Human Resource Management and Issues in France - Essay Example

Human Resource Management and Issues in France Analysis Paper Submitted by: Introduction Human Resource management is a key department in any organization in today's world. Although it is practiced with variations in its style and laws, but still every organization has recognized its importance (Human Resource Management, 2009). Things have changed a lot in the last century, the rationales have changed, such as in early 1800's it was a rational behavior to take a decisions for profit maximization ignoring human exploitations, their rights and motivation where as in today's world the rational behavior says that one should consider the human motivation and rights before making any decisions about them. In past building, money and the products were considered as the vital assets, but today human resource is considered as the most important strategic asset of the organization (Heller, pg 67, 2007). Human Resource management has a great role in changing the rationales up to this point (Mathis & Jackson, pg 110, 2006). This changed labeled the human resource department as the advocates of the employees where as the modern world has admitted that Human Resource department is a strategic department and has a key role in organization as it manages the most vital asset of the organization, the Human. Previously this department was considered as the expense center where as now it is considered as the strategic partners. Human Resource managers manage organizational activities through different practices, not all the managers all over the world use the same practices. It is because they operate in different organizations with setup in a different country and culture. France and Human Resource A historic change came in France in the form of French Revolution (1789-1799) (Heller, pg 68, 2007). During this period the system in the country changed from complete monarchy to enlighten principles or citizenship and equal rights. The causes were many such as the intentional starvation for certain population segment, bankruptcy due to wars, high unemployment, unequal treatment between populations segment, poor treatment with women, poor economy and unequal distribution. In conclusion human resource was badly treated in France and was exploited and there was no strategic importance of the humans, only money was considered as the power and asset (Mathis & Jackson, pg 110, 2006). Up to a great extant the basis of the revolution was the human resource, as the agenda was to provide the equality, justice and freedom in every aspect of life. The revolution brought the idea of democracy and human management and it valued the importance of human resource. Education and Training System France is among those countries that have the highest literacy rate. According to 2003 records of education ministry literacy rate was 99.5%. Country pays high attention to its educational system and is keen and sincere in producing more productive and knowledgeable generation. For 2009 France has allocated the budget of 64.4 billion Euro for education. Most of the primary and secondary education is controlled by the state where as private sector plays an important role in higher studies (France Demographical Data, 2009). The population is facing a serious challenge, as the aging in France is slowing down, there are only 19 million young people in metropolitan France, that makes it only 32% of the total population, where as in 1970s it was about 40% (France Demographical Data, 2009). This is a serious threat for the country as the experienced and knowledgeable people are close to their ages to retire and people who are going to replace them are not ready to take up such positions, or they are not in that number to fill that gap. That is the reason France allows foreign workers to work in the country and that also created more diversity in France which already as issue. For all the above concerned France is working hard and has been putting its efforts to train their people and develop them so that they can fill that gap easily. This is done through the policies, laws and regulations by the government. The government is tackling this issue with care and has made the companies spend at least 1.2% of their total wage bills on employee training and development. They have also not put any financial burden on the companies in order to attract more investment. According to G7 report France is focusing on developing the required work force through training and development programs, the evidences show that the average retirement age in France will become 65 years in 2048 (France Demographical Data, 2009). In order to retain the skilled labor force France has one of the most flexible time environment which attract the older employees to continue working even after their retirement. Training and development along with the current strong educational system can help the government of France in achieving its target to get the required Human Resource in future. Employer Organizations France has been a center of creativity, inventions, arts and culture. There fore many successful and famous organizations in today's world are from France or are in France. Such organizations include Air France, Alstom, Orange, Thomson and Total etc. The jobs condition in France has never been that bad as compared to other Asian countries where as it has gone through several crisis due to unemployment and poor financial policies (France Demographics, 2009). France has seen the huge riots in October 2005, which happened due to growing unemployment among the few social classes. These intensive riots forced the president to declare emergency. These riots forced the government to oblige the employers to make policies about their hiring's and employee rights. Diversity was one of the major issue and employers were forced to take the diversity in consideration while hiring's were done. In France the pay scales are still decided through bargaining between employee and the employer. As a part of the French culture the top level management is always the most knowledgeable people available in the industry. This is also the issue for the country as the aging problem is occurring. Employers about regularly checked by the government agencies in order to make sure that, the employers do not exploit employees and the organization is fulfilling all the legal requirements. The Government has also tried to control the foreign involvement, there fore if any new company wants to invest in France from abroad, they need to hire some from France in their top management, not all the top management can be foreign. This is a point where companies don't like the policy but still they go with it as France is one of the most attractive place to invest as it provides the gate way to rest of the Europe as well (Rose, pg 198, 2006). Trade Union Organizations These are the unions formed by the workers or formed for the workers for many reasons such as wage levels, improved conditions, full employment, industrial democracy and voice in government. They not only protect the rights of the workers but also play the role of a liaison between the organization and workers. They are the representatives of the workers in front of the management. In France these unions were build with the complete support of the socialist parties and the democrats. These unions are often strong enough to affiliate them with international trade unions (Rose, pg 198, 2006). These unions also some time benefits the organizations as the managers don't have to bargain or deal with individual workers. These unions also some times help in developing the relationships in new countries and places. The need of such unions was felt in France due to its organizational culture, where there is a lack of trust between the employer and the employee. It's the fact the unions do not have a lot of impact on the corporate management but still they do have the impact on the labor side which is as important as the relations with the corporate sector. Currently unionization is slightly above 10%, but the government is making efforts to make them weak by encouraging collective bargaining between employees and the employer. The unions can do both, increase the organizational productivity or can also reduce the organizational productivity. It all depends up on how they are handled by the organization and the government. Among all the European Countries France had only 8% union rate which is very low as compared to that of Denmark of 80% (Robbins & Judge, 2004). Although it is lower in France, history has seen that these unions were very effective in France in mobilizing the workers for strikes. This shows that even though they have reduced in their number and activities but they still have the influence in the labor force Collaborative Bargaining structure: In most of the countries it is considered as the meeting between the employer representatives and the employees to reach on any negotiations. Several different fields have defined collaborative bargaining in different ways. Some suggest that it's a protection of legal human rights. Now a days TWA's (Temporary Work Agency) are popular in France and companies depends up on them a lot. It saves the company in may ways as they don't have to go and hire the employees them self, it saves their time and money and also saves them from legal regulations as the employees given by the TWA is the employee of that agency and the company is bound to pay to that agency whereas the nationals security covers the employee rights. As France is already short of young and skilled work force, companies prefer the temporary work agencies, as they provide them with the worker who is according to their requirement with in no time. These workers are quality workers as they have been recruited by the agency. The number of TWA workers in 2007, 3rd quarter was 659,800 full-time. As people prefer to work part time in France companies don't want to enageg in paper work and their managemnt that is why these collaboratie bargainign is done with the TWA for providing the required employee on bargained wage. The agency takes commission from the wage or takes commission from the organizations based on the number of recruits they sent to the organizations. Collective bargaining has deep roots in French culture and is still practiced at all levels of organization. There fore the organization must have the guts to more the collactive bargain in their favor. Examples of collective agreements done in France Representation of temporary work agency personnel (accord sur la representation du personnel des ETT) in 1988 Designation of the temporary work supplementary pension fund (accord sur la dsignation de la caisse de retraite complmentaire du travail temporaire -IREPS) it was done in 1991. Creation of the temporary work Fonds d'action sociale (Social Action Fund) took place in 1992. In 2002 agreement on health and safety in temporary work was done. In 2004 agreement on vocational training which was later on modified in 2006. In 2007 agreement on diversity and non-discrimination in temporary work was done. All the collaborative bargaining agreements brought peace and stability in the country and in working environment. So collective bargaining is an essential part of French culture and has its both directions, negative and positive. Employment Laws in France The country has been continously improving its system in order to implement the best system, but still had faced many challenges and is still facing. For this reason many employeement laws and labor laws has been made in order to protect labor rights and on the other hand employer rights as well. According to the law in France it is necessary for the employer to given the written contract to its employee on the time of hiring (Heller, pg 41, 2007). If incase there was no written agrement done between the employer and employee then empoyee will benefit from the maximum protection under law. It is also necessary that the written agreement should be in French and in no other language. Under law limited term agreements can not be renewed after once, and if so then it must be done on indefinite basis. All the employeement work is highly formalized in France as dismissing the employee is not easy as well. If all the procedures are not followed properly, even though dismissing ir right of the company, they might not be able to do so because the law protect the worker. Firing the employee is not at all easy in France because Laws are made to protect employees up to a great extent. The relationship between employee and the employer is very different in France and too much formalized and too much protection for the labor. The work week in France is of 35 Hours (Heller, pg 41, 2007). The director of the company in France is not the salaried person, but he is compensated in the net earnings, there fore he is not entitled for all the benefits that are given under the French employement provision. On the other hand he can hold some other position in the organization as well, from where he will get the salary and thus can also benefit from all the facilities. The employees should not be paid is foreign currency and the amount must be presented in Euro. Same is with the bank account that the salary can't be transferred to foreign account. The employement laws protect the employees and give the doubt benefits to the employees (Daft, pg 123, 2001). All the laws are made to encourgae the people to work more and more, but due to the slow down in age in the current population of France it is feared that if people don't work more, the country might feel the gap in the development. The Patterns and Trends The government of France has realized the importance of the human resource, it is giving attention to the issues that are related to the human resource management. France is a country where young people are no tin great number as required and the older people are nearing their retirment age. On the other hand France is a very diverse country and has diversity issues as well. That is why many labor laws have been made to protect the workers and to reduce the tention of diversity. The country is tyring hard to oblige the organizations to train their employees and concentrait on their development needs as well, because the youngsters coming from the universities don't have the experiences that are required by the jobs. That is why the Human Resource training and development has become a major responsibility for the organizations and it is also inforced by the government in form of 1.2% of their total wage bills to be spent on training and development of the employees (Robbins & Judge, 2004). The changing environment has also changed the woring style in france as now flexible working is encourged on the governmental level in order to increase the retirment age of the person and to fill the gap that has taken place due to population imbalance. Companies are now hiring people through TWA's which were not very famous in France few decades back. This saves the organization's time and money and also the legal responsibilities. Human Resource managers are now more focusing on their internal issues such as training and development programs, promotions and labor supply, rather than on external issues such as legal issues. This has given human resource management a strategic value in organization. As human resource is now considered as the most important asset for the organization, human resource management is focusing more on retaining and training their best employees and to offer benefits and insentives to other as well in order to make them more efficient. Conclusion Being the 6th greatest economic power in the world France has many things to handle to maintain its position as one of the strongest country in the world. For that the human resource must be strong in the country. For centruries the human resource has remained out standing in France, as it was the cntre of arts, romance, archtecture, education and culture, but now the country is facing the challenges in maintaining its most important asset the human resource. The slowing down of age is a treath for the development of the country and there fore government is keen to put all its efforts to maintain the greatness of the country (Bhatia & Dey, 2005). The government has taken many steps forward in order to maintain the pace of development, many new laws have been inforce, obliging organizations to protect wrokers rights, many laws encourage people to work after retirment and on flexible times etc. It is essential for the Human resource managers also to train their young employees in a way that they can replace the old workers who will soon stop working (Solutions to HR Problems, 2009). Researchers and reports shows that France is going in a right direction and that it can achieve its targets if it continues to work in same way. Works Cited Bhatia, A., & Dey, R. (2005). Globalization of Product Development: The Inevitable Next Stage. Retrieved April 8, 2009, from http://www.infosys.com/global-sourcing/white-papers/globalization-product-development-part1.pdf Daft, R. (2001). Organization Theory and Design, 9th ed. Chicago: South-Western. Employers' health and safety responsibilities. (2009). 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