Development of a Human Resource Management - Essay Example

Human Resource Management -Training One major area of personnel work of particular relevance to the effective use of human resources is training and development. Training has a major influence on the success of an organisation. In order to sustain economic and effective performance it is important to optimise the contribution of employees to the aims and goals of the organisation. It should be mentioned that the purpose of training is to improve knowledge and skills, and to change attitudes. This can lead to many potential benefits for both individuals and the organisation. Training can: increase the confidence, motivation and commitment of staff; provide recognition, enhanced responsibility, and the possibility of increased pay and promotion; give a feeling of personal satisfaction and achievement, and broaden opportunities for career progression; help to improve the availability and quality of staff (Reed, 2001). Training needs analysis is therefore a key element of improved organisational performance. It increases the level of individual and organisational competence and helps to reconcile the gap between what should happen, and desired targets and standards of performance; and what is happening and actual levels of work performance. According to Armstrong (2001): "training needs analysis is partly concerned with defining the gap between what is happanng and what should happen. However, it is necessary to avoid falling into the trap of adopting the "deficiency model" approach, which implies that training is only about putting things rights that have gone wrong" (Armstrong, 2001, p. 551-552). Training needs assessment is necessary to ensure an adequate supply of staff who are technically and socially competent, and capable of career advancement into specialist departments or management positions. There is, therefore, a continual need for the process of staff development, and training fulfils an important part of this process. Training should be viewed, therefore, as an integral part of the process of total quality management. Armstrong divides training needs assessment into three levels: corporate, group and individual level (Armstrong, 2001). A large number of organisations make some use of separate training needs analysis, although this is usually a periodic rather than a regular activity. There are many different ways of conducting such assessments, but they usually involve some form of survey, either by discussion or questionnaire, with managers. This does not automatically remove the problem of a failure to perceive the real needs, which occurs with annual appraisals (Beardwell, Holden, 2004). The same people are involved, and unless they are provoked by the approach into a different way of thinking, the probability is that their response will be the same as in the appraisal. One approach, which is somewhat broader than an assessment of training needs is to design a workshop for senior managers to work through what is needed to implement some of the strategic decisions the company has made (Reed, 2001). Part of this workshop would involve a consideration of the skills required against what they feel exists within the company. This can help managers to perceive needs which may otherwise be hidden to them, such as the many capabilities needed to manage strategic alliances, and the degree to which the managers who report to them have experience or knowledge that is relevant. Another approach is bottom-up feedback. This approach can be used in performance management processes, as a basis for personal improvement, and in order to gain a more objective view of company capabilities and areas of management weakness. They are particularly useful for measuring capabilities in management and interpersonal skills, aspects of a manager's behaviour which are experienced by others besides a manager's boss, peers and subordinates, and in some cases customers and suppliers. All the methods take readings from one or all of these groups of people, as well as requiring the manager to undertake a self-rating. One value is to close the gap between self-perception and actual behaviour. The methods can be even more useful when the behaviours measured are those which have been determined as critical for the strategic success of the organisation. In contrast to other approaches, this one enables the measurement of capability to be directly linked to strategic requirements (Mayo, 1997). Organisations operate within an increasingly volatile environment, and that is why to perform effectively they must be responsive to change and choose appropriate tools to achieve their objectives. In this case, change is a pervasive influence and an inescapable part of social and organisational life. There are a wide range of forces acting upon organisations which make the need for change inevitable. One strategy of change is through the adoption of a systems approach. In management development the feedback approaches have three main uses. The first is that they can provide objective information on areas where improvement is needed, and reports can be designed around any grouping inside the organisation which is large enough to conceal the individual responses. Researchers (Campbell, 1997) suppose that disclosure rules might be defined when bottom-up feedback is part of a performance management process, but some of the objectivity of the process may be io5t as the priority is different. For management training needs assessment, the aggregate data is more important to the organisation than the individual data. It should also be stressed that subordinates are not asked to rate their managers as good or bad, but merely to complete the questionnaire to score how they manage through the various dimensions of behaviour chosen for the study. That said, it is true to say that managers often receive surprises when they look at their own assessments, and as a result may use them as a basis for changing their own management behaviour. For most organizations such changes are an objective of the exercise and required new approaches to management processes as well as a collective modification of management behaviour. It is important to note that the information collected can also be used in a management training course, so that the course is designed to fit the needs of the participants, and the aggregate and confidential individual reports show where the need for change occurs, thus facilitating personal action planning (Schuler, 1998). Although the organisation does not record the individual ratings, and only the agency and the individual have access to these, in most cases those on a programme spontaneously share their results with others as part of the learning process. It is possible to use the feedback approach only in connection with specific training courses, surveying only those who are to attend each training event. According to practical studies (Schuler, 1998) this is a valid approach, but deprives the organisation of the wider information that would come from a more extensive survey. On the other hand, there is a limit to the number of levels of management that should be included at any one time, as a situation could arise when every person is completing, Another approach to training needs analysis includes the evaluation of training. In this case, data for evaluation is at a premium, and there are few other ways of collecting information with such relative ease. As well as the other approaches outlined above job evaluation can help to ensure that line managers take full responsibility for the management of their people by applying the process themselves and using it as a guide on pay decisions. Job evaluation should not be regarded as being solely within the domain of the HR or personnel department. HR specialists can help to initiate and implement a job evaluation process; they can provide help and training and administrative services, and they can be guardians of the process in the sense that they do their best to ensure that it is applied consistently and fairly throughout the organisation. Job evaluation should be treated as one of a range of interrelated and interactive personnel processes that are integrated with the major business processes. In other words, the approach to job evaluation should be governed by how the business functions in its constantly changing environment. "Cultural change, organisation development, and business process re-engineering programmes come first; job evaluation follows" (Schuler, 2001, p.56). The concept of a role is much wider because it is people-and behaviour-oriented - it is concerned with what people do and how they do it, rather than concentrating narrowly on job content (Beardwell, 2004). Role definitions cover the behavioural aspects of work - the competences required to achieve acceptable levels of performance and contribution - in addition to the tasks to be carried out or the results to be attained. They emphasise the need for flexibility and multiskilling, and for adapting to the different demands that are made on people in project- and team-based organisations where the focus is on the system rather than on a hierarchical structure. One more important approach, which helps to organize the process of training needs analysis, is assessment centers. They are used as a selective tool, usually reserved for people in very specific situations, such as selection for promotion, or movement into a fast-track grade structure to determine who to place on an extensive internal management development programme. The big advantages of assessment centres are that it is possible to make objective observations of the strengths and weaknesses of the participating individuals, and it is possible to focus the process so that the assessments are business driven. Disadvantages are cost and the time it takes to assess large numbers of people (Mayo, 1998). In contrast to other forms of training needs analysis, an assessment centre provides a complex examination of employees' skills. It conducts a series of tests, exercises and interviews which are constructed and collated to enable an organization to formulate a comprehensive picture of the skills, abilities and characteristics of the candidate being assessed. In such center, an assessment usually involves a group of assessors who evaluate a group of candidates over a period of a few days. One type of centre is designed to test all, or some, of a set of predetermined factors, such as inter-personal skills, planning, organizing and communication skills. These are tested using exercises which are not job specific; but are applicable to various organizations. This type of centre's services can be purchased from organizations specializing in their design. Another type of centre is tailor-made for an organization. Their work begins with a comprehensive job/personal specification analysis conducted for a vacant position. Exercises are subsequently designed which simulate the job; they are devised to examine candidates by the criteria established by the job analysis. Assessment centres are one of the most accurate staff selection methods currently in use, and they have a high validity rating (Schuler, 1998). The advantages of this type of centers is that data is comprehensive and candidates can demonstrate skills they may not usually display; individuals gain greater knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses which will help their career direction; e assessors also benefit from the experience of assessing. As with training needs analysis, the value of organizational development programmes is open to debate. In particular, the use of certain forms of sensitivity training is subject to strong criticism, and the claim that they can result in unwanted side-effects and have an unacceptably high cost in mental stress for some individuals. However, although part of an organizational development programme may involve personal relationships, less threatening techniques can be employed to help bring about a mutual understanding of the disruptive influences of personality clashes. Another potential problem with organizational development is the application of borrowed techniques such as small leaderless groups, attitude surveys and indicators of management style. organizational development consultants should be subject to the same scrutiny which they apply to their client organizations. Organizational development is a long-term process and changing the climate of an organisation is a major task. Nevertheless, the information collected should enable an assessment to be made of the gaps between what the organisation needs and the skills and competencies it already possesses The assessment process will also have identified deficiencies which were perceived by the individuals and their bosses, but which did not appear on the requirements generated from the study of organisational needs. The task of training needs analysis is to identify the gap, to classify it by level and category, and to attach estimates of the numbers of people involved. According to Mayo categories are: immediate requirements driven by organisational needs; longer-term organisational needs; short-term remedial needs of individuals; career development needs of individuals; Things individuals would like to do, but which have no direct corporate benefit (Mayo, 1997). Programmes of management development should be designed in accordance with the culture and specific requirements of the particular organisation, and the demands of particular managerial jobs. There should be a clear management development policy together with regular reviews of individual performance and a programme of career progression. An essential feature of management development is performance review. As stated by Armstrong: "the performance management approach to learning concentrates on the preparation of performance improvement programmes and learning contracts or personal development plans, which are related to jointly determined action plans" (Armstrong, 2001, p. 555). The systematic review of work performance provides an opportunity to highlight positive contributions from the application of acquired knowledge, skills, qualifications and experience. An effective system of performance review will help identify individual strengths and weaknesses, potential for promotion, and training and development needs. A key activity is Management by Objectives which attempts to relate organisational objectives to individual performance and development through the involvement of all levels of management. Direct business needs, which have been identified from the study of the organisational situation might best be met in part by some form of training which cascades down the organisation. Selection in such cases is likely to be on a broad basis, because the judgement has already been made that most people need this training. Although there might be discussion with line managers, particularly on who should attend first, selection ultimately should be a central decision, and should be compulsory. Other types of management development to meet these needs could be on a different basis of selection: for example, a secondment or transfer of someone to an area of the organisation which already has some of the new experience would be on the basis of choosing the most appropriate person. Again, the bias should be to the person who would be of most value to the organisation, which is not necessarily the same as choosing the individual with the greatest personal need (Campbell, 1997). Selection for the indirect, longer-term, development programmes should perhaps be quite different. Here line managers might play a greater role, although for flagship management development programmes it may be of value to make the final choice through attendance at a development or assessment centre. "One possible reason for this is to achieve fairness and consistency, in that a manager selected as best for the programme by one line manager may not be better than someone not recommended by another manager" (Campbell, 1997, p.23). An approach that begins with recommendations by line managers for attendance at a development centre, the assessment itself, and final selection by a panel. One more category of need becomes self-selection by the individual. There may be some counselling by line managers and a general encouragement to employees to develop themselves, but if individuals are disinterested there is a strong argument for not applying compulsion to any specific personal development that might be available under this category. One more group identified by Armstrong is training needs of special groups. He wrote that: "a separate needs analysis should be carried out which identifies the occupations they are likely to be in and any special training requirements arising from different types of disabilities or the particular ethnic group(s). Advice on approaches to training people with disabilities can be obtained from charities such as the Royal National Institute for the Blind, the Royal National Institute for the Deaf, the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabiliation and MENCAP" (Armstrong, 2001, p. 568). The successful implementation of new work methods and practices is dependent upon the willing and effective co-operation of staff and appropriate training needs analysis. Continued technological change is inevitable and likely to develop at an even faster rate. Managers must be responsive to such change. Training needs analysis is closely connected with organizational development embracing a wide range of intervention strategies into the social processes of an organization and involves the application of organisational behaviour. In order to bring about effective change organisations make use of a number of approaches, or intervention strategies, including training needs assessment. So, the need is to reach a balance which is in the best interests of the organisation, which ensures that what is done adds value to the organisation that the best possible use is made of scarce resources. Training needs analysis is concerned not only with improvement in the effectiveness of individual employees, it is also concerned with an improvement in management performance as a whole and with improvement in organisational effectiveness. References 1. Armstrong, M. Human Resource Management. 8th edn. Kogan Page, 2001. 2. Beardwell, I. Holden, L., Claydon, T. Human Resource Management, London Pitman Publishing, 2004. 3. Campbell, D.J. Organizations and the Business Environment. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1997. 4. Mayo A. Creating a Training and Development Strategy. London: Institute of Personnel and Development, 1998. 5. Reed A. 2001. Innovation in Human Resource Management. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. 6. Schuler, R. Managing Human Resources. Cincinnati, Ohio: South-Western College Publishing, 1998. Read More