Human Resources Management

All the Information You Need to Manage Your Staff and Meet Your Business Objectives

Patricia Buhler

• Publisher: Everything
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781440519420
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Personalmanagement

Human resources management is critical to the success of any organization, particularly in today's complex business environment. More and more often, managers and business owners, in addition to HR personnel, are charged with aspects of human resources management: recruitment, training and development, job analysis, corporate restructuring, compensation, and morale, to name a few. Lack of expertise can result in the loss of key staff, diminished productivity and profitability, or a lawsuit. Streetwise Human Resources Management shows how to balance the needs of your employees with the objectives of your business.

PART I

Human Resources: A Key
Organizational Resource

Human resources have become a key department for every organization. Increasing importance has been placed on the role of managing the work force today. Recognizing that it is the people who make a difference and who can be the source of the organization’s competitive advantage, organizations are placing more emphasis on understanding how to manage this key resource better.

Chapter 1: Explore the environment within which human resource departments are operating.

Chapter 2: Examine the legal environment.

Chapter 3: Understand human resources’ new role in response to today’s environment.

Chapter 4: Discover the skills for effective human resource management.

Chapter 1

The Environment
of Human
Resources Today

1: THE ENVIRONMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES TODAY

2: THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT

3: THE NEW ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCES

4: SKILLS FOR EFFECTIVE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

The human resource management functions used to be performed exclusively by human resource professionals and staff personnel. Today, more of these functions have been delegated to managers and supervisors throughout the organization.

Consider the possibility that companies in the future will have human resource support positions located in each business unit. These individuals will be responsible for learning the business of that unit and advising their managers about human resource responsibilities. The ultimate responsibility for the human resource functions, however, will lie with the managers and supervisors. The human resource individual will simply be acting in a support role, which will enable the human resource function to truly support the achievement of that business unit’s objectives.

Human resources are the people (including their knowledge, skills, and abilities) within an organization who perform the actual work of the organization. Their efforts enable the organization to meet its objectives. The intellectual capital of each organization has been a growing focus in our highly competitive world.

Human resources are the people (including their knowledge, skills, and abilities) within an organization who perform the actual work of the organization.

What Are Human Resources?

Human resource management (generally referred to as HRM) is the effective use of an organization’s human resources to improve its performance. This management is no small order; it takes great skill, ability, and practice.

HRM is one of the greatest challenges facing businesses today. The challenge is not just faced by human resource professionals; it is the responsibility of all managers throughout an organization. Management is the practice of getting things done through others. Only by effectively managing the firm’s human resources will the goals and objectives be met.

Although all companies have access to the same technology and the same information, it is the people within each organization who make the difference in organizational performance. That is, human resources provide the foundation for the organization’s competitive advantage. But the challenge remains: How can you get the most out of the work force and create a sustainable competitive advantage?

TIP
The evolution of the terminology from personnel to human resources communicates the role that people play as a crucial resource of an organization.

Each unit within every organization is responsible for addressing this challenge. Although the specific solutions may vary from organization to organization or unit to unit, the basics remain the same. A clear understanding of the basics of human resource management enables every manager to help build the company’s competitive advantage through people.

A Historical Perspective

To understand and effectively manage human resources amid the challenges posed by today’s environment, you must examine the history of human resource management. Today’s perspective has evolved from the early approach to scientific management.

At the turn of the century (ca. 1895), Frederick Taylor conducted studies at Midvale Steel Works. Known as the father of scientific management, Taylor suggested that it was management’s responsibility to develop the one best way to perform the job and then it was the employees’ responsibility to perform the job in that one best way. (This approach has since been criticized because it allowed little room for the judgment or discretion of the individual worker.)

Today’s perspective has evolved from the early approach to scientific management.

Taylor’s premise was that management should systematically hire the appropriate workers for the job and then outline each detail of the job to be performed. In the case of the pig iron handlers at Midvale Steel Works, Taylor taught managers how to hire individuals best suited to the work. Then he observed the workers’ performance to determine how the job could be performed most efficiently.

Workers were responsible for loading pig iron onto railway cars. Based on his observations, Taylor decided how the job should be performed. He determined how large the load of each man should be, the incline of the ramp to the railway car, and the length and frequency of breaks. The individual workers were allowed no discretion and no autonomy.

The shortcoming of this approach to managing people was quickly identified, and the Hawthorne Studies ushered in a new era of managing human resources. These studies, conducted at the Western Electric Hawthorne plant by Elton Mayo, ultimately brought to light the human element of managing human resources.

Elton Mayo discovered the importance of the person in the workplace.

Elton Mayo discovered the importance of the person in the workplace. From 1927 to 1932, Mayo conducted research at the Western Electric plant in an effort to find solutions to the shortcomings of the scientific management era. Mayo’s study highlighted the improved productivity gained by paying attention to workers (referred to as the Hawthorne effect) and the significant role social relationships played in the workplace.

TIP
The Hawthorne Studies actually included three experimental studies: an illumination experiment, a relay assembly room experiment, and a bank wiring group study. All three are collectively referred to as the Hawthorne Studies.

Mayo’s work kicked off the human relations era, and since the studies’ time, the human element has been considered in designing work. The contributions of scientific management cannot be disputed, but the emphasis on human relations contributed balance to the movement. Today’s focus on the human element is seen in enriched jobs, increased empowerment, and participation in decision-making in the workplace.

The Challenge of Managing Human
Resources in Today’s Environment

Think of an organization as an open system, and its productivity as a transformation process. Inputs, or resources, are procured from the external environment. The resources go through a transformation process that results in outputs, or products. The resulting products are then absorbed into the external environment; that is, they are consumed.

For example, an automobile manufacturer procures resources: people from the local labor market and raw materials (such as steel, rubber, nuts, bolts, etc.) from suppliers. During the transformation process (in most cases, an assembly line), the resources are combined to produce the product: an automobile. For the organization to be successful, the automobiles must be absorbed into the external environment; that is, consumers must purchase them. This is an open system since the resources are acquired from the external environment, and the products are absorbed back into it.

The point, here, is that each organization must remember the impact of the external environment. In the case of human resources, the external environment becomes especially critical as organizations compete with each other for labor. Additionally, an organization’s overall human resource function must be competitive to attract qualified applicants and then retain them.

An organization’s overall human resource function must be competitive to attract qualified applicants and then retain them.

Changing consumer tastes and expectations impact the output of the organization and produce a ripple effect throughout the company. Changing tastes affect the product (goods and services), which influences the choice of production methods and technology and affects the design of the jobs and the skills employees need to perform the actual work. That one small pebble will ultimately impact several human resource functions.

The world today is characterized by constant change occurring at an unprecedented pace. Nearly all companies operate in a dynamic environment. Some of the changes that characterize the world of business today include the following:

• Changing employee expectations

• Competition in a global arena

• Cultural and social diversity

• Emphasis on increased productivity

• Fall of the command-and-control manager

• Flatter organizations

• Focus on balancing work and nonwork issues

• Increasing impact of technology

• New organizational structures

Changing Employee Expectations

Today’s employees (as a whole) value different things than the work force of a decade ago. Trying to manage employee expectations is further complicated by the fact that several generations are at work today, and most of them have different needs and want different things. For the most part, however, employees today expect to change jobs more frequently (every two to three years on average) and to change careers at least twice in their lifetime. Employees also expect to hold a challenging job with opportunities for growth and development.

Employees today expect to change jobs more frequently (every two to three years on average) and to change careers at least twice in their lifetime.

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Today’s aging work force is comprised of several generations, each with a unique perspective of work and a different set of values. Veterans are those workers who entered the work force in the 1950s and early 1960s. They tend to be very loyal to their organization. The Boomers are those workers between forty and sixty years of age who are loyal to their careers. Generation Xers are between twenty-five and forty. Their concerns center around work/life issues. And those who are under twenty-five years of age are referred to as the Nexters; they place a high value on their financial success.

Human resource policies must address compensation and reward packages to meet employees’ diverse and changing expectations. Even the design of jobs has become critical. As employees seek more challenges, some jobs must be redesigned to reduce monotony.

Competition in a Global Arena

Today’s global economy has impacted the way all companies conduct business. Even firms operating exclusively in the domestic arena need to manage the influence of global competition. The influx of immigrants into the American work force has created marketing and recruiting opportunities for firms while changing the demographics of the work force.

Companies must learn to manage diversity and to celebrate the differences among employees. Human resource management is responsible for hiring a...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I: HUMAN RESOURCES: A KEY ORGANIZATIONAL RESOURCE
• PART II: STAFFING: THE RIGHT PEOPLE FOR THE RIGHT JOB
• PART III: MAXIMIZING EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE
• PART IV: MAINTAINING HUMAN RESOURCES
• PART V: HUMAN RESOURCE TRENDS
• APPENDICES
• Copyright