Leading Global Workforce: The Future Workforce and Manager - Coursework Example

Leading Global Workforce: The Future Workforce and Manager Introduction The concept of globalization has already overtaken the traditional approaches to management of organizations. Modern-day business world is on a competitive path that brings a number of changes with equal number of challenges before managers to handle for ensuring the organizational growth and sustainability. Presently, the global human resource management practices require the leaders to apply the best fitting envisioning techniques and foresee the effect of their application on a long term basis because of the ever-increasing sturdiness of unhealthy competitions in the global market. However the relevance of human interface with machines and theories has a prominent role in making a system working under an organizational structure. Despite the advancement of technology at its highest degree of achievements at any point of time, the importance of human resources for organizations will continue to remain unchallenged throughout the many generations to come. This particular concept is applicable to all kind for organizations heading for their prospective growth based on the international management of the global workforce. This paper will make a futuristic vision of the global workforce management of for-profit and nonprofit organizations on the basis of the assumed challenges before the upcoming leaders and the expectations about their advanced core management skills. Future Trends of Workforce The global workforce market is rapidly changing with new talents and expectations spreading across the globe without cultural and geographical barriers. Even though the chances of challenges are not completely negligible, the effect of the new development in the human resources management environment is increasingly helpful for the employees to take a decisive role in the prospective jobs. Breaking the walls of the traditions, the diverse workforce concept is leading the employment market from the frontline and encouraging the global workforce to have their ultimate say in the manner and methods of the management practices as an ultramodern tendency. This new trend is fast developing a culture that envisages the flexibility of formal relationships and feasibility of expansions to new horizons of organizational achievements. The importance technology in human resource management has greatly influenced the quality of the functions of the workforce and the use of technological instruments in the operational management will remain a key player in ensuring the desired standards of performance in the future HR practices. According to a study, “Technology and virtuality arguably change work groups in three important ways; they introduce new dimensions of communication among members by breaking down traditional barriers of space and time; they modify traditional group processes; and they enormously enhance the group’s capacity to access, share, manipulate, retrieve, and store information” (Godar & Ferris, 2004, p. VII). As an expectation about the future trends of the next generation workforce patterns, the two concepts, virtual teams and distributed workforce, will be heading most of the human resource management practices across the business world. These two concepts in a practical perspective may look akin to each other; however, both of them have their own strategies and functional styles with regards to managing the human capital across their geographically scattered locations. The future of the virtual teams will continue to depend on the dispersed team dynamics with the challenges potentially changing according to the socioeconomic, cultural and political conditions of the working stations of the teams. The effectiveness and the quality of their outcome will depend on the skills of the leadership and as in any management context. However, continuous and recurrent job-shifts and exposure to ethical concerns will remain the perpetual challenges they pose before the organizational leadership, for which finding a permanent solution will be next to impossible. The concept of distributed workforce, on the other hand, is a handier option for the global managers in the future workforce management practices. This system may look similar to virtual teams in the structure; however, the functioning and the operational management of the workforce will remain within a web of regular direct interactions as in the normal cases of the organizational structure. Some academics on this practice model claims that the distributed workforce management rely on the core practices based on the five principles such as doing programs strategically, learning to work differently, training the contributors, deploying collaboration technologies and aggressively implementing the plans for its successful operation (Ware & Grantham, 2010, pp.7-8). This management model gives wider opportunities and freedom to the employees and they can work outside the confines of the traditional management structure but with regular updates of their work reports and constant connection to the management structure through communication devices for both words and videos. The potential challenges before the leaders of this pattern of administration will be around employee turnover, communication and motivation issues, technical defaults of supervision etc. Unlike virtual teams, distributed workforce will continue to remain quick responsive and centrally managed in through the future years. HR Practices; Current Scenario The holistic evaluation of the current happenings around the human resources management practices is necessary for making predictions about the future changes. The overall situations in majority of the companies show the indications of the prevalence of a traditional HR method among them. The differences felt about some of the companies are due to the experimental approaches of the new entrants to their leadership line. Taken as a whole, the HR managers are presently facing a crisis associated with the general drain in quality human capital amidst the shortfall in the numbers of new aspirants to major job markets like hospitality and healthcare sector. The unemployment crisis is a universal phenomenon for most of the developing economies which stand as potential suppliers of human resources to major global employers among the European and North American countries. Despite the surplus of graduates against the required number of positions in many countries, the declining of quality of skill-oriented education challenges their opportunities both in the domestic and in the international job market. This will continue to create an employment recession that can bring dramatic changes in the expectations about the future HR practices. The existing employees of the multinational organizations are aiming at securing their positions as the managements of most of them are already on the path of cost-effective practices. Among the selected and trained lot, the quality continues to remain a concern for the organizations because of the various social and cultural implications of the global workforce. A majority of these problems affect the performance and motivation of the employees and the negative reflections of them will appear in the form of absenteeism and reduced commitment levels. The present trends indicate that the workforce tendencies are rapidly changing along with the employment market conditions where workers expect their higher level participations rather than the traditional work-for-pay strategy. According to Pwc’s assumption, the changing global economic shifts are redefining the aspects like capital, authority and prospect of the modern business in order to device the defensive strategies to resist the challenges arising from the scarcity of innovations and resources to deal with the ever-increasing need for plans to acquire and retain the global workforce with consistency and commitment (p.6). These potential challenges are presently posing an unresolved question as to how to design a comprehensive method to manage the distinctively motivated human resources in the changing economic contexts while giving priority to the cost-effective methods for promoting the growth and sustainability of the organizations in line with the advanced HR practice methods in the application. The behavior of the employees and their attitude towards the job depend on a number of factors associated with the conditions of their employment. The professional life of an individual has a direct relationship with the workplace situations which they compare with the sum total of the remuneration and the effect of the motivating factors provided by the employers. As such, the management of modern business has adopted various HR policies and proposals for the welfare of the employees. The logical ratio between expenditure on motivation and the actual outcome is the primary focus of the employers in the present trend. For attaining this ratio in a profitable way, they initiate programs to encourage employees by providing a number of benefits that can lure them to increased productivity engagements and retain them at the high cost of spending to restrict the turnover. However, the influence of transparency is the supreme factor that can make an immediate effect on the employee retention. As a result, the modern managers are on the path of inviting extended employee participation in the operational functions of their organizations. The relevance of open communication among the various levels of employees is highly influential in bringing out a change in the structural order of the HR practices which enables the employees at lower positions to express their concerns in an interactive way. Growing Challenges The present day business world offers plenty of challenges to the human resources managers with the extended scope for diverse workforce participation in the organizational structure. The human capital acquirement and retention challenges continue to remain the foremost of the issues; while scarcity of the workforce coupled with increasing demand for technological advancement of the workplace circumstances adds the intensity of the confrontations waiting upon the response of the global managers today. Among the major challenges with regards to the workforce management, the issues with the age-classes posses a huge concern for the managers. Mayhew (n.d.) suggests that the present structure of most of the HR management chain consists of employees from the entry level personnel to the most experienced and aged categories of employees. Managing this age-gap within the workforce becomes a massive task before the leaders of the present day models of diversity management. Apart from this, the ever-changing government policies of the distributed locations where the dispersed workforce engage in their collective activities create a critical challenge related to the legal endorsement of the recruits at the source destinations. Problems arise in succession as a process as one resolution will open the way for another one in the organizational context. After finding solutions to a majority of the problems, the impending challenges of inadequate infrastructure development and technological support updating rock the competency of even the strongest leaders. The absence of improvised technological devices can adversely affect the quality of the management of the geographically scattered workforce mainly because of the communication failures. With the height of the challenges increasing rapidly, the mangers will be forced to adopt a mechanism flexible enough to handle the trends of the changing dynamics of the workforce. According to a critical view, “The human resource managers of today may find themselves obsolete in the future due to changes in environment if they do not update themselves.” (Singh & Dhawan, 2013). Therefore, it is important for the modern-day managers to work on every possible ways to improve their multilevel talent based on the regular update of knowledge and information associated not only with their respective management academics, but also the general awareness necessary for promoting the concept of cultural tolerance. For-profit, Nonprofit Organizations: Contexts and Concerns The contemporary challenges of the HR practices are deep impacting and highly influential to the effects of global workforce management as the identified issues have long remained unresolved issues in many organizations. The multi-cultural and diverse environment of human capital needs a better evaluation by the leaders with regards to making necessary amendments in their policies aiming at making a strategic partnership rather than applying the traditional methods of centralized management styles. This realization will be taking effect as the upcoming management ideology for the leaders of the for-profit and nonprofit organizations equally. The ascertainment of the current scenario is necessary for making assumptions about the prospective changes in the HR management sector which may arise after a decade in the workforce dynamics. The literature on the future recruitment policies of the HR practices for the nonprofit organizations indicate the signs of an alarming trend of challenges related to the retention of professionally qualified employees due to a possible reduction in the funding. According to a study, the individual packages for the expert staff in the operational practices of the nonprofit organizations can show an unstable trend because of the improbability about the revenue sources which can negatively affect the quality of the workforce training meant for meeting the expectations of the diverse categories of clients (Not-For-Profit Future Workforce - Issues Paper, 2006-007p.3). Another problem associated with the nonprofit organizations is the inevitable course of seasonal workload and under utility of the workforce as seen in the community healthcare services, disaster rehabilitation programs etc, which can cause a shift of the casual workers to better places for fulltime jobs. This particular scenario will create a tremendous workforce shift which can eventually turn costly for the managements in recruiting and training the replacement workforce. The prospective problems of the for-profit organizations will have a similar strategic impact on the workforce. The major issues before the managers will be those arising from the migration caused workforce shift and the higher demand for technological devices against their limited supply. For the organizations in future, the biggest challenge will be developing around the concept of globalization itself. Experts like Srivastava and Agarwal (2012) identify that globalization of management and its allied aspects such as workforce diversity, changing socioeconomic, legal and political contexts, extensive computerization and revolutionary changes in information technology will be the prolific challenges before the future managers (pp.46-47). As long as the primary target remains better profitability, the need for managers to maintain the human capital with quality performance and cost-effective supervision of the operational functions for improving the productivity by adopting the best possible methods of workforce management to extract the labor while retaining the employees in the organization. The managers will, therefore, have to act as strategic partners to the business and take up the challenges with higher level of integrity and consistency. The emerging challenge of the HR management of the future years will also project a huge task of finding out strategic equations fitting to the changing contexts of the global workforce dynamics. According to a suggestion by Becker, Huselid and Beatty (2009, pp.29-33), the effectiveness of the leaders will depend on the quality of the choices they make for ensuring strategic contributions to the workforce through clinical thinking styles and their appropriate application in the workforce structure with a view to necessitate the tactics of achieving the objectives based on cost leadership of human capital, differentiation of strategic capabilities and direction of the strategic focus towards the redefined objectives. In this perspective, it becomes a primary requirement for the leaders to identify the proportion of the strategic jobs in the organization for making an accurate presumption of the effectiveness of the strategic workforce under the progressive process of operation of the predesigned strategic plans. Futuristic Core Management Skills; Strategy, Diversity and Technology Organizations of the future years will largely have to address the issues related to the concerns about environmental safety. Therefore the managers of the future workforce will intensively face the questions about their capacity to tackle the worries and convince the authorities and customers that their business deals a fair show with the nature of their management style relying on the principles and policies protecting the environment. Hence, it will be a mounting pressure on the future managers to design strategic plans with the diverse workforce to ensure the management practices coupled with measures to safeguard the environmental balance (Sustaining Our Common Future, p.460-463). The future HR practices will largely depend on the strategic norms related to the bifurcated responses to crisis management and issue resolution. As such, the early identification of the issues and crises will be an increasing requirement for the future leaders (Jaques, 2012, pp. 38-39). This identifications will enable the future managers to take decisions proactively and implement strategic plans for negotiating with the overall workforce tendencies with immediate actions. However, according to Becker et al., the basic recommendations for the strategic managers are about the accurate fiscal predictions they should make about the changing workforce environment. As a study suggests, the strategic changes will take immediate movements for the prospective strategic objectives which requires the managers to allocate and spend immediate funding for the strategic gains which are distinctively remote and imprecise whose timeframe will extend to the future course of the organization (p.34). The doubtless emphasize on the prevalence of a multi-cultural and globally dispersed workforce environment will be the guiding tool for the future managers to address the global strategic challenges before the concept of diversity management. The concept of diversity management will work as a strategic partner to the organizations in the coming years because of the changes that direct the global employment market towards a culture of diversity and inclusion, which allows the extended involvement of the employees in the strategic processes of the employer organizations. The success of diversity management depends on the level of cultural tolerance employed in the organization. Particularly in industries like hospitality and healthcare, in which the end-users come in direct contact with the floor-level service providers, the role of cultural diversity is an important one in the transition process coupled with customer satisfaction. According to Korjala (2012), diversity culture is increasingly becoming one of the most important intangible assets of the organizations for the fact that it joins together people from different societies and traditions and can eliminate the secluded perceptions of individual stake holders by ensuring the protection of their values and beliefs in an organizational manner (pp.9,10). From the light of this assumption, it becomes clear that the leaders’ skills to convert his knowledge about the cultural values of the diverse workforce only can benefit him in the long term strategic management process. Besides these abstract potentials of strategic skills and cultural tolerance which are basic requirements for the futuristic workforce management practices, the imminent need for adapting to changing technological environment will sweep the sleep out of future leaders. As the technology is rapidly developing new software applications for HR management practices and operational management, the future leaders will find their positions challenged by the need for updating their technological skills from various perspectives. According to the finding of Mucherji and Dhar (2009), the contemporary skill improvement in information and computer technology coupled with improved levels of computer self-efficacy will bring a positive effect in the overall employability of the individuals with regards to use of software and internet lessons associated with their profession (pp.96-98). This computer self-efficacy can improve the leader’s performance accuracy and competency in designing an error –free and provident strategic management pattern. The future years of the HR practices will completely depend on the computerization of all managerial tools and strategic aspects associated with the functions like communication, performance appraisals, process reporting etc with a view to creating a fast-track and cost-effective administrative configuration. The managers will, therefore, have to ensure that they protect the security of the information amidst the multiple challenges of hacking, snooping and data theft and damages due to software plagiarisms in the communication process. In order to eliminate the intense technological challenges, the future managers will have to improve their computer knowledge. Being self-aware of the technical capabilities will enable the managers to perform better at demanding situations. Particularly, the knowledge about computer technology will enhance the self-efficacy of the leaders who can address the recurrent technical challenges effectively without the delay occurring in acquiring expert consultancy. Conclusion The trend of fast-track journey on the HR practices has already hit the global business environment. The managers of international business organizations are working hard to replace the conventional beliefs about the human capital management and started relying on the strategic thinking coupled with high-end technological devices to bring unique identity and sustainability to their workforce. Workforce diversity and intensification of computerized administration will be the most apparent features of the future management trends. Predictably, the distributive and dispersed workforces will constitute the largest proportion of the employment sector globally. The increasing demand for a consistent and diversely skilled workforce to work across the spectrums of diverse culture and tech-driven employment market will pose potential challenges before the future HR managers. The best remedial preparations for them are updating computer knowledge and adopting the essence of cultural values of the diverse workforce. References Becker, B. E., Huselid, M. A & Beatty, R. W. (2009). The Differentiated Workforce: Transforming Talent Into Strategic Impact. Harvard Business Press. The future of work A journey to 2022. Pwc. Retrieved from http://www.pwc.com/en_GX/gx/managing-tomorrows-people/future-of-work/assets/pdf/future-of-work-report-v23.pdf Godar, S. H & Ferris, P. (2004). Virtual and collaborative teams: Process, technologies, and practice. UK: Idea Group Publishing. Mayhew, R. (n.d.). Contemporary Issues Faced by Human Resource Managers Today. Small Business. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/contemporary-issues-faced-human-resource-managers-today-1875.html Not-For-Profit Future Workforce - Issues Paper. ABS, Australian National Accounts: Non-Profit Institutions Satellite Account, 2006-2007. Retrieved from http://www.awpa.gov.au/our-work/Workforce%20development/national-workforce-development-strategy/2013-workforce-development-strategy/Documents/2013%20Future%20Focus%20Stakeholder%20Submissions/Not-For-Profit%20Sector%20Reform%20Council.pdf Jaques, T. (2012). Is issue management evolving or progressing towards extinction? Public Communication Review, 2 (1), 35-44. Korjala, V. (2012). Cultural diversity in hospitality management: – How to improve cultural diversity workforce. Bachelors thesis Degree Programme In Hospitality Management Hospitality Management. Retrieved from http://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/55331/Korjala_Veera.pdf Muncherji, N & Dhar, U. (2009). Creating Wealth Through Strategic Hr And Entrepreneurship. Excel Books India. Singh, B & Dhawan, S. (2013). Challenges Faced by H R Managers in the Contemporary Business Atmosphere. IJMBS 3, (2), 90-92. Srivastava, E & Agarwa, N. (2012). The Emerging Challenges in HRM. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, 1 (6), 46-47. Sustaining Our Common Future. Chapter 10 From the Periphery to the Core of Decision Making – Options for Action. Retrieved from http://www.unep.org/geo/geo4/report/10_Placing_Environment_at_the_Core.pdf Ware, J & Grantham, C. (2010). Managing a Remote Workforce: Proven Practices from Successful Leaders. The Work Design Collaborative, LLC. Retrieved from http://thefutureofwork.net/assets/Managing_a_Remote_Workforce_Proven_Practices_from_Successful_Leaders.pdf Read More