Human Resource Management: Effectiveness as Determinants of Firm Performance - Term Paper Example

INVESTIGATION (HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT) and Section # of Every organization has some particular goals and objectives and according to these the strategies are planned and carried out. This involves proper recruitment, selection of employees, provision of incentives, compatible and competitive environment and many more. All the mentioned ingredients are necessary for the progress and survival of any company. Major emphasis is being laid on HRM i.e. Human Resource Management. It is considered as one the essentials of any organization. Although this term is widely used these days but a few are aware of its actual meaning and importance. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT The term 'Human Resource Management' is not very new to people all over. The growths of policies following this particular property have proved to be very successful. It is very affective in carrying out an individual's quality to enhance his job skills. These policies have been able to succeed because of human resource management. Based on theoretical work in the field of organizational behavior; human resource management is defined as: "It is a set of policies designed to maximize organizational integration. It comprises of a set of policies which are employee commitment, flexibility and quality of work."1 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT; EFFECTIVENESS AS DETERMINANTS OF FIRM PERFORMANCE (Progress Report; 500 words) A research was carried out by Mark.A.Huselid, Susan.E.Jackson and Randall.S.Schuller. The purpose of this research was to study and evaluate the importance of Human Resource Management. Human Resource Management has moderated the relationship between turnover and manufacturing performance. Employees related to human resource management jobs help in understanding the psychology of the top managers as well as the subordinates. Congruencies in the set of policies and rules have boosted up the progress reports of a number of organizations. The problems concerning the different level workers are carried to the managers or top management through human resource managers. They are of great assistance in making things work smoothly in the organization and help in providing solutions to different problems. PROGRESS REPORT HRM PROGRAMME 2002-2005 University of Maastricht conducted a research. It wanted to ensure the full involvement of employers in the tasks and targets of the organization. The main themes chosen in the program are mentioned below: Further development of leadership. Further development of employees. Development of the work and organization culture. Work was done on the above mentioned points. In the year 2006, HRM activities started at full scale. The following activities were carried out: Embedded: The first results of the research have become apparent and all that needs to be done is to apply these strategies in the organization. It will be ensured that careful and well planned measures are taken to guarantee the embedding. Measuring of results: An HRM employability portfolio will be maintained to evaluate the results of the applied strategies. This research will be carried out by RAO. Innovation of approach to recruitment and selection: A new rend will be introduced and according to this employees will be hired for a career at UM for a more diversified job. The job will not be related to only their qualification in educational qualities. Emphasis will be laid on the leadership and management qualities. Competence management: Competence management means building up a strong relationship between the qualities and capabilities of the employees to cope up with the ambition, strategy and objective of the organization. Strategic training policy: This policy emphasizes that all the training activities that will be conducted in UM, be registered. HRM tools will be used for this purpose. One of them includes the competence profile which will be developed on national level. Teaching career: Search will be conducted to examine the desirability of training and career development opportunities. This opportunity will be offered to teachers, university lecturers and university senior lecturers. Intake and involvement of woman in business: There is a need of women employees in the business or any organization to reach the policy target of 25% women in higher positions in 2006 with regard to the number of female professors. This target has not been achieved yet, its decreasing and it was 3.5% in 2003. Globalization and knowledge migration; Endeavors to transfer information and internationalize HRM are taken. This will help in the progress and awareness relating HRM issues. EQUAL PAY FOR WOMAN IN BUSINESS (A critical literature view; 2000 words) Women, since evolution has been a victim of suppression. She has always been overshadowed by men in almost all fields of life. Be it in education, industry, offices, organizations etc. she has been discouraged and forced to stay back to indulge her in activities which have minor importance if looked at from a broader point of view. Primarily, woman was not even allowed to gain education, which is actually considered as one of the most prior and basic rights of any human being. She was unfortunately deprived of this facility. But now due to globalization and awareness a bigger platform has been provided. The woman of today has the right to maintain a job and make a future. Unfortunately; here too, she faces a couple of problems. One of them, being discrimination in wages. Efforts were and are still being made to overcome this problem. Two of the worth mentioning endeavors are mentioned below. EQUAL PAY LAW Equal Pay Law has been in rule since 30 years. It emphasizes on the aspect that women must be paid the same amount for the same or equivalent nature of work. And for places where women are paid less than men, the employer must give reasons for doing so and should prove that it does not concern the gender problem.7 In spite of this legislation, the Equal Opportunities Commission now known as Equality and Human Rights Commission conducted a report and found that in United Kingdom, women are paid 17.2% less per hour than men and 40.2% less in the part time sector. The reasons that are related with this problem are the traditional ones. The men are still considered to be the bread winner of the family and hence they are paid more than women and at the same time women are unable to get promotion due to the dual responsibilities, maternity leaves and many other similar problems. DEVELOPMENTS IN EQUAL PAY LAW The developments in Equal Pay Law include the following components: Cross employer comparisons Provision of pension Equal pay questionnaire Right of backdating claims Equal pay's code of practice The right to avail the bonuses and incentives provided during maternity leave JOB EVALUATION SCHEME A job evaluation scheme is one that looks over different jobs and determines the skills that are required to perform them. If different jobs require the same amount of skills then the employees should be paid the same amount no matter how different their departments may be. The job evaluation scheme also takes a look at the grade of jobs and how they should be up graded. CRITERIA FOR JOB EVALUATION The folowing components are required for the performance of job evaluation process. Knowledge and skills Contacts and communication Problem solving Decision making Autonomy Management of resources Impact EFFECT OF JOB EVALUATION SCHEME ON WOMENS' PAY Due to the enforcement of job evaluation scheme, the womens' pay was increased to the lowest male rate. This was done by making new work titles for women. After these strategies, the average women's earnings compared to men's rose by 5%. The increase occurred from 72% to 77% in five years. This is considered as the biggest increase. CHANGE IN ATTITUDE TOWARDS WOMEN'S WORK After the implementation of job evaluation scheme, many organizations recognized the value of women's work and paid respect to it. For example: In Hayward versus Camels Laird the Independent Expert found that the work of Julie Hayward, a cook was equal to that of high board ship board craft workers. In Wells and Others v Smales, the independent Workers found the work of fish packers to be equal to that of paid male laborers. In Enderby v Frenchay, the Independent Workers found that the work of speech therapists was equally challenging to that of the clinical psychologists and pharmacists. MAKING EMPLOYMENT EQUITY PROGRAMS WORK FOR WOMEN Despite the growing number of women in labor and market forces encouraging organizations to hire women, their wages still vary widely from men and they occupy lower status as compared to men. (Canada: HRDC; 1996 Edwards and robinson;1999; Canada Labor Canada 1990 Simerly and Hunt 1991)Women normally occupy lower or middle positions rather than front line positions. (Morrison and Von Glinow; 1990). Women often feel excluded from power and are sidetracked whenever they try to make their way up in hierarchy. (Hale; 1999). Researches show that men feel uncomfortable and degraded in working with women. They consider themselves as superior to women. OUTCOME: Women continue to be overvalued and degraded when it comes to occupying posts in any organization and wages. Employment Equity Programs are being carried out to overcome this problem and the organizations related and accountable to Employment Equity Act are mandated to adopt them. Although Employment Equity Programs have resulted in the improvement of situation yet there are many complains coming from employees. They are complains of employees and backlash. EQUAL PAY DAY; APRIL 24th Carolyn Maloney (Vice chair of the Joint Economic Company) put forward a list of top ten facts disclosing the gap between the working hours and the difference in wages. Equal Pay Day is a day which indicates how much a woman has to work so as to compete with man's salary and earn as much as he does. Some of the worth mentioning facts are listed below: A search was conducted and it showed that women earn 80 cents for every dollar a man earns. (This study was conducted by Maloney and John Dingell under Government Accountability Office (GAO). Full time working women earn 77 cents for every dollar man earns. Whereas African American women earn 66 percent and 55 percent of white man's earning respectively. There has been some progress in 1980's regarding this factor. Slower progress was made in 1990 whereas there has been no change in the situation since 2001. This wage gap persists in all the levels of work. From low to high positions. There has been no change whatsoever. This gap is there in spite of all the globalization, attainment of education by women and productivity. Many of the posts such as teaching, elder care etc. are considered as low wage jobs. Mothers earn 2.5% less than unmarried women whereas married men get a boost of 2.1% as compared to unmarried men. This is referred to as 'mommy penalty' and 'daddy bonuses.' Women suffer from this problem in every occupation. Estimates are taken and they range from $700,000 for high school graduates to $2 million for doctors and lawyers. This report is in accordance to the WAGE project. Employers can take over this problem by following the self audit as recommended by National Commission on Pay Equity. Taking step against illegal wage discrimination and salary negotiation, attending training classes and moving to a company that offers a much decent salary for the same post can make a difference regarding this problem. POSSIBLE STEPS WHICH CAN BE TAKEN TO ELIMINATE THIS PROBLEM There is a possibility that the following decisions be taken to overcome this problem. They are as mentioned below: The Department of Labor can offer training programs to minimize pay disparities. Prohibiting employers to retaliate their wage information with their co workers. Allow women to sue for punitive damages which are offered under Equal Pay Act. Require the Department of Labor to gather and disseminate information about female workers. Create such a program where women can negotiate and make their voice reach the concerned ones. APRIIL 25th- GENDER PAY ACT April 25th indicates how a woman's pay catches up with man's previous year's pay. The Census Bureau indicates that in 2004, the female to male earnings ratio was 0.77 for full time workers. Median annual earnings for full time, year round female workers were $31,223 and median earnings for full time, year round male workers were $40,798. REASONS FOR NARROWING OF THE WAGE GAP A few reasons for narrowing of the wage gap are: One of the reasons for narrowing of the wage gap is higher educational attainment and working experience of women, female wages did not actually increase but the wage of men became stagnant and probably because of this a difference can be seem. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE (GAO) REPORT The general accounting office examined 18 years of data on approximately 9,300 Americans to study the wage gap. This study was represented by Carolyn Maloney and John Dingell. The results of GAO study show: Real pay gap: Full time working women earn as much as 80 cents as compared to men earning a dollar in the same period of time. This cannot be explained due to different work patterns and histories. Different work patterns contribute to larger pay gap between the two genders: Women suffer lower pay due to the dual role they play. One being a full time worker in the office and the other being, an individual responsible to take care of home and children. Due to this factor, a woman is unable to give more time to office as compared to men. And this is one of the reasons why women are paid less than men. Persistence of pay gap for the last two decades: The GAO study confirms that the pay gap has been existing since 1983-2000. This gap is there despite the awareness among people related to gender discrimination. Time period 1995-2000 Full time female managers earned less than full time male managers, after having control over education, gender, race and marital status issues. RESPONSE TO GAO RESEARCHES In response to GAO studies, Representatives, Maloney and Dingell plan to establish a new Center for the Study of Women and Workplace Policy at a public university. The purpose of this is that they would cater to women employers and their families. This center would collaborate with the organizations, look up at the persistent problems, find solutions and work up appropriate strategies to eliminate them. Annual guides would be published including strategies on best practices for women employers. REPORT OF THE EQUAL PAY COMMISSION; SEPTEMBER 2006. A research was carried out based on a couple of queries. They are as mentioned below: The extent to which the wage disparity exists in public and private sectors, between men and women and minorities and non minorities. Factors which tend to cause this disparity. Gender gap, minorities and non minorities, racial discrimination, payment for lower wages for work in male dominated organizations or business, house working women, child rearing responsibilities, education, time period and duration of working hours. The research based on these questions produced the following results: Education Differences come up relating the career options at the college level. Men are more inclined towards taking hard science courses like marketing, management and finance whereas a different trend has been observed in women since the very beginning. They tend to take up courses involving humanities and education. In 2000 women earned only 36% of all physical science degrees, 27% of all degrees in computer and information sciences and a mere 17% in engineering. From the mentioned figures it is evident that the education women choose to gain is less inclined towards field work and does not have a very high scope in the business world. Choice of Industry and Occupation The tradition of "men's job" and "women's job" still exists in the business world. This is because; neither the man nor women like to share their occupation with the opposite sex. This issue gives rise to unequal pay trend. The ones traditionally owned by men have more pay and the ones owned by women are bound to have less pay. In 'Still a Man's Labor Market," Rose and Hartman define the job in three different terms or tiers; elite, good and less skilled jobs. They find that in elite tier, women are more inclined towards occupations such as teaching and nursing whereas men are business executives, lawyers and scientists. In middle tier jobs, women are secretaries while men take up the blue collar jobs; and in the lower tier; women are sale clerks while men are factory workers. Whether these choices are made to fulfill societal norms or whether they are free choices, the crux is that they exist. And due to these issues, women are paid less. Looking at all the six-tier, it can be easily seen that the jobs chosen by women are less skilled whereas the ones chosen by men are more skilled and tend to be paid more. Work patterns The factors which are included in the work pattern are number of hours worked per year, years of experience in the labor force and the amount of leave taken. The GAO study shows that women at an average level have less work experience years as compared to men. Women have 12 whereas men have 16 years of work experience. From the mentioned figures, it can be concluded that men work 2147 hours and women work 1675 hours. A difference of 472 hours per year can be observed. If we have a look at the number of leaves taken by women, situation is same there too. Women leave the labor for longer period whereas man on the other hand is prone to less leaves per year. A career interruption can also adversely affect an individual's career. National research conducted by IWPR and summarized in "Still a Man's Labor Market" showed that women have at least one complete calendar year without any earnings in comparison to only 16% of men. Single and married women have different issues. A single woman can contribute to office work with more devotion while a married woman is unable to do so. A married woman on the other hand has more responsibilities to cater to. Motherhood leads women to make other choices which ultimately affect their career. To conclude, women have to juggle with their working hours. They have to maintain a balance between their household chores and job requirements. This is no doubt a difficult job and consequently their career suffers. The fact that women work fewer hours, leave the labor forces for longer periods of time and are unable to maintain a balance between their routine, affects both the amount of money they make and the perception of their value in the work force. Equal Pay Act: 5Two major acts have taken place to eliminate discrimination among genders in the workplace. They are mentioned below: Equal Pay Act (EPA), 1963. Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Equal Pay Act was the first ever act to suggest that the pay of women should be equal to the pay of men since their nature of job and positions are same. The purpose of Equal Pay Act was to eliminate the depressing difference between the wages of men and women due to which women suffer from low living standard as compared to men. Whereas studies show that there is still a 25 percent difference between the wages of women and men. The basic aim of this act was to secure a respectable and distinguished reputation of women in the business as well as the outer world. The Equal Pay Act is still considered as one of the best acts to cover the gap between the two genders which has been persisting since forever. Civil Rights Act of 1964 was carried out on a much larger platform than the Equal Pay Act (EPA), 1963. It touched and discussed discrimination issues persisting in the fields of hiring, selecting, job assignments and promotions. There are some evidences, for instance in NHS and telecommunications (Alamo Metcalf 1994: 102). These researches suggest that in some organizations the pay given to women is very low and the authorities are not apparently concerned with this problem and tend to ignore it. Few employers appear to monitor their payment systems relating gender issues and inequalities (Bevan and Thompson 1995 :%). RESPONSE The response of both the acts is mixed. Some of the points presented are accepted while some are given minor or no importance at all. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1Paul Edward (1987) Journal of Management and Industrial Relations. UK. Industrial Relation Services. 2Randall.S.Schuller (1944) Role of HRM in Other Fields. UK. Rutgers University. 3S.E. De Silva (1922) HRM, Equality, Diversity and Discrimination. Bangkok. ILO. 4Dickens (1988) HRM Journal Services. London. IR Services. 5Suzanne.M.Crampton (1990) Equal Pay. London. IR Services. 6J Tsalikis (1989) Journal of Business Ethics. U.S. Springer Publishers. 7http://www.cipd.co.uk/default.cipd Read More