Human Resources
The workers are the most important source in any administration and as a result of this, there is a direct link with the quality of the staff and the overall productivity of the entire corporation.
It is the job of the human resources management to employ, expand and maintain quality staff. Within the small business, with possibly one or two employees, responsibility for human resources will lie with the proprietor or with the colleagues, whereas small companies may have one individual whose task is to look after issues relating to employees. Large organisations with many workers on the other hand, will have a whole section dedicated to employees.
To achieve a goal, an administration needs staff that are devoted to gathering its aims and objectives, equipped to do so by sufficient training and stimulated by management to achieve their potential.
Human Resources Planning
Human resource planning attempts to predict demand for personnel and to equal this to the supply. It is important to get this right because if the organisation has too many staff, in will be unproductive, if it has too few, it will not be effective
Administrations need to map carefully to guarantee that they have the right figure of employees for their needs, to do this they will need to identify with:
- The long term aims of their business
- The sort of workforce they will need to achieve these aims
- The labour market in the area in which they operate
In deciding how best to achieve this workforce they will need to look at the available supply of labour. This means being aware of:
- Internal information, that is, the staff that they currently have including how many years of service they have left before retirement, how likely they are to leave, what skills they possess and their potential for acquiring new skills through re-training.
- The external market from which new staff will be recruited. Depending upon the type of work, the skills needed and the size of the business they may be looking at the local labour market, at the national labour market or even at the international labour market
Recruitment and Selection
The employment process itself is costly and it becomes even more so if the incorrect staff are selected. Recruitment therefore involves careful development.
The human asset plan is concerned with recognizing future staffing needs and planning for a supply of suitable labour. Recruitment needs may be satisfied from within the administration by using existing staff more resourcefully. This might involve:
Bus drivers now frequently do the job of bus conductor as well (one operator does the work of two); some managers no longer have the need for a secretary and do there own typing and mailing.
Staff may become more efficient if they use information technology or different method of working
- Introducing flexible working practices
Annualised hours, staff on weekly hours may have little to do in slack times but need help from relief workers at busy times. If staff annualised hours (a set number of hours a year) their work patterns can be arranges to reflect demand, i.e. more at busy times, less at slack. Relief staff may longer be needed
Decisions to recruit new employees are made when, despite such changes, there are not sufficient staffs within the organisation to carry on production effectively.
The steps in selection:
Shortlisting
From a selection of suitable candidates a shortlist is created. An applicant will only be shortlisted if all the criteria have been met. Points may be awarded for each criteria as way of comparing the quality of the different applications. This may help with a second shortlisting if the initial list is too long. All legal legislation will be adhered to.
Testing
In addition to assessing a candidate’s application form or CV and giving an interview, many organisations now give some form of test, such as:
- Medical Tests
- Proficiency Tests
- Psychometric Tests
The recruitment process itself is expensive and it becomes even more so if the wrong staff are appointed. Recruitment therefore requires careful planning
The stages are as follows:
Training & Development
Training is crucial if employees are to maintain being capable members of an organisation, it will:
- Assist employees achieve maximum efficiency in their current jobs.
- Fuse the qualities of the employee with the organisation.
- Help the organisation meets its targets for developing and keeping people with the right skills to meet future needs.
Training is also used to train new employees to the organisation by getting them acquainted with the ways of the organisation
Training and development is a way of tuning and priming a workforce to enable them to work at their very best. An employee needs to know how the company operates, what the plans are for the future and where they might fit in and how they intend to develop them to enable them to develop with the company and remain competitive and profitable.
Types of training
Training can take a number of forms including:
- Inductions training
- Mentoring
- Coaching
- Apprenticeships
These can take place as:
- In-house training
- External training outside of the organisation
Induction
This is an introduction into the organisation of new employees. It is designed to familiarise new recruits with the organisation, its rules, and facilities, polices and key staff. An induction programme may include:
- A general introduction and welcome to the organisation
- A summary of the policies of the organisation
- Specific rules and procedures including health and safety
- Benefits and terms of employment
- Job details
- Introduction to key staff
- Facilities available
Mentoring
This can take a number of forms. It may involve an experienced member of staff supporting a new recruit through the initial stages after joining the organisation. The aim is to give a new member of staff a point of contact where problems can be taken and advice given. The meetings are usually informal and supportive and the mentor is often someone at the same level in the organisation as a new recruit.
Mentoring may also involve contact with members of other organisations who feel they have experience and support to give.
Coaching
Coaching is commonly associated with pursuit of excellence in sport or in examination results. However, the term is increasingly used in association with training in business. It involves expert helping employees to develop specific skills through explanation, practice and encouragement. Coaching is becoming popular as a means of developing the skills on senior managers.
Coaching may also take the form of ‘sitting next to Nellie’; this is looking at how someone with the experience performs a particular job.
Apprenticeships
Traditionally, an apprenticeship involved a trainee working for a period of time with a craftsperson in order to leans a trade
In the 1990’s a government-funded training scheme, known as a modern Apprenticeships, was introduced. This provides young people with broad-based training in particular occupations coupled with essential key skills. The aim is to develop a labour force to help British business compete in the modern world. The award is at NVQ level 3 and allows successful trainees to move on to gain further skills.
On-the-job training
Some jobs require no prior experience. The new recruit may have the key skills needed to perform the job, but not exact knowledge required. In this case the job will need to be explained and demonstrated in the work place
Of-the-job training
This is any type of training that takes place away from the job. It may be provided in-house or externally.
In-house training
Qualified employees whose specific job is to train and develop new recruits and the current workforce usually do in-house training.
External training
Where few employees need training then they may be sent on specialist one-day or residential courses outside the organisation, this may be held at the training agencies own location, although centres are hired out to train new and current staff.
Performance Management
Performance Management is the systematic, data-oriented approach to managing people at work that relies on positive reinforcement as the major way to maximize performance. Performance Management is used across the world in a wide variety of organisations, from private sector business & industry, to public sector government and non-profit agencies. Performance Management has been used to address many organizational issues including quality control, safety, and productivity improvement.
This is different from the Appraisal process, which generally happens once or twice a year and is more a summary and overview of a person's progress and development.
With Performance Management, a person's day-to-day effectiveness is what's looked at. Specific goals are agreed, workload determined and expectations set. That way, people can feel supported and looked after by their line manager and any apparent or potential difficulties can be dealt with as they occur.
When people are well managed they feel aligned, committed, on board and motivated. Their needs and wants are being considered; their quirks and individual ways of working are being accommodated; their contributions are being acknowledged. Acknowledgement f this can lead to a more comfortable recruit and could to an increase in productivity.
Appraisals
An increasingly important way of getting feedback on employee’s performance is through appraisal. Appraisal may be closed, in which case the report remains confidential. More usually the process is open, in which case the appraisee takes an active art in the review process and discuss the results.
The appraisal is essentially looks at what an employee’s job Is, how well it is being performed and what action should be taken for the future. It consists of a number of stages.
Types of Appraisals:
Self-appraisal involves employee’s assessing them selves against a series of criteria. These results can then be compared with the views of the others. People are often surprised at how others see them.
This is a growing trend now used by companies such as British Airways and the Halifax Bank. Here employees are rated by their by subordinates rather than by their superiors. These appraisals often take into account the views of a high number of employees and are seen as reliable and valuable.
This involves employees on the same level within the organisation assessing each other.
360-degree feedback involves feedbacks from a number of people within the organisation both have and below the appraisal. The idea is that since a number of people are affected by an employee’s performance, a balanced appraisal can only be gained by asking for all-round comments.
Measuring performance
Workers are employed in order to help the organisation to produce its good or services. The efforts of human resources managers are directed towards improving the performance of employee’s and thereby enabling the organisation to achieve its objectives.
There is a growing trend for business to quantify performance – to produce figures – even in service industries where this was not traditionally done.
Performance through profit
One measure of the performance of a business is to compare profits for different years, or with the profits of similar businesses in the same industry. This will give an indication on whether the business is performing adequately.
Performance through quality
Traditionally quality control was founded in manufacturing industry. Its function was to check that products were up to standard
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a system, which aims to ensure that no products fall below standard. Quality performance is valued but can be difficult to measure exactly.
Performance through productivity
In many jobs it is quite straightforward to measure employee productivity. This applies particularly to sales and manufacturing where pay can easily be linked directly to performance.
Where such measurements are possible retraining needs can be identified for under-achievement, ergonomically designed workstations can be installed to improve performance and a system of rewards can be introduced as an incentive.
Performance-related pay
Pay rise which staff have earned through increased productivity are acceptable to employers as they neither add to unit cost nor to inflation – staff earn more because they produce more. However a major problem wit performance-related pay is that performance can sometimes be difficult to measure – this is especially true in parts of the service sector.
Pay and Wages
On 1 April the UK introduced the first UK statutory minimum wage of £3.60 an hour for all adults aged 22 and over. A youth rate of £3.00 applied to the 18 – 21 age bracket
More that two million of Britain’s lowest paid workers received a pay rise as a result. The groups who benefited most were security guards, catering and hotel staff cleaners, porters, retail, textile and child care workers (most of them women), home-workers, piece-rate and agency workers – some of them gained increases of up to £1.60 an hour
The minimum wage will not apply to:
- Under 26 year-olds in their first year of an apprenticeship
- Au pairs
- Students on sandwich courses
- The self-employed
- Members of the armed forces
- Workers under 18
- 18 – 21 year olds, who will be paid a lower rate youth rate
The rate includes incentive and bonus pay and tips shared put through the payroll.
Grievance Procedure
A grievance is a formal expression of dissatisfaction about a work situation usually by an individual employee, but it may sometimes be initiated by a group of employees or a union acting on their behalf.
Grievance procedures are formal and agreed procedures that an employer and his or her employees or representatives have agreed to follow to deal with or resolve workplace problems. Grievance procedures may be set out as a provision in an award or agreement, but there may also be an internally developed procedure.
Grievance procedures are based on the principle of natural justice and it is recognised as good business sense to have effective grievance procedures.
An effective grievance procedure should allow the following outcomes:
- A peaceful method of conflict resolution to reduce industrial action and provide greater stability
- Quick and effective results
- Improved communications and working relationships
- Employee participation and consultation in the workplace
- Increased productivity and efficiency of the organisation
- Resolution of problems with workplace change programs
- Better emotional well being, performance and morale of employees
- Avoidance of the costs and delays of going to the tribunal
- Natural justice for employees.
The procedure can cover both individual and collective grievances:
- Employee notifies the employer (in writing or otherwise) as to the substance of the grievance, requests a meeting with the management and states the remedy sought.
- Discussion held between employee (and representative) and first line manager.
- If the matter is not resolved
- Employee (and representative) confers with senior manager.
- If the matter is not resolved
- Joint meeting with employer or more senior management representative
Disciplinary Procedure
If an informal discussion fails to solve problems that arise in employment, the more formal approach of a disciplinary procedure may be called for. Details of the procedure should be in writing, readily accessible, known and understood by all employees. The disciplinary procedure sets out in writing the type of disciplinary action and penalties, which can result from unacceptable conduct or performance.
Employers are not required by law to have a disciplinary procedure but employers with 20 or more employees must, in the written statement, specify the person (by name or job title) to whom individuals may apply if they have a grievance or wish to appeal against any disciplinary action. Details should also be given of how they should make such an application. Workers may choose to be represented by a fellow worker or union official if they are subject to formal disciplinary action
Adequate disciplinary procedures should:
- State the type of disciplinary action and penalties which can result from unacceptable conduct and failure to change it
- Provide for matters to be dealt with quickly
- Ensure that individuals are made fully aware of what their disciplinary offence is
- Ensure that disciplinary action is not taken until the case has been fully investigated. If it is thought necessary to suspend an employee during the investigating period, it should be with pay and for as short a period as possible
- Allow individuals to be accompanied at the hearing by a trade union representative or a work colleague of their choice (click here for more on rights to be accompanied)
- Allow workers the right to put their case before decisions are reached
- Not permit dismissal for a first offence (except in the case of gross misconduct)
- Provide the worker with a right of appeal
- Allow the procedure to be implemented at any stage if the worker's performance or alleged misconduct warrants such action
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Indicate the kinds of serious offence which are likely to be regarded as gross misconduct and which will normally lead to summary dismissal i.e. dismissal without notice (click here for more on misconduct and gross misconduct).
A typical procedure will have the following stages:
- A formal oral warning in the case of a minor offence
- A written warning for subsequent minor offences or a more serious offence
- A final written warning for further misconduct. The warning should make clear that dismissal might follow failure to improve
- Dismissal with appropriate notice will follow if there is insufficient improvement.
The employee may seek representation (perhaps from a trade union) during the course of disciplinary action. They may feel that they are being victimised or dealt with unfairly.
Yes
No
Improvement
No improvement
Improvement
No improvement
Improvement
No improvement
Industrial Relations
The term industrial relations refer to the relationship between the organisation and its workforce. This is something that cannot be valued and shown on the company balance as an asset but its effect on the prospects of a business is crucial.
Good industrial relations may be fostered by:
- Positive consultation between the management and the workforce – where they exist this may take place through trade unions.
- Employee participation in the management process
- Incentives which tie employees’ interests to the interests to the business
Employee Representation
Employees may be represented in the workplace by:
- Trade unions
- Staff associations
- Works councils
- Employee representative on the board
Trade Unions
An employer is not legally required to recognise a trade union unless an agreement already exists for an organisation that is being taken over. However, in practice, unions are frequently recognised for negotiating purposes.
Staff Associations
These are bodies of employees formed to discuss staff welfare with management. They may discuss matters such as recreation facilitates, canteens etc., but rarely have the power to negotiate wages or conditions of employment.
Work Councils
Under EU law multinational firms operating in Europe need to set up works councils for their employees in EU states. This applies to all companies with over 1000 employees and over 150 employees in at least two EU countries. The councils are entitled to meet central management once a year to receive a report outlining business prospects.
Employee representative on the board
The employers’ equivalent allows employees to attend board meetings as a way of allowing for consultation. Similar initiatives include schools and colleges that may have a staff member on the board of governors.
