Theorists – Hard and soft Hrm
Management theories have emerged over time, in accordance to the different situations:
1-The need to gain competitive advantage forces the companies to try to improve the management of people (i.e. better use of its employees).
2-Japan’s success in industrial productivity and the organisation of work, is an example of how to achieve quality.
3-The decline of trade union pressure
4-Changes in workforce developed more flexible jobs.
A firm is made up of capabilities and competencies (human and physical), in which the attempt to tied these employees’ resources created two influences in the development of hrm:
Hard Hrm, where employees are viewed as a cost, little regard is given to their needs and is expected for managers and employees interests to be similar. There’s a notion that successful organisations are those that best deploy their human resources (workers), in which job design, training and promotion will be in the hands of the line manager.
Theories advocating the benefits of this approach are:
Scientific management developed by F W Taylor. He states that’ In the past the man has been first; in the future the system must be first.’ Scientific management creates the combination of detailed task specifications and selection of the ‘best man’ for the job.
It was the function of managers to think- workers were expected to do exactly as they were told. This, he felt, would result in the most efficient method of performing physical work.
Additionally, he advocated premium payments as a means of rewarding the most effective (compliant) workers. Taylor’s ideas led to:
- Organisational structure and design
- Work and task design
- Selection and motivation of workers
These practices require management control over the precise detail of work in order to maximise efficiency and gain competitive advantage.
Strategic management, argue that directing people to achieve strategic objectives, so that individual goals are tied to the business needs of the whole organisation.
Frequently, it employs project and team-based methods for planning and implementation. Lately, internal (including human) resources and key competencies have been identified as crucial elements of long-term competitive success.
Soon started to be apparent flaws in these theories, because they took little or no account of human behaviour and feelings, once the employees for them were merely labour ‘ costs’, which must be reduced through productivity improvements.
In the Soft Hrm model, there’s a notion that workers respond better when an organisation recognises their individual needs, and addresses them, as well as focusing on the overall business objectives. This model, is supported by the human relations and Japanese management, in which is shown that teamwork, employee involvement and commitment drives the firm to success.
Harvard model of Hrm
In the Harvard framework of hrm, human resources policies are influenced by two considerations:
Situational factors, in the outside business environment or within the firm such as laws and societal values, labour market conditions, unions, work-force characteristics, business strategies, management philosophy and task technology.
Stakeholder’s interests, including those of shareholders, management employees, unions, community, and government. Beer et al, argue that: human resource policies should be influenced by all stakeholders, if not in the long run’ it will fail as an institution’.
They also content, that managers can affect a number of factors by means of the policy choices they make, including:
-The overall competence of employees, if they have the skills and knowledge when required, the organisation benefits, and its employees experience an increase sense of self- worth and economic well being.
- The commitment of employees, leads to more loyalty and better performance for the business.
- The degree of congruence between employee’s own goals and those of the organisation
-The overall cost effectiveness of hrm practices, in terms of wages, benefits, turnover, absenteeism, strikes, etc.
Beer et al argue that: “ In the long run, striving to enhance all four Cs will lead to favourable consequences for individual well being, societal well being, and organisational effectiveness. Thus, Hrm policy formulation must incorporate this long-term perspective.
David Guest’s view of the employees
Another theorist to emphasis the importance of the employees and the policies surrounding their work contribution was David Guest. Guest states that the potential input that good human resources policy can make would improve organisational performance.
David Guest emphasis the differences between the stereotypes of personnel management and human resource management. According to him human resource practices exercise their positive impact by: ensuring and enhancing the competence of employees; by tapping their motivation and commitment; and by designing work to encourage the fullest contribution from employees.
Positive behaviour should in turn impact upon establish level outcomes such as low absence, quit rates and wastage, as well as high quality and productivity.
Hrm Hrm Hrm BEHAVIOUR PERFORM Financial
STRATEGY PRACTICES OUTCOMES OUTCOMES Outcomes
Guest theory of hrm, is a prescriptive model based on four goals:
Strategic integration- ensuring that hrm, is fully integrated into strategic planning, that hrm policies are coherent, that line managers use hrm practices as part of everyday work.
Commitment- ensuring that employees feel bound to the organisation and are committed to high performance via their behaviour.
Flexibility- ensuring an adaptable organisation structure, and functional flexibility based on multiskilling.
Quality- ensuring a high quality of goods and services through high quality, flexible employees.
Guest sees these goals as a package – all need to be achieved to created the desired organisational outcomes.
How to find / manage your assets?
Human Resource Management recognises that, employees are an organisation most valuable assets.” It is no longer jobs that have value, but people"(Sparrow and Marchington 1998).
Selection process
In the organisation vacancies can arise for a number of reasons: expansion, retirement of existing workers, etc. Whatever the reason, the company needs to have a selection process, which should include: interviewing, hiring and placement of new employees. Hiring is one of the most difficult yet most important functions of the owner/ manager. Get the wrong employee for the job and the employee and employer both suffer. The keys to good hiring are first determine what the business needs and focus on that during the hiring process.
Functions range from the preparation of job descriptions, interviewing and selection of employees for specific positions. The recruiter must have good communications skills with universities, working with advertising agencies and the marketing department, to develop innovative and eye catching recruitment campaigns. He will need advanced interview expertise, and excellent understanding why the individual should join the business.
Completing the job application is the prospective employee's first step of a carefully planned process of employee selection and approval. After a tentative match has been made between applicants and open positions, a supervisor interview employees, and if approved, begins the hiring and placement process.
Development and training
Employee development has traditionally seen as costs, but this has changed, once grows the importance to retain valued employees, with a comprehensive new employee orientation and continuing to track the employee's progress and development.
Owners and managers are committed to developed employees, to enable them to achieve business objectives, as well as, generating people commitment advantage through their performance and abilities. Increasingly, this function is becoming known as learning and development, once the employer/ employee may use mistakes as a positive learning experience. Management can assist the team building process by: 1) having clear goals; 2) measuring the process towards those goals; 3) delegate responsibility (not authority); 4) and demand accountability.
Nowadays, it is important to train your assets, helping them to become better and more productive, since now if the employee don’t feel proud then they will leave or lower their attitude and do just enough to get by.
Appraisals/ Evaluations
After a continuous training and development of the employee, it’s important to have employee appraisals and evaluations reviews, as a formal vehicle for monitoring and reviewing performance of employees; setting objectives and identifying training & development needs.
Evaluations and reviews help to keep good employees, and motivated employees improvement. There are a number of different job evaluation techniques, each with advantages and disadvantages. The most common job evaluation techniques are:
Job ranking- this is a technique using job descriptions or job titles. Each job is considered as a whole and placed in a ‘felt fair’ rank order to produce a league table.
Paired comparisons- each job is compared as a whole with each other job in turn, and points (0, 1 or 2) awarded according to whether its overall importance is judged to be less than, equal to, or more than the other jobs. Points awarded for each job are then totalled and a rank order produced.
Job classification- In job classification the number of grades is decided first and detailed grade definitions produced.
Points rating- It is an analytical method which breaks down each job into a number of factors; for example, skill, responsibility and effort, with the factors sometimes being further broken down into sub-factors, for example, education, decision making and dexterity. These sub-factors will be further divided into degrees or levels. Points are awarded for each factor according to a predetermined scale and the total points decide a job’s place in the ranking order.
Nowadays, there’s a reciprocal search of interests between the two parts: the employer provides training/knowledge, some degree of worker flexibility and a pay system that is based on merit. The Employee brings value to the business. Management should constantly be thinking that how employees are treated would be a reflection on how they treat customers. The successful businesses of the future will count employees as one of their greatest assets.
CONCLUSION
Throughout this coursework, it has been shown the way the relationship between employers/ employees has developed over the years.
Even though, employers have renowned for their commitment to good, with well-resourced employment policies, some still seek to minimise staff costs and investments, in pursuit of competitiveness and profits; i.e. implementing redundancies and even export jobs to countries where labour costs are the cheapest (that can be seen today in British airways, in which most of their staff and customers, paperwork is done in India where the workmanship is a bargain).
Such policies bring the interest of individuals and groups into conflict with those of their employers.
From a human resource perspective, investment in staff contributes to profitability as these employees bring their best ideas to the workplace with a sense of excitement, ownership and pride, translating in continuous improvement in the organisation. Empowered employees (i.e. giving power and information) benefit both the organisation and themselves, once they clearly understand the company’s situation, they are compelled to act more responsibly.
My recommendation for the company’s today is to trust and respect their employees, solicit theirs opinions when it comes to set corporate goals, because employees will be encouraged to act like owners. They can also make them owners through profit shares, stock options, etc.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Unit Guide: 2002/2003
Foundation Of Human Resource Management: Seminar & Lectures Notes
- Derek Torrington, Laura Hall & Stephen Taylor
Human Resource Management, 5 Edition: Prentice Hall
3. Margaret Foot & Caroline Hook
Introducing Human resource Management, 2 Edition : Prentice Hall
- Patrick Forsyth
How To Motivate People: The Sunday Times
5. Hppt://www.hrnetwork.co.uk
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