Main HR Priorities and Why - Literature review Example

Type the company Briefing Paper Human Resource Management Briefing Paper on Human Resources Practices Human Resource Manager is akey person who is actively involved in managing employees related matters. A Human Resource Manager also performs organizational development related functions (Beardwell, J. Claydon, T. (2010). It is important to mention that his briefing paper focuses on a charity organization based in the UK. In this organization, commonly accepted and legally required HR practices and policies are not in place. Due to this noncompliance, the contracts with the local authority are in danger unless there are the commonly accepted and legally required HR practices and policies in place. This charity organization provides skills to the people with significant physical and learning disabilities. Main HR Priorities and Why Human Resource Department of any organization is actively involved in employees and organizational development. For making sure the communication of all rules and regulations to all employees, Human Resource Department prepares certain documents for reference. Human Resource Department also prepares a human resource manual that contains all rules and regulations to be followed by employees (Bratton J and Gold J. 2012) Conducting trainings of the employees is also duty of the Human Resource department. Sometimes Human Resource Manager needs to develop a briefing paper to improve the condition of an organization. To prepare a good briefing paper, following can be the main human resource priorities followed by the reason of their importance (Armstrong M. 2012). Understanding the Organization is one of the most important priorities for an a human resource manager who has just joined an organization in which rules and regulations related to human resources are not being followed. By knowing all about this organization the newly hired human resource manager would be able to identify the problems. Once the problems that are causing workers not to follow the accepted and legally required HR practices and policies are identified, the human resource manager would be able to determine the solution to the problem (Henderson, I. 2011). Developing the Organization should be the second most important priority of the human resource manager. Organization development is one of the main functions of the human resource department employees. Organization development is directly associated with the performance of the employees or performance of the organization. By developing organization, the problems faced by the organization and by the employees can be solved. Before a human resource manager, who has just joined an organization in, starts the process of organizational development, it important to understand the organization. By knowing the organization the human resource manager would be able to know which rules and regulations related to human resources are not being followed. Thus understanding an organization is important to start organization development process (Beardwell, I. and Gold, J., 2009). Understanding the Staff should also be on the top of the priorities list. It is important for human resource manager to meet with all staff members. It is also important to conduct detailed interviews of the staff members to know about each and everything about the staff members. Moreover, a human resource manager should also observe the staff while working in the office. Working style of the staff is directly associated with the productivity of the staff (Cook, M. 2009) Actions to be taken as New HR Manager There is a huge role to play for Human Resource Manager in an organization. Especially the organization under consideration, human resource manager can play a pivotal role in this organization. It is very important to follow the rule and regulations laid down in the organizational codes of conduct. To maintain discipline and to make all employees follow the rule and regulations is an important function of human resource department. In most of the organizations, human resource manager is responsible to make all employees accountable towards organizational rules and regulations. A human resource manager is a leader that keeps an eye on the fellows and colleagues. A human resource manager is like a leader that motivates and encourages the other members of the organization to respect the norms and work ethics of the organization. General Functions There are some general functions performed by all human resource managers. One of the main function I would perform as HR manager would be to make sure that all people are working as per their job description and job specifications. I would make the recruitment process strong by making better the tests and interviews processes. I would try to organize training sessions for the staff members in order to make sure that all people are competent enough to perform their work. Training the whole staff to meet their job needs is very much important. I would also like to revise pay scales of the employees because due to low salaries the members of the staff get discourage and do not work in the best interest of the organization. Moreover, it is also important to have a check and balance over the activities and work of the staff. It helps perform performance appraisal of employees and helps find out flaws in the work habits of the employees. I would like to introduce a mechanism to offer benefits to best workers of the organization (Edenborough, R. 2007) As Human Resource manager I would ensures legal compliance of the employees. I would consider monitoring and implementing applicable human resource rules and regulations. I would also work to update the human resource policies and procedures. I would like to organize events to inform the staff about the guidelines decided by the top management. It is also important to maintain past human resource records for future reference. As human resource manager I would like to work directly with all staff members. Working with staff members would enable me to determine the needs of the staff members. Doing so is important to identify the needs and flaws in this organization and its employees (Laroche, L. and Rutherford, D.2007) As we have mentioned in the start of this report that this charity organization needs a commonly accepted and legally required Human Resource practices in place to be followed by all staff members to ensure that better working environment ethics are followed. In order to prepare this human resource policies and practices manual, all above mentioned functions are important to follow as well. This is because of the reason that after newly joining the organization, a human resource manager cannot prepare human resource policies and practices manual. Because preparing human resource policies and practices manual requires sound knowledge and understanding of the organization. A newly joined human resource manager can have knowledge and understanding of the organization over the time (Marchington, M. and Wilkinson, A.2008) Specific Functions In addition to general functions I would also like to target the main problems with special care and insight. The main problem of this charity organization is that it does not have a commonly accepted and legally required Human Resource practices in place. Due this flaw the contracts with the local authority are in danger unless they device a good and commonly accepted and legally required Human Resource policies. So it is of utmost important to prepare the required human resource policies to survive. The main function I would like to perform at the earlier is to prepare a human resource document that contains commonly accepted and legally required human resource policies. It is not easy to prepare this human resource policies document immediately. There are certain things to be considered before I, as a human resource manager, start preparing this human resource policies document. Following are these important things to prepare a human resource policies document, (Pilbeam, S. and Corbridge, M. 2006) In the context of this charity organization, it is important to completely know about this charity organization. As we have discussed earlier that without know the organization, a human resource manager cannot prepare an effective human resource policies and practices manual. So it is important for newly hired human resource manager to know about the structure, functioning, department, key processes, norms and working style of the organization. Moreover, it is also important to know about the staff members that are working in this organization. Knowing the members of the staff also help human resource managers to know about the organization. Without knowing about the staff members, a human resource manager cannot prepare an effective and best suiting human resource policies and practices manual (Taylor, S.2008) On the other hand it is also important to determine the needs of the organization and the needs of the staff members. Knowing the needs of organization and needs of its staff is also important. Knowing the needs of organization and needs of its staff and trying to fulfill the needs of the organization and staff help human resource department officials to avoid prospective problems in the organization. It is also important to incorporate the local law related to this charity organization. Local laws related to this charity organization and respective department are also important to include in human resource policies manual. In order to comply with the laws of local authorities and concerned government departments is necessary to avoid any future administrative problem (Taylor, S. 2010) Collaboration within an organization is very important to device a best human resource policies document. It is important to conduct meetings of the people comprising on all head of the departments to identify the important elements to be included in the human resource policies and practices document. Commitment building is very important to make sure that all staff members are going to follow the human resource policies. There is not denying of the fact that commonly accepted and legally required human resource practices and policies are very important for any organization (Torrington, D. Hall, L. Taylor, S and Atkinson, C. 2009) At the end we can conclude that human resource policies are very important. Human Resource Manager is a key person who is actively involved in managing employees related matters. A Human Resource Manager also performs organizational development related functions. Human Resource Department of any organization is actively involved in employees and organizational development. For making sure the communication of all rules and regulations to all employees, Human Resource Department prepares certain documents for reference. Human Resource Department also prepares a human resource manual that contains all rules and regulations to be followed by employees. There must be best suiting human resource policies manual in every organization (Taylor, S. 2008) A best suiting human resource policies manual is not enough. There is a need to follow all policies of the human resource policies manual in letter and spirit. The key functions a newly joining human resource manager to prepare a human resource manual are to know about all functions, structure, departments and all business processes of that organization. In addition to this, knowing about the staff members is also very important. Moreover, including respective laws and rule of regulating authorities are also included in a human resource policy manual. Hence, it is important to know all about the organization, all about the employees of all levels, and to include related laws in human resource policies manual (Marchington, M. and Wilkinson, A. 2008) References 1. Armstrong M. (2012) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 12th Ed. 2. Henderson, I. (2011) Human Resource Management for MBA Students, London: CIPD 3. Beardwell, I. and Gold, J., (2009) Human Resource Development, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 4. Beardwell, J. Claydon, T. (2010) Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Approach, Financial Times: Prentice Hall 5. Bratton J and Gold J. (2012) Human Resource Management Theory and Practice 5th Ed Palgrave 6. Cook, M. (2009) Personnel selection: adding value through people. 5th ed. Chichester: John Wiley. 7. Dowling, P., Festing, M. and Engle, A. D. (2007) International human resource management: managing people in a multi-national context. 5th ed. London: Thomson Learning. 8. Edenborough, R. (2007) Assessment methods in recruitment, selection and performance: a manager’s guide to psychometric testing, interviews and selection. London: Kogan Page. 9. Laroche, L. and Rutherford, D. (2007) Recruiting, retaining and promoting culturally different employees. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann. 10. Marchington, M. and Wilkinson, A. (2008) Human Resource Management at Work, Wiltshire: CIPD 11. Pilbeam, S. and Corbridge, M. (2006) People resourcing: contemporary HRM in practice. 3rd ed. Harlow: Financial Times / Prentice Hall. 12. Taylor, S. (2008) People Resourcing, Fourth Edition, Wiltshire, CIPD 13. Taylor, S. (2010) Resourcing and talent management. 5th ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. 14. Torrington, D. Hall, L. Taylor, S and Atkinson, C. (2009) Fundamentals of Human Resource Management: Managing People at Work, London: Prentice Hall Read More