Human Resource Development Strategies - Essay Example

Running Head: Human Resource Development Human Resource Development Strategies of the appears here] of the appears here] Table of Contents 1.0 Introduction 3 It is an irrefutable truth that the upcoming of business venture rely on the contentment scale of its employees. Disgruntled employees reason abrupt tribulations merely to their specific companies. Though, if these tribulations are left insufficiently be presented at they have a propensity to twist out containing other companies, corporations and areas damaging relations, out put, incomes and lastly, too, the making of management prosperity (Unison, 2003). 6 1.1 Weisbord Model 6 1.2 HE Culture 7 2.0 Diagnosis Stage 9 3.0 Solutions: 11 3.1 Utilitarian Approach: 11 3.2 Individualism Approach: 11 3.3 Moral-Rights Approach: 12 3.4 Justice Approach: 13 4.0 Implementation Stage 14 4.1 Immediate Actions 14 4.2 Short to Medium term Actions 15 4.3 Long Term Actions 16 5.0 Conclusion 17 1.0 Introduction The establishment of a true atmosphere of variety is the prime target of the human resource management which constructs optimistically on workers divergent from ethnic environments. The business requires being acknowledging employees even beyond ethnicity, sexual category and incapacity, such as persons from a bucolic environment, single parents, etc. The goal is that the business will symbolize all parts of society and that out put will be enhanced by capitalizing on the involvement of all workers. (Fink, 1992). Workforce planning is both an organizational necessity and a managerial responsibility (Carnevale, Gainer and Meltzer, 1990). Through workforce planning, organizations choose goals based on estimates of forecasts of the future, giving form and direction to the efforts of managers and workers (Davis, Weckler and Paris, 1996). Concern for the future is intensified by the fact of relentless, unremitting change (Drucker, 1992). The purpose of planning is therefore twofold: to determine appropriate goals, and to prepare for adaptive and innovative change The company will maintain to strive for excellent worker relationships and to work contributively with prepared toil. The purpose of presenting these approaches is to make certain that the providing of service is improved in an atmosphere featured by righteousness of employment, ethnic assortment and translucency. Human Recourse departments will be needed to improve human resource policies which are incorporated with their tactical and equipped strategy, to make certain that their expected recruitment requirements are fulfilled (Robbins & Coulter, 1996). These policies will comprise particular service impartial goals and aims for accomplishing an emissary staff. The idea of job satisfaction, though of significantly latest derivation, is closely connected to stimulus in the place of work and is a contributory feature in enhanced functioning in the office (Katzell & Yankelovich, 1975). These topics are once more connected to job nature, which primarily explain the intrinsic characteristics of a job, which can once more inspire or uninspired staffs, and whose tuning can consequently change the intrinsic inspirational characteristics of the job. In current period a feeling has been developed that all is not well with the contentment and inspirational staff levels in industry, a fact that is also carried out to a particular degree by latest surveys. It is the function of this study task to research intensely into the issue and probes all the above matters in addition to related improvements. This will facilitate the organization of contributory relations among these variables and perhaps facilitate the study rise with new point of views and workable effectual solutions for the development of employee contentment and business output (Worth Foundation, 2006). The importance of staff in the operation of businesses has been examined and discussed by the professionals from the fields of psychology and sociology and the experts of management in profundity and detail. A series of hypotheses, largely the corollary of meticulous and thorough investigation, are in exercise to describe the psychology of human in the place of work, the stressors and destressors of a running atmosphere, and the causes behind member of staff performance, or accordingly, be short of it. (Catanzaro, 1997) For every realistic function, worker contentment is necessary for business achievement and all prominent leaders of business venture it seems that were too outstanding leaders of people (Peterat & Fairbanks, 1993). A low attrition rate in organizations is a signal of steady and staff welcoming Human Resource strategy and a measure of business welfare. The start of redundant worker loss to carry with it intimations of hard times ahead and is measured as a critical cutthroat drawback by company and pecuniary experts. In organizations, the happening of harassment in the office has been putting the accent on business managements and scientists from sociology and psychology for some previous years (Harassment Policy, 2004). It is current believe to be one of the major reasons of tension in the office and outcome of some unfavorable results physically and mentally on the workers and is a professed work nature in some places of work (Humphrey & Berthiaume, 1993). It is an irrefutable truth that the upcoming of business venture rely on the contentment scale of its employees. Disgruntled employees reason abrupt tribulations merely to their specific companies. Though, if these tribulations are left insufficiently be presented at they have a propensity to twist out containing other companies, corporations and areas damaging relations, out put, incomes and lastly, too, the making of management prosperity (Unison, 2003). 1.1 Weisbord Model Weisbord, which is also known as six box model is one of the basic models to introduce change in the organization. It is an important model to learn about the malpractices in an organization and how to avoid them. It gives a better understanding and analysis of behavior in an organization. If different behaviors that influence the working of an organization tuned by using Six Box model then the organization would be able to give optimal performance and maximum Return on Investment (ROI). Weisbord Model is a model which can introduce healthy environment into the organizations and helps to avoid bullying from the organizations. It describes the structure and design of an organization. This model consists of the following components which are known as boxes in this model: 1. Purpose: it defines the nature of the business 2. Structure: How the work is divided into the organization 3. Relationship: how conflicts is managed in the organization 4. Rewards: what is the reward system of the organization 5. Leadership: the style of leadership in the organization 6. Helpful Mechanism: the coordination within the organization 1.2 HE Culture According to the Second box of Weisbord model, HE culture defines the structure of the organization. Employers sometimes may have difficulty accepting new female roles. Male employers, as well as male peers, may perceive women as a new form of competition for the positions on the increasingly narrow job pyramid. Or at the other extreme, overzealous bosses may promote women to responsible positions before providing them with adequate training and background, a procedure likely to scuttle a woman's chances of success in management. In University of Rutland, Some male bosses do not consider it necessary to provide extensive training to female managers before promoting them. They usually think that women are temporary filling this position. Some supervisors at Rutland University feel that a woman who desires to have equal opportunities is offering a conflict in roles. Perhaps there is a role conflict; values, however, have been changing rapidly. People have to accept that women are as capable of doing any job as men. Manager-moms, at Rutland University, have been given only two options: full-time work or no work at all. Family women, especially mothers, want to be able to spend more time at home with their young children. That is why they prefer part-time or home based jobs. This gave rise to part-time and home-based jobs all over the world. Lawyer Paul Sprenger argued that special track for women, is illegal. He said that employer's attitude such as "we didn't promote her because we felt she really cared about her kids" is the same as any other discrimination. He adds, "the companies may not even realize what they are doing is sex discrimination" According to most studies, prejudice toward other human beings is not an inborn but a learned response. In short, we learn from others to use the mental shortcut of prejudice. Because ethical standards are not codified, some problems always occur. An ethical dilemma arises in situations when each alternative choice or behavior is undesirable because of potentially negative ethical consequences. Right or wrong cannot be clearly identified. As mainstream Americans have learned more about the similarities, as well as the differences, between male and female workers many of their fears and uncertainties have become allayed. Although effective management favors no gender but to be an effective manager a woman has to work like a man. Woman managers confront some situations and problem that are unique to their sex. These problems concern her subordinates, her peers and her own bosses. Males usually resent being held accountable to a woman. In some cases, consciously or unconsciously, male subordinates try to bypass the authority of female boss. On the other hand, many female employees firmly believe that they prefer male managers over females. This attitude should not surprise anyone since male managers have been the only type that existed. As a result, woman who blindly accepts the job of manager- like their male counterpart- resent the presence of a female supervisor. Some female subordinates feel that it lowers their own status to have to take orders from another female. 2.0 Diagnosis Stage According to Allen Funt, the creator and producer of original TV program Candid Camera, "the worst thing, and I see it over and over, is how easily people can be led by any kind of authority figure, or even the most minimal signs of authority" (Zimbardo, 1985; p.47). Funt is right about the way people react to authority. Taught from birth that its important to respect legitimate forms of leadership, people think twice before defying employers and bosses. In fact, children seem to understand at a young age that certain authority figures have power in some domains but not others (Laupa & Turiel, 1993). The problem is the mere symbols of authority- titles, uniforms, badges, or the trappings of success, even without the necessary credential- can sometimes turn ordinary people into docile servants. Leonard Bickman demonstrated this phenomenon in a series of studies in which a male research assistant stopped passers-by on the streets of Brooklyn and ordered them to do something unusual. Sometimes, he pointed to a paper bag on the ground and said "pick up this bag for me!" At other times, he pointed to an individual standing beside a parked car and said, "This fellow is over-parked at the meter but doesn't have any change. Give him a dime!" (Bickman, 1974) would anyone really take this guy seriously When he was dresses in street clothes, only a third of the subjects followed his orders. But when he wore a security guard's uniform, nearly nine out of every ten subjects obeyed! Even when the uniformed assistant turned the corner and walked away after issuing his command, the vast majority of passers-by followed his orders. Clearly, uniforms signify the power of authority (Bushman, 1988). This must be what Allen Funt had in mind. An individual's character can make a difference, and some people, depending on the situation, can clearly more obedient than others. In the aftermath of World War II, a group of social scientists, searching for the root causes of prejudice, sought to identify individuals with an authoritarian personality and developed a questionnaire known as the F-Scale to measure it (Stone et al., 1993). What they found is that people who get high cores on the F-scale (F stands for "Fascist") are rigid, dogmatic, sexually repressed ethnocentric, intolerant of dissent, and punitive. They are submissive toward figures of authority but aggressive toward subordinates. Indeed, subjects with high F scores are also more willing than low scores to administer high intensity socks to Milgram's obedience situation. Although personality characteristics may make a person vulnerable or resistant to destructive obedience, what seems to matter most is the situation in which people find themselves. By carefully varying particular aspects of his basic scenario, Milgram was able to identify factors that increase and decrease the 65 percent baseline rate of obedience (Milgram, 1974). These factors in particular are important; the authority figure, the proximity of the victim, and the experimental procedure. In the University of Rutland supervisors sometimes bully the subordinates to interfere with victim's performance and to create a hostile working environment for her or him. Hostile Environment is a type of bullying, which occurs regularly in University of Rutland. 3.0 Solutions: The third box of the Weisbord model discusses in detail how the conflicts are resolved in an organization. Manager faced with ethical choices may benefit from a normative approach-one based on norms and values-to guide their decision making. Normative ethics uses several approaches to describe values for guiding ethical decision making. Four of these are relevant to managers are: Utilitarian approach Individualism approach Moral-rights approach Justice approach (Cavangagh, Moberg and Velasquez, 1981) 3.1 Utilitarian Approach: This approach describes that the decent behavior of a person produces best results for most of the people. Because actual optimizations can be very complex, simplifying them is considered appropriate. For example, a simple economic frame of reference could be used by collecting dollar costs and dollar benefits. Also, a decision could be made that considers only the people who are directly affected by the decision and not those are indirectly affected. 3.2 Individualism Approach: The individualism approach also called egoism contends that acts are moral when they promote the individual's best long-term interests. Individuals calculate the best long-term advantage to themselves as a measure of decision's goodness. The action that is introduced to produce a greater ratio of good to bad for the individual compared with other alternatives is the right one to perform. Individualism is the process which deals with the integrity and honesty. It serves the interest of the people in the long run because cheating gives cheating in return. So, in other words, individualism is the standard of behavior that people like for themselves (Tulega, 1987). In order to understand this approach, it is necessary to recognize the short term variations. People may think that individualism and short-term self interests are the same thing, but they are wrong. Individualism is not popular in today's society because of organized and group-oriented nature. Individualism is closest to the domain of free choice. 3.3 Moral-Rights Approach: The moral-rights approach asserts that human beings have fundamental rights and liberties that cannot be taken away by an individual's decision. The decision which can easily be termed as an ethical decision is the one which considers the rights of those people who will be affected by it. Most rights that could be considered during decision making are: The right of free consent: it is the right of the people to be treated according to their desire and free will The right to privacy: individuals can choose to do as they please away from work and have control of information about their private life The right of freedom of conscience: Individuals may be free to disobey any order which is against their religious, moral and character obligations The right of free speech: Individuals have the right to criticize the legal and ethical aspects of other's decisions The right to due process: people have the right to have an unbiased and unpartial hearing The right to life and safety: individuals have the right to live without endangerment or violation of their health and safety All the above-mentioned rights are the fundamental rights of an individual. In order to make ethical decisions, manager have to ensure that they must not tread on the private realm of individuals and to avoid interfering in other's fundamental rights. 3.4 Justice Approach: Moral and ethical decisions, according to the justice approach, must be based on the fairness, impartiality and standards of equity. These types of justice are of concern to managers. Distributive justice requires that different treatment of people not be based on arbitrary characteristics. All the people who are relevant to a decision must be treated impartially and equally. Nevertheless, people having better education, job skills or higher job responsibilities must be treated accordingly. The justice requires that people cannot be held responsible for such matters over which they no control. It should also be argued that people must be compensated for all their injuries and miseries by the party responsible for it. The justice approach ensures that justice must be applied through rules and regulations. This theory is entirely different from utilitarian and individualism approaches. This approach emphasizes on the fair play and abiding of all the rules and regulations. It requires from the managers to describe precisely the job related differences according to which people are paid different and having different promotion criteria. Most of the practices of human resource management are based on the justice approach. 4.0 Implementation Stage 4.1 Immediate Actions There are several options to opt for persons who feel that they are victims of bullying. The right choice of option depends on factors like the situation and condition of bullying, their personal situation etc. Some of common options available for a victim are: Deal with the person directly: the most effective method for a victim of bullying is to talk the person directly to tell that his or her attitude can cause problem for him and for the company. In ninety percent of the cases, this is the best approach (Wendt and Slonaker, 2002) Write a letter to the bully: it is often not possible for the victims to face the harasser directly. In such cases writing a direct letter to the harasser is good approach. This letter clearly describes the behavior of the harasser, how victim feels about it, and what would she or he do if the behavior of the harasser will not change. This approach will also works most of the times Keep record of incidents: it is suggested that victim must keep a detailed record of all actions of bullying from the harasser in a diary with complete date and time. It will make his or her case effective while confronting with the harasser or while lodging complaint about his or her behavior Talk and seek support: the problem of bullying cannot be ignored. It is a better approach to talk about it with someone close to the victim Seek help of manager or supervisor: if confronting the bully will not solve the problem, the next step is discussing the matter with head of department, human resource manager or the supervisor. In that case, supervisor or manager will summon the harasser and give him or her chance to clear his or her position. If harasser found guilty, manager or supervisor may give him or her a warning and compel him or her to apologize the victim 4.2 Short to Medium term Actions Take immediate and appropriate action: It is the duty of the employer to take immediate action regarding bullying complaints. Employer must contact the complainant to identify the severity of the complain Explain the process: If a company have a clear policy for bullying; it must inform the concerned parties what action will be taken according to the policy; otherwise summon the complainant and the harasser, investigate the matter, and then tell them what action company will decide to take Record the facts: Investigate the matter and keep a complete record of this investigation, which is a confidential document and cannot be revealed to anyone except the parties involved Listen carefully: Listen both sides of stories and then decide what should be company's next action Decision: After investigating the matter thoroughly and listen the story of both the parties, decide what action company is going to take 4.3 Long Term Actions Managers must continuously be on guard against engaging in any activities that could be constructed as being either verbal or physical bullying. University of Rutland may establish policies and training programs for supervisors dealing with the problem. Management must be sensitive to the legal and moral aspects of the issue. In order to prevent occurrence of bullying cases, University may take the following steps: Clear bullying policy: University must have a clear bullying policy, which clearly identifies what is bullying and how it will be dealt if any such case will happen in the University Training for employees: employees must be trained on yearly basis to cope with the problem of bullying. Training sessions must teach the employee about the actual definition of bullying and harassment, explain them that it is the duty of all the employees to create a friendly and free working environment and also explain company's complaint procedure Training for supervisors and managers: Managers and Supervisors should also be trained on yearly to deal with the complaints of harassment Create friendly and trustworthy environment: The responsibility of the employer is to try at their utmost to get the loyalties of all the employees. Following are some of the tactics of the organization to gain trust of their employees, which help to create a friendly working environment: 1. Meet with employees on monthly basis or more often to address and understand their concerns and reinforce exceptional performance 2. Develop a system to measure the employee satisfaction on regular basis 3. Conduct random and planned interviews with the employees to figure out how they feel about their immediate bosses 4. Use training to address weaknesses in managers styles identified through surveys and interviews 5. Create and develop a program to identify bad management 6. Transfer poor managers from their managerial jobs etc. Take serious action on sexual harassment complaints: take immediate action on any sexual harassment complaint. Company's decision should be swift, effective and must be in the favor of the victim 5.0 Conclusion Vitamin Model is a model which suggests that there are certain features which when added into an organization work as Vitamins in human body. It is also suggested that, like vitamins, these features also affect negatively to the organization if used in excessive quantity. Some of such features are Charity, Reward, physical security, clarity, interpersonal contact etc. Bullying in organizations can easily be avoided if instead of bullying the bosses may use features like reward, recognition, interpersonal contact in a proper manner and an appropriate dosage. Managers of ethical companies continuously are on guard against engaging in any activity that can qualify as a hazard for company's employees or customers. In such companies, management is very sensitive to the legal and moral aspects of the issue. They have provided extensive training to their management in order to cope with any safety and security issue in the workplace. Director of Global Risk Management at Cisco Systems Inc. in San Jose, California says that, "It is more cost-effective to keep our employees healthy, so any money spent on that will pay off in the long run." He further says that, "The attitude of our employees with respect to work-related injuries is unique to Cisco. The biggest problem we have is getting people to take the time to go for their doctor visits and to follow the doctor's directions to take the required breaks, do their stretching exercises, etc." (Sammer, 2003). Ethical companies trust their employees and emphasizes on their health, safety and productivity. Eric Shepard, who was the co-author of a study conducted in silicon valley about drug testing, says that, "We found that productivity was 16 percent lower in companies with pre-employment testing than those that didn't test, and it was 29 percent (lower) in companies with both pre- employment and random testing" (McManis, 1999). University of Rutland does not enjoy very healthy, friendly and harassment-free environment. 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