Understanding Human Resource Management - Assignment Example

The Running Head: Questions and Answers Your name:   Course name:             Professors’ name: Date: Q.2 Human Resource Management (HRM) HRM can be defined as a function within an organization that will focus on recruitment, management, and providing direction to employees working in the organization. In many companies these functions are under one department, and this department will deal with issues such as: compensation, organization development, employee motivation, communication, administration, management, and administration. in other words HRM can be defined as a strategic and comprehensive approach to managing employee and the workplace culture and environment in the organization. When different functions of HRM are effective in an organization, the employees in the organization are able to contribute effectively to the goals and objectives of the organization. In tradition Human resource Management (HRM) has some features of bureaucracy, and in few years ago bureaucracy was perfected and as a result of many years of trial and error evolution in many organization. Currently, bureaucracies is seen as inefficient, slow and generally bad if it is implemented in any organization, but during Weber’s time, these characteristics of bureaucracies was seen as efficient machines that was enabling an organization to accomplish its goals and objective because it promoted equality and fairness of opportunity into the organization. According to Weber, many organization are similar in HRM, each was bureaucracy, but nowadays bureaucracy is regarded as dirty word, inefficiency, and officiousness, and it was a way of subdue employees to the rule of reason-to make it possible for the organization to do business according to calculable rules. Philip Selznick (1948, 1957), criticize Max Weber theory, could not be compared to machines because human beings were involved, and people will not imitate machines. In any organization, decentralization has call for changes the way human resources are organized in organizations. In decentralized Human Resource Management (HRM) as distinct from a centrally directed model on its own have several features. First, the function of HRM will be clearly defined to employees in the organization, what is expected of the employees in the organization and managers in the organization can adapt to the objectives that are laid down to reflect what needs to be done in the organization without inefficient gaps. Second, the organization can allocate employee across functions as needed. This requires that managers in the organization have autonomy that will enable them to influence the local establishment as well as having the power to deploy different employees across different department in the organization. Through decentralization of HRM, the organization will be able to attract and retain qualified employees; also, it will be possible to build a team which is diverse in skills. This will be achieved if the organization has the capacity to offer: competitive pay, career opportunities and other incentives. Third, departments in the organization are able to be flexible in managing their resources. Fourth, the departments are able to hold employees accountable for their performance in the organization, but this will be realized if proper supervision and monitoring of employees is put in place, also if the department has the capacity to punish deficient performance through disciplinary measures or dismissals. Q7. Job Analysis aids Human Resource planning Job analysis can be defined as a systematic process of collecting and making judgments about all the important information that are related to work in the organization. Different organizations use Job analysis to evaluate their employees; hiring the right person for the job is very important to the success of any organization, this is because employing the wrong employee can be expensive- in lost time and training, even in a lawsuit, to some extent it can be very damaging to organization employee morale. Job analysis may vary in their application from one organization to another, but they share certain characteristics such as: trained group of assessors, situational tests or exercises that participant or future employee must complete, and an assessment method that involves pooling the judgments of the assessors to reach a final evaluation of each participant in the organization; these centers function as integral parts of an organization’s human resources management system. When an organization is setting up an assessment center, it must be designed with the organization in mind, and this may include: preliminary statement of organization objectives, who to be assessed, who will be involved in assessing the participants, what target positions will be analyzed. Job analysis will help in identify training and development needs of the organization, the most common usage by human resource planning. The emphasis is such that it will identify an employee who does well on the essential job performance dimensions of the organization. In salary evaluation or compensation, human resource management will estimate value and the appropriate salary to be given to their employees. For Performance appraisals, is used to make decisions such as promotion and pay determinations. It is also used to determine professional development need. Performance appraisals also help the management to identify factors at the workplace which hinder the effectiveness of employee performance. A performance appraisal system which takes into consideration all these criteria can have a great impact on the satisfaction of the workers with the motivation of workers and the appraisal process to improve performance. Regular performance appraisals are essential toward the development of effective workforce for the organization. Performance appraisal system of any organization should be in connection to the goals and objectives of the company, daily performance, professional development, rewards and incentives. Rewards and incentives need not be necessarily in monetary terms but can be in form of public recognition, opportunities to work on preferred tasks, time off or flex1-time or support for professional development. Lastly, Job analysis will also be used to plan for training in the organization, this is because the organization will be able to know what type of training is missing or lacking in the organization or the organization can plan for the future of the organization by enabling the employees in the organization to acquire the necessary skills through training. Q9a. Workforce Training It is important for any organization to improve the professional skills for their employees, this can be done when the organization can provide on- the job training or in house career development. An organization can achieve this when they allow their employment to attend workshops and seminars related to the particular industry in which the organization is operating in. Organization management should know how to manage the level of education of their employees because the level of education in the supermarket varies for the supermarket staffs. The organization should keep its employees various challenges, at same time they should provide a platform in which its staff will be able to utilize their skills which have been gained through training and education. If the highly positions are not available in the supermarket, qualified employees may leave the organization to seek employment with the supermarket competitors. Therefore the organization management should take advantage of increased skills, and this can be taken as competitive advantage for the business. Availability of skills in the organization will improve the following areas. First, there will be increase in output of products and services, second, the time per task in the organization will be reduced, third, the error rate in the organization will be reduced, fourth, Reduced Wastage in Production of Products and Services, lastly, the quality of products in the organization will be increased. Q9b. Forecasting Workforce supply People management and development is key to achieve service improvement in any company that has seen the need for future growth. A company can be able to attract, retain, develop, manage and motivate its staffs; the supermarket will have difficulties to be able to expand it grocery business or service improvement. Therefore, business expansion plan will entails the following: hire the right employees, with the right skills in the right jobs at the right time. For any company that is contemplating a workforce planning, there are a number of factors that should be considered, such factors are: changing workforce demographics, recruitment and retention, career development and organizational culture. Advertisement is important for any business expansion, the supermarket can advertise on the print media or television, although this is expensive to some extent, but the best way to let the supermarket be known is through website for supermarket potential clients to visit so they could know more about products and services the supermarket is offering, and those that it going to offer in the future. The supermarket should choose a domain name on their website that is catchy and easy to remember, but it is good to use the current business name, also, when the website is ready, the supermarket should have a monitoring team that will be in charge of updates, and responding to the inquiries of the customers. Another way is for the supermarket to its competitor, also its position in market relative to the competition. It should identify the supermarket strong areas and weak areas; if the weak areas are lack of customer services among its workers, it should therefore train its workers on public relations services. Knowing your business strong areas and weak areas is important to launch more precise attack on competitors and also the supermarket will be able to prepare stronger defenses against other competitors. Technology in the supermarket is also another strategy in which it can use, nowadays for any business technology as a strategy plays an important role too in business expansion. When the supermarket will be able to embrace any new technology, they will be able to expand their distribution reach; considerably the supermarket will grow faster and have an edge over their competitors, for example, the supermarket can employ the use of money transfer or their good can be ordered or purchased through online mechanism such as the internet or through the phone call. According to Michael Porter’s it important for the supermarket to create value for its goods and services, value chain can be used by the supermarket to identify ways in which value can be created or enhanced in the business, and this can also be compared to your competitor. The value chain here is not only how well each supermarket department perform its business, but also its involves how well various departments in the supermarket coordinate their activities, because the supermarket process is basically a value creating and value delivering process, many customers will patronize the supermarket that will offer the highest delivered value. Recruitment and retention; effective hiring and retention of workers will have an impact on the success of the supermarket, at same time the supermarket should concentrate on offering professional development to its staffs, because this is important for those employees who want to develop their careers. The supermarket management should make sure their employees possess the relevant skills needed for the business expansion. Sometimes it’s a challenge to estimate the future volume of work, but it has been noted staff with higher-level skills are able to work more efficiently than those with lesser skills in any organization. The most difficult part of business forecast will be the ability of the supermarket to recruit the right talent for the future expansion, because business forecast will depend upon economic conditions, the market and the competition for labor. The supermarket should focus on the market, its competitors selling the same type of goods or services. Changing workforce demographics will include age distribution in the supermarket. In age distribution the supermarket should consider the number of its employee nearing retirement, and if the supermarket has the necessary skills and experience to take the role of employees who are retiring. What succession plan does the supermarket have in place between the older staffs and younger staff joining the supermarket; the supermarket should find the need to gainful employ those staffs who are nearing retirement. Also, the supermarket should consider the factor of generation Y; how can the supermarket manage and create mutual benefit for this age group joining the supermarket. Works Cited Torrington, Derek and Taylor, Stephen. Human Resource Management. London: Prentice Hall Publisher, 2008. Print. Read More