What We Know and Don't Know About Corporate Social Responsibility - Example

Human Resources Policy Client Inserts His/her Name Client Inserts Grade Course Client Inserts Tutor’s Name 09/09/2012 Executive summary Preparing of policies in a business environment is one of the key undertakings necessary to change the face of the management and practice for better ones. However, as a new policy affects different personalities among the staff, the human resources sector of the management need to review the consequences of a new policy so that a healthy working atmosphere is maintained at high levels. Specifically, various check and balances are involve so that the new policy affects the firm positively and all the stakeholders in an equitable manner. This paper discusses in length the vital issues and/or aspects of different personalities to be addressed before conclusions are made regarding a particular policy. A human resource manager has been portrayed as the weight carrier in defining roles in accordance with qualifications and positioning of different personalities in different capacities in a justifiable manner. The main issue is to avoid late realization of flaws in the management as well as among employees that result from haphazard and unfounded introduction of new policies. A human resource manager ensures healthy working environment sustenance so that production is continuous and any new policy he or she introduces must imply a win-win situation for the firm as well as employees. As a major recommendation, a competent human resource manager should determine the number of stakeholders a particular policy affects and to what extent such that proper solutions and rectifications can be formulated at the expense of curing massive destructions of the management in future. Introduction While a wide variety of new knowledge in the business management erupts, the vital role of a human resource manager (HRM) remains to perform all managerial functions including planning for recruitment procedures, selecting, developing, utilizing, rewarding, and maximizing the potential of human resources (HR) in an organization (Thomas & Franklin 2012). In this regard, qualifications of a potential HRM for any organization are vital as does his or her role. Thomas and Franklin (2012) state that such a person must be of high integrity, with rich background for his or her role and preferably with prior experience in major managerial capacities. Thomas and Franklin (2012) add that a well organized HRM develops a major HR strategy that helps the entire management get a clear picture of what to expect from the firm and its employees, develop benchmarks for goal setting, and create a vision for employees. The major portion of the entire strategic plan consists of policies that govern the organization operations all through (Encyclopaedia of Business 2012). The policy covers all the issues that affect a specific organization’s development both directly and indirectly. This essay thence focuses on the specific issues and/or factors that a good HRM prioritizes before concluding on the policies, rules and regulations, ethics governance procedures, corporate social responsibilities , core values and sustainability. Generally all the factors that affect the business including the location, size, the number of employees, amount of available and usable resources among others are just a few of the issues to be considered. In the business context, virtues are not only routine but strong pillars for development and therefore effective strategy formulations are extremely important. General issues of concern Business strategy analysis Before any policy is put across, a good number of issues must be kept at fingertips. First, the HMR must analyze the business strategy so that he or she decides the forces that will be affecting the firm in the development process (Thomas & Franklin 2012). Things to focus on may include but not limited to technological resources and dynamics, the nature of the competitors and/or the market dynamics (Thomas and Franklin 2012). But the role of the HRM is somehow limited to the issues concerning employees (Wirtenberg 2007). Therefore, the HRM considers how the above named forces affect the employees. If the policy will put it that a new technology will be integrated in the operations of the firm in question for example, some of the non-skilled labour will worse off (Encyclopaedia of Business 2012); they will possibly be retrenched. Will the firm be able to fire some employees and hire new ones and expect high productivity? Will this increase or decrease assurance and trust among the left and incoming employees? If the HRM analyzes all the forces affecting the firm thus, well founded policies are then suggested and correctly fitted within the management (Thomas & Franklin 2012). Formulating firm’s mission statement The second issue is the formulation of the firm’s mission and/or correctly interpreting and following the mission of the firm to the core (Thomas & Franklin 2012). The mission is a statement that briefly describes what the firm is up to or simply put, what the firm’s management aims to achieve. The importance of the mission is that the HRM, like the other sectors of the management including the intended or the existing workforce, works towards achievement of the mission (Wirtenberg 2007). In other words, any action taken or work done is guided by the mission. Employees’ ethics too are guided by the mission of the organization for which they work (McNamara 2012). SWOT analysis of employees The third thing is to conduct SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis of the employees and the firm in general whenever need arises (Thomas & Franklin 2012). The HRM, by the use of this analysis, knows the weaknesses as well as the strengths of the management with respect to the employees. Opportunities and threats are as well realized in the analysis. The HRM prepares in advance to; for example, eliminate the treats realized or guiding and suggesting the best strategies to seize the opportunity that opens up (Thomas & Franklin 2012). In simple terms, things like training the workforce to work with a new threatening technology is planned in advance to prevent haphazard fire and hire (Wirtenberg 2007). Cultural, organizational, people and systems analysis The HRM must, in a comprehensive manner, analyze details of the culture, organization, people, and systems of the firm (Thomas & Franklin 2012). Such an analysis means that the HRM is interested in knowing how, on average, the employees conduct themselves and their view of the management and leadership. In a system with sufficient leadership, division of labour is present and thus all employees are motivated. The opposite is true what with managements with inequitably distributed employees. The analysis will also help to know where deficit of any resource is evident and where surplus is. In general terms, the HRM will only select actions that will not easily lead to complaints and non-motivating, but rather actions that favour most of the employees and the firm simultaneously (Wirtenberg 2007). Specific Issues The HRM has the role to the entire firm but there are a number of specific issues that he or she needs to undertake concerning the employees. Where the main intension is to ensure ethics, responsibility and adherence to the mission statement of the firm (Wirtenberg 2007), the following issues are to be considered first; Transformational leadership The concept of transformational leadership is one of the great issues to consider to ensure coherence and thus unity among different employees (Wirtenberg 2007). Transformational leadership may be taken to mean that it does not matter at which capacity one works, but everyone has equal capacity to fix realized flaws as well as challenge various moves of the management (Aguinis & Glavas 2012). In this sense, even the manager is answerable to the junior workers but in a healthy relationship. This way, employees at different levels gain enough confidence and are inherently motivated to develop the firm. Before putting down the work ethics policy that may affect negatively the working atmosphere (McNamara 2012), the HRM formulates or rather defines the employees’ limits in the entire management. As employees’ freedom as explained here is defined, the HRM follows the analytical implications of the SWOT analysis of the workers (Thomas & Franklin 2012). There comes the need to consider how and in what particular roles that the employees need to be engaged with. For a small firm, for example, a small number of employees are available and this means that it will be easier to manage than high numbers of employees. Similarly, skilled workers may have greater negotiation freedom due to possibility of higher capacities altogether (O’Riordan 2004). The databases of employees thus need to be updated and reviews before new policies regarding them are laid out (McNamara 2012). In a quite a similar way, simultaneously, the rights of workers need to be review under unscrupulous hands Workinfo.com. 2012. Rights of workers to each other, workers to the management and the management to workers must be defined first (Aguinis & Glavas 2012). Staffing is a critical issue (Workinfo.com 2012). The HRM has a role first to determine the abilities and disabilities of different people (Workinfo.com 2012). Therefore, the hiring procedure should first involve a filtering process and prior categorisation of capacities that are needed in the firm for the achievement of maximum flexibility (McNamara 2012). If the firm is newly established, then the HRM has to consider the number of employees and define different capacities. While an employee needs to be assigned an area where his or her effect will be felt most, interaction conditions should be defined in advance to prevent inter-position conflicts (Wirtenberg 2007). Political restrictions/Government policies Various governments control how businesses are carried out. When setting working ethics and the required codes of organizational conduct, a HRM must review and comprehend the government policy (McNamara 2012) that is in work. The issue thereof is to avoid later penalties all including binding conditions in the policy. Today, various governments set the wages a particular firm is to offer to different categories of employees for example (Aguinis and Gravas 2012). Similarly, under the human rights sector, the government sets out what a healthy working atmosphere for employees should be. According to Aguinis and Gravas (2012), besides the inherent intervention of the government, a HRM must substantially be aware of the essentials that define a healthy working atmosphere. Most of the time however, as Kitzmueller and Shimshack (2012) observe, incompetent HRMs often overlook government policies and define quite different working policies. The end result is compensation and prosecution (Aguinis & Glavas 2012) for say omission of human rights, plus of course, the defamation of the firm at particular levels. Similarly, sometimes the condition results in preference of particular groups of employees over others. What follows is employees’ instigated demonstrations, disunity among workers, defamation of the firm, non-motivated employees and thus low productivity of the firm in the long run (Workinfo.com 2012). Stakeholder analysis Determining the number and the kind of stakeholders that are to be affected by the ethical policy is an important thing. Any policy assumed or adopted by any organization affects different people in a society (Aguinis & Glavas 2012). Stakeholders constitute those people and phenomena that are affected either directly or indirectly. Therefore, it is only after categorization of all the affected stakeholders and the determination of the extent to which different stakeholders are affected or are to be affected a policy is established. The first category of stakeholders include the owners of the firm. Any policy integrated into the management must be meant to maximize the advantage of the firm owners (Wirtenberg 2007). For this category, all other categories are of extreme importance for the fulfilment of the goals of the firm in question (Wirtenberg 2007). For example, motivation and the alignment of employees in the line of duty determine the productivity levels of the firm. The second category of stakeholders includes the members in the management role. These are answerable to both the owners and the junior stakeholders. Here falls the HRM who has a role to coordinate different stakeholders to professionally engage in production while focusing on the firm’s mission and goals. McNamara (2012) states that for a united workforce, no more business ethics are a problem. The call of the HRM is to define first the kind of relations and ranks to prevails between the management and the rest of the team. In other words, he or she is entitled and mandated to carefully select the management team with merit and without favour whatsoever (U.S. Office of Personnel Management [USOPM] 1999). External elites (academic experts) serve as advisors and thus are stakeholders too. Definition of their roles and terms of address must first be accomplished before including them in the ethics policy (O’Riordan 2004). The other category of stakeholders includes the employees. Employees are at the heart of production and at the receiving end of poor ethical policy. Mostly, employees become victims say after a strike of the workforce. The result is poor performance signed by the low productivity of the employees. The HRM must therefore design a work relationship that does not worsen the employees off (Welford 2012). The environment is another form of stakeholder (Welford 2012). Activities that lead to deterioration of the environment must be analysed first by the HRM. He or she must design a framework of dealing with such matters. For example, he or she may design worker’s training to work with emerging technology in an effort to minimize environmentally hazardous practices (Welford 2012). Consumers of the firm’s products are stakeholders of note too. The intended policy should inform the employees the need to up their game in terms of quality production (USOPM 1999). Finally, the government is a stakeholder. Any policy designed by the management must be in agreement with the statutory set standards (USOPM 1999). Designing of motivational strategy The need for high ethical standards of the employees should be paid for. A HRM must design a formula for motivating his or her employees (Kitzmueller & Shimshack 2012). This comes as an example of corporate social responsibility (Welford 2012). In the same way an administrator may punish an employee, he or she should as well reward job well done. Designing criteria for motivation is crucial (USOPM 1999). Criteria justify punishment as well as reward. The intension thereof is to create a just environment in which an employee becomes accountable for his or her records of work (USOPM 1999). Training programs must be considered to ensure quality work, capacity building and continuous production (Welford 2012). The emergence of new technologies in the field of work, may subject various employees to unhealthy and stressful environment and in the end, underperformance and frustration. A competent HRM strategically devises means by which employees are trained from time to time in accordance with the prevailing technical requirements. For well trained employees, work becomes easy, production escalates and in the end, goals of the firm are achieved (Kitzmueller & Shimshack 2012). Refining and defining channels and levels of communication Within a firm, proper communication channels is a fundamental basis for development of an organization. The HRM must define the working routes of communication between the management to the worker. Specifically, the management will need to communicate with the employees from time to time whether individually or collectively. Once vital information is disseminated by the management, it should reach all the employees preferably at once. This not only makes the daily operations of the firm easy, but also ensures accountability of the employees to their respective duties (USOPM 1999). In the long run, ignorance in the working environment becomes a story of the past. The levels of communication in a firm should be organized. Each employee need to have personnel to whom he or she is answerable (USOPM 1999). Qualifications and Accountability (Kitzmueller & Shimshack 2012) Qualifications of the employees is an important aspect of sound management especially in terms of developmental goals (USOPM 1999). A set of qualifications for recruitment and the recruitment procedures must be the main focus of the HRM. Qualifications should as well match with the capacity an employee is to be assigned (Kitzmueller & Shimshack 2012). Similarly, the HRM must clearly define the roles to be associated with each capacity he or she introduces in the management. The roles must then be communicated in a top-down manner such that each member of the working stuff knows in advance about the changes in the management (O’Riordan 2004). When such requirements are met, those holding different capacities are open to scrutiny, appreciation and disqualification (O’Riordan 2004) where need arises. The wider picture is to set open all the operational proceedings to the whole of the working team (ensuring transparency) so that to encourage healthy teamwork defined by similar goals all round. HRM himself or herself should be accountable as well in their processes of choosing who fits where. Setting timeline for goals and objectives While focusing on the main mission statement of the firm, goals and objectives are formulated to assist. The HRM is mandated to define working rates that will lead to the achievement of the set goals and objectives in time. Compensation and wages must be reasonable enough for the employees with regards to different capacities and roles (USOPM 1999). The idea is to introduce as many incentives (USOPM 1999) to the workforce to ensure high productivity and sustainability of the firm. After a HRM derives conclusions on the issues discussed above among others, then a list of statements is made for each issue. From here, the different policies are developed accordingly and communicated to the staff (Workinfo.com 2012). Conclusion Since a policy is intended to change procedures or to give formal image to particular views, requirements and procedures, they similarly affect different personalities in the working atmosphere (Wirtenberg 2007). Development of various policies for a firm is not an instant process. Before developing various policies for a firm, there exist a number of issues that necessitate relevant analysis. This paper has differentiated these issues into two categories; general issues and specific issues. General issues are those focusing of the role of the HRM to the entire firm, that is, in general and broad terms and include: analysing the business strategy; formulating the firm’s mission statement; conducting SWOT analysis of the workforce; and analyzing details of the culture, organization, people, and systems of the firm. The specific issues are HRM-to-individual stakeholder among other special phenomena. The issues are: considering transformational leadership, addressing the prevailing government policies, analyzing various stakeholders involve in the firm operations, designing motivational strategies, refining the existing channels of communication and/or defining levels of communication within the firm in question, defining roles, qualifications and accountability; and setting timeline for the achievement of various goals and objectives, workloads and wages. Recommendations A Competent HRM should be selected basing on merit, should be of high integrity and preferably having had experience in the relevant field. Once chosen thus, the HRM should consider the above discussed issues before formulating various working policies. Importantly, determining the number of stakeholders that a particular new policy will affect and to what extent should be prioritized. In simple terms, critical analysis of the effects of the contents of a new policy to various stakeholders should be conducted beforehand. For high productivity, good working environment and sustainability, the policies should favour all the parties involved equitably, that is, a win-win situation (Welford 2012). List of References Aguinis, H. and Glavas, A. 2012. What We Know and Don't Know About Corporate Social Responsibility: A Review and Research Agenda. Journal of Management, pp.2-36. Encyclopaedia of Business. 2012. Human Resource Policies. Accessed from http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/small/Eq-Inc/Human-Resource-Policies.html 09/09/2012. Kitzmueller, M. and Shimshack, J. 2012. Economic Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility. Journal of Economic Literature, 50: 1, pp.51–84. McNamara. 2012. Complete Guide to Ethics Management: An Ethics Toolkit for Managers. Accessed http://managementhelp.org/businessethics/ethics-guide.htm 09/09/2012. O’Riordan, J. 2004. Developing a Strategic Approach to HR in the Irish Civil Service. CPMR Discussion Paper 26, pp.9-46. Thomas, E. and Franklin, G.M. 2012. Human Resource Planning and Policy Development: Strategies for Small Businesses. Accessed http://www.sbaer.uca.edu/research/asbe/2004_fall/08.pdf 09/09/2012. U.S. Office of Personnel Management (USOPM). 1999. Office of Merit Systems Oversight and Effectiveness. Accessed http://www.opm.gov/studies/alignnet.pdf 09/09/2012. Welford, R. 2012. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. pp11-27. Wirtenberg, J. 2007. HR’s Role in Building a Sustainable Enterprise: Insights from Some of the World’s Best Companies. Human Resource Planning, 30: 1, pp.10-19. Workinfo.com. 2012. A guide to strategic human resource planning. Accessed http://www.workinfo.com/free/downloads/176.htm 09/09/2012. Read More