Contemporary People Management - Term Paper Example

Contemporary People Management A business organisation is no more confined with the integrity of its own activities. As an organisation out performsin the pressure of the market place, it finds the ropes to the climbing graphs of the corporate bottom lime. With the growing demand and the power to support it, the organisation seeks for an expansion to make room for a bigger operation. Mainly due to the expansion issue, organisation gets exposed to the external environment of the society, which is actually the base of all the organisations. Thus, the organisation adds the external factors of the environment with its internal one. This report will address the environmental effects on the organisation and the internal factors of organisation. With the cause and the effects; though the organisation blooms, but, get exposed to many unprecedented issues. As the organisation enters into this phase, it becomes further vulnerable to the exciting internal challenges that create a tension between the organisation and its people or employees. Placing leaders in the role of organisation, both leaders and employees need to be inculpated in ensuring enough organisational flexibility to endure them into the future that is prone to change (Friedman, Merle, 2005). There are some very special and identical characteristics, which are identified for internal environment. As per the set of characteristics, in order to ensure a quality work force there are limited avenues of entries in an organisation at its lower level, where posts are filled up by gradual promotion, wages or salaries are measured in accordance with job and create a stable and long lasting employment structure (Economics of Labour 2008). The theory of social custom fair habit, employment relationship in a long run and combined authorities of compensation consideration are surely surrounded by the presence of high percentage of unemployment, decentralisation in wage and salary pay consideration. An important feature of capitalist employment is internal environment system, along with the close relationship with the economic theories of internal work force. Efficiency centric theories of the labour force trend face difficulties in discussing the quick changes in employer’s strategies and labour force structures and classification of firms and employees. The theories, which are based only on classification of firms and employees; highlight mainly to those theories which are depending upon the distinctions of firms into either primary sector, where employees are offered developed, internal carrier options and they are surely characterized by firm specific skills as per human resource development concern or secondary sector, where firm needs low skilled, un-united workers through expanding labour market. (Nolan and Slater, 2003) With comprehension to the cause and the nature of existence it is now to rationalize the truth of its existence. The matter of existence is highly constructive in the personnel level of the organisation. Here the room for job creation is narrow and is controlled by the concern by the virtue of the work force contribution, delivery and seniority and the quality of the same. And precisely this is the concept in vogue, in the present market work force and payroll management system. It is again indicating the internal environment management’s entity in terms of wages and compensation. Like any contemporary payroll practice, this follows the philosophy of compensation as per the job profile and the responsibilities of the individual assigned by the firm; not as per the individual and then its roll. This reflects the labour management’s point of view of considering the status of the job in the firm rather than the individuals performing it. This is a straight cut approach of respecting the job or the position which will be served by many individuals over the time. This is the concept widely followed by the Military Organisations across the world (Williamson, Wachter and Harris 1975). As Gray Hamel opines the Organisational strength which can be procured by the empowerment in the Organisational Psychology is basically a formula, where the rate and extent of the strategic transformation gets divided by the cost of the organisation itself and the mind frame of the people in the organisation, maintaining the constant changes (Friedman, Merle, 2005). Empowerment is such a tool that runs parallel to the employment relationship. Empowerment is the concept where the employees procure their self efficiency. Thus they get a scale to measure their worth in the organisation (Conger & Kanungo, 1998). Any organisation that can inculcate this practice amongst its employees can possibly solve the most global and burning issue of the time. It is about checking the attrition rate, as a dissatisfied team member can influence the morals of those who are around by the negative vibes, which can create a detrimental damage to the organisation. It is a Viral Effect. These types of intricacies are common in the employee as well as the Organisational Psychology and the organisations are dealing with these disgruntlements on a daily basis. The Human Resource Department is trying to spread the concept of Empowerment in the organisation to retain the talents that they have invested on. Needless to say, that this is a giant step towards the development of the employment law. A bird’s eyes view shows the macro aspect of the global market psychology too. After all it is also a significant barometer of an individual’s economic satisfaction. According to Julian Callow, chief European economist for Barclays Capital, London; with the rise of productivity and labour force expansion the potential growth rate rises. Here the problem with Europe is that its immigration and birthrates are not as high as United States (Carter, Dougherty, 2007). Thus demography is also a factor to consider as the population of a country is the most vital power of that country, which is also known as the manpower and in further stage human resource in an organisation. Organisations are paying heed to the external factors in this way where they can fish out the unidentified talents by the by. The concept of Demographic Shift has put forward a phrase called Working Family has been coined in the year 1980 where a stiff graph has been recorded of the married women joining industry when the place of work and the family were more clearly separated. This increase in the participation represented a trend that started way back in 1920s’. Women in labour force created a significant movement of social and economic empowerment in the modern United States history (Hayghe, 1997). On this attitudinal and demographic shift Industries have tailored the working family’s official policies. The main focus was to help the women employees better segregating the space between work and family (especially to take care of there young children) to be more efficient and productive worker (Schein, 1990). This workplace situation has created a trio where the organisation has adopted this trend in its labour force and to give a meaning to this trend, official policies have been included law of employment development. This in turn has triggered the issue of the employment relationship, where employees feel the homely mentality of the employers. Thus, it is a common consent that this is no ordinary time and the business environment is not just changing but creating different avenues. No longer is it only about making money and measuring the bottom line as the advent of Globalisation has changed the entire DNA of modern business. The concept of forecasting to avoid the impact on organisation and employees by using trend study or historical data has gone obsolete as the changing face of business is extremely unpredictable and the only surety are the changes which never repeat (Friedman, Merle, 2005). Thus, sudden changes will come which may even taste bitter, but the Empowerment mechanism is the only way left to shape up things and situations to boost employees back to normalcy. With so much of explanation, it is time to reveal the organisation and the other factors we have been and will discussing about. In a critical market, now a day’s more and more organisations are adopting this set of power relationship and the management of to retain the market by the thoughts, intuitions, decision and action. We can state an example about the multinational company known as ABB which was formerly known as Asea Brown Boveri. The headquarter of this company is in Zurich, Switzerland and it has a great record of innovation and technological leadership in several industries since the late nineteenth century. But in recent years this company has shifted its attention towards alternative energy and the advanced products and technologies in power and automation that constitute its Industrial IT offering. Looking upon the over all addition and the transformation of ABB’s operation, it clearly shows a massive change and sustainability factor and involves the management for this up gradation. Now this company offers products,systems, solutions and services to their customers to improve their operations like increasing the reliability of a power grid or raising productivity of a company. The management of the company does these taking the help of technology leadership, global presence, application knowledge and local expertise. Here the critical aspect of the organisation is to be at the lead by putting itself at rear. As per the creative impulses of the organisation, it planed to ring the bell of bottom line by using its external force of the environment, the customer base and their need solution approach. The main focus of the company is to achieve organic profitable growth with the help of its core strengths in power and automation technologies. On the other hand ABB`s global manufacturing base helps to achieve top quality product and systems made fully in ABB for its customers around the world. In the whole process it is the customers who get benefited as they have easy access to ABB`s offerings no matter where from they buy it. Here people work together seamlessly to deliver benefits for the customers. The policy of doing business of ABB is entirely value based, leadership driven and performance oriented (ABB 2008). Thus the organisation has built up three pillars for it quantum leap. As in this pressure driven market, absence of far sighted thought process will put the concern on the side track, the organisational flexibility have given the concern a strategic dimension by putting their customers as the central mechanism of the engine. They have done this by reducing hierarchy, improving communications, changing management style, and forcing an inward-looking company to concentrate on the customer. As a customer driven company can better earn the out side business where the cash in flow is much wider and is perpetual; and as the changing organisational thought process, company will not earn for it, rather the customer will. This no introvert environment, this is the brainchild of the external elements effecting internal environment. Security is the main concern these days in any industry. By stepping up the security it has helped the employees and contractors in risk areas to feel safe about the job. This was only possible by improving occupational health and safety performances which is the fundamental right of each and every human being to return home safely after his day`s work. And that is the core priority for the Group. This continues to be supported by training on behavior and the further development of systems and standards throughout the company to mingle the contrast the internal and the external environment. The company has realized there the main areas of weakness- ensuring employees and subcontractors follow established rules when working at height and on live electrical equipment, and when they drive or are driven for their company`s work. ABB is continuously working hard to improve project safety measures. More than 2,300 project and site managers have received training to date. Even online occupational health and safety training courses on key risks are now available in English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Arabic. This is a two way horizontal communication of the company to develop a strong bond of the employee employer relationship (ABB 2008). Like any other leading company of the world, ABB is also committed to maintaining high social, environmental, ethical and governance standards. Sometimes the responsibilities of the corporate world overshadows the company`s values and behaviors. But ABB has proved time and again that their sole desire is to raise their company`s standards and play a part in contributing to international initiatives. In the core it has engraved fundamentals of the environment. ABB has in many ways proved their commitment to the whole world. Thay have manufactured energy efficient products and the way they have prepared them is a pure example of it.They have also made products for directly mitigating global warming. This is the result of company’s exposure and influence to external environment. This is which is changing the internal too. Social commitments find expression in a variety of ways: in the increasing attention given to potentially sensitive projects at corporate and local level; An example is that near about 1000 employees help disadvantaged people who have monthly deduction in salaries in Brazil. Also there is the example of having access to the Electricity rural electrification projects in India and Tanzania, which is contributing in a huge way in raising the economic, social and environmental standards in remote commodities. Externally, the company continues to work actively on projects in a number of international organizations. ABB has promoted energy efficiency at international congresses, has contributed to efforts to reduce electrical utilities’ carbon footprint in work at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. It has also backed the 3C Climate Initiative, and supported the United Nations Global Compact in its efforts to set up a local network in Sudan. And still now they are continuously doing it. ABB seeks to be a “good corporate citizen.” Constant effort, vigilance and high levels of awareness are needed to raise standards which are consistent everywhere, even in difficult environments. This is work in progress with a sea change in its internal management due to the impacts of external environment (ABB 2008). As per employment law “ABB is committed to developing an organizational culture which implements a policy of support for the internationally recognized human rights contained within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and seeks to avoid complicity in human rights abuses.” (ABB, 2008) The commitment to the realization of human rights is embedded in the Groups human rights and social policies and the criteria appropriate to ABB in the Global Reporting Initiative. Human rights are part of the non-financial risk assessment of operations. ABB is involved in multilateral efforts to support human rights such as the United Nations Global Compact and Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights for the betterment of the existing and the would be employees(ABB 2008). References ABB 2008, Health and safety: Working to meet tough challenges, Viewed 23 August 2008, . ABB 2008, The ABB Group, Strategy, Viewed 23 August 2008, . ABB 2008, Human Rights Policy and Statement, Viewed 23 August 2008, Conger, J.A. & Kanungo, R. N. 1998, The empowerment process: Integrating theory and practice. Academy of Management Review, vol.13 pp.471-482. Carter, D 2007, U.S. Growth Expected to cool, Falling Below Pace in Europe. The New York Times. Viewed 23 August 2008, . Economics of Labour 2008. “Lecture 4: The internal labor market”, ID 4219M Friedman, M 2005, Organisational Resilience. Find Articles. Accountancy SA. Viewed 24 July 2008, . Hayghe & Howard, W. 1997, Developments in Womens Labor Force Participation. Monthly Labor Review, vol. Sept. pp. 41-46. Nolan, P & Slater, G 2003, ‘The labour market: History, structure and prospects’, in P.K. Edwards (ed.) Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice Schein & Virginia E. 1990, The Work-Family Conflict Interface: Challenging Corporate Convenient. Paper presented at the Ninety-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Association, Boston. Williamson, O; Wachter, M and Harris, J 1975, ‘Understanding the employment relation: the analysis of idiosyncratic exchange’, Bell Journal of Economics, Vol. 6 No. 1 pp.250-79 Read More