Potential Role(s) of HR And HR Professionals In Contemporary Organisations - Essay Example

?Critically examine the potential role(s) of HR and HR professionals in contemporary organisations The role(s) of Human Resource, or HR for short, and that of HR professionals are widespread, as it involves multitude of ways through which the employees of an organisation are optimally managed. In an organisation, there will be a separate HR department or HRD, with a set of HR professionals, or in other cases one or two HR personnel, without any specific department. Whatever be the number of HR professionals, their roles starts from recruiting the employees, staffing them, appraising them, rewarding them and it extends even till their retirement or exit. Thus, their main role is employee-centric, with the need to facilitate expected work environment, monetary benefits, professional growth, etc for the employees. Also, their role involves understanding the employees’ expectations as well as their grievances, based on which they can come up with relevant strategies. By this management of employees, HR is not only taking care of employees’ careers, but through them are actually managing and taking care of the organisations as well. An organisation’s success or failure mainly depends on how the employees perform, which in turn depends on how the HR perform their roles. So, this essay will critically examine the potential roles of HR and HR professionals in a contemporary organisation in areas such as recruiting, staffing, appraisal, rewarding, etc., which leads to effective people management. To make an organisation into an effective unit, exhibiting high productivity, qualified and equipped employees have to be recruited and then staffed, as a continuous process. HRD and the HR professionals’ first and main role start at this junction, as they only need to play a major part in the recruitment process. That is, after checking for vacancies inside the organisations or after getting intimation from various departments, HRD and its professionals will analyse the job needs, as part of the Job Analysis process. “Job analysis is the process of collecting, analysing and organizing information about jobs”, as it provides the basis for a job description or role definition during the recruitment process. (Armstrong and Murlis 2007). Then, they will design the job recruitment details, after which they will publish those details through various mediums in consultation with the management. After receiving applications from the prospective candidates, HRD will only sort out those applications and importantly will come up with various selection processes, according to the job description. Some of the selection processes that are normally followed in contemporary organisations include written exams, objective type exams, personality judgment tests, assessment centres, personal interviews, etc. (Robertson and Smith 2001; Armstrong, 2006). Through, these processes, the three main aspects of skill level, knowledge and even experience levels, will be analysed and judged by the HR professionals in relation with the management team. “Skills, experience, and knowledge have economic value to organisations because they enable to be productive and adaptable” (Jackson and Schuler 2003). Thus, recruited optimal employees will have adequate skill and knowledge, which can be aptly tapped by the organisation, leading to better performance. In essence, if HR professionals implement a specified set of employment as well as work practices, it is going to lead to better performance. (Boxall and Purcell 2008). When one focuses on Southwest Airlines HRD’s recruitment processes, it exhibits apt qualities. HR professionals inside SW Airlines conducts the recruitment process in such a foolproof manner that only one out of four applicants would be personally interviewed, after going through various process, and importantly less than 3% would actually be hired. (Hunter 2006). During the recruitment process, apart from focusing on their academic qualifications and skill levels, HR professionals in SW looks for key subtle human assets including their attitude and importantly their mental thought process when hypothetical work situations are presented. This strong filtering mechanism adopted by HR professionals with aid of other departments and management gives SW ‘cream’ of the human capital. “The involvement of all levels of management and employees along with the HR department in the selection process helps SW to build a strong network of employees, who can then successfully forward the organisations' mission of providing the right attitude” (Jackson and Schuler 2003). The role of HR professionals will not stop after recruiting, and will continue during the next logical part of training. That is, all the recruited employees may not exhibit job-ready skills. So, when the currently recruited as well as the already functioning employees’ performance does not meet the expected levels, due to their lack of skills or even knowledge about their allocated tasks, HR professionals have to initiate different forms of training processes. When this is done, the deficient employees could become super efficient. Thus, good HR management consists of training and showing average people how to do the work of superior people. (Redman and Wilkinson 2009). The basic training process or program that will be initiated by the HRD includes utilizing in-house skilled and experienced employees or bringing experts from outside the organisation or sending the employees to outside training centres, to train and equip the deficient employees. According to Torrington, Hall and Taylor (2008) there are in-house courses and outdoor-type courses. These training sessions can make the employees understand their shortfalls, which can be corrected by themselves, with the aid of the experts and importantly HR professionals. Specialized forms of these training programs will be normally conducted by HRD through coaching and mentoring. Research shows that mentoring and coaching are among a host of interventions employed by organisations to improve human performance. (De Janasz and Sullivan 2004). HRD will bring expert coaches from outside, who will focus more on human resource element than on the technical aspects, thereby facilitating wholesome development of the employees. As Macafee and Garvey (2010) states coaches “need not be a specialist in the field but should be skilled in questioning and listening to enable the individual to find answers themselves.” On the other hand, mentoring is actualized when an experienced employee guides or mentors a less skilled and inexperienced protege. As these mentors foreshadow the struggling employees, they will point out their deficient areas and then will give them the opportunity to learn from it as well as correct it. Thus, if all the deficient workers are trained effectively, they can start to work in a flawless manner, thus providing optimum productivity to the organisation. Recognizing the importance of training regimes, today’s successful organisations invest substantial amounts of time, effort, and money in various forms of training, guided by HR. (Sims 2002). In the computer chip manufacturing company, Intel, a mentoring program has been in place for many years and it showing more than expected results. Experienced employees who have agreed to play the role of mentors complete an on-line questionnaire in which they list any of their two dozen top skills, based on which the struggling employees will be paired as mentee. (Gazzara qtd by Stroh et al. 2004). As this program, facilitated by HR professionals, gives importance to not only sharing information but also sharing of skills sets and practical experience, it benefits the employees, thereby making them organisation or “work-ready”. Another key role of HR professionals, which can lead to effective employee management, is conducting the appraisal process and then aptly rewarding the correct employees. Unbiased and ethical rewarding system can accentuate motivation among the employees, as it will make them understand that their work performance will be recognized and importantly rewarded. At the same time, this rewarding system should not show any hint of bias or unethical actions, as it will instead lead to de-motivation among the employees, and even their exit from the organisation. “Especially in organisations that use performance management as a basis for pay and other HR decisions, it is important to ensure that all employees are treated in a fair and equitable manner” (Pulakos 2004). Considering its significance, HR professionals has to actualize a strong rewarding system, by first conducting an effective appraisal process. “Appraisals are used for determining pay increases, who gets let go, who gets promoted. Often they are used to focus on what people have done wrong.” (Bacal 2004). Thus, it is clear that appraisal kind of fulfils two objectives, as it helps the HRD to find the employees who are performing aptly and who deserve rewards, as well as finding employees who are not performing adequately, and who needs to be further trained or even removed from the organisation. In Nestle, appraisal process is conducted has a two-step process called as Performance Evaluation (PE) and Personal Development Guide (PDG) meetings. (Bell and Shelman 2008). When rewards as well as other incentives are given to deserving employees, it will surely motivate those groups of employees to put in more efforts. In addition, it will also motivate the other groups of employees to accentuate their performance to garner their share of rewards. So, HR professionals play a key role in appraising the employees aptly, and rewarding the correct ones. From the above analysis, it is clear that HR or HR professionals form an indispensable part of organisational functioning starting from recruitment till rewarding. It seems HR aspect or HR professionals get involved during all the important organisational processes and decisions, which determines the performance as well as success of the organisation at large. Their maximum involvement and their employee-centric focus leads to effective employee management, which in turn makes them contribute optimally to the organisation, thereby placing the organisation on the path of success. References Armstrong, M 2006., A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, Kogan Page. Armstrong, M and Murlis, H., 2007. Reward Management: A Handbook of Remuneration Strategy and Practice, Kogan Page Publishers Bacal, R., 2004. Management File - What IS The Point Of Performance Appraisal. [Online] Available from http://work911.com/performance/particles/perfpoint.htm(Accessed on October 31, 2012) Bell, D and Shelman, M., 2008. Nestle in 2008, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 49, pp.3-5. Boxall, P and Purcell, J., 2003. Strategy and Human Resource Management, Palgrave MacMillan. De Janasz, SC and Sullivan, SE., 2004. Multiple mentoring in academe: Developing the professional network, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Vol. 62, pp. 263-83. Gazzara, K., 2004. “Intel's Mentoring Program Helps International Employees.” Edited by Stroh, L et. al. International Assignments. Routledge. Hunter, L., 2006. Low Cost Airlines:: Business Model and Employment Relations. European Management Journal, Vol. 24, No. 5, pp. 315–321. Jackson, SE and Schuler, RS., 2003. Managing Human Resources for Strategic Partnership, Thomson South Western. Macafee, D and Garvey, B., 2010. Mentoring and coaching: what’s the difference? [Online] Available from http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view- article.html?id=20001204(accessed on October 31, 2012) Pulakos, ED., 2004. Performance Management: A roadmap for developing, implementing and evaluating performance management systems. Society for Human Resource Management, United States of America. 2004. Robertson, IT and Smith M., 2001. Personnel Selection, Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, Vol. 74, No. 4, pp. 441-72. Redman, T and Wilkinson, A., 2009. Contemporary Human Resource Management: Text and Cases, 3rd edition, FT Prentice Hall. Torrington, D, Hall, L and Taylor, S., 2008. Human Resource Management, 7th Edition, FT Prentice Hall. Sims, RR., 2002. Organizational Success through Effective Human Resources Management, Greenwood Publishing Group. Read More