Human resource management has since become more interesting with the advent of globalization. Globalization has increased the mobility of labor and exacerbated intercultural movements across the world. In that realization, it has become essential for organizations to staff well. The demand for good and efficient human manpower has occasioned pressure on organizations to ensure that the best and most efficient staff is recruited and maintained. However, due to the competitive nature of organizations, achieving this objective has become relatively hard.
Human resource managers have lately been confronted with staffing problems in the global arena. The problem is arguably twofold. One is the recruitment of the right kind of staff for assignments and duties anticipated and secondly retaining this caliber of staff so as to remain competitive in the workplace. In overall, staffing has become a challenging case primarily because the operating environment has adopted a somewhat dynamic character and nature. The environment is no longer predictable and organizations have to settle on employees with a broad variety of abilities and capabilities. This is informed by the fact that demands keep changing and the organization would be better off retaining old employees for the work rather than replacing them again which often comes with a cost. In addition, organizations today prefer employees who can multi-skill. Multiskilling is the ability of employees to perform several duties and assignments at the same. For instance, organizations today prefer employees who can keep their own books of account while at the same time do their own routine cases. Other organizations due to the global nature have required employees who can speak several languages for purposes of communicating with their clients who do not speak the same language. The challenge often is getting the best staff that can both multi-skill and converse in multiple languages. Organizations have had to contend with employees with a few limitations. In worse cases, employees have declined to shift from one location to another. Employees desist from movement because of the relative disruption of their family lives which at best leads to family separation and at worst could lead to divorce. This reluctance to mobility of labor informs one of the fundamental challenges to human resource management.
On the other hand, organizations are confronted with the issue of staying competitive especially in terms of workforce. As mentioned earlier this problem partially arises from the dynamic nature of the job demands. Employees are overtime rendered obsolete in terms of competencies due to the changing nature of jobs. One method that organizations employ to beat this challenge is a continuous education, training and upgrading program that seeks to impart skills in the employees based on the arising needs for the particular jobs. Over and above that organizations are also confronted with the competition in the market in which employees are often in a continuous motion in such for greener pastures. One method organizations employ involves the continuous revision of remuneration and fringe benefits so that employees are attracted and retained within the same organizations. However, this can only be actualized with profitable results failure to which organizations are often compelled to restructure their workforce.
In conclusion, it is significant to appreciate the dynamic operation environment that modern organizations operate. One development that has since gained traction is the preference for contractual employees rather than permanent employees. The latter allows organizations to regularly reset employment terms with consideration of their interests.
References
Harvey, M., Speier, C., & Novicevic, M. (2001). Strategic Human Resource Staffing of Foreign Subsidiaries. Research and Practise in Human Resource Management, 27-56. Retrieved from http://rphrm.curtin.edu.au/2001/issue2/strategic.html
Ryan, A., & Tippins, N. (2004). Attracting and Selecting: What Psychological Researh Tells Us. Human Resource Management, 305-318. Retrieved from http://www.unm.edu/~dscott/AttractingandSelectingPersonnel.pdf
