Developing Human Resources

Christopher Mabey, Rosemary Thomson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136009051
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Developing Human Resources is aimed at managers wishing to understand their role in human resource strategy. In a clear, succinct way the authors cover the skills and techniques required to design and implement an effective HRD policy. In addition, they tackle the important tasks of team building, recruitment and change management, as well as the role you play in motivating and appraising your staff. Real examples and case studies are used throughout to illustrate points in a practical context.
Developing Human Resources is designed to provide the underpinning knowledge and understanding required for any competency-based management course. It is based upon the Management Charter Initiative's Occupational Standards for Management NVQs and SVQs at Levels 4 & 5. It is particularly suitable also for managers on Certificate and Diploma in Management programmes, including those accredited by BTEC. Rosemary Thomson and Dr Christopher Mabey are both lecturers in human resource management at the Open Business School. Series adviser: Paul Jervis The Institute of Management is the leading management institute in the UK and the largest in Europe. The institute embraces all levels of management from management students to senior executives. It offers a unique range of services for all management disciplines, enabling managers to develop themselves throughout their careers. If you would like to hear more about the benefits of individual or corporate membership, please contact: Dept HM Institute of Management Cottingham Road Corby NN17 1TT 0536 204222

1 Developing human resources for the twenty-first century

Introduction

Perhaps the single most important fact concerning the importance of human resources in the last decade of the twentieth century is that 80 per cent of the people who are likely to be in employment in the year 2000 are already in work. This doesn’t mean of course that they will be doing the same work, or be employed in the same organizations or even in the same employment sectors; this relative stability in the labour force is not reflected in the changing environment in which it operates. Organizational change and development have become a part of working life. The removal of trade barriers and the inception of the European Single Market have brought about increasing imperatives for internationalization; the worldwide economic recession has seen organizations disappear, restructure and merge, changing their operations and their requirements; continuous improvements and breakthroughs in new technology have revolutionized the industrial and financial sectors. The concept of having a lifelong career moving steadily upwards through a number of structured and foreseeable stages in a particular organization is out of date. For example, a study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), reveals that the average number of years people in employment are likely to remain with one employer is around thirteen years in America, with similar figures for Britain, Australia, Holland and Canada; the average in Japan, France and Germany is around twenty-two years. The trends in America and Britain suggest that this average length of time is likely to decrease sharply as fewer workers are offered permanent jobs. This trend is reflected in changing organizational structures in which a small ‘core’ of permanent, full-time staff, usually qualified professionals, technicians and managers, are supported by contracted-out specialists and a flexible workforce of part-time and temporary employees.

As organizations restructure, human resources tend to decrease in quantity but increase in quality and in their value to organizational effectiveness. Investing in the development of these valued resources makes sense. We invest in new technology, new machinery, new plant to increase productivity because better models have been developed but we need to develop our own ‘better models’ in the human resource area.

As you read through this book, you will encounter a number of ‘self-development’ activities that have been designed to make you think about your own situation as a manager and ways in which you might start or continue your own development as a manager. Not all will be appropriate to you or to your particular situation, but we hope that some of them, at least, will create a spark that may kindle a consideration of further development.

Box 1.1 Trends in employment in the last decade of the twentieth century

The occupational make-up of the workforce is changing rapidly and is likely to continue to do so. The decline in jobs in manual occupations seems set to continue while projected growth up to the year 2000 is likely to be concentrated in managerial, professional and associate-professional occupations, which will account for almost three-quarters of the new jobs created. There is also evidence of a clear trend among employers towards a greater use of all forms of flexible working in their drive for cost-effectiveness, enabling a much closer match between workforce provision and work requirements. In part, this trend shows how the labour market is adapting. Today (1993), less than half of employees have traditional 9 to 5, five days a week jobs. Many people want to work part-time. In 1991, part-timers made up 22 per cent of total employment. By the year 2000, this will rise to 25 per cent. The number of self-;employed people is expected to rise by a tenth and by the end of the century this group will provide nearly 14 per cent of total employment. Specialist knowledge workers are likely to be increasingly needed by small or medium sized organizations who will not be able to take more responsibility for keeping their knowledge relevant and up to date.

The vision which emerges when the changes of the past decade are extrapolated is one of scaled down, ‘leaner and fitter’ organizations in both the private and the public sectors, new organizational structures made up of autonomous units, many more small businesses and a rise in self-employment, a shift of emphasis from collectivity to individualism, increasingly sophisticated information and communication systems and production technology and a business climate which is customer driven, quality focused and fiercely competitive … The old approaches of jobs for life, negotiations on every change, motivation through piece work and overtime to ‘get the job done’ are on the decline’ (IPM, 1993).

The changing experience of work

Employees’ expectations and aspirations have changed as a result of the organizational and environmental flux in which they work. There is evidence that the traditional career structures of bureaucratic organizations, with clearly defined pay and grading systems, are becoming increasingly unattractive to job hunters; central and local government, for example, are experiencing difficulty in recruiting professional specialists. Research has shown that, where the rates of pay are competitive, people choose a job first of all for its content and, secondly, on the basis of the kind of organization that is offering it – the kind of image it projects. Because there is no longer any real job security, other benefits become increasingly important; and, as the individual employee ages, his or her expectations and aspirations change – from the initial desire to make money to an increasing urge for power, autonomy and recognition at work.

The organizations in which people work are also changing in structure through delayering and downsizing, resulting in the ‘leaner, fitter’ organization, ready to meet the challenges of the next century. Snow, Miles and Coleman (1992) describe the increasing trend towards ‘network’ structures – clusters of business units, each of which performs certain activities related to the ‘business’ of the organization. So, for example, one unit might be dedicated to research and design, another to production and a third to sales and distribution. Networks may be ‘internal’, in that the parent organization owns most of them; each business unit, however, concentrates on a specialized function, interacting with other internal units and with external resources such as suppliers and customers. A second form of network, described as ‘stable’, has a small core organization (usually consisting of professional/mangerial staff) and the business operations are carried out by satellite companies outside its direct control but acting as its suppliers, producers and distributors. Finally, there is the ‘dynamic’ network, whereby the core organization acts as a broker for a number of independent suppliers, producers and distributors.

The implication of the shift towards network organizational structures is that there are fewer layers of management (and fewer managers) but that the manager’s role has changed. Instead of managing within one hierarchical organizational structure, he or she is likely to be managing in a matrix, operating across hierarchies and organizational boundaries.

The changing environment in which we work is reflected in the vocabularies we use to describe what we do, and Table 1.1 indicates the way in which the work-related terms we use now (in the ‘information age’) differ from those used previously in the’industrial age’.

There are other initiatives and changes that are commonplace in the ‘information age’, most notably those relating to computer-mediated information and networking, and to the equality of opportunity for people in work. But one of the implications of the increase in information and the ease with which it can be accessed, is a radical change in the role of the middle manager.

Table 1.1 Vocabularies of the ages

Industrial age	Information age
Capital-intensive	Information-intensive
Labourer	Knowledge worker
Capital expenditures	Education/training
Natural resources	Educated workforce
Inventory	Data (information)
Production enhancements	Process enhancements
Management through control	Empowerment
Tangible rewards	Psychological rewards
Issuing orders	Communicating
Top-down planning	Commitment
Sales	Customer satisfaction
Inspection	Quality built in
Hiring and firing	Recruiting and redeploying
Hours of work	Flexitime
Manpower planning	Human resource management

(Adapted from Industry Week, 17 June, 1991)

In a survey of research into the role of middle managers, Dopson and Stewart found a generally negative picture of a dying breed, owing to the rise in the use of information technology and cited a particularly gloomy portrait of ‘Whole layers of management who neither make decisions nor lead … instead their main, if only function, is to serve as relays, human boosters for the faint, unfocused signals that pass for communication in the traditional, pre-information organizations’. In their own study the authors, in contrast, found that, after restructuring, many middle managers indeed found that their jobs had changed and changed for the better; their responsibilities had increased and the range of tasks they undertook had become wider. Other changes included:

• an increasing span of contr...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series adviser's preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Developing human resources for the twenty-first century
• 2 Devising human resource development strategies
• 3 Putting human resource development strategies into practice
• 4 Auditing human resources
• 5 Making fair selection decisions
• 6 Managing career development
• 7 Developing motivation and commitment
• 8 Building effective teams
• 9 Assessing and appraising performance
• 10 Managing organization development and change
• Index