Human Resources Management and Teamwork - Essay Example

Student Name> Human resources management- teamwork Human Resource Management is a strategic and consistent approach to the management of an organization’s most precious asset, which is the people working in that organization and providing their services and Human Resource Management provides the techniques to manipulate people in an organization. Human Resource Management is a business practice and is a collection of practical techniques of managing the workforce of the organization, and it also improves the quality of work. The Human Resources Management (HRM) function includes a number of activities, and the most important among them is to decide what kind of employees do you need to have and do you need to have employees on contract base or hire them temporarily to fill these needs, recruiting and then training them to the standard of your organization. The best employees in the organization, making sure that they are best in their fields, dealing with their work issues, and then on the basis of which you prepare your personnel and management practices on various regulations. The activities of HRM manager also include managing their approach to the benefits of their workers and also to compensate, whatever is needed, for example employee records and personnel policies. Usually small and medium businesses have to carry out these actions themselves because they can't yet afford to have a Human Resource Manager for this purpose. But, they should always make sure that employees are aware of the policies of the organization. These policies are provided to each and every employee and they are bound to obey them. A modern technique of managing the workforce in an organization is teamwork. The results of teamwork are legendary and famous, for example the popular success of 1989 launch of the Land Rover Discovery, which was produced in only 27 months period, which is estimated half of the time needed for any typical British car. Tony Gilroy, the founder of the Discovery, was overwhelmed with this success that he applied the same technique of teamwork in his new job, which was of Perkins Engines, where almost nine hundred project teams were busily working on different jobs in 1994. This shows the significance of teamwork and a concept of self-managed teamwork is an old phenomenon, which affects the performance of the organization and is profitable as well. Teams are mostly self-managed, and multi-disciplinary, they are cross-functional and are successful in most of the organization’s work. The team members are asset of the organization because they are not only working for the organization’s benefit but also are loyal to their team members and work. According to the study conducted by the researchers of New Zealand’s Victoria University, in 2004, venting with co-workers and using “colorful” language was actually good emotional release and a way to build bond between team members.1 This is another side of the teamwork and team members, the time which they spend together allows them to have special relationship which is stronger than their relationship with other employees of the organization. So it is important for the employer to keep a close eye on the team members and their work. Too much association and friendship among the team members is not a good sign for the employer. The teams are made to produce the positive results and they are meant to provide the benefits and profits to the organization, so that the work could be done in a better environment. When working in team, the team members are in contact with each other and also with the customer. Their identification with customer works positively for the organization and their contacts and relations are good for the business of the organization, this is the reason that the companies encourage group work and they allow their employees to communicate with the customers. In a business, where customers are in direct contact with the team members, suppose the salesmen are directly in contact with their customers. We can take an example of a store, where customers are regularly interacting with the salesmen and they are used to almost the entire salesman in the store. They know their names and are familiar with everyone’s way of working. They come in the store and like to shop with the salesman of their own choice, as with the passage of time, the customer get used to a single salesman and like to interact with him or her. This is a good point for the organization because the customer feels comfortable with the salesman of the organization and they like shopping there because of the reason. And another point in it is that the customers’ will not going to change their shopping place because they are identified with the employees of the organization. This identification works in a positive way, as the customer becomes their permanent customer and may be that he will recommend few of his or her friends to come in the same store for shopping. This shows that the identification between the customer and the team or an employee of the organization is positive. But the second point here is that the too close an identification with the customer may lead to individual pursuing customer needs, which is detrimental or may be harmful for the organization. The customer will come just because of one of the employee and employee may develop friendship with the customer, which may result in something not-so-good for the organizations prospective. Too much identification with the customer may lead the team member to reveal some secrets of the organization to the customer and he might say something, which is actually in against of the organization. So this positive identification has a negative point in it and employer should make sure that this kind of situation should not occur in his organization. What if that particular employee leaves the job and goes somewhere else? Will that customer come back to the organization or will he going to leave that organization and will start going to the other one? So, thinking on these lines, it becomes clear that the too much identification with the customer is not so much positive for the organization and rather it is negative in some ways. Employees should be encouraged to work with different customers and so are the customers, because this will definitely help more for the organization in a longer run. If we see the same situation in a team members background that a particular team in an organization is very much identified with the customer then it is positive in a good way but is negative in a wider way. If a team identifies a customer in a way that the customer is very much comfortable with the team and their first priority is to work with the particular team instead of working with some one else in the organization, then it is indeed something positive for the company, because this shows that the customer is a permanent customer of the organization and like to work with only their team and will not go to any other organization unless and until that particular team is present in their organization. This develops a trust relationship between the customer and the team members and this mutual trust leads them to success. It is good for the organization and also for the customer. But the point here is that what if the particular team leaves the organization? And the organization will not only loose the team but also the customers. So the better approach here is the same which is discussed above that the customers should be encouraged to work with different teams and they should be introduced to the policies of the organization so that they can figure it out that all the teams in the organization actually works on the same principles and rules. And even if they will go to change the team, the quality of work will not going to change for them and it will remain same. The organization should strongly emphasize on their policies and should make sure that their customers get the equal quality of work from each team and the team members should be keep on changing after some particular time period. It will not only improve the work quality but will also improve the work environment of the organization. All the members of their work force will get chance to work with others and hence this will improve their exposure and knowledge, and will broaden their view as well. Each team in an organization has four or five vital actions supporting their priorities. Their priorities and aims cascades down through all departments to the individual employees, and they all know what their objective is and for what are they all striving for. The all know what they want to achieve and what will lead them to success. And the benefit of the team is that all the members know their part, which is divided in them by their team leader. And this creates a relationship of mutual understanding among all the members and this understanding is a key to their success. This is the benefit of the teamwork to the organization and also to the employees; they all know that their team members will support them in different ways. They work on different projects together and this increase their experience of working with the same members. This is indeed something good for the employees, but not so good in an organization’s interest. The manager should keep on changing and shuffling the members of different teams so that they should get chance to work with different people and in different team environments. This will indeed increase the efficiency of the organization and will also affect their customers, as the customers will not rely on any particular employee or the team but they will look for the quality work of the organization. If the teams in the organization remain same for quiet some time, then there is a chance that all the team members will be make a kind of a group. And these kinds of groups are not so good in an organization; they usually put negative affects on the environment of an organization and also distract the employees. If a team member leaves the organization, it will affect the other team members, and their performance will not remain same because of the reason. The customers who always do business with that particular employee will also rethink their decision of working with the organization. They might think of moving on to another organization. It will damage the reputation of the organization and also their business. To avoid this kind of situation, organization must take proper measures from the beginning. They should not make their organization ruled by their employees but the organization should run on the policy and rules. Policies and rules are independent of people and it never affects the organization, which is running on policies and rules, if an employee or team leaves. The other point of close identification of a customer with an employee or the team is that what if the team leaves the organization and moves to another organization, it means that the customers of the first organization will also move to the next organization. This is a business loss for the organization and also the reputation of the organization will get damage. In today’s world, there is no successful alternative to teams; it plays a major role in an organization’s achievements. Fournier said once, “quality is not natural, but teamwork is” (Fournier), and it is obvious with many examples. Teamwork is a success, if we look at the example of sports, it could be seen that the team, who is more active and where the members are more cooperative, wins in the end. So teamwork is a natural behavior of mankind and the unnatural behavior is the lack and absence of teamwork. The main thing in an organization is that the managers should take care of the teams and the team members in order to avoid the situations discussed above. Forming a team is a difficult task and once the team is formed, it will sustain a high level of morale and achievement, but only when the team is formed in a balanced way. The manager should interact with each and every member of the organization and also the teams. Works Cited Derek Torrington, Randall B. Dunham. (2005). Human Resource Management: Human Resource Management with Manager's Workshop. Pearson Education, Limited Michael A. West. (2004). Effective Teamwork: Practical Lessons from Organizational Research. Blackwell Publishing Nolan C. Suresh, John M. Kay. (1989). Group Technology and Cellular Manufacturing: A State-Of-The-Art. Springer Paul C. Dins more, Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin. (2006). The AMA Handbook of Project Management. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn Read More