Working with and Leading People - Assignment Example

Working with and Leading People Table of Contents Introduction 4 Task 4 Question No 4 Recruitment and Selection 4 Documents and Legal Aspects 7 Assessment of the Legal, Regulatory and Ethical Consideration 8 Question No. 2 8 Leadership and Management 8 Leadership Qualities 10 Leadership Style 10 Motivation 12 Task 2 12 Question No. 1 12 Benefits and Effectiveness of Team Working 12 Managing Conflict 13 Question No. 2 14 Monitoring and Assessment of Performance 14 Assessment Plan 16 Success of the Assessment Plan 17 Conclusion 18 Reference List 19 Bibliography 21 Introduction The main purpose of the report is to design an effective human resource management system for a health care company. It is extremely important for the managing director of the health care company which is into its first year of business to develop a specific recruitment and selection process, decide the style of leadership to be adopted and identify the advantages of team working. Therefore, it is also essential to develop an assessment plan to evaluate the work performance of the employees and provide necessary training to enhance the efficiency of the employees. The responsibility of the managing director is to identify the leaders and motivate them to lead the groups to achieve the overall objectives of the organization. Task 1 Question No. 1 Recruitment and Selection Recruitment and selection is the process of hiring the right person for a job opportunity. The employees are at the core of the success of any organization. Thus, recruiting the individual with an appropriate set of skills is extremely important for fulfilling the overall objective of the organization. Recruitment is considered to be a positive aspect, while selection is regarded to be a negative aspect as it involves the rejection of applications and selects only the best individual suitable for the job opportunity (Randhawa, 2007). Figure 1: Framework of Recruitment and Selection (Source: Randhawa, 2007) Recruitment is the process of attracting individuals for a job opening on a timely basis in large numbers and with the appropriate qualifications (Gusdorf, 2008).Both internal and external factors influence the recruitment process of an organization. The internal factors includes the expansion plan and size of the organization, the cost involved in the recruitment process, salary package, work culture, geographical expansion of the organization etc. Socio- economic factors, supply and demand conditions in the skilled labour market, political and legal considerations are some of the external factors influencing the recruitment process (Randhawa, 2007). Figure 2: Recruitment Process (Source: Randhawa, 2007) Human resource planning is the identification of the present and future human resource need of an organization. Job analysis is the process of determining the tasks need to performed, how they are carried on and what are the qualities required to perform the job successfully (Prien et.al, 2009). After human resource planning and job analysis, the managing director must decide the number and type of recruits required and selects a particular recruitment method. Advertising in newspapers, magazine, career websites trade journals etc. is an effective method of recruitment. The health care company can also establish connection with esteemed universities to remain updated with future talents. The enterprise can also maintain a data bank of prospective candidates by collecting bio-data from employment exchanges, campuses etc. and store or save them in their system. Thus, the company can readily avail the data bank whenever there are job vacancies. Email is a very powerful tool in the process of recruitment. It is inexpensive and an easy way to forward the news for the job opportunity to the interested candidates (Aswathappa, 2005). Selection is the process of screening the job applications for choosing the suitable candidates and rejecting the undeserved individuals. However, the human resource manager must ensure that no desired candidate gets rejected. Selection can be of two types; internal selection and external selection. Internal selection refers to the promoting or hiring of individuals within the organization where as external selection is the process of hiring individuals from outside the enterprise. The health care company may apply two types of selection method; the knowledge skills and ability (KSA) based selection method or the task based selection methods or both (Pulakos, 2005). The human resource manager must apply the most reliable and valid selection methods. Among the KSA-based assessment methods, the cognitive eligibility test, the job knowledge tests and the structured interviews are the most valid and reliable. Work sample tests have the highest validity among the task-based tests. Documents and Legal Aspects After the recruitment process, the human resource manager of the health care company needs to take part in the documentation of applications selected in the first screening. In the next step, the selected candidates are called for an interview process. The HR manager selects and appoints the interview panel and takes part in the interview process. After the interview, the shortlisted candidates are informed and the documentation for their appointment is done by the HR manager. While short listing the candidates in the first screening and the interview process, the manager and the interview panel must take into account the ethical and legal aspects of the selection and recruitment process. There are many laws prohibiting discrimination in the recruitment and selection process on the grounds of race, religion, gender, age and color (Compton, 2009). Assessment of the Legal, Regulatory and Ethical Consideration The health care company must not discriminate between a male and a female candidate if he or she is evaluated to be appropriate for the job opening. Equal opportunity of appointment must be given to the young and the older candidates according to the existing laws. The advertisement for the job must not ask for individuals belonging to any particular race or religion and the interview panel should also not ask questions regarding the religion, race or nationality of the selected candidates. The interview panel should ensure whether the concerned candidate is eligible to work in the country by checking whether he or she has any criminal record. The shortlisted candidate must given an employment statement stating the salary, the position, the list of holidays and other employee benefits. Question No. 2 Leadership and Management According to Northouse, leadership is a process of guiding a group of individuals towards fulfilling a mutual purpose. It is the process of influencing a group of individuals inspiring them to achieve an organizational goal through personal motivation (Northouse, 2015). Management is the process of coordinating the work of other people to attain the overall organizational objective (Bolden, 2004). It is not concerned about personal achievement but it is helping others to do their work without hindrances. The main activities of management include the planning and budgeting for the future, setting up an organizational structure, staffing responsibilities to the suitable worker for a particular job, monitoring the implementation of the plan, controlling and problem solving. The management staff assesses the implementation of the plan and tries to solve the problem which arises from deviation of work from the plan. Comparison between Leadership and Management Both management and leadership are essential for the success of an organization in an increasingly competitive and volatile business environment (McKimm and Phillips, 2009).These two aspects differ in some contexts which are discussed as follows: Creating a strategy: Leadership is determining the direction of future activities and changing strategies to achieve targets while management involves planning and budgeting, taking decisions for actions, setting the timetable and allocating resources to individuals. Thinking Process: Leadership mainly focuses on people and looks beyond the organization structure while management emphasizes on the work that is to be accomplished and is restricted to the internal organizational setup. Employee relations: Leadership is the process of empowering the group member through personal motivation, establishing a personal connection with the subordinates and developing them through evaluating their performance. Management controls, directs and subordinates the subordinates. Operation: leadership is doing the right things, serving subordinates and creating dynamic changes whereas management is doing thing in the right way, serving the executives and managing the change introduced within the company. Leadership governs through influence and acts in a decisive manner but management operates through authority and acts in a responsible manner. Outcome: Leadership produces positive outcomes and creates dramatic changes while management produces consistency, order and predictability (Kotter, 2008). Leadership Qualities Leadership is a process which can be learned through experience. The desired qualities for leadership can be divided into the following groups: Direction: Vision, focus and concept are the qualities which are related to the ability of the leader to provide motivation. A leader must be goal oriented, and capable of giving the best explanations of events and projecting future benefits. Relationships: A leader must be capable of establishing relationship with others. An individual will be considered as a successful leader if he or she is able to build trust and be caring towards the team members, has an ability to recognize the potential of individuals; create good feelings among others, has the desire to help others and make them help each other. Execution: A leader must be energetic, competitive and achievement oriented in order to motivate others. Management systems: A leader should be performance oriented, be able to manage time efficiently, be responsible. He or she must be able to coordinate activities of people and operate systems in order to help employers to work efficiently (CIMA, 2001). Leadership Style The theory of leadership suggests various styles of leadership that leaders must adopt to motivate the group. Some of the basic styles of leadership are the autocratic leadership, bureaucratic leadership, laissez-faire leadership and democratic leadership. Autocratic Leadership: It is the classical approach towards leadership in which the employer has all the decision making powers and employees are expected to obey instructions without receiving any explanations. In this approach the employers do not trust their employees and depend on threats and punishments to influence the subordinates. For example, it works well when the employees do not respond to any other leadership style or work needs to be coordinated with another department even though the style is highly criticized. Bureaucratic Leadership: In this style of leadership, all work is performed according to the rules and regulations of the organization. For example, this style is effective only when the workers perform routine tasks regularly or handles cash. Democratic Leadership: It is also called the participative style of leadership in which the employees are encouraged to take part in decision-making and are regularly informed about events and factors influencing their work. Leaders also share problem solving responsibilities with their subordinates in this approach. For example, this kind of leadership is most effective when the enterprise wants to give the employees opportunities to develop a personal career growth along with job satisfaction. Laissez-faire Leadership: In this approach of leadership all decision making power is given to the employees. The leaders do not direct or monitor their subordinates and they experience maximum freedom. For example, this approach is applied when the enterprise has highly skilled and experienced staffs who do not feel insecure in the absence of monitoring. The health care company must adopt the democratic style of leadership as it engages the subordinates in decision-making which motivates them to work efficiently. Though a democratic leader takes the final decision, he or she takes the suggestions and opinions of the team members. The employees appreciate the trust they receive from the leaders and thus respond with team spirit, morality and coordination. In this approach, the leaders develop strategies to evaluate the performance of the group members, appreciate and encourage achievement, and allow them to set challenges. Motivation Motivation in the workplace is affected by the decreasing importance of money, increasing quantity of work and the necessity to work in teams. The health care company must implement effective and inexpensive ways to motivate employees. Recognizing the achievement of the employees by thanking or congratulating them in person or in writing; nominating the employee to serve a specific committee, for an award from a university or for participating in a mentoring program are some of the effective no-cost ways to motivate employees (Global Knowledge Training LLC, 2006). The enterprise can also motivate people by encouraging them to develop innovative ideas and take part in the decision making process. The company must increase the job satisfaction of the employees and retain them by linking the personal career goals of the employees with overall objective of the enterprise. Task 2 Question No. 1 Benefits and Effectiveness of Team Working The term team is referred to a group of individuals with a specific organizational function, sharing the same set of objectives and interdependency in their roles (Parker and Williams, 2001). Team working enhances the productivity of the employees, improves the quality of work, nurture the creativity of team members and gives rise to innovation. Team members experience high job satisfaction when they work in a team and thus are motivated to work harder. Reduction in costs, bureaucracy and the size of the workforce are the other benefits of team working. Team working can enhance the wellbeing of the workers and thus increase organizational effectiveness. The key indicators for assessing the effectiveness of team members are performance, wellbeing of team members, their behavior and viability (Parker and Williams, 2001). Under the performance indicator, it has been observed that team working leads to high productivity, improved quality of work and cost effectiveness. Team working is effective when it results in high job satisfaction, low stress of the employees and increased commitment towards the organization. As the team members share the responsibility of the work, the level of stress upon each member declines. As the group members have a high job satisfaction, their rate of absence and turnover falls and this increases the retention capacity of the enterprise. A team can be referred to as viable when it can continue to perform together. Managing Conflict Managing conflict in the workplace is an ability which is difficult for individuals. The disagreement over the targets and needs among the group members is termed as conflict in the workplace. Absenteeism, complaining, hoarding valuable information, not responding to emails, phone calls, and requests for information are some of the symptoms of conflict. Poor time management, lack of communication and desired skills, personality problems, poor management and leadership problems are some of the causes of conflict (Winston, B. E. and Patterson, K., 2006). The leader can solve the conflict by identifying that a conflict has been raised in the first place. The conflict can be recognized by looking for symptoms such as missing the deadline for the projects, poor performance in team meetings, free riding of team members, and ineffective leadership. The next action towards resolving the conflict is to gather data to determine the main cause of the conflict. This is a difficult job as conflict arises for several reasons. Gathering data includes the collecting both measurable and observable data. In this step, the manager needs to assess the behavior and performance of each team members in which he or she need to identify which member meets the deadline and goals, who is a latecomer, who participates in group activities and who are the undeclared leaders. The manager must also evaluate his or her attitude towards the team; whether he or she was able to communicate successfully with the team members, understand the skills and abilities of the individual members and was successful in motivating them to accomplish the tasks. After gathering the facts the manager analyses the data and try to understand and further define the problem of the team. The focus of the analysis should be on the different areas of communication, leadership, time management and others. Depending on the analysis of the gathered facts the manager need to choose and implement the best solution for solving the conflict. Active listening, observing the behavior of team members, setting clear and attainable objectives, giving regular feedback on the performance of the members are some of the tools of resolving conflict. The manager must handle conflict with confidence and skill and try to solve it immediately for taking the advantages of team working. Question No. 2 Monitoring and Assessment of Performance Monitoring and assessment of work performance are important tools of management. Monitoring helps enterprises to keep a track of the achievements of employees by collecting information about their daily performance. Thus it helps in maintaining accountability, decision -making, and form the basis for the evaluation and learning processes (Sera and Beaudry, 2007). Assessment is the systematic evaluation of an ongoing project or policy or program, its implementation and outcomes. The main objectives of the assessment process are examining the accomplishment of goals, impact and the sustainability of the program (Sera and Beaudry, 2007). The main factors involving the planning, monitoring and assessment of work performance are as follows: Relevance: It examines whether the personal goal of the worker matches with the objective of the team project or the organization as a whole. Efficiency: It focuses on the timely completion of the project in a cost-effective way. Effectiveness: It evaluates the degree of success of the team or individual in meeting the expected target and the problems encountered in the process of implementation. Impact: It emphasizes on the expected and unexpected positive as well as negative outcome of the project. Sustainability: It examines the lasting benefits accrued even after the completion of the project or a training program. The inputs in the monitoring and evaluation programs are the human and financial resources of the enterprise. The activities include the training programs conducted by the company. The outputs involve the number of employees trained and the number of training, learning a development workshops conducted by the organization. The outcome of the process results in the improvement in the skills of the employees and opportunity of new employment. The consequences of the evaluation and monitoring process are the positive and negative effects of the process and improvement in the job satisfaction of the employees (Sera and Beaudry, 2007). Assessment Plan In order to assess the performance of the individuals or a team, the manager of the company, at first, needs to design an effective plan and implement the plan within the structure of the organization. A brief assessment plan has been discussed below: Determine the indicators of performance: The manager must decide which indicator to use as a tool for measuring the work performance of a team or an individual. The indicators may include the documentation of the daily work performed by individuals, conducting regular meetings, presentation of final work done at the end of a specified time period. Determine the data collection method: The manager must gather information about each of the employees of the company; whether the individuals are meeting the deadlines, they are attaining the meeting regularly. The manager also needs to observe the behavior of the individuals such as whether they are socializing within the organization, building healthy relationship with his or her co-workers. Analyze the gathered facts: The manager need to analyze the facts gathered about the employees and identify the causes of the problems arising in the operation of a project. He or she must also look for any emerging trend or pattern in the behavior of employees. For example, all the employees of the organization has started to come late for their job or majority of them are staying back long even after office hours. Interpretation, feedback and recommendation: The next step in the plan is to follow the results to identify the cause of a positive or negative trend, take necessary steps to continue a positive trend. Similarly steps should also be taken to change a negative trend affecting the objectives of an organization. Feedback should be provided to an individual if the person is performing extremely well or he or she could not cope up with pressure of deadlines. Communicate the finding to the top authority: The manager also needs to communicate the findings of the assessment process to the top authority so that they can take necessary steps towards increasing the productivity of the employees which is at the core of the success of the organization. Success of the Assessment Plan An assessment plan is said to effective only if it has long lasting positive impact on the future operations of the enterprise. For example, the assessment plan evaluates that the employees have to stay long even after office hours to meet the daily deadlines of their job and this results in job dissatisfaction as the well being of the individual is reduced. Based on this finding the company can change the work culture of the organization and take necessary steps to increase the job satisfaction of the employees and in turn increase the retention capacity of the company. Thus, planning, monitoring and assessment processes do not only helps in examining the past work performance but also guides the organization to introduce dynamic changes in the organizational structure (Benjamin and Belluck, 2001). Conclusion The managing director of a newly established company must recognize the importance of implementing an effective and cost saving recruitment and selection process as it helps in hiring the most suitable individual for the job opportunity. He or she must also be aware of the legal and ethical aspects of the recruitment process. Leadership is a very important aspect of success of an organization. Leaders are able to think beyond the organizational structure and introduce dynamic changes which results in positive changes of the enterprise. Thus, the management of a company must identify individuals who are able to develop leadership qualities and devote enough resources towards the development of the leaders through training and learning programs. The most appropriate style of leadership to be adopted is democratic or participative leadership as it engages employees in decision-making which encourages and motivates them to take responsibility. It has also been observed that participative leadership also ensures high retention capacity of organizations. Reference List Aswathappa, K., 2005. Human resource and personnel management. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Education. Benjamin, S.L. Belluck, D.A., 2001. 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