Human Resource Management - Coursework Example

Human Resource Management Introduction Any organized human activity, which is done in-group, will be most times constituted into structure called organization. Organization is a structure with a ‘collage’ of humans doing their allocated work under the supervision of a leader, for the benefit of the organization as well as them. After the recruitment and apportionment is over, it is the duty of the organization particularly its leader and the various departments headed by different managers to provide the employees a perfect working environment, in which they will work effectively. Perfect working environment in the sense, the leader and the different managers should play their part in formulating feasible targets, arranging the needed resources, allocating the work load perfectly, motivating the workers while they were working, solving the problems that may arise and finally rewarding the workers when they achieve the intended targets. Among the different departments and its managers who form a part of this process, Human Resource Department (HRD) and Human Resource Manager’s contribution will be immense. They will have a prominent role in the overall functioning of the organization, as they will only manage the important component of any organization, the Human Resource Management (HRM) of the workers. Even with automation and computerization happening in every segments of organization, the functioning of the organization is totally dependent on the workers. So, only if the workers are kept in a perfect condition both physically and mentally, they can work perfectly and provide optimum productivity. So, this paper will discuss HRM (HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT) and how can it assist organisations to achieve their strategic objectives by keeping the workers in a perfect condition by making them work in unison as teams, as part of customized workplace. Human Resources Management Human Resource Management is concerned with the way in which organizations manage their people. So, it is the human resources department or the HR manger by constituting the vital parts of the organization, who should spell out or should help the employees to find out the benefits, opportunities, growth, etc, they may get, if they continue working in the same organization. So, HRM’s by managing employees’ careers are actually managing the employees’ future and in a way the company’s future as well. The success or failure of an organization depends on the role; the HRM plays particularly the HR managers. The HRM based practices can ‘sprinkle’ success on the lives of the workers, by making them work productively. The HRM based practices will be visible and should be put to effective use when the leader as a ‘builder’ builds a solid working group. The leader with HRM based practices can build a group, needed for specific tasks and to achieve the intended targets, apportioning or recruiting individuals with talent, knowledge and attitude. That is, the best way to build an organization was to hire very smart, articulate, tough, independent people and then give them lots of responsibility and autonomy. With this ‘living’ group, and the material things like capital, machines, infrastructure, etc the leaders in association with HRD and HR managers will embark on an organization. But, in most cases, the HRD’s will normally take over or manage an existing organization and its employees. That is, the building of the ‘group’ of workers as well as the installation of infrastructure, set up, etc, would have already taken place, with the HRD and HR managers with HRM based practices only managing the organization. This job of taking an existing set up and managing it, brings in set of challenges and this where HRM based practices will be visible. HRM will play an optimal role for the effective management of the organization and importantly will aid in the achievement or actualization of organization’s strategic objectives. This important role of HRM, was further emphasized by Richard Donkin, “HRM, equipped with something called strategy, promised a new set of tools and measures to reward, motivate and organise employees in the re-engineered workplace”. HRM based practices during recruitment, orientation and training It is necessary that the management or Human Resources (HR) department must ensure a constant availability of sufficient number of efficient employees from managers, executives, technical persons to laborers, for the efficient functioning of the enterprise and thereby achieve its strategic objectives. Overall, the recruited or selected personnel should be physically, mentally, emotionally and temperamentally fit for the job. So, only if the workers as parted of HRM based practices are selected perfectly, oriented and trained effectively, they can work perfectly and provide optimum productivity. Recruitment is the process by which organizations discover, develop, seek, and attract individuals to fill actual or anticipated job vacancies. Or from another perspective, it is a bridge-building activity—bringing together those with jobs to fill and those seeking jobs. And the bridge will be constructed by the HRM as part of HRM. The objectives of a optimal HRM based recruitment policy is to first locate and attract as many well-qualified recruits as one needs for an organization; second, to maintain or raise the total value of the organization’s human assets; third, to minimize the cost incurred by the recruitment process when unsuitable persons are selected or when recruitment has adverse effects on the morale of employees already in place. Therefore, the whole aim of HRM and its recruitment process is to get effective employees who can positively visualize accurately how he/she would fit into the new position. Recruitment process is a critical one for the organization as a whole and for all the managers especially at HRDs’. Recognizing the importance of these aspects, today’s successful organizations invest substantial amounts of time, effort, and money in recruiting the needed human resources. The wrong selection by the HRD can result in months of frustration for the same HRD, as they have to formulate repetitive training to fulfill the HRM. Employee recruitment is a decision-based process, in which the correct decision needs to be made at the first time, then only the HRM can get a good start. Recruiting the right people is critical to successful actualization of strategic objectives. Thus, the organizational strategies or goals will surely have an effect on job vacancies, job duties and design, and these aspects should drive recruitment. For instance, if an organization particularly service oriented organization, plans to compete on the basis of prompt, polite, personalized service, then service and communication skills should be featured in the job specifications. It is through the people management system that the firm influences the human capital pool and elicits the desired employee behavior. This is based on the assumption that the organization’s strategy is clear, well known, and fairly stable, so that people who fit the strategy can be recruited following all the tenets of HRM. After recruiting the new staffs, organizations should also ‘staff’ the recruited employees optimally as part of the HRM based staffing process. That is, when the recruited and the existing employees fall short in their performance, mainly due to lack of skill and knowledge about the process, HRD based on HRM practices should coach and mentor the specific employees. In competitive environments, every organization including public or private or MNCs or domestic organizations should keep on upgrading its product and services as part of its strategic objectives, and for that, the employees have to be upgraded first. Likewise, before the ‘greenhorns’ are placed in highly responsible positions, they need to be given necessary orientation and training as part of the HRM. Actually, after the recruitment and apportionment is done, the employees will be prepared to start the work as soon as possible. But, sometimes or most times, the recruited employees should need to be given orientation and training to integrate or assimilate with the working environment and importantly fulfill the work needs. That is, the prospective employees may show optimum interest, performance, etc at the time of recruitment, but after selection, while working in the organization they many under-perform. That is, after performing well during the recruitment process and getting the job, they may become over-confident and may not put the same effort during their work. Also, if the organization fails to give them an optimal working environment as promised during the recruitment process, employees may not perform well in that scenario also. So, this where an optimal HRM based programs, coaching and mentoring will come into the picture, equipping the recruited employees and matching the job needs of the organization. So, HRM involves coaching and mentoring the job seekers to make them fit for a particular job and make them contribute optimally for the actualization of organization’s strategic objectives. Role of HRM will be of strategic nature with teamwork inbuilt in it The human resources manager will play a major role in all the process of the organization. The HRM perspective stresses that each activity should form part of the whole process of people management.. All the important targets and strategies will be formulated during the decision making process, and HR manager’s contribution or inputs about the employees’ performance, skills, problems, etc will help a lot in formulating effective strategies. The other thing, the leader or other managers including HR managers will do as part of HRM, is involving the workers productively and importantly as a team in various processes that takes place in the organization. Richard Donkin stresses this aspect by using a apt analogy, “In management we may be in the midst of another Copernican Revolution, a revolution in which the relationship between the firm and the employee is inverted, and in which the ’customised workplace’ replaces the hierarchical, military-inspired model that has served so long and so well. The comparison suffers in one respect - the Earth had always revolved around the Sun whereas the transfer of so much power to the worker would appear to be an unprecedented development”. That is, during the process of strategy formulation, decision-making and importantly during the setting of organizational objectives, one of the approaches the leaders and managers can try is, putting for discussion his/ hers thoughts among the workers, and will involve them productively as a form of teamwork. This strategy will have unexpected at the same time favorable results, because one may never know from where, when and importantly from whom a great idea could come. So, this HRM based act of involving and allowing co-workers as a team to play a part in strategy formulation, decision-making and importantly organizational objectives, will build the team because the employees with a lot more motivation will work together. That is, if the employees are given important responsibilities, they will optimize their mental and physical abilities to complete the given work successfully. As it is a matter of proving oneself among the group of fellow workers, the employees will come up with feasible and effective suggestions, ideas, etc in-group and thereby will incorporate team dynamics, to help the organizations function effectively. So, if this requirement as part of HRM is fulfilled, successful work teams can be established successfully, by involving the workers of the unit in the appropriate stages and that will lead a customized workplace. That is, this way there will be a lot more stress or importance or emphasize on the employees and that will be good for the organization. That is, as the leader or other department’s heads involving the workers productively, it will raise the responsibility and the power of employees. This is what Richard Donkin put forward in his article, “The customised workplace,” they write “is built on the recognition that to be successful, companies will increasingly have to be organised around individuals rather than the reverse.” Rewards as part of the organization’s atmosphere The motivation levels of the employees have to be kept at optimal levels, so that the can perform or work optimally and thereby aid the organization to reach its strategic objectives. For that HRD can formulate various strategies including the allocation of rewards, incentives and promotions to the deserving and apt employees. As part of HRM policies leaders and managers should provide appropriate financial incentives and rewards, and non-financial praise for the employees’ achievement”. That is, awarding the deserving and ‘success achieved’ employees will stick them to the organization, and importantly will motivate them to give better results. In an organization, the workers do their duties for personal motivations like money (salary), looking after their family, etc, but their motivation level will get a great boost, if they receive additional rewards and promotions as part of the HRM. Rewards and promotions to deserving and ‘success achieved’ workers will motivate them to give better results and motivate others also, to reach that status. So, the organization as part of the HRM based practices can quickly get across their own priorities, values, assumption, etc and importantly organization’s goals and strategic objectives by consistently linking rewards and punishments to the activities of the candidate. Another key HRM issue, which should be part of the organization atmosphere, is that rewards should be given to the ‘right’ employees. Rewarding the ‘wrong’ employees could bring down the motivation levels of current employees and negative fallout for the HRM. That is, if the organization overriding tried and trusted individuals; give important posts and responsibilities to individuals who might be family members, friends, and persons with negative influence on the leader, etc, it will create negative effects. If this practice is followed, it will create de-motivation and disenchantment among workers and will show the organization in poor light. And in many companies, because of the ritual of awarding plum posts to the family members and shielding them when they committed mistakes, many members of the organization banded together in a kind of mutual protection society that developed a culture of its own and this will impede HRM practices deeply. They were more loyal to each other than to the organization, without any focus on the organization’s strategic objectives. So, it is greatly important to incorporate the aspect of awarding the right individuals as part of the HRM. So, to keep the core group of good workers in a motivated state, the leader needs to award the right individuals based on optimal HRM practices. Conclusion Any organization and also its leader or manager should not stagnate and saturate. They have to keeping on improving with the aid of optimal Human Resource Management. That is, organizations as part of HRM practices should recruit apt employees, then should train them, make them work as a team with a lot of leverage and finally reward them aptly. Unison of employees into a team with an urge to usher an organization into a leading ‘utopia’ will be a successful endeavor, if the organization incorporates all the aspects of HRM from the recruitment to the managing of workers. If the organizations includes the HRM optimally into it’s functioning, the organization could have a ubiquitous presence all over the world. Reference Donkin, Richard. A Quiet Revolution in Human Resource Management. Name of the publisher. 2001 Read More