Evaluating Human Resource Management in the UKs Public Sector - Coursework Example

Human Resource Management in the UK’s Public Sector

Introduction

Human Resource Management is one of the most influential factors in the success of a company. For this reason, it has become a major research and discussion topic. It is widely embraced by countries, as a way to boost their economies. Notably, in the countries where Human Resource Management is widely embraced, the economies are in a good state, whereas in countries where it is rarely upheld, there is poor performance in the economic sector. This paper seeks to assess the HRM sector in the United Kingdom, and in the Public Service segment. It will make a detailed explanation of its importance to the country, how the country embraces it, its drawbacks and ways to solve them.

The UK is among the twenty-seven states that had registered a decrease in public employment rates as a result of planned reforms. Some measures have already been put up to correct this situation such as consolidating the fiscal deficit. The United Kingdom assigns HRM practices to line ministries on a greater length, than when compared to other OECD countries. From the start of the year 2011, aspects covering employee policy such as expert services, resourcing and learning have been introduced, and this was part of a program introduced in the year 2000 to ease the HR delivery in the entire civil service.

The main HRM body in the UK plays the role of coordinating and other than that has a share of relatively vast responsibilities. Also, in the UK, management of a majority of HRM practices is assigned to ministries, especially on matters concerned with pay, enrollment, and sacking, working environments and performance assessments (OECD, 2012, p.4). None of the issues related to the HRM are assigned to team levels. In the OECD countries, the UK is notably one of the states that make intensive use of Human Resource Management. There are clear structures set within ministries, which vary in each one of them. The management concerned with the human resource is also required to be accountable, and to, therefore, report on issues and objectives. For this reason, the UK has managed to achieve proper future well-developed strategies, performance assessments and targets set by the HRM department.

First and foremost, recruitment in the public service in the UK is based on public competition. The recruitment systems set for the same are high standard, requiring absolute competence. Entry into the public service is through an open competitive forum and faces audits to make sure the recruitment system is by the set guidelines (Colling, 2005, p 54). Some HRM departments go as far as using assessment centers. The vacancies present are normally included in departmental plans to reduce costs so that some of them are occupied internally from excess staff pools before being publicized to other government departments. There are freezes in the recruitment systems that only allow a limited range of diversity targets (Millmore, 2007, p. 27). Each diversity unit, such as gender and disability is allocated a certain percentage in the recruitment process.

On performance, the UK makes intensive use of performance evaluations in decisions related to human resource management (Paauwe, Guest & Wright, 2013, p. 112). All employees are assessed, and the evaluations take place in annual meetings. The feedbacks given are usually in written form. The evaluations involve several ranges of activities. The employees may be subjected to activities, and assessed based on the quality of yields and timeliness, advancement of skills and costs effectiveness of work (McCourt, 1999, p.20). The evaluations are accorded much value since they enhance greatly career advancement and remuneration. Additionally, in comparison to other OECD countries, the UK reports more frequent use of Performance Related Pay (PRP). The PRP often takes the form of permanent payment rises and one-off salaries.

On setting promotions, competency interviews are carried out and this means that promotions are not determined by hierarchical levels. As mentioned above, the recruitments are open to other employees as soon as vacancies are filled from within. Assessment centres are used to ensure multi-rooted selection. There are no specific policies set to progress the promotion of groups that are under-represented.

The UK makes use of a separate set of HRM practices to man the Senior Civil Service. The SCS is considered separate and has a centrally set skills profile. The potential leadership structure is set through performance assessments. Such employees are mainly paid through PRP and benefits and have the advantage of enjoying the closer focus on their career development. Their ministries normally assess permanent secretaries, who are in the SCS category.

The Role of the HR Function in the Public Sector in the UK

In the United Kingdom, until the conservative reforms that started taking place in the 1980’s, the administration was associated with the hierarchical and Weberian centralized models of public service. The administrative regulations were determined by the central government, and enforced by public bodies. Aspects such as standardization, job security, paternalism, developmental humanism, and collectivism were some of the principals concerned with the management of human labor.

With time, this approach started being viewed as a liability since it undermined performance and demoralized employees. The UK government then started what was considered the best practices from the private sector to the public sector (Reilly & Williams, 2012 p. 98). As seen above, some of the aspects that were taken up included reduced employment costs, performance-based rewards for employees, increased flexibility to increase attendance to consumer demands, decentralization, empowerment of organizations to make important decisions in the HRM sector and personalization of employment relations.

Strategic roles had for a long time been viewed as those that have long-term implications, and would include incorporated HR strategies, organizational strategic decision making, and manning organizational change. Administrative roles, on the other hand, would include habitual, tactical and reactive tasks that would be associated with the operation of HR policies. A move towards a more strategic role is preferred when taking into consideration the future of the HR function (Burke, Noblet & Cooper, 2012 p.68). However, most of the roles enacted by the HR functions largely remain mainly reactive or administrative.

The HR function in a majority of organizations is expected to cater for multiple and mostly conflicting responsibilities, which are in between the demands of employees, employers and professional norms (Wiesner & Millett, 2003 p. 42). Considering the reform to take up models from the private sector and to include them in the public sector, there is no specific model that can be adopted. This process raises questions as to whether there is a model that is suitable for the public, from the private sector. Several factors also arise from this issue, concerning functions of the HR (Gilmore, 2012, p.33). Compared to the private sector participants; the public sector is more exposed to public monitoring and evaluation and has a larger group of stakeholders. These limit the stability of goals in the public sector, compared to the private sector.

Major HRM issues in the UK.

Issues in the Labor Market

For a long time, the rate of employment in the UK has failed to keep up with supply. There are high levels of migration outside the country by economically active persons. There is also a rise in demand for public services. Factors such as an increase in population have led to increased demands for commodities such as infrastructure. Other than that, the increased population has also spelled a rise in consumption (Truss, Mankin, and Kelliher, 2012, p. 212). The increase in revenues has also gone hand in hand with expectations from the public for standard services.

Recruitment and Outsourcing

While the UK has clear and definite strategies to recruit employees in the public sector, there still are issues faced on the same. Recruiting a new workforce is one of the greatest challenges. If the recruiters worked with employees they were familiar with; it would be easier to run recruitments. Additionally, the recruitment guidelines that require appraisals and other evaluations are usually tiresome. The recruiters have to work long hours of assessment, and in some instances, this may take time (Storey, 2007, p.6). Additionally, capturing the interest of individual employees on the same issue is hard. To recruit, a company needs to have attractive offers on the table if it is to attract a reasonable number of potential employees. Generating the interest may be another challenge experienced in the recruitment process.

Conflict Resolution, Discrimination, and Rights

On this issue, the UK has set regulations that strictly hinder abuse of rights and discrimination. On the same issue, the recruiting HR departments have to take into account more levels of conflict considering they have to include protocols that take into consideration diversity and its implications (Beardwell, Holden, Claydon, 2004 p. 82). On the same, the rise of conflicts is more likely to take place in different departments, and this required that Human Resource Manager can handle the conflicts amicably. This may be an issue, since handling a conflict may either be complicated or may take too long.

Training

Since Human Resource Management is mainly rooted on career advancements, training is a major component of the same. Training is an investment course. The recruited employees may have to start someplace in their working careers (Taylor, 2011, p.11). This situation is a challenge because one, it is a costly process. Hiring skilled experts to train may be expensive. On the same, if an employee fails to deliver on the training, it becomes an altogether meaningless process. HR managers are also required to factor in such schedules, considering the busy daily schedules in a workplace. They are also required to make careful evaluations on finances, which may be difficult.

Human Resource Managers are often faced with tasks such as mentoring, and discipline and such tasks may be complicated. For instance, if an HR manager is supposed to discipline an employee and they fail to take it kindly, it may lead to conflict. The process of mentoring is also cumbersome (Rubery & Unwin, 2013 p.103). The number of employees may largely outdo that of the mentors making it hard to mentor the employees. The HR managers are also faced with daunting tasks such as layoffs and conducting performance evaluations.

Importance of HRM in the UK

Ethical awareness has been a factor requiring attention in several working departments (OECD, 2012, p.3). From the introduction of HRM, potential employees, employers, and investors are now demonstrating increased recognition of ethical matters. They are also expressing a need to take such ethical considerations into account when making decisions concerned with businesses. This process has, in turn, led to firms embracing the corporate social responsibility to demonstrate ethical conduct for their reputations (Beardwell & Thompson, 2014, p.214). Factors such as fair trade have also started gaining ground in such corporations, indicating that the introduction of HRM is by far beneficial.

Secondly, the natures of jobs people take part in requiring that the individuals have well-developed skills, considering the increased pay schemes. Managers are also required to be well trained and to demonstrate proper skills in their jobs. For this reason, the managers ought to take into consideration the views of their employees and to include them in the decision-making processes. Employees are therefore able to work in democratic working situations since their views are respected. This, in turn, creates a working environment that suits everyone in the workplace, and therefore better yields in general.

Thirdly, is the tight labor market. There have significant instances of tightening labor markets since the introduction of reforms in the HRM department in the UK. Before this, incidences of skills shortage were the main item of discussion. This led to the shrinking of the economy. However, currently, factors such as recruitment and retention have become the main items of concern in the labor market (Perkins & White, 2010 p.30). This has enabled the UK government to recruit the employees it needs. On the same aspect, employees are now able to seek employment elsewhere if they are dissatisfied with their previous employers. In a tight labor market, this has allowed employees to have power and to in turn influence the managerial decisions imposed on them.

Lastly, is regulation. In the past, incidences of discrimination were prevalent in workplace settings. However, with the advanced HRM system, there are regulations that have been introduced to control such incidences. As seen above, the UK government is now able to set limits to the diversity aspects such as gender and disability (Bratton & Gold, 2012, p.78). There are penalties that are imposed on employers or managers that fail to take into account those regulations. On the same, it is also easier for employees to report cases of discrimination in courts, which makes the regulations even more compelling to uphold.

Conclusion

As seen above, the HRM department in UK is among the highly embraced factors. Since its reformation, consumers and employees have been able to get more satisfactory deals. The nation has also been able to record better economic levels, owing to the good quality of services. Some of the aspects that have been emphasized on by the UK HRM department are such as the recruiting aspects. The various HRM departments are now able to plan for the future, which places them at better decision-making situations (Johnson, Wilding & Robson, 2014, p.190). Additionally, considering the recruiting process is mainly set aside for employees from within the department and the surplus allocated to those from without, the HRM departments have been able to manage its funds with more efficiency.

However, as observed, the HRM department also suffers some issues. The recruitment processes, for instance, require that the HR managers are thorough making it is time-consuming. Additionally, the training programs set aside to ensure proper career development also prove costly to the various departments. Other than that, the HRM in the UK has managed to record numerous advantages in its reformed human resource departments.