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...

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…