Nowadays, Human Resource Management (HRM) has become one of the major partners of an organization. Human resource management deals with managing people in an organization that means recruiting efficient and skilled employees in the right jobs at the right time at the right cost. Human resource management plays a major role in achieving organizational aims and objectives. To achieve these aims and objectives, human resource management has to apply some strategies to the organization and organizational management and follow the strategic processes to face and overcome the completion of the outside world. Strategic human resource management is one of the parts of human resource management which links with the implementation of strategic goals and organizational objectives that improves business performance and development of the organization. Strategic human resource management focuses on the key areas of HR, where long-term strategies can be implemented for the improvement of productivity. It also solves the problems that affect people management and concentrates on employee motivation. This article is all about how organizations got used to strategic human resource management. What was the impact on the organizations when human resource management started implementing strategies to organizational management and about the key strategic management issues?
There are some areas in human resource management where they need to concentrate on the growth and development of their organization.
HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING
Human resource planning is the process of planning manpower by the HR management to organize skilled and efficient employees to the right work that results in the organization’s development. It predicts the future needs of human resources and plans to meet those needs. It involves introducing new programs and then implements and develops these programs. These programs include recruiting the staff, training the staff, and programs that improve employee performance and increases employee satisfaction.
There are four phases of human resource planning. In the first phase, the human resource planners gather and analyze the data, that data includes how much human resources they need for the future and the plans that are to be introduced and implemented for the future. The second phase is to establish human resource objectives. The third phase is to design and implement the programs that will achieve human resource objectives. The fourth phase is to monitor and assess these programs. These plans may be short-term or long-term plans that depend upon the human resource planners and the situation of the organization.
RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION
The recruitment and selection process plays the main role in achieving organizational objectives. The recruitment and selection process is different in different organizations. This process mainly aims to get employees at minimal cost to satisfy human resource needs. There are three stages of the recruitment and selection process.
- Defining requirements: When the HR planners implement new strategies and plans, they once check if they need any extra manpower. Then, if they need extra employees they describe the job roles, duties, and responsibilities. They also describe the skills that are to be for the candidate to the particular job. It also mentions the terms and conditions of an organization like pay, benefits, and special requirements like mobility, traveling and experience, training, and career opportunities.
- Attracting candidates: To achieve strategic goals and objectives set by the HR planners, the company needs the right team with the necessary skills, cultural fit, and attitude. Attracting skilled employees in these competitive markets is one of the important stages in the recruitment and selection process. The first preference in the recruitment process should be given to internal candidates. If they have not found any candidates within the organization, then they move next step by advertising through the internet or through consultant agencies. In some organizations, even internal candidates should apply with external candidates. Some organizations approach universities and colleges where their career coordinator helps them to contact skilled and talented students.
- Selecting candidates: The selection process is done by a separate HR team. The selection process is different in different organizations. They use various selection techniques like face-to-face interviews, telephonic interviews, assessment centers, tests, etc. The individual interview helps the interviewer to get close and know about the candidate but, by using a single interviewer there is a chance for biased decision. So, they use a second interviewer in the interview panel. When two or more people are in the interview panel, they can discuss their judgments on candidate behavior in the interview and modify any biased judgment. Another technique in the selection process is selecting candidates through assessment centers. The techniques used in the assessment centers to judge candidate’s personal skills are aptitude tests, attainments, general intelligence tests. Assessment centers help the participants to know about the culture of the organization and its values, so they can decide whether they are fit for the job or not. Group discussions are of the techniques used in the selection process. The final stage of the selection process is to offer employment if the candidate meets their requirements, and a contract of employment is also made in this stage.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Performance management is defined as the performance of the individuals in an organization to achieve their goals and objectives. Performance management is a process that is designed to improve the organizational, team, and individual performance and is owned and driven by line managers. Every team and individual in an organization should know and understand the strategies and objectives that are to be achieved. Objectives are some targets that are to be achieved over a period of time. Objectives should be consistent, precise, challenging, measurable, achievable, time-related.
The five different stages in performance management are planning, monitoring, developing, rating, and rewarding. Performance planning is the first stage of the performance management cycle where performance agreement or contract comes. The performance agreement is about goals, objectives, performance standards, and capability requirements. When introducing performance planning, they concentrate on role definitions, objectives, and standards. Performance planning is about the individuals and team, how they are expected to meet the roles and develop their skills to achieve the objectives. This plan also provides support and guidance from the management. Individuals will have an agreement for a personal development plan in which they are trained themselves, assessed, and monitored and are advised of any further developments if needed. The norms and agreements in the performance agreement will sometimes vary, that depends upon the situation and levels of management. Every individual will be compared with actual performance and agreed development performances. All the plans are agreed upon jointly by managers and individuals.
Monitoring is the second stage of performance management. To monitor the performance of the individual employees, management will observe directly and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of each employee. They also monitor the impact of employees on co-workers during work stress and a person’s ability to achieve goals. The best process in monitoring employees is to set goals for each and every two weeks and observe their performance and spot the performance gaps and give feedback as they develop to achieve their goals. Ongoing monitoring provides a clear understanding of how employees are reaching their predetermined goals and if they have any problems, they will be provided with assistance.
Developing is the third stage of performance management. The performance management process helps to identify employee development needs. Development needs like increasing the capacity of the employee through training, giving assignments that help them to achieve high responsibilities, improving work progress, and new skills. When new technologies are introduced into the organization, the employees should be trained so that they can easily access them. Rating is the fourth stage in performance management. Rating in performance management is to compare the performances of employees in their organization. This is to know who is giving the best output among their employees and how many employees are up to their standards in the employee’s performance plan. This rating is given according to procedures included in the organization’s appraisal program. Rewarding is the fifth stage in the performance management cycle. The employees are rewarded, when their work is recognized. Rewarding is different in different companies. Some companies reward cash, gifts or employees are promoted to the next level.
REWARD MANAGEMENT
Reward management is a part of human resource management, which deals with rewarding people fairly and equitably for implementing strategies, policies, and their services to the organization. It looks after the reward process and policies which improve the organizational team and individual performance. Reward strategies are set and implemented through human resource strategies. The main objectives of reward management are to achieve organizational goals, motivate employees, strengthening the psychological contract. Reward systems may be in two types, one is the financial reward system and the non-financial system. Base pay, pay incentives, employee benefits come under the financial reward system and intrinsic rewards, recognition, promotions, etc come under non-financial reward systems.
Base pay is a fixed rate of pay for which the organization agreed to pay for an employee. Base pay may depend upon the market rate. Employees may have a pay rise according to their performance. If the organization achieves targets or goals employees may have bonuses. Depending on the employee’s performance, they get benefits such as sick pay, holiday pay, and house and car allowances. Some of them get non-financial rewards like they are promoted to higher leadership positions.
LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Human resource development is a part of human resource management that deals with training and developing individuals or a team for future organizational benefits. HRD sets long-term goals and objectives and trains skilled people according to strategy to achieve those goals. The main objective of HRD is to create a learning environment within the organization so that knowledge can be shared with each other. There are five strategies in HRD. There are employee training, employee education, employee development, organizational development, and non-employee development.
Organizational learning is the set of procedures and processes implemented by the organization for easy learning. Learning depends upon the capability of a person. Some can learn quickly and some people take time. Taking all these into consideration HRD has developed some learning techniques. Employees can be taught or instructed or they can learn themselves by experience they gained with senior staff. Different learning methods have different outcomes. Training that lies within the domain of the organization and learning that lies within the domain of the individual. Organizational development depends upon how organizations plan their strategies to develop each and every management.
MANAGING DIVERSITY
Managing diversity is a long-term strategic process that helps organizations to have employees from different gender, religions, cultural background, race, and ethnicity so that it can be a source of competitive advantage. As they have people with different attitudes, different lifestyles, skills, experiences, and different behavior, organizations can know how to operate in different cultures. Managing diversity can be defined as a planned systematic and comprehensive managerial process for developing an organizational environment in which all employees, within their similarities and differences, can contribute to the strategic and competitive advantage of an organization and where no one is excluded on the basis of factors unrelated to productivity.
Managing diversity has its own benefits. It can recruit the best employees in the world and can respond to diverse customers and markets. Age, ethnicity, gender, race, physical abilities come under the primary dimension. Education, geographical location, income, material status, religion, experience, parental status is some of the examples of secondary dimension. Because of diversity marketing, companies make better use of their market and gains profit. Every company cannot have the advantages of diversity. There are few general rules for the implementation of successful diversity management.
- Changes in the corporate culture: Diversity can only achieve by changes in the top management. The majority of managers should include more diversity.
- Diversity as a permanent process: Diversity cannot be achieved in short term. It is a long-term process. Any racial discrimination in management will lead the company to stress.
- Build on international business: Many international organizations have achieved successful managing diversity. As their business is global, all the managers who work have an idea of different cultures, different languages. This helps organizations to achieve success in international business relationships.