HRM Contribute to Improved Organisational

¶ … HRM contribute to improved organisational performance?

To what extent can Human Rights Management contribute to improved organizational performance?

In the economic environment that is both highly competitive and undergoing rapid change one has to stay on top in order to continue functioning and make a profit. Adaptation and self-improvement of the undertakings is essential for keeping and improving their respective place on the different global market.

As globalization gets to a worldwide level, economic barriers tend to fail and innovation conquers all the field of a business change in an organization has not only become necessary, but it has become crucial. Unfortunately, many organizations, implementing change leave out a very important factor in the process: human resources. In reality, human resources are not only something that adapts by itself to change and not even a catalyst of change. They are the very factors implementing and using the new processes. Therefore starting change, or at least implementing change at the human resources level is decisive in the success of that change and adaptation process.

Human resources, or better said labor, represent the only production factor that, by itself, brings a plus in the value of the organization and of the other production factors. Human resources can make or break undertakings and need to be treated as such. As a matter of practice, in most organizations, human resources departments are usually introduced in the process of change only at a later stage. Even worse, it falls upon them to implement the change program even though they have not been involved and considered in the drawing of the plan. The result is that the later in time the change program is addressed by the human resources the more difficult it is for it to be implemented and be successful.

This essay will strive to demonstrate how important human resource management is in a nowadays organization. Moreover, it will also analyze some of the different theories in the field and draw a conclusion on which would be the most effective for certain organizations.

Specialists dealing with human resources management believe that people and organizations are able to change for the better, to evolve and become more effective. They also believe "that change requires open communication and empowerment of community members as well as a culture of collaboration." These are the fundamental values on which one of the theories form Human Rights Management, Organizational Development is based on. Organizational Development involves the use of many change factors and elements for the change of the organization. It is actually a long-term process of continuous improvement in all areas and at all levels of the undertaking. Modern technologies are implemented as part of the process in order to increase productivity and reduce costs. "Organization Development is the mother field that encompasses interventions, such as organization learning. OD is about people and how they work with others to achieve personal and organizational goals. Many times achieving goals means making changes that require creative thinking and problem solving. French and Bell report that the values held by OD practitioners include "wanting to create change, to positively impact people and organizations, enhance the effectiveness and profitability of organizations, [to] learn and grow, and exercise power and influence."

Organization Development puts an emphasis on the people, on their integration, on their proactive participation and on their development. An undertaking that has successfully applied Organizational Development is working with "fully awakened" people." They are taking a conscious part in their work, they believe in the values and the evolving of the organization they are a part off and they have transformed the goals of the organization and of their co-workers into their own. Employees of an Organizational Development share a common vision and a common purpose which coincide with the ones of the company. Thus they strive to give their best to the extent of their potential to the fulfillment of these objectives. The employees stand to gain from this because they develop their abilities; they are never behind with the new developments in management, technology and other useful fields and they constantly improve themselves. The organization stands to gain even more since all the information that the employees accumulate they put into the organization they pertain to.

Emphasis is also put on team work since the employees share common goals and visions they work very well together, completing each other. Working in such an organization stops being someone must to support themselves, but with no enjoyment and personal satisfaction whatsoever. Being a part of such a company makes one be a part of a system, a little wheel that is essential to the whole and that is well aware of its scope and purpose and strives to fulfill it using his best resources. Every little wheel depends on the others around it and the organization depends on the whole aggregate.

It, therefore, becomes clear why such an emphasis should be made on human resources in an undertaking. A part of the system that does not work well breaks the chain to everybody's loss and, moreover, an extra piece that has no place being there will quickly be either adapted or eliminated.

Another consequence of implementing Organization Development is the fact that when a problem or an obstacle arises people will always try to find long-term solutions that save the organization from more troubles, just as they would do for themselves, and not try to quickly fix a problem or pass it further to another person or department. Responsibility and risks are undertaken by the employees in order to come up and implement these durable solutions that they believe in. "Lifelong commitment to high quality work can result when teams work together to capitalize on the synergy of the continuous group learning for optimal performance." Therefore, employees working in a company that applies Organization Development do not act as "workers" for a boss who is simply telling them what to do while they are executing, "they can serve others in effective ways because they are well-prepared for change and working with others."

Organization Development is very strongly interlinked with the concept of Learning Organizations as they share common values. Nowadays, this concept is rapidly developing as more and more companies are embarrassing it. It has not been proven yet if creating a Learning Organization is the best strategy for a certain company, but it is certainly trendy. The concept has been defined by Professor Richard Karash: "A Learning Organization is one in which people at all levels, individually and collectively, are continually increasing their capacity to produce results they really care about"

In general a Learning Organization is one in which people are continuously learning and developing. They improve themselves and they improve the organization to which they belong. Learning within the concept of Learning Organization does not mean acquiring knowledge per say, it means learning to do something new, a new skill. A Learning Organization is a special place to work in as all employees, at all levels work together and learn from one another. It seems that these companies are the ideal place to be and work in. They have brought exactly what was lacking in undertakings today: motivation, understanding and a shared goal.

Learning Organization does not only encourage learning by its members as individuals, it also strives to learn, itself, as an "entity" and constantly better itself. The organization needs not only be aware of its own gain, it needs to be aware of its members. This concept has derived in the 1950's and it is called System Thinking: "A framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things; to see the forest and the trees." The aspirations of individual workers are thus noticed and included in the general goal of the company. A concept derived from System Thinking, called Decision Support Systems, was used by corporate executives in the decision making process as the company benefited from a better communication between its members and information traveled much faster.

The concept of Organizational Learning appeared in the 1970's. It was basically the Decision Support System that had been renamed and a little improved. Unfortunately, despite the extensive research in the field and studies being published, the new concept was not implemented by the companies.

A further development took place in 1980 when "time" was recognized as a valuable asset for companies and they wanted to find ways to preserve it. As a consequence companies began to understand the importance of learning, both as entities and as improvement of their members. It is, therefore, easily observed that the two are conditioning themselves: if the organization is learning it will treat its members better, if the members are learning the organization will have to gain. It is a win-win situation.

The employees are encouraged to exchange information between themselves, thus if a person learns something new, its peers will know it too, to some extent. The organization in itself is very flexible. So are its members who understand new things very quickly and are able to adapt to them. This is why a Learning Organization will always be very competitive on the market. It will be able to adapt to the changes in the said market and thus profit. Also, a very important element in a Learning Organization is the fact that it and its members share a vision. This is why they are learning and evolving, because they have a goal. Unlike other companies where the employers come to work only motivated by their salary and they feel they work for their boss who is in fact the one gaining. Learning Organizations have managed to change this point-of-view.

Learning Organizations have been developed so that companies are able to keep up with the fast pace of changes and become more and more competitive on the market. Learning is leading to innovation and innovation is leading to improvement: "work has been thought of as being conservative and difficult to change. Learning was something divorced from work and innovation was seen as the necessary, but disruptive way to change. The corporations which are able to quickly learn and then innovate with their activities will be able to change their work practices to perform better in the constantly changing environment. Change is now measured in terms of months, nor in years as it was in the past. Business re-engineering used to concentrate on eliminating waste and not on working smarter and learning."

Peter Senge is one of the scholars who have done extensive research in the field of Learning Organizations. He has identified five elements that are essential to building a Learning Organization: personal mastery, shared vision, mental modeling, team learning and system thinking. As easily observed, these can not be mastered over night. A Learning Organization will be able to apply them only by continuously striving to achieve them. This may seem a paradox, but in fact it is in accordance with the very principle of Learning Organization: continuous learning and improvement.

Having all these in mind we must also analyze the risks undertaken by a company that wants to become a Learning Organization. Firstly, as all change comes with a price implementing the principles of learning organizations have their setbacks. There could be a slight disruption in the activity of the company as the change in strategy must be quick and complete in order for it to be effective. There could also be a problem with the employees. They might not all be as receptive to change as the company is. Also, they might not be able to change as they might be so caught up in the old system of working that they will reject all change. The change might be so sudden when it comes to openness, that relations between co-workers might be affected. In a rush to implement the system quicker and get results the organization and its members risk skipping some steps in the process of learning and thus the result will be spoiled. Moreover, the risk of putting learning first is incurred and forgetting work, that is getting the job done. Companies must not forget that learning is a means to work better, thus it must be used to serve its purpose and not as a full time activity. Nevertheless, the quantity of information may prove too big in some cases and even create misunderstandings as people will not only get one answer, but several and they must filter them. And last but not least, implementing Learning Organizations depends from country to country and from culture to culture as some are more receptive and some are more conservative.

Traditional Training has been and has remained the most common and in easy-reach theory regarding Human Resources Management. It involves the organization of traditional training sessions in which different groups of employees are taught something new or get to refresh their knowledge regarding things they already know.

The training is provided either by an outside trainer, somebody who does this for a living or maybe a person who is very well qualified in that field. Also, the training may be provided by somebody from within the organization who is very good in a particular area or who prepares something special to teach his coworkers.

The way in which Traditional Training is implemented is similar to that of classroom teaching. The employees in the group gather in a classroom and the trainer gives his presentation. Communication takes place only over one channel: from the trainer to the "students" through the lecture he is holding. Therefore the attention falls mostly upon the trainer and not on the trainees who provide no feedback of their knowledge and understanding.

This system is in easy reach because it requires very little effort from the organization. It just has to put up the money for the trainer and the facilities, if it does not already have appropriate facilities and if the training is not done by an inside person. Then it has to call upon the employees to be present at a certain time in a certain place.

This is not wrong. It has worked for many years as the only way in which new technologies and innovation have been implemented within organizations. Believe it or not, organizations changed and evolved back then as well, not as quickly as they do now, but they did not need to.

There are, of course, several disadvantages brought upon by this system of training and of human resources development. Studies have shown that people respond better and learn quicker when the format of the course appeals to more than one of their senses. Therefore, they respond better to a course that is interactive and combines the multimedia presentations with the traditional lectures. Moreover, Traditional Training does not get the employees involved in the course, they have a passive role. A more challenging course would provide them with the motivation to actually change for the better.

A better system of training contains besides the lectures: multimedia presentations, practical examples that are done by the employees, applications to the theories, mock interviews and self-study. The latter is important because a course will always be limited in time and no trainer is able to grasp the whole of the material in that time and teach it well. This is where self-study comes in. The training needs to be motivating and challenging enough in order to encourage the employees to study on their own and do this with enjoyment and not out of obligation.

Furthermore, we encounter yet another problem that regards training, traditional or not, as a theory and method in Human Resource Management. It addresses only very limited problems regarding the organization. Training comes to fulfill the need for learning, but it does not fulfill the need of improvement of the organization. It does not integrate the individual into the organization and it does not make the two share common goals and values. It does not even integrate the individual into the collectivity at work, thus it does not help in developing team work and team spirit. The employees are accustomed to always expect change from the organization and, thus, do not try to better themselves and keep up, by themselves with the latest developments in their field of expertise. This happens because they are not challenged and motivated enough to take initiative and act in a proactive manner. "Human Performance Technology or performance consulting is changing the face of the traditional training department forever. Few training organizations offer trainer-led, generic classes as the only, or even major, solution to organizational challenges and opportunities any more."

When it comes to Human Resources Management, emphasis is placed now on providing complete solutions for the implementation of a durable, log term system that provides the best results possible for that particular organization. An in depth assessment of the organization is conducted by specialists in order to determine which methods should be applied to the different organizations. "Alternatives to training offered by progressive human resource departments include coaching, organizational development or planned change consultation and interventions, facilitated planning sessions and large group processes. The training that is provided is often custom-designed with stated outcomes congruent with the direction of the business."

Performance Management is a theory regarding Human Resources Management that combines training, and providing knowledge through training with the general development of the organization. Its proper implementation leads to the creation of a self sustaining, growth system for the organization. "In a performance management system, people receive more frequent feedback from many points-of-view including peers, direct reporting staff members and the boss. The feedback, known as 360-degree feedback, provides a more balanced set of observations for the employee." The flow of information does not only have one direction. It is transmitted from the management down, from the employees to the management and between the employees at a horizontal level.

Performance Management does not only address the organization as a whole, but also the individual. He is assisted in learning and developing his skills and expertise, to the benefit of the organization, of course. The individual performance plan includes: "integrated corporate university courses and internally custom designed and presented training. Performance development plans may include coursework, but also provide learning activities on the job such as special projects, serving on cross-functional teams, and skill stretching job assignments."

These kind of modern systems and theories combining several strategies and solutions from different fields have brought to the end the implementation of traditional training, as they have proven to bee much more effective. Moreover, training as part of a larger and more complex system has evolved and now contains: materials presented on, CDs, DVDs, or simply on the Internet, classes that are conducted online, or through e-mail, blended learning and higher education degrees that are obtained from online classes and online exams. One can only wait and see how all these will evolve and what will happen in the end to traditional learning and to teachers and trainers.

Training has to be allied with business strategy and it needs to support it. Training offers: criticality of business need, speed of response required, what the business can afford at any particular time, stage in the organization 'life-cycle', competitiveness of the labor market.