The Future of HR and Effective Organizations - Coursework Example

Name Professor Course Date of submission Human Resource Management Viewed as an important area in the managerial structure of any business or organization, human resource management (HRM) ensures maximization of the employees’ performance through well-designed strategic objectives. Primarily, HRM deals with management of the people and ensuring their roles are in line with organization’s policy and systems. The integration of human resource in the management of the business began back in the early 20th century when there was need to document the business value as a factor of workforce in an orderly manner (McQuerry par.8). It initially had a role with the organization of recruiting, managing, and providing directions for the employees within the organization. However, the role of HR have been changing over time from management to public relations creating a huge confusion among various organizations whose managerial structure do clearly outline the role of each department. Therefore, a well-established HRM system within the organization will ensure positive and effective contribution to the workers’ productivity. In cases where the organization fails to recognize the value and importance of HRM, there is likely to be a failure especially when trying to define the core value, mission, goals, and objective of the organization in question (Werner 231). Contrary to the traditional roles of the HRM, their duties have been shifting administration of personnel to the strategic utilization of the workers. The expectation of the current HRM is to ensure the employed workforce yield positive, measurable results for the organization. The impact of committed HRM should be noticeable. Moreover, for effective and efficient management of the workforce, HRM must practice planning techniques, directing, and coordinating all the administrative roles within the organization. In order to understand HRM, it is important to consider two approaches used to view the concept of HRM. The approaches are soft and hard HRM. Hard HRM views human personnel as a way and breakthrough for attaining the organizational goals and objectives while soft HRM encourages workers to develop strategies and plans to acquire workers commitment. The hard approach focuses on workforce as its planning tool through strategic alignment of human resources with business plans. Differently, soft HRM focuses on personnel relations. it also has an interest in the outcome of the workers while encouraging them to commit to the organization (Boudreau and Ziskin 263). Consequently, HRM has a responsibility of ensuring proper communication among different departmental workers for sustainable and proper utilization of all the available resources. It is from this background they oversee recruiting exercise in consultation with the top executives. While practicing their role, it is important to have a strategic plan for accountability. Many organizations spend 50% to 75% of their total income workforce either directly or indirectly (Cheesema 103). However, some organizations do not measure or manage these investments properly; thus, to ensure sustainability, the HRM has a role of comprehensively understanding the contribution of the workforce to strategic success of the organization. The concept of understanding the workforce should reflect in the workforce metrics. A well-formalized HRM department is significant especially when the role is employee oriented as this creates a productive workplace through engagement in the formulation of the business plans. Most HRM duties have been changing from time to time though some of their duties remain the same as discussed below. Employing the best employee from the available pool of labor is the most evident and significant role. The employers are looking for experienced workforce to cope with the escalating level of competition. Thus, those seeking employment must display their talent and ability to the HRM (Cheesema 121). The Success of the organization is a factor of employing an experienced workforce. The HRM also monitors the culture of the organizations as it monitors all the employees’ relations. The HR has the role of defining the requirement of the organization through formulation of the strategic plan and policy and ensuring the employment of qualified personnel to ensure the success of the implementation process. The survival of most organizations has been grounded on constant Human Resource Development (HRD). Such trainings assist HR in having a global view of the workplace, workforce, and objectives. These cultures ensure the survival of organization in a sustainable manner as determined by the HRM. Through mission statement of different organizations, the HRM encourages most of its operations to be in line with the laid business ethics to ensure efficiency and satisfaction of the clients (Torrington et al. par. 5). The HRM has the overall management of the talents within the organizations, which is justifiable through their role of developing the management process, performing managerial duties, and establishing career paths. Besides those activities, the HRM also manages workforce associated with talents. This assists in bringing up new thoughts and effective practices into the organization with an aim of improving the performance. Additionally, the HR gives recommendation on the market-based salaries depending on the managerial position and duties performed. It is the responsibility of HR of reviewing the salaries and allowances of the while considering the economic situation of the organization (Stahl and Voigt 171). For example, when the organization experiences tough financial moments, the HR may decide to reduce the number of employees or reduce the income earned per person to decrease the cost of running the organization. With the changing market demands and tastes of various clients, the HR has the responsibility of ensuring that the organizations’ activities are flexible enough to meet the requirement of the customers. For flexibility purposes, it is significant that the HR identifies potential workforce and recommend the training session in order to help the organization meet the standard of the clients (Dessler 137). Since the HRM focuses on the management of the human personnel, it has to ensure that the working conditions of the employee are favorable and free from any harm or hazardous materials. In cases where the working conditions may pose threat to the human personnel, the HR has the responsibility of recommending the best package for the employee to take the job. The workforce can raise concern over the working condition to the HR as well for any improvement of relocation. According to Dessler (145), HRM assists the organizations in developing a competitive advantage. This involves organizing capacity building, which offers an exceptional set of goods and services to the client. Many business entities engage in ‘war for talent’ that seeks to not only hiring talented workforce but also helping them grow and remain connected over a long span of time while trying to build an effective HR. furthermore, it is the responsibility of the HR to suggest strategies that aims at increasing the employees’ commitment to the organization. To achieve this, the HR must align the qualification of the workforce to the position an employee wishes to hold during the recruitment process or using employee-job match technique. Upon confirmation for the job, the HR must ensure the new recruits commit to their respective jobs and report any challenge witnessed during the working durations (Werner 122). The shifting roles of the HRM are an issue creating an overlap of duties especially when the roles of management are not clearly defined. For example, beside the public relations manager, the HRM also plays an important role in establishing good public relations since they organize official business meetings on behalf of the organization to assist build relationship with other partners. The HRM also ensures appraisal of the workers’ performance. It encourages the potential workers within the organization to invest all their efforts. The HR also suggests ways in which the workers can improve their working skills as this enable the organization to formulate that anticipated goals and objectives. Performance appraisals facilitate the motivation of the employees particularly when undertaken on a regular basis. Generally, the duties of HR lie within the five key roles. They include the executive, audit, facilitator, consultancy, and service roles. Executive roles focus on the responsibility of the HR department encompassing the management of the people as important resources within the organization. Audit roles include monitoring the entire organizational departments to ensure implementation of policies relating to HRM like Health and Safety and employees appraisal (Sam par. 2). Under facilitator, control ensures the organization meets all the objectives through facilitating the whole process of strategy implementation as laid out in the HR policies of the organization. Consultancy role assists in advising all departmental managers on possible ways of tackling managerial problems professionally. Finally, service role enables the HRM to provide information to other departments on issues relating to human resources development (RSD) within the organization. Additionally, service roles provide an opportunity for the HR to raise awareness on any changes in the organizational policy (Jim par.8). Most HRM uses models to execute their strategies for development and allocation of responsibilities amongst the employees. The model contains all the activities conducted by the HR department which when discharged properly, they will result in competent workforce willing to perform obligated duties properly. Since the HR does not perform its duties in a vacuum, environment is a variable that is crucial to consider. The environment is a factor of both internal and external forces. Internal factors include organizational and professional conditions while external forces are political, economic, legal, and technological conditions. Figure 1: The relationship among the factors influencing the outcome of HRM The welfare of the employee is the responsibility of the HRM to ensure they live in accordance with the standard of work they perform for the organization. Therefore, HRM have a responsibility of listing to the grievances of the workers and help solve the issue in the best way possible that will motivation of the employees (Friend and Rilley, 15). To ensure the success of the organizations’ activities, the participation of all workers is important as it helps reduce departmental wrangles. Since these commotions only involve the human resources, it is the obligation of the HRM to settle all disputes among the workers, which affect the performance of the organization. Promotion is another responsibility of the HRM based on the employees’ performance. HRM receives the appraisal for the workers after a given duration of time through their supervisors and decides who deserves promotion and increment in the benefits that result from good performance. Viewed as the most challenging part of the HR profession, promotion of workers often involve corruption as many individuals tend to bribe HRM, who fail to uphold integrity within their profession. External forces like economic issues affect the supply and demand of products. As a result, the impacts of these economic elements influence the decisions made by the HRM over the labor force. Reduced demand for a product may affect the ability of the organization to pay salaries and continue offering some of the benefits to the employees. Economic situations determine the number of employees that an organization can retain or absorb within a given time leading to unemployment scenarios. Technology is another factor, which influences the decision made by the HRM while trying to improve the quality and productivity of goods and services offered by the organization. Technology also determines the quality of competitive advantage with an industry. Through the advancement in technology, jobs are becoming fewer and fewer due to the increasing use of Computer Aided Design and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAD and CAM respectively). Many organizations are using the HR expertise to formulate new criteria for selection and training the workforce. The ever-changing legal requirements also alter the HRM working environment. Internal forces also affect some of the duties and decisions made by the HRM. For example, financial constraints may influence decision on whether the organization trains the workforce or not. If an organization faces financial difficulty, it is upon the HRM to devise methods of ensuring sustainability of the production. All activities performed revolve around adequacy of the funds; therefore, it is important for the HRM to consider the economic circumstances of the organization before deciding on the number of workforce for absorption. Organizational structure also influences the decision by the HRM (Mosley and Dessinger 259). In order to ensure maximization of effective human resources, it is significant to initiate the entire process of ensuring effectiveness through the determination of optimal staffing needs. This is the responsibility of the HRM, and it is achievable through properly aligning the structure of the organization. Th capability of an organization to optimize its performance effectively, it is vital to define the role of HR within the organizational context. Considered as a driver to the achievement of the organization, HR profession covers both diversity and leadership aspects of success that varies considerably in all the levels of the organization. The future of HR is a factor of creativity and innovation, which traditionally took place specifically and in a given sequential process to produce tangible results. Organizations are shifting from traditional methods of coining creativity and are embracing the fact that it can come from anyone or anywhere; hence, job roles no longer the only repository of creativity. In addition, creativity is currently becoming ownership-based meaning it can occur either in or out of an organization though in a non-sequential manner. Today there is no much of engagement between the employee and the HR (Mondy et al. 105). Organizations are currently using internet technique such as crowd-sourcing to collect intelligence information used to solve a wide range of issues. From these sites, the organizations get different solutions on how to solve the problems they undergo, even though, the credibility of the answers given are questionable because some of those giving their views lack adequate information. These activities risk the future of HR as a profession and effectiveness in the organization since most of the implementation organizations perform, the source of collected information comes from the social media. Social media is also responsible for various change of hierarchy in workplaces, as most organizations prefer fetching information directly from the internet instead waiting those in charge, like the HR or anyone in senior management to give them directives (Boudreau and Ziskin 171). Many organizations are willing to risk a lot in trying to bring change using social networking as a tool from organization, communication, and creating flexibility within the company rather than relying on HR creativity and leadership techniques that is quite slow. There is need for future HR leaders to think and act properly past the traditional boundaries of their roles, which encourages them to migrate from programs that focus on traditional way of suggesting ideas and encouraging new technological platforms. Moreover, they will need to address the factors influencing the definition and extraction of innovative culture through identification of periods when to encourage innovation within the organization. A shift from employment to personal value preposition to defines future HR’s roles when the employees are treated like customers considering them as products that can have a brand. If successful, employment value preposition may extend beyond employment, as most customers will view employees as the organization’s extension (Boudreau and Ziskin 174). Embracing the reality of demands and mass customization ability will allow benefits from several choices. The evolutional challenge may result due to the creation of a suitable employment brand leading to a dilemma in the identification of the brand with the highest impact. Therefore, the future HR will have to acquire expertise in marketing tools and analysis of consumers’ behavior in a bid to solve these dilemmas. The most important mission will be to break HR’s traditional tendency of always preferring to standardization and similarity on the assumption that equal action is fair, hence, ‘‘sameness to segmentation.’’ Works cited Boudreau, J. W., & Ziskin, I. (2011). The future of HR and effective organizations. Organizational Dynamics, 255-266. Cheesema, H. R. 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