Understanding Organizational Human Resource Management - Essay Example

UNDERSTANDING ORGANIZATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (Student Name) (Course No.) (Lecturer) (University) (Date) Introduction The success of any company or organization in the competitive world market depends on the people. Workers are significant assets of any company and their levels of job satisfaction determines the overall performance of the organization. In many companies, human resource management is important in ensuring that the needs of the employees within the organization are effectively met to improve the organizational performance as well as increase organizational profits. Human resource management refers to an organizational task intended to increase the performance of the employees in achieving the strategic goals of an organization (Becker and Huselid, 2006, p. 898-925). Human resource management primarily deals with the people element in an organization and includes; the acquisition of new employees in the organization, the development of skills among the new and existing employees, motivation of the employees for good performance and maintaining the commitment levels of the workers. Generally, human resource management involves the acquisition, development and maintenance of human resources within an organization. Organizational human resource management is important because it helps organizations in attaining skilled workers through a strict selection process. Moreover, organizational human resource management helps in employee preparation according to the changing needs of the industry making the workers competent enough, thus increasing the performance of the organization (Iveta, 2012, p. 117-128). It also plays in important role in ensuring good relations between the employees and the employers as well as motivating the workers, thus, enabling them to effectively achieve the organizational goals. The aim of this paper is to conduct an assessment of the organizational human resource management at Star Aircraft based on diversity management, culture, international performance management and training and development. Discussion Culture and Organizational HRM One of the important concepts in organizational human resources management is culture. The proper management of human resources within an organization requires an understanding of both the interior and exterior environments of the organization. The interior organizational environment is influenced by the internal work culture while the external environment is represented by the institutional cultures such as the nature of the industry, market characteristics, resource availability and ownership status (Aslam et al, 2013, p. 1-6). Culture refers to the shared patterns of beliefs, assumptions values, and norms of behavior among the different human groups characterized by organizations, societies and institutions. Cultural variables commonly affect organizations at three levels namely, the basic level, organizational culture and the internal work culture operating within the organization. The proper management of the human resources in an organization depends on the task-driven assumptions and the employee related assumptions. One of the important things in organizational culture is employee engagement and empowerment. It important that the human resource management in organizations promote the engagement of employees as a way of achieving organizational goals (Osibanjo and Anthonia, 2013, p. 115-133). The situation is, however, different in Star Aircraft. There is the lack of proper communication between the management and the employees spilling over even to the subsidiaries. This has resulted in a negative culture in the organization with the employees threatening to resist any changes. There is also the problem of poor communication between the line managers and the subsidiaries, resulting in the receipt of emails by the CEO to clarify some points. Furthermore, the organization suffers poor communication both laterally and horizontally with many employees complaining of not receiving adequate instructions. Another important consideration in organizational culture is team work. In many organizations, team work is considered as an important way of ensuring the dissemination of new cultural traits (Stan, 2012, p. 9). For both the organizations and individuals, teams are an important means of talent development. In Star Aircraft, however, teamwork is not considered as an important issue in organizational development. Many teams within the organization only perform the duties as per their scope of work, contributing to poor work relationships between and across teams. There is also the lack of team integration of the teams within the organization. For instance, the aircraft assembly consists of 50 different teams performing different roles. This makes it difficult for the other team members to effectively perform their duties. Another important factor in organizational human resource management with reference to culture is the quality of the organization’s products. An important cultural consideration in manufacturing firms is the production of goods of high quality. This is important because it helps companies in competing with other producing companies within the same industry as well maintaining a good organizational reputation. However, in Star Aircraft, there is the realization that poor quality is a contributor to the reduced organizational profits. According to a management team in Australia, the poor quality of the products is related to the parts from China and Vietnam. There have been complaints from both the government and non- government customers about the quality of the products from the company. The CEO has also received letters from the customers threatening to withhold partial payments should the quality of products fail to improve within six months. The situation is worse with customers threatening to withhold as high as 100 percent partial payments. Diversity Management Another important consideration in the organizational human resource management is diversity management. It refers to the various management related to the hiring and effective utilization of different individuals (Senichev, 2013, p. 1-8). Among the elements that differentiate people in a population are age, gender, disabilities, sexual orientation, social status, marital status, personality, ethnicity, religion and culture. Although gender inequality has been the diversity issue in organizations for several years, diversity issues differ in different regions of the world. In India and the Middle East for instance, people are separated by religion and ethnicity with racism being the dominant diversity factor in the United States and South Africa where there has been a lot of discrimination against the blacks. Diversity management of human resources within organizations involves changing organizational procedures and systems of thinking by strategically concentrating on the new abilities, experiences and attributes without bias. Recognition of diversity in human resource management is important in appreciating the opportunities and the advantages of having different people in an organization. Diversity management is concern with inclusion, collaboration and cohesiveness among the employees (Simons and Rowland, 2011, p. 6-12). The effectiveness of diversity management in an organization depends on its management. Diversity management in an organization should begin with the management and trickle down to the employees. Successful diversity management also depends on the ways in which the management interacts with the employees as well as the interaction between the employees themselves, respect for individuals within the workplace, justness and networking. One main reason why organizations conduct diversity management is to gain competitive advantage over other organizations within the industry as well as escaping lawsuits concerning discrimination. One important factor in human resource management is working with different people without prejudice. In Star Aircraft, diversity management is poor as the company does not consider working with different people. The organizational headquarters for instance, does not tolerate working with people from different generations. There also exists discrimination on the job roles as the senior staff are not ready to work with the beginners. The company subsidiary inn China does not also employ people with disabilities even if they are highly qualified for the job than the other applicants. Due to the discriminate recruitment strategies, there are concerns by the CEO that the people with disabilities are likely to sue the company. Moreover, employee appreciation of each other based on their differences is an important part of diversity management in organizational human resource management (Noor et al., 2013, p. 301-305). A good understanding among the employees of their differences is important in providing an enabling working environment as well as mutual respect among the employees. As part of human resource management, practices should be outlined that help in improving employee understanding of each other hence organizational success. Although Star Aircraft has a policy that deals with diversity, the human resource does not provide practices to help employees in understanding one another. Consequently, there is poor communication among the employees and the diversity within the organization is undervalued. The policy states that the members of the organization should exercise respect for gender and race without providing practical measures of implementation. Furthermore, improving diversity management within the organization, there is the need for the human resource management to device ways of appreciating the different cultures and other ways of deeply understanding the people working in the well as headquarters in Australia as the other subsidiaries. Good organizational diversity management is important in creating a competitive market advantage, thus increasing overall organizational performance. International Performance Management Star Aircraft is an international company dealing with the production and the sale of aircraft as well as aircraft parts to 50 nations across the world. For this reason, international performance management is a key issue in the organizational human resource management. International performance management is referred to as the process by which international companies or multinational enterprises conduct assessments to improve individual and organizational performance in relation to the goals and targets of the company (Atkinson and Shaw, 2006, p. 4). As a significant part of human resource management, international performance management has a strong impact on the organizational business strategy. Currently, organizations are moving from the notion of introduction of new products into the markets and the use of first class technology as ways of ensuring success, to the effective management of human resources. Conventionally, performance management was used in several organizations as a way of ensuring effective employee performance. However, it is today integrated with human resource management in many companies. Many companies currently seek to combine strategy with the efforts of the employees, hence getting the desired results by maximizing the potential of the employees through goal setting, performance assessment and feedback, continuous training and development efforts and performance related pay. This way, the employees feel motivated and ready to work, hence, an improvement in the performance of the organization. In many companies, performance management has been recognized as an important activity within human resource management (O’Boyle and Hassan, 2014, p. 3). This is because it increases employee motivation and commitment to an organization. It also plays an important role in assisting other activities that determine the success of a company such as knowledge management, succession management and change management. Performance management is not only important in the success of businesses today, but also helps the company in preparing for the future. International performance management is also important to the expatriate employees who determine the formulation of strategy and its implementation in various international companies. The expatriate employees play an important role in establishing a company in a foreign country and providing the parent company with the necessary knowledge for it to function properly in the foreign country. Expatriates also help in promoting communication and coordination between the parent companies and the subsidiaries, hence the need for performance management in their evaluation (Salau et al, 2014, p. 51-63). Star Aircraft faces many international performance management issues causing the company lots of money in terms of organizational profits. One key activity in international performance management is performance appraisals (Slavic et al., 2014, p. 45-58). However, these evaluations of the performance of the workers is poorly conducted at Star Aircraft, making it difficult to identify the areas requiring improvement. Although performance reviews are conducted by the human resource at the company headquarters, there are no reviews in the subsidiaries. Moreover, there is the lack of measures to conduct appraisals for the expatriate employees, reducing the employees’ commitment to the company. There is also the lack of proper coordination between the headquarters and the subsidiaries resulting in conflicting performance outcomes between the headquarters and the firms in other countries. The company headquarters does not also take into account the economic factors that affect the performance of the organization with some managers complaining of too much pressure and expectations. There is also the lack of policies to measure the performance of the employees both in Australian and the subsidiaries. According to the CEO, there is the need to ensure consistency at the company headquarters as well as the subsidiaries. Training and Development Organizational training and development is another important part of the human resource management in companies that ensures the effective management of the employees, who are the greatest assets of organizations (Okoye and Ezejiofor, 2013, p. 250, UNECE, 2013, p. 21-39). Training and development in organizations is important in ensuring improved individual and group performance in an organization. Training of the employees involves creative learning that integrates value addition to help the employees in effectively performing their duties as per the scope of work, increasing the competitive advantage and promoting the employee self- growth. Organizational training and development is designed to cover the important work related skills, knowledge and techniques. Organizational training and development primarily revolves around what is good for people rather than what is good for the organization. This is because what is good for the people within an organization is ultimately good for the organization. Thus, it is important for organizations to shift their focus from the organizational needs to the needs of the employees to gain competitive market advantage. The performance of any business depends on the employee training and development, which ensures that the employees are equipped with the right skills to enable tem effectively perform their duties (Devi and Shaik, 2012, p. 1-6). The choice of the right training requirement is important in ensuring that the employers understand the training needs for the employees. Training and development is also a continuous process in organizational development. Training and development is important in organizations because it helps in improving the employees skills hence their performance in an organization, it is an important way of detecting the weaknesses of the employees within an organization and ensuring worker satisfaction. Furthermore, training and development ensures increased quality of the products from an organization, reduction in supervision and ensuring satisfaction of the workers. Training and development is another problem in the human resource management at Star Aircraft as there is no proper training for both the domestic and expatriate employees. There are also complaints from the employees about the training practices in the organization with expatriate employees being trained for half an hour before departure. The human resource management does not organize training for the employees but provides online modules, assuming that all the employees have the same needs. Corporate orientation in the company is also compromised s the employees are not aware of their job roles, leading to poor employee performance and overall organizational failure. Conclusion With reference to the above discussion, it is evident that the human resource management practices at Star Aircraft are below the required standards causing low investment returns and reduced organizational profits. It is recommended that the management of the organization changes its perception of the human resources to improve the performance of the organization. The different aspects of human resource management should also be addressed effectively to improve employee satisfaction and overall organizational performance. References Aslam, H, D, Aslam M, Ali, N and Habib, B. (2013). Importance of Human Resource Management in the 21st Century: A Theoretical Perspective. Journal of International Human Resources Studies, vol 3, p. 1-6. Atkinson, C and Shaw, S. (2006). Managing Performance. 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Diversity and its Impacts on Organizational Performance: The Influence of Diversity Constructions on Expectations and Outcomes. Journal of Technology, Management and Innovation, p. 6-12. Stan, L. (2012). Talent Management and the Cultural Influences on the Human Resource Management Processes, p. 9. United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (2013). Human Resources Management and Training, p. 21-39. Read More