Significance of Human Resources - Essay Example

Human Resources Introduction: In organisations Human Resource Management evolved out of the bland Personnel Management, as the realisation of the importance of the human element in the organisation developed. In the new millennium, globalisation has given greater emphasis on Human Resources, as organisations sharpen their competitive edge to make use of the opportunities that globalisation has thrown open. A profession in Human Resources management and development thus not only is challenging, but also provides avenues for self-fulfilment, as it deals with the greatest asset of any organisation, namely the human element.

Overview of Human Resources: The industrial revolution of the nineteenth century saw business organisations grow in size from a single owner with a few chosen supervisors, and a small workforce to large organisations with a larger workforce. This resulted in the requirement of many support functions, which were delegated to suitable individuals in the organisation. One of these support functions earned the nomenclature of industrial relations or personnel relations, from which was to evolve the present day human resources functions.

Towards the middle of the twentieth century the personnel function became a part of almost all business organisations and this led to many individuals being provided with work in it. In 1964, the American Society for Personnel was formed with the role of defining, representing and promoting human resources, as profession within the larger business environment. This added to the focus on human resources and its development into profession of extreme value to business organisations. Clarity of the significance of human resources to business organisation came with the changing role of human resources in the last century.

From the mere functions of just hiring, policing, and paper pushing, human resources today is looked upon to provide value to the organisation. A profession in human resources is set to be challenging and self-fulfilling because, human resources has become a significant part of every challenge that an organisation faces and is expected to contribute in a large manner to meeting these challenges. The significance of the challenges of a profession human resources can be summed up in these words “In addition to managing traditional human resource functions, HR is expected to contribute to such key organizational challenges as facilitating mergers and acquisitions, improving productivity and quality, improving the ability of an organization to bring new products to market, and to continuously improve the companys return on its greatest asset.

its people." (The Human Resource Profession). Significance of Human Resources: Even within its original role of hiring people there is a fundamental change in this function that it goes beyond just hiring, but hiring the right human element required for the organisation, training and developing this human resource as a productive element of the organisation and then ensuring retention of this extremely valuable human resource. This makes the human resource function more demanding and more strategic in nature.

Innovation is a part of the modern organisation and machines are playing a larger role in many functions within an organisation. The human element still remains a requirement within an organisation because it is capable of going beyond what machines can do and the significant part is that these new kinds of work all emanate from within the human resource itself. This is a far different scenario from when employees were expected just to follow orders and not deviate from them in the factories and work places.

In short the human element at the factory floors were more representative of machines than human beings. Today the employees are expected to be more creative and flexible. The role of human resources with its capacity to understand the direction in which the organisation is moving is to find employees that are willing to bring their whole selves to work, and then motivate them to employ their creative skills in the work environment to enable the organisation to progress in the required direction at the required pace.

(Rosner, B., 2000). In the new millennium it is the role that human resources will play that would make organisations innovate and through that make them competitive and effective to take on the new challenges that business enterprises will face. To understand this development that is required of human resources it is necessary to understand the meaning of competitiveness and innovation with respect to business enterprises. Competitiveness is the ability of the organisation to maintain and gain market share in its sector of industry.

Effectiveness is the satisfaction that the organisation provides to needs of people within and outside the organisation. In its role of contributing to the competitiveness and the effectiveness of the organisation human resources has three critical functions to perform. It is human resources that is responsible for selecting employees that are innovative, creative and successful at their job functions. It is human resources that assists in preparing the employees to respond effectively to the new manufacturing and service technologies that have become part, of the workplace.

Finally it is human resources that is responsible for rewarding the productivity of employees. These functions of human resources span across all the different activities that take place in a business enterprise and pose an ever-growing challenge to the capabilities of human resources. (Treven, S. & Mulej, M., 2005). Motivation of employees is another key function of human resources. Motivation plays an important role in business organisations, as it is motivation of employees that is responsible for making an organisation effective, irrespective of their size and nature.

Motivation is a process that has the capability to harness the potential off every employee in the organisation and thereby deliver maximum efficiency of the workforce of the organisation and this becomes possible when motivation is not used as a tool that is aimed at controlling or prescribing the behaviour of the employees. Unless employees the resources spent on training and development are wasted and will not contribute to the intended goals of the organisation. Human resources makes is contribution here by assisting to meet the organisational objectives in simultaneously fulfilling the personal needs of the individuals, as well as the organisational requirements, and thereby bringing harmony of intent and achievement for the organisation and the employees.

This role is a demanding role on the capabilities of human resources and calls for development of skills and abilities to fulfil the role. (Hood, J.P.) Retaining employees marks another important role of human resources in the new business environment, where staff turnover is having a negative impact on the effectiveness of almost all organisations. Retention of employees has become more and more pertinent with the educational levels becoming higher in the workforce and the development of the concept of knowledge workers.

The level of staff turnovers in any organisation is based on the level of commitment that the employees have to the organisation. It is in this aspect with its role in development and motivation and reward of employees that human resource has the unique capacity to develop commitment to the organisation across every activity in the business enterprise. It is this role of human resources that negates the need for constant recruitment, training and development of employees within an organisation, which is a dissipation of energies and resources that are better spent in contributing to he effectiveness and competitiveness of the organisation. (Buck, M.J.

, & Watson, L.J., 2002). In this new era of globalisation a new role for human resources has developed in keeping with then ever increasing expansion of business enterprises that span national and cultural boundaries. Human resources is looked upon as the main control mechanism that enables employees can be integrated across national boundaries in this new era of globalisation. It is human resources that devices the means whereby appropriate company behaviours, value and the manner of doing things permeate into the spread out activities of organisations.

It is human resources that needs to adapt the corporate values and mission statements to meld with the local culture and circumstances. This new role for human resources does indicate that as developments cause organisations to change in keeping with the dynamic nature of the world, human resources will be called upon to meet this new challenge, and so a profession in human resources would not just be challenging, but also dynamic in nature. (Price, A., 2003). Conclusion: The nature of human resources is thus such that it provides challenges, and calls for dynamism, and its role spreads across all facets of business activities, and thereby allows self-fulfilment.

Works Cited Buck, M.J., & Watson, L.J. (2002). “Retaining Staff Employees: The Relationship Between Human Resources Management Strategies and Organisational Commitment”. Innovative Higher Education, Vol. 26(3), Pp 175-193. Hood, J.P. “Human Resource Development: Motivation and Movement”. MiE, Vol.15 (4), Pp 19-24. Academia Premier Database. EBSCO. 17 April 2006. Price, A., (2003). “Human Resource Management in a Business Context”. Thomson Learning. Connecticut. Pp 670-671. Rosner, B., (2000). “Nurturing the Intrapreneurial Spirit”.

Workforce. Academia Premier Database. EBSCO. 17 April 2006. “The Human Resource Profession”. 17 April 2006. http://www.humanresources.org/about_main.cfm. Treven, S. & Mulej, M. (2005). “A REQUISITELY HOLISTIC VIEW OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN INNOVATIVE ENTERPRISES”. Cynernetics and Systems: An International Journal. Vol. 36, Pp 45-63.