Category: University of Mumbai BMS Notes

Employer brand describes an employer’s reputation as a place to work, and their employee value proposition, as opposed to the more general corporate brand reputation and value proposition to customers. The term was first used in the early 1990s, and has since become widely adopted by the global management community. Minchington describes employer brand as “the image of your organization as a ‘great place to work’ in the mind of current employees and key stakeholders in the external market (active and passive candidates, clients, customers and other key stakeholders). The art and science of employer branding is therefore concerned with the attraction, engagement and retention initiatives targeted at enhancing your company’s employer brand.”

Just as a customer brand proposition is used to define a product or service offer, an employer value proposition (also sometimes referred to as an employee value proposition) or EVP is used to define an organization’s employment offering. Likewise, the marketing disciplines associated with branding and brand management have been increasingly applied by the human resources and talent management community to attract, engage and retain talented candidates and employees, in the same way that marketing applies such tools to attracting and retaining clients, customers and consumers.

Growing Importance of Employer Branding

A candidate’s market, combined with new consumer behavior, has led to the rise in importance of employer branding as a Human Resources and Marketing Discipline. The market has shifted since the great recession in favor of candidates given low unemployment. This means that employers are fighting over the same small pool of candidates to fill their open roles, especially in hard to fill areas like data scientist and other STEM based roles.

Moreover, consumer behavior has changed the way that people look for jobs. The candidate journey isn’t simply a job seeker finding your job and applying. This is especially true of the best candidates they want to research a company and build a relationship with it over months before applying for a job. This creates a dynamic where companies who invest in employer branding are seeing lower cost per hire and time to fill.

Employer value proposition (EVP)

An employer value proposition encompasses your organization’s mission, values, and culture, and gives employees a powerful reason to work for you. It’s everything your company can offer as an employer, in exchange for all the skills and experience your employees bring to the table.

An organization benefits from a well-designed EVP, communicated often to both potential and current employees. A strong EVP can attract and retain the best people, help prioritize goals and agendas company-wide (especially in HR and workforce planning), help re-engage a dispassionate workforce, and reduce hiring costs. Most of all, it contributes to a favorable and robust employer brand.

The messaging you use to broadcast your employer brand and value proposition shouldn’t just be a list of the perks and benefits you offer, but these are an undeniable part of the story. An EVP is considered an employee-centered approach because it’s a proposition that’s been discovered, defined, and tested using existing employees. Before you craft your employer brand proposition, your company’s benefits should be well-established, well-defined, and a proven hit with your current employees. And if they’re not, and you’re looking to revamp things, consider what influences a person’s decision whether to accept a job offer or not, including:

• Company values and culture
• Company location(s) and facilities, including accessibility and convenience
• Overall compensation
• Career development
• Management style
• Team caliber and quality
• Quality of work
• Ongoing employee recognition
• Work-life balance, or proportion of work to time off
• Benefits, such as dental insurance and vacation time
• On-the-job perks like lunch, on-site childcare, flextime, and telecommuting
• Non-salary financial perks like commuter credits, bonuses, housing subsidies, relocation, and assistance
• Opportunities for travel and client exposure
• Opportunities to perform community service
• Job security

Employer Branding and Tools

There are now an emerging group of tools that can assist HR and Marketing teams in their employer branding efforts. Some of these tools were originally designed for marketing purposes. Others are existing HRTech that have evolved to have employer branding capabilities such as the newer generation of applicant tracking systems and job boards. There is also a small group of software providers that focuses explicitly on employer branding such.

Employer brand management

Employer brand management expands the scope of this brand intervention beyond communication to incorporate every aspect of the employment experience, and the people management processes and practices (often referred to as “touch-points”) that shape the perceptions of existing and prospective employees. In other words, employer brand management addresses the reality of the employment experience and not simply its presentation. By doing so it supports both external recruitment of the right kind of talent sought by an organisation to achieve its goals, and the subsequent desire for effective employee engagement and employee retention.

Employer brand proposition

As for consumer brands, most employer brand practitioners and authors argue that effective employer branding and brand management requires a clear Employer Brand proposition or Employee value proposition. This serves to: define what the organisation would most like to be associated with as an employer; highlight the attributes that differentiate the organisation from other employers; and clarify the strengths, benefits and opportunities of the employment offer.

Internal marketing

Internal marketing focuses on communicating the customer brand promise, and the attitudes and behaviours expected from employees to deliver on that promise. While it is clearly beneficial to the organisation for employees to understand their role in delivering the customer brand promise, the effectiveness of internal marketing activities can often be short-lived if the brand values on which the service experience is founded are not experienced by the employees in their interactions with the organisation. This is the gap that employer brand thinking and practice seeks to address with a more mutually beneficial employment deal / Psychological contract.

Brand-led culture change

Compared with the more typically customer centric focus of Internal marketing, internal branding / brand engagement takes a more ‘inside-out’, value-based approach to shaping employee perceptions and behaviours, following the lead of the highly influential ‘Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies’ study published in the mid-1990s. This sought to demonstrate that companies with consistent, distinctive and deeply held values tended to outperform those companies with a less clear and articulated ethos. While brand-led culture change is often the stated desire of these programmes their focus on communication-led, marketing methods (however, involving or experiential) has been prone to the same failings of conventional internal marketing. As Amazon.com’s founder, Jeff Bezos, asserts: “One of things you find in companies is that once a culture is formed it takes nuclear weaponry to change it”. You cannot simply assert your way to a new culture, no more can you assert your way to a strong brand, it needs to be consistently and continuously shaped and managed, which is one of the primary reasons many organisations have turned from the short term engagement focus of internal branding initiatives to more long term focus of employer brand management.

Use

Strategic in nature with a focus on the whole employee lifecycle from hire to retire, employer branding can also become a medium to hire. It can be used to hire through employee referral or referral recruitment.

How to improve your employer brand

To increase the number of quality, enthusiastic applicants vying for positions at your company, your CEO, leadership, marketing team, and recruiters can all help develop and growth your employer brand. Whether you have a big budget or small, whether you’re a large company or a start-up, there are plenty of strategies you can use to think like a marketer, build deep and meaningful relationships with your staff, and boost your employer brand like a boss.

1. Don’t focus on compensation

Your employer value proposition will be the strongest if you can talk about how a role will be meaningful (personally fulfilling or about a global good) or a superior work experience, over compensation, especially if you want to attract younger candidates. Your EVP should be unique, compelling, and tuned into the deeper motivations of why a person might want to join your team.

2. Start a company blog

If you’re a recruiter with a marketing mindset, you know that content and lots of it can be a great strategy for competing in a noisy marketplace. Job seekers often check out a company’s blog to get to know an organization on a more human level. You can post company news, culture updates, and articles written by your employees or company leaders, all in a personable voice. A blog can also be used to highlight the unique people policies, processes, and programs that show your organization’s commitment to employee happiness.

3. Use rich media

Use high-quality videos, photos, and slideshows to tell your company story, celebrate your diverse employees, and show off beautiful workspaces. A welcome video from your CEO or hiring manager is a great way to make an introduction, as are staff interviews talking about their experiences working for your organization. Plan and budget for these and other marketing costs at the start of each quarter.

4. Hire for diversity

It’s no surprise that who you hire says something about your brand. Having unique thinkers from a diverse range of backgrounds shows you’re not only walking the walk as an equal-opportunity employer, but also extending your brand’s reach (both customer, and employer) into new groups a sound business move, and a key strategy when building a powerful employer brand.

Factors that influence employee engagement are varied and very diverse. While there are some that depend on the prevailing culture within the organisation, there are also common threads for all individuals, and also individual factors that can significantly influence a person’s relationship with colleagues and their organisation. Take a look through our list of factors influencing engagement and see which ones you can apply to your own organisation or your own team members.

Employee engagement refers to an individual’s involvement and satisfaction with his or her work. Engaged employees are emotionally connected to one another and to their work. They are better able to relate to the direction of the company and feel that their roles contribute to the organization’s momentum.

Engaged employees are more productive and profitable, but only 30% of the workforce is actually engaged. What are some contributing factors, and what should you do to improve employee engagement in the workplace?

Quality of relationships with

• COLLEAGUES and peers
• the LINE MANAGER
• the ORGANISATION
• people OUTSIDE THE ORGANISATION (e.g. suppliers, press)

The relationship with the line manager

• How much AUTONOMY does the line manager provide?
• Does the line manager TRUST the employee?
• Does the line managers MICROMANAGE the employee?
• Can the employee MANAGE THEIR OWN WORKLOAD?
• Does the line manage provide OPPORTUNITIES FOR LEARNING?
• Feedback is DESIRED BUT NEVER GIVEN
• Feedback is CRITICAL AND NON-CONSTRUCTIVE

Career

• Lack of opportunities for PROMOTION OR ADVANCEMENT
• Stagnation in LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES both informal and formal

Behaviours

• The extent to which people in the organisation display CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOURS
• Whether DIVERSITY AND DIFFERENCE create distance or create closeness
• Do people work towards PERSONAL GOALS ONLY OR TEAM GOALS?

Organisation

• The perception of the QUALITY of the products the organisation produces
• Does the employee understand the VISION of the organisation?
• The extent to which the COMPANY VISION TRANSLATES TO WHAT THE EMPLOYEE DOES
• The perception of how much their individual CONTRIBUTION is making a difference
• To what extent is the organisation ADAPTING TO SOCIETAL CHANGES?
• The degree to which staff TRUST SENIOR LEADERS
• The organisation is mature and adept when it comes to SHARING INFORMATION, INCLUDING FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Recruitment

• The job sold at interview DOES NOT GEL WITH REALITY
• The CULTURE is found to be INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE INDIVIDUAL’S BELIEFS OR NEEDS

Reward and recognition

• The perception of FAIRNESS with regard salary and benefits
• Feeling IGNORED OR TAKEN FOR GRANTED

Wellbeing

• The degree to which people have WORK-LIFE BALANCE
• How much the person feels SUPPORTED in their personal needs e.g. family care
• AMOUNT OF WORK does not match of time available
• CHRONIC STRESS due to workload or other factors not managed by the organisation

Personal

• Does the employee TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR WORKPLACE PROBLEMS OR BLAME OTHERS?
• The degree of RESILIENCE the employee can call upon
• To what extent does the employee have a GROWTH MINDSET?
• Does the employee TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR OWN LEARNING?

Reasons

Management

Leadership sets the tone for company culture. Leaders are able to influence, produce change and motivate teams. The most effective leaders help employees see the value in their work and how it aligns with business goals and the direction of the company.

When the workplace becomes emotionally charged due to anxieties and unforeseen challenges, management has the ability to address the situation and curb potential conflict. If management is unable to calm employee anxieties and help teams refocus on the work, well … who will?

According to a study conducted by Cornerstone OnDemand and research firm Kelton, the top reason why employees stay in their current positions aside from compensation and benefits is “a good manager I enjoy working for.” Positive attitudes in management impact not only employee engagement, but also retention numbers.

Attitude

Happy employees are better at their work. We popularly believe that hard work and success make us happy, yet Harvard psychology research reveals that happiness brings us success. Employees are responsible for owning their own happiness. If you aren’t happy doing what you’re doing, you may need to look internally and take control of your situation and attitude.

According to another statistic, only 25% of job success is based on IQ, while the other 75% is based on our beliefs, connectedness to others and ability to manage stress.

Positivity impacts the brain significantly. Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage, found that positivity, or optimism, is the leading predictor of success in entrepreneurs and business leaders because they perceive more opportunities in the midst of challenges.

In many instances, leaders are in a prime position to lead by example. Exude the attitude you would want your employees to possess. Influence the attitudes of those around you. Positivity is contagious.

Health

Sickness and other health issues are a drain on employee productivity. Sick employees tend to call out for fear of infecting coworkers or simply because they feel more comfortable at home.

Tired employees also cost you productivity and money. In fact, fatigue carries estimated losses of more than $136 billion in lost profit, and 84% of the cost is not related to reduced productivity over a sick-related absence.

A remote workplace policy helps alleviate some of these concerns and encourages employees to work when and where they feel most effective. When implemented correctly, remote employees are likely to be as connected and engaged as those who work consistently in the office.

Technology

No matter how positive and engaged your employees are, they may remain unproductive without the right technology.

For example, a sales team in its early stages keeps track of leads using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, while a growing sales team needs a more sophisticated system like CRM software [link to CRM post] to manage the sales cycle and leads as they mature. Plus, ease of use through advanced technology keeps employees engaged, while outdated systems and redundant or tedious processes only lead to frustration.

The positive attributes of smart employees are enhanced by the right technology. Look into current processes and see how they might be improved through a technology upgrade. The productivity of your employees and your overall business stand to benefit.

Culture

Because employees feel more engaged when connected, collaboration has been linked to productivity and positivity. Employees who collaborate develop a better sense of how their input and roles play into the company structure. Create a culture that values input from everyone.

Without the proper culture, engagement spirals out of control. Culture – along with collaboration increases connectedness, and employees who feel outside of that connectedness tend to lose focus and underperform.

Recruiting from other countries

Knowing you need to attract talent from overseas to stay competitive is one thing; actually, going about it is quite another. For the University of Exeter this is about ensuring all employees are trained on the importance of collaborating and recruiting globally. “With all our young academics we’re talking to them about our global ambition, getting them involved in trips abroad and collaborating with other organisations. It’s broadening the horizons of everybody,” says HRD Jacqui Marshall. “It’s also really a lot more research on our parts really thinking about which disciplines we want and where they are in the world.”

Communicating well overseas

Liaising with line managers, senior executives and locally-based HR colleagues becomes much harder when you’re separated by thousands of miles. “The biggest challenge is managing a virtual team,” says Amec Foster Wheeler’s group HRD Will Serle. “You can no longer open the door and wander around your team. It requires you to form those relationships initially and then, because you can’t travel to places continuously, you have to put extra effort into maintaining those in a virtual way.”

Encouraging feedback

Being geographically dispersed can mean not only less frequent catch-ups but also a less open, trusting dynamic when you are communicating. Gordon Headley cites a situation at Tullow where standardising compensation and benefits had disgruntled some African employees. While his HR team on the ground were aware of the issue, they didn’t think to tell him as he was the boss. This is why getting out into the country and making it clear you’re open to feedback is so critical, he says.

Getting the HR function structure right

Implementing the best structure globally is a case of getting the balance right between plenty of expertise on the ground and maintaining a good level of central control and consistency, says Serle. “You don’t want your expertise duplicated in every country because then you lose your consistency,” he adds. “But then you have certain businesses which are happy with that; they don’t need things more joined up. There’s no one right way.”

Managing different, culturally influenced, career ambitions

A key challenge for Creditsafe has been inspiring employees in some European countries to aim for management level, while managing the expectations of the typically highly ambitious American staff. “In the UK and US people are very hungry to develop their careers in the way they’re perhaps not in some European countries. At that point it becomes a slightly different proposition in the way you sell it,” says HR and training director Gareth Way, explaining that in the US, by contrast, it’s about creating “more levels so people can still progress vertically and into other departments”.

Maintaining a sense of brand identity and loyalty

Where an organisation operates in many different regions it’s easy for company culture to become diluted. Campus Living Villages combats this with regular secondments and its management development programme Elev8, where modules are held in different territories. “For example, the group who started in 2014 did leadership in Houston, finance in Sydney, HR in Manchester and resident life in Utah. They’ll be doing facilities management in New Zealand next,” says global HRD Jan Wilman.

Ethical grey areas

Anyone who’s ever travelled, never mind headed up a global HR function, knows there are matters you previously held as morally black and white that become much less straightforward once you’ve engaged with another culture’s belief system. Serle says HRDs must know exactly where to draw the line. “It’s probably one of the single biggest challenges that an international business will face,” he says. “In our organisation we have a very clear set of values and behaviours that go with those, and in some countries where we have the opportunity to work we would really struggle to operate without compromising those values. So it’s critically important to know your views as an organisation.”

Compliance and International HRM Issues

As businesses begin to expand into the global marketplace or as they hire employees from diverse geographic and cultural backgrounds, they may have to adapt to new labor laws and tax liabilities. Doing business in Europe, for example, will require the business to pay value added tax. Hiring employees who are non-naturalized US citizens might require HR to apply for work visas and report economic data to the federal government. Compliance with international law can be an issue for the under-educated business owner or HR manager, because these laws tend to be complex and sometimes difficult to implement. Keeping well-informed of the legal requirements for the business’s operations can help alleviate some of this complexity and lessen the chances of landing in legal trouble.

Scope of Human Resource Management

With an increasing number of business operating on an international scale, the impact of globalization on hr can be tricky to navigate. Globalization means various laws, cultures and norms have to be taken into consideration when onboarding and crafting HR regulations. Some countries are more forward thinking where gender is concerned than others, and this distinction can lead to misunderstandings or worse, the loss of key personnel. It really would not be that hard to have a male manager handle the day-to-day operations in an area where female managers are frowned upon, just in case. Understanding the mechanism that makes each culture tick and implementing as little or as much needed so create balance is something to strive for.

Cultural Diversity and Global HR Issues

A salient issue in international HR is understanding and maintaining cultural diversity. Working with people from different locations or from different cultural backgrounds mean adapting the business’s work style to new ideas, new ways of communicating and unfamiliar social practices. If you hire an employee from England, for example, the employee might have different ideas about how to manage employees or on how to run technology processes based on her experiences back home. Being open to new work styles and cultural differences is the hallmark of cultural diversity in HR.

Benefits and Compensation

Benefits and compensation are the backbone of any HR strategy, but in international HR, benefits and compensation are even more important in focusing on the work-life balance of employees. The idea behind work-life balance is to provide employees with programs and initiatives that improve both their personal and professional lives. This is considered part of international HR, because many multinational companies have already implemented programs such as flexible working time, paternity leave, extended holidays and on-site childcare. In fact, many nations around the world, including much of Europe, mandate these programs by law. Implementing them on the local scale is one of the challenges and, ultimately, rewards of international HR.

Training and Development

Related to the idea of benefits and compensation in international HR are training and professional development programs. Training programs typically encompass in-house seminars and meetings designed to give employees on-the-job knowledge of skills that are important to doing business globally. HR might offer language classes, for example. Professional development encompasses the “extra” training that HR provides to its employees, such as allowing them to attend networking events and conferences, global training seminars and other specific competency-based programs. Professional development helps employees to hone their skills in global marketing, international business development and finance trends.

If Recruitment is an ongoing process then it means the company is growing. Recruitment is a process of hiring of identifying and acquiring skilled workers to meet your organizational needs. Recruitment Process includes defining the candidate requirements, need analysis, screening them and finalizing the right one for the role. Finding the best candidates in the market is not only a complex process but also time tedious task. This process takes a lot of time rather than focusing on other core functions. In order to attract best candidates to your organization with minimum time taken for hunting, you must set an example and showcase the appropriate reasons in the market of why any candidate should think working at your place would be a dream job.

Attracting the Right candidates

A job advertisement might be the first interaction between a potential employee and your company. For this reason, it needs to be accurate, truthful and interesting. The ad should include the following:

• Job description: The role’s core duties, responsibilities and tasks
• Person specification: The skills, qualities and experience you’re looking for (and whether they are ‘essential’ or ‘desirable’)
• Reward package: Salary details, plus information about bonuses, company car, holiday entitlement and commission if applicable
• Clear details of how to apply, with a deadline and your contact details

Recruitment is a never-ending process for any growing business. Before starting the process, the business should do proper need analysis of the open mandates. Internal hiring consumes lot of time and money, for which businesses can switch to new approaches of Recruitment which are mentioned below:

• Companies can use Social Media Platform like Facebook and LinkedIn to do the awareness about their open mandate positions, as now a days many of them check their social media accounts on regular basis for hunting jobs as well.
• Before informing externally about the Manpower Requirements, make sure you communicate it internally as well. This way of employees referring to their professional/ personal contacts helps businesses get the results faster.
• Adding the Job Description on the company website and giving an option to upload an updated CV and other platforms like LinkedIn, Glassdoor and Career Builder is another option. This way it gets easily crawled on Google Search Engine Platform and there is a high visibility from the candidates who are also looking for similar jobs.
• Make sure to add high level job description which covers the list of expected job tasks and get more qualified candidates.
• Partnering with the best Recruitment Agency is the best option to save time and money and to get quality results and immediate response.

Making an offer they can’t refuse

The job offer should always be made in writing. But don’t forget, a verbal job offer made in an interview is legally binding.

Once your preferred candidate has accepted your offer, you might need to do the following, if necessary:

• Check your candidate has the right to work in the specific Country
• Check qualifications, training or licences
• Gather professional or character references
• Organise a medical examination

The main objective of the recruitment process is to select the best possible candidate, taking into account the specific requirements of a particular vacancy. In other words, you should decide who is the best available person based on the given criteria.

Recruiting events merge recruitment marketing and event marketing strategies. By incorporating the tactics and strategies of recruitment with a physical event, a company can attract the best talent from a wider range of backgrounds. Engaging in face-to-face conversation, making eye contact, and shaking someone’s hand offers a type of perspective on an individual that you just can’t have when you’re just reading their resume on a screen. They are a real person and so are you! The best way to show that is to interact in-person at an event.

These events aim to hire individuals for open positions within a company. The most common image of a recruiting event is a long string of tables at a career fair with a multitude of businesses set up at each one. However, bigger companies are finding that experiential marketing methods can find top talent while also offering more to a candidate than just a pamphlet.

These innovative examples recruitment marketing strategies include:

• Hackathons
• Competitions
• Expos/Conferences
• Weekend Retreats
• Company-hosted Recruitment Fairs

Whichever type of recruitment event you choose, you should do your best to provide the best possible event communication. There are plenty of ways to do that. You can, for instance, produce aesthetically printed promotional materials describing the nature of the event, or prompt your guest to take their updated CV and prepare for a formal job interview.

Pre-event communication with the candidates

Alternatively, you can do this by means of the newest apps, like Eventory. This program supplies user-friendly notifications on the event. The extensive usage of this application is also relevant from another point of view: keep in mind that the vast majority of attendees use their smartphones on a regular basis. This is the reason why utilizing the app in promotion as well as networking may boost the results of your recruitment event.

Communication during the event

Needless to say, automation of communication during the recruitment event is especially advantageous when it comes to tackling the recruitment of a significant number of employees. The benefits of the app come to light during on-site job fairs as the software helps you to plan meetings with participants. This feature is pivotal, it takes into account the formal character of job interviews. An event app with a built-in user-friendly communicator is a real boon.

Post-event communication with the applicants

The Eventory software has another crucial advantage. Its intuitive communicator makes it easier to perform suitable follow-up, providing more detailed information about the hiring process and composing messages for candidates. This is extremely beneficial in reaching attendees who enter the next stage of recruitment.

Challenges and pitfalls of the recruitment event

Regardless of which recruitment technique you choose, there are numerous challenges that may slow down the whole process. Such obstacles are also present during the event, and their negative impact makes it difficult to finalize the goals of recruitment. Thus, it is worth taking a closer look at them and how to lessen their influence.

The only-one-communication-channel trap

In order to complete your recruitment goals, diversify communication channels. Heavy reliance on just one means of communication is a common error when it comes to recruitment activities. The information about the recruitment event should be visible in many channels. At this point, it is extremely important to reach a reasonable compromise between various forms of communication.

Putting an app to good use

It goes without saying that a notice about the particular event should be published on your website. On top of that, it is worth considering effective ways that may contribute to improving the promotion of your meeting. This aim may be accomplished by way of the latest technologies. It is worth highlighting that there are plenty of solutions, for example, Eventory, this software allows you to integrate your official recruitment website into the event mobile app.

This, in turn, enables you to get access to a larger pool of candidates. The mobile app livens up your ordinary online presence. Attendees who are willing to participate in your event are often very active. Thus they exchange information about the event by means of an app. Such an attitude results in creating a new community whose focal interest concentrates on the upcoming meeting. This situation is beneficial for the meeting itself as it multiplies possible networking options. On top of that, you may arrange networking sessions by using an app.

Planning recruitment stages with new technologies

Modern technology is also advantageous when it comes to planning the next recruitment stages. An innovative user-friendly communicator enables you to gather all relevant information from the most promising candidates. This feature also has another function. When you plan the next recruitment event, you can overview your digital correspondence in order to invite the applicants whose chances for final success are the highest.

Effective recruitment techniques are the key points of an event. Nevertheless, their importance should not overshadow other issues. Your company may use the event in order to enhance its own image and to make other people familiar with its organizational culture. This, in turn, may stir up the desire to work in your company.

1. Lack of Support:

People think that the human resource planning is unnecessary and time consuming. Workforce can be arranged anytime at the time of requirement, with attractive benefits and incentives so why human resource planning. They think it is an easy task to manipulate the workforce in the organization.

2. Wrong Perception about Human Resource Practitioner:

In this competitive business world, it is very difficult and challenging to compete with the rivals without formulating proper strategic plan. Many have the perception that the people who formulate the human resource plan are not expert in business, as a result of which they may commit error while formulating the human resource plan.

3. Incompatibility of Information:

A strategic plan is set for achieving the long-term goals or objectives of the organization. At the time of formulation of strategy, the used information is basically long term oriented. But the human resource planning is formulated using the short-term information. So, the information of human resource does not often match with the information of strategy formulation.

4. Approach Confliction:

While formulating human resource planning the organization must consider that how many people and how efficient people are needed for the smooth functionality of the organization. Many human resource practitioners give emphasis on number of employee and many other give emphases on the quality of the employee.

But both the approaches are equally important for the organization.

5. Absence of Operating Managers’ Co-Ordination:

Human Resource planning is one of the major functions of Human Resource department of every organization. Successful planning depends on the co-operation of all other existing departments. Mainly the operation managers’ coordination and support play very vital role in the success of human resource planning. But very often things do not go in right direction.

Main problems in the process of Human Resource Planning are as follows:

(i) Employees Resistance:

Many of the employees in India do not have faith in adopting manpower planning as a strategy to achieve objectives. Many business houses are planning to adopt more and more scientific techniques and using human resources with as much care as they give to physical and financial resources.

Employees and trade unions feel that due to widespread unemployment people will be available for jobs as and when required. Employees may also resist resources planning feel that it increases cost of manpower.

(ii) Time Consuming and Expensive:

Manpower planning is a time consuming and expensive method. A good deal of time and cost are involved in data collection and forecasting.

(iii) Uncertainties:

Absenteeism in India is quite high and trend shows that it has increased in the past few years with the result that it has assumed considerable magnitude in determining manpower requirements.

(iv) Inefficient Information System:

In Indian industries human resource information system has not fully developed. There is no reliable data due to which it is not possible to develop effective human resource plans.

(v) Inaccuracy:

Human resource planning involves forecasting the demand for and supply of human resources. Therefore, it cannot be a cent percent accurate process. Longer the time horizon, greater is the possibility of inaccuracy. Inaccuracy increases when departmental forecasts are merely aggregated without critical review.

(vi) Under Utilization of Manpower:

The greater obstacle in the case of manpower planning is the fact that industries in general are not making use of their manpower to the optimum degree and once planning starts, it encounter heavy odds in stepping up utilization.

(vii) Lack of Education and Skilled Labour:

The extent of illiteracy and the slow pace of development of skilled categories, account for low productivity in the labour force. Low productivity has implications for manpower planning.

(viii) Unbalanced Focus:

In some companies human resource planning is used as a number’s game. There is too much focus on the quantitative aspect to ensure the flow of people in and out of the organization.

Such an exclusive focus overlooks the more important dimension, i.e., the quality of human resources. Career planning and development, skill labour, morale etc. are likely to suffer due to such unbalanced approach to human resource planning.

Overcome

(i) Adequate Organization:

Human resource planning function should be properly organized. A separate cell, section or committee may be constituted within the human resource department to provide adequate focus, and to coordinate the planning efforts at various levels.

(ii) Organized System:

Human Resource Planning function should be properly organized. A separate section may be constituted within the human resource department to provide adequate focus, and to coordinate the planning efforts at various levels.

(iii) Support from Top Management:

Before starting the human resource planning process, the support and commitment of top management should be ensured. Moreover, the exercise should be carried out within the limits of a budget.

(v) Proper Information System:

An adequate Information system should be developed for human resources to facilitate human resource planning.

(vi) Tailor Made:

Human resource plans should be balanced with the corporate plans of the enterprises. The methods and techniques used should fit in the objectives, strategies and environment of the particular organization.

(vii) Appropriate Time:

The period of a human resource plan should be appropriate to the needs and circumstances of the specific enterprise.

(viii) Greater Participation:

Greater participation of line managers at all levels in Human Resource Planning process should be there.

(ix) Flexibility:

Enough flexibility in Human Resource Plans to take care of changing situations.

(x) Proper Focus:

The quantity and quality of human resources should be stressed in a balanced manner. The focus should be on filling up future vacancies with right kind of people who can help in achieving the objectives of the organisation.

The following factors will influence the HR policies of an organization:

Laws of the country

The various labour laws and legislation pertaining to labour have to be taken into consideration. Policies should conform with the laws of the country, state, and/or province otherwise they are bound to cause problems for the organization.

Social values and customs

Social values and customs have to be respected in order to maintain consistency of behavior throughout the organization. The values and customs of all communities should be taken into account when framing policies.

Management philosophy and values

Management philosophy and values influence its action on matters concerning employees. Therefore, without a clear, broad philosophy and set values, it would be difficult for employees to understand management.

Financial impact

HR policies may affect productivity and an organization’s overall finances if they create unnecessary burdens or red tape for the organization’s workforce. Organizations may also want to consider how realistic it is to enforce a policy fairly or keep it up-to-date as these have the potential to create issues amongst employees.

Factor 1. Company Business Policy:

After having designed a business policy, a company would want to ensure that it has the right number of employees with the right type of skills and commitments to carry out the policy. It would also like to close the gap between the required number and the qualities of employees and the available number and qualities at the shortest possible time.

In other words, a company’s human resource policy is designed with the objective to execute its business policy irrespective of whether it is market driven or resource driven. It should be kept in mind that the execution of a business policy becomes easy when at the first place it is formulated taking into account the company’s internal human resource environment, its strengths and weaknesses adequately.

In the absence of such integration of human resource assessment with the business policy design, an organization may find that despite a very well-designed business policy the business outcome of the organization is far from satisfactory.

The problem with such business policies is that because the company did not consider the internal organizational structure, employee competencies, their culture and beliefs adequately, the post-facto alignment of human organization with its business goals becomes very difficult if not impossible. The more is the number and variety of employees in an organization, the more would be the level of difficul­ties that the organization is likely to face in shaping its human organization to meet its strategic require­ments.

Example: Let us take the case of a manufacturing company that uses lots of purchased items in its production and assembly shops. Over a period of time, it finds that its economic space is shrinking due to the entry of new players. To stay alive, the company decides to cut its operating cost substantially. It finds that most of the new players in the industry are already using SAP (Systeme, Anwendungen, Produkte or System Application and Products) technology to manage their supply chain and are reaping good benefits of reduced operating cost and more effective stores management.

However, the company took a lot of time in deciding to adopt the SAP technology because it was worried over the lack of managerial expertise to use SAP technology. It checked with a vendor who was willing to supply the SAP package and as a part of the contract was willing to provide the required training to all its man­agers. The company went ahead and signed a contract with the vendor for a year to impart SAP training to all of its managers who comprised more than 1000.

What happened was that even after the training was successfully completed by the vendor and all the trained managers went back to their respective po­sitions, no more than 50% of the managers were using the SAP technology. The question is what went wrong?

In organizations where business policies are driven by employee strengths in terms of their un­derstanding of business opportunities and their confidence to cope with the challenges of creating a niche for themselves, the task of executing a business policy becomes much easier. It becomes easy because the business policy has already factored the areas of organizational issues that could pose a challenge and made adequate resource provisions including the time to achieve the business goal.

Factor 2. Social Forces:

Social forces and their effects on the supply of educated and experienced manpower in the economy are important considerations that a company has to take care while formulating HR policies and strategies. A policy which may appear very appropriate from the business point of view may be non­-executable because the manpower supply position of the market is quite inadequate.

Similarly, certain types of rewards and incentive policies which may appear very attractive because they have been tested in organizations in other countries may turn out to be quite inappropriate in one’s organization because they are not well aligned with the cultural beliefs and values of the employees. A workforce with varied ethnic background poses another challenge and obstacle in implementing a very individual- oriented performance management system.

Factor 3. Regulatory Forces:

The HR managers when designing HR policies should be fully conversant with the existing labour regulations. A good number of regulations aim at protecting the workers from undue hardship and strain.

It is important that the strategic design of a HR policy takes the extant of labour regulations into account lest unwarranted labour query and interventions from labour commissioner and/or judiciary come in the way which may not only delay the implementation of certain HR policies but in a worst-case scenario damage a company’s reputation very severely.

Factor 4. Technological Forces:

Due to availability of information technology and communication system, new types of HR policies, and practices are emerging. When others are already using a new technology and are executing employment contracts with the new technology, its non-use in a com­pany is likely to make the operating cost higher than those of its competitors.

As such when strate­gically designing the HR policy, the company should consider the emerging technological scenario and opportunities that such change may provide in all important areas of HR functions.

Factor 5. Competition and Competitor Behaviour:

While designing HR policies, labour market conditions and employment practices of competitors are important considerations to be taken care of. Under conditions of tight labour market, a company may have to adopt a very flexible approach. It must be willing to spend more for maintaining a stable workforce and motivating the employees for higher work effort.

On the other hand, workers of an or­ganization may show higher receptivity to tough employment condition when overall labour demand is low and not much new business investments and opportunities are coming in the neighbourhood.

The presence of a good number of strong competitors for manpower could be a threat to one’s own policy as well as opportunity to experiment with new types of employment practices. A company could learn from the successes and failures of new HR initiatives and experiences of others. It could even use others’ practices as a justification and selling point for a new policy.

Example: A few decades back temporary employment practice as an HR policy was totally unacceptable to labour unions in India. Many of them went on strike and resorted to other forms of disruptive activities. But now we see temporary employment practice has become the standard business practice with little resistance from the labour unions.

Factor 6. Internal HR Environment:

The external human resource environment is an important factor that helps in shaping the human resource policies of a company. However, an HR policy shaped entirely by considering the character­istics of the present external human resource environment and company business goals may not yield much worthwhile business result for a company that has been working for a good many years with a completely different HR system.

When designing any new HR policy an assessment should be done of the internal HR environment of the company including the expectations, beliefs, and values of the employees who got used to certain kind of HR services from their managers.

The areas of internal HR environment critical to the success of any new HR policy are employee number and their com­petencies, organizational structure and power relations between different groups, employee belief, value and organizational culture, managerial experience, expertise and philosophy on the use and role of HR.

HR Policies Options

The HR strategy or HR policy of an organization emerges after considering six factors:

(i) Company business strategy

(ii) Labour market competition

(iii) Labour market regulation

(iv) Social forces

(v) Technological forces

(vi) Company internal HR environment.

Then what are the possible HR policy options that an organization can pursue to achieve its long-term business goals.

Some of these policy options are as follows:

1. Strategy on employment contract: Short-term employment, contract employment, long-term employment.
2. Strategy on employee number: Manpower expansion, manpower contraction, selective area spe­cific expansion and contraction.
3. Strategy on manpower variety: Diversity of age, gender, ethnic background, learning background.
4. Strategy on HR system: Selective expansion along specific areas of HR systems.
5. Strategy on work system: Functional separation to integrated system, mixed system of functional separation and integration.
6. HR strategy to meet generic business strategy: Cost leadership, differentiation, and focus.

The design, delivery, and goal of HR services under each of these strategies are different.