Changing Role of HRM - Essay Example

Running Head: Changing Role of HRM           Changing Role of HRM [Institute’s     for Oral Presentation Humans have always been a critical resource for almost all organizations for a greater or lesser extent. They are diverse, necessary and at times problematic as well. Talented and capable employees are the foundation stone of a competitive edge for most organizations. Since 1900, the field of Human Resource Management has gone forward a great deal. Initially, it was only about the clerical operations of an organization and activities such as payroll, employee records and arrangement of community trips. Until 1960s and 1970s, these activities stayed under the umbrella of Personnel Development, however with the social legislations that passed in these years striking changes modified the organizational element of human resource. With great inclination towards globalization, competitions, mergers as well as acquisitions in 1990s, there was an increase in concern for costs, planning and implementation of strategies for both organization as well as its employees, finally compelling a structured development of a Human Resource Department. With the changing trend, the empowering of HR department is elevating. From the very basic to the very top, HR performs four different roles today. These are the roles as administrator, employee advocate, operational and strategic. While the administrative role focuses largely on the secretarial and clerical supervision, employee advocate role aims to serve as a morale officer. Moreover, where an operational role signifies the authority to manage almost all HR activities, the Strategic role is a depiction of the realization of the fact, that HR matters, and hence acknowledging them as a business contributor. HR department performs within an organization various functions as well. The functions it performs are HR planning that involves anticipating demand and supply of employees, provision of timely information for planning process and assessment of HR effectiveness. Next is ensuring the provision of equal employment opportunities and abiding of policies pertaining to it. Another is the staffing function that aims at the provision of sufficient supply of competent individuals to fill in the jobs. This entails job analysis followed by recruitment and selection. Fourth function is the umbrella of HR development that includes orientation session for new employees, training of requisite skills and employee development programs, career counseling and performance management. According to Ulrich, successful performance management necessitates attainment of three goals i.e. setting expectation standards both behavioral and result-oriented, giving rewards on accomplishing standards and collecting and sharing feedback about results. Fifth function relates compensation and benefits for the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of employees. Ensuring safety and security of employees is yet another integral function of HR that involves abiding by health laws and reducing possibilities of accidents and injuries. Last, but not the least, good employee-labor relations are integral to the core of the organization and in order ensure such fruit-bearing relation, developing, communicating and updating of the HR policies and procedure is highly important. In the following session one of the most important activities is dealt in detail under the foremost category of action HR performs, that is HR Planning and the activity is the process of Recruitment. Recruiting is a simple natural process that widely takes place in our daily lives. We are recruiting in terms of the friendships we make, the business we choose, the mentors, advisers, associates and of course, the companies we work with. Important about recruitment is that it can be an easy decision to make but a quite intricate to correct. Although there is no single version for the process of recruitment, an outline or a probable stage-by-stage approach to recruitment are as follows: Recruiting decision: Arising from the HR planning process, first a decision to recruit takes place. An important aspect of this decision-making is the analysis of the fact that whether recruitment is the only best alternative. Development of job specification: Next in row is the development of role profile in order to understand the requisite skills, qualification and potentialities the role requires. This will help in having a concrete criterion to build upon the later stages of recruitment. Labor marker selection: After having the right criterion, the search for the right place shall begin to find potential candidates for the job in concern. The various means of accessing the requisite market include advertising, recruitment agencies and employment consultants as well as agencies. Attracting and screening potential prospects: It means to build a medium of communication from the organization about the job to the potential prospects in the chosen region. Recruiter should consider the number of applicants and role profile requirements. The process of screening is simply the exclusion of candidates that are not according to prerequisites. Commencing the selection process: This works as a filter through which only the most fit and suitable gets through. The checking of references and proper documentations provided by the candidate follows. This checking is integral because this acts as a safeguard and helps find out the integrity of the successful candidate. Taking the final selection decision and making a job offer: The final step is to take the decision and execute it in the form of making a job offer, which can be either verbal or written and mentions any post conditions such as probationary period. The offer terms must be clear and explicit. Changing Role of HRM Introduction Talented and capable employees are the foundation stone of a competitive edge for most organizations. For service based organizations or organizations whose core business is the provision of ideas and swift as well as accurate decision-making, quality of employees become a very critical aspect and a resource that needs to be specially taken care of (Wiseman, pp.135-138, 2001). In fact, even for organizations who do not entirely focus on services and need not compete based on having the best of employees, the key source of performance and growth as well as problems and lawsuits are its employees. This paper begins with a brief background of the field Human Resource Management and aims to highlight the changing role of HR as well the key functions an HR department endeavors to perform. Moving onwards, this paper will elaborate the systematic approach for the process of Recruitment with a sound analysis of what each stage entails. Moreover, the reader will also be able to understand the importance of each step in the process and the interdependency of each of them as it flows. Background Since about 1900, the field of Human Resource Management has gone forward a great deal. Initially the field was not even as exactly as to be called a field. It was only about the clerical operations that dwell into an organization and exhibits in the form of activities such as payroll, employee records and arrangement of community trips. Until 1960s and 1970s, these activities stayed under the umbrella of Personnel Development. It was the social legislations passed in these years, which brought about striking changes and began modifying the mould of the human resource element in the organizations. It was this time when a concern for legal ramifications of policies and procedures affecting employees raised and a need for its development, realized. Then came the decade of 1990s and observed a great inclination towards globalization, competitions, mergers as well as acquisitions. All these led to an amplified apprehensiveness towards costs, planning and implementation of strategies for both organization as well as its employees, which in turn compelled a structured development of a Human Resource Department (Mathis & Jackson, pp.31, 2004). Humans- A Resource Humans have always been a critical resource for almost all organizations for a greater or lesser extent. They are diverse, necessary and at times problematic as well. For example, in order to provide outclass customer services, an extensive range of approaches inclusive of Web-based communications and other technologies, was brought together to develop a business strategy, popularly known as CRM, Customer Relations Management. This strategy aims at getting, expanding and retaining customer base. One may assume that employees in an automated customer service system are of least importance, but the matter of the fact is that customers need a human element in their communications and thus require a human to call and talk to, if not all, at times (Ferguson, pp. 14-15, 2001). This depicts the importance of the human element in all types of organizations, big or small, manufacturing-based, service-based or both. Hence, essential became the designing of a well-thought system that carefully analyzes the needs and expectations of customers and provide them efficiently the best of human touch by effectively utilizing the internal human setup of an organization i.e. its employees. Managing people this way with legal rights and eccentricities involved is no piece of cake. This is exactly the Challenge what Human Resources is all about. Roles of a Human Resource Department Although, HR performs an integral task by targeting at bringing about customer loyalty, which is hard to pin down in absence of positive, constructive and encouraging relations between employees and customers, the required number of professionals, their responsibilities and the approaches that they undertake varies from organization to organization. There are some organizations, whose upper management allows performance of a limited set of duties and responsibilities, restricted to clerical and administrative operations such as payroll etc. However, with the changing trend, there are many who believe in empowering HR to the extent of taking major decision with their consent, for example some organizations do not take a merger decision without consulting their HR department. This in turn shows the height of confidence the senior management of a company have in its HR people as well as the increasing level of communication, trust and a binding endeavor for the company prospects. With the changing trend, the empowering of HR department is elevating and with each step moving ahead there are more responsibilities and roles, the HR department needs to perform at each level of organization. From the very basic to the very top, HR performs four different roles today. These are the roles as administrator, employee advocate, operational and strategic. While the administrative role focuses largely on the secretarial and clerical supervision, employee advocate role aims to serve as a morale officer. Moreover, where an operational role signifies the authority to manage almost all HR activities, the Strategic role is a depiction of the realization of the fact, that HR matters, and hence acknowledging them as a business contributor (Mathis & Jackson, pp.37-43, 2004). Details of each role follow as under: Administrative Role: Typical activities involved in this most basic level of HR are administering employee benefits, carrying out employee orientation programs, interpreting and communicating the HR policies and procedure, and preparing reports for the purposes of ensuring equal employment. Operational and Employee Advocate Role: Activities that HR professional performs with respect to their employee advocate role are management of compensation programs, going in for the process of recruitment and selection upon realization of current openings through HR planning process. Conducting training regarding the safety of employees, resolve complaints and queries of the employees and last but not the least being representatives of employee concerns to the upper management. Strategic Role: With the focus broaden up to the entire organization both locally and globally, the tenure for this role mainly ranges for at least about two to five years. It has the most crucial of the responsibilities that include assessment of trends and issues relating workforce, involving in the planning of workforce development. It also includes supporting in the events of restructuring and downsizing of the organization. Providing advices and suggestions on issues like mergers, acquisition and helping in planning and developing of compensation strategies. After having a deep understanding of the different roles the HR department performs within an organization from grass root level to the top management, next comes in the various functions they are to plan, execute and evaluate. These activities, having a link with the inner and outer environmental contexts, are broadly classified into seven categories and each of them entails different number of activities that altogether makes up the accomplishment of the broader set possible (Mathis & Jackson, pp.32-34, 2004).These are: 1. HR planning: It entails three major activities. HR planning itself, that is crucial in order to anticipate the potential prospects for demand and supply of employees. Maintaining and controlling Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) in order to ensure the provision of adequate and timely information for an effective planning process. Assessing and analyzing HR effectiveness to ascertain organizational competitiveness. Also, improve upon levels of employee motivation to be able to retain them for a reasonable amount of time in the organization. 2. Equal Employment Opportunity: Provision of equal employment opportunities refers to the acknowledgement of diversity and compliance with the rules, regulations, laws and policies pertaining to it. 3. Staffing: Staffing function of HR refers the provision of sufficient supply of competent individuals to fill in the jobs. This entails job analysis by means of developing job descriptions and job specifications followed by the processes of recruitment for job availability and finally, selection. 4. HR development: HR development involves a series of activities beginning from taking orientation sessions for new employees, arranging for the training of requisite skills, initiating and conducting employee development programs with the evolving trends of job in order to accommodate for the updated technological skills. It also involves paying special attention to career counseling in order to identify career paths for the better future of employees within the organization. Yet another important activity is the process of performance management. According to Ulrich, successful performance management necessitates attainment of three goals (Ulrich, pp. 217, 1997). a. Setting expectation standards both behavioral and result-oriented b. Giving rewards on accomplishing standards in terms of paying in accordance with the performance. In addition, by establishing nonfinancial rewards system, to motivate employees intrinsically through celebrations and provision of opportunities to do interesting work. c. Assembling and sharing feedback on outcomes because receiving on time and honest reviews help motivate professionals to set and attain goals. 5. Compensation and Benefits: Compensation and benefits involve administrating the wages and salaries, planning for their incentives and designing various attached fringe benefits for the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of employees. 6. Health, safety and Security: Ensuring safety and security of employees is yet another integral function of HR. It involves abiding by the various laws of health both locally and globally, depending upon the set up of organization. It also includes making an endeavor to reduce possibilities of accidents and injuries at work and having programs regarding providing assistance against substance abuse as well as health promotion programs. 7. Employee and Labor Relations: Good employee-labor relations are integral to the core of the organization because this bond helps organization stay united, grow and prosper through thick and thin. In order ensure such fruit-bearing relation, developing, communicating and updating of the HR policies and procedure is highly important. Now after having a much clearer picture what HR is all about, the following session is going to deal and describe as comprehensively as possible one of the most important activities under the foremost category of action HR performs, that is HR Planning and the activity is the process of Recruitment. Recruiting is a simple natural process that widely takes place in our daily lives. In the simplest sense, we are recruiting in terms of the friendships we make, the business we choose, the mentors, advisers, associates and of course, the companies we work with. This is exactly similar to the process of recruitment that takes place in an organization. Just as in daily lives, we make a decision to get hold of a resource, catch the attention of the possible options, and consider them one by one until the selection of one of them takes place and a final decision is taken. In all through these lines most important is the understanding of our criteria that help us take better decisions (Grimshaw, pp. xiv, 2009). An important to note about recruitment is that it can be an easy decision to make but a quite intricate to correct. Although there is no single version for the process of recruitment, presented below is an outline or a probable stage by stage approach to recruitment, that can enough idea about where to move about while performing it (Grimshaw, pp.10-13, 2009). These stages are: 1. Recruiting decision Undoubtedly, this has to be the beginning of whether the recruitment and selection process is to be undertaken or not. Arising from the HR planning and upon realizing any gaps between the demand and supply of employees, a decision to recruit takes place. An important aspect of this decision-making is the analysis and going into the practical details of the problem to find out whether recruitment is the only best alternative. 2. Development of job specification Next in row is the development of job specification or the role profile in order to understand and know what are the requisite skills, knowledge, abilities, qualification and potentialities this role requires. To put it other way it is a process of identifying the desired criteria for the accomplishment of goals and objectives attached with the position in concern. This will help in having a concrete criterion to build upon the later stages of recruitment. 3. Labor marker selection After having the right criterion, the search for the right place shall begin to find potential candidates for the job in concern. The various means of accessing the requisite market include advertising, recruitment agencies and employment consultants as well as agencies. 4. Attracting and screening potential prospects Then comes the phase of marketing of the job, which is to build a medium of communication from the organization about the job to the potential prospects in the chosen region. Recruiter should consider the number of applicants he will need as well as the basic role profile requirements. The process of screening that follows simply entails the elimination of those candidates that are not according to the set prerequisites. 5. Commencing the selection process Here begins the journey of selecting the best amongst the pool of candidates screened. This step works as a filter through which only the most fit and suitable gets through. This is usually taken by means of an interview followed by the checking of references and proper documentations provided by the candidate. This checking is integral because this acts as a safeguard and helps find out the integrity of the triumphant candidate. 6. Taking the final selection decision and making a job offer After being done with all these stages, the final steps comes in upon actually taking the decision and executing it in the form of making a job offer. This can either be verbally or written and mentions any post conditions such as probationary period that help settle on a wage level as well as applicable increment. It is important that the offer terms are clear and explicit. No doubt the human resource are the most important resources for any organization today and luckily with the changing time the trend is also shifting towards giving enough importance to the field. After all, it is no more about employees working nine to five for money; it is about a group of humans working mutually for the benefit of each other, while sharing and showing respect and standing by each other as a team. This is what most organizations are all about today and the rest will follow soon. References Ferguson, Kevin. (2001). Closer than ever. Business Week, May 21. Grimshaw, Ed. (2009). The Perfect Fit. DragonRising Publishing. Mathis, Robert L. and Jackson, John H. (2004). Human Resource Management. Tenth Ed. Seng Lee Press. Ulrich, David. (1997). Human resource champions: the next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Harvard Business Press. Wiseman, Robert. (2001). Book Review of Rewarding Excellence, by Edward E. Lawler III. Academy of Management Review, pp. 25. Read More