The Biggest Challenges Facing Human Resource Departments Today - Research Paper Example

The biggest challenges facing human resource departments today In an increasingly globalized and technological workplace, the role of human resourcedepartments has never been as important as they are right now. The ability of individuals to move freely in the economy has meant that competition among human resource departments has become fierce. Added to this is the introduction of labor unions, which play an important role in determining appropriate working conditions and salaries for employees.

All of this requires human resource departments to coordinate among many departments in order for the organization to successfully carry out its organizational goals. Top management urge human resource departments to get every employee pulling in the same direction, yet also require them to meet employees’ needs on a professional level. The challenges facing human resource departments are plentiful, but the two main ones are the composition of many cultures in the workplace and fewer high quality candidates to choose from.

As workplaces become more multicultural, the level of communication between departments also needs to increase. Human resource departments play an important role in this function, acting as a go-between to relay information between different departments. Organizational goals require every employee to carry out their job in accordance with the wishes of top management, and human resource departments are tasked with filling this role. One integral part of a workplace is culture. If every employee of an organization is from the same culture, then it is relatively easy to get every working towards the same goal.

However, this occurrence is very rare, especially with immigration and equal opportunity employment. Trying to get employees of different cultures working together as one can be a tough thing because there are certain cultural differences that result in miscommunication and misunderstandings. Organizational culture is something that can change over time, either for the better or the worse. Human resource departments must identify any cultural problems in the workplace and come up with strategies to combat them.

One area that human resource does not have control over is workplace culture; this is the responsibility of top management to determine what the expected attitudes of the workplace are (Sherriton and Stern, 1997). It is the job of human resource departments to make sure that the culture in a work environment is one that is flexible and can work towards the common goals of the organization. The introduction of a wide range of cultures into the workplace is inevitable; it is up to human resource departments to fuse these cultures together to create one single workplace culture that is set up to accomplish organizational objectives.

Another challenge that human resource departments can face is a lack of regulation in the industry, especially with recruitment agencies. With the advent of the Internet, it has become easier for job seekers to widen their search by sending their CVs to a wide number of prospective employers. The one downside to this is that the quality of candidates has decreased as the emphasis has shifted onto finding a job, any job, rather than getting a worker that is the right “fit” for the company.

Recruitment agencies are tasked with securing a position for their client rather than making sure that the job seeker finds employment that is right for both them and the company they end up working for. Human resource departments are responsible for vetting potential employees, and an increased number of job seekers do not make this process any easier. In fact, if the quality of job seeker was higher, then this would be a positive. But in reality this rarely ever happens because recruitment agencies are least concerned with this point.

The problem mostly stems from the fact that the recruitment industry is unregulated, and so virtually anyone can set up a business that seeks to help job seekers find employment (Sotnick, 1998). The process for vetting candidates has considerably shortened, as it has become more attractive to offer job seekers a job, any job, as fast as possible. One thing that would help the industry is the reintroduction of the Employment Agencies Act, which was first initiated in 1973 (Sotnick, 1998). However, appeals to have this overturned do not look likely to succeed.

Because this is the case, human resource departments should look to tighten up job descriptions so that the potential employee list is shortened. This does not seem to make sense, but it would improve the quality of candidate and make the recruitment process more efficient. In conclusion, the role of human resource departments will grow in the coming years due to a more globalized and technologically-advanced workforce. There will be challenges, however, that human resource departments will have to face up to.

The two biggest challenges over the next few years are a diverse workforce and fewer high quality candidates available. References Sherriton, Jacalyn and Stern, James. (1997, April). “HR’s role in culture change.” Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. Sotnick, Jon. (1998, Sept. 13). “Why the bad and the ugly will be found out.” The Independent.