Mohammad Mosaddek Hussain :
In the competitive business world the role and responsibility or the human resource management is growing at a rapid pace due to globalization and expansion of business in the international market. With a view to achieving profit from the global competition, a group of trained and skilled human capital has to be deputed observing the local and cultural situation of the targeted areas. At the same time, the tendency and demand of the current situation are to be analyzed properly based on the different data and information. These data is to be used and analyzed by the experienced and expert persons having the hands-on knowledge and skill in this trade.
Needless to say that the world of work is rapidly changing throughout the globe at a rapid pace. To cope with the situation, Human Resource Management (HRM) must be prepared to deal with effects of changing situation. It meant for the HR people’s understanding the implications of globalization, work-force diversity, changing skill requirements, corporate downsizing, process improvement, re-engineering, the contingent work force, decentralized work sites and employee involvement as a whole. These elements are describes here for deep understanding of the HR people.
Employees and globalization: The task of business has no limited boundaries in the country merely – actually it engulfs throughout the world. Emerging of the multinational organizations need new skills and capabilities in human resource managers. To this end, the HR department needs to ensure that the appropriate mix of employees in terms of knowledge, skills, attitude, behaviour and cultural adaptability is available to handle global business activities as a whole. To achieve this business goal, the organizations must train employees of different levels to cope with the upcoming challenges of globalization and its process. The employees must have working knowledge of the language and culture (in terms of values, morals, customs and laws) of the host country to achieve the parent organizations.
Human Resource Management (HRM) must also develop mechanisms that will help multicultural individuals work together. As background, language, custom or age differences become more important , there are indications that employee conflict will increase. HRM would be required to train management to be more flexible in its practices. Because tomorrow’s workers will come in different colors, nationalities and so on, managers will be required to change their ways of operations. This will necessitate managers being trained to recognize differences in workers and to appreciate and even celebrate these differences. Work-force Diversity: Over the past years, the process of HRM practice was considerably simpler because our work force was strikingly homogeneous. On the other hand, today’s work force comprises of people of different gender, age, clan, creed, social class, values, personality characteristics, ethnicity, religion, education, language, physical appearance, martial status, lifestyle, beliefs, ideologies and background characteristics such as geographic origin, tenure with the organization, and economic status and the list could go on.
AS we know that diversity is linked to the organization’s strategic direction. Where diversity flourishes, the potential benefits from better creativity and decision making and greater innovation can be accrued to boost organization’s competitiveness. One means of achieving that is through the organization’s benefits package and facilities for employees. This includes HRM offerings that fall under the heading of the family friendly organization. A family friendly organization is one that has flexible work schedules and provides such employee benefits such as child care and other welfare support. Besides, HRM must be aware of the age differences that exist in today’s work force. HRM must train people of different age groups to effectively mange and to deal with each other and to respect the diversity of views that each offers. In situations like these a participative approach seems to work better in the organizational environment.
Review skill requirements and devise programmes: It is very necessary to recruit and develop workers are important for any organization concerned for its competitiveness, productivity, quality and managing a diverse work force effectively. On the other hand, skill and knowledge deficiencies result into significant losses for the organization in terms of poor-quality work and lower productivity, increase in employee accidents and customer complaints. Since a growing number of jobs will require more education and higher levels of language than current ones, HRM practitioners and specialists will have to communicate this to educators and community leaders etc. Strategic human resource planning will have to carefully weigh the skill deficiencies and shortages. HRM department will have to devise suitable training and short term programmes to bridge the skill gaps & deficiencies in the interest of the organization as a whole.
Process of downsizing at corporate level: Due to introducing of new situation and changing the organizational set-up to create greater efficiency at all levels of operational grid. The essence of downsizing is to reduce the number of workers employed by the organization for coping with the new situation and change. In this connection, HRM department has a very important role to in downsizing process. HRM people must ensure that proper communication must take place during this time for overcoming negative image. They must minimize these negative effects of rumors and ensure that individuals are kept informed with the changing situation and factual data. HRM must also deal with actual layoff. HRM department has the key role in the process of downsizing and the upcoming situation.
Continuous improvement programs: The process of continuous improvement aims at the long term well being of the organization as well as of the employees. This is a process undertaken by an organization that focuses on quality and builds a better foundation to serve its customers and target people. This often involves a company wide initiative to improve quality and productivity. The company changes its operations to focus on the customer’s choice and to involve workers in matters affecting them. Organizations and companies strive to improve everything that they want to achieve, from hiring trained and quality people with a view to smooth operation of the organization as a whole..
Although, the process of implementation is not easy to implement for its complex methods. On the other hand, they are like an organization wide development process and the process must be accepted and supported by top management and driven by collaborative efforts, throughout each segment in the organization. To this end, HRM plays an important role in the implementation of continuous improvement programs. At this point organization development initiatives dominate. Specifically, HRM must prepare individuals for accepting the change and new situation. This requires clear and extensive communications of why the change will occur, what is to be expected and what effect it will have on employees in the organizations.
Re-engineering develops work processes: Continuous improvement focuses on ongoing incremental change and new innovation for development of the organization. This process reveals the constant and permanent search to make things better. Yet many companies function in an environment that is dynamic- facing rapid and constant change. As a result continuous improvement programs may not be in the best interest of the organization. Ongoing incremental change avoids facing up to the possibility that what the organization may really need is radical or quantum change. Such drastic change results in the re-engineering of the organization.
Further, the Re-engineering occurs when more than 70% of the work processes in an organization are evaluated and altered. It requires organizational members to rethink what work should be done, how it is to be done and how to best implement these decisions. Re-engineering changes how organizations do their business and directly affects the employees. Re-engineering may leave certain employees frustrated and angry and unsure of what to expect. Accordingly HRM must have mechanisms in place for employees to get appropriate direction of what to do and what to expect as well as assistance in dealing with the conflict that may permeate the organization. For re-engineering to generate its benefits HRM needs to offer skill training to its employees. Whether it’s a new process, a technology enhancement, working in teams, having more decision making authority, or the like, employees would need new skills as a result of the re-engineering process.
Importance of contingent workforce: It is important to know that one of the essential elements of the modern day workforce are called the contingent workers. They are the people who are normally hired for temporary works. They perform specific tasks that often require special job skills and are employed when an organization is experiencing significant deviations in its workflow. When an organization makes its strategic decision to employ a sizable portion of its workforce from the contingency ranks, several HRM issues emerge thereon. These include being able to have these employees available when needed, providing scheduling options that meet their needs and making decisions about whether or not benefits will be offered to the contingent work force.
No organization can think for the contingent workforce without sufficient planning. As such, when these strategic decisions are being made, HRM must be an active partner in these discussions. After all, HRM department’s responsibility is to locate and bring into the organization these temporary workers. As temporary workers are hired, HRM will also have the responsibility of quickly adapting them to the organizational process. HRM will also have to give some ideas to how it will attract quality temporaries for the interest of the organization.
Decentralized work sites: As needed in the emerging situation, work sites are getting more and more decentralized that deems necessary. Telecommuting capabilities that exist today have made it possible for the employees to be located anywhere on the globe. So, the employers no longer have to consider locating a business nearer. Telecommuting also offers an opportunity for a business tin a high cost area to have its work done in an area where lower wages prevail.
Moreover, the method of decentralized work sites also offer opportunities that may meet the needs of the diversified workforce in different job locations. Those who have family responsibilities like child care, or those who have disabilities may prefer to work in their homes rather than travel to the organization’s facility. For HRM, decentralized work sites management is really a challenging task. Much of that challenge revolves around training managers in how to cope with emerging situation and ensuring appropriate work maintaining its quality and timely completion. Work at home may also require HRM to rethink its compensation policy and related matters.. Will it pay by the hour, on a salary basis or be based on the job performed by those employees. Also, because employees in decentralized work sites are full time employees of the organization as opposed to contingent workers, it will be organization’s responsibility to ensure health and safety of the decentralized work force for smooth completion of their jobs.
Employee engagement for positive outcome: To bring success in this competitive global canvass, there are a number of employee engagement or involvement concepts that appear to be accepted. These include: delegation, participative management, work teams, goal setting, employee training and empowering of employees. HRM has a significant role to play in employee engagement. There is a need to demonstrate leadership as well as supportive management. Employees need to be trained and that’s where human resource management has a significant role to play. Employees expected to delegate, to have decisions participatively handled, to work in teams, or to set goals cannot do so unless they know and understand what it is that they are to do. Empowering employees requires extensive training in all aspects of the job. Workers may need to understand how new job design processes. They may need training in interpersonal skills to make participative and work teams function properly towards the development and stability of the organization as a whole.
