Contemporary Issues in HR Management - Essay Example

Contemporary Issues in HR management Human resource consists of a set of individuals who are man d to take care of the workforce in an organisation. Therefore, the human resource has to organise the organisation’s workforce and maintain productivity to the highest order. An effective human resource management ensures there is utter productivity from all the labourers that are available. Though this is a hard and indulging task, the managers have to ensure they get the best output from the available labourers (Kumar, 2010: 23). The human resource managers have a responsibility that is vital in the organisation. First, they have to initiate selection of the best workforce that will be productive in the organisation. Selection of employees is an indulging task especially when they are many and in diverse disciplines. Secondly, human resource managers have to train all the workers depending on their departments. This prepares all the workers for utter productivity (Randhawa, 2007: 15). Thirdly, human resource managers have to asses and reward employees that record better performance in the organisation. Some employees are dedicated to their work and will get to extend of sacrificing their time for the betterment of the organisation. Rewarding such employees gives way for an ever improving organisation. However, there are some contemporary issues that keep emerging. These issues have to be dealt with accordingly. Dealing with such issues at the right time ensures the organisation is at the helm of recording better performance in future. Human resource managers experience a number of issues which are diverse depending on the affected areas. Some of these problems include employee productivity, recruitment of experienced personnel, training employees effectively, and dealing with discrimination cases (Millmore, 2007: 21). It is evident that the resource managers have to deal with all these problems to ensure the organisation is stable and records an improvement over time. Some of these problems are persistent and the managers will need expertise advice to reduce its effects on the performance of an organisation (Brewster, 2008: 17). However, without such advice from experts, the issues are likely to stall the organisation. The most ostensible goal for all human resource managers is to record an improving productivity in the organisation. The performance of the organisation should be inclining against time. This concludes that managers should ensure all the employees are giving the best to the organisation. Managing and organising employees could be a hard task especially when the manager is dealing with large numbers. Apparently, productivity in most organisations is measured by the revenue that is collected via the businesses of the organisation. Therefore, managers have to ensure the revenue of the organisation is on an improving scale (Kearns, 2006:13). However, there are several setbacks that make this a contemporary issue. First, some employees have low morale at the work place. Employees with low morale have a negative impact on the productivity of an organisation. Such employees have a tendency of not utilising their time in the organisation. These employees are a discouragement to other employees as they have haphazard performance criteria. Since they do not give full dedication to their job, they end up giving dismal results. This affects the whole institution as the overall performance is brought down. Secondly, productivity is affected when the employees are not contented with the working shifts they are given. For instance, some employees have a tendency of refusing to work in some shifts. Though some employees are contented with working in certain shifts, they have a tendency of doing shoddy work. This is a problem that has been affecting the human resource management as they have little to do on such situations. When employees are not contented with a certain shift in the organisation, they are likely to do a shoddy job. This will affect the productivity of the organisation to greater heights (Fletcher, 2004: 21). Most of the employees that are not contented with such shifts will come up with reasons as to why they are not contented with the shifts. For instance, some employees cite sickness while others will cite other personal issues. As such, there is a critical imbalance in the working shifts. Thirdly, some employees are utterly adamant to change. Some employees are used to the old ways of performing tasks in an organisation (Sarros, 2011: 10). Such employees are on the helm of stalling the organisation as they do not embrace positive change. Human resource managers find it hard to instil change in such employees. Changing an inbuilt decision is a hard task as the people will not have the self drive in changing. For instance, some employees believe in paper work. Introduction of computers means that they will shift from paper work to a modern method (Niles, 2012: 19). However, some employees are not inclined to such decisions and will refute such decisions. This creates a scenario where some of the positive suggestions are not appreciated in the organisation. This leads to redundant performance, which is blamed on the human resource managers. Human resource managers have contemporary issue especially in training. Many organisations have to train their employees occasionally and in sequences. This is a vital approach in equipping employees with concrete knowledge of all the activities that take place in the organisation. However, this at times is a hard task to the human resource managers (Sass, 2012: 11). This is due to a number of reasons. First, there is an issue where the most productive employees have to go for training. Though this is a vital approach in equipping the employees for better performance, it has a negative effect on the organisation. The highly productive employees are not present at this time and this reduces the overall productivity of the organisation. Similarly, training affects the working shifts as the number of employees is reduced. Secondly, training becomes a stumbling block when some of the employees do not have the right materials for the training. Most of the training requires materials for practical experiments. When employees attend training without practical materials, the training will not be effective. Therefore, the organisation is wasting its resources in training employees. The training is ineffective as the employees do not gather the required experience to work practically (Raju, 2006: 32). This affects the productivity of an organisation as the employees do not give the best in terms of performance. This is an issue that is in the docket of human resource managers. Similarly, managers experience a hard time when the organisation does not give the required resources and incentives in training. Many employees complain about attaining certificates after training (Fitzgerald, Moss and Sarros, 2011: 23). Organisations that do not have such incentives record dismal performance. In the end, the human resource management is on the receiving end as it is blamed for ineffective training. This is an overall situation that happens to many organisations. There are a number of ways that could be used to solve and contain such problems in an organisation. First, there is a need to change the mode of employment. An organisation, in coordination with the human resource should have a selection criterion that will only consider committed and dedicated employees (Kearns, 2012: 16). Committed and dedicated employees will have commitment and dedication to their obligations. With such selection criterion, the employees will be under no obligation to refuse working on some shifts. Similarly, such employees will have to ensure they secure their opportunity in the organisation (Beardwell and Claydon, 2007: 20). Secondly, there is a need to consider working in teams. Most of the organisations that work in teams ensure employees are advising and encouraging each other to offer the best performance. When working in a group, most employees will feel that they have to generate the best in ensuring their team is leading. With such approaches in an organisation, it is easy to make a positive performance. Thirdly, there is need to consider team building and corporate activities. These are activities that involve games, trivia questions and corporate dinners. In such corporate events, employees get to know more about the organisations, its core values, mission, vision and history. When employees get to know such information, they are compelled to ensure the organisation attains its goals. Therefore, they will ensue they give the best to the organisation. Similarly, corporate activities ensure the employees bind with each other and form working unions (Stone, 2011: 12). Such unions have a tendency of cementing working relationships. This results into better performance as most of the bonding employees will give their best. In addition to this, there is need to reward all the employees that are recording better performance. This will encourage all employees to look forward for the rewards by improving on their performance. In the end, the employees will have an overall performance that is appreciating. In relation to the training issue, there are possible counter-actions that could be taken. First, the employees should be rewarded attractively when they attend the training sessions. Employees would like to be rewarded attractively and will give the best in such training. However, after training, the managers should conduct an assessment. This will ensure all the employees work hard to get the best in assessment (Talwar, 2012: 17). Secondly, managers should be able to provide all the materials that are required during training. This will equip employees with better knowledge on how to work. In the end, the employees will give better contribution to the organisation. Thirdly, there is a need to increase the number of training sessions in an organisation. Provision of more training sessions in an organisation is a better way of ensuring a limited number of employees are in training sessions. As such, the productivity of the organisation will not be adversely affected. In conclusion, productivity and training are some of the most prevalent contemporary issues that affect HR. they are prevalent in that they have adverse effects on the performance of the whole organisation since they are affecting the workforce. However, relying on control measures is a prevalent decision that will ensure the organisation is improving in performance. This includes taking measures on the training issues and productivity issues. Perfecting these two will definitely give the organisation a better performance. References Beardwell, J. & Claydon, T. (2007) Human resource management: a contemporary approach, Prentice Hall/Financial Times, New York. Brewster, C. (2008) Contemporary issues in human resources management: gaining a competitive advantage, Oxford University Press Southern Africa, Oxford. Fitzgerald, P., Moss, S. & Sarros, J.C. (2011) Sustainable coaching: a primer for executives and coaches, Tilde Publishing, New York. Fletcher, C. (2004) Appraisal and feedback: making performance review work, CIPD Publishing, New York. Kearns, P. (2006) what’s the future for human capital? Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, New York. Kearns, P. (2012) HR strategy: business focused individually centered, Routledge, New York. Kumar, R. (2010) Human resource management: strategic analysis text and cases, I. K. International Pvt Ltd, New York. Millmore, M. (2007) Strategic human resource management: contemporary issues, Financial Times Prentice Hall, New York. Niles, N. J. (2012) Basic concepts of health care human resource management, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, London. Raju, B.N. (2006) Human resource management, Discovery Publishing House, London. Randhawa, G. (2007) Human resource management, Atlantic Publishers & Dist,London. Sarros, J. (2011) Contemporary perspectives on leadership: focus and meaning for ambiguous times, Tilde Publishing, New York. Sass, V. 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