The HR Manager's Role - Report Example

Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction 02 2.0 Common Pitfalls in Human Resource Planning 03 3.0 Reasons for Ineffective HR Planning 05 4.0 Managerial Implications of Poor Human Resource Planning 08 5.0 Best Practices and Current Challenges in HR Planning 10 6.0 Conclusion 13 7.0 References 15 Introduction This report has been designed to provide readers with an in-depth analysis of the understanding the HR manager’s role in the current dynamic global industry scenario. The report provides an understanding of how the role of HR manager has changes and continues to change by applying relevant and apparent industry examples for a better understanding of the topic under study. The report initially focuses on the common pitfalls in human resource planning along with an in-depth understanding of the major reasons for ineffective human resource planning. The report than highlights the managerial implications of poor human resource planning and focus on the best practices and current challenges in human resource planning with apparent and appropriate examples to ensure a better understanding of the topic. Finally a conclusion is provided to ensure that both theoretical and practical understanding of the topic under study is reflected in the complete report. 2.0 Common Pitfalls in Human Resource Planning Employee or human resource is the main element or factor in any modern organization which decides the success or failure of an organization in both long and short run of the business. Dealing with critical issues while handling human resource can be regarded as an important element in the successful human resource planning. Human resources mistakes made while evaluating a human resource planning can come back seriously to haunt employers and ultimately bring detrimental consequences to the company. Let us now have a look at the common pitfalls in the human resource planning to understand the topic in a better manner. Lack of Employee Handbook: Any organization be it small or large must ensure to have an employee handbook as its foremost priority. It is important to have a written list of Do’s and Don’ts failing to which shall definitely invite troubles in the long run sustainability of the business (Alfansi & Sargeant, 2000). Further HR team should ensure that the human resource handbook is updated on regularly yearly basis and all employees should have a written document signed of their compliance that they have received and understood the publication. Hasty Hires and Hazy Job Descriptions: Human Resource planning is critical as poor employee selection and hiring process can eventually lead to huge problems for the organization. It is important to understand before hiring to find out exactly what the company is hiring (Alfansi & Sargeant, 2000). Hazy job descriptions and hasty hires are the common pitfalls of human resource planning which have a long term impact on the business. Defining accurate job description and hiring suitable candidates in an unbiased nature are important criteria for effective human resource planning. Employment Compliance Ignorance: The HR in many cases fails to understand the employment compliance and related laws and regulations of employment. It is important for the HR manager to ensure guidelines of OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) are complied. Prevention is the key here as managers need to clearly identify what regulatory agencies govern the industry and laws that must be followed (Alfansi & Sargeant, 2000). Over-Adjusting Individual Employee Compensation: It has been largely witnessed that organizations many times over reward their employees on a yearly basis and end off compensating employees outside their salary range. This not just has a direct impact on the productivity of the employee whose salary is over rewarded but acts a de-motivational factor for others who fell a sense of biasness in the organization. Improper Compensating the New Hires: When hiring a new employee what the company pays them set a tone for long term satisfaction or dissatisfaction in context to their compensation (Alfansi & Sargeant, 2000). It has been commonly found that organizations either ends up notably under or over paying their new employees which attracts a risk of losing good talent or creating a portfolio of employees who receive more than what they should actually earn. Making Internal Moves without Evaluating Market Compensation Rates: Organizations in relation to accelerate implementation of a strategy mostly makes an internal move within their organization without actually considering the market compensation rates (Alfansi & Sargeant, 2000). It is important for organizations to ensure that the different roles assigned to different employees are based on the compensation rate of what the pay should be than making an arbitrary move. Not Knowing Your Competitors: Maintaining salary and benefits up to industry standards is a crucial element in effective human resource planning. Sub-par compensations can lead to loss of effective talents for any organization. Organizations usually fail to make a competitor compensation analysis which ultimately leads to an employee being over or under paid (Kuo, 2004). Lack of Employee Record keeping: Standard operating procedures and written policies are the crucial elements that setups boundaries for employee conduct. In case of any violation or misconduct by an employee the same should be correctly documented (Stavrou-Costea, 2005). Organizations usually fails to ensure the same and consider the same as waste of time however documenting the same acts an important evidence that supports the decision of terminating an individual on account of his poor performance. Thus, we see that there a lot of common pitfalls in human resource planning, however it should be noted that the above is just an illustrative list and not an exhaustive list. 3.0 Reasons for Ineffective HR Planning Having looked at the common pitfalls of Human Resources Planning there are many reasons which contribute to ineffectiveness of Human Resource Planning and prove to attract detrimental consequences for the long term sustainability and success of the business and the organization as a whole. Let us have a look at the same. Monetary Issues: Monetary factors play an important role in many strategic decisions of a business and Human Resource Planning is no exception to the same. Organizations with limited cash flows or reluctant to spend appropriately on their compensation structure are often guilty of ineffective staff utilization and ineffective HR planning. Money underlines effective HR Planning when the business attempts to reduce the number of employee working hours or paying overtime for its existing employees (Guthrie, 2001). Additionally when organizations tend to pay less compensation than the industry standards and norms and competitors pay they land of losing important talents and hiring a bad choice of employees. Mismanagement: Un-wise hiring decisions have a direct impact on the effectiveness of human resource planning. Managers lacking the concept of workforce planning usually fail to match the correct skills and qualifications to the right job description and end up configuring organizations with a pool of uncapable employees (Jackson & Schuler, 2000). Managers who on a continue basis identify prospective employees based on functionality and professional expertise are better in judging and recruiting the right candidate for a specific job role and its specifications. Poor Delegation: One of the major reasons for ineffective human resource planning is inappropriate delegation of work among its existing workforce. Delegation of work based on job role and description determines the range of success or failure of an organization (Lee, Feng-Hui, & Lee, Fzai-Zang 2007). Under utilization and over burden of work with inappropriate delegation of work both works against the company and results ineffective human resource planning. Selection: Accurate and proper job description plays an essential role in the recruitment and selection of a desired candidate. Failing to righty describe the job description at the very initial step of recruitment process attracts a set of employees who are incapable of performing their real tasks in the organization for which the same had been recruited and ultimately leads to ineffectiveness of human resource planning in the longer run of the business. Ineffective Link to Reward System: Human Resource Planning in an organization may prove ineffective due to lack of ability of managers and superiors to correctly link the performance of employees to a reward system. Employees when poorly rated in biased or ignorant nature of their managers gets de-motivated and search for better jobs to meet their skills and capabilities and correct compensation and rewards. This lead to losing of precious talents for the organizations and an opportunity for rivals to attract the desired candidate which has a direct impact on the overall functioning of the business. Lack of Accountability: Unlike other important functions of management, human resources to need to be accountable in their work assigned. The human resource planning lacks effectiveness in cases where strategies are drawn and implemented without actually reviewing the performance with the set targets and holding persons accountable for the task assigned. Lack of Motivation: Motivation is an important tool in ensuring desired results and high productivity. Managers when lacks power to motivate its employees leads to ineffectiveness of the human resource planning as unmotivated employees lacks the desire to work with enthusiasm and bring extraordinary results for the business and organization as a whole. Thus we see there are lot of factors which contribute the ineffectiveness of human resource planning and which not just have an impact on the employee performance and productivity but has a direct impact on the overall success and failure of an organization. 4.0 Managerial Implications of Poor Human Resource Planning Human resources are the key elements in any organization as they eventually help an organization to differentiate an organization from others and help in gaining a competitive edge over its rivals by ensuring high productivity, superior performance and outstanding results. Properly managing the human resource not just helps organizations to achieve the best results but also helps to prevent problems which could seriously damage or even lead to a complete shutdown of the business. Let us now have a look at the impact of managerial implications on the poor human resource planning and its subsequent consequences as a result of the same. Planning and Staffing: Ensuring right people at the right job and right place and time requires potential managerial ability and skills. A failure of the same by management and managers causes a delay in finding the appropriate candidate for suitable position which makes both productivity and morale suffers and ultimately financial losses for the company. Leveraging Technology: Recruiting correct employees with top talent is just a part of the picture the real efforts and managerial implications lies in turning the human resources into profit centers which requires use of correct technology and ability and skills of managers. Planning pitfalls mostly occur when managers fail to use technology in recruiting, forecasting, efficiency and trending desired models. Managers must ensure that technology is properly utilized to ensure an effective workforce planning. Change and Engagement Issues: Managing change is a significant challenge for managers. There exists a direct relationship between success and change management. Managers who fail to ensure a pre-planned and careful crafted communication strategy leads to a morale decline among the employees who feels confused, frustrated and sometimes betrayed. When the news of disgruntled employees reaches the street companies tends to lose the most valuable assets in form of human resources to their rivals and counterparts. Due Diligence: Managers must adhere to due diligence to ensure long term sustainability of the business. Minimizing risk is an important managerial implication which when fails in context to human resource planning leads to noncompliance of mandatory rules and regulations and the consequences involve not just financial loses but also public relation exposures. Unproductive Staff: The biggest loss to an organization in terms of managerial implication for poor human resource planning is the problem of unproductive staff in the workforce. Employees as a result of the same are often found disgruntled and de-motivated which has a direct impact on the productivity, effectiveness and efficiency of the day-today running of the business. Deviations for Organizational Goals: Managers who fail to effectively plan their human resources often end up giving priorities to short term and individual goals than focusing on the longer perspective and organizational goal (Alexander & Colgate, 2000). There is a complete mismatch of individual goals with organizational goal which has both qualitative and quantitative implications on the company and its business. Disorganization: Poor Human Resource Planning has a serious affect on the organizational status and structure. Nothing from record keeping to responses to customer feedbacks are in organized, systematic and prompt manner which affects the reputation of the company and attracts financial losses (Cheah-Liaw, Petzall & Selvarajah, 2003). Utilization of Human Resource: Managers are seriously responsible to ensure maximal utilization of all available resources of which human resource play an important role. Poor management as a simple principle fails to efficiently utilize the human resources as there is no job description or job clarity. The performance management and management criteria are subjective and talents invariably go unrewarded while incompetents climb up the success ladder. Thus the above paragraphs clearly highlight the managerial implications of poor HR planning which has a deep impact on the productivity and overall performance of the business. 5.0 Best Practices and Current Challenges in HR planning Human resource planning undergoes a continuous change which is as a result of changing environment in which it operates. The manager has to continue make a complete environmental scanning and ensure that best practices and challenges are met with utmost care. Let us have a look at some of the best HR practices and challenges in HR planning with appropriate examples from the industry to understand the topic in a comprehensive manner. Acquisition of Employees Role: One of the best practices and challenges for Human Resource Planning is to ensure acquisition of employee role. With rising global economy and economic challenges such as terrorist attacks has continuously affected organizations in their recruitment and selection strategies. It is important therefore to ensure no unfair treatment of its employees during recruitment and selection process and making a complete screening of the external environment for right selection of the candidate. For example, McDonald’s employ people from different backgrounds and different part of the globe to ensure fair recruitment strategy and infuse best global talents. Determining Demand and Supply of Labour: Organizations who tend to make a correct estimate of the demand and supply of labour force gains a competitive edge in today’s dynamic environment. For example, Virgin Media recently made a cut in its workforce planning by 2200 jobs in 2012 which proved fruitful to correctly delegate roles and responsibilities among the existing employees and gain maximal utilization of available human resources. However, looking at the other side the same acts a challenging task for many organizations which is over-flooded with human resources or under rated with huge pressure on its working employees. Training and Development: Best organizations are those who are able to train to and develop their employees on a constant basis to ensure change management. Organizations who practice this approach often turn out leaders in their industry (Schuler & Jackson, 2000). For example, The manager of Morrison branch in Stoke Newington mentioned that it is because of training and development of its Human Resources which helped it to achieve best seller branch of Morrison in 2008 as employees acquired latest knowledge and skills in performing their task. Another example is Nissan Motors offer training programs to their employees and the suppliers of car accessories and parts to ensure an increase in efficiency and meet quality standards. Training and development is a challenge for human resource as well as often employees resist to change and indulge in strikes, lock-outs etc as they feel that the same is a threat to their job security than enrichment of their knowledge and skills. Organizational Behavior and Theory: Current economic conditions has led a turbulence in predicting the behavior of organizations in different situations which has led to Organizational Behavior being an integral part of Human Resource Planning in which HR needs to on a continuous basis evaluate the needs and wants of employees in relation to any existing or new policy and ensure how an existing or new policy may impact the behavior of the employees as the same acts as an important determinant for long term sustainability of the business (Chew, 2005). For example, HR department in Argos Stores have realized the importance of Organizational Behavior and has developed strategies which focus on providing appropriate seminars within the organization and enable its employees to learn for prepare themselves from any restructuring or future changes. Staffing: Staffing is both a challenge and unique practice employed by HR. Organizations who fail to ensure an effective recruitment planning fails to end up hiring wrong candidates which has long term cost obligations for the company (Ahmad & Schroeder, 2003). Whereas organizations who develop a complete descriptive plan with correct job description and job analysis and then screens a lot of candidates to select the most suitable candidate is often the winner and ensure growth and success of the company. For example, companies like Amazon and Starbucks, develop a pre-planned budget based on competitor and market analysis and allocate requisite funds to ensure the best talent is met with fair compensation and is a part of their workforce and not competitors. Performance Appraisal: Performance Appraisal not just provides basis for pay and compensation but to take disciplinary against the employees to ensure performance management. Organizations face a challenging task in maintaining the same due to biased nature of the superiors along with threat to their positions (Chang & Chen, 2002). Organizations which have a well developed performance appraisal system tend to be more effective and efficient in ensuring success of the human resource planning. Organizations which practice an unbiased and effective appraisal system are able to keep their employees motivated and ensure higher productivity. For example, Ford has a long term problem of appraisal system and introduced an employee evaluation system to weed out the old workers. The same affected over 18000 employees of Ford in different grades and was criticized to be discriminated on basis of race, gender and age. It is to be noted that there are many other such challenges and best practices like ensuring a career development plan for its existing and new employees, maintaining labour relations, ensuring a record keeping of all its employees and their performance, achieving cost leadership in their techniques etc which are both challenge and best practices for some organizations whereas an advantage to the other. 6.0 Conclusion This report has been drafted by making an in-depth analysis of human resource planning. The report presents the common pitfalls in human resource planning which is one of the major causes for ineffective human resource planning. Further various other factors contributing to ineffective human resource planning has been explained in detail. Managerial implications of poor human resource planning highlight how an organization suffers from ineffective planning and attracts detrimental consequences for the business. Finally looking at the dynamic nature of business environment the current challenges and best practices of human resource planning has been explained in detail with appropriate examples from various industries to ensure readers are equipped with both theoretical and practical knowledge of the entire topic under study. 7.0 References Ahmad, S., & Schroeder, R.G. (2003). The impact of human resource management practices on operational performance: recognizing country and industry differences. Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 19. Alexander, N. & Colgate, M. (2000). Retail financial services: transaction to relationship marketing. European Journal of Marketing, 34 (8), 938-953. Alfansi, L. & Sargeant, A. (2000). Marketing segmentation in the Indonesian banking sector: the relationship between demographics and desired customer benefits. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 18 (2), 64-74. Chang, P.L., & Chen, W.L. (2002). The effect of human resource practices on firm performance: empirical evidence from high-tech firms in Taiwan. International Journal of Management, 19(4), 622. Cheah-Liaw, G., Petzall, S. & Selvarajah, C. (2003). “The role of human resource management (HRM) in Australian-Malaysian joint ventures. Journal of European Industrial Training, 27(.5), 244 – 262. Chew, Y. T. (2005). Achieving Organisational Prosperity through Employee Motivation and Retention: A Comparative Study of Strategic HRM Practices in Malaysian Institutions. Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 13(2), 87-104. Guthrie, J. (2001). High-involvement work practices, turnover and productivity: evidence from New Zealand. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 180-192. Jackson, S. E. & Schuler, R. S. (2000). Managing Human Resources, A Partnership Perspective, Southern-Western College Publishing, London. Kuo, H.P. (2004). The relationship between Human Resource Management practices, employee commitment, and operational performance in the healthcare institutions, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, Taiwan. Lee, Feng-Hui, & Lee, Fzai-Zang. (2007). The relationships between HRM practices, Leadership style, competitive strategy and business performance in Taiwanese steel industry, Proceedings of the 13th Asia Pacific Management Conference, Melbourne, Australia, 2007, 953-971. Schuler, S. R. & Jackson, E. S. (2000). Managing Human Resources: A Partnership Perspective, South-Western College Publishing, Cincinnati, OH. Stavrou-Costea, E. (2005). The challenges of human resource management towards organizational effectiveness”. Journal of European Industrial Training, 29(2), 112 – 134. Read More