Unit I

Introduction

Q1) Explain the Role of Human Resources along with its functions.

A1) Human resources (HR) professionals conduct a wide variety of tasks within an organizational structure. A brief review of the core functions of human resource departments will be useful in framing the more common activities a human resource professional will conduct. The core functions can be summarized as:

Staffing

This includes the activities of hiring new full-time or part-time employees, hiring contractors, and terminating employee contracts.

Staffing activities include:

1. Identifying and fulfilling talent needs (through recruitment, primarily)
2. Utilizing various recruitment technologies to acquire a high volume of applicants (and to filter based on experience)
3. Terminating contracts when necessary
4. Maintaining ethical hiring practices and aligning with the regulatory environment
5. Writing employee contracts and negotiating salary and benefits

Development

On-boarding new employees and providing resources for continued development is a key investment for organizations, and HR is charged with maintaining a developmental approach to existing human resources.

Development activities include:

1. Training and preparing new employees for their role
2. Providing training opportunities (internal training, educational programs, conferences, etc.) to keep employees up to date in their respective fields
3. Preparing management prospects and providing feedback to employees and managers

Compensation

Salary and benefits are also within the scope of human resource management. This includes identifying appropriate compensation based on role, performance, and legal requirements.

Compensation activities include:

1. Setting compensation levels to match the market, using benchmarks such as industry standards for a given job function
2. Negotiating group health insurance rates, retirement plans, and other benefits with third party providers
3. Discussing raises and other compensation increases and/or decreases with employees in the organization
4. Ensuring compliance with legal and cultural expectations when it comes to employee compensation

Safety and Health

Achieving best practices in various industries include careful considering of safety and health concerns for employees.

Safety and health activities include:

1. Ensuring compliance with legal requirements based on job function for safety measures (i.e. hard hats in construction, available counseling for law enforcement, appropriate safety equipment for chemists, etc.)
2. Implementing new safety measures when laws change in a given industry
3. Discussing safety and compliance with relevant government departments
4. Discussing safety and compliance with unions

Employee and Labor Relations

Defending employee rights, coordinating with unions, and mediating disagreements between the organization and its human resources is also a core HR function.

Employee and labor relations activities include:

1. Mediating disagreements between employees and employers
2. Mediating disagreements between employees and other employees
3. Considering claims of harassment and other workplace abuses
4. Discussing employee rights with unions, management, and stakeholders
5. Acting as the voice of the organization and/or the voice of the employees during any broader organizational issues pertaining to employee welfare

Q2) Elaborate the concept of Human Resource management.

A2) Human Resource Management (HRM) is the term used to describe formal structures devised for the management of people inside an organization. The responsibilities of a human resource manager fall into three primary areas: staffing, employee compensation and benefits, and defining/designing work.

Essentially, the motive of HRM is to maximize the productiveness of an organization by optimizing the effectiveness of its employees. This mandate is unlikely to change in any fundamental way, despite the ever-increasing pace of change in the business world. As Edward L. Gubman discovered in the Journal of Business Strategy, "the basic mission of human resources will always be to acquire, develop, and retain talent; align the workforce with the business; and be an excellent contributor to the business. Those three challenges will never change."

Before we define HRM, it looks pertinent to first define the term ‘human resources’. In common parlance, human resources mean the people. However, different management experts have described human resources differently. For example, Michael J. Jucius has described human assets as “a whole consisting of inter-related, inter-dependent and interacting physiological, psychological, sociological and ethical components”.

According to Leon C. Megginson “From the national point of view human resources are knowledge, skills, creative abilities, talents, and attitudes obtained in the population; whereas from the view-point of the individual enterprise, they represent the total of the inherent abilities, acquired knowledge and skills as exemplified in the skills and aptitude of its employees”.

Sumantra Ghosal considers human resources as human capital. He classifies human capita into three categories-intellectual capitals, social capital and emotional capital. Intellectual capital consists of specialized knowledge, tacit knowledge and skills, cognitive complexity, and learning capacity.

Social capital is made up of network of relationships, sociability, and trustworthiness Emotional capital consists of self-confidence, ambition and courage, risk-bearing ability, and resilience. Now it is clear from above definitions that human assets refer to the qualitative and quantitative aspects of employees working in an organisation.

Q3) Explain the significance of Human Resource Management.

A3) HRM is a method of making the efficient and effective use of human resources so that the set goals are achieved. Let us also consider some necessary definitions of HRM.

According to Flippo “Personnel management, or say, human resource management is the planning, organising, directing and controlling of the procurement development compensation integration, 4intenance, and separation of human sources to the end that individual, organisational and social objectives are accomplished”.

The National Institute of Personnel Management (NIPM) of India has defined human resource/personnel management as “that part of management which is concerned with humans at work and with their relationship within an enterprise. Its purpose is to deliver collectively and boost into an advantageous employer of the men and ladies who make up an organization and having regard for the well-being of the persons and of working groups, to enable them to make their best contribution to its success”.

According to Decenzo and Robbins “HRM is concerned with the humans dimension in management. Since every organisation is made up of people, acquiring their services, developing their skills, motivating them to higher levels of performance and making sure that they proceed to hold their commitment to the organisation are essential to achieving organizational objectives. This is true, regardless of the type of organisation-government, business, education, health, recreation, or social action”.

Thus, HRM can be described as a procedure of procuring, creating and keeping competent human resources in the organisation so that the goals of an organisation are completed in a positive and efficient manner. In short, HRM is an art of managing people at work in such a manner that they give their best to the employer for achieving its set goals.

Q4) Discuss the Four main roles of HR in detail.

A4) Human Resources Management seeks to understand and then support how people do their jobs. Just as important, however, is the understanding of the environment in which that work is done; and how it contributes to the overall success of the organization - i.e. organizational effectiveness. The two are certainly inter-related and inter-dependent.

The Four Roles of HR

To truly understand the field of Human Resources Management, one must consider and accept the four basic roles of the HR function, no matter how it's defined. Some of these are already understood and others less so. These are:

1. Compliance and enforcement

2. Management advocacy

3. Strategic partner

4. Employee advocacy

The first two we've got down pat. We've just begun making inroads on the third and still can't seem to get a handle on the fourth.

The Enforcer:

Most HR practitioners will agree that the role as the employer's compliance officer is well established. But, it's increasingly difficult to keep track of changes in state, federal and local laws and regulations. These must then be translated into effective policies and practices. A greater emphasis is also placed today on taking preventative measures to forestall, or at least mitigate, the effects of employee complaints of harassment, wrongful discharge, or discrimination. Though generally perceived of as a reactive function, HR professionals will have to increasingly rely on proactive solutions.

Management Representative:

This is the other traditional HRM role. As part of the management staff, the HR department is the point of interface between management policies and its employees. It's charged with communicating and interpreting management dicta. These responsibilities are also considered an extension of the compliance and enforcement roles. What is not communicated can seldom be enforced.

The "open-book management" movement furthers a trend toward greater employee empowerment and is based on a greater sharing of information; much of which is coordinated through human resource procedures.

Strategic Partner:

HR has begun stepping from its historical reactive function - like the guy who follows a parade of elephants with a shovel on his shoulder. A complaint is filed, react to it. Jobs open up, fill 'em. Absenteeism's on the rise, step up the discipline. The movement to include human resources management in the strategic decision-making process is a relatively new phenomenon. Only a relatively small number of organizations have yet to grant this recognition. This new role does bring with it additional burdens and responsibilities; to be aware of changes in the external environment that will impact the organization; offer appropriate strategies and procedures to anticipate change; and provide regular feedback that helps steer strategic planning. A whole new set of skills and perspectives will be required of HR practitioners.

Employee Advocate:

This is not so much a new role as much as it's practically nonexistent. It's actually frowned upon in many organizations and is the most difficult of the four to realize. After all, it does seem to be a direct contradiction to serving as an advocate for management. It's an uncomfortable conflict that many practitioners either choose, or are encouraged, to avoid. Still, it's a role that must be accepted since it directly impacts the other three. Employee advocacy fosters trust and credibility in the relationship. If employees need someone to speak for them and if it's not Human Resources, then who? You guess! Like the overlapping of HRM and OD, the four basic roles for Human Resources management are interrelated and mutually supportive. Success rests in fully accepting all four and striking the proper balance among them. Most HR functions already have the basics of the first two. The organization must shift its culture to accept the third. Both management and the HR professionals must recognize the need for the fourth. But none can be fully actualized absent the other three.

Q5) Explain the steps involved in Human Resources Planning.

A5) Human resource planning is a process via which the right candidate for the right job is ensured. For conducting any process, the foremost vital task is to develop the organizational objective to be achieved via conducting the said process.

Six steps in human resource planning are-

1. Analysing Organizational Objectives:

The objective to be achieved in future in various fields such as production, marketing, finance, expansion and sales gives the idea about the work to be done in the organization.

2. Inventory of Present Human Resources:

From the up to date human aid information storage system, the current number of employees, their capacity, performance and potential can be analysed. To fill the various job requirements, the internal sources (i.e., employees from within the organization) and external sources (i.e., candidates from various placement agencies) can be estimated.

3. Forecasting Demand and Supply of Human Resource:

The human resources required at different positions according to their job profile are to be estimated. The available internal and external sources to fulfill those requirements are also measured. There be proper matching of job description and job specification of one particular work, and the profile of the man or woman should be suitable to it.

4. Estimating Manpower Gaps:

Comparison of human aid demand and human aid supply will furnish with the surplus or deficit of human resource. Deficit represents the number of people to be employed, whereas surplus represents termination. Extensive use of proper training and development programme can be performed to upgrade the skills of employees.

5. Formulating the Human Resource Action Plan:

The human resource plan depends on whether there is deficit or surplus in the organization. Accordingly, the plan may be finalized both for new Selection, training, interdepartmental transfer in case of deficit of termination, or voluntary retirement schemes and redeployment in case of surplus.

6. Monitoring, Control and Feedback:

It often involves implementation of the human resource action plan. Human assets are allocated according to the requirements, and inventories are up to date over a period. The plan is monitored strictly to identify the deficiencies and remove it. Comparison between the human resource plan and its authentic implementation is done to ensure the appropriate action and the availability of the required number of employees for various jobs.