The Human Resource Management and Organization's Future - Essay Example

Name: Instructor: Course: Date: The Human Resource Management and Organization's Future Introduction Labor is no doubt an inevitable and indispensable factor of production. No organization can exist without relevant labor force. Having such background information, the important roles and functions played by human resource personnel becomes part and parcel of any existing society. The human resource personnel department plays a vital role both in the current operations as well as the future engagements of any organization. Successful operation and survival of any given organization thus depend on the extent of preparedness of the human resource department. For instance, in order to guarantee successful future operations, the human resource personnel must pay much attention to labor aspects such as workforce planning, strategic planning, managing of various talents available in the organization as well as recruitment and selection of new staff (). Success of any organization in its area of specialization can conclusively be enhanced by adherence to the observation as made by Bratton and Gold. The two scholarly writers insist that any human resource management plans and strategies in any organization should be designed, structured and formulated in close context and conformity with the overall objectives and mission of then same organization. They further elaborate that such strategic plans should flexible enough to accommodate the dynamic external and internal environment in which then organization operates Human Resource Management and Strategic Planning Most organizations thrive or fail to survive as due to the nature of strategic planning and policy implementations as exercised within the organization. Haphazard policies will more often be poorly implemented subsequent detrimental performance and finally failure of the organization hence. On the other hand, carefully designed and structured policies often follow come with implementation guidelines and procedures hence giving minimum possible chance for error. Again such errors can be easily detected and adjusted should they occur since such corrective measures are always availed in the implementation blueprint. According to Barry, and Friedman, the human resource management therefore becomes a crucial component of the overall executive management when it comes to matters relating to strategic planning for the future of the organization. The human resource manager is expected to advise and direct the executive management team on various aspects of staff welfare such as remuneration and perks, employee appraisal schemes, retrenchments and promotions as well as training and refresher programs in order to subsequently cater for the future needs of the organization. One aspect that might easily curtail future objective attainment is over expenditure on workforce. Therefore, once the human resource management is aware of what intends to be done, necessary policy adjustments can be instigated to prevent such huge expenditures. The human resource management continuously carries out extensive research and analysis of the future labor forces and most probable changes. The identified expectations are then related to the current and future objective of the organization. These two steps put the human resource management in a prime position to carefully draft and design strategic plans and policies regarding labor which are then forwarded to the executive management for ratification, assessment and recommendations before implementation (Bratton, and Gold). For instance, the human resource management can easily approximate the future labor costs, expected staff departures, leaves and short breaks amongst other aspects of human resource management. Policies and strategies are then designed to cater for such expected scenarios in order to achieve continuous and uninterrupted operation even during such circumstances. It, therefore, further reaffirms the close working proximity the human resource management and the executive management. The two management arms need to work in close consultation especially on organizational policies. According to Barry, and Friedman, such policies and strategies as made by the human resource management should always be in harmony and synchronized with the organizational future objectives, missions and aims in order to guarantee successful implementation and expected outcome. The strategies agreed upon should be flexible enough to cater for any future adjustments that might be inevitable in organizational objective attainment. Management of Skills and Talents Brockbank, and Ulrich point out that management of existing and available talents within the organization is an important aspect in human resource management. More often than note, organizations with well -structured approaches of managing talent spent less in terms of labor outsourcing, recruitment and selection. It is extremely cheap to train an existing talent along the organization culture. Such an individual will be already acclimatized to the organizational environment and may necessarily not require induction as well as extra time to adjust and fit the organization. The whole undertaking would thus save the organization such resources such as time wasted conducting interviews and inductions as well as general expenses incurred towards the same procedures. Labor market is one of most dynamic factor of production. The demand, supply hence cost of labor keep on fluctuating. In most cases, the fluctuating curve tends to take more time on the upper limit than it takes on the lower limits. The nature of the labor demand and supply curve often affects employees with running appointments. Several organizations thus find themselves on an employee exodus especially if the human resource management team did not favorably adjust such parameters as to keep hold onto their talent and skill. Recruitment and selection is one of the fundamental functions of the human resource management. Successful organizations often strive to recruit the most suitable and qualified talent and skill into their system. The future of any organization thus depends on several aspects of recruitment and selection as done by the human resource management. For instance, continuous advertising, recruitment and selection is both resource and time-consuming. According to Boxall, and Purcell, the human resource management is thus expected to save the organization of such expenses by conducting possible minimum recruitment and selection processes. However, such recruitments should serve to provide the organization with the relevant and required labor force to guarantee future operations of the organization. This therefore calls for careful design of employment and performance contracts that will not only tie down the employee to the organization for such required periods, but also reinforce maximum possible output. Long employment contracts together with performance appraisal and perks often encourage increase employee loyalty as well as long time commitment to the organization. Recruitment and Selection Another crucial aspect of recruitment and selection in relation to organizational future is the quality of recruitments conducted. While most recruiting firms will go for the best skilled and qualified, the organizational selection process should be structured to single out individuals that strongly conform to the organizations' culture and mode of operation. Flexible individuals, willing to learn and with strong interpersonal skills should be given priority during such processes. Such individuals can be easily trained to either multi-task or switch duties depending on the various needs of the organization. The human resource management, therefore, needs to have such considerations such as unexpected departures, job modifications and job rotation on mind while carrying out selection processes. Remuneration for such selected staff should be designed in consideration with the current economic conditions and the future expectations of the same economy. For instance, due to demand and competition from other firms, the human resource management may blindly offer enticing remunerations perks to attract potential skills and talent, only to drive the organization into receivership due to the harsh economy. According to Bratton, and Gold, recruitment of the right staff therefore has outright dire consequences on the future of the organization. Management of talent thus involves all activities, policies, strategies and approaches instigated by the human resource personnel in any organization so as to hold onto existing skills with the aim of making suitable future replacements within the organization. The human resource is thus expected to identify and train potential skills within the organization so as to totally cushion the organization against inconveniences due to employee departures, retirements and natural causes such as death (Bratton, and Gold). With prior knowledge of the future demands, the selection team will pick from the talent pool, individuals who possess the right combination of skill and talent to serve the future organizational needs. Such training can either be on-job or off-job and should cover all aspects of the organization such as the management as well as the technical team. The organization should have a standby labor bank with individuals working on their current appointments, but who are trained and capable of taking up other roles depending on their talent. Talent management and preservation will thus ensure a smooth sail of any organization into the future as it ensures smooth succession and transition, often making gaps within the organizational structure go unnoticed. Workforce Programs The human resource management must design workforce programs that are in line with the organization's plans for the future. For example, if a manufacturing company intends to carry out plant machine repair and maintenance, the human resource must design work schedules to ensure most of the working staff are on leave or breaks and only the required people report to work. On the same note, if due to one reason or another, the company wishes to increase or decrease its production rate, it again squarely falls in the doctrine of the human resource management to design workforce programs that will avail the right and sufficient team for the said production adjustments. It will be so much costly if the company will be forced to always conduct fresh recruitment whenever there is a demand for more staff, employ the same staff on a temporary basis so as to lay them off once the operations assume a normalcy. On the same note, such on-demand recruitments might not yield results since in some cases; the selection may have to deal with the available individuals who might necessarily not be the best suited. Bratton, and Gold suggest that workforce planning, therefore, has something to do with virtually all the departments in an organization and as such, the human resource management needs to be elaborately briefed and involved in long-term organizational plans. Poor workforce planning and management will always result in unattained object6s and organizational or management crisis. The human resource management can easily thus be engaged to steer organizations attain future goals and objectives by designing viable and practical workforce programs. They should do so by discussing organizational future expectations of minimum cost operation, rapid results production strategy as well as maximum employee output. For instance, by avoiding duplication of duties and encouraging job modification and rotation, an organization can incur the minimal possible costs on labor and channel the surplus to other areas of need. It can also help cut off the cost of maintaining periodic or seasonal staff whose services are only required in the organization at periodic level yet they are full time kept idle and maintained at the organization. These include the accounts audit staff, environmental compliance assessment team, quality assurance persons among other staff. Job modification and simplification can easily be used to design other extra chores for such staff as they await their periodic chore tasks within the organization. However, the human resource can only implement such effective coast saving approaches if the plans and anticipations of the organization are clearly spelled out. Such awareness will help determine the extent to which the strategies should be implemented. It will also help the implementing team to pick out the most-suited approaches depending on then expected outcome (Bratton, and Gold). Conclusion Conclusively, there is every need for the human resource management and the executive decision makers and implementers to work along proximity and in close consultation. While the management may design lucratively productive and viable policies, they need to be harmonized with the human resource management policies to realize the desired outcome. To ensure such smooth transition and operation into the future, the human resource management needs to have a clear understanding and mastery of the future organizational goals and objectives. Such a position will ensure the design of workforce, strategic planning, talent and skill management as well as recruitment and selection of new staff policies that clearly lead towards attaining such goals. Isolation or independent operations between the executive management and the human resource management might easily result into an organizational crisis. 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