Human resource refers to the workforce within an organization. Organization and management of a firm’s workforce is referred to as human resource management. Human Resource Management entails recruitment, training and rewarding of the employees and also is responsible for observing the existing labor laws in the country that the firm or organization is situated (Mondy, 2005). Human resource management ensures that every employee’s duties are well outlined and expresses the protocols in the organization (Dessler, 2000). It is therefore the arm of an organization that is responsible for all matters that relates to the employees.
Human resource management involves different groups of activities. These activities are outlined further below.
EEO and Affirmative Action
EEO stands for Equal Employee Opportunity. It involves providing the employees with equal opportunities regardless of their differences, whether racial or physical differences. It encourages giving employees the opportunities based on their competence and capabilities. This allows the employees to have a fair competing ground for example in terms of promotions. The human resource management department is responsible for ensuring that equality is maintained both in hiring and other employee opportunities available in the organization. It devises ways of fighting discrimination against employees where some are more favored than others.
Planning, Recruitment and Selection
This is the process of getting additional employees for the organization to fill the vacant existing positions in the firm. It is involves three stages which are planning, recruiting and selection of new employees.
Planning is the process of making arrangements for the whole process of recruiting new employees (Dessler, 2000). It involves setting up the necessary requirements, which could include the materials, infrastructure, supporting personnel and even the budget required for the operations. This department ensures that planning is done well in advance to ensure that the whole process of acquiring new employees runs smoothly.
Recruitment involves the actual process of getting the employees. It involves ways of identifying potential workforce candidates and getting them to make applications for the jobs being offered. It includes the placing of advertisements, elaboration of the qualification details and the screening of those candidates who do not qualify (Dessler, 2000). This process involves the actual expression of an interest to hire from the available workforce existing in the labour market.
Selection is a systematic process. It is the process of hiring and giving promotions to the qualified personnel (Dessler, 2000). Personnel selection is done on those candidates who have been identified as having the desired qualifications in the recruitment stage. Determination of the most qualified candidate is usually evidence-based. It therefore involves both the newly hired employees and also those that are already working in the organization and qualify to receive promotions.
Human Resource Development
This is the process of expanding the human capital that an organization has in order to be able to improve on the organization’s performance. It involves development of each individual’s key competencies in order to enable the individual to perform better or perform other jobs. This increases the competence of this individual thus improving on the performance of the organization.
Human resource development is done through training and also empowering the particular organization to be able to make use of its human resource capital to the maximum. Training the employees increases their knowledge while organizational development enables the organization to take advantage of its existing workforce to the maximum capability.
Compensation and Benefits
This is the process of ensuring that all the employees are well remunerated and that they receive their benefits well. It is divided into four major categories:
Firstly, there is guaranteed pay which is the monetary reward to the employee from the employer based on the relations that exist between them. The most common form is called the basic salary. The employee is guaranteed to receive this basic per at the end of a particular period, mostly one month.
Secondly, we have variable pay which consists of the monetary reward that is subject to certain conditions such as employee performance. It varies from time to time. The most variable pay is commission on work done also referred to as sales incentives. Other common forms are the employee bonuses.
Thirdly, there are Benefits; these are programs that the employer applies to supplement the employees’ compensation. An example is medical insurance, paid leaves and giving the employee a company car. These programs could be policies that exist in that organization and are meant to act as a supplement to the employees’ compensation.
Equity-based Compensation
This is where the employer uses his shares in the company to compensate the employee. It amounts to the employee being a part of the company’s ownership bard.
Employee compensation can be influenced by both external forces and internal forces. External forces include labour laws that specify the minimum wage, the level of inflation and the economy and also the trade unions which lobby for the rights of the employees. Internally, compensation is influenced by the company’s organization structure and policies and also on the basis of compensating the employees based on their role in the company.
Safety and Health
This involves ensuring the safety of the employees at the workplace and that they are in good health while working in the company. It may also include ensuring the safety of other people related to the employee such as family and children. Occupational safety may be set by the laws of the land or set by the company internally.
Occupational safety and health of the employees can be enhanced through ways such as provision of medical insurance to the employees and taking responsibility of all the health charges that an employee may incur in the line of duty. It can also be done through ensuring that safety precautions have been taken to avoid putting the individual into a health compromising situation while at the workplace. It can also be done by making arrangements for ensuring regular medical checkup programs for the employees.
This activity of occupational safety and health is of importance since it ensures that the employee’s performance is not compromised. This therefore results to maximum performance at all times and thus achieving the organizations goals.
Employee and Labor Relations
This is the duty of providing a platform that the employee can raise their grievances while at the workplace. It also acts as a link between the employee and external employee representatives such as trade unions. It therefore carries out the following duties:
-It interprets and ensures that the organization complies with the provisions of the agreements provided under collective bargaining processes. This ensures that the organization does not act unlawfully or does not go against the laws set. It also carries out the bargains on behalf of the company (Torrington, 1998).
-It processes and arbitrates any grievances that arise at the workplace. The human resource is responsible for providing solutions to the grievances that arise in the organization, (Torrington, 1998).
-It is responsible for development and the maintenance of positive and good working relationships between all the employees. The human resource ensures that the workers co-exist with each other positively at all levels of the company and that harmony is maintained between them (Torrington, 1998).
-It is also responsible for reviewing and approving any disciplinary action that has been taken against an employee. It therefore ensures that these disciplinary actions are not too tough or do not exceed the wrong that the employee has committed, (Torrington, 1998).
This therefore means that the human resource is the charged with the responsibility of ensuring harmony at the workplace.
Application of Human Resource Management
Human resource management is applied in all areas of today’s world. Employers and companies use this act to ensure that they meet the desired goals with the help of the employees. Ways that it is applied are as explained in to details below.
In the recruitment of new employees, occasionally, companies require new employees to fill the vacant positions that have been left by retiring employees or by other employees who have shifted to other jobs. These positions may also arise through expansion of the company. However, the employer must ensure that he acquires the most qualified employees to fill these positions. They therefore delegate the duty to the human resource department who ensure that they recruit in line with the company’s requirements, i.e. bases on the required qualifications. This enables the company to continue working at the desired level since the new employees provide the required skills to perform the operations of the company.
In the desire to improve the performance of the company, it requires that the skills of the employees are advanced so that they can be able to perform better. Thus, the human resource department is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the employees are equipped with the necessary skills to allow them to perform at a better rate. This is what is referred to as human resource development. It improves the capability of the human capital in the organization well in advance for the purpose of meeting a certain desired goal. This is mostly done by giving the employees a chance to advance their education by owning up the cost of such education. It is done early enough so as to ensure that these employees take up the positions when needed which mostly occurs in the future.
Sometimes the employees are faced with grievances that they fail to handle. This could either be disputes between themselves or they could be having a problem with a certain aspect of the organization. The human resource department is therefore charged with the responsibility of ensuring that these grievances are resolved as fast as possible. This is to avoid creating disruptions which could affect the performance of the company.
In order to achieve the desired goals, the employees have to be well remunerated to ensure that they perform their duties well. Human resource management department therefore ensures that the employees are well remunerated and also that they receive other benefits apart from the salary that has been agreed between them and the employer. These benefits which could be in form of bonuses are meant to act as an incentive. Mainly, they encourage employees to increase their performance so as to receive more of the benefits.
The well-being of the employees is also of major importance in achieving the organizational goals and objectives. The human resource department therefore ensures that the welfare of the employees is not violated. This also includes the health status of these employees. They need to be of good health if they are to be able to perform their duties well as per the requirements. This ensures that there are no delays caused by either sickness or other violations of the employees’ welfare or decline in their performance.
Something else that encourages the employees to perform well is to perform well is the policy of equal opportunity to all employees. This removes biasness and thus all the employees are given equal opportunities in the organization. They therefore receive benefits based on their performance and their qualifications and thus have a fair competing ground for competitions among other benefits.
How These Aspects Work Together to Achieve the Organization’s Goals
These aspects cannot function individually to produce the desired results. The success of every organization is a result of a combination all these aspects of human resource management. In achieving this, the human resource management requires hiring new workers for the firm who are the prime drivers of success in the organization.
The workers welfare after the recruitment needs to be taken into account to ensure that they perform to their maximum best. It comes after the recruitment. The human resource has to ensure that the employees are well remunerated to ensure that they perform well. Their performance is based on the benefit they accrue from the employer. Proper and well maintained workforce ensures that the organization meets its goals as a result of employee’s performance.
Superior Aspects
Some of the aspects appear superior to others. Some of these include planning, recruiting and selection and employee labor relations including employee remunerations. This is because they touch on the employees directly and also lack of proper management of funds in terms of remuneration may lead to poor results in terms of funds.
Optimization of HRM
HRM is the heart of an organization. Failure to observe the issue may lead to failure of the firm. In order to allow it to perform well, the following needs to be done.
Ensure that qualified personnel are employed. Employees with proper and the required skills will handle the assigned tasks properly to ensure that the desired results are achieved. Proper checks should be made on the HRM to ensure that it does not deviate from the goals of the firm in its operations. This will also ensure that the employee behavior is put in check so as the grievances that could make them not perform properly are also handled.
Impact on My Future Career Plans
Human resource management is an aspect of a firm that influences my career plans in different ways. These ways are identified in the paragraphs below.
Following the procedure adopted by the human resource management team in acquiring employees, it therefore confines me into those career paths that I meet the qualifications. Therefore, this denies me the chance of exploring other career opportunities which I don’t meet their qualifications. Also, it allows me to choose those career paths that well fit my qualifications based on the requirements that different employer’s state.
My welfare as an employee is another aspect that is of interest when choosing a certain career. This includes the remuneration that I am meant to receive and also the general employee welfare policy of different companies. I am therefore given the opportunity to choose a career path that has considerable remuneration to meet my needs and also caters for my welfare as an employee.
Another way that it influences my career plans is the way that a company provides opportunities to its employees. I seek employment in an organization that provides equal opportunities for all its employees without discrimination. This will allow me to grow along my career path since I have the opportunity to grow based on my qualifications and competencies since career growth is highly valued aspect of my future employment.
Benefits of New Learning
It has broadened my mind on the whole aspect of human resource management. This paper has allowed me to explore all the areas that human resource management entails. Therefore, it makes it possible to identify which areas affecting employees are to be handled by the human resource management department.
It also prepares me for the future employment plans. This is by identifying and elaborating the process of recruitment that is undertaken by human resource management department of every organization. It also helps by identifying the platforms that handles all the concerns of the employees.
Conclusion
Human resource management is therefore a broad area that touches on all the areas concerning the employees. It is the department in every organization that is responsible for recruiting and maintaining a desired level of workforce in every organization. The success of every organization is dependent on the employees. Thus, human resource management is critical in meeting every organization’s goals and objectives as outlined by the organization.
It is a complex discipline which touches on all areas of interest to the company, from recruitment to the remuneration and other areas. Therefore, for every organization to achieve its desired goals, it should maintain its human resource management department in well conditions and ensure that it is in form so as to be able to handle all the matters of the employees well.
References
Mondy, R. W., Noe, R. M., & Gowan, M. (2005). Human resource management. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Dessler, G. (2000). Human resource management. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Torrington, D., Hall, L., & Torrington, D. (1998). Human resource management. London: Prentice Hall Europe.
