Human Resource Management in Context - Essay Example

The review of the literature related to this subject has revealed the following problem: the criteria on which the recruitment and selection policies are based can be highly differentiated across organizations. In practice, this means that the decisions of HR managers in regard to these activities cannot be controlled either in regard to their credibility or in regard to their reasoning. The values and the rules applied in each organization are critical, at the level that they can set the limits of key organizational practices, such as the recruitment and selection practices. 2. People resourcing and business environment 2.

1 HR planning – overview and key characteristics The first step for developing an effective HR strategy is to secure that the whole process will be carefully designed. HR planning helps HR managers to secure the success of their decisions. According to Rahman (2010) HR planning is a demanding process. Errors during the development of a firm’s HR plans could result to severe problems in regard to employee performance and communication (Rahman 2010). For eliminating the chances for such failures, Rahman (2010) suggests the gradual development of HR planning.

It is suggested that the process should incorporate three key phases: ‘the quantitative HR planning, the qualitative HR planning and the planning of personal actions’ (Rahman 2010, p.158). The quantitative HR planning focuses on the identification and the evaluation of the needs of the organization in terms of the number of employees (Rahman 2010, p.158). The qualitative HR planning refers to the attitudes of employees and the nature of the tasks assigned (Rahman 2010, p.158). The issues of time and space, as related to the HR needs of a particular organization are addressed through both the above processes (Rahman 2010, p.158). Another critical part of HR planning is the planning of personal actions (Rahman 2010, p.158), a process that focuses on the transformation of ‘actual performance into the target performance’ (Rahman 2010, p.158). From another point of view, the HR planning can be used for making the connection ‘between recruitment/ selection strategies and the organisation strategies’ (Millmore 2007, p.286). In other words, HR planning verifies the relationship between the recruitment/selection processes and the business environment.

Amos et al. (2009) note that HR planning does not focus solely on the needs of the organizations in terms of staff but also on the philosophy and values on which the recruitment of the staff would be based (p.99). According to the above view, HR planning defines the framework used for the recruitment and selection processes (Amos et al. 2009). Moreover, HR planning should be developed using specific criteria: a) the rules on which various HR processes will be based, as decided by HR planners, should be flexible enough so that they can be changed if necessary (Amos et al. 2009), b) the structure of HR plans should be also open to changes; this means that HR planning should set alternatives, available in cases of emergent organizational needs or of unexpected pressures in local or the global market (Pravin 2010).

In regard to the above, Amos et al. (2009) note that rules are necessarily included in all HR plans. It is noted that these rules help