Human Resource Management at Work - Essay Example

INTRODUCTION Human resource management is known to be one of the major differentiating factors forming a line between successful and unsuccessful organizations. This area in today’s global working environment is found to be of much more importance than finance or technology and is sometimes the basis of competitive advantage for an organization. Marchington & Wilkinson (2005) in their book explained that relation HRM has with the strategy of an organization. In this aspect one can see that human resource management never works alone; it does not take place in a vacuum but the key here is that this area needs to work under a broader framework that links it to the strategy of the firm; external factors are found to be affecting it apart from the internal factors. The HRM takes into account all the individual and group related that is collective relations, a number of human resource practices, policies and process, activities pursued by the HR specialist, union’s role, developing some HR practices that will provide the organization with an edge, employee security or it can even work on incorporating some organizational change. These are some of the factors that can be worked upon and thus are designed in a manner to increase the performance of an organization by effective human resources management. Similarly as the case implies that Brendon Jones Inc. is a service providing company, and for this reason the employees are the key assets of the organization. The 200 employees found in working at 10 leisure outlets were working at the front line. They were basically responsible for bringing in the business. Dealing with the customers and maintaining the relationship was the best and most important factor for the organization like Brendon Jones. Looking at the today’s working environment Human Resource Management is much more important than ever. The functions of managing and developing people are seen critical to gain improvements in the performance of an organization. The same was the case in Brendon Jones; there were changes taking place, the company was bought by a corporate investment company. It was like a change in the ownership structure. Employees working with the original founder were somehow used to of the policies and procedures. But as its being mentioned in the case that there was no HR manager; it’s not the task of Finance and Administration director to handle issues that are related to human workforce. For this reason as to solve the challenges related to reducing the labor turnover and to maintaining customers there was clearly a need for proper human resource manager and management at Brendon Jones. By using HR practices for managing and developing people will result in the improvement and changes in employee attitudes and behaviors; there will be lower level of absenteeism, the turnover will be reduced, and this in turn will lead to higher level of productivity in the organization, along with quality and customer service, relationship and satisfaction (Marchington, Wilkinson & Sargeant, 2002). By linking the strategic objectives of an organization into the human resource practices, a company is bound to achieve the competitive edge. All the policies and rules in the HR will be aligned with the organizational objectives. A Human Resource manager here needs to look at the big picture and analyze the key variables that can affect an employee’s performance. As mentioned in the case there were issues related to work time, dismissals, and payment of wages, salary structures, promotional concerns and union related issues. The HR manager at Brendon Jones limited needs to work on all these facets that are related to compensation and benefits, flexible work time, staffing and recruitment, employee’s motivation, training and development and employee’s satisfaction. HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT Human resource development (HRD) is being defined by Werner & DeSimone (2008) in his book Human Resource Development as: ‘‘ A set of systematic and planned activities designed by an organization to provide its members with the opportunities to learn necessary skills to meet current and future job demands.’’ The key to get the end results is people management. To increase the employee morale and decrease the employee dissatisfaction, as managers at Brendon Jones were thinking that these were the reason contributing towards lower growth results, Human Resource development can be of maximum advantage. These human resource development programs at Brendon Jones must be planned in a way that they would respond to the changes in the job and integrate the strategy and long term objectives of the organization. All this is to ensure that there is an efficient and effective use of organizational resources in all the outlets of the company. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AND HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT In most of the organizations human resource development is mainly a part of the bigger human resource management department. Human resource management is defined as ‘‘The effective selection and utilization of employees to best achieve the goals and strategies of an organization, as well as goals and needs of employees.’’ Human resource development is in turn a part of the human resource management of an organization. In this large department a number of activities are being carried out. These activities make sure that the people in the organization have the right skills and competencies to meet the current and future demands of the job. For a service company like Brendon Jones, working on the development of its human resource is the key to success. This will help them to improve both the employee and organizational performance. In 1987 McLagan defined that there are basically three main areas under human resource development function. These areas are as follows: 1. Training and development 2. Organizational development 3. Career development Training and development Training and development are now days recognized by the organizations as best practices that can lead them to achieve their competitive advantage. Every company found to be investing in the area of training and development will get the benefits in the form of a highly energized working environment with more staff retention level and of course an increase in the overall productivity and performance of an organization. According to Werner & DeSimone training is: “Providing employees the knowledge and skills needed to do a particular task or a job, though attitude change may also be attempted.’’ On the other hand development is: “Focused on preparing for future work responsibilities while also increasing the capacities of employees to perform current jobs.’’ At Brendon Jones Ltd the HR manager would be required to take a more integrated approach as there are a number of outlets and the key to succeed here is; to maintain the employee morale and satisfaction in every outlet so to sink it with the strategic objectives of the organization. The HR manager needs to conduct a TNA (training need analysis) to find out where the GAP lies. This will help them to create training and development programs that can in turn result in healthy employees bringing more revenue. On the other hand development makes an employee realize that the organization is investing in them and are interested in their well being, this sort of creates a healthy work environment with reduced number of problems. Organizational development Organizational development (OD) is defined as: ‘‘The process of enhancing the effectiveness of an organization and the well being of its members through planned interventions that apply behavioral science concepts.’’ Organizational development caters to macro and micro organizational changes. At macro level the main focus here is to improve the overall effectiveness of the organization on the whole, where as at the micro level the changes are related to individuals, small groups and teams. Here the human resource development professionals are found to be working as change agent in the interventions related to organizational development. These development interventions for the development of an organization are planned in manner which is sometimes for the purpose of enhancing the image of the company. One can see that the new era depicts that in organizational development, changes and new trends are taking place and they are taking into account factors like transformations, sharing visions, innovations, trust and empowerment, reengineering, core competencies and organizational structure. When it’s about the macro level, more impact can be seen on cultural changes, resource utilization, centralization or decentralization of the structure, conflict management and collaborations mostly inter organizational. But in case of micro level the focus is upon the interpersonal trends and relations ad individual changes in terms of rewards and developments. At Brendon Jones, the organization needs to work upon its Organizational development. If the company is to succeed and reach the goals of growth and profitability, emphasis should be on the organizational development aspect. On the macro level the culture of the organization is to be kept in mind; since another company bought it so this comes in the form of change in the organizational culture, as the new owner wants to get things his way. These can be leading indicators to employee morale - and by focusing on providing the employee with satisfied pay rates, the opportunities to developing and managing internal conflict the organization faces, can in the matter of time lead to organizational development. Career development Career development is: ‘‘An ongoing process by which individuals progress through a series of stages, each of these issues is characterized by a relatively unique set of issues, themes and tasks’’. Career development is very important at Brendon Jones as it’s being mentioned in the case that the employees move to one and other outlet on the basis of ‘if and when the opportunity exists’. If Brendon Jones helps its employees to learn and help them in career planning; this can prove to be very helpful for the organization. Here the company can be developing the human resource to cash upon further opportunities that arise in the company and developing the employees of your organization to take on senior position can help Brendon Jones in the future as low hiring cost, low turnover and high retention will take place. ChalLanges in Human resource development Changes in the economy are found to impact almost all organizations; but corporate giants like Google are known to have tools that help them handle the hurdles and cope with them in an effective manner. Recession is the biggest threat that a company faces as in turn it affects all its decisions, especially related to the internal distribution of the budget. With the dynamic environment as Brendon Jones is facing due to increased number of competitors and the changing economic conditions, recession poses a very severe and different challenge in this case to the Human Resource department, and this in turn affects the human resource development of the organizations. Whenever a company like Brendon Jones is found facing a financial problem or monetary constraint, the first thing they do is cut down the Human resource budget. Another challenge is that in organizations like Brendon Jones, if proper human resource department is not being designed and simply managers are working on employees – they are found to follow what their competitors are doing, or what the industrial norm is, and then they recommend the human resource development function to carry out and design their programs according to the orders of the top management. CONCLUSION When it comes to the development of an individual it is not that it will benefit the individual but this, in fact helps the organization to achieve its goals in a more satisfied manner. The most important aspect is that the human resource development never works in a vacuum; it is aligned with the business strategy of the organization. So as a human resource manager will work at Brendon Jones he/she will align his actions with the business strategy of Brendon Jones. The HR manager at Brendon Jones can work three main areas that are found to come under the human resource development function. These areas are training and development, organization development, and career development. These functions with the help of many interventions and tools will help the organization to develop the individuals, which in turn translates in the performance of an organization and helps it to achieve competitive advantage. For one thing, human resource development faces a number of challenges, and for this the need is to understand the importance of human resource that is the people working in the organization to be the key source to achieve the goals of the organization. RECOMMENDATION The point where an organization wants to be in after 5 years, how to achieve the organizational goal, how to effectively utilize the resources and many other questions are found to have one simple answer – In order to achieve all these, the main things an organization needs to work on is its human resource. I think that Brendon Jones with proper leadership and human resource aligned with its strategic objectives can obtain the bottom line and provide a cut throat competition to its rivals. As these employees help the organization achieve its competitive advantage, for this reason, an organization like Brendon Jones Ltd should be keen and interested in the development of its employees as this, in turn reduces the cost in terms of low turnover, lower absenteeism, more employee satisfaction, lesser quality complaints, and better customer relationship and service. All the human resource development programs should be designed in a manner that is aligned with the business objectives and strategy of an organization so to get the maximum advantage. REFLECTION In the ever changing economy with the reflections visible in the form of dynamic interactions, organizations are found to be working on human resource with the aim to main or achieve a competitive advantage. Through this assignment I came to know that the human resource development plays a very vital role, and there are three main areas that come under the function of human resource development. I analyzed that a company like Brendon Jones if work and incorporate a proper Human resource setup, this will help them obtain the main goals of the organization and also one centralized HR will create and cater to all the employees in a similar manner. I from this assignment also came to know that people that form the human resource are the main players and especially in a service company they work as the building blocks of the company. Their development is the key to success. This research helped me understand that organizations are using different interventions and tools that are related to the training and development of an individual, based on the budget these companies are assigned with for this purpose. However, when faced with difficulties and financial constraints, these companies promptly switch their attention on other areas and consider human resource development as a cost. The need is to build an understanding that development of human resource is an investment, not a cost, which eventually takes the organization to its highest levels. From this research I also came to know that every organization has different concerns; all the functions of human resource development are catered differently among the organizations. And some companies don’t pay attention to the most important asset they have. The bottom line is that they understand and value the importance that the human resource places in their company. BIBLIOGRAPHY Mick Marchington & Adrian Wilkinson (2005).Human resource management at work:  people management and development. CIPD Publishing Mick Marchington, Adrian Wilkinson & Malcolm Sargeant (2002) People management and development:  human resource management at work. Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development CIPD Publishing. Jon M. Werner & Randy L. DeSimone (2008). Human Resource Development. Cengage Learning. McLagan, Pat (1996). Great ideas revisited. Training & development. pp.60-65 Training And Development - It’s Role in Achieving Organizational Success (2009).SFA National Centre of Excellence (NCE). Available at : http://www.centreofexcellence.ie/Sectors/SFA/SFANCEDocLib.nsf/441763b04b0320b68025722e003fb55a/bc12f53469df45728025722e003f060f/$FILE/Training%20and%20Development.pdf (Accessed on 16 December 2010) John Bratton. Strategic human resource management. Available at: http://www.palgrave.com/business/brattonandgold/docs/bgcha02.pdf. (Accessed on 21 December 2010) Harvey, D. & Brown, D. (2006). An experiential approach to organization development. (7th Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Read More