in these sessions members are taught to be apt at the personal mastery of their expertise, and uncover their own mental models. This enhances creativity and innovation in the people and also promotes creative tension among them. In competitive markets, the fast pace of changing technology, earlier product obsolescence, businesses are focusing more on serving customers on their individualized and customized need basis; flexibility and faster decision making is becoming the norm. Human resources are therefore becoming the important part of the strategy and in the achievement of the objectives and contribute positively to the strategic portion of the efforts. Some of the areas where human resources has intervened in the support of creating a learning organization include, provision of whole hearted support to the business concerns, then creating a culture that fosters learning, knowledge sharing, employee empowerment, teamwork as new ways to support learning. Knowledge sharing throughout the organization by means of affective communication channels, training and other professional support at all levels is also given. (Griggs H.E., Hayland P.) Some of the problem areas that management faces in creating the learning culture is that of managing the employees and lead them to the accepting of the new culture, people generally are resistant to change, since they most of the times want to preserve the status quo in the organization and believe that they will loose something of value if the change so occurs. Thus, people becomes the inhibiting factor; sometimes when people agree or they are forced to under the circumstances, then motivating them in the organization also becomes difficult and is a burden on the human resources. Since, the learning environment is more informal and holds employees individually responsible as opposed to the traditional culture, thus it is difficult to get the attitude of the people changed so easily. (Hildeter H., Tjepkema S. n.d.) Another problematic area is that since the learning organization is more flatly designed, loosely structured, employees are greatly empowered and hence a decentralized organizational culture prevails; thus there is a considerable shift in the roles that individual employees play, their jobs are usually empowered and job depth is increased, they are allowed to make more decisions on spot to handle the situation. But, the problem well here is that people need to be trained on such lines, and normally with the lacking of skills they also lack time that is available to them. In many organizations the role of human resources is also undermined, thus, human resources role generally tends to be unclear, there are no set performance measurement targets that quantifies the efforts of the human resources' departments and other departments consider human resources as the department that is because of its support nature as a part that is more cost incurring and hence looks at it degradingly. In any organization to create a learning organizational culture, managers should first define the business processes and the action plan clearly so as not to deviate from the main targets and vision in total transformational process of the organization; they also create teams that are also cross functional and integrative in nature, and align the team's objectives with the key business objectives. The human resources focus is also set to the developmental needs of the individuals alone and also collectively. One of the more important areas is the provision of learning and the interactive culture for knowledge sharing that also supports peer learning and sharing of objectives in the whole organization. For, a successful transformation of an organization from a traditional organization to a learning organization involves efforts on part of the manager; following are some of the guidelines that facilitate the process. Skill development and collaborative learning is important; the need of leadership is increased and the leader should fulfill the performance support needs of the employees. This interaction between the managers who acts as leader help motivate employees, enable employees to achieve a higher performance, fosters innovation and creativity; also implement team leadership. Bibliography Leopold J., Harris L., Watson T., (2004) The Strategic Management of Human Resources. FT Prentice Hall Griggs H.E., Hayland P. Organizational restructuring - the case of learning organization: contradiction or necessity The Gain group (1992) Building learning organizations: how educational leaders' role may change Performance Audit of Workers' Compensation Administration Towards a Learning Organizational Model for PBL: A virtual organizing scenario of knowledge synthesis Available from http://sais.aisnet.org/sais2004/VAT.pdf [Accessed 4 October 2007] Hildeter H., Tjepkema S., HRD's role in creating a learning organisation: A first look at research findings from the TSER-project. Hirsh W., Bevan S., Barber L., (1995) Measuring the personal function. Is there a difference between human resources and the personnel department Available at http://www.wisegeek.com/is-there-a-difference-between-human-resources-and-personnel-management.htm [Accessed 4 October 2007] Larsen K., McInerney C., Nyquist C., Santos A., Silsbee D. (1996) Learning Organization Available at http://home.nycap.rr.com/klarsen/learnorg/ [Accessed 4 October 2007] Read More