Management of Human Resources

Question: Discuss about the Management of Human Resources. Answer: Introduction Human Resource Management (HRM) deals with management of human resources towards extracting the best from the employees (DeNisi, Wilson and Biteman 2014). It is mostly associated with recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management, employee motivation, compensation planning, maintaining employee relation and employee security (Sultana 2014). This study will agree with the statement that there is no such thing as 'best practice' in HRM. The study will prove this statement through defining various elements human resource practice in the context of different business needs. Moreover, the study will also be real life evidence for proving this statement. Discussion There is no single set of definitive practice and rules for working living and anything else in the life. Likewise, Human Resource Management (HRM) cannot be different. HRM plays an important role in achieving the success of an organization. It can extract the best out of the employees, if right strategy is implemented at the right place (Harley 2015). People are extremely tempted and willing to resolve any issues with the best practice model. However, best practice model in HRM always focuses on one-size-fit approach, which does permit adaptability. Furthermore, todays business environment is highly dynamic in nature. Therefore, the HRM strategy should always be adaptable with the changing nature of the business. Hence, it can be said that there is no such thing as 'best practice' in HRM. Contemporary HRM practices have been founded by the year 1970 with its new ideas and concepts. According to Brewster, Brookes and Gollan (2015), contemporary human resource practice is more flexible and adaptable with the changing needs of the business. On the other hand, Vanhala and Ritala (2016) opined that the idea of contemporary human resource management is to optimize the employees towards meeting the strategic objectives of organization. The increasing nature of agility of contemporary business has led the human resource managers to rely on contingency approach. Rather than sticking to a particular HRM strategy model, todays human resource managers are always inclined to explore innovative strategy for aligning the best efforts of the employees with the strategic organizational objectives (Edwards et al. 2013). They are trying to be freed from the restrictions and concentrating on that model, which suites them the best at particular point of time. The best HRM practice proved for one organization cannot be fruitful for the other. Hence, HRM strategies are always needed to be tailored with the particular needs of the business. While considering the recruitment or talent acquisition practice of organization, there cannot be any such best practice model. Moreover, the recruitment managers need to tailor their strategies through with the specific needs and demands of their organization. However, all the organizations like to select the best candidate for their businesses. According to Paill et al. (2014), different business organizations need to have employees having different set of skills, knowledge and expertise. In case of recruitment practice of Google, the organization always focuses on technical skill, knowledge and expertise of the employees. The platform of the business is wholly built upon technical aspects, where the prime need of the employees is technical skill. Hence, they always need to be concentrated on hiring the employees having high level of technical knowledge (Sheehan 2014). On the other, in case of recruitment practice of mass media and entertainment conglomerate Disney, the organization always focuses on artistic mind of the employees. The platform of Disney is fully built upon creative artistic knowledge of the employees. Therefore, the prime criteria of its recruitment strategy to assess the creativity power of the employees (Ma and Ye 2015). Therefore, there is no such best practice for HRM. Todays business environment is highly competitive in nature. Organizations can beat the market competition based on either of three strategies such as cost leadership, quality and focus. Human resource management practice has to do a lot for implementing these strategies. In case of cost leadership, organizations are likely to beat the market competition through reducing product price and reducing the organizational cost. In this extent, human resource managers need to reduce the cost of recruitment and other HR budget for minimizing the overall organizational cost (Marler and Fisher 2013). However, the strategy for reducing HR budget cannot be same for different organizations. As per Chang et al. (2014), the popular food and beverage company Coca-Cola Amatil is more inclined to hire their employees from international market like Indonesia for low labor cost of the country. In this way, they are quite successful reducing the organizational cost and achieve cost leadership. On the other hand, the retail giant Woolworth uses different strategy for reducing HR costs. Fulmer and Ployhart (2014) opined that Woolworth uses employee referrals for recruiting new employees in reduced cost. In this strategy, the organization gets employee references for hiring best candidate for the organization with reduced cost. In this way, the organization tries to achieve cost leadership towards achieving competitive advantage. Hence, again, there is no such best practice in human resource management. While considering the quality leadership in business, an organization always needs innovation and creativity at each step of its business process. According to Boxall (2013), human resource practice has huge role in flourishing the innovative ideas and creativity power of the employees towards achieving business innovation. On the other hand, Vaiman and Collings (2013) opined that effective of innovation is highly dependent on tailored HRM strategy to extract innovative ideas for meeting the changing needs of the markets. Moreover, employee innovation only comes, when they are highly motivated towards achieving the organizational success. It is highly dependent on the quality of leadership, which the employees face in their workplace. In case of motivational strategies, the organizational leaders are to identify the internal motivating factors of the employees. Motivating factors are quite different from one employee to other. Hence, the leadership and motivational tools also should be customized with the needs of the employees. While considering the example of MYOB, the organization mostly motivates the employees through providing them lucrative reward to the top performing employees. The employees of this organization are only motivated through monetary rewards towards enhancing their performance. Hence, after appraising the performance of the employees, the leaders provide lucrative reward to the top performers. It motivates the employees towards providing more effort and incorporating their creativity in the organizational success (Cerdin and Brewster 2014). On the other hand, the employees of Commonwealth Bank are highly motivated through recognition. Hence, the leaders of this organization have to mostly rely on praising the contribution of the employees in organizational success. They are more concentrated on succession planning for the employees towards their motivation and enhancing performance (Alfes et al. 2013). This comparison also proves that there cannot be any best practice for human resource management. In case of weak performers, who are identified in the performance assessment process, there is a need for enhancing their skills and abilities for meeting organizational objectives. According to Sultana (2014), training and development programs should always cover the basic as well as the set of good foundation for employee development. On the other hand, Vanhala and Ritala (2016) opined that covering only the basics can leave the employees short on their skills, as the content of the training program cannot connect back to the specific skills needed for their specific job roles and responsibilities. This situation has raised the needs for customizing the training and development programs as per the specific needs of the employees in different sectors. Moreover, there is not best practice of training and development program for developing the skills level of the employees. While considering the example of Sausage Software of Australia, the prime skill needed for the employees is technical skill. Therefore, the human resource managers of the organization mostly provide technical training to the employees towards producing best quality web editing tools. This type of training develops the technical skills of the employees, who have limited technical knowledge for fulfilling the specific technical needs of the organization (Sheehan 2014). On the other hand, the prime skill needed for the employees of Coles Supermarket is client interaction skills. It needs the development of interpersonal skills among the employees of the organization. Hence, this organization provides interpersonal training to the employees for enhancing the client interaction skills towards meeting the organizational objectives (Fulmer and Ployhart 2014). The nature of human resource management can also be varied control of leaders. According Vaiman and Collings (2013) the organizations, which are only productivity oriented, are more inclined to practice hard human resource practice in their leadership. The leaders of these organizations use to force the employees towards more and more productivity with no or little welling programs for the employees. Moreover, the leaders in these organizations are mostly autocratic in nature having huge control over the employees. For instance, the leaders of Wesfarmers are highly productivity oriented. Hence, the leaders of this organization use to follow hard human resource strategy for managing their employees and keeping them highly productive (Edwards et al. 2013). On the other hand, Marler and Fisher (2013) opined that the organizations, which are more quality oriented, are more inclined to practice soft human resource management. The leaders of these organizations always give priority to the needs and wellbeing of the employees. Moreover, they practice democratic leadership in their human resource management. Hence, employees are highly encouraged to put their efficiency in their jobs towards achieving organizational efficiency. For instance, the leaders of Cotton On use to practice soft HRM practice for having quality design in their cloths from the efforts of the employees (Paill et al. 2014). Moreover, the leadership styles cannot be same for all types of organizations and it varies from one organization to other depending on their needs. While considering the employee health security of different organizations, the strategies of employee health and safety should also be customized as per the business process of the organizations. Depending on the nature of the business process, there are different types of health and safety issues for the employees in different sector. In case of retail sectors, there are limited possibilities of employee health hazards, which can damage the health of the employees. On the other hand, in case of mining and chemical sectors, there are high chances of health hazards for the employees working in the workplace. However, health hazard like fire, infections are violence are very common in all kind of organizations. The security measures commonly adopted for retail employees are in terms of prevention for slips and trips, reducing manual handling of products and prevention measures for possible violence (Ma and Ye 2015). However, the employees in mining and chemical sector are most likely to face workplace hazards in terms of flammable atmosphere, ignition sources, contaminated chemicals and lots more. Hence, the HR manager of these sectors should be more concentrated on the health security strategy of the employees than the retail sector. There should be explosion venting, explosion suppression and avoidance of ignition sources (Chang et al. 2014). It again proves the same statement that there is no such best practice in human resource management. Conclusion While concluding the study, it can be said that there is there is no such thing as 'best practice' in HRM.One-size-fit approach is quite traditional in human resource management and it can be fit in todays business environment. Todays business organizations are more focused on providing customized products and service for beating the market competition. In such situation, the strategies for human resource management should also be customized for extracting the innovating ideas from them and meeting the dynamic needs of the customers. In case of skills development programs, the HR managers should specifically focus on the core organizational needs and then design the programs. In such extent, with different organizational needs in different sector, the training and development needs are also need to be different. Apart from that, the motivational factor for employees also varies from one employee to other depending on their needs. Hence, the motivational strategies of the organization s can also be different based on either reward strategy or recognition strategy. Apart from that, depending on the business needs, some organizations are highly productivity oriented and some others are highly employee oriented. In this way, the human resource practice is also different as per those business needs. References Alfes, K., Truss, C., Soane, E.C., Rees, C. and Gatenby, M., 2013. 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