3 May 2011
Human Resource Management
The human resource is also a major contributor in gaining and maintaining competitive advantage. If the company’s employees appreciate and are devoted to the objectives and visions of the company, the employees will assist in the success of the company. Thus, the employees will be devoted to making the vision and identity stronger for the stakeholders, the customers, and themselves. Human resource management involves operations on, and maintenance of, the human resource (Buhler 2002). Most of the functions associated with human resource management include operations services, janitorial, management of all the employees, organization, salaries and other support duties.
Company policies should be followed by all the employees irrespective of the positions they hold. Implementing these policies requires a collaborative initiative between all the senior management officials to ensure a thorough representation and distribution of duties. Policies are formulated depending on either external pressure, or internal objectives of the company. In the case of external policies, the managers must ensure that all the employees are well conversant with the specifications and contents of the policies. This makes the implementation program smooth and easy.
There are different categories in training. One of these categories is the refresher training, the other one involves introduction of a purely new concept. The refresher course entails a frequent training process that keeps the employees knowledge fresh and active (Pynes 2008). If it becomes dormant, knowledge tends to get erased from individuals’ minds. Dormant knowledge can be defined as ideas and skills that were hitherto acquired by an individual, but have stayed for a long time without being replicated in practice. Such knowledge is very common among employees since most company activities involve a repeated sequence of operations, which leave other prior acquired knowledge dormant.
The dormant knowledge is very important since it helps companies maximize on certain opportunities (Jackson & Mathis 2007). For this reason, successful managers are supposed to tap relevant knowledge for the benefit of the company. The other category of training involves increasing the already existing knowledge of the employees. This mostly happens when a company changes its technology and other applications. In order to keep up with the new ideas and concepts, managers should formulate training programs for all their staff members.
The manager’s role as a mentor to the junior staff should be reflected in his ability to observe and show obedience to the available policies. For any procedural requirements, managers are taken as leaders and the junior level employees always look up to them for guidance and assistance (Ivancevic 2006). Through collaborative and consultative approaches, managers are in a position to offer guidelines that outline the employees who should perform various tasks, while still doing this within the policies’ requirements. Operations management entails management of assets, human and premises operations as well as implementation of policies to safeguard the organization. For this reason therefore, there must be an interaction, integration and interdependencies between the human resource manager and the operations managers for the activities to carry on efficiently (Randhawa 2007).
Integration
This is the coordinated management by both human resource and operations managers. The process of integration starts from the time of human resource formation or procurement at which the human resource manager has to ensure the adherence of the premises location with safety standards, environmental issues and health. For this reason therefore, the operations manager has to be involved in the verification processes of these safety standards (Bhagria 2010). For example, construction may be near damping sites or sewers and thereby considered unsafe by the operations managers.
The coordinated operations by these two managers ensure that the facilities are set up in a safer, comfortable and stable location. In addition, the operations systems set up to protect the premises, falls under both the human resource and operations managers and therefore, all the procurements relating to the operations systems requires the presence of the two managers (Pynes 2008). This establishes the feasibility of each purchase in relation to cost, applicability, benefits and safety of both the physical premises and the workforce. Despite the operations managers being wholly in charge of the operations issues, a coordinated acquisition of the operations facilities with the human resource managers ensures that smooth management of these facilities and enables both managers to establish a safer environment.
Interaction
There is need for a continuous interaction between the human resource and operations managers for an effective management of the organization’s assets and people. There exists an interaction between the two managers as the human resource manager tries to understand the set out operations trends from the operations manager as well as during the systems' analysis to ensure a safer working environment (Jackson & Mathis 2007). The human resource manager must know and understand all the installed operations devices to incorporate them among all the other facilities in the organization. The human resource manager is also responsible for providing operations criteria and guidelines to the operations managers for the protection of all the workplace people and assets.
In order to achieve this, the two managers have to comprehensively discuss, evaluate and analyze all the operations threats on the organization. The human resource manager is also answerable to the operations managers on the management of operations resources in the organization. For this reason, the two must always communicate on the resource status in the organization and act accordingly to their findings (Ivancevic 2006). As the human resource manager formulates the documents regarding expansion and any other construction process in an organization, it is the mandate of the operations manager to review all these documents to ensure their adherence to the operations acts and regulations.
Despite it being the mandate of the human resource manager to provide work force and equipments to enhance the operations of the organization, the operations manager has to give consent (French 2006). This is in a bid to prevent any collisions within the management on matters regarding the recruitment and acquisition of operations facilities. The human resource manager also requires information from the operations managers on the current operations facilities that are both cost effective and applicable to the enhancement of the organization’s operations (Bhagria 2010). In addition, the human resource manager requires the presence of the operations officer during the process of coordinating the physical operations around and within the premises (Lepak & Gowan 2010).
This is because some access, modification and transfer rights rests solely on the operations managers and their physical presence is necessary. In the event that a operations breach occurs, the human resource manager has to depend on the information from the operations manager to know the facilities requiring modification, those requiring complete replacement as well as knowing those that require testing of their effectiveness to avoid any operations compromise. For this reason therefore, the information derived from the monitoring process by the operations managers is of paramount importance to the human resource managers and helps to establish areas requiring operations beef-ups and enhanced systems (Bhagria 2010).
The human resource managers also depend upon the operations managers to provide alerts of operations during either a human resource construction or expansion and the human resource managers use this information to set up new and functioning operations facilities. In order to achieve these traits, the human resource manager must develop certain traits.
The recruitment process of the employees ensures that the employees are well qualified in order to influence productivity. In order to increase competence in the organization and among the employees, the recruitment exercise can be conducted using the educational and psychological measurements (Lepak & Gowan 2010). These methods are very effective in analyzing the skills, character and abilities of an individual worker. These techniques are well structured to cover decision-making processes as well as other important business development areas.
The compensation package is another role that is under then human resource management. A non motivated worker has reduced [productivity. It is therefore the responsibility of the human resource manager to motivate the employees through introduction of some compensation packages. Such packages may include holiday offers, establishment and provision to the employees’ flexible working hours, and performance awards (Saiyadain 2009). In addition, the human resource manager is supposed to check on equities, straight forward promotion and end of the year bonus, especially after a positive year.
Time management is another factor that is aimed at improving the organization through the human resource manager. Facilitating maximum and better use of time by the departments would reduce production waste and instead promote increased production towards the fulfillment of corporate goals (Lepak & Gowan 2010). Scheduling is a very important aspect for the human resource manager. It gets very hard to manage and arrange an intangible asset as time and well-thought idea like proper plan and scheduling come out as the best methods of time management.
The organization culture determines the productivity of the company. In each company, there is a certain culture that defines the stated culture. There are ever-busy employees, but whose productivity is negligible, while there are seemingly relaxed employees who register massive productivity. This difference s is shaped by the organization’s culture (Bhagria 2010).
The human resource manager is supposed to make an observation of the workers for a certain period of time. This is meant to develop an understanding of the ideal culture, so far developed within the organization. One of the most influential aspects in the development of organizational behavior is in the personal needs of the employees (Armstrong 2007). For this case, the manager should be well suited to address the needs of the employees while still staying focused on the organizational goals. In the instances where the employees feel inhibited by various corporate restrictions, the human resource manager should remove these so long as the corporate safety is maintained. By realizing the available potential changes as well as other aspects within the organization, the human resource manager should embark on slowly injecting a productivity culture in the organization through setting up an example and changing some policies in the organization.
References
Armstrong, M 2007, A handbook of human resource management practice, Kogan Page Publishers, London.
Bhagria, A 2010, Roles And Functions Of The Human Resource Department, Viewed 5 May 2011 < http://www.younghrmanager.com/roles-and-functions-of-the-human-resource-department >
Buhler, P 2002, Human Resources Management: All the Information You Need to Manage Your Staff and Meet Your Business Objectives, Adams Media, Avon, MA.
French, WL 2006. Human Resource Management, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, MA.
Ivancevic, JM 2006, Human Resource Management, McGraw-Hill Irwin, Columbus, OH.
Jackson, JH & Mathis, RL 2007, Human Resource Management, Cengage Learning, Mason, OH.
Lepak, D & Gowan, M 2010, Human resource management: managing employees for competitive advantage, Pearson Education, Limited, New York.
Pynes, JE 2008, Human Resources Management for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Strategic Approach, John Wiley and Sons, New York.
Randhawa, G 2007, Human resource management, Atlantic Publishers, New Delhi.
Saiyadain 2009, Human Resource Management, Tata McGraw-Hill Education, New Delhi.
