Role of the HR Department - Essay Example

 Executive Summary This short report will shed light on significant roles played by human resource department of organization in order to ensure employee well-being and employee work-life balance. Specifically, the study has outlined how HR department can create a psychologically and physiologically safe work environment for workers. Issues like employee health, safety, workplace bullying and sexual harassment culture have also been discussed with a significant importance in the study. Case of Ozzie Construction Company (OCC) has been used as a real life case study in the report while works of research scholars have been used to present the argument. The report has also offered some recommendations by connecting both practical examples and academic research works regarding employee well-being and employee work-life balance. Table of Contents Table of Contents 3 Introduction 4 Human Resource Department and Employees’ Wellbeing 4 5 Human Resource Department and Employee’s Work – Life Balance 6 Case of Ozzie Construction Company 7 Aspect 1 and 2 7 Aspect 3 and 4 9 Recommendations 9 Conclusion 9 Introduction Pfeffer (2010) stressed on the fact that it is the responsibility of human resource management (HRM) division to ensure that employees work in healthy environment. It is evident from the research work of Rodriguez-Ruiz and Martinez-Lucio (2010) that human resource department also plays important role in ensuring maintenance of work-life balance among workers, but in most of the cases, they disregard such responsibilities. It is evident from theoretical arguments of these research scholars that there are sumptuous amount of ambiguity exist regarding the role and responsibilities of human resource department of the organization when it comes to addressing well-being and work life balance of employees. Hence, in this report, the researcher will shed light on these grey areas in order to strengthen the argument regarding employee well-being and work-life balance. Human Resource Department and Employees’ Wellbeing The research work of Van De Voorde, Paauwe and Van Veldhoven (2011) is one of the most dependable studies which have precisely focused on the issue of employee well-being and role of human resource department. There is a direct link between Employees’ wellbeing and work life balance of employees. According to these scholars, a proper work-life balance of employees can help them to remain healthy which is a modified version of personal well-being of employees. In such context, Nishii and Wright (2008, p. 226) argued that “In essence, we have hitherto failed to explicitly recognize the many ways in which individuals and groups may experience and respond differently to HR systems within organizations,” and such statement is showing that HR departments face challenge, understanding their exact role in ensuring employee well-being within organizations. The role of human resource department in ensuring employee wellbeing in terms of physical healthiness can be depicted in the following manner. Figure 1: Theoretical Model for HRM & Employee Well Being (Source: Van De Voorde, Paauwe and Van Veldhoven, 2011) According to the model above, the human resource department works as the strategic division for modern organizations, and in most cases, the management relies on the human resource department to improve overall performance of the unit. Nishii and Wright (2008) stated that in modern organizations, human resource departments perform activities such as providing training to employees, measuring their performance, measuring compliance of key performance indicators (KPI), mentoring of employees etc. In short, it can be said that human resource professionals in the organization have close relationship with employees in contrast to line managers in most of the cases. Hence, it can be conjecturally viewed that there exist a triangular relationship between perception of employee regarding HRM climate, employee wellbeing and overall unit performance. Careful consideration of the research work by Van De Voorde, Paauwe and Van Veldhoven (2011) reveals the following roles of human resource department which enhance employee wellbeing: Checking the internal environment within organization and reporting to line managers regarding the presence of harmful work practices which can negatively affect the physical well-being of employees. Communicating with employees in individual manner in order to find whether the recent work practice of the organization is hurting their physical or mental well-being and prepare a report by gathering the feedback of employees. Communicating with top level management in case of urgent intervention is needed to improve physical well being of employee. Human resource department can also advice top level management to conduct health checkups for employees in order to find whether the current work practice is damaging physical condition of employee or not. In necessary cases, HR department should advice top level management to change the work practices or bring safety measures in the work environment. Human Resource Department and Employee’s Work – Life Balance Van De Voorde, Paauwe and Van Veldhoven (2011) stressed on the fact that there exist a direct link between work-life balance of employees and their emotional intelligence because an employee is a human being with multitude of family responsibilities; hence, it is not possible for employees to forget their family life completely while working in an organization. Research scholars such as Lowry and Moskos (2008) defined work-life balance as the ability of employees to successfully manage work and household responsibilities. Fonner and Roloff (2010) gave examples of the organizations where human resource departments ensure proper work-life balance of workers. Gregory and Connolly (2008) defined “Work” as the paid employment while “life” as combination of leisure activities and family time. It is evident from the research work of Fonner and Roloff (2010) that human resource department can play following roles in order to enhance employee’s work-life balance: Conduct internal survey in order to know satisfaction level of employees regarding work pressure or work-life balance. Design flexi work agreement comprising factors like part-time and compressed work week for employees in order to bring work-life balance. HR departments should investigate whether there is the scope for implementing the virtual working environment or not. Fonner and Roloff (2010) used examples of information technology (IT) companies that have implemented the remote working place concept backed by virtual communication technology (video calling, internet communication, etc) in order to give opportunity to employees to work from home. In most cases, human resource department plays significant role in passing flexible work agreement commitment. Modern human resource department works as a strategic division for organizations to manage its people. Human resource department can perform their strategic role while comparing performance of employees under flexi-work agreement as against employees not under such agreement. The HR department should promote such agreement if flexi work agreement has benefitted the organization. It is evident from the above discussion that human resource department plays an important role in ensuring employee well-being and work-life balance; hence, employees should contact the human resource department if they feel that their well-being or work-life balance is at stake. Case of Ozzie Construction Company Aspect 1 and 2 While going through the literature of health and safety of an employee as against bullying and sexual harassment culture, the researcher has found that both the aspects have inter-linkage hence these two aspects should not be considered separately. Love, Edwards, and Irani (2010) pointed out that generally construction workers in Australia not only work under extensive amount of work stress but also in unsafe work environment. The researcher has observed similar kind of work culture while working as the HR manager in Ozzie Construction Company (OCC). Zapf and Einarsen (2011) pointed out that poor work environment for workers such as lack of sunlight, extensive amount of dust pollution, chance of explosion, extensive amount of heat, presence of sulphur or carbon monoxide can create both physiological and psychological damage for workers. Take the example of OCC, where workers work in construction sites which are prone to accidents such as building block slides or careless explosion which not only increase injury threat for construction workers but in worse cases, it can end their life. Landry and Mercurio (2009) also found that working under an unsafe environment increases psychological distress of workers which further creates a threat of cardiac diseases among workers. In some cases, researchers found that almost half of the workforce working under physically hazardous environment is exposed to heart and respiratory diseases (Zapf and Einarsen, 2011). Baruch and Holtom (2008) found that productivity of workers working in workplace where health and safety is compromised is bound to decrease due to physical and mental stress. In such context, top level management of Ozzie Construction Company (OCC) needs to create the work environment which is equipped with emergency facilities, safety jacket and helmet for workers, prevention measures, dust control facilities in order to increase quality of health and safety among workers. Raver and Nishi (2010) pointed out that bullying and sexual harassment is quite known phenomenon among construction professionals, and unfortunately, the case is not different in Ozzie Construction Company (OCC). In case of sexual harassment and gender biased disrespectful words are passed to particular workers, and even particular gender might be discriminated in terms of benefits and promotions. These is a common form of sexual harassment, and in worst cases, sexual crimes are being committed against particular workers. Høgh et al. (2011) pointed out that sexual harassment can be a part of workplace bullying where an individual worker is being coerced under harmful conditions such as hazardous work environment, life threatening conditions, etc. Brousse et al. (2008) pointed out that in most cases, a sexually harassed employee might not even complain to higher authority due to their fear of further bullying. It is evident from the research works of Høgh et al. (2011) and Nielsen et al. (2009) that sexual harassment and workplace bullying can have some ill consequences such as 1) - employee might lose the motivation to perform well for the organization, 2) - employees can suffer depression which would decrease their productivity, 3) - workers might suffer massive physical injury or prone to diseases, 4) - social life of the worker might get destroyed, and 5) - worker may resign from the workers. Due to the graveness of the issue, top level management of Ozzie Construction Company (OCC) needs to take immediate action in order to stop workplace bullying or sexual harassment. Aspect 3 and 4 In the previous section it has been discussed how HR department can enhance employees’ wellbeing and employee’s work-life balance. In this section, the researcher will shed light on issues like how Ozzie Construction Company (OCC) can ensure physical safety and work-life balance of construction workers. Ross (2009) pointed out that the definition of physical safety or work-life balance is pretty much blurred in case of the workers engaged in industries like construction, petroleum extraction, etc. Despite talking all precautions, there are always chances of an accident in construction sites due to human mistake or machine faults. In such context, top level management of OCC should take as much precautions as possible in order to avoid any kind of accidents. Recommendations I would recommend that OCC should fix the work hours for workers in order to give them chance to spend sufficient amount of time with families. In the workplace, top level management of OCC should announce harsh punishment against those who use derogatory practices like workplace bullying or sexual harassment in order to provide physically and psychologically safe work environment to workers. Increasing prevention measures in the workplace such as increasing emergency facilities, checking health condition of worker and then assigning them work which can suit their physical conditions, making it mandatory for construction workers to wear safety jacket and helmet, dust control facilities and increasing automation can help OCC to ensure physical well-being of workers. I would also recommend top level management of OCC to conduct survey on requirement of construction workers before implementing any of the above mentioned recommendations. Conclusion Van De Voorde, Paauwe and Van Veldhoven (2011) pointed out that although employee well-being is a relatively new term in the field of management research, but for many years, companies faced challenges regarding developing employee well-being in the workplace. Pfeffer (2010) conjecturally pointed out that many employees do not even tend to believe that their work practice has a direct relationship with their well-being, and human resource departments of most organization believe that maintaining the well-being of employee is not even their responsibility. However, after going through the research works of previous research scholars, the researcher has come to the understanding that there is an ample amount of scope for human resource department to intervene and improve well being and work-life balance of workers. Reference List Baruch, Y. and Holtom, B. C., 2008. Survey response rate levels and trends in organizational research. Human Relations, 61(8), pp. 1139-1160. 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