Tag: University of Mumbai BMS Notes

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.

HR policies may be of two types, namely formal and informal. About informal HR policies, Michael J. Jucius has rightly observed that many personnel policies undoubtedly have just grown. In such instances, everyone seems to know, without being told and without knowing where it originated, that a certain type of decision will be made in certain situations. Such policies are informal, and as such their framing or establishment cannot be analysed.

However, some useful comments can be made about formal policies.

Most of the HR policies should be framed by the higher level of management with the advice and assistance of staff of the HR department. Framing of HR policies is also affected by the consultation and advice of employees, day-to-day problems by the management, social and political changes, international happenings and so on.

It is the responsibility of an efficient and effective HR manager to frame HR poli­cies and make necessary changes and amendments from time to time, whenever necessary. In the fram­ing of HR polices, weightage should be given to the views, advice and suggestions of such people who are likely to be impacted by those HR policies.

Such people make a lot of relevant information available for the formation of HR policies. When the rough draft is made, it should be sent to the representatives of employees, departmental heads and experts for their perusal, comments and suggestions, if any.

Maximum attention should be paid to the comments, criticism and observations made by the employees because these are the people who are most effected by HR policies. Then ultimately, the HR policies should be finally drafted and declared. There is every justification for framing the HR policies by the higher level of management in consultation with other agencies.

It brings consistency and uniformity in the decisions and actions of the Organisation. It can be illus­trated with an example. Take the matter of awarding punishment for the acts of indiscipline. In an Organisation, practically every executive has to take disciplinary actions at one time or another.

In case there is no HR policy laying down the nature and quantum of punishment for different types of acts of indis­cipline, every executive will have to use his/her own discretion in awarding the punishment. Obviously, it will differ from executive to executive, and cases will not be wanting in which the nature and quantum of punishments may differ widely, though the offence may be the same.

This may lead to discontentment among employees and, thus, may prove an obstacle in the way of the accomplishment of the desired objectives of the organisation. Hence, it will be a better proposition if policies on such matters are framed by higher-level management to cover all parts of the organisation so that there may be uniformity and consistency in the decisions and acts of the management.

While framing HR policies, we should also keep in view the objectives, cost and utility of the policies as also the reaction of trade unions. The successful implementation of a policy needs the sincere coop­eration of trade unions. Hence, trade union leaders should also be taken into confidence while framing HR policies or for that matter any policy.

The principles of justice, democracy and equality, and the recognition of the needs of employees, should also be taken care of in the preparation of HR policies. The policies framed having kept in view the aforementioned points, more often than not, prove effective.

Once the HR policies are framed, there comes the problem of their transmission and application. As a matter of fact, it is the middle management and the first-line supervisors who will be more concerned with the transmission and application of HR policies.

Middle management should be responsible for communicating the policy formulation to operating levels. Here, communication involves a lot of functions such as interpretation of policies, clarification of areas of uncertainty and misunderstanding and also imparting training to lower-level staff in policy application.

Formulation of HR policies considers a number of factors- organizational philosophy, HR philosophy, external factors, and internal factors. When all these factors are taken into consideration, there may be a number of policy alternatives in relation to a particular matter, for example, recruitment, development, compensation, etc. That alternative is chosen which matches with the maximum number of factors.

After the choice, a policy is put into action and its results are known. If the policy is workable, it is adopted as a long-term measure. However, each policy should be reviewed periodically to incorporate necessary changes because of changes in any of the factors influencing HR policies.

1. Organizational and HR Philosophy:

Organizational philosophy is based on the philosophy of those who create and manage an organization. Philosophy is the set of beliefs and assumptions about how things happen and how they should happen. HR philosophy is derived out of organizational philosophy which reflects the approach that would be adopted in managing human resources in the organization.

2. External Factors:

HR polices are formulated not in vacuum but take into consideration various external factors on which the organization does not have control. These external factors are government’s policy towards management of people in the form of various relevant laws, guidelines, and other specifications; nature of competition for human resources, socio- cultural attitudes towards work, productivity of human resources, and image of the organization in the human resource market.

3. Internal Factors:

Besides the external factors, there are various internal factors in the organization which influence the applicability of a particular HR policy. These factors are the nature of work in the organization — a computer software company may not have the same HR policies as a manufacturing organization with low-level technology, sudden change in the organization like large-scale diversification or contraction of business activities, pressures from trade unions, etc.

4. Policy Alternatives:

When these factors are taken into consideration, various policy options may emerge on a particular issue. For example, when a vacancy arises at a middle management, the issues that emerge are- whether the position should be filled-up by promotion of internal person or it should be filled-up by appointing a new manager.

If the policy states that the position should be filled-up by internal promotion, another issue arises whether the promotion should be made on the basis of merit or seniority and defining the yardsticks for measuring merit or seniority. Similar such issues arise on other matters too.

5. Policy Choice:

The identification of various policy alternatives leads to the level where managers can consider some alternatives seriously and choose one of these which is most acceptable in the light of various factors which influence the workability of HR policies. The chosen policy is not necessarily the best one but it is best one in a given situation. That is why it is referred to as the most acceptable one.

6. Policy in Action:

When a particular policy is chosen, it is put in action for the guidelines to managers concerned and results are obtained. If the results are in accordance with the objectives of the policy, the policy is workable. However, if the results do not match with the objectives, the same process of policy formulation proceeds with new information inputs regarding all those factors which influence applicability of HR policies.

7. Review:

HR policies are formulated in the light of given situation. However, the situational variables are not static but they are dynamic and change with the time. Therefore, in order to integrate these changes, there should be periodic review of HR policies in the light of these factors and suitable changes must be incorporated.

For example, when Madura Garments, a division of Madura Coats, was taken over by Kumarmangalam Birla Group, many managerial personnel left the division which created a managerial vacuum and employee morale turned to be quite low.

In order to rebuild the division, many actions were taken in which change in compensation was one of these and there was a hefty salary hike of 50-60 per cent of all employees.

Because of changed situations, Hindustan Unilever, once the choice employer of managerial talents, has incorporated many changes in its HR policies to attract and retain managerial talents such as provision of 2-3 months training abroad for all new recruits in management cadre, direct entry of experienced managerial talents at the middle management level, offering of stock option scheme, and special emphasis on recruiting woman employees.

Regarding the form in which HR policies should be communicated, it may be mentioned that many policies are stated in oral or may be informal, but it is better if policies are in writing. Written policies are definitely an improvement over oral or informal policies. There is no doubt that written policies need more time and labour to prepare, but they are worth it, because written policies impart precision, permanence and ease of transmission.

They can be produced for auditing or evaluation whenever required without any loss of time. They can also be used as training manuals. Hence, it may be suggested that it is always desirable to prepare policies with a careful selection of words and having clarity and should be in printed form.

So far as the line supervisors are concerned, they should be responsible for applying HR policies. In some cases, the HR department should also be responsible for applying HR policies in their respective fields.

(i) Facilitates decision-making. Policy helps managers at various levels to act with confidence without the need of consulting the superiors every time. It gives them alternatives to choose from.

(ii) Promptness of action: When situations arise that call for decisions, policy will ensure prompt action within the overall framework of the objectives of the organisation.

(iii) Consistency of action: Effective policies ensure uniform and consistent treatment of all employees throughout the organisation. Sound personnel policies are, therefore, an essential base for sound personnel practices. Policies provide the base for management by principle as contrasted with management by expediency.

(iv) Continuity and stability: Written policies are a means of transmitting the company’s heritage from one generation of executives to another. There would be stability in decision making in the organisation even if some key executives retire or leave the organisation.

(v) Better control: Policy provides a rational and continuous system of achieving results which facilitates better control.

(vi) Eliminates personal hunch and bias: Clearly laid down policy liberates decision-maker from his personal bias and self-interest.

(vii) Welfare of people: By removing momentary and hasty decisions, policy ensures long-term welfare of people involved in the organisational activities.

(viii) Confidence in employees: Policy makes the employees aware of where they stand in relation to the organisation. This will create confidence in them.

Limitations of HR Policies:

HR policies may suffer from some limitations which are as follows:

(i) Policies are repeatedly used plans. They bring about rigidity in operations as they leave no room for initiative by the subordinates.

(ii) Policies may not cover all the problems. Sometimes, unforeseen situations arise which are not covered by the existing policies.

(iii) Policies are no substitute for human judgement. Policies only delimit the areas within which decisions are to be made.

(iv) Policies may not be ever-lasting as they lose their utility with the changes in the internal and external environment of the business.

Effective HR Policies

For making the HR policies more effective, it is necessary that they are established in accordance with good standards. They should be reviewed from time to time. There should be a set of standards to check the effectiveness of a particular HR policy.

Michael J. Jucius has suggested some guidelines to check whether a policy will be effective or not.

According to him, the checks or guide­lines may be whether the policy is based upon a careful analysis of the objectives and ideals of the com­pany; whether it is definite, unambiguous, complete and accurately stated; whether it is reasonably stable and not subject to change because of temporary changes in existing conditions; whether it has sufficient flexibility to handle normal variations in changed conditions; whether it is related to policies of other sections of the company so that proper balance of complementary policies is established; and whether it is known and understood by all who must work with it or are affected by it. In case the answers are in affirmative, it means the policy would be good and vice versa.

HR policies must match employee expectations. Policies aiming to cultivate inclusion must match up with the daily reality of employees.

Through its new research report, ‘The Day-to-day Experiences of Workplace Inclusion and Exclusion’, Catalyst, a USA-based non-profit organisation that promotes inclusive workplaces for women, discov­ered three critical lessons about employee experiences:

(a) inclusion and exclusion happen at the same time for many employees

(b) inclusion is really difficult to grasp and define.

(c) exclusion is powerful and easy to recall.

Through its cross-regional study, the report captures the voices of employees across 42 organisations in 5 countries Canada, China, India, Mexico and the USA to better understand their everyday interaction. The three critical lessons Catalyst discovered often create a dilemma for many leaders because they must both create inclusive cultures while rooting out exclusionary behaviours.

HR policies should also be periodically reviewed. This will help determining which HR policy needs to be dropped or changed or whether there is a necessity of having an additional policy.

For this, Michael J. Jucius has suggested a variety of appraisal methods such as all policies should be subject to some, if not extended, evaluation annually; some policies should be reviewed at specific times such as when collective bargaining agreements must be renegotiated; policies of each department may be reviewed when budgetary requests are made; spot or overall appraisal of policies may be made by out­side consultants (this could be done after trouble develops, but preferably, it should be a constructive preventive measure); policies should be subject to review when the desirability is indicated by employee suggestions, employee grievances or unsatisfactory reports on employee performance or behaviour; and policies should be subjected to review whenever a company plans a major expansion or contraction, a change to a new location or a change of methods.

Thus, we find that Michael J. Jucius has very aptly suggested certain tests to check if the policy will prove good or not. Similarly, a variety of appraisal methods suggested by him for effecting periodical review of policies and introducing changes wherever necessary have got immense practical utility.

Advantages

The following advantages are achieved by setting up HR policies:

• They help managers at various levels of decision making to make decisions without consulting their superiors. Subordinates are more willing to accept responsibility because policies indicate what is expected of them and they can quote a written policy to justify their actions.
• They ensure long term welfare of employees and makes for a good employer-employee relationship as favoritism and discrimination are reduced. Well-established policies ensure uniform and consistent treatment of all employees throughout the organization.
• They lay down the guidelines pursued in the organization and thereby minimizes the personal bias of managers.
• They ensure prompt action for taking decisions because the policies serve as standards to be followed. They prevent the wastage of time and energy involved in repeated analyses for solving problems of a similar nature.
• They establish consistency in the application of the policies over a period of time so that each one in the organization gets a fair and just treatment. Employees know what action to expect in circumstances covered by the policies. Policies set patterns of behavior and permit employees to work more confidently.

Money isn’t everything when it comes to keeping employees happy. While compensation is an important factor contributing to overall job satisfaction, other criteria matter more, according to a CareerBliss.com study reported by “Forbes” writer Meghan Casserly. Control over daily tasks is one of the most important work characteristics for producing happiness on the job. High involvement work teams improve productivity and happiness by giving workers more autonomy and encouraging cooperative work efforts.

High Involvement Management Practices (HIMPs) are policies and procedures that seek to increase employee involvement in management decision making, and to equip employees with the skills and autonomy to identify improvements in firm processes.

The aim of encouraging such involvement is to increase employee job satisfaction and effort, encourage employee investment in their own productivity and improve commitment. If successful, HIMPs could increase productivity and wages, and reduce turnover, building further firm specific human capital. This increased job stability may allow employees to build further firm specific knowledge and make employers more willing to invest in training and internal promotion, thus increasing progression.

HIMPs also typically involve providing employees with management information and implementing procedures to improve information flows from workers to management. It is hoped that this will increase innovation within the firm, encourage job autonomy and increase the likelihood of workers being ‘noticed’ for potential career progression.

Highly Skilled Workers

For high involvement teams to work, workers need to be knowledgeable in their fields. High involvement work teams are most common at organizations who recruit well-educated, accomplished individuals for all positions. Giving these workers autonomy is the best way to keep them happy and get the most out of your talent pool. Although a team’s success depends on the strategies used, coming up with effective strategies depends on people who are creative and hard-working in the first place.

Autonomy

Some companies operate with a top-down approach. A manager tells lower-level employees what to do, outlines sub-tasks, defines deadlines and assigns responsibilities. High involvement work teams are less hierarchical, giving everyone more freedom to decide the specifics of approaching a larger project. A manager provides an overview of what needs to get done then it’s up to the team to collectively decide who does what and how individual tasks will be handled. The most mundane tasks aren’t passed to lower-level employees. Everyone handles a variety of different responsibilities, which prevents boredom and disillusionment.

Focus on Learning

High performance work teams are focused on learning and continuous improvement. The team’s mandate isn’t just to get a job done, but to use competitive intelligence, market information and internal statistics to find better ways to do things. To make high performance work teams their most effective, managers need to focus on employee continuing education and career development, too. Sending people to conferences and footing part of the bill for education upgrades produces a workforce equipped to think outside of the box.

Flexibility, Efficiency and Productivity

Although high involvement work teams do increase workplace satisfaction, the reason why most companies choose this structure is because it gets results that drive a healthy bottom line. When team members feel comfortable taking on a number of different responsibilities, the organization is more flexible to react quickly to changes in demand or market conditions. According to an article published in “Quality Insider” magazine, introducing high involvement work teams helped Johnson & Johnson reduce inventory by $6 million. 3M increased production gains by 300 percent at one of its facilities.

There are three other organizational resources that need to be decentralized in order for employees to have the capacity to create high performance organizations:

• Knowledge that enables employees to understand and contribute to organizational performance. Knowledge includes both technical knowledge to do the job or provide the service; business knowledge for managing the organization; and interpersonal, problem-solving and decision skills for working together as a team.
• Information about the performance of the organization. Such information includes data related to production (revenues, costs, sales, profits, cost structure); customer satisfaction; and benchmarks with other companies.
• Rewards for high performance, including adjusting the compensation structure to be aligned with the behaviors, outcomes, and capabilities required for high performance. Employees may be paid on the basis of the knowledge and skills needed in the work environment to get the job done. There also may be performance-based pay that is allocated on a group or team basis and may include, for instance, profit sharing, gain sharing or group-based salary bonuses.

Identifying and implementing workforce strategies in a challenging global economy is a high-priority issue for top executives. To be successful, human resource professionals and business leaders together must grapple with the many variables that affect the organization’s ability to attain its strategic objectives. They must develop quantitative and qualitative approaches to efficiently and effectively attract, engage and retain human capital. Specifically, to be effective, business leaders must focus on the five key areas:

• Workforce planning.
• Organizational capability assessment.
• Organizational development and structure.
• Diversity and Inclusion.
• Change management

Workforce planning involves analyzing the workforce implications of a business plan and developing solutions to address them. Steps include:

• Analyzing the organization’s strategic goals.
• Determining competencies required to attain those goals (needs analysis).
• Conducting a talent assessment of the employee population.
• Performing a labor market analysis (availability).
• Identifying the gap between the current capabilities and the needs, which forms the basis of a talent-build (employee development), borrow (use of a contingent workforce and project-based work) or buy (staffing) matrix.

The resulting talent acquisition strategy will depend in part on the organization’s life-cycle stage. Organizations in the introduction phase, for example, will emphasize acquiring exceptional as opposed to acceptable talent or building or moving talent.

Attraction

Efficient and effective methods of attracting and acquiring talent are critical to success. In a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis, “strengths” refers to the organizational qualities that would be difficult for a competitor to replicate. Because methods for producing products tend to be similar, an organization can distinguish itself from its competitors by developing and communicating its unique people advantage.

Filling the talent gap involves implementing robust methods of attracting, sourcing, screening, interviewing, hiring, onboarding and retaining human capital, as well as developing staffing management metrics to measure efforts within each of these areas.

Attracting talent includes creating or refining an employment brand, as well as communicating the message through people, process and technology solutions. Categorizing channels according to the 7 Sourcing Segments®, identified by the consulting firm Kaufman, VonStuben and Associates, helps streamline these efforts:

• Mass media.
• College relations.
• Affinity groups.
• Referral programs.
• Direct talent scouting.
• Special events (e.g., open houses, career fairs).

Working within each segment before identifying specific needs allows organizations to consistently communicate an employment brand and further decrease acquisition time by inviting talent to apply and prequalify in advance of actual needs.

Motivation

To perpetuate and build on a competitive people advantage, organizations must understand what attracts and motivates employees. Motivational factors frequently cited in research include:

• Training, development and career.
• Immediate management.
• Performance management.
• Equal opportunities and fair treatment.
• Pay and benefits.
• Health and safety.
• Family friendliness.
• Job satisfaction.

Leaders of high-performing organizations must strive to understand the mix and multitude of motivational and engagement factors and to introduce efforts to influence them. Diversity and individual values also play an important role in engagement.

Retention

Effective retention strategies revolve around how the organization’s managers and employees interact, how the organization develops and presents talent, and how these behaviors come to life within the work environment and brand. Organizations must develop and implement human capital strategies that encourage, support and hold people managers responsible for retention. These strategies include ensuring that talent-buy and talent-build efforts feed a culture in which people are appreciated and included. This begins with an organization’s values statement and is carried out via its performance management system. Accordingly, managers should hire individuals who mirror organizational values as well as demonstrate those values through their behaviors. If diversity and inclusion are values, for example, behaviors related to them are included in performance plans and measured, rewarded or corrected.

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of an organization’s capabilities will contribute to achieving defined business goals through skills analysis, job design, role clarification and performance measures. These measures also benefit the employee populations, the shareholders, and the communities in which the organization operates.

Human resource professionals, for example, must continually employ efforts to analyze redundancies within organizations and be willing to make tough, courageous decisions and recommendations. This is not necessarily a negative for employees: These activities can contribute to more clearly defined responsibilities, expanded roles, enriched careers and more appropriate compensation.

Not only must organizations look at human capital from a business (versus from a historical personnel) perspective, but they must also consider the implications of decisions. For example, if analysis dictates a workforce reduction, organizations must incorporate strategies to mitigate lower productivity as a result of “survivor guilt,” maintain stock prices (if publicly traded), continue attracting and retaining customers, and maintain corporate and social responsibilities. Not taking these steps may result in a failure to realize the full benefits of a reduction. Organizations that reduce the workforce to save money but subsequently suffer losses in productivity do not realize the anticipated savings.

Diversity and Inclusion

Diversity and inclusion strategies should focus on how to unleash the power of inclusion within organizations by helping employees understand how decisions can be made together, how teams operate more effectively, how to better appreciate employees’ respective “otherness” and how the collective “otherness” can have a positive impact on the marketplace served. When addressed correctly, diversity and inclusion can have dramatically positive outcomes for the business. Conversely, when misunderstood and misapplied, they can leave a workforce with a “flavor of the day” attitude or, even worse, bitter and resentful.

Historically, organizations have focused diversity efforts primarily on visual diversity and frequently communicated diversity attributes, including gender, age, physical ability, national origin, sexual orientation, race and religion. However, organizations have evolved beyond that to a point where they must also consider how an individual’s acculturation (the habits formed as a result of experience or communal or family upbringing) affects how work is accomplished. Organizations must ponder how they can become more competitive by understanding and exploiting differences for the benefit of fellow employees, stockholders, the community and customers. They must also consider how to prove the value of diversity and inclusion strategies through quantifiable and business-related metrics. Depending on where an organization is on the diversity continuum, it could take years to go from concept to completion. Inclusion is a journey, not a destination.

Change Management

Organizations often fail in implementing strategies. It is not uncommon to have a consultant and cross-functional team come together to address an issue and assemble volumes of data, and then to have the results sit in dusty binders on executives’ bookshelves. When decisions are made about a different way to conduct business, implementation of those ideas is critical, and change management is the vehicle by which to do so.

“Change management is the process of continually renewing an organization’s direction, structure and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers.

HR practices to business strategy and one another

This issue of fitting HR practices to business strategy is becoming increasingly important and relevant HR issues for HR staff and line managers.

HR fit involves making sure HR activities make sense and help the organization achieve its goals and objectives.

The three aspects of HR fit are:

• Vertical fit

This aspect of vertical fit concerns the coincidence between HR practices and overall business strategy.

• Horizontal fit

This relates to the extent to which HR activities are mutually consistent. Consistency ensures that HR practices reinforce one another.

• External fit

The third aspect concerns how well HR activities match the demands of the external environment. Ensuring these aspects of fit requires HR practice choices. The challenge is to develop internally consistent configurations of HR practice choices that help to implement the firm’s strategy and enhance its competitiveness.

There is a need for strategic flexibility along with a strategic fit for the long-term competitive advantage of the firm.

The fit is defined as a temporary state in an organization, whereas flexibility is defined as the firm’s ability to meet the demands of the dynamic environment.

The two types of flexibility identified are:

Resource Flexibility

Resource flexibility is the extent to which a firm can apply its resources to a variety of purposes. It also involves the cost, difficulty, and time needed to switch resources from one use to another.

Coordination flexibility

Coordination flexibility concerns the extent to which an organization has decision­making and other systems that allow it to move resources quickly from one use to another.

The following four components of SHRM:

1. It focuses on an organization’s human resources (people) as the primary source of competitive advantage of the organization.
2. The activities highlight the HR programs, policies, and practices as the means through which the people of the organization can be deployed to gain competitive advantage.
3. The pattern and plan imply that there is a fit between HR strategy and the organization’s business strategy (vertical fit) and between all of the HR activities (horizontal fit).
4. The people, practices, and planned patterns are all purposeful, that is, directed towards the achievement of the goals of the organization.

Transforming HR Staff

There exists a significant difference in the skills needed by HR staff in the traditional and strategic orientations to HRM. In traditional HRM staff had to be specialized in certain functional areas like interviewing, recruitment and training.

The strategic HRM role played by HR professionals is “change management”, involving strategic planning, team building and having a global perspective.

Most HR units will face a significant transformation to manage human resources with a new strategic view.

Transforming the Organizational Structure

In transforming the HR structure from traditional to SHRM, it is common for the organizational unit to restructure.

The major issue in designing a new strategic HRM unit is to determine whether to centralize or decentralize HR function. The relevant structure for the HR function depends on the nature of the firm’s business, the size of the firm and the firm’s overall business strategy.

In some organizations, a centralized structure for the HR unit would be appropriate and in some highly decentralized HRM may be necessary.

Regardless of which particular structure has used the key element in the successful transformation from traditional HR function to SHRM is to find a structure that meets the pressing needs of business strategy and allows the HR unit to provide services designed to help the firm achieve strategic objectives.

Enhancing administrative efficiency

Dave Ulrich (1996) suggested that one of the key roles of HR staff is to be “administrative experts”.

As administrative experts, HR staff members must take an active role in engineering, administrative and other processes within the firm and find ways to share services more effectively throughout the organization. The objective is to increase HR service efficiency and save money.

Several processes are needed to enhance the administrative expertise of HR units. The first focuses on:

• Improving administrative efficiency by targeting current processes for improvement, by examining the gaps between the “as is” process and what the system “needs to be.”
• Administrative efficiency can also be enhanced by the development of centralized HR services that are shared throughout an organization.
• The ultimate process involves HR staff to rethink how they create value to the firm in terms of value perceived by the customers rather than perceived by the provider of the program.
• Integrating HR into the strategic planning process

The strategic integration of HR requires the strategic planning process and the involvement of HR managers in that process. The development of a strategic plan involves top management, with the help of outside consultants, to go through and analyze the current and future condition of the organization.

To achieve full integration, HR managers should not only have the ability to influence the development and selection of information used in decision making but should also have the ability to influence decision making.