HRM & Employment Relations - Essay Example

HRM & Employment Relations According to the Blog Theory, blogs survives on the basis of repetitive circulation, which entails the creation of blog content and then reliance on the opinions derived by the blog to create more content for the subject of discussion (). In this respect, blogging is one of the major ways through which a subject can be assessed, discussed, critiqued and analyzed comprehensively, since it entails the commitment of the bloggers to circulate the content of the blog through always ensuring that he/she is engaged in blogging. The continuous engagement of the bloggers to the creation of content that captures the attention of the public ensures that the repetitive action of content creation and content regeneration never ceases, because the audiences are always looking to read and respond to the blogs. Therefore, blogging reinforces effective networking, without encouraging or displacing the consolidation of the blogging networks (). Nevertheless, blogging is a highly personal style of writing to a highly impersonal audience, meaning that it is an effective way of helping interpret the thought process of both the bloggers and the audience who read and responds to the blogs, considering the fact that each of these parties does it on their own terms and in their own style of understanding and reacting to the subject matter (). Then impact of blogs is that it is of the most effective ways of having an organization discuss organizational issues at lengths with the employees, meaning that blogging can highly improve the communication within an organization (). Therefore, blogging is a valuable tool for organizations, since it can make it possible for the organization to understand the feelings, thought process and reaction of individual employees regarding different organizational issues. This is because, blogging entails the application of a highly personalized mode of communication, meaning that it is easy for the organization to understand each of the contributors to the organizational blogs (). However, blogs can be a potential disaster, since they may result in the employees and the organization creating a conflict and misunderstanding regarding various subjects of blogging, which would in turn be transmitted into the physical work environment. Blogs have an influence on face-to-face communication, considering the fact that the interaction that is online between the audience and the bloggers is the same that will eventually be transmitted into physical communication (). This means that blogging forms the content of the subject of face-to-face communication. However, blogging can affect face-to-face communication negatively, since people would prefer spending more time to discuss issues through blogging, as opposed to engaging in face-to-face communication (). The consequence is that the discussion of organizational issues might be very effective through blogging, but the same may not be reflected when it comes to face-to-face communication. Nevertheless, it is apparent that blogging will increase the amount of information flowing through the corporate grapevine, because it offers the most effective platform for comprehensive discussion, analysis and critique of relevant subjects, allowing for diverse and broad dissemination of information (). Question 2 According tom then Theory of Human Resource Function, the provision of employment security, effective training of employee and effective communication are major factors that contributes to the realization of the organizational targets and goals (). The major focus of the HR function, according to the HR function theory is the leveraging of the potential of the employees, so they can contribute towards the realization of the organizational objectives, as one of the important factors within the organization. Therefore, the HR function theory provides that the major challenge in leveraging the human resources potential within an organization is balancing the need for ensuring that the employees are not overwhelmed by workload, with the need to ensure that the employees have enough to do, and thus they do not waste the company time (). Therefore, the HR function within an organization has to work towards not overstretching the most important resource of the organization which is the human capital, while also ensuring that the human resource capital is not under-utilized. Therefore, to ensure that the positive the positive aspects of blogs are achieved by the organization, the HR function should take the action of providing support to the employees as a way of improving the positive aspect of blogging, while also setting limits so as to mitigate the risks that are associated with uncontrolled blogging. The uncontrolled blogging has the impact of painting the organization in bad light, considering that blogging is a highly personal form of writing which the organization may have less control on (). In this respect, the organization may only have the influence over the subjects that are discussed on the blogs, but may not limit the individual perceptions and responses to these issues. Therefore, the fundamental role of the HR function within an organization is to establish the appropriate communication ethics standards for the employees, which will in turn define what is right and what is wrong for the employees to do within the freedom of blogging (). Such communication ethics standards would entail limiting the employees to the subjects they can discuss with people who are external to the organization through the blog, since such discussions risks the possibility of either exposing the secrets of the organization or painting the organization in bad light (). The other action that the HR function within an organization can take to encourage positive aspects of blogging is increasing the visibility of the bloggers. Lack of visibility of the bloggers and the responders to the blogging content is a major way that can contribute negatively to the organizational blogging, since it increases the chances of blogging and responding to blogging under anonymous or pseudonyms, which poses the risks creating negativity to the organization behind the veil of anonymity (). However, through the creation of bloggers and responders visibility, positive contribution to blogging will be enhanced, since the bloggers and the responders will be conscious that their contributions are being identified. This way, the HR function can ensure that blogging produces positive impacts to the organization. Question 3 According to the A Theory of Public Employee Rights employees should have the right to free expression, which can only be limited when efficiency demands so (). In this respect, the theory provides that it is important that the management of an organization does not interfere with the rights of the employees to express themselves both in and outside the workplace, unless such restrictions becomes necessary for the organizational efficiency. The A Theory of Public Employee Rights therefore provides that by looking through eyes of parity, an employee is situated differently from his peers and thus singled-out for restrictions, where the speech of such an employee contradicts the institutional mission of the organization (). However, the freedom of expression of the employees should not be restricted unnecessarily, considering the fact that the employees and the citizens are considered to be equally situated when it comes to the freedom and rights of expression in the eyes of the law. Thus, despite the fact that the organization may have a right to restrict the expression of the employees to certain limits, such restrictions can only be tenable to the extent that they seek to preserve the core objectives of the organizations, while at the same time not conflicting with the basic rights and freedoms of the employee as a citizen (). Therefore, in consideration of the provisions of the Theory of Public Employee Rights, reading employees private e-mails and recording the sites that the employees visit may be unethical. This is because, reading the mails of the employees would amount to the violation and infringement of the right to privacy of the employees (). The violation of the rights and freedom to privacy is not only ethically wrong, but also an illegality. Thus, rather than reading the private e-mails of the employees, an organization should establish other open channels of communication which would make it easier for information to flow freely within the organization. However, the recording the sites that employees visit would be necessary under certain circumstances, when it is realized that their visit to such sites is contrary to the core values of the organization (). Read More