Human Resources Management Business

How HR Aspects Work Together
Introduction
As the primary function of human resource management (HRM) is to increase the effectiveness and contribution of employees in the attainment of organizational aims and objectives, the various aspects of HRM must be integrated to ensure that the proper motivation and support is given to workers (Gerhart & Fang, 2015). Indeed, the view towards providing motivation—whether intrinsically or extrinsically—while creating a supportive workplace environment and culture are the two main concepts that I learned the most from in this course. In this reflective paper, I will explain how the various aspects of HRM work together to perform the primary function of HRM. I will also discuss whether any aspects are more important than others along with how I believe the HRM role can be optimized for shaping organizational and employee behavior. Finally, the paper will identify specific current and/or future applications and relevance to my workplace, and reflect on the potential impact of my learning to my future career plans and even to my personal life at home.
The Aspects of HRM and How They Work Together
EEO and Affirmative Action refers to the equal employment opportunity that every person has a right to and to the need for companies to have a more diverse workplace that represents the actual demographics of our society through Affirmative Action. These aspects of HRM are integrated into the planning, recruitment and selection processes of the HRM services that are used when hiring new workers. HR managers have to be careful to make decisions about who to hire based on factors that are free from prejudice and discrimination while at the same time hiring workers to meet a specific quota that the company has set to meet diversity goals. HR development goes hand in hand with EEO/Affirmative Action and the planning/recruitment/selection processes used to hire workers because development is the process by which HR managers get to understand how they can best achieve the goals of the company within the parameters given them.
Then there are the elements of compensation and benefits; safety and health; and employee and labor relations—all of which go into impacting the workplace environment and culture. The HR manager has to be mindful of the workplace environment and culture as these impact workers and worker morale on a daily basis (Chandrasekar, 2011). Compensation and benefits are examples of extrinsic motivational forces that can compel workers to stay engaged with their work, to commit long term to the company and to strive to meet objectives in an effective manner (Hennessey, Moran, Altringer & Amabile, 2015). Safety and health issues are crucial to employee well-being and HR managers have to ensure that safety rules and regulations are effectively developed, implemented and maintained so that workers’ lives are not at risk while on the job. Effectively ensuring their safety can show workers that their lives are important to the company, that they are valued, and that the company cares enough about them to make sure they are safe at all times—and this in turn can help to keep employee and labor relations at a high and positive level. If HR managers stop focusing on any one of these aspects, labor-employee relations can deteriorate quickly, morale can suffer, productivity can plummet and the company itself can risk going into decline. Therefore, it is actually in the self-interest of the company to be invested in the interests of the workers because the workers are, ultimately, the ones who can make or break a company. As Iqbal, Akbar and Budhwar (2015) show, the more engaged that HR managers are—whether they are appraising worker performance or monitoring workplace conditions—the more likely the company is to be productive and profitable overall.
Which Aspects are Most Important
The aspects that I believe are most important are the ones that factor into motivating workers. While planning, recruiting and selecting the right workers for the right jobs is of course crucial to successful HRM (Mahmood, 2015), ensuring that they are motivated once they are onboard is even more critical to the long term success of the company. This means that focusing on compensation and benefits, safety and health, and employee-labor relations are essential to increasing productivity.
At the same time, obtaining the right workers for the job cannot be understated. Whether this is accordance with the Affirmative Action goals of the company or in accordance with the planning, recruiting and selecting aims of the HR office, the right worker should always be sought and obtained. This is like the ground floor development of the structure that is organizational success. On top of this floor goes the elevator to the top and it is pulled by way of worker motivation. Motivation can be both intrinsic (i.e., esteem, acknowledgement, supportive words and demonstrations of appreciation from peers) and extrinsic (promotion, bonuses, raises, etc.). Both have to be coupled in order to be most effective (Gerhart & Fang, 2015). For HRM to be successful, the workplace environment also has to be considered—and that means paying attention to safety issues, EEO issues, and employee-labor relations issues all have to be part of the HR manager’s agenda. If one is absent, worker morale can suffer.
Optimizing HRM
I believe the HRM role can be optimized for shaping organizational and employee behavior by looking forward to what’s to come. The future of HRM, in other words, must be considered in order for HR managers to be effective in the coming years. With the rise of the Digital Era now recognized around the world, the role of the HR manager must be considered in the light of the effects of globalization, offshoring and outsourcing. That means HRM has to consider developing cultural intelligence skills so that multicultural brokers can be effective leaders and communicators in leading virtual teams or globalized workplace environments (Eisenberg & Mattarelli, 2017). It also means that the role of HRM must consider how virtual management systems and virtual teams will be used by more and more companies in the future. This will be especially important in terms of aligning workers to the company’s mission and vision, the aims and goals, of the company, and in keeping workers from different parts of the world in sync and moving towards the same objective.
In order to optimize HRM’s role in shaping organizational and employee behavior, HR managers must also be aware of how culture plays a part in determining worker behavior, and how cultural conflicts can cause strife in an organization. The more attuned an organization is to cultural inputs, the more likely the organization will have a positive workplace culture. Using tools like the Hofstede Model of cultural inputs can help HR managers to optimize their skill set; developing their various intelligences can help too—whether it is emotional intelligence, social intelligence, or cultural intelligence. All three of these will play a huge part in motivating workers, in keeping the workplace positive and supportive, and in increasing worker productivity so that the aims of the organization can be achieved.
Current and/or Future Applications and Relevance to My Workplace
In terms of how this understanding could benefit me in my workplace, I should say that I am particularly interested in the motivation aspects of HRM because my current workplace has motivation issues with its workers. I have come to understand that there are both formal and informal groups that occur in workplaces. Formal groups consist of formal teams that are arranged for a specific purpose or aim; they have acknowledged leaders and a specific protocol that are established for meeting and sharing information. They have a start date and an end date. Informal groups consist of workers who share a like-minded orientation; there is no start or end date; they are not arranged for any specific purpose and do not have official recognition from the company. Yet, informal groups are often the places where morale is most vulnerable. If the informal group members are upset about some new policy handed down to workers through HR, the informal group will cause that morale to spread like wildfire throughout the company. If, however, the members are happy and pleased with what HRM is doing in the company, the morale will be positive and productive.
In my workplace, the informal groups are quite strong and in order to orient them towards the organization’s goals it is important to understand what the members of these groups want and what they expect. Identifying the ways that can motivate the workers in the informal groups could help my organization’s HRM better increase the productivity of workers. This understanding could be obtained by way of interviews, by way of face-to-face discussions with workers, by direct observation, and by survey. The more information that HR gathers on the intrinsic and extrinsic forms of motivation, the more likely the HRM will be able to make a positive impact in my workplace.
I also think that performance appraisals could be a good way to help motivate workers as well, as Iqbal et al. (2015) have pointed out. These are helpful tools that make it clear to workers what is expected of them, what their current progress is like, and how they can better improve or increase their productivity. It helps to put managers and workers more in contact with one another, which can also facilitate communication and foster positivity in the workplace. I would be all in favor of implementing more performance appraisals in my current organization—especially as I have heard other workers say that they would like to be acknowledged more for the work they do, which they feel goes unnoticed by management because there is no formal performance appraisal system in place.
What Facilitated My Learning
All of the coursework and research assignments that we did for the class facilitated my learning. Actually reading scholarly journals and academic articles about HRM really helped to develop my understanding of trends in the field, areas of importance, and evidence that could be implemented professionally to help benefit organizations and strengthen the HRM potential. Learning about the various studies into motivation theory that have been conducted over the past century—from Maslow’s focus on the hierarchy of needs to the Hawthorne Studies of Mayo (1949)—I consistently felt that my understanding was being broadened and deepened.
I especially found it helpful to see all the different ways that researchers have approached the concept of motivation in the workplace. It showed me that there is no one “right” way to think about motivation but rather that all people are going to have needs in a specific sense while in a general sense certain practical steps can be taken and applied by HRM to ensure positive morale and high levels of productivity. Being conscious of the general environment as well as of specific individual motivators can make all the difference between a well-run company and one that flounders and fails: I view my research during this course as a good foundation for building on. I look forward to expanding my understanding of the various components of HRM in the future as I continue my education in this field.
The Potential Impact of My Learning
The potential impact of my learning both in my future career plans and in my personal life are the following: (a) in my future career plans I want to be able to manage an HR effectively and that means I have to know all the various elements of a successful HRM department. This course has helped me to better understand these elements—to see how the hiring process is linked to the EEO and Affirmative Action issues of today; to see how motivation is linked to compensation, benefits, employee-labor relations, and safety and health issues; and to see how productivity is linked to motivation overall. By understanding how all these different elements work together, I feel that I am better prepared to take command of an HR department and oversee its activities so that we can increase employee productivity and help the organization achieve its goals.
In my own personal life at home I feel that (b) my education in this course has helped me to be more mindful of the factors that go into keeping my own home life organized and positive. I am more mindful of the needs of others and find myself thinking more about how I can be of service to people in my house. I think that this is because the HRM field is really about finding ways to service the organization through optimizing people in positions to make a difference. For example, if there is a position open in a particular department, it is crucial to find out what that department needs in a new hire before going out and finding a candidate. Getting input from the various parties involved is the best way to ensure that the right worker is hired for the right position. In my home life, this knowledge translates in the sense that with various chores being allocated around the house to various family members, I can see that some people are more inclined to do housework while others are more inclined to excel at yard work. I can help to get everyone in the right position by investigating the matter, talking about it with the specific individuals and then putting everyone in a position where they will excel. At the same time, I can work to make sure that house is always enjoying a positive environment and culture by making myself available to talk, to listen, and to empathize with people no matter what is going on. I have found that one of the best ways to make something work is to be supportive—but also to make sure that things are on track and monitoring situations so that if a change has to be made it can be made in time. For instance, if the grass isn’t getting cut at home, I can make inquiries as to what is going on and have the problem addressed—before we get a letter from the city or a fine.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this course has been helpful for me in terms of understanding the various elements of HRM and how they all work together and are integrated to form a cohesive and comprehensive approach to getting the most out of workers so that the organization can achieve its goals. I found personally that the aspect of motivation was of particular importance as I see how it can be applied in my own workplace and how I tend to apply it in my home life. Also, the idea of getting the right person for the right job through investigation, recruitment and selection is one I think is crucial as well.
References
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Gerhart, B., & Fang, M. (2015). Pay, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation,
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Hennessey, B., Moran, S., Altringer, B., & Amabile, T. M. (2015). Extrinsic and intrinsic
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Iqbal, M. Z., Akbar, S., & Budhwar, P. (2015). Effectiveness of performance appraisal:
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Mahmood, M. (2015). Strategy, structure, and HRM policy orientation: Employee
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