The Impact of the Social and Political Factors on Aspects of HRM Policy - HelpAge International - Case Study Example

Student Name: Tutor: Title: HRM BRIEFING REPORT Institution: Due Date: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 2 Background of the organization 3 A description of the 2 key environmental factors 4 Social 4 Political 5 Risks of the impact of the social and political environmental factors on two aspects of HRM Policy 7 Recommendations for decision makers to take appropriate action in the areas of strategic HRM Planning 8 Content and design of HRM information systems 10 Design Criteria 10 Bibliography 12 Introduction A number of people within the developing world are increasingly ageing in poverty. It is also highly recognized that neglect of the older people’s right is unacceptable. As a result, staff and volunteers from UN bodies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), charitable organizations and community groups as well as several other agencies position themselves at the forefront to serve others. Such individuals face both living and security conditions as the only the leading commitment that other people would accept, whereas others may be strategically positioned in a regional, state or head office. Regardless of where they are placed and whatever employment status they are classified, the most important aspect is their working approach typified through their unstinting commitment to aid the interests of older persons or other people. Employers, particularly human resource managers owe such people extremely higher than the minimum (Kolehmainen-Aitken 2000). A number of agencies operating within the relief, socio-political development or advocacy have discovered though the hard way that appropriate support as well as management of staff who provide care services to older people as a critical success aspect in delivering and focusing on their mission. Therefore, any initiative that can encourage employers to become clearer or committed to their responsibilities and account for their performance will eventually enable them to become better managers of other people, and thus considered as better providers of the quality assistance. Background of the organization HelpAge International like other relief and development agencies or organizations with the mission to work with individuals who are poor, affected by conflict, vulnerable, highly depressed and displaced as well as disadvantaged and worried of their future, is a not for profit organization that advocate for the rights and livelihood of older people by reducing the burden left for them to take good care of the orphan and vulnerable children due to the scourge of HIV Aids. The organization works towards achieving its mission, to make older persons live dignified lives through enhancing cash transfer or social pension aged people. A description of the 2 key environmental factors Social Social pensions are considered valuable as well as strategic element of the social security package. The human resource management of HelpAge International need to understand that such packages promotes the realization of people’s rights, particularly older persons through the implementation of the human right to the social security and endorses state provision of the social protection for the aged as the highly vulnerable people. By adhering to the principles of social pensions, HelpAge International will be supporting the commitments made by various governments in 2002 on the Madrid International Plan of Action (MIPA) on ageing to share equally the population of older people living within the extreme ends of poverty by 2015. Additionally, social pensions provide important contributions to older person’s empowerment and ability to claim for other rights such as equal access to employment opportunities for themselves as well as their dependants. Therefore, HelpAge International should call for the collective social age pensions and its endorsement must start at the age of 60 in recognition of the view that poor people over and over again face early onset of their old age that decline their health and in conformity with the UN recognition of older people. This may prove to be a challenging target particularly in the low-income countries. However, with international support, it is practicable and achievable (Help Age International, 2006). Based on the research analysis about the impact of Ageing Population in Australia, old age is considered as a new factor within the history of human race. Although is regarded as a triumph of the civilized as well as caring society, majority of the people perceive it to be a major problem currently facing communities. The connection between ageing and workforce participation indicates that even though people are living longer, they are not working longer. The best way to overcome the problem of funding the ageing population is to educate human resource managers on the issue of ageism. Despite the efforts made on how implement legislation against the problem of age discrimination at the workplace, the issue of ageism is disguised through various forms. This is because majority of the employers view older persons as people identified with shorter working life, and thus provide lower returns to companies. Due to this assumption employers not only become reluctant to employ older people but also to give them additional training. Therefore, avoiding age discrimination against the older workers may result in social benefits including increased GDP, high revenue from taxation as well as reduced spending on welfare. Political Despite the fact that a good number of older people within the developing world are employed, few of them earn enough to meet their basic needs, thus are not able to support their dependants. HelpAge International’s mission to provide targeted cash transfers to people in old age would be considered as an essential human resource management component of enhancing comprehensive social protection package. This equality and human rights principle should be an important component of the human resource management system, specifically designed to protect orphan and vulnerable children, poor women and men faced with difficulties across their lives. Other essential components will target disadvantaged groups, including disabled people and minority population. HelpAge International need to provide affordable and accessible education as well as health services, enable the older people’s equal accessibility to safer and reliable necessities such as water, food and housing in addition to the enhanced protection during employment conflicts or attack of natural disaster. On the other hand, regular income aid to the older poor can play a great role as a core element of the inclusive commitment to reduce poverty, corresponding to the international development as well as human rights targets. However, developing countries which are burdened with hard economic problems, such as crippling in debt repayments, should be advised that collective income transfer in ageing must be conditional on the power to generate high income nationally. This implies that social pension being a legitimate component of development spending should be included (Help Age International, 2006). In Australia, the aged care is considered as one among the highly regulated workplaces through the Commonwealth setting certification standards and outcomes, governance and funding as well as nursing home fees. The Howard government revolutionized the aged care funding system to provide funding to each aged care facility as a solitary grant of money whereby each facility was expected to meet various quality outcomes under the Commonwealth old people or Aged Care Act 1997 so as to maintain accreditation. This indicates that quality standards are largely monitored through the Aged Care Standards Agency enhanced with a system of accreditation that incorporates residential care standards, developing care standards and human resource management systems that controls both staffing and organizational standards (Timo, et. al. 2004) Risks of the impact of the social and political environmental factors on two aspects of HRM Policy In relief and social development work, both stressful and risky situations are neither predictable nor inevitable. However, efforts can be made to mitigate the risks of illness, stress, injury and worse to staff and their dependants. This implies that employing organizations are required to ensure that the various security, health and safety needs of all their staff is well-protected as at all costs and that appropriate measures are put maintain their ongoing well-being. This calls for significant thought as well as human resource planning on the part of personnel managers, with the view that enhancing security for staff fall under additional project costs. It is apparent that maintaining the safety and working conditions of staff is vital in achieving the objectives of HelpAge International and the specific needs of the older people that work for the organization and support by it. Although cost need to be considered, the main objective is to ensure that staff is competent enough to deliver the required services by agencies within the highly challenging environments (Gill, et.al. 2002). In regard to the workplace violence and bullying environmental factors that largely affect the older employees, the human resource management of HelpAge International should be informed that various types of employee bullying behaviors exist at the workplaces. Such behaviors are delineated as uncontrollable work loads, insults remarks which are made against older people, humiliation, undue monitoring as well as being called upon to perform tasks which are not associated with their normal job role. Thus, conditions perceived as significant unwelcome behaviors. In linking such behaviors to the HRM policies and practices, strong connections must be created between inadequate induction and the organizational training practices which are dominated with weak grievance procedures. Generally, employees feel dissatisfied based on the manner through which their management deals with their grievances and complaints (Bowie 2002). Ineffective leadership and insufficient work control can be a contributing factor to a bullying work culture. Therefore, it is important for HelpAge International to clearly articulate HRM policies on the issue of employee bullying and workplace violence and make a follow up with by use of effective grievance management procedures that can enable its employees including older people to have self-assurance within the grievance process outcomes. This clearly implies that inaction as well as poorly communicated HRM policies and practices cause a corrosive effect on the employee well-being, and thus creating a bullying work culture. The HRM of HelpAge International should consider this as a compliance matter, indicating a failure to take the appropriate managerial action that can lead to legal penalties under the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) legislation as well as compensation payments which arise from common claims (Australian National Occupational Health and Safety Commission 2002). Recommendations for decision makers to take appropriate action in the areas of strategic HRM Planning Decision makers at HelpAge International should apply conformity approaches to the workplace regulation. However, the approaches must emphasize the importance of using organizational-wide risk management strategies to better cope with the occurrences of workplace bullying in the organization (Mayhew & Chappell 2003). Since adoption of a risk control strategy is a feature considered in the Australian Occupational Health Safety law that incorporates steps such as identifying the risks, assessing the risks, developing prevention controls, implementing the controls as well as monitoring and reviewing the performance of Occupational Health and Safety management system, the human resource management of HelpAge International should adopt such a system to assess, monitor and manage the needs of older people who are the organization’s workers and clients. This approach would be successful by implementing a zero tolerance to the workplace violence as well as bullying policy that should be supported by strategic human resource management all through the organization. Thus, articulated through continued, regular training and employee induction within an accommodating organizational climate (Hoel & Cooper 2001). Rational steps must be considered when implementing the policy to ensure that both existing and new staff clearly understand their obligations. Prevention strategies applied by decision makers at HelpAge International should incorporate the identification of risks through employee consultation, management of incident recording system, carry out a review of the previous incidents or reports as well as create a database of employment related incidents. The human resource management of HelpAge International must develop a checklist of the potential risks both for emotional and work tasks related, and undertake regular auditing of employee performance reports. Training being an important control measure should be used in the identification of sources and provide instances of unacceptable behaviors as well as the impact of workplace violence and bullying on the employees particularly older people in the organization. It is important to identify the appropriate ways for the human resource managers to manage staff, and how staff can cope with their colleagues, residents and clients (Barker, et, al. 1999). The action or response plan should be effectively performance managed so as to solve the problem by ensuring that appropriate HRM procedures as well as guidelines are rightly applied). Management will be required to monitor and review the capability of occupational health and safety controls on a regular basis and conduct extra risk assessment to implement more controls so as to prevent the reoccurrence of workplace violence and bullying. Therefore, consultation with all the stakeholders, including employees, clients, users must be involved (Australian Industrial Relations Commission 2004). Content and design of HRM information systems Living, bullying and workplace violence security conditions drive the design and contents as well as the need to of the Occupational Health and Safety management system at HelpAge International Organization. The skills & knowledge of Users or employees of the organization on how the human resource management system works will make it effective in achieving the objectives of HelpAge International as well as the needs of older people who are their employees and clients. The specific elements in the Occupational Health and Safety management system will include payroll, leave records, schedule of training, employment awards or non awards, performance appraisals and Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) incident reports. Design Criteria The OHS data will be captured, stored or retrieved as well as security upgrades made on the system by communicating the HRM policies on the issue of employee bullying and workplace violence, a follow up will be necessary through the use of effective grievance management procedures to enable employees including older people to have self-assurance in the grievance process outcomes. OHS database will be created to store the captured data and retrieve OHS incident reports whenever needed to make judgmental decisions based on the HelpAge International objectives. In addition to the security upgrades that will include server system with back-up data centre and rigorous security protocols, appropriate managerial action will be considered to maintain the legal penalties under the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) legislation and compensation payments that may arise from common claims. The existing Occupational Health and Safety system will acquired and then modifications will be applied to suit the specific needs of the HelpAge International organization. The information to be given to others within the organization to enable them use the new system will be determined through intensive training program with scheduled refresher workshops. Training being an important control measure will be used in the identification of sources and provide instances of unacceptable behaviors as well as determine how workplace violence and bullying affect the employees in the organization. Risk Management strategies will conform to the legal penalties under the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) legislation. Bibliography Australian National Occupational Health and Safety Commission, 2002, Draft national organizational health and safety strategy: 2002 - 2012, Canberra, NOHSC. Australian Industrial Relations Commission, 2004, B. Hill v Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads, Matter no. U2004/2354: AIRC, 26th April 2004. Barker, M, Skas, E, & Dwyer, H., 1999, Adult workplace bullying in an Australian construction organisation. In C. Fraser, M. Barker, & A. Martin (Eds.), Organizations looking ahead: challenges and directions, Brisbane: Griffith University, School of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management and School of Management. Bowie, V., 2002, Defining violence at work: A new typology. In Gill, M, Fisher, B, & Bowie, V. (Eds.), Violence at work: causes, patterns and prevention (1-20). UK, William Publishing. Gill, M, Fisher, B, & Bowie, V., 2002, Violence at work: Causes, patterns and prevention. Devon, UK, Willan Publishing. Help Age International, 2006, Social Cash Transfers for Africa, a transformative agenda for the 21 st century – Intergovernmental regional conference report, Zambia, Livingstone. Hoel, H & Cooper, C., 2001, Origins of bullying: Theoretical frameworks for explaining workplace bullying. In N. Tyehrani (Ed.), Building a culture of respect: managing bullying at work (3-19). London, Taylor and Francis. Kolehmainen-Aitken, R.L., 2000, Defining Human Resource Responsibilities in the Era of Health Sector Reform. Paper presented at the American Public Health Association Meeting, Boston. Mayhew, C & Chappel, D., 2003, Internal occupational violence (or bullying) in the health care industry, Journal of Occupational Health and Safety - Australia and New Zealand, 19 (1), 59 - 71. Timo, N, Fulop, L & Ruthjersen, A., 2004, Crisis? What Crisis? Management Practices and Internal Violence and Workplace Bullying in Aged Care in Australia, Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 12(2), 57-89. Read More