Management Approach to HRM - Essay Example

Personnel Management and Human Resources Traditional View and Historic Development Firms enjoy various resources with the help of which they create value for their stakeholders. Traditionally, there were most one resource was considered as essential and that was of the capital introduced by the shareholders which was considered to be creating value for the shareholders. However, this view traditionally started to fade and new ways and means of creating value were explored also. Human Resource of the firm is one such resource which can provide strategic competitive advantage to firms over their competitors. Technological, economics and social changes happening around the globe are consistently forcing organizations to look and develop more and more better human resources. (Baird & Meshoulam, 1988). Historically there is a shift in the concepts and development of the field of human resource management over the period of time. What started as personnel management has now gradually transformed itself into the new realm of human resource management. The ideas of personnel management mainly seems to be contrasting with those of human resource management. The traditional view about the personnel management was of the view that the humans are only responsible for production and profits and personnel management largely envisioned the use of machines as manpower. Historically what is now considered as human resource management was something else. Over the period of time, related concepts and theories were known with different names and gradually transformed into HRM. HRM initially started with the name of Industrial Welfare. (Kaizelong, 2006). This was the first form of human resource management which was basically started with the advent of the labor unions. The initial focus was on the welfare of the factory labors. However it gradually evolved and culminated into the bigger concept of Personnel Management. The real focus on the personnel management started with the advent of industrial revolution where the need for qualified staff was badly felt especially due to the factor of division of labor. There exists a very subtle and minute element of distinction between human resources and personnel management. Both are considered as “process of getting things done through people”. (ACCEL TEAM, 2007). HRM now is considered as an integrative approach in which a two-way linkage is assumed between the organizational strategy and individual needs of the employees on the other hand. The essence of HRM now is that the separate personnel actions are now consistently linked and integrated with the overall strategy of the organizations to achieve strategic goals. (G.W.Jansen, Van de Velde, & Telting, 2001). Personnel management’s focus was on the operational methodology whereas Human Resource Management emerged as a concept which filled the strategic gap and brought in personnel management into the overall umbrella of strategic management. The roles and duties which HR practioners perform are strategic in nature. The HR function, more than any other, can and indeed must take responsibility for providing the critical assistance required for people to create an enterprise that is responsive to the continuing changes imposed by a dynamic environment. It is an essential new requirement for HR practitioners to ensure that people have the skills and tools needed to move their enterprise into the future. In the current environment of continuous change, people throughout the organization must become skilled at creating collaborative strategies and implementing effective change. They must be able to turn chaos into strategy, and strategy into performance. Though the role of top HR managers is that of strategic in nature however the line managers as of the person responsible for the implementing and executing the overall strategy of the organization as for as HR functions are concerned. It is often believed that the new revolution in the HRM practices has sort of liberated the line managers and has also posed them a greater challenge to take their own decisions within the framework of the policy guidelines. (Whittaker & Marchington, 2003). It is also often argued that line managers due to lack of skills often require the help of personnel practitioners to perform their duties in better way but this is not supposed to be the key parameter of the line managers’ success as managers. Research also suggest that activities surrounding identification of training needs, deciding who should be trained and undertaking direct training either fall within the domain of line managers or in partnership with HR specialists The main roles and responsibilities of the line managers are: 1) HR managers are considered as key to the development, reviewing and refining policies and practices so that they can be placed before the higher management for decision making purposes. Line manager through their skill set provide such kind of back up support to the higher management to refine and polish various policies. Apart from being refining these policies, HR line managers also recommend various policies to senior management for their implementation. 2) Educating Staff is another critical responsibility of the line managers which they must perform to the fullest of their abilities as lack of it can significantly damp the public image of the organization. Educating employees can be on many counts like harassment, discrimination. This in the return require good quality planning which must ensure that the new hires are well informed of the policies and procedures of the organization. line managers receive specialized training on harassment and discrimination issues because line managers are the “first line of defense” and thus must be acutely aware of harassment and discrimination issues, act as role models, be alert to the emergence of harassment and discrimination problems in their workgroup, be aware of their responsibilities to act expeditiously and appropriately, and be empowered to do so. 3) Since line managers are specialized persons with proper training therefore they can be effectively used in providing support to the employees who are the victims of harassment and discrimination. 4) Apart from these broader areas of the interest, line managers also perform other roles and responsibilities also including keeping records of the time sheets, leave record maintaince, promotion issues etc. Monitoring and rewarding employees Job evaluation is a technique to rank jobs in organizations based on the duties and responsibilities assigned to the job. The basic purpose of the job evaluation is therefore to assign job grade of the employee according to the jobs performed. Though there are different variants of the job evaluation process but all of them are based on the basic rules of evaluating jobs based on certain common and generic factors used in evaluating the jobs. The first step of the job evaluation process is to decide what factors are to be included in the job evaluation process. Once this is done, the second step is the collection of information regarding the jobs to be evaluated. Once this is done then the HR line managers process this information systematically to rate each job based on the assigned criterion or factors. The last step in this process is the selection of the bench mark jobs which are then compared with the external job market to determine the pay scales of the employees. Bench mark jobs are those jobs which are commonly found in the organization and are typically included in most of the salary surveys conducted by external agencies. The following are some of the compensable factors: 1) Knowledge: The mental aspects of work. The knowledge (however acquired) requirements, problem challenge, and mental effort required to perform the tasks of the position. 2) Interpersonal Skills: Interpersonal skills set is another important criterion which provide the necessary insight into setting the pay grade of the employee. 3) Ability to perform in stress: Probably one of the most important factors which help organizations to set up the rewarding points for the employees is her ability to work in pressure situations. The level of stress which an employee bears is contributed majorly towards job evaluation and compensation setting. Reward Systems Reward and recognition systems for individual employees remain one of the controversial areas of human resource management. Employee rewards are seen in different contexts also relative to the situations under which they can be of benefit. Rewarding employees to help them accept the organizational change is perhaps the most powerful too to cope with this situation of organizational change. Based on these varying contexts, there are different employee reward systems. Some of them are discussed below: 1) Pay for Performance: Incentive pay or pay for performance is one of the reward management systems within the organizations which is working on the basis of the fact those employees get higher incentives who perform in better way than the other employees. Benchmarking against already set criteria, pay for performance reward those who perform better than the benchmarking criterion. Though it may not be appropriate to say that incentives or pay for performance may not wholly but can substantially motivate the employees because the level of incentives will be based on their own achievement so there remains an element of personal sense of achievement in pay for performance reward system. 2) Casual incentives: Casual incentive systems are considered as informal systems which are just treated as a pat on the back for your work but in fact they don’t seem to be the result of any formal incentive schemes initiated by the organization with some serious effort and planning. A bonus given routinely soon becomes part of the expected compensation package. Casual incentives communicate to employees that you have noticed their efforts. People thrive on positive feedback. However there are various drawbacks of this kind of incentives also. It is often accused of creating envy among the employees besides creating a sense of redtaptism and favoritism among the employees that the supervisors may be supporting or providing incentives to their own puppies. Structure Incentive Systems: Structured incentives can help direct employee efforts. Other benefits include cost certainty and cost reductions for the farmer. Benefits to employees include higher pay and satisfaction. However a structured incentive (1) must be capable of fluctuating (variable pay) as performance changes, and (2) is based on a specific accomplishment-reward connection understood by both management and workers. Link between motivational theory and reward Monetary rewards offered by various organizations often involve deep psychological questions of whether the incentives or rewards can motivate an employee or not. The most critical questions of relevance here are whether there exists any relationship between the employee motivation and rewards. Starting from the Maslow’s theory of hierarchy, we come across the fact the individual’s most basic needs are fulfilled if he or she has been given the necessary amount of monetary benefits to fulfill his most basic needs. However as he transcends upward on the scale of hierarchy, the rewards do not seems to be the point of attraction for the employee as he moves to the point of self actualization, the material concerns starts to fade out of the employee’s mind. So according to the Maslow’s there is a and there is not a link between the motivation and rewards. At some basic point of his career, rewards may seem to be the strong motivational factor for the employee however as he moves up, rewards may not seem an option of getting personal sense of security and wellbeing. There is however other variants of the work besides rewards which seems to create a motivating impact on the employee. These included the job satisfaction, support and help from the peers etc. Research also suggests on the other hand that the extrinsic rewards tend to lower or decrease intrinsic motivation of the employees suggesting again a twisting link between the motivation theory and the rewards. (Beswick). Any of the monitoring approach can work if it is implemented in its true sense with a strategic vision in mind. Many organizations have set policies like yearly job evaluation systems. Confidential reports, appraisal systems through which the superiors use to monitor the performance of their subordinates and make comments and discussions with the employees regarding their annual performance. It is also important to note that annual reviews also sometimes set targets for the next year’s expected performance of the employees. Rights and Procedures on exit from an organization During the career of an employee, he or she can make an effort to find more suitable and growing job with more attractive incentives and other perks therefore he or she can quit the organization to join their new organizations. In order to facilitate that exit from the organization, HR mostly set up procedures for the employee resignations and their relieving from the organization. Most of the organizations demand that the employee provide an advance notice if he or she has decided to quite the organization. This so called notice period can be from immediate to 6 months and if proper notice for making an exit is not provided, employee may sometimes has to pay the required portion of its salary for that period. Apart from that there are also set rules and procedures for channeling the resignation in the organization i.e. the flow of that application. Most organizations have set their policies regarding the flow of that application which mostly starts with making an application to the immediate boss for the resignation and then it moves to the highest authority to approve that and finally it goes to the HR to complete all the necessary formalities. In order to make redundancy work in the organization, HR first must plan it to decide who will be kept and who will made redundant and why. Once this is done then it is the responsibility of the HR personnel to inform the employees or workforce collectively about the new policy along with the reasons and justifications. It is also important in the sense that it can give employees a chance to look for alternatives. It is also the responsibility of the HR to collect information as soon as possible to know how many employees will be made redundant. In order to make the selection criterion for the redundancy, HR personnel may consult with their legal departments to know if there is any legal bar on making certain redundancy selections. Once this is cleared than various methods can be adopted to make redundancy selection. Although ‘last in, first out’ (LIFO) is an objective basis and easy to apply, it will rarely be appropriate as the main criterion in most of the redundancies. If LIFO is to be a basis for selection, it should be a secondary criterion only, to be applied. The relevance of a qualifications and experience criterion is likely to depend on the type of work for which the organization has a diminishing requirement, and on the type of work being continued.  If the organisation demands the continuing work for which particular qualifications are necessary or desirable, then these might become a significant criterion. It all depends on the policy perspective of the organisation regarding making the selection criteria. If the purpose is to gradually forcing employees to quite the organisation to save cost than highly qualified and skilled workers may be shown the door also. References Beswick, D. (n.d.). Management Implication of the interaction between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic rewards. Retrieved Jan 12, 2008, from http://www.beswick.info/psychres/management.htm Whittaker, S., & Marchington, M. (2003). Devolving HR responsibility to the line - Threat, opportunity or partnership? Employee Relations , 25 (3), 245-261. ACCEL TEAM. (2007). Human Resource Management. Retrieved Jan 11, 2008, from Accel Team: http://www.accel-team.com/human_resources/hrm_00.html Baird, L., & Meshoulam, I. (1988). Managing two fits of strategic human resource management. Academy of Management Review , 13 (1), 116-128. G.W.Jansen, P., Van de Velde, M. E., & Telting, I. A. (2001). The effectiveness of human resource practices on advancing men’s and women’s ranks. Journal of Management Development , 20 (4), 318-322. Kaizelong. (2006, September 06). The Historical Background of Human Resource Management. Retrieved Jan 11, 2008, from Webpronews: http://www.webpronews.com/expertarticles/2006/09/06/the-historical-background-of-human-resource-management Read More