Role of Human Resource Management
Introduction
Human resources management is among the crucial department of an organization. The department performs to place the desired person in the right position. Moreover, human resource management ensures that every employee works responsibly directly or indirectly for the organization goals. Activities of the human resource management involves acquiring, developing and maintaining to their full capacity. The success of the human resources can be achieved through employees partnership to understand their future and present expectations. Some processes employed to develop these abilities include attracting and retaining the best employees. An effective human resource management team should be cultural diversified which should be seen not as a limitation but as an opportunity.
Job analysis is the process of describing a job specification all the way to hiring selected individuals Also the best employees can be appraised by HR through performance feedback that serves as the the basis of reward distribution. After hiring motivation process follows where employees are energizing directly to increasing their performance and contribution toward the well being of the firm. This is affected by employee’s morale to undertake their specified duties. Historically there exist many theories that explains motivation. Finally, human resource management should be responsible of recognizing and employing diverse techniques that will help to increase employees’ motivation.
Attracting and Retaining the Best Employees
The activities of the human resource management department are constituted in three phases each having several actions associated with it. The three phases are acquisition, developing and maintaining. In an firm, human resource management is accountable for how employees are employed. It is responsible for taking on employees into the organization, assisting them with their duties, solving all the issues arising, and finally compensating them. To exploit the organizational fruitfulness, it is crucial to access individual’s capabilities, talents and time. Generally, smaller businesses fewer than a hundred workers might not need this department where the line managers will be responsible. Contrary, the human resource managers organizes the HRM obligations such as appraisal systems in larger organizations.
Furthermore, in human resource there is strategic management that develops human resource strategies and plans in line with the organization business and directions strategy. Moreover there is a need to provide plans to activate these strategies and control the systems and processes. These is achieved in three ways; forecasting the demand of human resource, in this there is determining the number of required employees and their specifications. Some companies even uses customized software to access the need of their organizations. Another plan is forecasting the supply of the human resource. This is achieved in two ways; skill inventory and replacement chart. The third plan is matching supply with demand. After implementation the two previous plans, the last step to take is matching the supply when demand arises.
In human resource planning, it is necessary to determined the needs and the area that human resource team require and the specifications of jobs. The system of job specifications and job descriptions is founded on the results of the job analysis data. The human resource representative team must be knowledgeable about the system. The system involves internal and external recruiting, selection and orientation of the eligible persons. Thus HR is responsible of selecting and matching the right person with the suitable position. During recruitment this is where employees are attracted in the organization. In selection, the gathered data is used to gauge the applicants of their capabilities also interview take place at this point. During orientation, the selected persons are acquainted with the organization. Moreover, human resource is also accountable for initiating compensation in exchange to their labor and benefits to certain roles and positions in to maximize performance levels. HR also performs training and development to increase employees skills and abilities to perform. This is achieved through e-learning, seminars, simulation among other means. After all that human resource performs appraisal to know the level of the workers performance and to help in distribution of rewards and incentives. In each organization, employees need protection and respect for their rights therefore there exist a legal environment under which human resource department operates (see appendix A for legal environment information).
Motivating and Satisfying Employees and Teams
Employee motivation involves the individual energy of the employee brought by the personal morale and dedication to the job. Various factors affects the motivation of the employee, this includes the firm, superiors, and job itself. There is a close relationship between job satisfaction, morale and motivation of an employee. There are various historical perceptions on employee motivations. Fredrick Taylor’s scientific management was one of the first approaches to employee motivation and the principles of managing workers and the work they do. Through his research he believed that employees are motivated and work for money and they must have a close supervision. This thought led to the situation where employees are paid according to the number of unit produced.
The effects of work environment to the amount of work done was attempted by Hawthorne studies. The study concluded that physical aspects do not affect productivity compared to the human factors. Safety, social physiological and self actualization are the five sets of needs that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs suggest motivates employees. Frederic Herberg found that motivation and hygiene factors affects job satisfaction and dis-satisfaction. The hygiene factors includes working condition and pay while the motivation factors include responsibility and recognition. In the concept of motivation of employees there are various theories. This includes Theory X which assumes that high supervision of employees will make them function effectively since they dislike work. However Theory Z emphasize collective decision making, long term employment and individual responsibility for and an effective productivity.
There are three contemporary views of motivation. The equity theory argues that motivation is a goal for an employee to achieve equitable treatment. However the Expectancy theory argues that motivation is driven by the urge of getting something . Goal setting theory argues that motivation is driven by the goals one want to achieve. There are various ways of increasing the motivation of workers. This includes encouraging workers, allowing workers to work in flexible hours, rewarding the most productive, self managed teams, and employee empowerment. Use of teams in a firms helps in increasing productivity and motivation of the employees. A team of employees develops and become unified and more productive and the members must resolve their conflicts professionally if it arises.
Conclusion
Human resource may be defined as the art of acquiring, developing and maintaining capable workforce to accomplish the goals of a firm in an efficient and effective manner. The primary objectives of HRM include to employ the abilities and skills of the workforce effectively and help the organization meet its goals. Human resource has a great role to play in the implementing and executing of strategies. It can help the organization to restructure and downsizing activities without affecting employees, through fixing rewards to performance, reduction of welfare costs, and retention and motivation of employees.
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