Factors that Shape Human Resource Management - Article Example

Factors that Shape Human Resource Management HRM or human resource management, in China is as new as its market economy. This paper describes the legislative, social, cultural and business factors that shape the human resource management in term of recruitment, training, working, time arrangement and pay. The history of personnel management is almost fifty years old in China. This follows the founding of new China in 1949 under the communist party. The personnel management system was centralized until the end of the Cultural Revolution. However, the state was in complete control of the personal policies and practices of the organization, it not only controlled or determined the number of people to be employed and the sources of recruitment but also unilaterally set the pay scale that is to be given for different level of employment. Such characteristic was once a dominant factor in the history of personnel management in China because most organization was stated owned until the year 1980. Today, however there are many organizations, which are state owned, private, self-employed and foreign and all have different approach towards the Human resource management. In China the only trade union that is recognized all over is the “All China Federation of Trade Union” or the ACFTU. This trade union is responsible of seeing the well-being and protecting the legal rights of the employees and their interest. However, as many foreign and private organizations have come up they ignore the trade union and do not give importance to them. Therefore, we see that there is no actual relationship between the management and the trade union. Similar to many countries the human resource management system in China is governed by the political, legal, cultural and economic factors. The state has come out with many rules and regulation to stop the misuse of labour and to provide equal opportunity for both men and women but there are still factors that prove discriminatory towards female workers. Laws such as the PRC and the Labour law provide protection from discrimination between genders. The time management in china provide that no more than forty –four hours a week is to be allotted to workers. However, this can only be seen in the state owned organization as because the private businesses such as the retail and the catering industry do not allow workers to take leave even for the main holiday season, which is, the Chinese’s New Year because during that time the sales are high and workers are needed. Most workers in China are full time workers. Training is a part of the human resource management and that too is provided by the state and the private organization. The completive edge leads many workers to get trained so as to get ahead in their careers. The state had issued a mode of training in the year 1995 which was called “Temporary Regulation on Continuous education for Professional and Technical personnel in China”. This policy was considered an important move by the government for a national continuous training, which marks the beginning of the formalization of continuous training of the professional and the technical workers. However, training in different organization remains generally low and improper. We now come to the pay structure in China which is generally different from that of other societies. The pay structure is only aspect in the Human resource management where employees exert control in its distribution. It should be noted that Chinese people are very sensitive and also have low tolerance towards income gaps between individuals or groups. The pay system in the state owned organization doesn’t have a proper input form the employees in determining the formal wage, which is set by the state. (Cooke, 2004) The above statement discusses the various structures that fall into the HRM of China. However, the Human resource management faces a lot of challenges because many Chinese organizations do not have a proper approach to the Human resource management that is consistent with the business strategy. On the other hand, since there is excess in labour supply many organizations face the problems of retention and recruitment. Another factor that hampers the HRM is the lack of effective system that links motivation with long term rewards. Lastly there is a lack of proper and cohesive training of employees. These problems do not affect the public and the private sector in the similar ways while some are more generic in both sectors others are specific in private and public sector. One thing about the human resource management is to provide skill training and career structure to its employees which many organizations in China lack. However, they also lack the organization culture which is required to earn the loyalty and commitment of the workers. As the times are changing and various developments in the economic and labour markets is taking place therefore, many forms in the HR has become incompatible and out of style. The retention of employees is the main drawback that the organization in China faces and it has been reported that many state-owned banks have lost talented people to other foreign sectors banks. There is a high shortage of skilled professional in the managerial position. The majority of entrepreneurs and CEO’s in China have insufficient knowledge of the strategic importance of Human resource management to organizational competitiveness and also tend to underestimate the technicality of the Human resource management. (Cooke, 2004) The above points are some of the challenges that is faced by the Chinese Human resource structure. To improve the human resource structure an urgent need is to professional the same at individual level. To further improve the human resource structure, people who are the head of the HR personnel need to better equip themselves with human resource theories and labour regulation and their practical implication. Therefore, a need to understand and to establish a network, to share the information of Human resource at the industrial and national level is required. There is no professional human resource that exists till date at national level. Since, a model for a proper Human resource management is required in China many organizations should take examples from the western organization and implement their style of HR strategies in their firms. The requirement of a proper human resource is always required by companies to have proper training and also retention of talented employees. The current state of Human resource management in China is characterised by the withdrawal of state intervention at enterprise level and a movement towards a better market and proper labour laws and a radical reforms of workplace welfare and social security provision. Therefore, the change in the Human resource management structure in China does not only offer exciting opportunities but also a severe challenges for human resource personnel at all levels. The human resource management, to some extent in China is similar to those of other economies, but at the same time it also displays it own strong national characteristics. In the end we must also note that the labour market of China is very strong and hence we require a proper structure of the human resource management to implement their talents skilfully and tactfully and also the organization should make sure that the work that is put in by these workers should be compensated properly so as to have them committed to their work. References Cooke, F.L. (2004) HRM in China, Managing Human Resources in Asia Pacific, Rutledge: London Read More