Introduction
Every organization is a complex entity that (disregarding its size and the number of employees) encompasses various activities and functions enabling it to function homogeneously, logically, and comprehensively. There are always two basic components of an organization – the employer and the set of employees working for him, her, or them. In addition, the basic management theory concept is the variety of assets that the company has to manage to function successfully, and human resources turn out to be quite an important asset contributing to the overall success of the company’s functioning. Therefore, there has been increased and agile interest in the ways to organize the human resources of the company effectively, to build competitive workforce ensuring the advantage of the company in the market and increased productivity, as well as optimal and harmonious way of interrelations and co-functioning shaping the organizational climate.
As a response to all these organizational needs dealing not only with the organizational need for successful competition and effective functioning, but for the employee management and optimization of working conditions, the Human Resources department (HR) has been created; it is primarily responsible for all aspects concerning the employee recruitment, management, retention, development, provision of compliance of the company’s labor policies with the national legislative base etc. The HRM functions appear especially significant in the modern period of dynamically changing market conditions, the multiple pressures of the economic environment, labor market, globalization of labor etc. The successful execution and integration of HR functions in the daily working process in any organization is thus of key value for any business entity.
EEO and Affirmative Action
Since the HR department is primarily responsible for hiring staff for the company, it is also in charge of taking care of the fair hiring practices that are carefully protected by the state law. Thus, the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) has become one of the leading considerations in the recruitment activities. The basic concept, on which EEO is based, is discrimination, which is actually biased attitude on the basis of some recognized differences an individual has from the mainstream image (Jackson & Mathis, 2007).
The most common discrimination criteria are by race, gender, color, age, disability, religion etc. In legal terms, making a decision relating to employment on the basis of discriminatory considerations refers to disparate treatment, which in turn leads to disparate impact, the foundation of EEO – the underrepresentation of discriminated groups in the labor force. Thus, the task of the HR department is to ensure compliance with EEO by conducting analyses for business necessity and job relatedness, and bona fide occupational qualification (Jackson & Mathis, 2007).
Every company should have an EEO policy statement, and should comply with such legislative acts as the Civil Rights Act (1964, 1991), Immigration Reform and Control Act, Equal Pay Act, Older Workers Benefit Protection Act etc. The ways to ensure compliance with EEO principles are: the ‘blind to differences’ approach, and the affirmative action. Affirmative action is actually the practice of forcing the company to hire a certain percentage of representatives of special groups to ensure diversity in the organization, as the sufficient diversity is an obligatory requirement of affirmative action regulations (Jackson & Mathis, 2007).
HR Planning, Recruitment, and Selection
Proceeding with HR-related activities, one cannot help mentioning the planning, recruitment, and selection activities that should be based on the EEO principles, and sometimes are shaped by the affirmative action guidelines, but in general have a much wider grasp. Managing diversity is only one of the aspects of recruitment and selection that take place on a continuous basis in any organization. HR planning is essential due to the initial HR goal to develop the superior human resources as an essential competitive requirement that needs careful planning.
Nowadays the computer-based type of HR planning is more often introduced as an alternative to conventional HR planning tools; it offers a great set of advantages, since it provides an opportunity for conducting the comparative analysis of employment, provides the computerized skills inventories, pay and benefits, and greatly facilitates training as the employees can move at their own pace along the training course (Ivancevich, 2006).
According to the opinion of Ivancevich (2006), HR planning leads to informed, purposeful actions of HR professionals, as well as helps to communicate the company’s vision that surely encompasses the attitude towards employee development. It is by means of thorough recruitment and selection practices that the HR department may build a strong, harmonious staff composition and ensure flawless functioning of all business departments.
The recruitment and selection process includes three stages: defining requirements, attracting candidates, and selecting candidates (Armstrong, 2006). Which is even more important, the requirements for a job do not only include some technical skills and competencies needed for the job only; the candidate should fit in the behavioral traits, should have enough qualifications and experience etc. (Armstrong, 2006). All these steps and procedures are conducted in the framework of the job analysis and design program.
These selection criteria reflect the multitude of aspects involved in the successful existence of an employee within the work environment – the ability to work in a team, leadership qualities, conflict management skills etc. are of vital importance, hence shaping the image of a candidate. However, there is also a set of challenges for recruitment issues, for example, choosing the best recruitment resources – internal or external ones. Internal recruitment resources are better because they enable to promote staff within an organization, increasing motivation and commitment; such techniques include employee referrals, online job boards, resume banks etc. However, the way to avoid some legal problems and the conflict of interest, privacy of information issues etc. is to attract the new candidates from outside of the company, thus using the external recruitment resources (Ivancevich, 2006).
Conducting the process of recruitment and selection in the global environment is also a challenge, since there are many implications of HR functioning in the global environment. There are a great number of cultural, economic, ideological, and political differences that influence the company’s functioning in every separate country, which should be considered by HR managers when hiring and managing staff, for example locals and expatriates (Ivancevich, 2006).
HR Development
HR professionals are responsible for careful career planning in the framework of HR development that has many implications for the business success. For example, such practices as leadership development, and succession training, have proven highly helpful and cost-effective in the modern business practice (Ivancevich, 2006). Jackson and Mathis (2007) are sure that the HR development function is of strategic importance as it helps the organization get ready for the future challenges. The HR development area is meant to create programs that will ensure creating more skilled and productive workforce, while the succession planning technique is likely to help retaining the staff (Jackson & Mathis, 2007).
Ivancevich (2006) agrees on the key role of HR development as it helps improve job performance, rectify deficiencies in skill and competency, in turn increasing performance. Despite the high strategic value of HR development, many countries lack attention to this issue of employee management. For example, Japanese firms rarely care about employee development, leadership training, and promotion, while the Japanese-based foreign countries hire up to 80% of local managers and assist in their career progress for the sake of increasing performance and productivity (Ivancevich, 2006).
Compensation and Benefits
The present HR area is surely of key importance both for the employee and for the employer because of the financial stimulus being the main drive in job performance and the company’s success. The compensation should be contingent on performance, which is to be calculated by appropriate departments stipulating the amount of compensation, the benefits employees can receive during their work in the company and after retirement (Armstrong, 2006). Such benefits as pensions and allowances, supplementary employment benefits (SUBs), bonuses, long-term performance-based incentives – all these issues are to be decided and managed by the HR department reflecting the remuneration policy of an organization (Jackson & Mathis, 2007). Thus, the present policy should be both attractive and reasonable, saving the costs of the company but ensuring that the vacancies will be attractive for the highly qualified and competent candidates.
However, the HR function of performance measurement requires not only dealing with compensation and benefits, but with the establishment of disciplinary provisions and punitive measures to discourage irresponsible, incorrect, and unethical behavior within the organization. Thus, the various disciplinary systems have been established within companies, and some procedures such as drug testing and alcohol testing are the most ethically vague in terms of privacy rules. The drug testing standards cause the strongest emotional reaction regarding the propriety of application, since the measures involve a search of the most valuable possession – the individual’s body – without any probable cause (Ivancevich, 2006).
Health and Safety Issues
Risk management is one of the most aching issues for HR departments in the companies worldwide. Health and safety are the issues for compliance for all employers, and there is a vast legislative basis that guides the provision of health and safety at the workplace, the remuneration of workplace-related injuries etc. (Jackson & Mathis, 2007). Armstrong (2006) believes that appropriate health and safety conditions at the workplace play an essential role in the provision of productivity increase, absence decrease, avoidance of costs of incidents, meeting the clients’ needs, and improved staff morale. It is true that the activities on achieving health and safety at work, as well as elimination of all workplace hazards and threats are the responsibility of everyone. However, the main responsibility of an employer is to implement high health and safety standards required by legislation of any country (Armstrong, 2006).
The importance of health and safety in HR is impossible to exaggerate, as the ill employee health and workplace injuries bring the losses, damage, and spoiled reputation to a company, which always involves expenditures affecting the company’s financial performance. Therefore, the HR department is responsible for such health and safety issues as developing health and safety policies, conducting risk assessment and identifying hazards, assessing risks at the workplace, and conducting health and safety audits and inspections (Armstrong, 2006).
In addition, the HR professionals are responsible for providing compliance with the basic health and safety requirements. They should arrange occupational health programs, manage stress, prevent accidents, measure health and safety performance, and organize health and safety. To ensure it, the HR department should communicate the need for healthy and safe practices for the personnel, and conduct training to teach the staff safe conduct (Armstrong, 2006).
Occupational Health and Safety Act (1970) is generally a very important legislative act that makes recording and reporting the health and safety standards mandatory. In case preventable workplace violence or workplace injuries take place, the company may be closed and the responsible managers can be fined or jailed for OSHA violations. For this reason, compliance with OSHA standards becomes the key responsibility of HR managers in terms of health and safety (Ivancevich, 2006).
Employee and Labor Relations
The present area of HR is of a highly specific character as it involves protection of employee rights, and communication with the trade unions (Jackson & Mathis, 2007). There is a huge set of issues that are to be decided by the HR department involving the protection of employees’ individual rights such as privacy of their records, statutory rights, contractual rights, and decision-making on aligning the employer security and employee rights in the workplace context. Union management relations also involve many issues such as union membership, union laws, and collective bargaining that regularly take place to ensure fair treatment and fair pay for union members (Jackson & Mathis, 2007).
Some of the key procedures in the labor relations are the collective bargaining, grievance, and arbitration issues – they are commonly used to resolve any disputes, improve the working conditions, and ensure mutual satisfaction for employers and employees. Collective bargaining takes place between the employers’ associations and management, and refers to pay, working conditions etc. on a wider scale. The grievance system is a part of administrative and interpersonal labor agreement, ensuring the submission of complaints and dissatisfaction of applicants or employees inside the organization; in case no agreement can be achieved, the arbitration system may involve the outside force to resolve the dispute (Ivancevich, 2006).
Conclusion: Ways of Optimizing the Unity of HR Functions and Activities
Drawing a conclusion from the present reflective paper on the functions of HR in a company and their significance for the overall business functioning, one should obviously note that there are many intricacies in the HR activities that may at first seem to diminish the role of HRM in the organizational context. However, the present review of HRM functions reveals how significant the areas of HR activity sometimes are; ensuring compliance with legislative provisions of the country, generating thoughtful planning and development strategies to raise employee satisfaction and ensure higher productivity – these issues are subject to HRM professionals’ activity.
Optimization of the HRM role in an organization is essential due to the fact that many of these functions are duplicated by other departments, which often causes inconsistence and delays in implementation. Thus, the HR activities, as well as their results, should be logically integrated in such fields as management, accounting, health and safety management (responsible for the implementation stage). Effective information exchange, experience exchange, and inter-departmental team-work will surely increase the efficiency of HR functions’ implementation in practice, and incorporating sound HR policies in the organizational context.
References
Armstrong, M. (2006). A handbook of human resource management practice. (10th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Kogan Page Publishers.
Ivancevich, J. (2006). Human Resource Management. (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Mathis, R.L., & Jackson, J.H. (2007). Human Resource Management. (12th ed.) Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.