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Welcome to week three this week 3. This week we’re going to talk about human resource management. so to get started go ahead and click on the lessons tab at the top of your screen select week three and then go ahead and open up the getting started this week’s activities folder. You’ll see that the learning objective for this week is to describe the role of human resource management in business organizations. Additionally your readings for the week as well as your lecture and your discussion and assignments are listed there. Again it’s always a great idea to go ahead and print out your getting started sheet and keep it next to your computer and you can simply check off the activities as you complete them throughout the week.

Your lecture for the week is entitled the role of human resource management in business. During this lecture you will discuss the role of human resource management in business organizations. So I’d like to begin our discussion by defining what human resource management or HRM as is often referred to be. In simple terms HRM consists of everything that a business does to attract train and keep good employees. That makes sense. HRM though has undergone many changes in recent years one of the most important changes came when organizations finally realized that it’s the employees they carry out important tasks for the business. My point is that with this change managers and HR professionals realized that they have a very important job when it comes to organizing employees so that they can effectively perform these tasks. What this now means is that they must stop viewing employees of cost to the business and begin to look at them as assets. So let’s shift gears a bit and discuss some of the basic roles of HRM and business. Prior to this shift in organizational thinking people who worked in human resources were basically only responsible for things such as employee training hiring and compensation. In today’s strategic business climate HR is now seen as an extremely important function of the businesses and is heavily involved in organizations strategic process. Human resources now include more than just hiring, terminating, or filling out benefit forms. some of the responsibilities of HRM now includes such aspects as payroll and employee benefits, analyzing and designing job functions, creating a safe work environment, employee selection and recruitment, employee performance evaluations and compensation, training orientation and professional development, safety, and wellness of employees. Another important aspect I’d like to bring up is that human resource management professionals are now viewed as advocates for the business employees. They strive to create work environments where employees feel engaged motivated and valued. In my experience as a manager when employees feel valued they typically have a higher morale and are more productive. It also increases employees’ loyalty to the business which plays a huge role in productivity as well. The point I’m trying to get across here is that for any organization’s goal of short-term and long-term success it is crucial for the organization to have loyal and motivated employees as well as up-to-date and efficient technology and it is the new role of the HR department to help the organization reach this goal.

In the articles that you are to read this week there is a particularly interesting article titled facing modern HR challenges head on. It was recently updated. The proliferation of technology and changes in the business environment have increased the importance of human resources in the modern world. The major challenges facing human resources arise from this elevation of human resource activities to core strategic functions. That’s key here – human resources has evolved from personnel to a core strategic function. For instance: Finding and retaining talent – the primary challenge for HR is having the right people ready at the right time and right place (and the right cost). The spread of technology and globalization has created a level playing field for firms in terms of technology, information, and availability of finance. The HR of an enterprise used to be thought of as just another resource like land or capital, are now a key differentiator within firms and the most critical source of competitive advantage – your people give you the advantage. The availability of labor exceeds the availability of open position. Talent makes a difference and talent has always remained scarce. The increased competitiveness ensures that finding new ways of increasing the level of talent in an organization is the key challenge of HR. The very existence of many logic-centric firms depends on HR to hire and retain the talent. You have to find and retain the talent, but this is a big shift – 30 years ago we could find individuals for a job and the organization would be responsible for training them, but today what organizations ask is that individual come to the organization not needing training and is already talented bring that talent with them versus having to develop it once they come to the organization. Retaining existing talent is easier than hiring new employees and as competition increases among firms HR resources looks at various ways on how to retain talent. This is an interesting point that the author is making because what we’re seeing now is that the baby boomers are retiring and the generation Y. employees are coming into the organization and they have a much different set of goals and are much more difficult to retain in an organization then generation X. or Y. individuals. Additionally it’s been shown if you take a look at the literature that 80% of individuals leaving the firm typically do so because of poor management. So it’s even more important today to have good managers in place.

Again retaining talent is easier than hiring new employees and as competition increases among firm’s human resources will look at various ways to retain talent and possible interventions include custom-made compensation packages and fringe benefits, job enrichment autonomy, better working conditions and more. So one of the things you also have to look at when you’re talking about human resource management is ensuring the employee fit with the organization. The traditional human resource management approach approached and tailed either hiring people with the required skills or training employees to develop the skill sets required for the organization. The challenge for human resources and the new order is to ensure an employee employer fit since many times these employees come to the organization already trained. Ways to ensure employee organizations fit include selecting employees based upon the ability to do the job, hiring employees who value teamwork, and hiring employees whose values and outlook match that of the organizational values and culture.

So how do you ensure employee competence? The traditional approach to equipping employees to fulfill organizational requirements entail training and development interventions. The scope of training and development has undergone much change in recent times noted for high labor mobility. Human resources departments need to balance the cost of training with the reality of such employees quitting before the organization realizes the investment from the training intervention. Organizations also give increasing preference to talent management over training. the dimensions of HR challenges in this regard include understanding the employees’ innate skills and competencies and providing employees with opportunities to apply the skills for the benefit of the organization, skill enhancement of the work force to promote adaptability, resilience and agility, and adopting a market driven approach. Adopting a bottom-line oriented approach is another major challenge facing human resources. In order to integrate its functional activities with the company’s strategic goals. This entails taking a bottom-line oriented approach for making decisions or framing policies. While such a stance does not pose problems for most functional areas such as quality control or finance - the interests of the employees very often run at cross purposes with the interest of the organization in terms of profitability. Human resource departments face the difficult task of walking a tight rope trying to effect trade-offs by genuine employee concerns and the commercial imperatives of the organization. for instance: small employees remain accustomed to pay for performance the new reality is to compensate employees to the extent of value they add to the organization in terms of profitability regardless of their level of performance. Similarly while that latest trend is towards contract or performance-based tenures employees prefer more stable planned and are accustomed to time-based tenure with many benefits. The key role of human resources and overcoming such challenges include devising and implementing various motivational approaches - heralding a shift from performance oriented pay to results oriented remuneration and changing employees mindset from a process-oriented approach to a customer-minded one. Initiatives such as total quality management, six Sigma, and the like play a major role in this regard.

Let’s also talk a little bit about managing diversity. Managing diversity ranks among the most under estimated challenges confronting human resources. This increasing thrust towards globalization has resulted in internalization of the work force and the increased demand for talent has resulted in groups of people hitherto out of the workforce entering the workforce. the dimensions of workplace diversity include age, ethnicity, gender, physical abilities, race, sexual orientation, educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, religious beliefs, parental status, and experience. A key challenge facing human resources is to manage and retain such diverse talents. The dimensions of workforce diversity challenge include reconciling the corporate culture to accommodate diversity and individual sensitivities, thinking globally and acting locally by being responsive to the culture of the region, and adapting to the societal requirements of whole societies, and complying with local labor legislation.

Managing change. Change is the only constant in today’s business environment forcing organizations to keep pace with such changes constantly and rapidly to exploit new opportunities. Change takes the shape of organizational restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, rightsizing, and implementing outsourcing, providing telecommuting opportunities for employees and the like. Focus changed intervention increases productivity, and improves organization communication, improves process, efficiency improves quality and raises employee morale. the challenges related to change for human resources management include helping employees overcome resistance to change by convincing them about the bigger picture, providing leadership for the change process, and ensuring stability of systems and processes during the change process, and equipping employees to deal with the changed realities.

Congratulations on completing the reading for week three and also for completing the lecture role of HRM in organizations, but to be truly successful you still have to complete the discussion question and the assignment for week three. the discussion question is what was your perception of HR prior to this lesson and many times people will think of HR more as personnel than a strategic partner so hopefully that that change in perspective has happened and has this perception changed and if not you need to say why or why not. Again don’t forget that there is participation requirement that you have your initial substantive posting in by day five and that you posted to other students in the classroom by day seven. again there’s a word limit of between 75 and 150 words for this substantive reply and be sure to cite any sources that you mention in your discussion question if you have any outside sources. for your assignment is roles of human resource management and again you have three options you can create a PowerPoint presentation you can write a newsflash or you can complete a traditional paper and again I want to reinforce the idea that we’re not looking for you to merely open up your textbook and copy what’s in your textbook even though you’re citing it and just describing the various roles of HRM. What is looked for here is critical analysis of our critical thinking that involves analysis, evaluation, synthesis, and summary. the reason why we’re focusing on critical thinking is because so many industry organizations when they come to hire college graduates will say that when they come to work for them unfortunately they don’t have good critical thinking skills and so we want to focus on critical thinking of analysis evaluation synthesis and summary while you’re in college so that once you graduate from the program and go to work for another employer you’ll have these skills well established and well-practiced so that when you could work for them you’re ready to start that. Again you’ve had the chance to create a PowerPoint and newsflash or traditional paper is sure to before you get started a good way to start is to have an outline. Get your outline together get your reference together. Please take a moment and try to look at the Grantham University library instead of just pulling articles off the Internet which you’ll find is that you’ll have better quality articles better quality references which will lead to better quality content from you developing credibility as a writer for your reader. So take a look at the scholarly articles available to you instead of just using the Internet and please remember that Wikipedia, about.com, ask.com - these types of sources are unreliable and should never be used in a college paper. Also do you have any questions on this week’s assignment be sure to get with your professor early enough in the week so that they can answer them and to if you’re going to delay the sure to let your professor know that so that that late penalty can be waived. It’s always better to talk your professor I had of time instead of waiting into you’re late and then asking them to forgive those late penalties. again if you have any questions be sure to get with your professor