Emerging Challenges Facing the HRM
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Introduction
Employment is a crucial role of the human resources. It is defined as a contract between two parties whereby one party is paid for the work done. Hiring is a major part of the employment. Working within human resources poses lots of challenges for both the employees and the executives. Every day brings about a new challenge, which sometimes takes up an inordinate amount of once time, leading to missed datelines (Hoch & Dulebohn, 2013). Human resource managers often have an ever-growing to-do list, making every day feel like a constant battle against productivity. While there will be odd, peculiar challenges that crop up, there are also several common workplace problems that are far easier to account for. Some of the employment challenges encounter by the human resources managers include pressure to recruit friends or relatives of high-ranked executives, job applicants submitting fake documents or academic credentials and retentions, reconstructions, and layoffs in the company (Aguinis & Lengnick-Hall, 2012). All these employment issues may have adverse effects on the firm or specific personals.
Firms or industries are guided by the founders’ various norms, values, or organizational cultures with professionals’ help. Adherence to the norms is an integral component of every individual within an organization. Given the escalation of business scandals emerging from unethical behaviors, business firms are keener to ensure that instances of unethical conduct capable of ruining their reputations or even cause monetary losses do not occur. Human resource managers are entrusted with the mandate to ensure that every employee is converscompliesr norms and culture. They are also tasked with ensuring that employees comply with the policies, punishes those that fail to comply, enforcing the policies, and monitoring other employees’ behaviors. Therefore human resources managers play a pivotal role in the organization as far as ethics and values are concerned. It all begins when an applicant submits his or her resume for the work. The applicant may submit fake documents. Some applicants may hide occasions of norms violations in other firms or industries (Weisberg, 2010). These firms strive to ensure that regulations adhere to the latter, and no policy is being violated. In some countries, there are centralized databases for every employee in various firms. These firms record every employee’s conduct in the databases. The employees’ conduct cabehaviorefore, be seen by other human resource managers. It helps curb issues to do with fudged resumes or past conduct. The human resource managers should be on the lookout to misrepresent informal look automation about the applicants’ educational background or previous history. Some people in the organization might use dubious means to ensure that a particular applicant favors others (Stone, Stone-Romero & Lukaszewski, 2006). Human resources managers face employment challenges and should ensure that they follow every organization’s guidelines. If they encounter pressure for hiring friends or relatives of the high-ranked executives, human resource managers should be as professional as possible.
Contextual Background
A report published by the Management study guide (MSG) outlines the roles of human resource managers. It states that HR managers are mandated to ensure that the organizations’ polices are complied with and punish every other employee who does not adhere to those regulations. Sometimes HR managers are caught in between trying to decide whether to heed to their employers’ pressure on hiring some preferred applicants and adhering to the organizations’ policies and regulations (Stone & Lukaszewski, 2009). Some end up choosing to go against the organizational guidelines in favor of their executives ‘ interests. The essential role of human resource managers deals with recruiting or hiring. They play a crucial role in the organizational employment role. In the case of a layoff, they are considered to give the appropriate decisions. They know the various employees whose absence would not have a significant negative impact on the firm. In most organizations, human resource managers are feared by fellow employees. They are sometimes considered harsh and cruel, though that may not be the case. Sometimes choosing individuals for layoff may be challenging for human resource managers.
Theoretical Background
One of the key primary role of the Human resources Managers is recruiting employees. They are required to hire a qualified, well-mannered individual who would help the organization achieve its objectives. Organizations operate following the norms, values, and culture. The uniqueness of an organization is based on its culture and values. Employees’ adherence to the policy is a crucial aspect of the organizations’ management. They are tasked with the mandate of ensuring that the organizations’ guidelines are adhered to. With the high rate of unemployment in different countries of the world, there is an increasing tendency of forgery of resume and other vital documents, including education qualifications. The recruiting phase is very vital in the organization.
Human resource is tasked with the challenging role of ensuring that applicants with fake documents do not get the job. It may be very challenging to establish whether the document submitted is fudged or not. Failure to detect the issues may cause adverse effects on the organization. The organizations’ reputation will be tarnished (Bondarouk & Ruël, 2009). It may also lead to a huge financial crisis for the organization. In some countries, laws and regulations have been enacted that advocate the organizations to report such cases. The introduction of centralized databases management sys,tem will help curtail the problem. Every employeeonduct is documented in the database, making it easy for human resource managers to find out the various applicants’ history.
The major task of human resource managers begins right after the recruitment of employees. They are mandated to monitor them and report to the executive. Some of the newly enrolled employees are put in the training phase. Human resources managers face a major challenge in educating the recruits about the organizations’ policy and values. Studies have shown that people take different period to understand certain concepts or ideas (Ivancevich & Konopaske, 2013). With this in mind the Human resource managers have to understand every recruits’ strengths and weaknesses; unfortunately, it might time. The majority of the organization’s failure to adhere to the policies and values is considered the HR managers failure. On some occasions, the HR manager may face pressure from the high-rank executives about hiring a friend or a close relative. In this case, the HR manager is caught between the line trying to decide whether to adhere to the policies and guidelines or heed to the executives’ decision. Whichever decision he/she makes will have a long or short term effect to the organization productivity (“Digital Human Resource Management: Prospects & Challenges for Garments Industries in Bangladesh”, 2020). Failure to hide the call from his/her executive may lead to loss of his/her job. The favored applicant is likely to be incompetent, therefore hiding to the pressure from the executive may lead to reduction in the firms’ productivity.
HR managers are tasked with ensuring that misunderstanding between the employees is appropriately solved. Some of the misunderstandings may be personal; in this case, the human resource manager’s involvement is viewed as an infringement of the parties’ matters. Such an issue might, in the long run, affect the productivity of the firm.
With the changing conditions of society, technology, and economy, there is a need to adjust the business style. These changes will have a major impact on employee behaviors and practices. For instance, the advancement in technology has brought about an increase in productivity, which brings about the need to embrace the change to stay competitive. Employees from the various are therefore encouraged to upskill to fit in the ever-changing business sector. It poses a challenge to human resources since they have to ensure that every employee has upskilled to manage the advanced system (MacVaugh, 2008). The human resource function has to create a proactive and creative adjustment to respond to those issues; doing so might take a lot of time. The growing heterogeneity of companies with the additions of employees from various categories, for instance, disabled individuals, women, and the wide ethnic groups brings about an increase in workforce diversification. It poses a challenge to the human resource function since it brings about the need to understand every person from the various groups. The globalization of the workforce also causes the same challenge. It deals with employees’ personalities from different countries, whereas work diversification deals with those from within the country. Workforce diversification has major insinuation to the management. The executives and the human resource function will need to adjust their approach from viewing every employee alike to recognize their differences. It will bring about a change in some of the organization’s policies to identify its diversity.
The human resource function is faced with the task of ensuring that the employees’ aspirations are fulfilled. Young individuals’ aspirations are different from those of older individuals in the workplace. Young individuals are considered to be more career-oriented. The percentage of professional and technical workers will rise as compared to blue-collared workers. The young, energetic employee will seek a greater percentage of participation in goal setting and decision-making and request a high avenue of self-fulfillment (Castrogiovanni & Kidwell, 2010). The demands will pose a challenge to the human resource function since they will require several adjustments. Political interest brings about instability or unrest in the organization, leading to a decrease in the productivity rate.
The increase in the diversification of the workforce makes it difficult to manage the employees’ relations. The majority of the young generation will be more difficult to motivate than their predecessors. Unquestioning acceptance of the organization’s policy and values are likely to be less. It is because the future workforce will be made of a large percentage of very educated individuals. The proportion of female employees will also increase significantly. These changes pose a challenge to the human resources function. Instead of viewing himself as the organization boss, the future manager will have to view himself as a team leader. The HR manager will be tasked with building a responsive firm.
Recommendations
The organization should embrace the use of the centralized database system. The system will help reduce forgery during or after recruitment. Every single individuals’ conduct in the organization is recorded in the system for future reference. The human resource managers will be able to verify the applicants’ details from the database. The organization managers would be required to impose appropriate methods to meet the employees (Stone & Stone, 2015). The organizations should be more of a team structure rather than the normal employees – employers’ formation. It would increase the employees’ coordination and therefore increasing their productivity.
The managers should advocate for the employees’ upskilling to handle the advanced technology imposed in the organization. For the case of diversity in the workforce of the organization, an ethnocentric technique should be applied. It involves placing every employee in the sector where they are compatible. For instance, in the hospitality department, employees should be posted to communicate with the guest effectively. The human resources managers should be proactive in their duties; this means that they need to have one-on-one or individual meetings with the employees to comprehend their grievances and acquire feedback. Companies do not conduct their business in isolation, they are a component of the society, and hence social impact has to be thoroughly analyzed before any project is undertaken (Stone & Deadrick, 2015). Trade unions play a vital role in ensuring that organizations are not affected by their political unrest. Many organizations are expanding their operation to the global stage; therefore, there is an increasing need to upskill the HR professionals. With the increased internal competition in the business sector, human resources ought to be more innovative.
Conclusion
Human resource is a major component of an organization. It is key to ensure that the company’s’ staff adopt the established policies and values. The human resource function is tasked with ensuring competent job rotation, performance-linked pay, and employee empowerment. The human resource function’s efficient and proper management brings about an increase in the companies’ productivity (“Management Study Guide – Courses for Students, Professionals & Faculty Members.”, 2020). The staff manager is mainly concerned with the welfare and the social security of the staff. The modern function has evolved; performance-linked ever,y employee’s performance, conduct, and needs. It is contrary to traditional HRM, which only dealt with employee payments, pension, and insurance issues. HR professionals must have the necessary skills to recognize and appreciate the diversity in the workforce. Employee empowerment is key to the organization; it involves offering the staff more information and control over how they manage their work. It can be done by creating self-managed teams among the staff. It will also help increase teamwork and raise the companies’ professional competitive business; many managers outsource the human resource function.
Reference
Management Study Guide – Courses fotoStudents, Professionals & Faculty; timbers. (2020). Retriestaff October 2020, from https://www.managementstudyguide.com
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Appendix
The management study guide journal states that the Human resource Management span from the workforce to its management. The human resource function is mandated to ensure the effective designing and implementation of the organizations’ policies and values.
Technological advancement presents a major challenge to the human resource function. This revolution brings about the need to upgrade every employee’s abilities to remain competitive in the business industry. The use of robots to do risky and repetitive work has been incorporated in many industries. Employees have to be educated on ways of handling the machines. The old system of work has undergone dramatic advancements. The changes have brought able the need to have a flexible human resource function.