Human Resource Management
The effective HR management is viable for the well-being of every company. Without professional human resources management any business would ever survive the competition. Therefore, it is critically important to observe, evaluate and study the peculiarities of this field with the aim to comprehend the most important insights. What is more to succeed with the task, one should detect the correlation between the areas of the HR management. The given paper summarizes the core notions of different functions of the human recourses management. Moreover, it reveals the case of practical implementation of a present science, simultaneously detecting potential issues and the means of resolving the conflicting, unfavorable and undesirable situations. In particular, the paper discusses the areas of equal employment opportunities and affirmative action; the HR planning, recruitment and selection; the HR development; benefits and compensation; health and safety; and labor and employee relations.
Equal employment opportunities are guaranteed to citizens by the Constitution. Any kinds of discrimination, based on one’s gender, religion, sex orientation, health propensities or disabilities as well as the presence of a disabled person in the family of an applicant should not be considered as an obstacle for job’s acquisition. The violation of the given principle is punished by the law. Therefore, HR specialists are supposed to provide fair work conditions to all employees. What is more, “equal employment opportunity requires that all individuals be treated equally with regard to all employment actions including interviewing and selection, promotion and reclassification, disciplinary actions, separations, layoffs, and retirement”. Simply put, the HR professionals should adhere to the present regulations and ensure equal environment without stereotypical biases, prejudices and discrimination. Moreover, there is the concept of an affirmative action that encourages businesses to overcome the former acts of discrimination by providing job positions to the vulnerable people. Noteworthy, “classifications protected under federal and state equal employment opportunity laws” should not be given with any exceptional opportunities either . According to the law, an applicant may and should be hired exceptionally basing on his/her professional skills and relevant personal features.
Unfortunately, endeavors of HR managers to comply with the requirements of the EEO and affirmative action pretty often beget the arguable situations that arouse numerous disputes and dissatisfaction of the current or potential workforce. At the first site, avoiding biases seems to be easy; however, in fact, actions can be misinterpreted. For example, an applicant, who does not have the required skills, may believe that s/he was discriminated rather than fairly apprised. The downside of the issue is that sometimes it is extremely hard for humans to remain indifferent towards certain stereotypes. Obviously, biases, their amount and ratio differ from a person to person, but it is almost certainly not possible to find the one, who is not exposed to their influence at least to a certain degree. Consequently, it may happen that the reason of firing or job refusal can be justified by credible factors; however, it is dictated by personal prejudices of the HR. Despite particular negative consequences, the susceptibility is partially normal and, in many cases, innate, thus, one should not blame him/herself for certain biases. Nonetheless, it is strictly recommended to learn how to clean one’s mind from the impact of stereotypes. It will help to achieve better results in both, professional and private spheres.
Human resources planning, recruitment and selection are quite important stages of the working process. As it is known, hiring the right people, motivating them to do their utmost for the benefit of a certain company and providing new employees with necessary trainings, to a great extent, determine the success of the entire workflow. It goes without saying that this phase is rather laborious and it requires the HR’s commitment and professionalism. For instance, it is necessary “to initiate the recruitment process, establish a job description, determine the recruitment timeline and screening/selection criteria, review the early referral candidates, review the resumes, prepare for the interviews, conduct the interview”. Finally, the HR must verify the references of the selected candidates and make job proposals. Among the most prominent issues of the given stages one can define the necessity of ethical approach throughout the entire recruitment process. It means a polite and respectful attitude towards all candidates. Besides, the HR must remember that the information about private life should not be exposed. Thus, it is necessary to be tactful and not to ask an applicant to share private facts. What is more, the job refusal should be announced in a respectful manner with the explanation of the reasons. Apart from being ethical, the HR should organize an interview in a way that does not give false expectations to a potential employee. Otherwise, it may be taken as an attempt to deceive; undoubtedly, it would spoil the opinion about the HR in particular, and about the entire business in general.
Human resources development is one of the main areas, which is the subject of studying for the human resource professionals. The human resource development is necessary for the enhancement of the workforce’s professional and personal characteristics in order to make the workflow more efficient and, as a result, ensure the competitiveness of a certain business. On the way to achieving this goal, human resource managers often face numerous hardships. The level of managers’ professionalism is responsible for the success of the company. The researchers claim that globalization has made the world a global village, with new markets offering new challenges and opportunities, especially in China, India, Brazil, and Russia” Therefore, human resource assistants should be ready to embrace the changes of the constantly changeable business world. To succeed with the task, they should acquire necessary qualities (skills that are dictated by the present issues). According to the HR researchers, HR professionals are supposed to define the core credentials that bring the largest value to the main stakeholders. Besides, they should identify the most efficient ways to develop the required competencies. In addition, HR specialists must comprehend the connection between their work activities, major competencies and determine how the given concepts correlate with business performance. In particular, the scientists accentuate the significance of the following practical recommendations. First and foremost, the right approach is to start the changes by “replacing self-doubt with self-confidence”. To be more specific, there is no need to feel distress if something is not as perfect that it is desired to be. Instead, it is better to direct the energy towards self-improvement; it would help to master the needed competencies. Furthermore, it is recommended to develop and inside and outside view, which presumes the need to broaden up the internal and external horizons in terms of the HR’s personal perception. The other advices of the scientists are:
- share accountability for people and organization with line managers;
- focus on individuals and organizations (not one or the other);
- serve people and deliver on business results;
- accomplish both transactional and transformational work;
- shift from;
- politics to collaboration;
- support others and have a point of view;
- invest in personal growth.
This set of practical recommendations should be taken into consideration and implemented into daily performance of every HR manager. It goes without saying that the above-mentioned simple changes can increase the work performance of all participants including HR professionals and other stakeholders of a certain business. Consequently, the goal to be successful and financially protected will be achieved. Another important possibility is to utilize the given principles in the private life. Without doubts, the enhanced self-confidence is always of a great help, as well as the expanded view towards life events and matters.
Providing the compensation and benefits for the relevant work performance as well as ensuring the safe and healthy work condition is one of the primary goals of the human resource management. It is not surprising because decent salaries and adequate working environment are the most important items in an applicant’s list of demands. Therefore, it is important to develop a competitive system of benefits and compensations. In general, employee benefits embody the ways to display the recognition of the effective work. Apart from salary, which is the major means of labor rewards, the benefits can be flexible and optional. The given particularity is especially topical in the contemporary world, because it is rather expensive for the businesses to provide all kinds of benefits to the same collaborator at the same time. For instance, types of employee benefits include “retirement plans, health life insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, vacation, employee stock ownership plans, etc”. Considering the fact, it is understandable why the businesses prefer to create flexible systems of benefits in order to recognize the diligent work performance of their employees. Nevertheless, apart from optional, there are certain liability benefits that are guaranteed by the government. For instance, the obligatory benefits contain unemployment welfares, disability payments or worker’s compensations. To obtain such payment, it is important to learn the correct mechanisms of relevant pleas. Besides, it is critical to know the circumstances in which it is allowable to get financial federal help. What is more, every person is supposed to value his/her qualification and should require at least some of the benefits as recognition of a highly skilled performance.
The submission of safe work environment and the protection of employees’ health presume that associates should be covered with insurances. Consider the case, there are various types of coverage, such as “medical, life, dental, disability, unemployment and worker’s compensation), vacation pay, holiday pay, and maternity leave, contribution to retirement (pension pay), profit sharing, stock options, and bonuses”. As for the compensation, it comprises “wage and/or salary programs and structures, for example, salary ranges for job descriptions, merit-based programs, bonus-based programs, commission-based programs, etc” . Nonetheless, as a rule, the system of compensation is much simpler and presumes the payments in the form of salaries, tips and/or wages. Comprehending the variety of health defending programs and other benefits as well as the ambiguous conditions that imply the given payments, it is possible to detect the main difference between benefits and compensation. Even though both benefits and compensations are supposed to be the means to pay for one’s work, the core difference between these recognitions is that the compensation (salary) is not optional, whereas, a great part of benefits is. Thus, the likelihood to be paid is larger than the probability to get additional bonuses. Taking into account the above-mentioned particularities of compensation, benefits, employee’s safety and health protection, it is appropriate to conclude that HR managers are supposed to take uneasy decisions constructing the systems of recognition. Nevertheless, the professional, who manages to excel with this task, will be able to form a strong system of the workforce’s motivation, simultaneously, increasing the effectiveness of the workflow.
Without doubts, another important function of human resource management is the regulation of employee and labor relations. The expert of the given field is obligated to solve problems that appear during the workflow. For instance, employee and labor relations associates “assists with individual questions, conflicts and issues that arise in the workplace”. The management of the efficient working process covers the following aspects: resolving the conflicts, corrective actions, the investigation of problems’ and conflicts’ origin. Besides, it includes the enhancement of the teamwork, the assistance of human resource specialists, policy interpretation and ensuring of healthy work conditions. Each above-mentioned core service is practiced in order to make the workflow profound, flawless and beneficial for all participating parts. For instance, the function of conflict resolution presumes the qualified assistance in resolving the work-related problems before they grow into larger issues. The corrective action administration “serve as objective hearing officers in matters involving corrective action, employee grievances and resolutions of dispute”. The investigations are aimed to observe the nature and circumstances of a certain conflict that occurs during the workflow. The regulation of labor relations presumes the advancement of “the collective bargaining process”. The performance management consults and assists the work of human resource specialists assuring fruitful associates and workplace environments. The policy interpretation educates employees to comprehend the university policies and relevant orders of procedures. The risk management reveals the core employment practices and legislations aiming to assure healthy operating conditions, which would reduce the probability of the litigation. The given function of the human resource management is critically important because it encourages the employees to improve their professional and personal characteristics, which, in its turn, helps to construct emotionally safe and healthy atmosphere. Undoubtedly, being a part of the team that is known for advanced employee and labor relations is a great benefit for each team member. What is more, the knowledge connected with the efficient problem-solving and anticipation is always of a great use in daily life even in private affairs. That is why, employee and labor relationship assistants are armed with the insights that are supposed to ease their performance and eliminate the hardships in different life spheres.
Discussing the interrelation between the above-mentioned areas of the HR management, one may conclude that the given aspects are strictly interdependent. As a rule, they function in unity being governed and maintained by the same HR assistants. Considering that all components are connected with human’s performance, and the existence of businesses depends on their effectiveness, it is hardly possible to distinguish the major and minor aspects basing on their importance. Given the significance of the HR management optimization, it is necessary to point to certain effective ways of enhancement of the role of the HR in the workflow. For instance, the HRM should be as closely linked to the notion of leadership as possible. The qualities of a true leader, the knowledge of human psychology, the anticipation of certain behavioral patterns in particular situation, -all these acknowledgments are essential for the effective recruitment, development, guidance and assistance. Another important way to increase the working performance is to strengthen the habit of team work. Given the fact that a HR manager work is collective, it is not truly correct to observe his/her labor performance and excellence separately from his/her collaborators. Summing up the notions obtained from the examined areas of the HR management, it is possible to state that this information helped to comprehend new insights. Even more important is the fact that the given information provides a nice opportunity to simulate the relevant situations and implement the obtained learning in practice.