Human resource management is the process of coordinating an organization's human resources or employees to meet organizational goals. Human resource professionals deal with such areas as employee recruitment

Human Resource Management

Introduction

Human resource management is the process of coordinating an organization's human resources or employees to meet organizational goals. Human resource professionals deal with such areas as employee recruitment and selection, performance evaluation, compensation and benefits, professional development, safety and health, forecasting, and labor relations.

It also concerns the management relationship practiced in organization by managers.

As it directly deals with people hence it is argued ‘it involves the production utilization of people in achieving the organization’s objectives and the satisfaction of individual employee needs’

Human resource management has its roots in the Industrial Revolution, when the spread of industrialization put increasing emphasis on businesses' ability to hire, train, and retain large numbers of employees. Late 19th and early 20th century changes in government regulation and labor relations also contributed to the field's origins. Human resource management rose in prominence in the mid-20th century, fostered by advances in behavioral and organizational studies. The Society for Human Resource Management (originally named the American Society for Personnel Administration) was formed in 1948. Since then, the field has developed into a well-recognized profession for practitioners and researchers.

So effective Human resource management depends on the personnel’s skills, support of top management towards employee’s selection, training, motivation and evaluation of performance. So for above this employee selection process I very useful to find out the motivated people for the organization. Most organization recognize that there is a need to monitor the effectiveness of their employee and to promote avenues for there improvements by observing performance appraisal to improve the skills, ability, motivation in the work place company arrange training for every individual s employees.

So it is in the sense of getting things done through people, is an essential part of every manager’s responsibility and especially on these grounds many organizations find it advantageous to establish a specialist division to provide an expertise in this department to ensure that the human resources function is performed efficiently.

Barriers to effective human resources management.

As this involves lot many issues in organizations and there are lot many factors involve toward its implementation. Reasons are different organizational cultures adopted by different countries, at different regions of organizations etc because of different factors i.e. labour rates, different leveled labour and different motivational factors.

Most studies of HRM have tended to focus only on the views of HR staff on particular aspects of HRM, usually within a single country or industry sector, and have done little to identify any problem or barriers that may exist to the implementation of HRM. Many have also failed to consider the theoretical and definitional issues that have plagued HRM.

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There are three barriers commonly seen in effective implementation of HRM.

The first one concerns the extent to which top management has a low priority and short term view of HRM issues while being more concerned with issues as power and control. In short senior commitment to HRM is crutial to its effective operation, but often not as forthcoming as might be.

Second barrier to effective HRM relates to extent to which HRM practitioners possess the knowledge and skills necessary to implement a credible HRM programme within their organization.

The third barrier to effective HRM occurs as a result ...

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There are three barriers commonly seen in effective implementation of HRM.

Second barrier to effective HRM relates to extent to which HRM practitioners possess the knowledge and skills necessary to implement a credible HRM programme within their organization.

The third barrier to effective HRM occurs as a result of the proven knowledge about, and few attempts at demonstrating the long term impact of HRM programs.

So from above views we see that without the effective implementation of HRM principles an organization definitely can not survive in the long run.

And specially discussing the barriers towards effective HRM, BOB Kane and John Crawford’s analysis are very broad specially they analyzed these factors with different regions specially what are the main reasons towards its effectiveness and what are its deficiencies according to the different work behaviors of different work force specially from Australia, New Zealand and what are causes of deficiencies of it’s effective HRM policies towards its competitors like Asia pacific region’s HRM policies.

The recent economic downturn in the Asia –Pacific region has intensified the urgency of change, with organization within Australia and New Zealand currently finding them faced with some challenges.

First their ability to compete with the goods and services from overseas competitors may have been impaired, where because of the poor health of economies overseas competitors are able to provide products and services at lower price than can local industry.

Second these specially three markets represents a key market in which to sell their products and services and to compete their competitors.

All of above suggests that organization in these described regions need to concentrate more on highly value added products and services produced by a skilled and motivated workforce, and to achieve this strategic approach to HRM is needed.

They emphasized two versions to measure competitive advantage towards effective HRM policies lying at different countries including above and some developed countries. These are soft and hard versions of HRM.

Soft approach is called developmental humanist approach involves strictly on fostering employee’s motivation, commitment and development. This approach acknowledges the importance of HRM to the aims of business, whilst reflecting attempts by management to create a work environment that emphasisesemployees development, through practices such as training, participation and communication, and importance of having innovative, flexible committed employees who become valued resources.

Where as ‘hard’ approach which is called situational contigent approach has noted closely termed as ‘strategic HRM’ and in this case HRM is closely linked with business strategies. And according to it an employee as a resource to be used dispassionately and in a formally rational manner. For this effective HRM can be more contingent upon cost minimization measures rather than upon significant investment in human resources. This approach is recommended for cost minimization strategy especially in developing countries. With the implication of these approaches organization could not achieved what was expected.

Another set of barriers towards effective HRM are highlighted Where top management has low priority and short term view of HRM issues while being more concerned with issues such as power and control. It shows that top management is probably the most powerful force that can work against the adoption of HRM initiatives.

Another barrier to effective HRM relates to the extent to which HRM practitioners possess the insufficient knowledge and skills to implement a credible HRM program with in their organization.

Finally Lack of proven knowledge and a very few attempts at demonstrating, long term impact of HRM programs, as a result there is less environment of taking initiatives among employees’ performance and commitment results ineffective MRM ultimately.

Improvement in Human Resource Management

On the basis of above barriers the suggestions made by several writers to improve HRM focus is given to these points.

Gathers responses from three major groups i.e. managers, employees and HRM staff.

Measures respondent perceptions of both ‘hard’ & ‘soft’ aspects of HRM effectiveness.

Attempts to assess directly the extent to which the major barriers to HRM exist and and are related to HRM effectiveness.

Compares perceptions across a wide range of types and sizes of organization within Australia and New Zealand and three comparable overseas countries.

So effective Human Resources Management policies and practices are such as selection, promotion, and termination of staff, performance appraisal, equal opportunity, pay and benefits, training and career development, human resource planning.

Human Resources Management Challenges of the Changing Workforce Perhaps no organizational issue, in the past five years, has attracted as much attention as diversity in the workforce. This issue focuses on the fact that the U.S. workforce will experience considerable change in its composition within the next decade. Specifically, there will be more women, minority group members, and older workers, suggesting a more heterogeneous workforce, which is a significant departure from the largely homogeneous workforces of the past (Johnston and Packer, 1987). Whereas the notion of diversity brings with it opportunities for organizations, it poses serious challenges as well. This paper focuses on one of the most serious challenges and fundamental inconsistencies surrounding the notion of workplace diversity; that is, we claim we value diversity (or heterogeneity) in our workplaces, but we have developed human resources systems (e.g., selection, promotion, etc.) that encourage, reinforce, and, indeed, allow, only similarity (i.e., homogeneity). Through a careful examination of the diversity concept and human resources systems, we propose steps to be taken to circumvent the problems inherent in contemporary human resources systems, and thereby allow organizations to obtain maximum utilization of their available talent organizations can achieve competitive advantage through...

Effective human resources management planning.

Long term business success centers on investing in employees and responding to their needs. each of the following factors highlights basic strategy for human resource management.

Building a Human Resource philosophy

It basically explains that taking care of people of organization then they in turn will deliver the services and commitments demanded by customers which results profitability ultimately.

Managers are rated by subordinates annually on leadership index that contains that’s how well manager helps subordinates, listen to their ideas an respects them. So this is all about giving them respect, and to develop measure of human resources management.

Invest in people

This policy guides and provides principles through activities and practices that make the commitment to investing in people a reality hiring the right people and rewarding them.Srtong cultured organization are very clear about this that what kind of people they are looking for hiring .And to get them they know that they have to offer them attractive pay and benefits, and also they also build loyalty by providing opportunities for growth and development, including education and cross training. This results skilled, motivated and involved employees and their contribution towards work.

Provision of Security and promotion

Promotion and job security offers several advantages. Specially it encourages both organization and employee to invest time and resources in upgrading skills, provides powerful performance incentive, increased interest and loyalty, capitalizes knowledge and skills of employees.

Training and education

Lack of required knowledge and skills badly affects organizations in many ways like poor service quality, low sales and some times results heavy mistakes. Strong organizations recognize importance of learning and effective training for competitive edge.

Learning in an organization takes place when three elements are in place; good mentor who teach others, a management system that promotes people to try new things as much as possible and a good exchange with the environment. And especially this could be a biggest flaw when managers are less aggressive and systematic about learning than they needed to be.

Empowerment and redesign of work

A strong human resource philosophy and a significant investment in people are necessary but not sufficient conditions for fully engaging employees .The work itself needs to provide opportunities for autonomy, influence, and intrinsic rewards. Intrinsic rewards are those motivational factors which other than pay and benefits.

Some authors pointed out that some traditional management pattern force employees to be dependant on superiors and give them little control over their work. So this is one of the biggest barriers towards their sense of responsibility which causes low interest and less participation. So popular human resource remedy in this case is participation i.e. giving workers more opportunity to influence decisions about their work and working conditions which results remarkable.

Job Enrichment and Cross utilization.

Job enrichment means giving workers more freedom and control and authority more feedback and greater challenges while making them more accountable and letting them use more skills towards their tasks. In this way job becomes more challenging and interesting for employees instead of doing the same job every day without any interest.

Conclusion

HRM must meet the basic criteria of both the strategic and the developmental perspectives. That is HRM policies and practices must be long term in focus, integrated with one another and line with the organization’s strategy and objectives as well as treating all employees fairly, increasing employee motivation, satisfaction and commitment, and helping all employees develop to their maximum potential.

These set of resources offered to promote thought and diagnose the organizational environment and develop a sound human resource management strategy for organization

References:

Books Articles

Managing People by British publications

Mintzberg theory of management

Moslow’s theory of motivational factors

Sage dessler human resources management.

Barriers to effective HRM by BOB Kane and John Crawford

Important Internet references