People Management & Development - Coursework Example

People Management & Development Word Count 423 At first sight, it would seem that the words of Friedman point towards a capitalist system which focuses on money and nothing else. However, after extensive reading on the topic and knowing about the development of human capital which a company has access to, it seems that Friedman was certainly right when he suggested that there is only one social responsibility of business since the qualifiers which are given for this are quite extensive. It can be shown that the rules of the game, free competition and not deceiving the employees are not only rules which keep business from exploiting others; they are also good business decisions for companies like GE and many others (Colvin, 2006). Of the three qualifiers to making profits, the first one is the process of staying within the rules of the game. These rules have certainly changed drastically over time and the idea of exploiting workers for all they are worth is clearly not within the rules. It does not seem that ethics or social responsibility has a lot to do with it because the case of being good to employees makes fundamental business sense (Torrington and Hall, 1995). In the long term, employees who are secure in their jobs are likely to work harder and be more productive than employees who are insecure about their positions. Similarly, employees who are paid well with bonuses for good performance and rewards to continually motivate them will perform better than employees who are only given a salary and no chance to increase their incomes as a direct result of the hard work they put in for their company (Boxall and Purcell, 2003). This is certainly reflected in the way the Civil Service manages and handles bonuses of various employees and a similar structure is used for the recognition of employees in many other companies. In terms of links to the mission of the company to the reward system, Welch (2005, Pg. 16) says that “Every decision or initiative was linked to the mission. We publicly rewarded people who drove the mission and let go of people who couldn’t deal with it for whatever reason.” In fact, Welch considers letting go of the individuals who are not a good fit for the company as a favour to them since it allows them to pursue other interests which might be better for them. An HR professional who agrees with this idea is also in agreement with Legge’s model which calls for innovation in handling HR related issues (David and Zella, 2004). A personnel manager who wishes to treat people with rewards for their efforts would have to ensure that the senior management has given their go ahead for creating a reward management system and are willing to cooperate with the HR department for the selection of individuals who should be rewarded for their work. The management model given by Carroll certainly falls in line with this approach of giving monetary and recognition based since it allows workers and employees to look forward to the satisfaction of their higher needs and personal fulfilment. In fact, if we consider training as a reward and as a method of satisfying the higher order needs of some individuals the Carroll’s model is applicable to the idea of providing training for people to bring them to higher positions within the company. In certain cases, there can be ethical dilemmas for individuals working in the human resources department where the interests of the organisation as a whole may be in conflict with the interests of individuals working for the company. Rewarding and terminating employees is certainly one of these cases and the theoretical model of only rewarding top performers is not a good one since the majority of work in a company is not done by the top twenty percent or the bottom ten percent but the middle seventy percent which forms the back bone of the company (Grote, 2002). A person may think that the top performers should be given more time but the theory suggested by Welch (2005) recommends that half of all rewards, training opportunities, bonuses and awards must go to the middle seventy percent and department managers must spend most of their time trying to groom and develop this segment of the company. Similarly, a corporation may be faced with the issue of removing people from one department while simultaneously hiring individuals in another. While such a move may benefit the company overall in terms of how a department can be a cost centre or a revenue centre for the business, it can be very damaging for morale in the department where layoffs are taking place (Torrington and Hall, 1995). At such times, communications become a key element since employees have a right to know why such decisions are being made by the company (Beardwell and Holden, 1997). In an ideal world, the company would have to not fire anyone but because business decisions have to be made while looking at the bottom line, the effect of such decisions must also be calculated carefully. In such cases, the company and the management should seek ways in which termination can be minimized by internal transfers or restructuring which is a part of Legge’s model that calls for innovations towards the nature of work done by workers within the company (David and Zella, 2004). Similarly, in an organisation, preferential treatment may be given to incoming recruits or those who have recently joined the company for training opportunities while the individuals who have been with the company may be ignored. It could be towards the benefit of the company to get the new comers up to speed as quickly as possible but the social responsibility of updating the skills of other employees must also be taken into account while people are selected for training from within the company. Welch (2005) supports the idea of using training as a reward since recognition and training for better posts within the company is an opportunity which must be extended to everyone. In such a case, it is important for a personnel manager to bring the situation to the attention of senior management and show them the benefit of training those who have been with the company for many years. All companies in the private and public sector also have the social responsibility of ensuring that their actions and practices do not hurt society at large. The reason for the focus on corporate social responsibility is the emergence of the ethical consumer that has changed the rules of the game. An ethical consumer is a responsible buyer who does not want to help those companies who are not ethical themselves. This consumer will make many buying decisions which are greatly influenced by the operations of the company from which the purchase is being made. Of course there are as many personal definitions of ethical actions as there are individuals therefore the more bases a company can cover, the better off it will be (Ethical Consumer, 2006). In this situation, Carroll’s model can be applied as well since being ethical can help in being profitable. Generally speaking, such consumers will not purchase buying goods or services from any organisation which does not ensure that its products do not exploit labour, do not harm animals or cause water and air pollution. Such consumers can be found in increasing numbers in Europe and the UK since the availability of information about various companies has become common place. In fact, it has come to the point that companies themselves publish corporate social responsibility reports as marketing tools (Ethical Consumer, 2006). It is a good business decision to be an environmentally friendly, socially responsible, charitable company since it makes the employees feel good about working for the company and it makes the consumers feel good about buying from the company (Burlingham, 2003). In conclusion, while Friedman certainly paid due attention to the concept of making money and getting as much profit from business as possible, the rules of the game, the idea of fair competition and the concept of not deceiving others certainly create a very broad vision of social responsibility. This vision extends from the individuals working within the company in various departments to the broader view of entire sections of the company which may be unfairly treated in some situations. In fact, by adding the value of not cheating others, Friedman extends the concept of responsibility to include all others who are part of the group which makes up the stakeholders in any organisation. Works Cited Beardwell I. and Holden L. 1997, Human Resource Management: A contemporary Perspective, Pitman. Boxall P. and Purcell J. 2003, Strategy and Human Resource Management, Palgrave & Macmillan. Burlingham, B. 2003, ‘The Coolest Small Company in America’, Inc,. vol. 25, no. 1, p. 64-72. Colvin, G. 2006, What Makes GE Great? Fortune. 153(4): 90-96. David G. and Zella K. 2004, ‘Power, Innovation and Problem-Solving: The Personnel Managers Three Steps to Heaven?’, Journal of Management Studies. 41(3): 401–423. Ethical Consumer. 2006, ‘Why Buy Ethically?’, Ethical Consumer Magazine, [Online] Available at: http://www.ethicalconsumer.org/aboutec/whybuyethically.htm Grote, D. 2002, Forced Ranking: Behind the Scenes. Across the Board. 39(6): 40-46 Torrington D. and Hall L. 1995, Personnel Management: HRM in Action. Prenetice Hall. Welch, J. 2005. Winning, HarperCollins. Read More