¶ … Workplace Key Functional Areas of HRM

The entire aim of the human resource management function is to augment the personal and joint productivity of the employees and deliver stellar results for the organization. The key components of a human resource management are:

Retention

Development

Succession

But in the past few years, human resource characteristics are becoming more complicated and broad to say the least.

Simultaneously, the focus has been on the fact that human resource practices are aligned with strategic direction of an organization (Sasks School Boards Association, n.d.).Human resource management has the knowledge of the dynamics and practices to implement in a work environment while regulating employment relationship. HRM has five areas in its domain:

Staffing

Staffing deals with hiring candidates with the proper skill set, knowledge and experience to satisfy the job requirement in an organization. Related practices include job analysis, recruitment, selection and human resource planning (Salawu, n.d.). For instance, people are interviewed and shortlisted in this phase and a salary is decided keeping experience in mind (Laura, 2012).

Rewards and compensation

It consists of breakdown structure and design of reward systems. Methods consist of job evaluation, benefits and performance appraisal (Salawu, n.d.). HRM professionals should decide if reimbursement is fair and keeps the employees motivated whilst matching the market standards. Compensation consists of rewards for employee's work. HRM professionals should ensure that salary is competitive and meets the market standards (Laura, 2012). Instances of employee compensation consist of below mentioned:

Health Benefits

Salary

401k (retirement plans)

Stock purchase plans

Vacation time

Sick leave

Bonuses

Tuition compensation

Employee Development

This deals analyzing training requirement for guaranteeing that employees have the necessary skill set and knowledge to perform in their designated capacity and progress within the organization. Performance appraisal notices level of performance and key skills of an employee (Salawu, n.d.). This produces higher productivity for the company. Training is essential for motivation for an employee. Employees who think that they are learning and earning, whilst employed drives their productivity higher, which ensures employee retention (Laura, 2012).Instances of training program consist of the below mentioned:

Training communication

Team building program

Policy and legal training: Includes ethics and sexual harassment training

Employee Maintenance

Safety is a critical aspect in every organization (Laura, 2012). Worker safety concerns may comprise the following:

This is in regard to monitoring and administration of office place safety, welfare laws, health laws for ensuring the competency of employees whilst complying with standard procedures and rules (Salawu, n.d.). Safety is a huge consideration for every organization (Laura, 2012). Employee protection issues consist of the mentioned below:

Discretion of private employee information

No fragrance zones

Chemical hazards

Ventilation and heating requirements

Employee Relations

In this category, many employee participation / involvement schemes are covered for both union and nonunion office places. In a union based office, negotiations takes place between union and management representatives over the employment contracts enacted (Salawu, n.d.).

Equal Employment Opportunity Laws

Being in the banking industry, the necessity of equal employment was becoming increasingly obvious with the passage of time, male dominated the banking field. Certain countries have nondiscrimination laws in place. Some have one line laws while others have very detailed and lengthy laws to cover nondiscrimination in its entirety. Many elements of nondiscrimination are covered in it. Sometimes, nondiscrimination laws are practiced weakly and just a memo in organizations.

In such conditions, enterprises that take standards of nondiscrimination in serious consideration often comply with international bylaws and best practices regarding nondiscrimination for keeping in touch with standard behavior. Sometimes, cultural and social expectations are slow in case of discrimination, hence international and national standards are slow to respond to present practices required for nondiscrimination (International Finance Corporation, 2006).Nevertheless, common themes exist in both national and international laws, not to forget public and private sector with respect to equality in office practices. For instance, banking industry is male dominated basically. With the application of these laws, discrimination can be ironed out of the organization.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act

As per the federal law, it is prohibited to discriminate a woman due to her pregnancy factor, childbirth and other arising medical conditions connected to childbirth and pregnancy. As per the law, it is prohibited to react to a person who has filed a complaint against an offender, filed a discrimination charge or took place in any employment discrimination lawsuit and investigation (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, n.d.).

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII)

According to this law, employees can't discriminate on the basis of race,...

The law also prohibits reacting against another person who complained with respect to discrimination, filing a discrimination charge and even taking part in an employment discrimination case or lawsuit. The law upholds the employers to respect their applicant's religious beliefs and give them room until and unless it creates a problem for the employers or business at hand (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, n.d.).
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA)

The law also negates different rates of wages to men or women, if they work side by side in the same office place. The law renders it illegal to react to a person who filed a discrimination complaint, complained about discrimination or even took active part in employment discrimination lawsuit or investigation (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, n.d.).

Trends affecting organizations

Aging Workforce: Due to dearth of skilled employees in professional market as new labor is raw and inexperienced, most companies have to resort to keep their senior employees in place and employ them beyond their retirement age. The extra perks of such jobs are part time employment are working certain number of hours / week and sometimes project by project basis. Meanwhile, employees find it interesting to work in nonconventional work arrangements (IBM Corporation, 2004). My bank has formed a policy where retired professionals are hired for their valuable services where they work for certain amount of hours depending upon the condition required. Most employees in this arrangement are beyond the fifty year bracket and continue longer. The program has been beneficial both ways, for the company and the professional as experience goes in use and so does the professionals.

Diversity: Companies should be paying more attention to diversity and ponder ways for being all inclusive organizations since diversity has the benefit of producing maximum productivity and create competitive edge.

With the advent of globalization, people are hailing from a broad variety of background, cultures, religions and traditions than previously. My bank embarked on a cross cultural recruitment program, specifically for meeting the changing trends of diversity and maximizes creativity along with productivity. However, there were certain hindrances along the way for instance:

Stereotyping

Discrimination

Prejudice

These issues arose with respect to religion and racial distinctions (Green, Lopez, Wysocki, and Kepner, 2008).

Skill Deficiency: For overcoming the issue of skill deficiency, my organization has initiated about coaching and training sessions with considerable investment to provide the workers with soft skills for particular office place requirements. These programs are organized to provide the essential training skills to augment the productivity of an office pace. It makes sense to train employees rather than hiring the productive employees.

Workplace Flexibility

Organizations frequently introduce certain office place flexibility methods to give flexibly to their employees. Flexible work timings and telework are some of the well-known and commonly applied flexibility practices. Workplace flexibility allows the employees to work according to their own personal comfort and engage in office activities (Coenen & Kok, 2014).

Flexible Work schedules: With the help of flexible work timings, which is known as flexi-time, the employees can decide their own arrival timing and time of departure from office. Hence, it is the independence of working within loose timings. There are certain constraints to work with an organization which consists of:

Opening hours (hours beyond which employees can't arrive at office)

Core time (during which all employees must be present)

Carryover (the division of working hours)

The flexible work timings are most often sought by women who have multitude of priorities with children. Certain employees have free slots in their timings to make time for physician visits, exercise and personal time (Coenen&Kok, 2014).

Telework: Telework is also known as telecommuting which primarily indicated working at home or away from office. Definitions later allowed broader room for virtual work and information technology tools (Coenen&Kok, 2014).

When used within an office environment, these methods had a positive effect on the overall productivity of the organization by decreasing absenteeism, lessening turnover intentions and augmenting productivity. When employees had certain independence and room, they showed less signs of stress, boredom, tiredness and work-life balance issues. On the whole, they were more committed to their jobs than before. On the other hand, telework had certain drawbacks too such as intensification and individualization.