Human Resources Issues in the Organisations - Essay Example

?HR Issues in the organisations: There are several problems from which these organisations are suffering from. The first problem which is very vivid in these organisations is that of lack of autonomy. Since these organisations are working under the umbrella of defence ministry, the managements of these organisations have minimum freedom or authority to plan their operations. There working framework is designed by the ministry of defence, which allows the ministry to maintain their stat quo. The ministry makes all strategic decisions regarding the affairs of these organisations. Line Managers in these organisations are mere spectators, the real show is run by the ministry. Such a degree of centralisation is leading to employees’ frustration and disengagement (Vosburgh, 2007). There is a totally flawed reward system (Secord, 2003) working in the organisation, which again is designed by the ministry of defence. This design is not pragmatic (Pilbeam, S. & Corbridge, 2010) when it comes to dealing with civilian workers. Apparently, most of the work in these organisations is done in teams, but the reward system in place is not suited to this form of working. Moreover, this type of a reward system is anti teamwork and leads to a rift created between employees (Ulrich & Smallwood, 2005). With employees not receiving their deserved recognition and line mangers being helpless in this regard, organisational motivation is falling exponentially (Yeung & Brockbank, 1994). This entire problem is being caused by the “Cluster Panel”, which is totally callous to the working environment and is responsible for making appraisal decisions. The group has a defective method in place to assess an employee. The entire appraisal system (Yeung, Woolcock, & Sullivan, 1996) is dependent upon the line manager’s recommendation of an employee and that too is further conditional on his writing effectiveness. Even if a manager effectively encodes an employee’s accomplishment on the appraisal form, there is still no guarantee that this would secure an appraisal for the employee. This deficiency has two folded repercussions, one has to do with the line manager’s motivation level and the other has to do with an employee’s alienation with the organisational procedures (Newman & Hodgetts, 1998). One aspect that needs special attention over here is that of the military staff. Since they form a part of the total workforce of these organisations, they deserve to be treated like any other employee. On the contrary they are considered as alien to the organisational setting when they receive their compensation from the defence ministry. This sort of handling of the military personals is leading to a confusion arising in their midst with regards to their role, both in the military and in these organisations. Another important draw back in these organisations has to do with the absence of a motivator. Since employees consider performance bonuses as some sort of a lottery rather than a form of recognition, and manager’s acclamations as shallow, there exists a serious deficiency of a driving force (Miner & Crane, 1995). In these organisations mangers are the ones who are occupying the most pitiful position. They have no power what so every to express their viewpoint. They are mere spectators who are just watching the show, having no power what so ever to exert influence on any level of the bureaucracy (Losey, Mesinger, & Ulrich, 2005). Recommendations for Changes: In these circumstances in which the employees are feeling totally dejected with the organisational procedures, and mangers rather than being inspirational are showing a sorry picture it is important to come up with more effective Human Resource policies (Kramar, Mcgrew, & Schuler, 1997). It is inevitable that organisational productivity will fall and the purpose for which these organisations are in place will suffer a deep blow. In order to prevent such damaging consequences, change management needs to be implemented on an emergency basis. In this change management program, first this that needs to be raised is the decentralisation of decision making. Rather than the ministry of defence taking strategic decisions on behalf of the organisation, it should be the management of the organisation that should be responsible for deciding their strategic direction aims and objectives (Jackson, Schuler, & Werner, 2009). Under this change management program power should be devolved down to the level of a line manager. He should be having powers to appraise an employee or take corrective actions in case an employee is not performing well. His position should have a real meaning in the organisation. Line managers should be a part of the cluster group. Each line manager should be given a fix number, with regards to the number of appraisals he can make in the department. These line managers should also be included in the process of setting the strategic objectives of the organisations. This would ensure that the top and the lower management are on the same page with regards to the goals of the organisations. In this new setup, military personals working in these organisations should be sent back to their regiments and a special liaison should be appointed who would be responsible for facilitating the communication between the military and these organisations. Having talked about the decentralisation of powers earlier, it is important to mention the change that needs to be made in the organisational setup to adapt to this process. The most important change is the development of an organisational structure through with power and information will trickle down (Henry, 1995). Another important change would be the introduction of a group reward system. According to this system teams would receive group bonuses and incentives for the work they have undertaken (Jackson, Schuler, & Werner, 2009). Whatever bonus is sanctioned, it will be equally divided amongst team members. This would help to avoid the resentment which results when one member of the team receives a bonus while the other member does not. A couple of implication can be foreseen as a result of this change management program. First, this program will give too many powers to the line managers, who are liable to exploit these powers. The second implication over here is concerning the unproductive free rider who is part of a winning team. Both these problems affect those employees who have been honest in their work and therefore deserved recognition. But due to the earlier mentioned problems an irritable hurdle has been formed. But these are the kind of tradeoffs that are required in organisations which are suffering from the problem of declining morale. List of References Henry, C. (1995) Human Resource Management: A Strategic Approach to Management, Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. Jackson, S., Schuler, R., & Werner, S. (2009). Managing Human Resources. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Kramar, R., Mcgrew, P., & Schuler. R. (1997). Human Resource Management in Australia. 3rd edition, Australia: Longman. Losey, M., Mesinger, S., & Ulrich, D. (2005). The Future of Human Resource Management. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. Inc. Miner, J., & Crane, D. (1995). Human Resource Management : The Strategic Perspective. HarperCollins College Publishers. Newman, N,. & Hodgetts, R. (1998). Human Resource Management. USA: R.R Donnelley & Sons Co. Pilbeam, S. & Corbridge, M. (2010) People Resourcing and Talent Planning: HRM in Practice, Fourth Edition, Pearson Education Limited: FT Prentice Hall. Secord, H. (2003). Implementing Best Practices in Human Resources Management. Canada: CCH Canadian Limited. Ulrich, D., & Smallwood, N. (2005). ‘HR’s New ROI: Return on Intangibles’, Human Resource Management, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 137-142. Vosburgh, R., (2007). ‘The Evolution of HR: Developing HR as an Internal Consulting Organization’, Human Resource Planning, vol. 30, no. 3, pp. 11-23. Yeung, A, & Brockbank, W. (1994). ‘Lower cost, higher value: Human Resource Function in Transformation’, Human Resource Planning, vol. 17 Yeung, A., Woolcock, P & Sullivan, J. (1996). ‘Identifying and Developing HR Competencies for the Future: Keys to Sustaining the Transformation of HR Functions’, Human Resource Planning, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 48-58. Read More