Human Resources Management :

Strategic planning means long term and short term planning of various
activities
begining from goal setting to achieve the goal and the resetting new goals.
While
adopting strategies, managers give maximum emphasis on optimum
utilization of
resources like finance, capital, raw material, but quite often they neglect or
give
less importance to human resource. The clear fact is that HR is the most
significant
asset of the enterprise because optimum utilization of other resources
depends
entirely on efficiency of the Human Resource.
As said by a famous management consultant “For many yearsit has been
said
that capital is the bottleneck for a developing industry. It is no longer holds
true
because it is the workforce and the company’s inability to recruit and
maintain a
good workforce tht does constitute the bottomneck for production. I don’t
know
any major project in any field backed by good ideas, vigor and enthusiastic
team
has been stopped by the shortage of cash but there are innumerable projects
which
failed drastically inspite of having of having huge cash just because of
absence of
efficient and enthusiastic workforce.”

IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Though very frequently neglected, all managers are in a sense, HR managers
because they all deal with human resource to do their tasks, All manager’s
get
involved in activities like recruiting, interviewing, selecting, training,
promoting
etc. at any level.

REASONS TO GIVE EMPHASIS ON HRM

In strategy formation, proper emphasis must be given to HRM because in

today’s information age all the companies have similar technologies,
methods and
exposures to the market so the only distinguishing factor is work force (HR)
of the
company. Due to globalization, every company has to compete with the best
of the
world and in such situation inefficient, demotivated and inactive work force
can
lead only to close down, low profit, zero goodwill situation.
Even if HR is so important most of the managers neglect it because of the
following reasons :

• Responsibility of HRD :
Top level manager think that HRD is solely responsible for development of

Why do managers fail to include HRM as part of their overall

corporate strategic plan ? How would you convince them to do
so ?
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human resource but actually all the heads of the functional managers must
participate to get maximum output from their workforce.
Many managers have the notion that every employee will give their best to
get increment and promotion but this is not reality. It is well proved that all
employees need motivation to give their best to the company.
Many managers consider HRM as a time consuming, expensive and
unnecessary burden on top level management but the fact is that HRD is
very
necessary for optimum utilization of other resources and smooth functioning
of
the company.
In the changing environment, Globalization has opened wide market for all
the companies. It has caused more competition and more pressure to perform
better than the rest of the world. It has also created lots of new opportunities
to
expand business in new territories. Only a well equipped, trained and
efficient
workforce can lead the company to success and prosperity in such an
environment.
Due to globalization the demand of talented people has increased as all
companies want to hire best people of the field. So not only recruiting but
also
retianing the talented employees is a big challenge for HR department.

Ron Pilenzo in his article “A new Paradigm for HR” has reasoned out that
“in changing environment HRM cannot survive only by doing “Hire and
Fire
Function” but it will have to retain its position in top level management by
adding
value in the strategic development process.”
Many CEO’s and top level management question need of HRD management
and upto some extent their question need appropriate answer too. If with
changing
environment the HRM cannot survive without upgradation.
HR is necessary to achieve following advantages :

• Achieving competitive advantage :

According to Bernardin, competitive advantage means the ability to

formulate
strategies that place a favourable position relative to other companies in the
industry.
Gaining this advantage also means to create uniquenesses in four sources
namely
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(1) Financial or Economic capability

(2) Strategic product capability

(3) Technological or Opertional Capability

(4) Organizational capability

The fundamental difference between the company and its competitor is

efficient and productive workforce which root cause of success and survival
in
highly competitive market.

Moreover in democratic world as said by Parter in “The Competitive

advantage of Nation” Understanding the difference in national economic
structures,
values, cultures, institutions and historical contribute profoundly to
competitive
success of the organisation in the industry.
However many times HR promote their own face value by adding irrelevant
expensive and useless programmes. These purely tactical programmes prove
not
only costly but also proves irresponsible and risky to HR itself. The solution
of
the problem in tht HR msut know & understand the business of their
organisation
and then translate its values into strategies to maximise the potential of
human
capital. In the landmark book “In Search of Excellence” by Peters and
Waterman,
Peters has given notion “Management by wandering around means to get a
clearer
perspective, making regular field trips, talking to customers, holding
informal
meetings with employees, vendors, suppliers, union leaders.”
According to Dun & Bradstreet, 88.7% of business failures are due to
management mistakes. And management mistakes are due to poor or lack of
HR
mangement hence success or failure mainly depend on HR management.
Moreover HRM functions are not only limited to HRD but are also
associated
with other managements. For example if managers of various fields are
trained to
become better interviewers, trainers, coacher, motivators and communicators
then
it will result in better selection, improved performance, increase in
effectivity and
reduction in labour problems. Susan Meisinger the President & CEO of
Sorceity
of HRM in her commentary “Did they really Hate HR?” agreed that HRM
is the
most important and key driver of business performance but they are
underdelivers.
The biggest challenge to HR managers is to deliver what they have
promised.
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According to Ron Ribenzo “HRM is oversold and there is urgent need to

change DNA of HRM and leverage the value of HR. The current vision of
HR is
flowed and defined by other professionals so HR must expand its horizon
and
take more responsibilities to survive.”

According to Delery “From a conceptual perspective, HR practices within

a system may supplement, substitute or interact in positive or negative ways
with
each other.”
HRM formulates various policies at various levels of management.
According to Wright and Boswell “HR policies refer to the firm or
business
units stated intention about the kinds of HR programme, processes,
compensation
policy, techniques that should be carried out in the organisation.”
From the above discussion, it is clear that HR Management is core member
of Management team, hence proper focus on function of HRM is equally
important.

As per Gary Dessler the main functions of HRM are as follows :

- Conduting job analysis to determine the nature of each employee’s job

- Planning labour needs and recruiting job candidates.

- Selecting job candidates

- Orienting and training new employees

- Compensating employees

- Appraising performance

- Communicating for interview, counselling, desciplining and motivating

- Building employee commitment.

Human Resource Managers must have knowledge about.

- Equal opportunity and afirmative (positive) action

- Employee health and safety

- Handling grievances and labour relations.

- Motivating and retaining workforce.

However as per Gary Dessler, following mistakes must not be made by

HRM

- Making mistake of recruiting wrong person for the job

- forming policies which cause high labour turnover

- Forming policies which do not get best from the employees

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- Mistake of wasting time in useless interviews, training or unproductive

analysis.

- Making mistake of taking grievance to court inspite of setting the matter

mutually.

- Mistake of neglecting training.

- Mistake of adopting any unfair labour practices.

All these mistakes will cause irrepairable damage to the functioning,

efficiency,
goodwill and last but not least profitability of the company so all HR
managers
must avoid these msitakes.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT : ESSENTIAL FOR

EMPLOYEES

However the HRM must also play the role of employee advocacy. Means
they should not only help management to get maximum from the employees
but
they must also take responsibility for clearly defining how management
should
treat employees and check any unfair practice to prevent employees’
exploitation.
Then they have dual role by representating the interest of employees within
the
framework of its primary obligation to higher level managment. The
efficiency
level of HRD will decrease if HRM is inclined to any of the group.
In the changing environment because of Globalization, strict labour laws and
everchanging techniques and mathods, the importance of HRM Department
has
increased bacause it has become extremely difficult to maintain loyal,
efficient
and motivated workforce where talent hunt is increasing day by day.
HRM has to ensure that all the needs of the employees monetory, skill
development, appraisal are satisfied and at the same time the company gets
the job
done in the most efficient manner.

Carnegie, the king of Iron & steel industry of America once said, “take
away all my property and resource but let me keep my team and I’ll
reestablish the
whole empire in less than four years.”

The functions of HRM does not start with selection of proper candidate but
it
starts from accurate and precise job description because if job descriptions
are
outdated, insufficient and vague then the selection would be inappropriate
and its
following are the main advantages of an efficient HRM :

- Accurate and precise job description to facilitate selection of ideal

candidates

- Proper selection of efficient, skilled and capable employees to increase

productivity of workforce
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- To train, promote, motivate and encourage employees to get out their best
performance for the company and for themselves.

- To retain core talent team by reducing turnover rate because huge amount
of
money is spent on training and developing skills of the employee and their
turnover causes new problems to the company.

- Moreover one of the most important function of the HRM is to function as

employee advocacy means to safeguard the interest of the employees to gain
their loyalties

- It also reduces labour turnover rate, labour grievance and legal actions for
compensation.

- HRM also undertakes function of training for developing skills and

enabling
the employees to adopt latest technology and mathods in the industry.

- Due to globalization, the management has to deal with problem of cultural

differences, operation method difference and business environment
differences
so the responsibilities of HRD increases more in this changing environment.

- In the throat cut competition age of globalization, retaining efficient

employees
is more difficult than recruiting them so there is huge pressure on HRD to
maintain
talented employees by providing them adequate salaries, productive and
positive
work atmosphere, growth and job satisfaction by proper rewards, appraisal
and
recognition.

HRM : ESSENTIAL FOR FUTURE GOALS OF THE ORGANISATION

- HRM is also very helpful to sync the goal of the company with the goals of
the
employees to achieve better results and better performance.
Many experts consider the HR as an expensive and unnecessary financial
burden
which can be avoided to increase overall profitability but the following
points
emphasise importance of HRM in increasing profitablility and efficiency of
the
company.

1) Unskilled, untrained and errorprone employees make more mistakes

which
result into wastage of raw materials, low quality products, dissatisfaction,
reduction of goodwill due to inferior product and higher labour turnoever
rate.
But all these adverse situations can be avoided by spending some money on
training and developing skills of employees.

'TALENT MANAGEMENT : A NEW CONCEPT IN HRM:

2) If talented employees are not retained then competitors will grab them
and
cause great trouble to the company. According to Wilf Altam the latest

buzzword in HRD is “Talent Management” In his article on talent was Wilf

Altam has narrated that as the skill shortange bites, keeping hold of your
best
people is becoming war. Across the Globe all the companies are hunting
talent
to enhance their own performance.
As noted by ‘Fortune Magazine’ recently all companies like countries are
realising that their future prosperity depends not only on natural resources or
even on capital resources but also human capital.
Wilf Altam has given following six steps for successful talent management :

1) Talent management is everyone’s job in the organization

2) Talent is the single most important force creating strategic value for the
organisation

3) The top level management should ask that why successful and ambitious
individual would want to come and work for their organisation.

4) A human capital strategy is essential for supporting organisation’s

strategic
goals.
5) Talent is the engine which drives the whole organisation to the path of
success

6) A talent powered organisation is an organisation which achieve

distinctive
capabilities and produce extraordinaty results

According Kay Thorne and Andy Pellant, the authors of “The essential
guide
to managing talent”, talent management should be called talent
development
because it is difficult to control or manage talent.
Moreover it is very difficult for HRD to excess talent or evaluate talent
because
many talented people may not or cannot demonstrate their talent and many
less
talented employees can create larger than life picture of their abilities.
Therefore
HRD must scrutinise and evaluate the real talent and develop it.
If any company gets award for “Best Company to Work for”, then many
enthusiastic, talented and efficient candidates will willingly join the
organisation
and increase the efficiency of the work force. It will also reduce the labour
turnover
rate.

Moreover money spent on training and development is not an expenditure

but
it is a valuable investment. Hence top level management must spend
efficiently
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and productively on training and talent development programmes. As proved
by
the famous case of the Royal Bank of Scotland, their significant growth
from a
low performing organisation to 1,35,000 employees and 35 millions
customers is
due to the efficient role human resource management.

According to Greig Aitken, head of human capital strategy “The eight drive
of efficient employee engagement are - employee recognition, performance
and
development opportunities, relationship with management, total reward, the
work
itself, product brands and reputation, leadership and work life balance.”

As a organisation grows the complexities of HRD functions also increase.

In a nutshell, it can be concluded that Human Resource is the most important
part of overall management because it increases overall productivity of the
organization and brings social welfare by increasing efficiency of the
workforce
and their income. Optimum utilization of resources also increase prosperity
of the
country. Therefore while strategy formation utmost importance must be
given to
excellent Human Resource Management by including a range of employee
involvement methods and individualistic led to success approach. It will
definitely
achieve a great success on several fronts.