Recruitment and Selection, Motivation and Rewards - Coursework Example

Managing people Name Professor Institution Course Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Managing people 3 1.0 Introduction 3 2.0 Reason why ‘managing people’ is a constant issue in modern workplaces 3 2.1 Recruitment and selection 4 2.2Attraction and retention 5 2.3 Motivation and rewards 6 2.4 Remunerations and benefits 7 3.0 Factors that are contributing to the challenges of ‘managing people’ 8 3.1 Skill shortages 8 3.2 Inflexible HR practices 9 4.0 Relevance of the previous theories to current challenges in ‘managing people’ in modern organizations 11 5.0 How a manager work to overcome management challenges 12 6.0 Why management information is important to managers 13 7.0 Conclusion 13 8.0 References 15 Managing people 1.0 Introduction Managing people is argued to be the most difficult job for managers in modern organizations. Skill shortages, inflexible HR practices, changing expectations are some of the issues managers face in their workplaces.  The today’s organization is changing rapidly. This incredible statement is one that is in fact true as information moves across the globe in minutes. Modern manager ought to have the skills to maintain the information, equipment and people of today. The modern manager requires several skills in the current workplace, although the most prevailing skill desired has not transformed. The major common challenges manager will experience on a daily basis is those concerning employees (Arnold, et al 2005). An effective organization comprises of individuals who are principally all looking on the same direction – to be exact, they are for the reason that the organization has to exist, and achieve its organizational objectives. If there exist disagreements concerning such matters, the organization is not likely to be effective, and will use up its time disagreeing and posturing. This essay evaluates why managing people is a constant issue in modern organizations, factors that are contributing to the challenges of managing people and how a manager can work to overcome these challenges. 2.0 Reason why ‘managing people’ is a constant issue in modern workplaces The effectiveness of any organization is relying on a lot of aspects, but the most significant element is the management. Managing employees in any contemporary organization needs a considerable investment in the platform of interaction and relationships. This needs a comprehensive understanding of behaviour in the organization. Armstrong & Baron (1998) argues that the relationship process frequently involves substantive degree of cooperation, teamwork and collaboration balanced by efficiency, equity and organizational efficiency consideration. Managers therefore must have a deep understanding of issues affecting management in the modern workplace such as recruitment and selection, employees’ attraction and retention, motivation and rewards, remunerations and benefits, technological changes and training among others (Robbins & Stephen, 2004). Above all managers, must understand behaviours of employees and the organizational objectives. 2.1 Recruitment and selection Staff recruitment and selection has turned out to be more and more challenging in modern organizational settings. Powerful competition amongst employers makes the organizations to frequently come up with innovative recruitment strategies to determine, attract, and hire the most qualified individuals. Additionally, organizational effectiveness will weaken when there is no required talent to realize the objectives. Thus, managers must make staff recruitment and selection among it’s priorities (Cook, 2003). The employee recruitment and selection identifies present and future human resources needs of an organization to achieve its objectives. These needs are achieved by having the right employees at the right time who “can enhance and maintain organizational performance” (Crawford, 2004). Under this perspective of rising worldwide competition, high-level people are the vital aspect for the continued existence and growth of organizations. Therefore, as a manager, how to determine on which strategy towards recruitment and selection is most suitable for the organization becomes increasingly important. Wrightt & Snell & Jacobson (2004, p. 9) claim that every manager has a function of staffing by selecting the chief executive. Recruiting employees in the modern organization has been a very expensive process due to ever-changing nature of organization. It is also an important part of any organization and it benefits when the manager ensures it is carried out properly. When an organization select the right people for the job, train them appropriately and treat them well, these people will not just create excellent results but also are likely to continue working with the organization for a long period of time (Gomez-Mejia & David & Robert, 2008, p.20). The manager faces several challenges by hiring the wrong people as it can cost an organization time and cost of hiring. However, the cost of recruiting and selecting the wrong candidate runs into the hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions of dollars, not to cite the possible negative consequences to an organization’s reputation, morale, and production. 2.2Attraction and retention Candidate attraction is increasingly becoming critical as the skills shortage deteriorates and Baby Boomers start to leave (Julian, 2010). Nevertheless, attraction is an expensive process, especially if it does not create the needed results. Employee retention is crucial to the long term success of an organization. Managers willingly concur that retaining good employees ensure customer satisfaction, satisfied workers, product sales is deeply entrenched into organizational knowledge and practices. However, the same managers also agree that getting outstanding employees is a different thing and retaining them is another issue. Baron & Armstrong (2007) contend that managers are faced with a decision to retention or let go of employees. If he or she decides to retain them, they may need more compensation, recognition and promotion. Retaining old employees because of experience may also cost the organization because older employees may not perform. The manager may also be forced to make decision to plan for training the old employees due to changing technologies and other issues pertaining operations. 2.3 Motivation and rewards Employee motivation and rewards are a continuous challenge for major organizations. Schultz & Schultz (2010) assert that in ever changing business world as competition goes high, there is constant change and growth in organizations and the only way to survive advantageously and retain employees is through motivation and rewards. Most of the time the manager meets the dissenting voice of the unsatisfied employees complaining about the pay and work conditions (Weightman, 2008). It is critical for the managers to build strong relations between the organization and workforce to satisfy the constant changing demands of both parties. Organizations consider workers to follow the rules, work in accordance with the set standards and in return the employees anticipate better fair pay, working conditions, secure career, fair treatment, power and participation in decisions. Managing people and various types of people with diverse personalities, this needs a challenging and solid effort. Hence it is important for the organization to devise ways of motivating people through better feedback and rewards. 2.4 Remunerations and benefits Today, organizations are experiencing some hardship, for example increased employees costs, sales reduction because of counterfeits; the staffs are less motivated amongst other operational complexities. In modern times, an organization may strategically employ, pay compensation, pay benefits and various rewards as efficient performance instruments to boost operational effectiveness and improve performance (Schultz & Schultz, 2010). Managing needs the creation and maintaining of a good employee pay package in line with the performance towards the achievement of common objectives. A manager cannot perform his duties without knowing and understanding what his employees want. To focus on the significance of understanding motivating factors especially job satisfaction is challenge for most managers. Pritchard & Ashwood (2008, p.6) argue that their duty is not to try to manipulate employees but rather to determine the motivating factors in creating an atmosphere for performance. Without proper payment procedures managers normally undergo a lot of pressure from less motivated employees. Less motivation results to poor performance by then poor results on the part of the company. It is significant for an organization design various methods of attracting, motivating and retaining the best employees who influence their business for future success. However, remuneration can be effective for long-term motivation. Remuneration increases general staff morale as long as benefits are equitable. 3.0 Factors that are contributing to the challenges of ‘managing people’ 3.1 Skill shortages Skill shortages is a situation where employers are incapable of filling vacancies for a job, or particular skill needs in that occupation, at existing levels of salary and employment terms, and realistically accessible place. Skill shortages are frequently depicted as a major challenge for managers of various organizations in different countries. Actually, organizations will normally face skills shortages if they are remaining behind shifting situations in their organizational environment and changing needs of customers and shareholders (Hatch, 2006). Skills shortages lead to labor shortages in some cases; this is because the organization is willing to recruit but the candidates do not meet the job descriptions. The critical issues in achieving effectiveness under such situation is to exploit skilled talent to objectives and strategy—a task which has turned out to be increasingly challenging in a growing global, and changing business. One of the key impacts of the organization’s resilience at the period of recession has been the persisting concerns of the value and distribution of the organization’s workforce. Managers’ concerns have been widespread labor shortages putting them in a position to think about training. Hatch (2006) asserts managers also think that newly trained workers might be poaching targets for competitor businesses experiencing the same hiring difficulty. Labor shortages have mainly been caused by ever changing nature of the organization, technological changes, lack of training and high cost of living among others. Modern and highly developed technology tend to decrease the number of jobs which need little skill and simultaneously increasing the number of jobs that need substantial skill. This change, which moves from touch labor to knowledge skilled work dislodges some workers from their work whilst others are required to be retrained. As such the organization runs short of skilled labor making managers to allocate more funds for training or recruitment. Managers are compelled to react to the skills shortage in a number of ways; a number of strategies and practices can be adopted to draw and retain skilled workers locally with some organizations making attempts to retrain older employees and to enhance their skill levels. Some managers affected by skill shortages normally respond by outsourcing or subcontracting part of the organization’s work whilst some affected businesses choose to raise the provision of the organization concerning internal or on-job training. Raising the application of external training plans is the least common strategy used by managers in the modern organization, although most employees choose to go back class without the knowledge of the organization (Erasmus era al, 2006). From the training system perspectives, managers are reluctant to engage and organize external training programs even in the existence of skill shortages. This is because it involves training outside the organization while the organization pay and employees spend a lot of time outside the company than the time they spend working for the organization. 3.2 Inflexible HR practices As the organization grows, it could create an HR department that is in charge of managing employees as well their welfare. With the growth of organizations, the HR practices are also changing—and HR managers are under intense pressure than before to show results from their personnel policies and practices. These HR managers are struggling to make decisions concerning recruitment, Pay and Benefits, Managing Risks and training. Julian (2010) argues that globalization has considerably changed the business atmosphere through the drop of state borders and the emergence of international organizations. Through this setting, international competition has stepped up, new markets have come up and the course of international labor has gone up (Taylor & Hansen, 2005, p.1222). This situation puts the organization in a way that they must embrace international human resource practices. One way in which inflexible human resource practices affect management is how they carry out employee recruitment, which establishes which candidates that are hired. The recruitment process usually entails such tasks as looking at resumes and carrying out multiple interviews. Multiple interviews may not be effective as the interviewers rush to interview very many candidates. In the process, they end up hiring the candidates who do not have the needed skills for the job. At times, the interviewers receive bribes making the process a formality. In the end wrong candidates are hired for the wrong jobs. Hiring wrong candidates has a lot negatives consequences on managers and organizations as a whole (Crawford, 2004). The manager will be forced to assign wrong candidate who do not have required skills and knowledge for a particular job. This leads to low performance in the organization giving competitive advantage to rivals. Human resources managers are frequently in charge of managing the distribution of employee’s pay and benefits, and responding to all questions that employees have concerning pay and benefits. In a modern organization, businesses have to constantly develop to take advantage of emerging technologies and opportunities. A part of this development is for manager to ensure that employees have skills and knowledge that are needed for their job. With the changing technology managers must organize for training and equip employee with the right skills they require to be effective through their daily duties. Managers must identify the connection between organization performance and the people in their organization and understand that people-associated issues require being at the center of the boardroom list of items (Baron& Armstrong, 2007). As a result, HR managers are encouraged to adopt people approaches that sustain the organization’s business goals and increase transparency and accountability around individual management practices and reporting (Arnold et al 2005). Organization motivation is a significant factor since it influences employees to perform things which enable them to achieve organizational objectives. For example, for employees to be motivated to carry out organizational duty effectively, managers have to ensure that their demand must be met and fulfilled. 4.0 Relevance of the previous theories to current challenges in ‘managing people’ in modern organizations Management involves influencing of human capital in the organization to increase success. This process entails planning, organizing, staffing, directing, controlling and motivation (Hatch, 2006). In brief, all these narrow down the demands of the organization and employees that have to be met. Managing people is very vital role because it involves overcoming challenges facing the modern problems experienced by employees while carrying out their work. This matter has been tackled before by various theorists. These theorists include Abraham Maslow with his model of needs, Herzberg with his two factor theory, David McClelland with his theory of needs. All these three theorists were talking about sources of motivation in the workplace which can be observed talking placing within the modern organizations. These theories help to better understand the relationship between a manager and staff; in addition they explain the difficulties of behavior which is significant in relation to managing a diverse workforce and to improve organization effectiveness and performance (Robbins & Stephen 2004). These theories help the manager learn that motivation is a driving force within employees. It makes employees endeavor to achieve various targets so as to meet a particular expectation (Hatch, 2006). It makes a person to act in a particular way and to continue with this action up to the level their needs are satisfied. For this reason, that is why employees strike or feel less motivated until their pay is raised or until there are rewarded. Similar behavioral theories can be reflected in modern organizations. For instance, McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y and why help managers understand behavior of different employees. The manager will know the demands of different employees from the behavior and performance. 5.0 How a manager work to overcome management challenges Managing people is a continuing challenge in modern organizations. Managers have designed strategies and frequently redefine management practices to enhance on ways to manage capital. The desire for continual improvement should be a priority of any manager to inculcate the capability of an organization and employees to adjust to changing settings, challenges of technology (Gomez-Mejia & David, B & Robert, 2008). Creating training programs can always help managers to address skill shortages. This can also be overcome by retaining experienced; this will help save the funds that would otherwise been used in training (Erasmus, et al, 2006). The manager must always liase with Human resources department to ensure that fair compensation, motivating climate and good management culture are put in place to create a good relationship between the management and employees. This will create an environment which enhances productivity and organizational objectivity. 6.0 Why management information is important to managers An organization’s quality is established by the attributes of individuals it employs. Staffing and HRM decisions and practices are crucial in making sure that the organization employs and retains the right employees. This entails incorporating the organization's vision with HRM policies. With this information within reach, managers will run a successful organization free of skill shortages. As part of the management team, managers are charged with running the organization and participating to the accomplishment of the organization’s goals by changing organization strategy into achievement (Armstrong & Baron, 1998). To achieve this, the manager needs HRM practice information so as to understand the business of the organization and ask the proper questions and also take part in the business decisions. Gomez-Mejia & David & Robert, (2008) argue that the managers have to create a business insight, a customer orientation and competition awareness to link business approach with HR practices and policies. Information on motivation and rewards helps managers deal with employee’s burn out and resistance. Julian (2010) states that human resource practice information helps managers re-engineer HR activities through technology redesign work procedure and the constant advancement of all organization practices in order to create values. 7.0 Conclusion Managing people is difficult job and every time managers are face different challenges. These challenges maybe big or small but the manager must understand organization practices to deal with them. A managers’ effort is to help the organization hire the ‘best’ talent existing in the market. Hiring the right people for the job help overcome excess funds that can be used in training the, eliminate skill shortage and increases productivity. 8.0 References Arnold, J. et al 2005, Work Psychology: Understanding human behavior in the workplace 4th ed, Harlow, FT Prentice Hall. Armstrong, M & Baron, A 1998, Performance management: the new realities. London, Institute of Personnel and Development, Web. Baron, A & Armstrong, M 2007, Human capital management, Achieving Added value through people, Kogan page limited. Cook, M 2003, Personnel Selection: Adding Value through People, 4th edn, Chichester, John Wiley. Crawford, RB 2004, Recruitment and Selection, HR Research Paper No 30, 12 pages, HRDOC Store, London. Erasmus, BJ, Loedolff, PvZ, Mda, T & Nel, PS 2006, Managing Training and Development in South Africa, 4th edition, Cape Town, Oxford University Press Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd. Gomez-Mejia, L., David, B & Robert C 2008, Management: People, Performance, Change, 3rd edition, New York, McGraw-Hill. Hatch, MJ 2006, Organization Theory: Modern, symbolic, and postmodern perspectives, 2nd Ed. Oxford University Press. Julian, B 2010, Reinventing Management, Ivey Business Journal Online. Pritchard, R & Ashwood, E 2008, Managing Motivation, New York, Taylor & Francis Group. Robbins, S 2004, Organizational Behavior - Concepts, Controversies, Applications, 4th Ed. Prentice Hall. Schultz & Schultz, D 2010, Psychology and work today, New York, Prentice Hall. Taylor, S & Hansen, H 2005, Finding form: looking at the field of organizational aesthetics, Journal of Management Studies, 42(6), 1211–1231. Weightman, J 2008, The Employee Motivation Audit, Cambridge Strategy Publications. Wrightt, PM, Jacobson & Snell, SA 2004, Current Approaches to Human Resource Strategies Inside-out Versus Outside, Human Resource Planning, 27(4), 2-22. Read More