Emerging Human Resource Challenges in Meeting the Diverse Contemporary Workforce - Essay Example

Emerging Human Resource Challenges in Meeting the Diverse Contemporary Workforce Author Author Affiliation Introduction Human resource is one of the fields that are very dynamic. The work of human resource managers includes planning, directing, organizing, controlling, development, compensation, recruitment and management of talent among others at the organizational level. The concept of war of talent first coined in 1998 by McKinsey and company stipulates that there is competition between most of the organizations if not all to capture skilled employees amidst the short supply that is available in the market (Srivastava & Agarwal, 2012). Most organizations are striving to be employee of choice in order to win the war of talent over their competitors (Srivastava & Agarwal, 2012). There are emerging challenges that affect the human resource practitioners especially in meeting the diversified need of the contemporary work force (Bratton & Gold, 2012). Some of the challenges include work force diversity, parental leave, outsourcing, aging workforce, talent management, and technological challenges (Srivastava & Agarwal, 2012). This paper looks into the challenges that are faced by human resource managers when handling contemporary workforce that is also dynamic in terms of their needs. The scope of this paper however will be outsourcing, workforce diversity and globalization. Outsourcing The concept of outsourcing is not a new one in the field of HRM, it refers to the process where a firm gets external service provider to take accountability over all the HR functions on its behalf (Smith, 2006). Most organizations have turned to outsourcing as the only way to deal with the employee requirement capacities in the highly globalized business world (Srivastava & Agarwal, 2012). The process itself confers some advantage over the business or organization. This include saving on costs, time and resources that otherwise would have been used in recruitment while at the same time fulfilling the long-term goals of the growing businesses (Saxena & Bharadwaj, 2009). In spite of the mentioned benefits, there are also associated challenges that come along with the process itself (Srivastava & Agarwal, 2012). At its worst, if not well dealt with the yet to be mentioned challenges may negatively impact the business leading to its poor image and negative publicity other than being the employee of choice amongst its peers. First off, there is the challenge of defining the scope of services offered. The HR department must ensure that there is a comprehensive map of the internal processes that would be transferred (Saxena & Bharadwaj, 2009). This could include the payroll and special payments, pension administration, benefits, performance evaluation, transfers and relocations among others (Smith, 2006). Defining the few aforementioned and other processes might be very difficult to agree on between the outsourcing company and the service provider (Smith, 2006). There is also the challenge of service pricing. The HR has to agree on the best pricing model to institute, construct a benchmarking process as well as identifying the baseline cost of the processes to be transferred. Outsourcing may lead to poor performance; to evade this HR department has to identify the logistics so as to capture business drivers at a saved cost (Srivastava & Agarwal, 2012). The Hr managers are faced with the challenge of facilitating transition of the workers. The outsourced workers that are onsite in the outsourcing firm’s facilities may effectively perform. However, the socialization process may be very hard for such employees due to different cultures. The Hr department must ensure that there is parallel, sequential or phased transition for the outsourced employee so that they are in the end integrated into the organization (Saxena & Bharadwaj, 2009). The other HR function which can be viewed as a challenge is the management of change that is aimed at helping the organization to adjust to outsourcing. The core employees in the client organization may not act well in the presence of the outsourced workforce. The management must evaluate the risks and mitigate them effectively for amicable coexistence between the core employees and their outsourced counterparts (Smith, 2006). The other challenge is governance (Saxena & Bharadwaj, 2009: Smith, 2006). The management has to come up with a clear strategy on how to manage the performance of both the core and outsourced employees (Saxena & Bharadwaj, 2009). This should include the process of overseeing the turnover reduction of the outsourced workforce (Saxena & Bharadwaj, 2009). Workforce Diversity Globalization has given rise to many issues within the human resource management paradigm. Workforce diversity is one of such challenges that are often experienced by contemporary HR practitioners. Workforce diversity simply refers to differences or similarities that exist amongst the workforce or employees in terms of demographics such as gender, age, ethnicity, tribe, race, physical attributes and characteristics, mental capabilities, and sexual orientation. In itself diversity often refers to difference. In the context of human resource management there are different regards in the sense of the aforementioned demographics. In the setting education, skill level, and other forms of segregations have been used to describe the difference. With most companies going global and the rise of multinational corporations, most organizations have seen the need of diversifying their employees. This is majorly based on the difference in needs and interest of the workforce. There are associated challenges that come along with the diversification process. First off, the level of competition amongst the workers will be reduced. There are those groups of individuals who will see themselves as minority even in the phase of diversification. As such the disadvantaged groups will not favorably compete for available opportunities in the organization. In the event that these disadvantaged groups seek advancement there is a challenge especially if the position they require needs a lot more than they are able to handle. The other challenge is retention by the organization. Different individuals have different job satisfaction levels and definitions. The minorities and women for example usually have low levels of job satisfaction (Bratton & Gold, 2012). When this is the case the HR practitioners are tinged with a hard task of deciding to retain such persons in the organization. It is a known fact that when people come from various backgrounds they come in with different beliefs, capabilities and even negative characters, this could be the source of feuds in the organization especially when a given group or individual feels that their personal space or belief system has been overstepped (Bratton & Gold, 2012). This usually results in chaos and conflict within the organization and could lead to poor performance of duties. The interpersonal relationship between the workers will be difficult to develop and may take time to integrate (Bratton & Gold, 2012). To its worst when interpersonal friction takes root in the organization there might be the segregation amongst the employees leading to formation of camps that engage in organizational politics. The HR managers are faced with the challenge of diversifying the workforce yet taking care of this challenge. When the workforce is diversified there might be resentment and resistance in the workforce. Women and other minority groups usually find it hard to cope well with the long established corporate culture. Additionally, a diversified workforce means drawing people from different organizational cultures, thereby meaning that they will resist the change so as to survive. When there is diversified workforce, there is also choice between who to employ and what ratio to maintain this often means that the management has to sometimes breach the equal employment opportunity principle. Talent Management Most organizations that are globalizing are faced with the challenge of talent management. There are many challenges that HR departments face when they embrace talent management as a method of winning the war of talent and becoming the employer of choice (Erickson, 2008). First off, attracting and retaining enough employees at all levels in the organizational needs (Bratton & Gold, 2012). Failure to take into considerations of being the employer of choice, most organizations are facing talent crunch. The organizations must also create value proposition that appeals to a larger talent pool; multiple generations (Erickson, 2008). The HR practitioners must make sure that all structures and resources are in place so as to take care of all the four generations at the workplace. The organizations must create a culture and employee experience that appeals to diversified workforce. For instance stores have more of generation Y while the corporate institutions attract most baby boomers and the generation x (Erickson, 2008). The task ahead of HR managers is to come up with a clear strategy on how to attract them. The management must also ensure there is a good succession planning so as to ensure that the leadership pipeline is well maintained (Erickson, 2008). Selecting a good leader from the robust talent pool is tricky for HR practitioners. When recruiting individuals it is also hard for the HR practitioners to determine the leadership, business orientation, and global leadership capabilities. Hitherto it is difficult to develop a broad skill set from the talent pool (Erickson, 2008). There is also the retirement of the old workforce that impacts the talent management. Most organizations are faced with the challenge of managing the transfer of skills and knowledge to the new workforce (Erickson, 2008). The other challenge is management must redesign their talent management practices to take care of the generation Y population (Erickson, 2008). Lastly, the HR practitioners are faced with the challenge of doing away with the norm of short tenure in the organization so as to be an employer of choice and be the employer of choice (Erickson, 2008). Conclusion The dynamic human resource management field has its own associated challenges. The challenges are being faced due to the different contemporary workforce needs, legislation, technological advancements, globalization, and business ethics. Workforce diversity, talent management and outsourcing are some of the concepts that have sufficed in the context of human resource management and come not only to be advantageous to the organization but also as challenges to the HR practitioners. The good thing is that there are preventive measures that can be taken to eradicator manage the aforementioned challenges. Most importantly, these measures are beyond the scope of this paper. The organizations must be well aware of the challenges prior to embracing the above stated and explored tenets in the HRM domain. References Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2012). Human resource management: Theory and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Erickson, T. (2008, January 20). Today's Top 10 Talent-Management Challenges - Businessweek. Retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2008-06-20/todays-top-10-talent-management-challengesbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice Saxena, K. B., & Bharadwaj, S. S. (2009). Business process outsourcing: For strategic advantage. New Delhi: Excel Books. Smith, A. (2006, January 4). Key Issues in HR Outsourcing - Employment and HR - United States. Retrieved from http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/36978/Outsourcing/Key+Issues+in+HR+Outsourcing Srivastava, E. & Agarwal, N. (2012). The Emerging Challenges in HRM. International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research, 1(6), 46-48. Read More