Human Resource Management Challenges and Roles

Public Human Resources Management

Challenges facing human resource management

Human Resource Management is the element of the organization that deals with the human aspect of the organization. The business world today, is very competitive. Every organization must align its resources to the organizational goals and objectives. According to Gill (2009), the employees of an organization are part of its assets just as capital and technology. Proper utilization of human resource can account for the success of an organization. This study will examine the challenges that the human resources management is facing in its commitment towards contributing to organizations' prosperity. It will further, explore how human resource management can overcome the challenges to remain relevant.

The role of human resource management

Human Resource Management performs an imperative role in the organization. Its role involves giving job descriptions, assigning of salaries, establishing policies that govern the personnel and capacity building of the employees within an organization. Berry (2011) asserts that the functions of the human resource management enable the organization to achieve its strategic goals. The leaders who have the human resource management knowledge help in making decisions concerning the organizations' workforce. They are able to assess the current labor demand of the organization and project the future demand.

The business environment is competitive. Human resource managers are important in the determination of employees' compensation. Accurate and realistic figure enables the organization to compete in the labor market for employees with the skills they desire (Jing, 2005). The organization can fit its compensation to align with its financial status and the income expectation of the future. The company reduces the rate of labor turnover. It benefits as it cuts costs that result from hiring of new employees.

The capacity building programs that the human resource offers to employees are critical to the safety of employees. The management can to provide a safe working environment for the employees. Safety at workplace helps to reduce the case of injuries and accidents (Riccucci & Irene, 2011). The organization benefits as it reduces the cost of hospitalization and injury compensations. Having human resource management in place within the organization gives the organization constructive advice on how to treat employees. The company avoids allegations of mistreating its employees.

It is the role of human resource to induct new employees to the daily operations of the business. According to Jing (2005), the orientation of the employees is fundamental to forming a relationship between the employee and the employer. The process provides an employee with the knowledge they require to integrate in the organization. It clarifies the expectations that the employer has towards the employee, and gives the employee an opportunity to learn about the organization. Additionally, human resource engages the employees on short courses that improve on the skills they have. Thus, the productivity levels of employees improve.

The human resource managers are in charge of the recruitment process. They advertise for vacant positions within the organization. They go through resumes and select those that meet the criteria of the job vacancy. They then determine the interview method that would be effective at getting a candidate who will fit in the organization culture. The human resource managers work together with line managers in the interview process and hiring of new employees. This cooperation ensures that the organization makes good decisions in the hiring process.

Benefits of human resource management system

In carrying out its role, the human resource management accrues benefits to both the employee and the employer. Having of the right skill combination within an organization raises the capacity of the company to meet its objectives (Klingner, 2008). The employees operate optimally since their job placement is along their areas of expertise. The organization realizes high levels of output. The human resource helps the organization in the management of change. In the opinion of Arthur (2011), the change process is made easy by having employees with a positive attitude.

According to Gill (2009), the human resource manager executes a decisive role in maintaining the quality throughout the organization. The personnel of an organization determine the output that the organization will have. The human resource is in charge of hiring and firing personnel. It invests in building the capacity of employees. Having employees who have skills relevant to the job they do make sure, the quality of organization services and products is high. The company can create an edge in the market and contribute to organizational success.

An organization with a working human resource management has efficient workers. The system motivates the worker so that they make efforts to remain productive. Human resource can tap into the knowledge of employees. It makes use of this knowledge to make employees have confidence in the skills that they have. The company benefits as its production levels remain high. The efficiency of employees makes the production process to be efficient (Riccucci & Irene, 2011). High levels of efficiency make the company cut on costs.

According to Berry (2011), favorable working environment motivates employees. The workers can carry on the mission and vision of an organization. They feel as part of the organization. The satisfaction of employees' implies that the labor turnover will be low. The employees are able to relate well with each other. Their creativity manifest and they are able to work and innovate. The company profits, as well as the employees, as they get better wages.

The human resource manager performs an essential role in settling of the organizational dispute. In every organization, the human interaction results in conflicts from time to time. Managing of this conflict helps if creating a peaceful working environment (Riccucci & Irene, 2008). The human resource manager comes up with solutions to solve the contentions and grievances. This is beneficial to the organization as it creates a good image from within. Through organizing of meetings, seminars, and other interactive forums the human resource builds relationships in the business sector. Good public relation by the human resource helps in the creation of business networks

Challenges facing human resource management

The business landscape is very dynamic. The labor market is evolving rapidly. The changes bring challenges in the human resource management (Arthur, 2011). Human resource functions to increase productivity of the business. The changes demand an understanding of business strategies. It also calls for participation in making of policies that run the organization together with important decisions. The human resource management must evolve in its managing of human capital. The challenges facing human resource have to be understood in order to find lasting solutions

Management of change is a major challenge to human resource management. The management of change is a challenge as it is not central in human resource professionals. The human resource has a task to provide relevant taskforce to organizations. The human resource has to come up with ideas and strategies that will effect change (Jing, 2005). The ideas have to influence the skills of an employee toward easy adoption of change. The current trends of change are technological. Implementation of these changes requires a re-education of the workforce.

Human resource management effectiveness: To get the specific input that the human resource makes to the business is challenging. The value of human resource has traditionally been poorly determined. The numbers of trainings done by the human resource and the number of people the human resource recruits were the measure of effectiveness. According to Arthur (2011), these measures have no direct link to productivity of the company. Additionally, the analysis of this data to give meaning is not done in most organization. The implication was that the contribution of human resource in an organization was not material. Thus, evaluation of human resource success level becomes a challenge.

Technological advancement is posing a challenge to human resource management (Riccucci & Irene, 2008). The human resource managers have to adapt new technologies. The adoption of new technologies is in line with a business strategic management. The human resource has to evaluate the business operation and decide what needs automation. It is a challenge to human resource, as the digitalization process has to be done to increase the gains of the organization. The process of technology adoption sometime involves rendering of some employees obsolete.

Technological advancement has led organization to receiving of vast amount of data. The human resource has to sift the data and get useful information. The vast amount of data is a challenge to human resource management. It is critical for the human resource to learn how to manage the information they receive, and communicate effectively to all levels if the organization. Mishandling of information or passing the wrong information can bring a crisis in an organization.

The information that the human resource gathers is useful in human resource planning. Further, technological advancement forces the human resource to decide on what services to automate, and the services needing a person to attend. The human resource managers have to deal with multiple channels of communication and networking. According to Berry (2011), human resource adoption of new technologies and using them effectively is beneficial to an organization.

Welfare and health benefit cost of employees is a challenge to human resource management. It is difficult for the human resource to come up with a health program in a changing health sector. The dynamism of the health sector demands a constant revision of the health and welfare program that the organization has (Riccucci & Irene, 2008). It reduces the efficiency of an organization if a program keeps change. The benefits of the program fail to be explicit due to changes. The challenge of welfare and health programs needs a solution that would be final.

Leadership development is a challenge for human resource. The traditional orientation is that human resource concerns with employee recruitment and other issues pertaining employees. The management of an organization is seen as a separate entity. However, in the evolving business world the management and human resource need to work together in order to create a competitive edge. There is a challenge on how to harmonize the executive management strategy to be one with that of human resource management.

Attracting and retaining of high performing employees is a challenge. The current business environment is demanding in terms of the labor input (Ullah, 2010). It is intolerant to poor performance and inefficiency. To survive in the job market, employees are improving their skills to improve productivity. The employees whose performance is high are ever looking for greener pastures. They have high mobility, as their demand is high. Therefore, organizations are put to ensure that they meet compensation requirement of high performing employees.

According to Ullah (2010), the attraction of employees is also becoming a challenge. Every organization is looking for a specific set of skills and ability. The skills that organizations need are those that match with their productivity. The education systems at large are not training students on these skills. The organizations have to roll out graduate programs for training their workforce. The program means an additional investment on the human labor. The budget for labor development increases making the recruitment process costly.

According to Alluh (2010), issues of compensation are a challenge to human resource management. Most businesses operate on a minimum budget. The compensation of the business has to have a limit. Keeping the pay rate of an organization competitive in the market becomes difficult. Compensation is a sensitive issue as it influences recruiting of new staff and retention of the existing staff. The human resource management faces a challenge as they have to balance the compensation package they offer and the revenue an organization makes.

In the process of recruitment a company has to be attractive to employees. According to Gill (2009), salaries that employees get together with benefits are crucial. An organization is able to get the best skills and talent through decent compensation. Further, to keep employees in an organization and reduce the rate of turnovers compensation package has to be competitive. When the compensation of the company is poor it makes the organization lose employees of high job capacity. Poor compensation is a cost to the company in terms of time and resources that go to training of new staff.

Solutions to human resource challenges

The human resource has to expand its functions in coping with changes. Three important steps exist in the practice of ensuring that changes occur in an organization. The first one is projecting of possible changes. The human resource will be able to plan and prepare for the changes. The preparations of changes involve evaluation of the human response that the changes will elicit (Arthur, 2011). The human resource then creates strategies that will engage personnel in achieving of the changes. They do this to allow the human workforce to adapt to the new conditions.

The human resource then moves to implement the changes. According to Berry (2011), change management is a process that takes time to disseminate. It takes effective communication of the need to change. The staff whose line of operation is affected requires training to equip them with basic knowledge to assist in the transformation. The human resource has to work along the organization's management to establish the gaps in skills that need filling. Then, decision has to be made on whether to hire a workforce or retrain the existing workforce.

The profitability of an organization depends on the ability of workforce to solve problems. Technology is a challenge and an opportunity for human resource management. The human resource team needs to be proficient in utilization of technology. According to Riccucci & Irene ( 2008), organization should invest in empowering of human resource team on latest technologies. These will make the human resource manager and his team to make the best out of technology for the benefit of the organization.

The challenge of health and welfare has a solution in customizing of the program. A customized program serves the need even in a changing environment (Riccucci & Irene, 2008). The needs of the client are not rapidly dynamic. The program customization of the program is done in such a manner that it abides to the company's culture and strategies. The program design has to be flexible and easy to communicate to the employees. The program implementation has to be in a way that it does bring positivity to the organization. The program should be customer directed such that it is easy to measure productivity.

Human resource management output is measurable. The output and the contribution that human management makes to an organization are very significant. To be capable of quantifying the outcomes of human resource simply needs the set up of specific goals of performance. Then, effectiveness of human resource management is measurable against these goals. Human resource strategy covers staffing and training of staff, these are usable parameters in the measure of human resource effectiveness.

The productivity of an employee is measurable (Riccucci & Irene, 2008). Employees have a clear job description. The descriptions outline the expected productivity of an employee. The meeting of these outcomes means that the human resource strategies are yielding revenues for the organization. The human resource management programs enable workers to be effective. The successes of the program translate to revenues and profits of the company. The low turnover of high performing employees is an indicator of human resource management effectiveness.

Human resource management performance is measurable using balanced scorecard method. In this method, employee satisfaction is an element usable to measure the effectiveness. Employees' engagement to their roles is measurable through interviews with them. The other parameter usable to measure the effectiveness of human resource management is checking employees' compliance at workplace. Strong compliance indicates that the employees are well adjusted to the organizations operation.

Assessment of the current needs of the organization is done based on strategic plans of an organization. The goals and objective of the organization have to be upheld by employees and employers. In the placement of employees, the employer ensures that the capabilities of the workforce match the job they have to do. The succession plan of the human resource involves identification of high performing employees. The employee must show potential ability to perform in the role that one is intended to succeed.

The human resource has to groom employees with skills for performing in executive positions (Gill, 2009). Before a gap is left in management, the human resource manager can build the capacity of employees through delegation of duty. Replacing potential employees ensures they are able to achieve the compulsory skills and knowledge required for eventual succession. Delegation of core duties enables employees to get abroad range of knowledge and experience. The employees' motivation increases, which is paramount aspect for successions.