Human Resource Management - Essay Example

Human Resource Intranets Faculty Table of Contents I. Introduction II. Human Resource Management III. Intranet i. Benefits ii. Drawbacks IV. HR Intranets V. Conclusion VI. Reference I. Introduction Human resource intranets are one of the fastest growing technologies in the market place. This offers a compatible and user friendly solutions which can be customized and offered according to the organizational needs. This helps in connecting various departments and branches of any organization to share information and communicate effectively. The first part of the paper deals with the human resource management. It describes various human resource management functions that are required for any organization. The second part deals with the intranet and its benefits and drawbacks. The last section of the paper describes the HR intranets and the activities it can handle. II. Human Resource Management Challenges faced by the organizations in the research and the various factors of the environment influence development of their operations. The heterogeneity is present in the culture, political legal set up, social set up, availability of investors and funding parties for that particular area, work force, management attitude and perception about the host country. These all factors influence most of the industries and organizations in the strategic decision making process. There are number of activities within any organization that are very important like marketing and sales, human resource management, production and manufacturing, operations, information technologies which functions together for the organizational goal and profitability. Human Resource Management (HRM) is both an academic theory and a business practice that addresses the theoretical and practical techniques of managing a workforce…… HRM is seen by practitioners in the field as a more innovative view of workplace management than the traditional approach. Its techniques force the managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity so that they can be understood and undertaken by the workforce and to provide the resources needed for them to successfully accomplish their assignments. As such, HRM techniques, when properly practiced, are expressive of the goals and operating practices of the enterprise overall.1 Human Resource Management (HRM) functions are one of the most important functions of any organization today. It includes number of activities starting from deciding the staff needs, compensation, promotional needs, recruitment and training, performance related issues, staff and organization hierarchy and various other factors according to overall organizational goals and objectives. All the activities should be according to organization’s rules and regulations and within the employment guidelines set by government. “HR Activities also include managing your approach to employee benefits and compensation, employee records and personnel policies.”2 As the technology have improved and developed it offered various flexibilities to organizations. Developments in information technologies have improved communications and processes in organizations. Paper works have reduced to certain clicks and time required for any particular activity is much lesser than what it was in the past. Human resource management requirements range within the branch to the many branches for the larger organizations. In certain cases it becomes very important to communicate faster and coordinate with all the activities within the organizations. The information shared by various member of the organization should be not only consistent but also common for each staff of the same rank or profile. The issue of transparency can be well maintained with the common data sharing. Figure 1: Human Resource Department3 People working in organization or living in different societies have difference in their way of working, their interests and objectives. Whether it is organization or society the resources are limited and need to be managed. Each individual differ from the other in his/her attitude, perception and other things. These lead to difference in interests of various individuals and groups. Due to these differences a situation of conflict arises. These situations can be handled well if the communication is proper among the members of the organization. There are various signs like low productivity, body language of individuals, lack of participation and interest in work and others which indicate conflict. Once conflict is identified it will be analyzed. The analysis will give the crucial factors to take care and help in the developing conflict management strategies. Based on this the pre-negotiation preparations are done. In the pre-negotiation each party involved in negotiation decides its goals, objectives and interests and builds a bargaining zone. Any agreement which falls within the bargaining zone is agreed by both the parties. People may resolve their conflicts by accommodation, compromise, competition, collaboration or avoidance. Each of them is based on interest of the parties involved in negotiation. Collaboration is the strategy which brings win-win situation to all. The human resource management functions includes selection of employees like short listing appropriate resume, interview processes, presentations, In-tray exercises, psychometric testing aptitude testing; recruitment process includes advertising, job description and person specifications than other activities like employment legislation, issues of discipline, development, reward systems, training, trade unions, productivity, motivations and many others. III. Intranet Intranets connect various departments of organization for the main objective of information sharing. The information is shared with a common database and can be password protected for the people of specific hierarchy and rank. For instance the information shared by one department may not be useful for the other department or information required at one particular level need not be necessary to be shared by all the members of the organization. In such cases the password protection enables administration to define rights to share information. These help in maintaining consistency within organization and maintain the common goals. The communication gaps problems can be reduced to the minimum and clarity of information will be there. An intranet is a self-contained, internal network linking multiple users by means of Internet technology. In effect, intranets put a fence around the Internets limitless territory, establishing controlled-access sectors within which users can communicate freely and interact. Built and managed by companies or organizations (called sponsors), these networks reside on the World Wide Web, enabling cross-platform communications among authorized users in real time.4 i. Benefits There are various benefits of intranets to the organizations. First and most important in all these benefits are creation of a safe environment to share information to attain common organizational goals. The available of consistent and reliable information helps the employees to share and think more strategically towards the organizational goals and individual goals. These help to communicate about the changes in the company, industry and global market place. People have an opportunity to see the development and changes on their own time through intranets. This offers a platform where members of the organizations can keep up with management decisions and initiatives to achieve mutual success and goals. It supports in making people to move from individual thinking to the common or group thinking. People can not only share information but will have a common platform to share information. This means a lot within any organization where people share common information, each other’s thoughts and views. People feel listened and empowered as they are heard. This helps the organization to resolve conflicting issues in budding stage itself. This issue becomes more transparent and clear to everyone and each and every concerned member can approach to clarify their doubts and concerns. This helps in relationship building processes within any organization even outside the intranet. This impacts the overall organization’s environment. It helps people to establish new networks and relationships. People start taking initiatives for various activities. The sharing of common goals brings them closer to each other. People share valuable information. This information is critical to the success and growth of the organization. It helps all the departments to come together to work towards the common objective of organizational profitability, growth and sustenance. This builds informal communication networks within the organization which is very important. Sharing of common pool of information helps its members to think strategically towards the most important decisions and goals. Intranet offers any organization a platform which is not only interactive but also is available anytime in a day or any day in a year. The common database supports individuals to achieve organizational goals. People become more creative and open to the management. This is important for any innovative organization. ii. Drawbacks Intranet offers range of benefits. But any technology has certain drawbacks and so is the intranet. It can be very complex in certain situation. It is very important for it to be user friendly. People using intranet should be comfortable to the platform they are using. Many a time people have certain mind blocks, fear of unknown or limited enthusiasm to learn new platform or technology this creates a complex situation where instead of having a good platform or technology people tend to avoid it. In such cases people do not avail the facilities and benefits offered by such technologies. It is each individual’s responsibilities within an organization to learn and understand the technology with the help of support provided by the organization in terms of training and development facilities. On the other hand certain time organizations fail to understand the training needs and analyze the situation properly to facilitate the training needs. There should be proper idea sharing and mutual respects for the ideas and information shared by the staff. Certain time the information sharing becomes instant which fails to cover the boundary of the each other’s respect and individuality. This creates complex situations and hampers the relationship among employees. Security is another major concern. The information sharing should be based on the level, profiles and need of particular profile. The information sharing should be well defined and appropriate according to the profile of individuals. If the security issues are not well defined it always creates a situation which is very risky. Organization should look at the training and developmental needs very crucially. It is always advisable to not just rely on one media for the communication needs. People in the small teams can talk over the phone or have face to face conversation. The firewall should be placed as the threat of virus is always there. The technology development and compatibility issues get influenced if organization wants to upgrade the technology. Instant communications are different and challengeable to manage. There is immense risk involve in this. IV. HR Intranets HR Intranets offer is one of the greatest innovations to the management world today. It can be described as follows, “HR Intranets offer the greatest innovation to HR departments since the advent of the desktop computer. HR Intranets allow the HR department to be open virtually 24 hours per day to efficiently perform many of the routine tasks required of Human Resources organizations.”5 HR intranets offers 360 Feedback, applicant tracking, compensation administration, human resource information system, interactive voice response management, payroll management, scheduling of personnel, time and attendance management, conducting surveys and feedback management, job posting and recruitment related issues, organizational chart management, testing and selection, training and development, performance scheduling and interviewing. Each and every activity can be well managed by the intranet service. Figure 2: HR Intranet6 For any HR intranet solution to be successful it is required to have clear vision and specific goals. All long term and short term goals should be defined well for the successful implementation and success of HR intranet solution. It should have realistic expectations which can be achievable. A disciplined approach will help to achieve success. This should be from the technology implementations to the user involvement. It should have proper follow-through and feedback mechanism placed. This feedback and control system should be utilized to improve the system further. V. Conclusion Human resource intranets offer flexible and reliable solutions which support the organizations to perform routine tasks effectively and offer a common platform for sharing information and data. It has various benefits and drawbacks. The major drawback is related to the user group of the organization. Users usually lack in adopting new technology. There are various reasons for that like fear of unknown, lack of understanding of new technology and many others. These drawbacks are the major reason of the failure of technology within any organization no matter how important or useful the technology is. This require proper analysis and understanding of training and developmental needs of the members of the organization so that management can offer training services to the staff to cope up with their technology related problems and adopt the new technology properly and faster. VI. Reference Benefits Administration retrieved on 5 October 2006 from Conflict Management retrieved on 5 October 2006 from Glaser, Intranets: The Pros and Cons retrieved on 5 October 2006 from accessed on 5 October 2006 Harnessing the Power: Intranet Defined retrieved on 6th October 2006 from Human resource management retrieved on 9th October 2006 from HR Intranet Overview retrieved on 9 October 2006 from Image retrieved on 6th October 2006 from Image retrieved on 9 October 2006 from Julie Gatlin, Allen Wysocki, and Karl Kepner2, Understanding Conflict in the Workplace1 retrieved on 5 October 2006 from McNamara, Carter(1999) Human Resources Management retrieved on 7 October 2006 from Read More