The Future of Organizations

Workplace Issues and Practices

Arvind K. Birdie, Arvind K. Birdie

• Publisher: Apple Academic Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351629041
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

This volume provides valuable insights into how organizations are changing and evolving and how human resource personnel, employers, and employees are reacting to these emerging workplace transitions. Today's successful organizations must be learning organizations in that they must keep abreast and change with the new workplace dynamics.

The volume explores the new and future challenges and opportunities for employees and employers, particularly in reference to service organizations in the 21st century. It explores many of the new trends in conjunction with a focus on work-life balance, globalization, redefining leadership, contingent work force, stress management, telecommuting, work force diversity, ergonomics, life satisfaction/subjective well-being, and more.

CHAPTER 1

GEARING UP FOR THE FUTURE: HR TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE MANUFACTURING SECTOR

MANISHA SAXENA^1,*, SUBRATA KUMAR NANDI² and LOKESH SAXENA³

¹HRM & OB, ICFAI Business School, Pune, India, * E-mail: [email protected]

²Marketing & Operations, ICFAI Business School, Pune, India, E-mail: [email protected]

³Managing Director, DISA India Ltd., Bangalore, India, E-mail: [email protected]

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well as the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind”.

–Friedrich Nietzsche

CONTENTS

Abstract

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Review of Literature

1.3 Objectives

1.4 Methodology

1.5 Findings

1.6 Best HR Practices Adopted

1.7 Conclusion

1.8 Limitations and Future Scope

1.9 Annexure

Keywords

References

ABSTRACT

The business landscape is changing rapidly and the competing environment is getting increasingly complex. The four major characteristics that define the existing business environment are volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). These four dimensions pose significant challenges for organizations, as they need to be fleet-footed in assessing the market situation and predicting the results of its actions.

An organization needs to formulate its strategies to adapt to these changes and constantly update them, as the rapidly changing business environment may not provide it with adequate time to decide when to change, and how to change. Thus, creating an agile organization that is capable of adapting itself to embrace this change requires well-thought-out strategy for its implementation. One of the determinants of an organization’s ability to navigate through the competitive environment is its HR policies that help manage their employees.

This chapter attempts to explore how some of the leading companies in the manufacturing industry are responding to the changes in the external business environment and adapting their HR practices in tune with these changes. It also captures qualitatively how these organizations foresee the future and the steps they are undertaking to prepare themselves for the future. The findings of the study are based on depth interviews with some of the HR leaders from the organizations in context.

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The human resource function within the organization has long remained under shadows of the other functions such as marketing and operations, perhaps because of the difficulty in quantifying its efforts. However, the changes in the external business and internal organizational environment are foreseeing effectiveness of human resource management (HRM) to likely impact the way a firm competes in today’s environment.

Lepak et al. (2005) observed a shift from traditional bureaucratic organizational functions to more creative and flexible services by HR managers today to meet the demands of the changes in the internal and external environment. Such a transformation from the transaction and traditional domains to more transformational domains is the outcome of the expectations from the HR function to play a more strategic role within the organization (Beatty and Schneirer, 1997).

Agarwala (2003) observes that in order to effectively compete in today’s business environment, in organizations the traditional set of standard practices needs to be replaced with new and improved HR policies. Changes in HRM in response to those in the business environment have already been noticed (Stroh and Caligiuri, 1998). Ulrich (1997) urges organizations to adopt innovative HR activities. Agarwala (2003) compares innovative HR practices to be similar to administrative innovation rather than technical innovation, as they are aimed at influencing attitudes and behaviors of employees.

With the emergence of new age competitors and rapid growth in technology, many organizations are facing a unique challenge—attracting and retaining the right people. It is generally accepted that people are key to the success of organizations. With the change in the nature of business and work, many organizations are looking at multitasking skills, emotional intelligence, and team competencies besides technical skills in employees. Coworkers and colleagues no longer share a common workspace, but may be distributed across the world, connected to each other through technology. Old concepts of management and leadership theories are no longer applicable and new concepts like lifelong learning, total quality management, authentic leadership, and ethics have emerged.

Organizations are undergoing transformations from organizational structures, to people skills to management styles, to type of leaders to work spaces, and to the work itself. In the midst of all this it is not possible for HR, which steers the whole organization, to remain and sail the boat in the same manner as was done earlier. The function of HR today is to not only think about today but also to look into the future to ensure that the organization is able to achieve its objectives of longevity and healthy growth. Managing people must be looked with a new lens. But are all firms and industries really responding to these changes by instituting appropriate changes in their HR policies and systems to have and maintain the right people within the organization?

The answer to the above question may not be easy, because each industry has its own peculiarities in terms of their nature of business and markets. The literature highlights the need for change in approach towards HRM in this rapidly changing business environment, and there is also evidence of companies who are adopting innovative HR practices. In this chapter, we attempt to look at the manufacturing industry in India and explore how some of the leading companies in this industry are gearing up for the future. Therefore, this chapter explores how some of the companies in the manufacturing industry have responded to the changes in the external business environment and adapted their HR practices in tune with these changes. The findings of this study are based on depth interviews conducted with HR managers from five manufacturing organizations in Pune, Maharashtra, to understand how the organizations in this sector foresee the future and the steps, they are undertaking while responding to them. This chapter is organized as follows. The first section sets the context of this research. The second section presents a review of literature highlighting the changes that have taken place in HRM and the linkages between HRM and organizational outcomes. The third section discusses the methodology adopted for the study. The fourth section discusses the findings of the study, and the last section presents conclusions.

1.2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Highlighting the challenging environment, which faces organizations today, Ulrich and Wiersema (1989) compared the times ahead as playing basketball with a moving basket. According to the authors, globalization and changes in technology, demographics and public policy have contributed to heightened organizational complexity. Thus, managing in these turbulent times require constant strategic adjustments and top managers ought to focus their attention on developing a “strategic capability”—the ability of an organization to think and act strategically—in a changing competitive environment and making adjustments to strategy. This requires a blending of analytical skills and administrative savvy; this capability can only be developed over time as there are no easy or quick solutions (Prahalad, 1983).

Even the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are also found to be extremely vulnerable especially to the vagaries and turbulences of the external environment. Training is recognized as an important tool for developing their internal capabilities (Manimala and Kumar, 2012).

For the first time in history, the pace of change has produced four distinct generations (Baby boomers, Gen X, Y and Z) in the workplace. This has led to the need for caring manager, great coworkers, and a feeling of doing something, great leadership and a positive culture to avoid and resolve the inevitable conflicts as organizations look for motivated, enthusiastic, and productive workers (Branham and Hirschfeld, 2010).

One of the keys to successful development and deployment of HR service delivery applications is the recognition that these several generations at work interact with technology in very different ways. A “one-size-fits-all” approach to this challenge will limit one’s success in HR service delivery efforts (Greene, December 2013/January 2014).

Beginning from simple personnel management to finally exploring the extent to which it is a source of competitive advantage for organizations, HRM has come a long way. The last two decades have been witnessed to these development, as a result, HR function has changed stance from reactive, prescriptive, administrative to proactive, descriptive, and executive (Boxall, 1996). Investigators have identified many important contingency variables influencing HR practices such as size of the organization, technology, age of the organization, presence of formal HRD, type of ownership, the existence of training units in HRD, and the life cycle stage of the organization (see, e.g., Jackson et al., 1989; Tayeb, 1988 in Budhwar and Khatri, 2001).

Best workplaces are categorized by continuous innovative ways to keep pace with technology leading to changes in the nature of work and diverse and dispersed organization’s workforces (Levering and Erb, 2011).

Modern organizations are becoming increasingly diverse. The organizational diversity is common, and it is acknowledged to have competitive implications. Martin-Alcazar et al. (2012) conceptualize diversity as a multidimensional construct comprising demographic diversity, value, experience, and cognitive and knowledge diversity. The elements of demographic diversity include age, gender, nationality, education level, training, tenure, and functional diversity. With workforce diversity in organizations increasing, firms need to manage such diversity. Stockdale and Crosby (2004) define diversity management as a planned voluntary program, which exploits diversity among employees to become sources of complementarity, creativity and heightened effectiveness. Managing a diverse workforce requires a complete reconsideration of strategic HRM (Syed and Kramar, 2009). Martin-Alcazar et al. (2012) in their study found that certain patterns of strategic HRM practices promote collectivism, inclusiveness and appreciation of individual differences, and influence the effect of diversity on performance.

In recent times, there has been an increasing interest on work–life balance (Pocock et al., 2005). It is assumed that for organizations to truly engage with their employees and keep them motivated, they should be sensitive about the work–life balance of their employees. Several factors which have contributed to the interest in the issue of work-life balance include technological changes, global competition, aging workforce, demographic changes, and changes in values (Gunavathy, 2011). Work-life balance is no longer restricted to women workforce, and is today relevant for all types of employees (Bird, 2006). According to Felstead et al. (2002), four theoretical positions—institutional theory, situational theory, high commitment theory, and organizational adaptation theory—explain the factors which guide organizational practices related to work-life balance. Institutional theory assumes that organizations undertake actions to display social legitimacy, which are governed by normative pressures in the society. Situational theory suggests that organisations’ adoption of work-life provisions are pragmatic responses to talent acquisition and retention challenges. High commitment theory assumes family-friendly employment practices are linked to human resource strategy of a firm, which aims to improve employees’ organizational commitment. Finally, organizational adaptation theory suggests that organizations in addition to normative social pressures, consider workforce characteristics, work organization, and management attitudes while explaining the work-life balance initiatives by a firm. Work-life initiatives can take the form of money-based, information-based, and time-based strategies (Thompson, 2002). Money based strategies include childcare subsidies, childcare tuition discounts, and leave with pay. Information-based strategies include dependent care resources, relocation assistance, and referral service. Time-based strategies include policies like job-sharing, telecommuting, compulsory vacations, compressed work weeks, and flextime. All these factors contribute to the employee motivation and help enhance employee commitment to organizations. Yet, the response of organisations to work–life balance is not uniform, as reported by Gunavathy (2011).

Such changes in the environment forced organizations for optimum utilization of resources for their performance with the help of capacity building through HR function. One such study in an automobile component manufacturing organization used a developed and validated instrument to derive excellence in three HR functions: R and S; T and D, and PMS (Krishnaveni and Sripirabaa, 2008).

According to Boselie et al. (2005), HRM is concerned with the choice of practices, policies, and structures that organizations use to manage their employees. All the decisions and activities of the management impact the relationship between the employees and organization. Therefore, HRM encompasses a variety of practices and policies like design of tasks; staffing including recruitment, selection, career development, and so forth; performance and reward management; and facilitating channels of communication for work participation and decision making.

The changing business environment forces a relook into the field of HRM, its impact on HRM and the contemporary developments in this area to make the right business impact. This involves leveraging HR technology from induction to exit through innovative HR practices that attract, retain, develop, grow, engage, align and help in recognizing aspirations, and transitions of employees.

Research indicates that organizational performance can be enhanced by appropriately designed HR practices (Nishii et al., 2008), which influence the attitudes and behaviors of employees (Wright et al., 1995). Since the 1980s, there is a growing realization among organizations about the linkages between HRM and business performance. De Leede and Looise (2005) propose a model where it is shown...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the 21st Century Business Management Book Series
• About the Editor
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• 1. Gearing Up for the Future: HR Transformations in the Manufacturing Sector
• 2. Factors Affecting Self-Service Banking Adoption in Females: A Discriminant Analysis
• 3. Anti-Sexual Harassment Policies and HR Practices: Prevention and Preparation
• 4. Job Satisfaction in IT-Enabled Working Environments: Comparative Analysis between Industries
• 5. Factors Influencing Changing of Employer by Hi-Tech Professionals in Technology-Intensive Industries
• 6. Stress as an Inevitable Part of Work in the Present and Future: Study of Occupational Stress among Nurses, Office Clerks, and Teachers
• 7. Knowledge Management to Learning to Innovation in Organizations: The Critical Role of Human Resources
• 8. Creativity and Innovation: The Future of Organizations
• Index