Wide Transformations in Human Resource Management - Assignment Example

Week DQ Discussion Question What can you do as a manager to keep your employees competitive in the 21st century business? The following are a few steps that can be taken at work either by managers or even by each employee to ensure that the colleagues are well motivated and interested in the job. This section sets out a few underlying principles to assist managers with motivation of employees in the 21st century businesses. Leadership: Motivation is the most important aspect of any organisation. It is essential for competitiveness, cost effectiveness that in simpler words is staying alive. Practice what you preach. Surveys: Changing behaviour, and hence, attitudes, is difficult unless you can identify as a start point. In all companies there are a number of employees who resist change and are unwilling to accept any change of any kind. Use of Good Practice: Being a manager does not require training for leadership skills, or having a set number of principles for a job or set systems. It is important to understand that theories that have been developed over the years are only meant for references and not to be used as a bible for every move. Policies and Procedures: In every company, or even a group of companies, nothing ever happens unless there’s a simple policy or procedure for making the thing happen. These policies and procedures should be set out and should include, what should happen, who needs to manage it, how it should take place, how it is monitored, etc. need to be encompassed in these policies. Discussion Question 2: It is crucial for a manager to know and understand the fair employment laws. What can you do to create a supportive environment where these laws are understood by your employees and what communication strategies would you recommend? The fair and employment laws that have been implemented by the government have a lot of relevance to the everyday work. It is essential for managers to have a strong knowledge of these laws to ensure that all employees are treated in a fair and ethical manner. One of the best ways to create a supportive environment in the work place is to communicate to the employee and bring out ways and modes to help one another achieve the fair employment within the work place. A communication strategy which involves meeting initially by the manager to discuss the same with the employees, after which the employees can initiate a meeting anytime they feel something within the office is not fair. This is more of an open communication and should be for the entire team rather than just the employee and managers. Week 2 DQ Discussion Question 1: What factors would you consider most important in recruitment of employees? Explain. Factors that play a very important role which recruiting any individual for work include, the individuals educational background, the work experience, the communication skills, interpersonal skills and mainly the track record of the candidates. These need to be firstly concentrated on further which, the company can use the selection methods to choose for the level of competency on the job and the level of knowledge required for the job. The education of a person and the track record of a person do play a very important role as they give a more detailed understanding of the person. Also the communication skills and interpersonal skills allow the recruiters to gain a more personal sense of the candidate as well. Hence I have chosen these as the most important factors for the recruitment of employees. Discussion Question 2: In your own company, where do you think the recruitment process should focus? Why? In my organisation the recruitment process should be more focused on the employees and the communication skills as the job requires a lot of speaking to people. Also, the individuals would need to have a quantitative aptitude as well as strong analytical skills to help perform better at the job. It is also essential to check if the candidate is a team player as this is a very essential skill needed for the job and the team at present is one where everyone contribute and work together to bring up the overall performance of the team. Hence if the HR is able to concentrate on these aspects it would be very beneficial for the company. Week 3 DQ Discussion Question 1: What is the training method in your workplace and explain improvements and offer suggestions that you think will benefit the training program in your workplace. The training method adopted at my current job involves the employees coming into work in the morning and spending the entire day at the training. Here the training is done for a class of six to eight people and the entire day is spent on training. At the end of the day the employees need to complete the test based on the training. After which they are free to go home if the shift has been completed, if not go back to work and continue with the work. The main weakness of the training is that although the plan is to let employees go back if the shift is completed, the managers require the employees to stay back and finish off the work for the day after the training. This makes people reluctant to undertake the trainings and hence the training programs are not too much of a success. If managers avoid doing so, and let the employees leave once they have completed the training, the motivation to undertake these training will be much higher and the managers will in turn have many more skilled employees in the teams. Discussion Question 2 What are the similarities and differences between training a team and training an individual? Provide examples from your experience? Training a group involves a lot more efforts as well as costs than training a single employee. The main similarity of training the employees and a group is that the content always remains the same (Buchanan and Huczynski 2004). However when training an individual, it is possible to help them out on improving the process and finding ways to overcome issues. This cannot be done in the group training. Training an individual can be done while working on the job which allows the employees to also get a feel of the systems and ask questions which they would have otherwise been reluctant to ask in a group. References: Buchanan D. and Huczynski A., 2004, Organizational behavior, 5th edn, Prentice Hall, Essex Week 4 DQ Discussion Question 1: What evaluation sample do you think is effective to give an accurate evaluation of an employee and how are you evaluated at work? There are several evaluation methods. A life without revaluation of the goals of self is very essential and it is important to develop new plans for self. In the same way the evaluation of the employees performance is extremely essential and this is mainly because of the fact that the evaluation will help the company understand where the employees are going wrong, and will also assist the employees realise their mistakes and make it up by undergoing different forms of training that will help improve the performance (Weightman, J, 2004). The method used within my organisation is one of performance related pay. This is very beneficial as it helps keep the employees motivated, creates improved goal setting, and improved hiring. Discussion Question 2 Which career management perspective most resembles your current work place (individuals focusing on themselves, organization focus on individuals, or organizations focusing on themselves? The current career management perspective in my organisation is ‘Organisations focus on individuals’. This however is not for the well being of the employee but is more so for the benefits of the organisation. References: Weightman, J., 2004, ‘Managing People’, 2nd edition, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2004, CIPD Publishing, London Week 5 DQ Discussion Question 1: As a manager, how can you create an environment where the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards are balanced and how do these rewards influence an employee’s attitudes towards his or her work performance, loyalty to the company, and or general feeling of satisfaction? According to Huczynski & Buchanan (2001), “Extrinsic rewards are valued outcomes that are control by others, such as recognition, promotion and pay increases”. Intrinsic on the other has according to Huczynski & Buchanan (2001) “Intrinsic rewards are valued outcomes in control of the individual, such as feelings of satisfaction and success”. To do so, the work place needs to be more open and allow the employees to take up their own choice of working styles. This will allow the employees to benefit in terms of the satisfaction levels. As for the pay, if the company follows a performance related pay scheme, it would be most beneficial for the company (Podmoroff, 2005). If the management utilizes a mix of both the factors within the organization, it is essential that the employers provide not only the hygiene factors but also the motivators to ensure that employees are satisfied with their jobs. Discussion Question 2: What type of compensation component would you like to have through your employer that is not currently offered? Explain your rationale. Include both the benefits and negatives this component will bring to you as an employee and will bring to the company. I would like to have health benefits (for self and family), pension plans, and stock options, as a part of my compensation. This is mainly because it help me be more motivated and allows the tension of health care costs to be removed from my mind making me free to work better. Also the stock options provides, gives me a sense of a saving made and this again acts as a strong motivational factor for me. It is essential to also understand that providing the employees with stock benefits will allow them to save up without an option to sell the stock at least for a specified period. In the current economic condition, every drop helps and this will be very helpful as well. If given these benefits, I would be much more motivated and will be able to perform better. This however might be a very expensive option for the companies, especially at time like where the companies are planning to cut costs, however it does improve the motivation, which in turn will help for better performance and a win – win situation for both employee as well as the company (Buchanan D. and Huczynski A., 2004). References: Buchanan D. and Huczynski A., 2004, Organizational behavior, 5th edn, Prentice Hall, Essex Podmoroff, D.B.A., 2005, 365 Ways to Motivate and Reward Your Employees Every Day: With Little or No Money, 30 September 2005, Atlantic Publishing Company Week 6 DQ Discussion Question 1: What is the career development process within your company? Explain its effectiveness and how you have managed your career up to this point. The Career development within the company I work is one where the managers check for the performance over the year. Here the employees are taken to meeting and a report needs to be submitted for the amount of work and contribution that the employee has brought in over the one year period. Based on this the managers provided evaluations and discussions of our weaknesses are done and the appropriate trainings are provided for the coming few months. This is effective in a few ways, as it allows us (employees) to improve and take up new training programs, however it is not that effective as the managers expect that the employees go for the training on the designated days and come back and work on the processes as over time, without any extra pay. Until now, it has been extremely helpful as I have been able to improve a few of my skills and take up a number of trainings to help me improve in my career. Discussion Question 2: Which safety, health, or assistance program in your workplace is most important to you; what about this program do you find beneficial and what would you change? The health and safety program is very helpful within the company. The company pays a lot of attention to the health and safety of the employees. This is useful as it allows the employees to be a little more cautious about their environment and also helps them respect the people around as well (Beer and Spector, 1985). My job involves a high level of working with papers and a number of files. Hence, the chances of accidents are much higher in terms of leaving the files around without having a tab on the safety of others. The health and safety requires us to ensure that all files are back into the cabinets once completed use and to ensure that no files are left on the side of the desks to avoid anyone tripping and falling over. This helps reduce the work accidents to the maximum and helps keeping the employees safe. References: Beer, M., and Spector, B., 1985, ‘Corporate – wide transformations in human resource management’, in Buchanan D. and Huczynski A., 2004, ‘Organizational Behavior’, 5th edition, Prentice Hall, Essex Bibliography Beer, M., and Spector, B., 1985, ‘Corporate – wide transformations in human resource management’, in Buchanan D. and Huczynski A., 2004, ‘Organizational Behavior’, 5th edition, Prentice Hall, Essex Buchanan D. and Huczynski A., 2004, Organizational behavior, 5th edn, Prentice Hall, Essex Podmoroff, D.B.A., 2005, 365 Ways to Motivate and Reward Your Employees Every Day: With Little or No Money, 30 September 2005, Atlantic Publishing Company Weightman, J., 2004, ‘Managing People’, 2nd edition, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, 2004, CIPD Publishing, London Read More