Human Resource Management Environment - Essay Example

Human Resource Management in its Environment   Introduction: In this analysis, I will draw a comparison and contrast of two different models in Human Resource management namely model by Beer et al 1984 with that Guest 1989 and the Beer model and Guest model of HRM will be analyzed for characteristic features and similarities or differences. Both the models will be examined with reference to stress and ‘call for de-stress’ as a subject matter discussed in an article published by the People magazine. This discussion aims to understand and examine which of these two models would better prepare an organization for managing stress at the workplace. Beer and Guest Models of HRM In the Harvard map or Harvard model of HRM, Beer et al argue the need for methods to assess the appropriateness of policies chosen by general managers of companies. Thus when general managers do choose human resource policies, strategies or practices for their organizations they also require proper methods to assess the effectiveness of such policies or strategies implemented. To assess the effectiveness of management policies, the Harvard Map or model as proposed by Beer et al seems to be rather useful. The model by Beer et al has an informal rather than a formal approach to management and brings out analytical description of the determinants and consequences of HRM policies. According to Beer’s Harvard model, the human resource policies within any organization are influenced by situational factors and stakeholder interests. The situational factors in a business environment would be related to management philosophy, business strategy, task technology, labor market conditions as well as legal and societal values and structures. These factors tend to shape yet constrain HRM policies and place limits in such policies although these factors are in turn shaped and influenced by human resource policies. So situational factors such as business strategies and labor conditions influence the HRM policies used or followed by general managers of companies although other factors such as stakeholder interests would be as important in determining the type of policies followed by businesses. Stakeholder interests would be policies that are influenced by or in turn influence stakeholder interests such as interests of the shareholders, governments, communities, management, employees, and investors of the business. According to Beer et al, human resource policies of companies should not only influence stakeholders but also in turn should be influenced by all stakeholder motives, wishes and interests. If human resource policies do not meet the needs and interests of stakeholders, the company or organization will fail as an institution and will not gain or make profitable outcomes in the long run as investors will lose interest and trust in the company. Human resource policies according to the Beer Harvard model are said to have long term consequences as well as immediate or short term organizational outcomes. General managers of companies are responsible for overall management and in overseeing or supervising the competence and commitment of employees, as also the degree of congruence between employees goals and the objectives of the organization. Managers are also responsible according to the model for determining the overall cost effectiveness of HRM practices. However the effectiveness of human resource management policies at any organization cannot be solely determined by using these four Cs and Beer et al suggest that additional factors could be thought of and added to this list that forms the Harvard Map. This is because circumstances may vary within companies and additional factors apart from these comprehensive factors could make the human resource policy and process even more advanced and appropriate. Thus Beer et al’s model seems to be rather flexible and can be changed or adapted to situations in accordance with needs of policies and processes of businesses and the environment. Thus it can be said that Beer et al have left their model open and subject to change according to organizational needs. In fact in keeping with this, Beer et al present the following argument on their model, “In the long run, striving to enhance all four Cs will lead to favorable consequences for individual well-being, societal well-being, and organizational effectiveness (i.e., long-term consequences)” (Price, 2007). Bringing in the subject of organizational effectiveness, Beer et al emphasized on the capacity of the organization to be responsive and adaptive to its environment. Reiterating on the need for a wider comprehensive function of HRM policies, Beer et al also stressed in their introduction to the Harvard map that ‘human resource management has much broader consequences than simply last quarters profits or last years return on equity. Indeed, such short-term measures are relatively unaffected by HRM policies. Thus HRM policy formulation must incorporate this long-term perspective." HRM policies according to the Harvard model should thus be focused on long term rather than short term goals, on overall improvement of company effectiveness and performance rather than simply immediate profits and returns (Price, 2007). Thus Beer et al’s overall model has been focused on long term gains for companies and the four Cs of Competence and Commitment of employees, Congruence of goals and objectives between employees and organizations and Cost effectiveness of HRM practices of organizations (Price, 2007). The other model we discuss here would be David Guest’s HRM model that highlights the fact that HRM management is distinctly different from the traditional personnel management focus and Guest’s model is also more people or employee oriented and focuses on the human side of HRM rather than merely emphasizing on the ‘costs’ aspects. The Bell et al Harvard Model would be a ‘hard’ HRM model with emphasis on objective aspects of management whereas the Guest model of HRM being more human oriented is a soft HRM model of management and thus more subjective and employee focused. The Bell model is results and performance oriented and the Guest model is strategic and outcome oriented. David Guest’s model of HRM (1989) has six dimensions of analysis including HRM strategy, HRM practices, HRM outcomes, as well as Behavior, Performance and Financial outcomes. The Guest model is based on the assumptions that HRM is different from personnel management both in theory and practice and has close similarities or bases with strategic management. However the Guest model accepts the fundamental elements or basic features of the Harvard map HRM approach and accepts that Cs such as commitment of employees do have direct relationship with business outcomes and performance of companies (Price, 2007). Valued business cannot be completely established without the commitment of employees although an emphasis on commitment is quickly acknowledged by the fact that commitment is difficult to conceive and the relationship between commitment and performance in an organization is even more difficult to understand or establish in management. The flow approach shows the strategy underpinning practice and the expected or desired outcomes considering the soft HRM model. Guest’s model highlights the importance of employee behavior and commitment and shows how these relate to the objectives of strategic management in a company although the value of labor or trade unions has been downplayed in this model. The employee relationship is understood as the relationship between the individual employee and the organization and Guest’s model downplayed some aspects of commitment yet nevertheless maintained the importance of the employee-organization relationship and longer term commitment. In this context a related discussion by Harley and Hardy (2004) brings out Karen Legge’s (2001) critique of HRM in which she suggests that the modernist approach of management showing HRM as improving organizational performance has been overdone although Harley and Hardy focus on the fact that HRM discourse has become increasingly important and dominant in management topics of recent years. Discourse analysis is used along with Guest’s model to show how positivist and modernist approaches have been successful in constructing a separate identity for HRM as also constructing academic discourses concerning employment relationship. Counter arguments on the redundancy of HRM may not always remain strong or valid according to the paper. Thus Guest’s model as also Bell et al’s Harvard model have only highlighted the importance of HRM as theory and laid down the rules of HRM in practice justifying that HRM still remains at the core of management decision making and essentially represents a step ahead of traditional personnel management. The Bell and Guest model could be related to the centre of this discussion essentially how stress affects employees and how the management models could be used in a situation in which there is a need for de-stress in any workplace. The de-stress call published by the People Magazine’s January 2007 issue, bring out the fact that there are more than 5 million people in the UK who are extremely stressed at work. The article asks how this silent epidemic could be controlled before it leads to ill health and high absence rates at the workplace. The de-stress call highlight the fact that more than 12.8 million days of work were lost between 2004-2005 due to anxiety, stress and depression related issues. As the article suggests life and society have become very complicated and life requires us to don various types of masks for various situations, so in a fast moving 21st century economy, employees are more under stress than ever before and surveys reveal that a considerable portion of employees feel overworked so employers cannot continue to ignore stress in their workers. The workload, the loneliness and the daily hassles add up to the stress of individuals although there may be a reluctance to talk about the subject of stress even though things are changing and management approaches are becoming more open and people focused. In this regard stress would be largely a human resource problem not the resource based problem however but a people based or employee oriented problem. So understanding or examining stress within any organizational setting would be a soft HRM practice and closer to the principles and objectives of the Guest model of HRM rather than Bee et al’s Harvard map which is more profits and performance or resource oriented rather than employee or people oriented. There may be a need to explain stress and its related effects to understand the impact of stress and the management actions that need to be taken in order to tackle stress related problems at the workplace. According to the Health and Safety Executive, ‘Stress is the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them’ (HSE, 2005). Although pressure can be in some way positive and motivate people to work harder, stress is negative and leads to decreased output as in this case the pressure is excessive. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE, 2005) document brings out the reason as to why it is necessary to control stress. ■ About 1 in 5 people say that they find their work either very or extremely stressful. ■ Over half a million people report experiencing work-related stress at a level they believe has actually made them ill. ■ Each case of stress-related ill health leads to an average of 29 working days lost. A total of 13.4 million working days were lost to stress, depression and anxiety in 2001. ■ Work-related stress costs society between £3.7 billion and £3.8 billion a year (1995/96 prices). (HSE, 2005) The management standards that summarize the primary sources of stress include demands, control, support, relationships, role and change. ■ Demands – work patterns, workload and the work environment. ■ Control – how much autonomy/freedom or control a person has in the way work is done ■ Support –encouragement, sponsorship and resources provided by the organization, management and colleagues. ■ Relationships –promoting positive working to avoid conflict and dealing with unacceptable behavior. ■ Role –whether people understand their role within the organization and whether the organization ensures that employees and organization have similar goals and do not have conflicting roles. ■ Change – organizational change (large or small) is managed and communicated in the organization (HSE, 2005). Thus increased demand, lack of support, excessive control, negative relationships at workplace, conflicting roles and organizational changes could be stressful in many situations and trigger some sort of stress reactions in employees. This brings us to the next question on how the management standards on stress relate to the HRM models by Bell et al and Guest. Bell et al’ model on HRM principles and management focus on long term gains and consequences of employers and companies with special emphasis given to commitment and competence of employees, congruence of their needs with that of organizations and cost effectiveness of HRM properties and applications. Commitment and competence of employees is extremely important for strong performance oriented management application and in order for employees to be committed and competent, employers should focus on minimizing stress and this could be done by promoting a positive working environment relating directly to the third C of a congruence of needs between employees and employers. Guest’s soft model of HRM that is more people oriented seems to however more appropriate to handle stress related problems and could be more effective as a management principle in business organizations. Conclusion The six dimensions of analysis in Guest’s model bring out the soft HRM principles and management techniques as opposed to the hard HRM principles of Bell et al. The HRM strategy, HRM practices, HRM outcomes, as well as Behavior, Performance and Financial outcomes as delineated in the Guest model could be effectively used in management practice to handle stress. So a proper strategy and outcome dealing with behavior and performance successfully integrating HRM with a people oriented stress management approach could be one of the best routes to understanding and applying management principles in decision making within any organizational setting. At the work place effectively handling stress would be most important as stress management is the central focus of any soft HRM people or employee oriented human resource practice and theory. Thus among the two models discussed here, the David Guest 1989 model being more people oriented seem to be more effective in understanding and studying stress management at work. Stress management however remains a separate discipline and needs to be effectively studied using management principles specifically dealing with stress although this should be sufficiently integrated with soft HRM modes such as Guest model so that the reduction of stress at the workplace becomes a possibility in the future. This essay focused on stress management and its relation to the two approaches to management the soft and hard HRM using models of Bell et al (1984) and David Guest (1989) and it is suggested that the Guest model with strategic focus could be more suitable for handling stress management at work. Bibliography Harley, Bill; Hardy, Cynthia (2004) Firing Blanks? An Analysis of Discursive Struggle in HRM Journal of Management Studies, Volume 41, Number 3, May, pp. 377-400(24) Hislop D. (2003) Linking human resource management and knowledge management via commitment: A review and research agenda Employee Relations, Volume 25, Number 2, , pp. 182-202(21) Price A (2007), Human Resource Management in a Business Context, 3rd edition . Thomson Learning Thornhill A.; Saunders M.N.K. (1998) What if line managers don’t realize they’re responsible for HR? Personnel Review, Volume 27, Number 6, pp. 460-476(17) HSE, 2007 Tackling stress: The Management Standards approach Crown Copyright Websites: www.peoplemanagement.co.uk www.cipd.co.uk/research www.hes.gov.uk/stress/standards/about.htm www.stressdownday.org www.samaritans.org Read More