Human resource managers or practitioners are responsible for managing

and overseeing the personnel department within a company, organization or

agency. Also they are assigned responsibilities in a specialized area of
human resource management such as compensation, classification,
recruiting, grievance management, personnel selection, employee benefits,
or employee transactions.

They are also responsible in the management of human resources, the

completion of various human resources management activities and
personnel actions, and the application of laws, rules and standards related to
personnel and payroll administration of human resource management.
Human resource managers/practitioners may also be actively involved in
retraining or training new employees or existing employees or answering
questions that employees may have on policies or procedures within the
company or agency.

Work place safety, employee absenteeism and health issues are also
addressed by the human resources manager/practitioner. The manager may
be able to work directly with outside agencies to provide on site counseling
or even specialized programs for additional or crisis intervention or services.

Many human resource managers act as the bridge between management

and workers in non union companies. Conflict resolution and improving
overall workplace moral is a key part of the role of a human resource
manager.

Historically this aspect came as a result of industrial revolution in 18th

century whereby industrial workers were dehumanized and degraded hence
there was a need from employers to appoint welfare officers to deal with
employees affairs also have scientific management to improve efficiency and
production levels. Moreover, in 1950’s personnel management was largely
regarded as a reactive function which had to serve or support other
functions within the context of organizational structure and established goals
and objectives, other key functions would keep the personnel department
informed of their needs and it had to see to it that needs were satisfied
through recruitment, selection, training, compensation and administrative
work, this gave a way to academicians and researchers from behavioral
disciplines to study about organization as a whole. In 1990s labour
management practices have assumed new prominence due to globalization,
internalization of technology and need for increased productivity of workers,
this enhances business executives, practitioners and academics argue that
traditional approaches to managing workers are inappropriate and can no
longer deliver the goods, hence there was a need to put emphasize on
change of organization structure and design, organizational culture and
personal policies and techniques. All in all this was the beginning of coming
into existence of the human resource managers/practitioners who would
facilitate the role of managing workers through policies established also to
help the organization to achieve its objectives.
In addition to that, HR has also taken a strategic role in sharing the
responsibility of management of the Human Resources with the line
managers and advising management on HR issues as well as ensuring the
alignment of HR strategy with the Business strategy. This has created a
greater need for HR professionals to be equipped with the right knowledge,
skills, and attitude towards ensuring the HR profession ads value to the
organization.
However academic requirement for a career in human resources vary, but
most employers prefer that each candidate have a bachelor’s degree.
Undergraduate should pursue a balanced curriculum that includes behavior
science, English, economics, general business and labour law, accounting
and statistics. Master’s degrees in human resources management, industrial
relations, organizational development, organizational behavior, and business
administration are also considered worthwhile. Each company has its own
internal protocols, and most new hires are trained in them when they begin.
Further more human resources managers/practitioners must have strong
interpersonal skills, and many employers conduct multiple interviews that
test a candidate’s ability to relate to a diverse group of people.
As far as our question is concerned we have done a research where we
interviewed HR oroffessionals as well as staffg in other departments in
various organizations and came up with the following findings.

Out of 30 HR professionals interviewed:

Received formal HR education;

Yes No
30 HR staff 11 19

Have necessary skills and confidence to perform HR tasks;

yes Not No
fully
Out of 30 HR staff 4 26 0

Types of HR roles the proportion of skilled staff

HR Strategic roles 10 do not have HR 3 have HR education
education
HR Admin roles 9 do not have HR ed 8 do have HR ed.

On the other hand, 62 non HR employees were asked about their satisfaction
with HR performance in 4 multinational organizations, only 32% said they
were satisfied, while almost 65% rated their satisfaction below 50%. With the
top 5 comments being;
1. Delay in delivering due to lack of skills and confidence
2. Lack of skills and commitment
3. Unclear and unfair rewards system
 4. Not a visible department

5. People are not high on the Company agenda

As human resources have become viewed as more critical to organizational

success, many organizations have realized that it is the people in an
organization that can provide a competitive advantage. The people as
Human resources contribute to and affect the competitive success of the
organization. Human Resource Management deals with the design of formal
systems in an organization to ensure the effective and efficient use of human
talent to accomplish organizational goals. In an organization, the
management of human resources means that they must be recruited,
compensated, trained, and developed.

Our research has shown that HR professionals in Tanzania are generally not
necessarily formally trained HR professionals and this could affect their
performance as seen from the internal customer satisfaction feedback
above. HR Departments of the companies studied are good at Personnel
management which does not necessarily mean that HR adds the necessary
value to the company. The area where HR adds 60% of the value is in the
strategic area, which is usually only 10% of the work in HR. HR very much is
based on the actions such as administrative work, which in reality ads only
10% of the value while takes 60% of the time. HR professionals in Tanzania
may be working hard and well as a supporting department but may need to
increase their competence level in achieving the employee satisfaction while
adding value instead of being more of a cost center as seen by the
employees. HR may also need the skills to improve communication with the
rest of the staff on HR contribution to the company’s bottom line.
It is therefore commonly seen HR to employ HR staff who have no HR
education at all, and rather focus on the interpersonal skills and influencing
skills to enable HR to be a change agent in an organization. HR training is
mostly done through on the job training.
Bana (2007) argued that, there are many organizations in Tanzania have
tendency to recruit officers of irrelevant and questionable qualifications.
They recruit graduates in other qualification such as law, economics, and
political science even for high school generalist with credit in English. This
situation occurs due to the negative attitude to the HR professional. Such
organizations have yet to learn from hard lessons that HRM is a distinct field
of specialization of any professional. But in real sense other professional
cannot automatically master the HRM activities.

Personnel management which is known as Human Resource Management

has adapted itself to the changing work environment, however these
changes are still taking place and will continue in the future therefore the
challenges before the Human Resource manager are:-
1. Retention of the employees:-
One of the most important challenge the HR manager faces is retention of
labour force. Many companies have a very high rate of labour turnover
therefore HR manager are required to take some action to reduce the
turnover. HR professionals have tried to reduce turn over by having different
retention strategies such as counter offering. This may work short term, but
staff engagement which will require more skills will be more effective long
term.

2. Multicultural work force:-

With the number of multi cultural companies are increasing operations in
different nations. The work force consists of people from different cultures.
Dealing with each of the needs which are different the challenge before the
HR manager is integration of multicultural labour work force. Existing HR
manager practices and preaches tolerance, appreciation of different cultures
requires more training, awareness and knowledge.

3. Women in the work force:-

The number of women who have joined the work force has drastically
increased over a few years. Women employees face totally different
problems. They also have responsibility towards the family. The organization
needs to consider this aspect also. The challenge before the HR manager lies
in creating gender sensitivity and in providing a good working environment
to the women employees.

4. Handicapped employees:-
This section of the population normally faces a lot of problems on the job,
very few organization have jobs and facilities specially designed for
handicapped workers. Therefore the challenge before the HR manager lies in
creating atmosphere suitable for such employees and encouraging them to
work better. Lack of knowledge and skills to design jobs and facilities may be
contributing to most HR avoiding to employ people with special needs even
though 10% of the population have special needs.

5. Retrenchment for employees:-

In many places companies have reduced the work force due to changing
economic situations, laborers or workers who are displaced face severe
problems. It also leads to a negative atmosphere and attitude among the
employees. There is fear and increasing resentment against the
management. The challenge before the HR manager lies in implementing the
retrenchment policy without hurting the sentiments of the workers, without
antagonizing the labour union and by creating positive attitude in the
existing employees.
6. Change in demand of government:-
Most of the time government rules keep changing. While a lot of freedom is
given to companies some strict rules and regulations have also been passed.
The government has also undertaken the disinvestment in certain companies
due to which there is fear among the employees regarding their job. The
challenge before the HR manager lies in convincing employees that their
interest will not be sacrificed.

7. Initiating the process of change:-

Changing the method of working, changing the attitude of people and
changing the perception and values of organization have become necessary
today. Although the company may want to change it is actually very difficult
to make the workers accept the change. The challenge before the HR
manager is to make people accept change.

REFERENCES
1. Bana, BA (2007), Developing Institutional and Human Capacity for
Public Sector Performance in Tanzania: Experiences
and challenges a paper presented a National Consultative Workshop on
Capacity Development in Tanzania. UNDP Dar es Salaam
2. Robert.L.Mathis and John.H.Jackson 9th Edition, Human Resource
Management.
3. http://www.scribd.com- Human Resource Management Lecture Notes.
4. http://www.pakistanmba.jimdo.com
5. http://www.eb,wikipedia.org
6. http://www.humanresources.about.com
7. http://www.bls.gov
 INSTITUTE OF FINANCE MANAGEMENT

POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMA IN HUMAN RESOURCE

MANAGEMENT (PT)

COURCE TITLE: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

COURSE INSTRUCTOR: DR. MWANJABALA

GROUP ASSIGNMENT 17th DECEMBER 2009

QUESTION: It is argued that Human Resource Manager or practitioners in

the country are not sufficiently trained to cope with the changing
environment and as a result they do not deliver as expected. Comment by
supporting or not supporting the argument by giving a balanced argument.

GROUP MEMBERS REGISTRATION

NUMBER
Elinipa Lupembe 27823
Amy E. Mlay 27811
Prisca Anatoly 27823
Miriam Nyimbo 27830
Veronica Otaru 27837