Contemporary Organizational & HRM Issues - Essay Example

Contemporary Organizational & HRM Issues By Student’s name Code+ course name Professor’s name University name City, State Date Abstract The human resource department is one of the most crucial departments of any establishment. It is entrusted with the duty of hiring employees, training the already working team in order to sharpen their skills, evaluating their performance, recognizing top performing personnel and ensuring that the workforce observes the rules and regulations that govern an establishment . The success of organizations is to a big extent dependent on practices that the human resource team employs in managing its employees. Human resource management acknowledges people as a valuable resource for success in an organization. In the face of globalization, organizations have overwhelmingly institutionalized the culture of effective staffing. Research shows that failing organizations do not bother to optimize or improve their staffing practices. The following report focuses on contemporary organizational and human resource management studies. TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 2 Introduction 4 Organizational culture, Ethics and strategic human resource management 7 Document the case for management improvement 9 Develop management improvement plan and measures 10 Need for strong governance and reporting arrangements 10 Committed leadership 11 Communication context 12 Aligned workforce 13 Recommendations on key HRM plans and policies 14 Conclusion 14 References 15 Introduction Bramble (1996) defines strategic Human Resource Management (HRM) as a series of planned human resource activities that enable the organization to pursue its goals. Presently, strategic human resource management continues to play an important role in organization management practice. Further research conducted on this concept has shed more light on how human resource management contributes to organizational success. Notably, the concept of strategic human resource management emanated from the private sector where people are considered critical elements and key resource of an organization. Basically, the rationale behind strategic HRM is integration of Human Resource (HR) strategies with that of the organization leading to more efficient staff management and organizational performance improvement. Upon the evolution of strategic HRM in 1980’s, a number of theoretical foundations were established. Further, 1990’s was characterized with additional researches and accomplishments in strategic human resource management. In this respect, more detailed methods of measuring HRM were developed. More so, research on various fronts of strategic HRM continued to be expanded in 2000’s thereby clearly indicating how proper investment in human capital, robust HRM plans and policies significantly influenced the effectiveness of an organization. Nevertheless, present trends in strategic HRM comprise of intense examination of issues of how human capital and HRM systems continue to impact on an organization’s performance and implementation challenges faced (Bannister & Bennett 1995). However, challenges and tensions on implementation of strategic HRM continue to rise. Firstly, researchers continue to establish if strategic HRM makes any contribution with regard to professionalism and better-performing organizations. Therefore, this paper explores issues to consider when developing strategic HRM plans and policies for an organization undergoing management improvement initiative and goes further to provide strategic recommendations relating to key HRM plans and policies that would facilitate potential changes in organization human resource profile. According to Cooke & Armstrong (1990), there are three main pillars surrounding the concept of strategic HRM. The first pillar emphasizes on the need to integrate HRM activities with the overall organization strategy. Secondly is the crucial role played by the department heads in implementation of strategic HRM plans and policies and in this regard, HR managers’ identify HR systems to be implemented by line managers. Last but not the least is the link between the overall organizational performance and strategic human resource management through which an organization seeks to enhance employee commitment to perform better while maintaining loyalty to the organization. Focusing on the first pillar, there should be a close link between the entire organization strategy and HR plans and policies (Armstrong & Long 1994). Moreover, to enhance the chances of HR to realize the entire organizational plan, all HR matters including training, career management reward systems should all be properly coordinated. This contingency approach postulates that, for any organization strategy, there must be corresponding HR plans and policies. Strategic HRM defines key issues that determine priorities and policies, and therefore, it must be designed in such a way to reflect the organizational values and key strategic objectives. HRM doesn’t operate in a vacuum and for this reason; it is influenced by factors such as legal, technology, social and economic values. These entire factors exert considerable influence on the organization HRM strategies, policies and action plans. For instance, government intervention influences the organization industrial relation issues while employment legislations impact on the way organization hire, develop and reward their human resources. Therefore, when developing strategic HRM plans and policies, one should comprehensively analyze the environmental influences to identify those that contribute or prevent achievement of the organization objectives. Further, carrying out a comprehensive analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the HRM function identifies those positive and negative traits that help or hinder the attainment of strategic HRM plans and policies. Such analysis includes determination of the quality of the workforce. In addition, for an organization to grow and remain relevant there must be a good combination of external opportunities, strengths, threats and weakness. As identified in the case study, the main reason of enhancing strategic HRM is to enhance the organization’s performance improvement. According to Bolt (1989), quality employees not only perform basic contractual requirements, but also show commitment and mutual loyalty to the organization in achieving its goals. As management continues trying to direct, control and maximize the output of their employees, strategic HRM continues to exert significant influence on employee attitudes. Notably, Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) emphasizes the importance of enhancing employee commitment to the organization and also values the impact of culture change programs through which precision of service delivery can be achieved. According to Galbraith & Nathanson (1978), flexible firm model recommends a shift from hierarchical structures to mean and lean customer oriented organizational framework that enables achievement of labor economies and organizations to focus more on the demands of both internal and external environments. Notably, the flexible firm model incorporates organizational cultural changes and labor flexibility to enhance productivity and competitiveness. According to this model, organizational productivity is based on the following forms of flexibility: numerical flexibility, which encompasses employing a different number of employees with the capacity to meet both troughs and peaks of the business. This is attained by putting employees on different work shifts. Functional flexibility involves reduction of task demarcation and encouraging the employee to multi-task. Lastly is through distancing which includes sub-contracting to bring structural changes. Nonetheless, all the fore mentioned features of flexible firm model recommend remodeling of the traditional organizational structure. Organizational culture, Ethics and strategic human resource management According to several writers, culture refers to the practices, norms, beliefs, values, attitudes that distinguish the behavior of one organization from those of another. Most cultures have their distinct rules which control the behavior of their members. Therefore, organizational culture includes aspects such as beliefs, values, work practices, limitations and expectations on employee behavior. According to Foulkes (1986), organization culture is dependent on factor such as current management, leadership styles, nature of company products, industrial relations among others. Nevertheless, organization culture influences business strategy. As argued by Kanter (1983), change in culture is influenced by putting in place proper strategic HRM plans and policies. Notably, HRM functions such as career, training, and salary administration help to reinforce and nurture organization cultures. Moreover, change in cultural practices can develop from putting in place elaborate and innovative HRM policies. Therefore, HRM consultant has a role of ensuring that the organization has a favorable culture that enhances not only achievement, but also the development and maintenance of organization’s entire strategic objective. Strategic HRM introduces new HRM plans and policies in an organization to provide guidance to new ways of doing things. However, these new ways should neither be exhaustive nor prescriptive. Moreover, “one size fit all” approach to effecting organization changes is not recommendable as every organization has its unique structure, culture, needs and history. The outcome of every new ways of doing things introduced to an organization if highly characterized by how it is effectively managed and planned. Formulation of new strategic HRM practices involves comprehensive behavioral and organizational adjustments to accommodate and sustain the new practices. Strategic HRM concerns ensuring the capacity of employees to work and adapt effectively in a new work environment (Guest 1987). Nevertheless, the most important factor in strategic HRM is how new plans and policies are introduced and presented to the stakeholders. Basically, employees’ chances of adapting to newly introduced plans and policies can fail to take off or elicit stiff resistance if misunderstood. Therefore, if people are made first to understand the rationale for new plans and policies that are in line with the overall organizational strategy, they are highly likely to participate fully in implementation, and therefore, avoid any kind of disruption. Even though, every organization should devise its own way of introducing strategic HRM practices, one should not fail to consider culture, ethics and stakeholder perspectives. Other important factors that cannot be ignored includes: Planning which involves the development and documentation of robust plans and policies to guide employees in their day to day work and ones that are in line with the entire organization's goal. Proper planning ensures that organizations understand the consequences of steps they take, and therefore, puts in place proper measures in case of any eventualities. In addition, having in place robust plans acts as a point of assessment where the organization can get a reference point to determine whether to move ahead with the desired HRM strategies or not. Most importantly, planning can help to devise strategies that can be helpful in accommodating the resultant changes. According to Jackson, Schuler & Rivero (1989), it is always important whenever introducing new policies to set out a clear vision that will outline the impact and scope of the desired future state. This will help the stakeholders in knowing and taking their roles in contribution to the desired improvement. However, if any strategy lacks a clear vision, then chances of minimal if no commitment could be high and in this case the desired policies and plans cannot be successfully implemented. Therefore, presence of unclear strategic vision can be confusing leading to the pursuance of incompatible projects that are likely to cause deviation from the overall organizational strategy. Thus, the vision should clearly provide direction. In addition, such organization vision must align to the overall organization strategy and with cultural values reflected in the organization’s mission and vision statements. In this vein, Drucker (1954) argues that articulating the desired values and brings out the sense of ideal culture that every organization looks forward to achieving. Notably, misalignment of the organization's vision leads to the early resistance of any new policy and lack of stakeholders support. Document the case for management improvement Notably, management improvement initiatives always cause discomfort in the organization as there is no convincing way of communicating the rationale to the stakeholders. Therefore, to provide a clearer picture of what is expected, all the processes leading to the desired outcomes should be documented. These include, first the purpose for the management improvement initiative which should be presented clearly to the concerned stakeholders in order to understand the objectives the initiative seeks to achieve. Lastly, how such initiative will benefit the stakeholders and the organization in entirety. As echoed by Child (1972), there should be a clear explanation of how stakeholders will be affected and also the expected organization future. More importantly, by providing an opportunity for the management to give their input in relation to the expected changes becomes one way of enlisting their support. Nonetheless, the more strategic plans and policies developed in all inclusive way, the easier it becomes to win different stakeholders’ support. Another important reason for involving organization leaders in the management improvement process is their critical role of determining what is highly important in this initiative. Develop management improvement plan and measures Determining the anticipated organizational support is very important in initiating management improvement process. This is because it provides the appropriate ground for the development of desired plans and policies (Thompson & Strickland 1987). However, having initiated the process of management improvement, the desired progress should be monitored to ensure the desired outcome is realized and the benefits fully achieved. This is very important for any project regardless of its size. Nevertheless, the success of any organization's policies is not feasible without having robust plans in place. Need for strong governance and reporting arrangements Defined governance is the other factor to put into consideration. The HRM department should ensure the presence of appropriate structures to drive and closely monitor change. In addition, concerned stakeholders should be fully engaged in the new drive failure to which no support will be expected from them due to the likelihood of strong resistance. In any management improvement initiative, separate lines of responsibility should be established. This diffuses the element of resistance within the organization by ensuring that all initiative processes are clearly understood within the organization. According to Schuler & Jackson (1987), it is highly important to establish appropriate roles, responsibilities and governance structure that suit the organization context. For instance, the steering committee should consist of representatives from all areas affected by the management improvement drive. However, a member from outside the organization should only form part of the steering committee to provide reality checks. Organizations committed to transformation emphasize on change sponsor who is active and can spearhead the desired changes from initiation to completion. Such a person must have the capacity to deal with organization’s internal politics and also have the ability of ensuring that those affected by the process are actively engaged. Similar to AI Pitcher’s case study, the person to drive the management improvement process should be one who commands sufficient authority, power, and enthusiasm and have enough time to resolve any impending conflicts. Unlike Davidson, who seems agitated by the change sponsor, AI Pitcher approach to the management improvement approach, the change sponsor should receive full support of other members and shareholders. Committed leadership Committed leadership is another issue to reckon. The leadership roles in management improvement process cannot be underestimated as it is cited as the leading contributor to the process success. An organization introducing new strategies should have in place a strong team spearheading the new policies. Such team must be guided by a committed and visionary leadership with all traits required to influence new ways of doing things. However, leadership that uses force to instill new organizational strategy is bound to fail as this will only serve to elicit sharp criticism and resistance from the status quo management. In this respect Schuler (1992), observes that regardless of how big the task is a committed team that is all inclusive and with the right leadership can effectively drive the desires organizational transformation. Any form of change is quite unsettling to many workers, and therefore, the onus is for the change initiation team to motivate the concerned stakeholders and enlighten them on the need for change. Therefore, the team driving the new ways of doing things should first promote the impetus of strategic changes among the management by developing and communicating the shared sense. Communication context Another critical aspect is to inform the concerned stakeholders. Basically, stakeholders are the people involved and affected by the management improvement initiatives. It is awkward to spearhead radical changes in an organization without fully informing the concerned stakeholders. In fact, such radical changes cannot take off because, in the first place, they are bound to elicit strong resistance. In this vein, the concerned stakeholders must be informed of the need for management improvement and the resultant benefits that would accrue to them and the entire organization. Notably, most of them believe in their old ways of doing things making any change totally unwelcome. According to Ferris & Napie (1990), it is in the interest of management to understand the main aim of management improvement process. In addition, the improvement process steering team should embrace their views on how to implement the proposed initiatives. Irrespective of whether the management improvement initiatives are negotiable or compulsory, collaboration and cooperation with the management is critical in the achievement of the desired goals. Interestingly, previous literatures indicate that spearheading change in a consultative and open manner enhances more effective implementation. Nevertheless, the organization management should be kept well informed to make them feel engaged hence allowing their involvement in the initiative implementation process. When the process becomes increasingly disruptive, it however, becomes increasingly important to assess the stakeholders’ response to improvement initiatives. Basically, the management can resist the improvement initiatives either due to denial, self- interest of fear of the unknown. In this case, the steering committee should seek to understand the cause of the management resistance and plan on how to tackle it before developing to a significant hindrance. A proper stakeholder analysis forms a good base for uncovering any possible resistance that risks the attainment of the desired outcome. Aligned workforce After successfully informing the stakeholders of the need to shift from the old ways, the HRM department also needs to align the entire organization's workforce to the overall organization strategy. This will ensure that all the organization strategic HR work in line with the corporate strategy for the attainment of corporate goals and objectives. According to Chase & Cummings (1990), when an organization successfully undergoes management improvement, it embraces new modernized ways of doing its business hence developing strategic HRM plans and policies designed to steer the organization towards achievement of the overall corporate goal. Strategic HRM plans and robust policies ensure the organization has the right manpower to support its post management improvement needs. Such strategic plans and policies should help the organization address any challenge that could arise in situations where implementation of improvement initiatives creates a gap for HR skills against the organization HR needs. Recommendations on key HRM plans and policies After identification of the organizational needs, it is important for an organization to determine the competencies of the present HR in order to identify and address any possible gap that may arise between current HR and the HR competencies the organization may require in the future. Such gaps may include lack of desired skills and the necessary numbers that can satisfy the organization needs. Also important to note, is that the implementation of management improvement initiatives may cause increased need for some competencies while decreasing the demand for others. In this respect, the organization should as a way of developing strategic HRM plans come up with HR strategies that cover the gap for instance through hiring, deployment, recruiting, retention, education and training to meet the present desired HR skills. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that while the notable component of achieving change is by employing skilled workforce, to attain meaningful changes also depends on the employee performance. Therefore, for organizations to align their HR performance with the management improvement, the new team must clearly understand what they are needed to do. Interestingly, aligning HR and organization performance management systems encourages new behavior that transforms the organization culture in favor of the improved strategy. Conclusion Conclusively, human resource management studies is a critical aspect as far as organization’s growth and development are concerned. Human resource managers should therefore, predict the future needs of their staff members in order to enhance their loyalty within the firm. The practices of the human resource personnel as well as the management team have a direct impact on the employees and their productivity. A good employer should keep their staff updated from time to time in order keep with the trends that keep emerging that affect the productivity of many companies. Moreover, the organization culture should favor developments and welfare of the in-house staff who form the face of the companies. 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