Personnel and Supervision in Diverse

Personnel and Supervision in Diverse Organizations

In the Payne text, the author writes about public and non-profit agencies. Please explain what HRM entails for these sectors and why the author views strategic planning as such an important component of HRM. Then select three HRM challenges discussed in the text and briefly explain how they effect today's employers

HR managers within public and non-profit agencies are continually faced with the challenge of how to lure top talent with reduced funds, and to find workers who are truly committed to serve the cause of the organization. Given that public and non-profit organizations are primarily service-providing entities, finding the best people to represent the organization and dispense its services is essential.

The increased diversity of the workforce is one of the greatest challenges of HRM today. Managers must create a sense of cohesion and common values within the organization, even while they honor the differences of workers. Legally speaking, employers cannot discriminate based upon gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or disabilities, unless these qualities inhibit the individual from doing his or her assigned work. Another component of diversity is age: the workplace is growing older, as employees in good health (sobered by the recessionary economy) are working longer. Age discrimination is also prohibited by law (Payne 2005: 398).

However, beyond the purely legal aspects of diversity management, creating a harmonious diverse workforce can ultimately support the aims of the organization (Payne 2006: 398). Workers of diverse backgrounds bring added knowledge that will enhance the capabilities of the organization to serve an equally diverse population. "In the service-oriented economy, employees need to develop the necessary skills and background for communicating with, and for understanding and meeting the demands of, diverse groups of customers" (Managing diversity, 2006, CIPD). Diversity also fosters debate and the generation of new ideas to address seemingly intractable problems.

Diversity is connected to a second HRM challenge of the modern workplace -- the need to strike an appropriate work-life balance. The presence of two-career households often means that both parents, but particularly women, struggle to meet the demands of their employers while ensuring that their children have appropriate childcare, and that they have 'family time' with their children (Payne 2006: 398). New technology makes telecommuting easier than ever before. However, also due to new technology, the ability of work to impinge upon leisure time has also increased exponentially, raising ethical questions about the extent to which workers can be required to be connected to the office 24-7.