Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management

Assignment 1

Please state the eight most important Human Resource Management practices.

There are various human resource management practices but the most important are mentioned in this case. First, human resource managers guarantee their viability and ability towards successful development of the organization. Secondly, they play an integral part in sponsoring their employees especially in training program sponsorship. In addition, they deal with issues related to people working in an organization such as hiring, performance, management, motivation of employees, administering, communication, training and safety of the workers. Another role is that they ensure that employees contribute effectively, efficiently and productively. Furthermore, they formulate strategic plans including human resource and peoples’ strategies directed towards achieving their mission and vision. Moreover, they constantly evaluate effectively the organizational results and create changes where necessary. Consequently, they act as a source of information and inventory management in an organization. Lastly, they ensure that working environment is equitable, fair and safe for the employees.

What are the major differences between personnel management and human resource management?

There are various differences between personnel and human resource management. First, personnel managers are administrative in nature because they deal with payrolls and enforce employment law whereas human resource management is the task within an organization that centers on things such as recruitments, organizational management and directing employees in the working environment. Secondly, personnel managers include both traditional and routine tasks whereas human resource management is responsible for the workforce and it covers broader tasks unlike the personnel management. Lastly, personnel managers are motivators thus motivate employees with things such as rewards, compensation, bonuses whereas human resource management holds that improved performance that leads to satisfaction of employees and for them, job creativity is their primary motivator.

Please state at least five of the most important Total Quality Management core values.

The most important Total Quality Management core values are diverse. First, focusing on customers is one of the values that help in quality improvement. Secondly, ensuring employees are involved in management is also important because the employees will help human resource managers to identify problems easily. Another one is communication strategy, which is an essential value that contributes to quality management. In addition, integrated system is another value that requires all the employees to understand the mission, values and monitor the process of management. Lastly, strategic and systematic approach whereby strategic planning and quality integration is the core component in management.

How do Mergers and Acquisitions affect the practice of Human Resource Management?

The mergers and acquisitions may affect the practice of human resource because of the changes in human resource policies, layoffs, stress, depression and poor information systems. These may affect the performance of the organization and it may lead to low production thus human resource management may not be able to meet their stated objective and goals. The merges and acquisitions pose great challenges in the organizations and sometimes they may lead to cultural differences in the organizational structure thus causing changes in the overall managerial styles.

How does the aging of our society affect the Human Resource Management practice?

Ageing affects human resource management financially because the elderly working in senior years develop issues for a variety of reasons especially with financial needs, failure of pension plans, lack of sufficient health care and many other issues. They bring vital assets such as life experience, good attitudes, work flexibility and new ideas that are meant for creating change. They may also affect human resource management negatively because the ageing need things such as pension payment and health insurance coverage. This makes the HRM to encounter financial difficulties in distributing the resources equally across the organization.

Why are knowledgeable workers in a position of power?

Knowledgeable workers are in the position of power because they formulate better strategies and make proper decisions that can be used in an organization. They ensure that employees contribute effectively, efficiently and productively. Consequently, they utilize their ability and viability well in order to enable them meet objectives and goals of the organizations hence being in a position of power. The work of human resource management is given to those managers who have better knowledge, which is essential for formulating better strategic plans that are in line with the organization objectives.

How would you relate the relationship between horizontal development, vertical development, and management and the frontline in an organization?

Horizontal development is the broad and deep knowledge on the current role on an individual and vertical development is the development of knowledge from one stage to another. Horizontal development increases the performance of vertical development and they are all administered by management, which is in the frontline in an organization. The frontline is related to horizontal development, vertical development and management because it describes the general practices or activities done by HRM that are mostly meant to achieve better management in the organization. They both work together in helping an organization to develop. An organization team leadership works vertically with senior leaders, middle management team and the front-line team. In addition, they work horizontally in the development of products, marketing products, and human resource development in order to accomplish the mission or objectives of an organization.

Please discuss the human resource management philosophy for the organization of industrial revolution and contemporary organization.

The human resource management philosophy emerged during the industrial revolution as the effective way of recruiting and maintaining skilled workers in the manufacturing and factory production. In the contemporary organization, the term is used to describe the functions of workers from the personnel to industrial relations to employee and to human resources. The contemporary organization views human resource managers as a strategy that entails planning, recruiting employees, training and initiating development in an organization.

Please discuss the nature of job descriptions, job specification and the relationship between the two. Please also give examples to explain.

Job description is what the job entails especially what an employer will be doing when he or she is being hired and job specification is the skills required in doing that job. They are related in that for instance, an individual may be hired to work as a technician in an organization and he or she may be required to have computer skills necessary to perform that job. In this case, technician is a job description and computer skills are an example of job specification.

Ideally, organization and managers should treat human resource as one of the most important and valuable asset for the company. Please discuss the underlying reasons why employees’ needs are widely and usually neglected?

The needs of the employees are widely neglected because human resource managers are goal oriented. They concentrate on creating organizational change in order to achieve the developmental goals within an organization. This makes them to forget the needs of the employees because their aim is to achieve the organizational requirements. They forget that human resources are the most essential asset of a company that adds value and contributes greatly towards an organizational development.

Assignment 2

Please explain what is Ergonomics and its relationship with HRM.

Ergonomics is the scientific study that involves making adjustments in the working environment for the benefits of both safety and production. It is related with the human resource management because it ensures that employees are productive and are protected from poor working environments. This is actually the same with the human resource management because they too focus on employees’ safety and increase production. Ergonomics seeks to design tasks same as those of human resource management. They both transform human capabilities and limitations in order to provide a better working environment, which is safe and fair for the employees.

Please explain what is Job enlargement? What are the two of the methods of job enlargement and please at least give one example for each of the methods.

Job enlargement is increasing the scope of employment through expanding the range of job tasks and duties in the same organization. The methods of job enlargement include specialization and labor divisions. A good example of specialization is that of assembly lines where an employee will specialize in a particular single production of an item. In the case of division of labor, an example can be that of dividing a certain task in an assembly industry and everyone is given a certain role to perform.

Please explain what is job enrichment and its primary purpose to HRM. Please also give an example of job enrichment.

Job enrichment is an attempt to build a better service through removing varied challenges and creating better working environments. It is described as a vertical expanding of a task in an organization. Its primary purpose to HRM is to facilitate better working environments and make every employee a manager. In addition, it enables workers to self-reliance especially when their leaders are not present. It motivates employees through giving them an opportunity to utilize their abilities. This will result to high levels of production because the employees are motivated thus becomes active and serious with their work. For instance, giving workers personal responsibility for their work is one way of job enrichment.

Flexible Work Schedules seem to have various benefits. Please explain at least two reasons why flexible work schedules are difficult to implement in many organizations.

Flexible work schedules are difficult to implement because their will be an increased cost of management and responsibilities. This is because human resource managers will not be able to evaluate the productivity of the employees. Therefore, it will lead to the slow down of organizational development due to increased cost of management. Consequently, there will be creation of staggering shifts and this will mean reducing the number of employees. The staggering shifts will result making it difficult for personnel managers to manage many employees. This will force HRM to reduce the number of employees to a sizeable number that will be easy to manage.

Please outline the human resource planning process?

The human resource planning process has various steps. First, designing management systems whereby the aim of the system is to manage human resources that are in line with the organizational objectives. Secondly, environmental analysis is another process that ensures that the internal and external environments are well managed. In addition, forecasting human resource demand is a crucial process of determining the future number of workers that would be needed. Analyzing supply is another process, which requires organization to recruit human personnel from both internal and external sources. Lastly, reconciliation and resource planning is the final process of human resource planning. It requires developing actions that are based on the data collected. The plan needs to be acceptable by management and workers in an organization.

Stock option seems to be an indirect financial incentive for job applicants and existing employees. It is also one of the low cost benefits for employees. Please state why contemporary job applicants and existing employees would prefer other benefit such as flexible work hours or health care benefit?

The contemporary job applicants and existing employees would prefer other benefits such as flexible working hours or health benefits. This is because they do not have the pre-existing conditions under the HRM planning processes. Consequently, employees are given progressive incentives and better benefits thus prefer them unlike indirect financial incentives whereby employees are being taxed indirectly and do not benefit. Another reason is that the flexible working hours that enables the employees to rest for some time and the health care benefit will enable them to meet the health care needs.

Are employment – at – will policies and due-process policies contradicting with each other? Which policy would in favor the employer and which would in favor employees? Why?

Employment at-will policies and due-process policies contradict with each other because they may terminate an employee or an employer in the employment sector at any time with or without any reason. The policies are challenging especially in the court when one of the employees takes a legal action towards his or her employer for wrongful termination. The case becomes hard and this makes the situation difficult to determine who should be judged.

An at-will policy would be in favor of the employer because they can be terminated at any time and the court will not intervene to protect the employee from being treated unfairly by an employer. Consequently, due-policy would be in favor of the employees because they are responsible for unfair treatment of employees thus, address the issues and needs of the employees.

Please state all the external and internal recruitment sources. Please also state in general at least three recruitment sources their effectiveness in terms of yield ration and cost per hire.

The internal recruitment sources include, transfers, promotions, upgrading, demotion, retrenchments and employees retirements. The external recruitment sources are the employment exchanges, labor contractors, outsourcing, training programs and press advertisements.

The effectiveness of recruitment in terms of yield ration and cost per hire are many. First, the internal recruitment is cheaper and saves the costs devoted to the teaching and training of new workers. The candidates always understand everything about the organization thus cases of failure is a significant issue. Secondly, the internal recruitment can lead to problems especially when candidates are from the same department and this leads to conflicts in the organization. Lastly, the external recruitment can lead to a huge benefit to the organization when new people are brought into the organization. However, it is costly and requires a lot of energy from the HRM responsibilities.

What comment problems and weaknesses processed by recruiters? Please state at least two of them. What are the consequences resulted by such problems and weaknesses? What may be done to improve such problems and weaknesses?

The comment problems commonly processed by recruiters are those questions asked during the interviews. For example, there are frequent questions asked during an interview such as what is your greatest strength? Alternatively, what are your weaknesses? The weaknesses are definable traits, which mean that a job seeker should not be vague about his or her qualities. The consequences that result from such problems and weakness are that many workers fail to give honest answers and thus fail the interviews. These are horrible questions processed by recruiters and many interviewers fail to explain in the ways they are being the great employees. In order to improve such problems and weaknesses, it is better for a job seeker to prepare fully before going for an interview. Consequently, they should be honest and positive because the recruiters always recruit those individuals that have work-related strengths.

In the second step of Selection process, what are the two most important considerations? Give an example to explain the two considerations.

The most important considerations in the second step of selection process is evaluating on the aspects of the interested groups and then discussing with the group. For instance, after the recruiters have chosen professional and general candidates, the next step is evaluating on the group that is the best. This is done through analyzing the advantage and disadvantages for both the professional and general including things such as behavior characteristics, the cost of training and relationships among the alternatives are evaluated.