FUNCTIONS OF HRM
A personnel manager has to perform the basic functions of management. These managerial functions include' planning, organizing, directing and controlling personnel. The operative functions of the department are: procurement of staff, development of staff through training, payment of compensation to staff i.e. wages and salaries, integration of manpower i.e. fair reconciliation of individual, social and organizational goals and interests and maintenance of staff i.e. providing them safety at the work place and also to offer welfare facilities and conveniences to employees. In brief, personnel management involves the following operational functions:
(1) Procurement of manpower: Procurement means acquiring the manpower required by an organization from time-to-time. The basic Principle in procurement is "right man for the right job". The procurement function includes manpower planning and forecasting, recruitment, selection, appointment, placement and induction of employees so as to have a team of efficient and capable employees for the benefits of the organization. Even promotions and transfers are covered by this broad personnel function.
(2) Development of manpower: Development of manpower (human resource development) means planning and execution of the training programmes for all categories of employees in order to develop new skills and qualities required for working at the higher level. Manpower development is possible through training and career development programmes and not simply by offering attractive wages to workers. Executive development programmes are introduced for the benefit of higher-level managers Similarly; future manpower requirement will be, met internally through HRD programmes. It aims at educating and training employees for the improvement of overall performance of an organization. HRD (Human Resource Development) programmes are for education, training and development of existing manpower in an organization. This is for facing new problems and challenges likely to develop in the near future.
(3) Compensation payment to manpower employed: One function of HRM is to pay compensation (in monetary form) to employees for the services rendered. For this, a fair system of remuneration payment (wages and salaries) needs to be introduced. Remuneration to employees should be attractive so that the labour force will be satisfied and disputes, etc. will be minimized. Fair wage payment acts as a motivating factor.
(4) Integration of interests of manpower and the organization: Manpower is interested in wage payment while organization is interested in higher profits, consumer loyalty, market reputation and so on. HRM has to reconcile the interests of the individual members of the organization with those of the organization.
(5) Maintenance of manpower: This manpower function relating to maintaining satisfied manpower in the organization through the provision of welfare facilities. For this, attention needs to be given to health and safety measures, maintenance of proper working conditions at the work place, provision of welfare facilities and other non-monetary benefits so as to create efficient and satisfied labour force with high morale. Even collective bargaining and workers participation come within this broad personnel function.
(6) Provision of welfare facilities: Employees are offered various welfare facilities. They include medical, educational, recreation, housing, transport and so on.
CHALLENGES FACING HRM IN INDIA
With organizations achieving a HRD climate, a basic source of human motivation to perform higher, human wastage has been reduced. So, whereas personnel management regarded wages and salaries as the main source of motivation, Human Resource Management (HRM) regards creation of a congenial work climate (HRD climate), job challenges, creativity and opportunity for development as the motivating forces.
§ The challenges in HR that would be very critical are staffing. The biggest fear that such big corporate have is, if two or three wrong people get together, they can bring down the company. So, one is hiring the right kind of people, then right kind of values and the right kind of professional competencies.
§ The other challenge is to continuously allow people to develop and grow so that they have very high energy and the ability to energize others with the edge to resolve conflicts, and the ability to execute. You will also have to bear in mind that they also have aspirations. So managing the aspirations and rewarding them timely and accurately become critical in such organizations.
§ A lot of companies expect their problems to disappear the moment HR is implemented. "HRM is a means to an end, not the end ".
§ The other reasons why HR implementations often fail include lack of preparation, lack of top management involvement, faulty selection process, improper use of the HRM policies/department/funds, too high expectations.
§ Cost is an important factor while considering the implementation of HR activities. The companies are trying to cut costs while conducting HR programmes and are exorbitantly spending on other unimportant activities of the organization.
§ HRM is still in its stage of infancy, it yet has to evolve and become more a way of doing business or managing the organization.
§ It shouldn’t be used as a tool or remedial measure when the problem/ crisis arises.
§ Nowadays, the employees are being forced to attend self-improvement and overall development programmes compulsorily without the staff’s knowledge/interest and companies are spending huge amounts on such welfare activities, which are absolutely redundant and should be eliminated from the system.
§ Pay packages and incentives have to be supplemented with some supplementary packages but the company tries to replace the monetary benefits by some workshops or seminars or presentations or training courses which demotivate the workers because their expectations are being ignored in the bargain. We look at the career development of people very strongly. We do not believe that we should be the highest paymasters.
] New trends in hrm
MAINSTREAM economists perceive voluntary retirement as a measure to shed the workforce whose marginal productivity is zero. Further, it is argued that this could be introduced in an industrial organization for maintaining its cost effectiveness in an increasingly competitive world. Moreover, voluntary retirement is accompanied by technological modernization that warrants the replacement of labor with capital. Technological modernization improves the productivity of existing workforce so much so that a section of the existing workforce becomes again redundant even as modernization enhances the installed capacity of the technology. The workforce that becomes redundant in this process has to retire or be retrenched.
The rationale behind the introduction of voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) in India
Employers refer to VRS as 'golden handshake', trade unions call it 'voluntary retrenchment scheme', and for the government, it is 'unstated exit policy' which means that an exit policy which may not exist on paper. VRS is one of the strategies introduced in the early 1980s in central public sector undertakings (PSUs) to reduce the so-called surplus or redundant workforce. It gained publicity after the introduction of new economic policy in 1991. In India
Trade unions play a crucial role in introducing the VRS in any organized sector firm.
The main objective behind the scheme is to send out those who cannot be retrained in new skills. The premise of the argument appears to be weak. The liberalization policy, in its anxiety to modernize, restructure and globalize the products of Indian industry, is wasting precious labor force that could have been modernized through retraining and on-the-job training. Precious skills and abilities of the retrenched workforce are equated with worn out physical capital that may not be susceptible to repair or modernization. Are human beings not capable of learning and modifying their knowledge, skills and applying the same to produce higher output? The current emphasis on restructuring does not allow such questions.
The free economy and trade liberalization have ushered in the need for the enterprises to have a competitive edge. Economic forces have led to organizational cost cutting, changes in production processes, exploration of new markets, plant relocations, modernizations, downsizing and structural changes.
Organizational adjustment at all levels has become extremely imperative. Over manning has crept into almost all industrial units on account of the inability of the enterprises to reduce or adjust workforce as per the business needs. The sort of cuts that only happened in heavy industries has now become widespread. The days of nibbling away deadwood have long gone. It's time for the organizations to realign and focus on the core competencies.
THE GOLDEN HANDSHAKE
Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) is the latest mantra of many a corporate and Public sector units. The company may decide to declare a VRS based on their HR plan and suitability. For a common salaried individual this becomes a major decision.
The company as per their human resource policy declares VRS or the Voluntary Retirement Scheme. VRS is a scheme whereby the employee is offered to voluntarily retire from his services before his retirement date. Subject to certain conditions the company offers VRS to its employees It is the golden route to cut the excess flab. The most humane technique to retrench the employees in the company today is the voluntary retirement scheme. It is the golden handshake for the employees and the only option today for the companies to downsize their headcount. The scheme which is formally permitted by the Department of Public Enterprises and which provides the lucrative way for the employees to terminate their services and accept VRS.
This process should convince them that the posts in the organization have become redundant and not the person and the organization still values the person. Since this process involves emotions and feelings, every care must be taken by the management that the process must be carried out in such a manner that it keeps the dignity of the employees but at the same time achieves the objective in a tactful manner.
PINK SLIP
A "pink slip" is a notice of dismissal or termination from one's job, also known as one's "walking papers." The term "pink slip" dates from the early 20th century, and originally referred to the practice of including a pink-colored slip of paper in an employee's weekly pay envelope notifying the worker of his or her termination. There does not seem to be any particular significance to the use of the color pink aside from the fact that it made the notice stand out from any other papers that might be in the envelope.
Though the "pink slip" in the pay envelope has probably been superseded by e-mail these days, "to be pink slipped" is still very much in use as shorthand for "to be fired."HR Strategy to Achieve Business Excellence
Integrating HR strategy and strategic planning is fundamental to achieving business excellence.
The introduction of an effective HR strategy aligned to strategic business planning is thus a prerequisite to ensure that underlying power structures, procedures, practices, values and norms are in place to facilitate the necessary pace of change that can be sustained within the psychological capacity of the business. There are many different ways of managing the improvement process, including a consultative approach through participation, intervention, education and communication and the style adopted has much to do with the nature of the change proposed, its pace and sustainability. The style of management and blend of skills play an enabling role in the development of strategies within companies.
Despite the search for better ways of doing business and the adoption of survival strategies, including business process re-engineering and total quality management (TQM), some organisations continue to struggle to retain their competitive edge.
The long-term failure of companies, who have reengineered or attempted TQM, is often regarded as an implementation failure rather than a fundamental conceptual failure.
Alternatively, there is the view that the long-term organisational stress that goes with sustained improvement effort is too much for some organisations. As a result, more emphasis is placed on the quick fix solution and short-term financial gain.
Organisations have now to respond to change faster and with greater risk while operating in an imperfect internal and external climate.
The shift has been towards the knowledge economy, global trading, information management, and the employment of people for their creativity and knowledge. This has emphasised the importance of investment in employee development as the means of retention and reward, rather than crude pay, and a total realignment in mind-set about HRM, motivation, reward and development strategies.
If we extrapolate these trends we have valuable evidence as to what will succeed in the future. A mixture of short- and long-term strategies underpinned on the one hand by an alignment of aspirations of the business with, on the other hand, the aspirations of the organisation's greatest asset, its people.
Many companies do not have a strategic approach to HRM. Most identify current and future-staffing needs by discussing training and development needs with the relevant individuals as and when necessary.
Some companies rely on identifying needs based on existing staff profiles and loose projections for new business. Their ability to react to change is thus limited. Time spent on identifying needs at an organisational level would facilitate a more strategic view of requirements. Companies employed different strategies to stimulate and maintain staff, including bonus schemes, share opportunities and support for leisure activities.
Some companies appear to be addressing the question of management development for the senior team within their overall consideration of planning. Building a team needs to reflect the organisational development priorities which may be part of a management development strategy within the strategic management process.
Harnessing intellectual capacity by truly involving all employees of the organisation in the strategy formulation is critical to successful implementation.
The total quality approach calls into question all the traditional approaches to HRM and argues for a more proactive people-focused approach in which HR professionals adopt total quality to become strategic partners in improvement and business planning. The really successful companies have used TQM to put the spectre of Taylorism behind them, recognising that TQM could provide a holistic approach.
To create business excellence with HRM processes that intrinsically add value, all organisations need to develop HR strategies to support the integration of business planning with business excellence. A holistic approach nurtures proactive incremental change. It also avoids the sudden traumatic change that so many organisations endure as a result of radical improvement programmes and the inevitable stagnation that follows.
Innovative Practices in Human Resources- An Overview
Benchmarking results from 67 companies
Innovative Practices in Human Resources revealed 12 best practices that can be used to reduce costs on employees and improve the quality of employees hired in organisations. The research identified the need for HR managers to streamline processes, lower overhead costs and enhance organisational transactions with strategic business partners.
Practices and technologies being adopted by various companies have been collected into one report, which includes the following:
- Communication systems set up with the help of the Internet and/or intranets
- Centralised HR departments and call centers
- Introducing a 360-degree performance appraisal system
- Implementing a Human Resources Information System
- Setting up Voice Response Systems
- Fostering the recruitment practice by recruiting through the Net
- Introduce automated time keeping systems
- Outsourcing non core functions
- Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
By implementing some of the innovative HR practices, the quality of internal organisational processes improve dramatically. Also issues related to possible risks and obstacles can be avoided completely.
Research indicates that costs associated to tools are insignificant as compared to the benefits derived by such tools. Implementation suggestions when implementing a practice and main considerations that research has indicated are important in the implementation process. Research has also revealed that companies including the Fortune 500 companies, have experienced phenomenal financial savings with the advent of these new tools.
Job rotation implies movement of employees from one job to another.
With job rotation, a given employee performs different jobs, but more or less of the same nature.
When an activity is no longer challenging, the employee would be rotated to another job at the same level that has similar skill requirements.
Advantages of Job Rotation-
· Job rotation is a way to overcome boredom and monotony.
· It is likely to increase intrinsic reward potential of a job because of different skills and abilities needed to perform it.
· Workers become competent in several jobs rather than only one, which in turn benefits the organization.
· Knowing a variety of jobs improve the worker’s self-image, provides personal growth and makes the worker more valuable to the organization.
· Periodic job changing can also improve interdepartmental co-operation, employees become more understanding of each other’s problems.
Disadvantages of Job Rotation
· An employee does not gain a particular specialization.
· Moving from one job to another also gets irritating because the normal routine of an employee is disturbed and also time is wasted in adjusting to the new job. The employee may feel alienated when he/she is rotated from job to job.
· Training costs are increased
The HRM model contains all HR activities. When these activities are discharged effectively, they will result in a competent and willing workforce who will help realize organizational goals. There is another variable in the model – environment. It may be stated that the HR function does not operate in vacuum. It is influenced by several internal and external forces like economic, technological, political, legal, organizational, and professional conditions.
HRM: is a management function that helps manager’s recruit, select, train, and develop members for an organization.
Human Resource Planning: is understood as the process of forecasting an organizations future demand for, and supply of, the right type of people in the right number.
Job Analysis: is the process of studying and collecting information relating to the operations and responsibilities of a specific job. The immediate products of this analysis are job descriptions and job specification.
Recruitment: is the process of finding and attracting capable applicants for employment. The process begins when new recruits are sought and ends when their applications are submitted. The result is a pool of applicants from which new employees are selected.
Selection: is the process of differentiating between applicants in order to identify (and hire) those with greater likelihood of success in a job.
Placement: is understood as the allocation of people to jobs. It is the assignment or re-assignment of an employee to a new or different job.
Training and development: it is an attempt to improve current or future employee performance by increasing an employee’s ability to perform through learning, usually by changing the employee’s attitude or increasing his or her skills and knowledge. The need for training and development is determined by employee’s performance deficiency, computed as follows:
Training and development need = Standard performance – Actual performance
Remuneration: is the compensation an employee receives in return for his or her contribution to the organization.
Motivation: is a process that starts with a psychological or physiological deficiency or need that activates behavior or a drive that is aimed at a goal or an incentive.
Participative management: Workers participation may broadly be taken to cover all terms of association of workers and their representatives with the decision making process, ranging from exchange of information, consultations, decisions and negotiations to more institutionalized forms such as the presence of workers members on management or supervisory boards or even management by workers themselves as practiced in Yugoslavia. ((ILO)
Communication: may be understood as the process of exchanging information, and understanding among people.
Safety and health: Safety means freedom from the occurrence or risk of injury or loss. In order to ensure the continuing good health of their employees, the HRM focuses on the need for healthy workers and health services.
Welfare: as defined by ILO at its Asian Regional Conference, defined labour welfare as a term which is understood to include such services, facilities, and amenities as may be established in or in the vicinity of undertakings to enable the person employed in them to perform their work in healthy, congenial surroundings and to provide them with amenities conducive to good health and high morale.
Promotions: means an improvement in pay, prestige, position and responsibilities of an employee within his or her organization.
Transfer: involves a change in the job (accompanied by a change in the place of the job) of an employee without a change in the responsibilities or remuneration.
Separations: Lay-offs, resignations and dismissals separate employees from the employers.
Industrial relations: is concerned with the systems, rules and procedures used by unions and employers to determine the reward for effort and other conditions of employment, to protect the interests of the employed and their employers, and to regulate the ways in which employers treat their employees.
Trade Unions: are voluntary organizations of workers or employers formed to promote and protect their interests through collective action.
Disputes and their settlement: Industrial disputes mean any dispute or difference between employers and employers, or between employers and workmen, or between workmen and workmen, which is connected with the employment or non-employment or terms of employment or with the conditions of labour of any person.
Difference between: personnel management and HRM
Dimension | Personnel Management | HRM |
1. Employment contract | Careful delineation of written contracts | Aims to go ‘beyond’ contract. |
2. Rules | Importance of devising clear rules | Can do, outlook, impatience with rule |
3. Guide to management action | Procedures | Business need |
4. Behaviour referent | Norms/ customs and practices | Values/mission |
5. Managerial task vis-Ã -vis labour | Monitoring | Nurturing |
6. Key relations | Labour management | Customer |
7. Initiatives | Piecemeal | Integrated |
8. Speed of decision | Slow | Fast |
9. Management role | Transactional | Transformational leadership |
10. Communication | Indirect | Direct |
11. Prized management skills | Negotiation | Facilitation |
12. Selection | Separate, marginal task | Integrated, key task |
13. Pay | Job evaluation | Performance related |
14. Conditions | Separately negotiated | Harmonization |
15. Labour management | Collective-bargaining contracts | Individual contracts |
16. Job categories and grades | Many | Few |
17. Job design | Division of labour | Team work |
18. Conflict handling | Reach temporary truce | Manage climate and culture |
19. Training and development | Controlled access to courses | Learning companies |
20. Focus of attention for interventions | Personnel procedures | Wide ranging cultural, structural and personnel strategies |
21. Respect for employees | Labour is treated as a tool which is expendable and replaceable | People are treated as assets to be used for the benefit of an organization, its employees and the society as a whole |
22. Shared interest | Interests of the organization are uppermost | Mutuality of interests |
23. Evolution | Precedes HRM | Latest in the evolution of the subject |
DEFINITIONS OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT/ HRM
The term personnel management is defined in different ways. The following definitions are worth noting:
(1) According to Edwin Flippo" Personnel management is the planning, organizing, directing, and controlling of the procurement, development, compensation, integration, maintenance, and separation of human resources to the end that individual, organizational and societal objectives are accomplished".
(2) According to George R. Terry, "Personnel management is concerned with the obtaining and maintaining of a satisfactory and satisfied, work force".
(3) According to Walter D. Scott, "Personnel management is concerned with the attaining of maximum individual development; desirable working relationship between employer and employees, and an effective moulding of human resources as contrasted with physical resources".
(4) According to British Institute of Personnel Management, London, "Personnel Management is that part of management which is concerned with the people at work and with their relationship within an enterprise".
OBJECTIVES/PURPOSES OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT / HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT:
The basic objective of personnel management is to maintain efficient team of workers for the benefit of the organization. In addition, to provide opportunities of self-development to employees and finally to maintain congenial work atmosphere and inter-personnel relations are the objectives of personnel management. Personnel management aims at giving fair treatment to employees as regard wages, 'welfare facilities, non-monetary benefits, working conditions and so on.
The objectives of HRM are derived from the basic objectives of an organization. In order to achieve organizational objectives, integration of employer's interest and employee interests is necessary.
The objectives of personnel management/HRM in any industrial organization can be summarized as under.
(1) To attain maximum individual development (self-development) of the members of an organization and also to utilize available human resources (with the organization) fully and effectively.
(2) To mould effectively the human resources.
(3) To establish desirable working relationships between employer and employees and between groups of employees.
(4) To ensure satisfaction to the workers so that they are freely ready to work.
(5) To improve the service rendered by the enterprise to the society through better employee morale, which leads to more efficient individual and group performance.
(6) To establish and maintain a productive and self respecting relationship among all the members of an organization.
(7) To ensure the availability of a competent and willing workforce to the organization for its progress and prosperity.
(8) To help organization to achieve its goals by providing well trained, efficient and properly motivated employees.
(9) To maintain high morale and good human relations within the organization for the benefit of employer and employees.
(10) To secure the integration of all the individuals and groups with the organization by reconciling individual/group goals with those of an organization.
2] Human resource management
MEANING AND DEFINITION
Personnel refers to the employees working in an organization at different levels. Personnel management (also called human resource management) is that aspect of total business management, which deals with human relationships within an organization. Personnel represent human resource, which is different from material resources.
Human resource is the most productive and most versatile. In addition, the manpower in an organization needs human treatment. Employees have a capacity to feel, think and even to react. Management has to deal with the employees in a careful and tactful manner. Material resources such as land, machines, raw materials, equipment, etc. are easy to manage. This is because they have no capacity to feel or think or react. This is not the case with human resource i.e. manpower. Man and machines are not on par and must not be treated in the same manner. This is because of all the resources manpower is the only resource, which does not depreciate, with the passage of time. According to Peter F. Druckert UtIle prosperity, if not the survival of any business depend on the performance of its managers of tomorrow." The material resources alone will not help the organization to achieve its objectives. For this, effective co-ordination and utilization of material and human resources are required. This suggests the importance of human resources.
The human resource is very important and useful. It should be nurtured and used for the benefit of the organization. This is a challenging job before personnel manager/management. The organization can make rapid progress only when the employees are satisfied and co-operative. On the other hand, the organization will have to face various problems and difficulties, if the employees are not co-operative but hostile. This indicates that human resource is most strategic and critical determinant of growth of a business unit. Every organization needs loyal, efficient and satisfied labour force. For this, adequate attention should be given to personnel management.
No comments:
Post a Comment