Managing Human Resources Hnd In Business Commerce Essay

Managing Human Resources Hnd In Business Commerce Essay

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This report provides an understanding of the subject of Human resource management. In this report we explain the Guests model of hard and soft and loose and tight dimensions of HRM with relevant to the organisational context. Describe the need of flexibility developed by the Audit commission and finally describe the forms of discrimination that take place in the organisation.

Methods of analysis include Storey's definition of HRM and personal HR practices, types of flexibility could be seen in the organisation, equal opportunities practices and initiatives in the workplace, different HR practices related to global and organisational context.

In the second part of the report it has been clearly identified the flexible working practices at the audit commission referring to the case study , which cover the model of flexibility, types of flexibility, and advantages and disadvantages of flexible working practices from both of the employer and employees perspectives.

In the final part of the report it has been identified discrimination that take place in the organisation , and how legislative framework applied by the organisation to prevent discrimination , concluded with how equal opportunities within the workplace could help to manage diverse environment.

Introduction
Manangement of people involves a wide range of activities. These begins with identifying the workforce requirements of trhe organisation in the future so that the appropriate plans could be developed. Managing employees must be done in such as way that should add value to the organisation at the same time develop their personal skills and knowledge.HR practices of the organisation must encourage the employees to take a solution oriented approach and must be team focused .

This report aims to build upon the knowledge and understanding developed related to human resource practices. And its promotes the need for the organisation to adopt to a more inclusive approach of HR practices for the use of induction training programme which is going to be held on following month , for newly recruited HR assistants. This is simply include the Practical application on the Guest' Model of HRM perspectives, IR/HRM practices with compared to 27 dimensions of Storey's definitions, and the role of line managers in the organisation,

This report demonstrate the need of flexibility in the organisation and benefits of home working practices of Audit commission and finally forms of discrimination take place in the organisations and changes that could be implemented to prevent discrimination in the work place with the support o f legislative framework with relevant to discrimination practices in the organisation

Task 01
Company's strategic HR practices based on

1.1 Practical application on the Guest's Model of Hard-Soft, Loose- Tight dimensions of HRM.
Guest draws on the Harvard model, associated with soft HRM and the Michigan model, which proposes the hard HRM approach. The hard HRM emphasis the significant of the integration of the strategic objectives of the HR functions which comprise the HR policies, activities and systems.

Undertake the various activities involved in managing human resources, the attitudes and approach of managers towards employees can differ significantly. At one extent we have what is called Hard HRM. This basically regards employees as a necessary if unwelcome cost; people are an input that is required to get the job done, but it is believed that they add little to the overall value created by the business. With this approach managers see themselves as the "thinkers" they develop the best way of doing things and employees are expected to get on with it. This fits with the approach of F. W. Taylor.

In our organization the Hard HRM usually adopts a top-down management style in which employees are directed and controlled. Employees are expected to fit in with the design of the firm, simply it follows a TIGHT HR policy where employees perform according to the set rules and standards , according to what they are expected and asked to do. Managers and supervisors instruct them and then monitor their actions. Jobs tend to be broken down into relatively small units so that one person does not have much control over the process and a replacement can easily be recruited and selected and trained. A danger that the firm as a whole is at risk because it relies so heavily on the senior managers; if they make mistakes the business as a whole could fail because there is no input from lower levels.

By comparison, the SOFT HRM approach takes the view that employees can add a great deal of value to an organization, and the business should develop, enhance and build on their interest , skills and abilities. Under a soft approach managers see themselves more as facilitators. They are there to coach and help employees to do their job properly perhaps by ensuring sufficient training is provided and that the employee can develop in his or her career this approach fits with the Loose HR policy because employees willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization. This approach fits with McGregor's Theory Y style of Leadership.

our organization is building on the skills and experiences of the employees, this may enable the firm to be more creative, more innovative and differentiated from the competition and able to keep and develop highly skilled employees with expectations of a career of a business and individuals throughout the business are encouraged to contribute, which may make the organization more flexible and adaptable to changing market conditions. This is the soft side of HRM that we could see in our firm

1.2 HRM and personnel/ IR practices with compared to 27 dimensions of Story's definitions

Storey put forward a theoretical "ideal type" description of what a fully implemented model of HRM might look like, in contrast to a similarly abstracted description of the traditional personal/ industrial relations model. When we apply this model to this our organizational context.

Strategic approach: when the organization decided to merge with another firm , it takes into account how the workforce needs to change, whether staff needed training and assess how may be affected. This is simply an HRM approach that the organization used to practice nowadays. The business has an organizational culture that sees the employee as an important part of the company. managers who are unprepared to listen to employees view on improvements will prevent the policy from working effectively, when it comes to implementation of rules and regulation, the major disciplinary rules decided by the top management without any concern of the employees but still other working needs and flexible hours schedules might given to the employees concern. Motivation, training and support is given to the staff to encourage in the workplace. And it makes use of the incentives such as bonuses, or non monetary benefits such as job redesign. Company has adopted flexible practices and thinking have been encouraged by the employees, and workers have given the authority to change their jobs, accept new working methods and conditions. Employees has made to feel part of the business and be committed to its objectives, this has contributed towards the improvements in quality and productivity.

Finally when we look at the organizational context it is more over to the HRM approach which is developed by the Storey

1.3 Role of the line manager and employees in the organization

Line managers and supervisors have lot of direct responsibilities towards the HR functions. The responsibilities for HRM may well lie with line mangers. this means that the marketing manager may be responsible for managing her marketing team and dealing with all the 'people issues" that comes with this. In our organization we have a specialist HR department. People working with this department act as advisers to the line managers, keeping them informed of the legal requirement s affecting employing people, advising them on best practice and supporting them in HR issues. The final decisions are usually made by the line managers ( after all , it is their team of staff) but the systems, procedures and approaches they use may well be developed by HR specialist. In our organizations workers are trained, managed and appraised by their supervisors,. Similarly , most executives deal with their line managers, not their HR managers. In the accountancy department, then , it may be that the manager has little or no skill in the people management. Yet s/he may make all the most important decisions about the future of junior staff. HR department can be little more than administration functions; all the key decisions about people are made elsewhere.

Task 02

performance management system

" there are potential benefits for both the individual and the organization from using a proper performance management system"

Yes, I agree a generally a better performance management system helps to improve the overall performance by organizing the individuals team efforts and make certain that the organizational goals have been met according to the standards.

An efficient performance appraisal plays a major role in evaluating the willingness of the staff for the bearing up of organizational task. Simply this practice not only benefit the individuals but also the organization as well.

performance management make sure that the employee recognize the need of their part to the firms goals and objectives, and give a clear definition of what is expected from the employees and see whether the staff has required skill to perform the job and if not provide adequate training to them. Based on confidence and empowerment it assist to have a cordial relationship between the employee and the line manager . it is a assured fact that performance management practices have a great impact on the job satisfaction and staff trustworthiness by appraise their performance on equal basis and reward them based on their performance.

An efficient performance appraisal system would be an advantages factor for the firm , managers as well as the employees as well. Through a better performance management system organization's performance would increase, employee will become more loyal to firm and can expect staff retention as well as this helps to overcome the communication barriers in between the management and the staffs. Finally organization could enjoy cost benefits as well. When it comes to managers it save time and number of conflicts which arise between the individuals could be reduced. For employees performance management clearly define the expectations and career developments in the organization and job satisfaction will be promoted through this system.

2.2 Human resource practices

" As a HR manager , you need to manage different human resource practices in the workplace"

Yes I agree, employees are the human capital which describe in terms of their skills, knowledge, intelligence, experience and the main resource that any organization required to carry out their functions. Simply HRM practices should support the firm's business strategy, so as a HR manager it is necessary to manage different such practices in the work place, in our organization as the Hr manager I am responsible for analyzing work and designing jobs, determining how many employees with specific knowledge and skills needed , recruiting thje potential candidates. Selecting the best out of the pool by conducting interviews, provide training and development for the career growth, appraising their performance, providing financial and non financial benefits to them and maintaining a proper industrial relationship with the employees may all the activities managed by him. All these practiced must be managed well for a better performance. All these activities simply fall under the administrative tasks that to be perform, with the expertise in the field of I could managed to do it efficiently and with a commitment to quality. And also in order to meet the organizational goals implementing an effective HR system which attract , and retain the staffs as well as developing their skills according to the organizational requirements and Developing strategies and HR practices which contribute to the overall strategy of the company is one of my responsibility in order to achieve a competitive advantage over the competitors. My duty does not stop here more over I have to ensure that the organization meet the required labour laws which is implemented by the government in various situation for example compliance with employment legislation, providing equal opportunities , managing the diversity and so on.

Globalization issues on HR planning

" there is a greater impact of globalization on issues such as human resource planning"

Yes I agree

Globalization is the process of combining people together from all the countries of the world into a single society . this fact simply have a greater impact over the HR practices in the business world today. when it comes to forecasting the demand and supply of labor the organization must focus on the globalization issue .

The geographical diversity of business organization and the significant influence of emerging markets have created powerful competition in the global market place. Various countries are struggle to recruit employees with the innovative and creative multi skilled for their product and service oriented organizations.

Nowadays Hr personal need not to limit them self within a boundary to recruit and select people for their organizational functions. most organizations need to tap the external labour market at regular intervals in order to make up for shortfalls of labour in the existing workforce. At its simplest it is that particular group of potential employees, locally, regionally or nationally, who possess the skills and knowledge required by an organization at a particular point of time. And also globalization have a direct influence over the following issues related to HRM, according to this implications, the HR personal need to make changes in their human resource planning, to forecast and determine the required and correct type of employees to be recruited. and also when selecting a global business the HR personal must decide on their Hr planning process to select the country which has a positive track records in terms of their economic , political and legal considerations. And another aspect is that that selecting countries with lower cost lab our cost must be more preferred.

2.4 Managing culturally diverse workforce

Different national and cultural and practices make an influence for managing a culturally diverse workforce.

Yes I agree

Culture helps to account for variations among organizations and managers , both nationally and internationally. it helps to explain why different groups of people perceive things in their own way and perform things differently from other groups. Simply the organizations are consist of human resource since their activities which deals with this people factor . so the main responsibility of the Human resource department is to ensure that the right mixture of employees with adequate knowledge and skills must be recruited and employed in their organizational context. Schneider and Barsoux suggest that cultural belief and values influence the meaning of management and also show up differences in conceptions of organizations. National differences, and cultural reasons raise concern about the transferability of organizational structures, systems, and processes and question the logic of universal "best practice"

The successful future of any business depend on the ability to administer a diverse body of talent that result in innovative ideas, new creativity and different viewpoints to their work. if the organization can get the maximum utilization from the diverse talents of the employees , it can overcome the problems exertion of the workplace diversity by turning into a strategic organizational assets . an organization can respond creatively and innovatively by having a right mixture of recruits with diverse cultural backgrounds, genders, ages and lifestyles.

If the organization doesn't cope up with the diverse environment it is obvious that it will lose it employees to its competitor organization. This is simply applicable to multinational companies which are operating in global scale need to consider the people who employed in different countries, ethical and cultural backgrounds.

Task 03

Case study answers

3.1 audit firm's model of flexibility

The flexible firm is able to change its own structure in response to changing needs. In order to achieve this , firms have tended to identify a "core" which forms the basis for all its operations, and a "periphery" which consists of all the other tasks needed to run the firm but that are not central to the business. In his book of The Age of Unreason, Professor Charless Handy suggested that instead of firms comprising two elements, the core and periphery, ther were actually three parts to modern firms; he called this idea the "Shamrock Organisation"

Put the photograph

When we apply this model to the audit firm

The first leaf of the shamrock represents the professional core made up of the audit family, performance audit family, functional family and full time employees. These employees do tasks central to the business and job security as well as committed to the firm's goals.

The second leaf called the contractual fringe is for the work that has been contracted out to someone else because it is not central to the firm in this case study we can found that the use of temporary and contractors from agencies .

The third and final leaf is the flexible workforce, made up of temporary and part time workers. A particular type of flexible worker that we could find in this case study is the home worker, this is where the employee may work sometimes from home, but is normally present at an audit commission office or working on the site of a client for the majority of their working time. And also the employee who works from home for the majority of the time.

3.2 Briefly explain the need for flexibility; according to the firm do you believe that they are implementing the correct types of flexibility? Explain your answer.

Need for flexibility

Today's. Businesses need a more flexible approach within their operations . the need has arisen for a number of reasons.

Increasing competition means that the market place is subject to frequent and often rapid change. Firms need to be able to anticipate these changes and respond to them quickly in order to maintain a competitive edge.

Increasing competition , especially firms from overseas firms, has forced businesses faced with fluctuating or seasonal demand to introduce greater operational flexibility ., in order to eliminate any unnecessary costs.

Audit commission uses place of work flexibility which means that the home working practice. This helped to meet more closely the need of its staff and to improve their work life balance. According to the nature of the job the audit commission undertake formal examination of the set of accounts of the local government, the criminal justice system and health service and checking the quality and efficiency of work and identity areas of concern and issue reports. since the commission faced with fluctuations in the workload, numerical workforce flexibility cannot be an appropriate way although the labours who involved in contract basis , when the commission faces any crisis , by the time if they reduce the number of employees there quality of work will be reduced. Since there are chances that the qualified employees might be lay off from the workforce. The audit family consists of professional accounting team members who visit clients to carry out the financial audit. Functional flexibility would be a correct type of flexible workforce, since the job family consist of different administrative duties and supervisory posts and people who look after the core business. So it is essential for the team members who belong to different job family to know the different job roles performed by each and every department. But if there is a fluctuation in demand for particular skills, the other core related family staffs can perform the jobs, so through functional flexibility multi skills could be developed by the employees to deal with a wider variety of work.

3.3 Advantages and disadvantages of flexible workforce

Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of flexible working practices from both of the employees and the employer perspective relate with this firm.

Referring to the case study

Advantages to the employee

Improve work life balance which motivate the employee to contribute more to the firm

Reduces cost of travelling which saves lot of time taken to travel and spend on roads

Day care expenses could be reduced since the mother s could look after their children

Disadvantages

Employees may lose the office culture , too much flexibility may lead to laziness.

Employees become dependent upon the technologies. So if there is a power cut , then this could affect the work

Peripheral workers and temporary contracts may experience a loss of job security

Advantages and disadvantages to the firm.

The adoption of a more flexible workforce can, in principle , be an attractive prospect for any modern business, offering a number of benefits , including reduced cost, specially frees up desk space, and an increased ability to respond to changing customer needs. The separation of employees into a highly valued core and an easily dispensable periphery may allow a business to pick and mix and obtain the exact combination required within the market at that particular moment in time.

However , it can also lead to a number of problems in the long term, especially if it creates insecurity among peripheral workers that leads to high levels of staff turnover. The ability to cut labour cost quickly and easily in the face of a downturn in the market has obvious attraction. However in the long term, the establishment of a multi skilled and loyal workforce able tom adopt and diversify into new markets, may lead to even greater success

Task 04

Equal opportunities within the work place

To safeguard the employee from the discriminatory issues, equal opportunities polices are implemented within the workplace. This is simply means that every individual who work in an organization should be given an equal chance of being applied and selected for the job applied , and must have a chance of promoted to the next hierarchical levels and must be terminated equally and fairly. And also equal opportunity does not limit it boundaries, it simply state how to reduce the imbalance of work environment, reduce the discrimination occur in the work place and legal actions could be taken to prevent the employees being discriminated. Discrimination is twofold - direct and indirect. Not promoting an employee due to his / her race, religion or gender constitutes direct discrimination. If a prospective employee fails to secure work but if it does not necessarily appear to look discriminatory at face value is the indirect type.

It is a common practice which could be seen in most of the organization is employee is discriminated on the grounds of disability, age, marriage status, ethnicity, pregnancy, political belief, race, religion and sex. This could be simply defined as the main forms of discrimination that take place in the employment.

According to the Race and Religion Amendment Act 2000 job advertisements which are created by the organizations should not request the race or religion from the candidates. for example in srilanka Certain banks when they recruit candidates for their organizational vacancies, in the job advertisement it self they used to publish that certain religion is preferred. This is simply discriminate the candidate on the grounds of race and religion which should not followed in near futures, they should only be discriminated on the grounds of their knowledge, potential and experience but not based on their race or religion, and treating an interested group less favorably just because they denied employment because of gender, sexual orientation are considered how directly employees are discriminated on the ground of race. In srilanka it is a practice that most of the organization they made a request in their job advertisements , to state their age, and the firm also give priority to the candidate who belongs to that age, this is simply a direct decimation, organizations should consider the working capacity and ability of the potential candidate not that person who belongs to 20-25 will work better and 40-50 might have good experience in their job. That is not the case age does not reveal the capacity of the potential candidate. So elder people should not dismissed or given early retirement based on their age, until they leave the organization.

In the early stages of trade women were not given equal opportunities to enroll in job, though they have given a chance to work, the pay rates were far more differ from men, this particular situation still continues in the business world. In order to prevent women from pay discrimination Equal Pay Act 1970 was intended by the UK government. A very good example for this situation is that , a major number of women in srilanka employing at apparel ( Mass, Brandix, etc) in these companies women are paid less than the men, since this companies discriminate women based on their sex as well as pay rates. To prevent employees being discriminated in the organizations there is a legislative frame work which is called the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 amended by the UK parliament. This simply includes the way employees are being recruited, training provided, promotion and dismissal of people. Treating women unfavorably on the basis pregnancy or maternity leaves counts an illegitimate sex discrimination. It consist of insensate jokes, displays of sexually explicit material innuendos or lewd comments or gestures.

A woman cannot discriminated because of her pregnancy, childbirth or a medical condition related to pregnancy or childbirth, she cannot be discriminated when it comes to her employment, recruitment, dismissal, promotions, layoffs, training and development and financial and non financial benefits that an organisation offers. In order to prevent women's being discriminated the UK parliament has implemented Work and family Act 2006 which sets out the latest array of family friendly policies from the government where it removal or qualifying period for additional maternity leave. If the women is unable to perform her job temporarily due to a medical condition related to pregnancy or child birth , the organisation must treat her the same way how they will treat a temporarily disabled person. Since her work could be modified and provide unpaid leave etc

But now the way of treating a disable persons have changed , persons with disabilities as "subjects" with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as being active members of society. Due to a physical impairment an employee cannot be asked to leave the job. Not only that discrimination should not take place in terms of his salary or monetary benefits. Employer must take needed adjustments to help the disabled employees to have a good working conditions, and friendly environment. Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995& 2005, the employer cannot denied to interview and recruit , provide training and promote a disable person, because of their disability. He must make needed adjustments to help the disabled person to provide a comfortable workplace and equal opportunities to take part in all the managerial activities , for example providing wheelchair access to work.

To maintain a cordial relationship among the employer and the employee equal opportunity practices should be followed in the work place. Offering flexible and good working conditions, offering jobs to women partially, provide equal opportunities to men and women, try to avoid unwanted or questions which relevant sexual orientation must be avoidable.

Dismissing an employee because of her pregnancy, offering overtime works in an unreasonable manner without pay systems, not giving the previous job who has come back from the maternity leave , and in equalities in promotional and training methods also must be prevented , and all the employees who work under the same roof should be treated equally and must be provided equal opportunities in their work place.

In addition to respond to this legislative provisions, providing flexi hours of work, and career breaks and specially for pregnant mothers and who has come back from maternity leaves a come back schemes to women could be introduced by the organization which ensure the job security and less discriminations occur in the work place.

Managing diversity is where having the right person for the job regardless of sex, race and disability. It combats prejudice, stereotyping, harassment and other undignified behaviour and creates an environment in which people from all backgrounds can work together harmoniously. whereas equal opportunities talk about the preventing employees from discrimination, equal pay, equal participation of women in the work place. and good working conditions.

The main aim of equal opportunities in work place is to increase the quality of women participation in the job roles and ensuring there are treated very well on the grounds of the their talent, skills , knowledge, experience and potential , not in the grounds of their sex, age, gender, religion, disability and so on.

,

Conclusion

In the first part of the assignment it has been discussed how the organization has planed to carry out the Induction training program for newly recruited HR Assistants focusing on the practical application of Guest's model and Story's HRM and IR practices which fit with the organizational context. From that we have identified

Question 01

1.explain the audit firm's model of flexibility

The flexible firm is able to change its own structure in response to changing needs. In order to achieve this , firms have tended to identify a "core" which forms the basis for all its operations, and a "periphery" which consists of all the other tasks needed to run the firm but that are not central to the business. In his book of The Age of Unreason, Professor Charless Handy suggested that instead of firms comprising two elements, the core and periphery, ther were actually three parts to modern firms; he called this idea the "Shamrock Organisation"

Put the photograph

When we apply this model to the audit firm

The first leaf of the shamrock represents the professional core made up of the audit family, performance audit family, functional family and full time employees. These employees do tasks central to the business and job security as well as committed to the firm's goals.

The second leaf called the contractual fringe is for the work that has been contracted out to someone else because it is not central to the firm in this case study we can found that the use of temporary and contractors from agencies .

The third and final leaf is the flexible workforce, made up of temporary and part time workers. A particular type of flexible worker that we could find in this case study is the home worker, this is where the employee may work sometimes from home, but is normally present at an audit commission office or working on the site of a client for the majority of their working time. And also the employee who works from home for the majority of the time.

Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of flexible working practices from both of the employees and the employer perspective relate with this firm.

Referring to the case study

Advantages to the employee

Improve work life balance which motivate the employee to contribute more to the firm

Reduces cost of travelling which saves lot of time taken to travel and spend on roads

Day care expenses could be reduced since the mother s could look after their children

Disadvantages

Employees may lose the office culture , too much flexibility may lead to laziness.

Employees become dependent upon the technologies. So if there is a power cut , then this could affect the work

Peripheral workers and temporary contracts may experience a loss of job security

Advantages and disadvantages to the firm.

The adoption of a more flexible workforce can, in principle , be an attractive prospect for any modern business, offering a number of benefits , including reduced cost, specially frees up desk space,and an increased ability to respond to changing customer needs. The separation of employees into a highly valued core and an easily dispensable periphery may allow a business to pick and mix and obtain the exact combination required within the market at that particular moment in time.

However , it can also lead to a number of problems in the long term, especially if it creates insecurity among peripheral workers that leads to high levels of staff turnover. The ability to cut labour cost quickly and easily in the face of a downturn in the market has obvious attraction. However in the long term, the establishment of a multi skilled and loyal workforcem able tom adopt and diversify into new markets, may lead to even greater success