Human Resource Management - Research Paper Example

Section A A1 The moral case in this context is mainly concerned with making a distinction between something that is good and bad particularly at the work place. On the other hand, the concept of business case is about a business operating profitably but in an ethical manner. The concept of equal opportunities at the work place mainly derives from the equity theory and has got various implications on the moral as well as business factors affecting the operations of an organisation. Introduced by Adams (1963), the equity theory states that an employee assesses his or her input to the job against what he gets from the job (outputs) and then compares the ratio (proportion) of these inputs to outputs with another employee’s ratio of inputs and outputs (Torrington et all 2008: 649). In other words, an employee should not feel alienated as a result of the fact that other employees are given preferential treatment compared to the others. Morally and ethically, this would cause disgruntlement among the workers and can lead to a decline in their performance which negatively impact on their productivity. Employment equity programmes internally focus on the eradication of prejudice and discrimination, promotion of diverse cultures that lead to equity in an organisation. In other words, justice ought to prevail under any circumstance. This is also meant to create an environment that promotes and exploits diversity while at the same time encouraging human development. The concept of diversity and inclusion on the other hand posits to the effect that there is need to involve all the people in the development processes, that is, people who come from all backgrounds, cultures and communities (Barrett-Howard & Tyler 1986). These can include the following but are not limited to gender, class, religion, race, profession, sex among others. The main benefit having equal opportunities and diversity in work place is that if systematically and properly managed, there is strength in diversity which can lead to empowerment of the employees. One disadvantage of having these is that they are subjective as there is no universal agreement about what exactly should constitute them. In this competitive global business environment in which organisations operate, there is need for inclusion and diversity strategies so as to ensure a competitive advantage. Organisations such as Coca Cola have realised the essence of diversity and they have put measures that ensure diversity of the workforce since they operate in different countries characterised by people from different cultural backgrounds. A2 As a point of departure, it is imperative to define what recruitment is in order to gain a clear understanding of the whole concept in identifying and attracting skilled people to the organisation. Recruitment involves searching for and obtaining qualified job candidates and it gives the organisation the opportunity to select the most appropriate persons to fill its job needs (Armstrong 2006). Effective recruitment often attracts individuals to the organisation and also increases the chances of retaining the individuals once they have been hired. Recruitment efforts seek to satisfy the needs of job applicants as well as the needs of managers. It should also be borne in mind that each organisation is primarily concerned with achieving certain goals and this can be done through the use of human resources. To a greater extent, an organization can ensure that its recruitment and selection processes are aligned with its business strategy since they are the ones who know what they want to achieve. Likewise, organisations operate in a dynamic environment that is characterised by inevitable changes that can affect their operations either directly or indirectly. It is the duty of any particular organisation to be able to meet these challenges without compromising its viability. Against this background, it can be noted that the human resources management is aware of the requisite skills for different individuals to fill the vacant posts that may arise in an organisation. Effective recruitment means that there are likely chances of recruiting the right candidates who in turn will bring about positive change to the performance of the whole organisation as far as the achievement of its goals is concerned. From this argument, it can be noted that to a greater extent, the recruitment processes employed by an organisation are aligned to its business strategy. The employees are the major drivers of the organisation hence the need to select the rightful candidates in the first place. This would be in line with the business’s strategies which are carefully designed to meet the expected goals to be achieved. It can be noted that recruitment is a basic tenet of the operations of all organisations which requires careful selection of candidates with exceptional qualities that can lead to an improvement in the operations of the firm. During the process of recruiting, an HR management tries by all means to select the best candidates from those shortlisted and it would be easier to have measures in place that are likely to appeal positively to the workers so as to give them a sense of belonging. To a greater extent, recruitment and selection play a major role to ensure that the processes involved match their strategies. If the workers are proud to identify themselves with the organisation, there will be likely chances that they will stay in the organisation and this would allow the organisation to realise its goals. A3 According to Ackroyd & Thompson (1999), the concept of discipline posits to the effect that employees must adhere to certain recognized behaviour in an organisation. Torrington et al (2008: 600), concur that discipline is “regulation of human activity to produce a controlled performance.” Indeed, an organisation’s policy on conduct and discipline is of central importance in the determination of equity and organizational justice in the workplace. The lines of authority must also be clearly drawn so that every employee would know the exact person he would report to. Equity can be described as the process of ensuring that there is fair and similar treatment on all the people who are thought to be equal in their levels of employment. Organization justice describes a situation where there is no ill treatment of the other workers. It is common knowledge that not all people in an organisation are equal though measures are always put in place to ensure the prevalence of equality among the same level employees. Conduct and discipline affect equity in the organization in that lines of authority are clearly drawn. Depending on the structure of the organisation, there are different hierarchies that often depict the line of authority within it. Employees ought to report directly to their first line managers and these in turn report to the middle level management up until the senior level management. If an individual employee knows the category in which he belongs, there would be likely chances of instilling discipline among them. Within the same level in a particular hierarchy of the organisational structure, the concepts of equity and justice in the workplace would be applicable and enforceable. The concepts of conduct and discipline also affect organization justice in the work place in that the management is expected to treat the employees occupying the same level as equal regardless of factors such as race, culture, gender, age among other various factors. If the levels of positions occupied by the employees are identifiable in an organisation, it also becomes easier to determine justice and equity in the work place. In an organisation where discipline prevails, there are likely chances of accountability among the employees where they will be expected to be accountable for their actions. This would compel same level employees to treat their workmates as equals. Fairness will also prevail since the companies would be forced to have balanced systems as a result of enforcing discipline. A4 The issues faced by an organization which encourages and promotes employee commitment involve the need to motivate them as a way of improving their productivity for the betterment of the organization. The effectiveness of an organisation is often determined by the commitment of the employees to their work since they form the backbone of that particular firm. The employees are the ones who do all the production work. Employee redundancy refers to a situation where an organisation would be forced to lay off some workers so as to be able to remain viable (Armstrong 2006). This can be attributed to loss of production or profitability due to various factors where the organisation can no longer be able to sustain its employees. However, of notable concern is the fact that the aspect of redundancy does not spell the closure of the organisation. Indeed, some of the employees would be laid off while the others would continue working as usual. Redundancy does not often affect the whole organisation but a few employees. In most cases, the employees going to be laid off would have volunteered though in some cases there is forced retrenchment. The issues likely to be faced by a company in this position where it has to encourage commitment while firing some workers mainly involve resistance. Some of the workers earmarked for retrenchment may resist the move or they may influence the others to misbehave so as to sabotage the organization. There may be loss of morale among the workers who will remain in the organization as they would tend to treat this as ill treatment. In the event that there are employees who have been laid off voluntarily, there would be less chances of conflict since these would be entitled to their benefits. The law says that organisations must have provisions in place where the laid off employees would be entitled to redundancy allowance during a transitional period until they get other jobs. This can be illustrated with the case of Honda which closed its Swindon plant for 4 months but the employees received full pay for 2 months, about 60% pay thereafter. Employees later worked unpaid overtime equal to amount paid in 4 months when plant was closed thus, no redundancies at that time (BBC News February 3 2009). An organisation which encourages employee commitment though it is faced with making some employees redundant can be affected by loss of production due to loss of motivation among the remaining workers. However, it must be noted that as long as the organisation is not closing shop, it can continue to operate viably, albeit with limited workforce. Section B B5 During the contemporary period, it can be noted that the business environment is dynamic, changing rapidly and is characterised by strong competition from various players and it seems that the most important goal of business nowadays is to develop and maintain a sustainable competitive advantage. Against this background, many organisations resort to adopt the strategic approach to learning and development as an alternative. This section seeks to explore some of the benefits and difficulties faced by organisations which adopt these strategies. Learning in an organisation is very important as far as overcoming the challenges brought about change is concerned. Harrison (2000), described learning as the most viable tool that can be harnessed to ensure a sustainable competitive advantage. Thus learning can be defined as ‘a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occur as a result of practice or experience,’ (Bass and Vaughan 1966). It can also be noted that organisations should pay particular attention on continued learning which can lead the organisation to stay ahead of other rival competitors as far as innovation is concerned. Learning to learn is about creativity and innovation, which is about creating positive change rather than adapting to change. Creativity and innovation are the essential elements for organisational learning and additionally, the ability of an organisation to grow is also dependent on the ability to generate new ideas and develop them into feasible innovative practices which is a great benefit. On the other hand, it can be noted that development is concerned with improving the performance of the employees which can result in the improvement of productivity. Development of the workers can be done through training which is mainly in form of mentoring and coaching. This in turn will also spell that a company would gain a competitive advantage over the other rival competitors since its profitability would be increased. In attempting to implement the two strategies of learning and development mentioned above, the difficulties likely to be encountered can emanate from the structure of the organisation. It is difficult to implement these strategies in an organisation with a tall structure since everything would be centralised unlike in a flat organisation. B6 This section will critically explore two theories of individual learning namely the behavioral and cognitive theories. In order to understand why some researchers feel there may be some overlap in learning theory explanations, it is imperative to begin by defining the term learning. It can be described as the capacity to gain knowledge through reflection of an external stimulus as (Eloff & Eberson2004). Behavioural theory posits that human behaviour with regards to learning can be explained in terms of external stimuli, responses, learned histories and reinforcement which means that all human behaviour could therefore be understood in terms of cause and effect (Torrington, Hall and Taylor 2008). Basically, there is Pavlov - Classical conditioning and Skinner - Operant conditioning where there is Reinforcement and feedback as well as implications for programmed learning and computer based training respectively. On the other hand, cognitive theory is a perspective that argues that what we learn are mental structures. Thus, according to this view, problem solving among other issues is caused by the integration of personal traits such as motivation, the learner’s ambitions, their cognitive strategies and the extent to which they implement them during the process of solving the problems (Vygotsky 1978). It follows from this argument that any individual person is aware of the reason why he is learning. These theories can be applied to organisational learning since people in most cases learn through socialisation where they interact with work mates in order to exchange ideas. It can be noted that there is a strong correlation between the ideas of the major proponents of this concept. Both of them talk about learning in an organisation with an aim of transforming that particular organisation in order to have positive growth. In an organisational environment, it can be noted that there is a correlation between behavioral and cognitive theories with regards to organisational learning. The learner in this particular case is exposed to a system that can be used during the learning process in an organisation. First and fore most, it has to be assumed that an employee who on the other hand is also a learner in an organisation is aware of the reason why he is part of the organisation and learning hence, a close analysis of the two perspectives in question shows that there are likely chances of a positive inclination to the organisation by all parties involved which influences behaviour change. Thus, an external stimulus to behaviour is seen where a learner is made aware of the existence of the benefits of learning in an organisation while at the same time he is using his own mind to respond to the call of learning. Theoretically, it can be argued that human behaviour is to a larger extent influenced by both external as well as mental factors which can be beneficial especially to the learner in this particular case. B7 Career development may be viewed from two perspectives: that of the individual and that of the organisation. Comparison of two models namely the age/stage model (linear career) and the model of adulthood (expert career) will be used to illustrate the changing patterns characterising different careers during the contemporary period. Age/stage models describe life as a series of events that are linked or directly related to different ages. Just like life itself, a career develops from primary level of education through secondary up to college or university level. In this model, one has to pass through all the stages from growth to maturity and ultimately decline. This model is characterised by both psychological as well as biological factors which determine the stages involved in human life cycle (Brousseau, Driver et al (1996), cited in Bloisi (2007). The contemporary period is characterised by changing working environment. Just like life which goes through a cycle, the same applies with careers. The differences characterizing the two theories namely the age/stage model is that the model of adult career development is primarily concerned with real life events. These events are related to work and a career can be developed on the basis of certain aspects of interest that are related to work. The adult experience is viewed from a cultural context as well as different psychological stages of development of an individual. Life events as well as continuity are the other factors that characterise the adult model which differs from the age/stage model. Compared to the age model, the adult model is better in explaining work/career experiences from people who hail from different cultural backgrounds and it is also characterized by real life examples of how people develop their careers. Bibliography Ackroyd S & Thompson P (1999) Organisational Misbehaviour. Sage Armstrong M (2006), Human Resources Management Practice, 7th Edition, Kogan Page Limited, USA. BBC News website 3rd February 2009 Eloff I. Ebersohn L. (2004)., Keys To Educational Psychology, UCT. Cape Town. Harrison, R (2000) Employee Development 2nd ed. KPMG/CIPD (Labour Market Outlook Winter 2008/9) Torrington, Hall and Taylor (2008) Human Resource Management.7th ed. Financial Times / Prentice Hall Theories of Learning (N.D.). Available at: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/theories.html Accessed on 6 May 2010 Vygotsky, LS (1978). Mind in Society: The development of higher Psychological processes. Boston. University Press. Read More