Goals of the HRM Department - Research Paper Example

Human Resource Development: approaches to Training Needs Analysis in organizations and its significance Introduction:             Since the post globalization era human resource management concept has undergone remarkable change across the world. It is widely known that work culture, commitment of employees towards an organization and employee-organizational relationship vary in different cultural and national context. As globalization has resulted in cultural intercourse to a greater extent compared to the past and it also created huge impact over existing work culture of a particular nation, (Warr, 2007, p. 287) several changes have also occurred at the International human resource management context. The idea of organizational culture is gaining importance in understanding the companies and their structure. (Beaumont, 1993, p.36)  In current times, elements of culture and tradition are not sole determining factors for identifying human resource management of a company but at the same time several other factors, including, socio-economic conditions, political and legal aspects have also become important factors that play a great role in determining human resource management of an organization or take a leading part when it comes to launching certain policies by the HRM department of an organization. Linda Holbeche, in her book, Aligning Human Resources and Business Strategy has rightly observed, “… corporate strategies tend not to be made in isolation – they should take into account the changing need of external stakeholders such as customers, the changing business environment, including markets and the critical resources needed to carry out the strategic aims. These critical resources include such factors as capital and technology, and increasingly rely on people – their brain power, access to information and ability to learn new approaches.” (Holbeche, 2001, p. 83) While implementing strategies “Differentiation and customer service” have also been main points of focus of HRM department of an organization. (Grundy and Brown, 2003, 36) Why Use it? While human resource department of a company is about to take certain decisions, it needs to keep in mind both the external and internal factors that can also be consequently affected due to such decision making process. Looking at the business scenario of United Kingdom, it is also understood easily that the organizations have also encouraged these aspects to enter the modern business scenario so that the decision making process of the HRM department can facilitate organizational benefit as well as welfare of the employees. In this context example of ChocCo can be cited. “The corporate culture of ChocCo is a result of its traditionally paternalistic employment practices.” (Storey, 1996, p. 73) Thus, since the 1980s onwards, to make the managerial functions more flexible for employees the organization has undergone drastic change from its traditional approaches.       It has often been said that managerial planning of an organization is dependent over three questions that the managers ponder over current position of the company in the market, then they identify their vision or would be position in the market and finally, tracing out the possible avenues that can lead the companies to that position. Though, in order to ensure development of an organization planning is extremely important, but when it comes to execution of such planning, it cannot be done without proper utilization of the human resources or “key resource”  of that organization. (Bramham, 2002, p. 2) A manager can chalk out about his future vision and how he can reach his destination but at the same time, if he does not receive support from the employees it will not be possible for him to reach that level. Strategic integration is the central goal of HRM. Goals of the HRM Department: It is responsibility of the HRM department that in not only implement policies that would help the organization to reach its target at the same time makes the employees understand that in the longer run it will benefit them. “The HRM outcome goals are … a high employee commitment, high quality and high flexible staff.” (Schuler and Jackson, 2007, p. 163) In the modern day management scenario, decision making is not an isolated process but it includes all those people who are related to the organization, starting from the lowest level to the highest plain of managerial decision making. (Pinnington, Macklin and Campbell, 2007, p. 128) Thus, in the modern context the aspect of employee collectivism receives a great deal of importance from the managers and HRM department as well. One of the major goals of the human resource department of an organization is to respect, evaluate and properly utilize positive sides of the employee collectivism. HRM, Collectivism and respecting Employee Relations: The trade union organizations and various other types of employee representative bodies operate as main machinery for collectivism. Despite the fact that “nature and role of trade unions varies from country to country” (Loosemore, Dainty, and Lingard, 2003, p. 119) but the collectivism process actually empowers the employees to participate actively in organization decision making. Collectivism is classified into two categories, participation level of the employees, whether it is high or low and the degree of legitimacy given to the collective organization by management to increase flexibility. (Locke, Kochan, and Piore, 1995, p. 362) Now this aspect of employee collectivism depends to a great extent over the decision making by the HRM department of a particular company. If human resource department can use the strength of employee collectivism in a proper manner then it becomes easy for the company to reach its target position but on the other hand, if the human resource management of a company fails to handle the strength properly, it is never possible for it to reach its target destination. Conclusion: Finally, it can be said that training of an aspiring HR manager is extremely important as undergoing such procedure gives him potential to analyze the actual situation and also helps him to come up with right decision that would in the organizational benefit. Rewarding potential employees and maintaining strict rules regarding employment are certain essentialities that a human resource manager is required to maintain during his/her tenure in an organization. It needs to be remembered always that as a HR deals with the aspect of evaluating human resource of an organization, unless it is properly done the expected level of organizational benefit or progress is not possible under any situation.     Critical Analysis or Evaluation of Situation (Opinion): In this context it is important for the students of human resource management to inculcate within themselves the essential issues related to planning that would add benefit towards the organizational goal achievement. As there can be numerous situations that act as barriers before a company to achieve its required goal, it is important for the future human resource managers that they should orient themselves accordingly so that while facing problems in real life situations they do not find themselves lost and hesitate before coming to a decision. It is also important for the HRM department of a company to understand that the factor employee relation is one of the major resources in the hands of a company to enhance its productivity both quantitatively and qualitatively. As the HRM department of an organization acts as a bridge between highest level authority of the organization and employees, thus, responsibility of the department automatically increases because the company would look forward to the HRM department for proper utilization of its employee resource. However, due to lack of experience it has often been witnessed that new HRM managers often fail to understand requirements of employees and they only remain as instruments of higher managerial decision making in the hands of the organizational authority. Due to this reason, detachment of the HRM department with employees increase and it finally leads to loss of the company’s potential. Training and proper perception of the situation are needed in the context so that an HR manager can maintain a proper balance with both wings of the organization and henceforth contributing a very important part in the overall organizational achievement. Advantages and Disadvantages of Training Needs Analysis (TNA) In today’s world of human resource managerial activism, the term “Training Needs Analysis”  is quite well known. The main goal of a training needs analysis or TNA is to “enable managers to anticipate and meet training needs in a timely and cost-effective manner.” (Charney, Conway, 2004, p. 26) There are manifold importance of TNA that allows a company to have a close watch at the ongoing output of the employees and the kind of output that is actually required for them. If there is a gap between these two factors, then it is evident that there is a need for arranging training for the employees so that they can fill up the gap with their expertise that they would have gained out of their training. Today’s managerial functionalism also requires that a company would maintain a proper balance between the time that is required for its production and time of planning for such production. TNA also makes an employee efficient to harmonize between these two issues. Time constraint is always an important factor in the context of identifying performance gap of employees. In order to perform the task effectively it is important that there should be assimilation of time management, cost effectiveness and properly skilled personnel who will be identifying these aspects in a right manner. Unfortunately, in most of the cases this assimilation does not occur accordingly. In this context Frances and Roland Bee have observed the multiple layer of disadvantage of the TNA technique that it is itself quite laborious and cost effective process to train the observers, who will be successfully able to perform the performance gap investigation. (Frances, Bee, 1905, p. 83) Further, “Another disadvantage is the limitation of being able to collect only the information on activities which are visible …. Finally, there is always the problem of the impact of the observer on job performance.” (Frances, Bee, 1905, p. 83)                 Reference  1. Beaumont, P. B.,1993, Human resource management, Sage (London) 2. Bee, R., Frances, 1905, Training Needs Analysis And Evaluation, New Delhi: Orient Blackswan 3. Bramham, J., 2002, Human Resource Planning, Orient Blackswan (Andhra Pradesh) 4. Brown, L., Grundy, T., 2003, Value-based human resource strategy: developing your consultancy role, Butterworth-Heinemann (Oxford) 5. Campbell, T., Macklin, R., Pinnington, A., 2007, Human resource management: ethics and employment, Oxford University Press (Oxford) 6. Conway, K., Charney, C., 2004, The trainer's tool kit, New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn 7. Holbeche, L., 2001, Aligning human resources and business strategy, Butterworth-Heinemann (Oxford) 8. Jackson, S.E., Schuler, R.S., 2007, Strategic human resource management, Wiley-Blackwell (New York) 9. Loosemore, M., Dainty, A., Lingard, H., 2003, Human Resource Management in Construction Projects: Strategic and Operational Approaches, Routledge (London) 10. Piore, M.J., Kochan, T.A., Locke, R.M., 1995, Employment relations in a changing world economy, MIT Press (Cambridge) 11. Storey, J., 1996, Blackwell cases in human resource and change management, Wiley-Blackwell (New York) 12. Warr, P.B., 2007, Work, happiness, and unhappiness, Routledge (London) Read More