Executive Summary
This paper discussed the new role of the human resources manager as strategic partner, employee sponsor and change agent in present-day organisations. The challenges posed by technology and globalisation compelled businesses to expand the role of HR managers, giving them the responsibility not only of managing personnel in terms of recruitment, pay scheduling and termination but also of maximising use of an organisation’s human resources. The possible reasons for this evolution of the role of HR managers were explored in the Introduction, with the succeeding section describing the key roles of the HR manager based on five activities – workforce planning, induction and orientation, training and development, compensation and benefits management, and team management. The concluding remarks in the final section argued that today’s HR managers are tasked with ensuring that employees perform at work according to the goals set by the organisation.
Introduction
Businesses never faced the kind of challenges that they confront in today’s environment because of the turbulence and unpredictability brought by technology, public policy, social and political upheavals, changing market behaviours and spiraling costs of labour and materials. Globalisation reconfigured the economy such that companies were forced to align through networks and partnerships and to have their operational and financial decisions interact heavily. In the firms’ quest for competitiveness and added value, human resource managers have been given new responsibilities, chief among which is the formulation of practices that fit into a “dynamic and unpredictable corporation with a myriad of approaches to getting the work done (Mohmann & Lawler, 1999).” In effect, HR management has been transformed into a function that is more business oriented and strategically focused, a sharp departure from the HRM concept in the past that was limited to personnel management.
Key Roles of HR Manager
In the past, the role of a human resource manager was purely administrative in nature that deals with issues involving employees. Since the responsibilities of HR managers were confined to personnel management, they were ranked as middle-level executives at best and had no voice in the firm’s strategic decisions (Budhwar, et al., 2009). Under the old management concept, people were seen as movable and disposable as other company resources such as production tools and costs. The modernisation of business changed this perception into one that considers the emotions, needs and attachments of people, who will work best if these needs are met and they are not shuffled around and discarded like the other non-human factors of production. This realisation gave rise to the role of HR managers as a strategic partner and change agent in the companies they work for (Legge, 2004). Consequently, the HR manager has been elevated to a more strategically important position responsible for workforce planning, recruitment and selection, employee orientation and induction, people and capabilities management, compensation and benefits, and team management. Some of these functions were already attached to the HR department previously but under the expanded role of the HR manager, new and deeper responsibilities were added.
Workforce Planning
Workforce planning is a relatively new HRM process aimed at ensuring that organisations get the right people at the right price in the right place and at the right time (Armstrong, 2006). It is undertaken by the HR manager to assess talent needs and market risks, bring down labour costs and make informed business decisions (Miles & Snow, 1999). This enables organisations to gain insight into what kinds of people they would need, and what people will be available to meet those needs.
Most workforce plan models are hinged on five basic activities:
- an environment scan,
- profiling of the current workforce,
- future workforce view,
- analysis and targeted future, and
- closing the gaps (Armstrong, 2006).
A study of the environment is the first step in the process because the organisation needs to identify the set of factors or circumstances surrounding a workforce situation or event (Legge, 2004). This is followed by the current workforce profile, which determines if the existing supply of internal and external labor can meet the organisation’s specific talent demand for its present requirements. The next step is obtaining the future workforce view by inputting the employment trends and issues uncovered in the environment scan. In this process, the organisation may take the quantitative approach by using a multitude of factors to track the future, or the qualitative approach, which plans the alternatives in building the firm’s capabilities and demographics designed to deliver its business strategy (Stone, 2008). The future direction for the firm is then identified based on such analysis and predictive posturing, which essentially seeks to achieve the best fit for its business strategy. This would enable the firm to close whatever gaps may be found in the labour market that could prevent it from delivering the workforce that it needs for today and tomorrow (McNamara, 2007).
Workforce planning is in effect the process of analysing and forecasting the talents and skills that the organisation needs to implement its specific business strategy. The HR management at Qatar National Bank, whose business strategy focuses on expanded Islamic financing, performs workforce planning by maintaining a working relationship with Qatar University and Qatar Foundation for the recruitment of capable Islamic youth produced by the two training institutions.
Recruitment
The primary concern of human resource management is the recruitment and hiring of the right people, which means people that possess not only the skills and qualities required by a firm but also show a willingness to work in a team (Ghebregiorgis & Karsten, 2006). For them to be of utmost value to the company, HR managers are then tasked to create “good jobs” in the organisation, a new activity added to their recruitment functions. A job becomes a good one if it promotes the employee’s well being, increases organisational pride, reduces the incidence of absenteeism and the chances of employees quitting, and increases productivity and profitability (Harzing & Russeveldt, 2005). There are two ways by which companies recruit and source new employees.
The most common method is by advertising the vacant positions, which today encompasses a multimedia effort that includes the Internet, general-circulation newspapers, specialized job ad newspapers, professional publications, window advertisements, job centers, and campus graduate recruitment programs (Miles & Snow, 1999). When organizations sense that the talent they want are the passive types that do not respond to job postings, they instead conduct a recruiting research and then locate these people to gain their interest, obtain their resume and invite them for possible screening. In most cases, suitability for a job is assessed by a candidate’s skills in oral and written communication, typing and computer, which qualifications are gleaned from resumes, job applications, interviews, educational or professional experience, in-house testing and testimony of references (McNamara, 2007).
The huge costs involved in maintaining an organised recruitment effort, which calls for cross-posting within and across general or industry-specific job boards and maintaining a competitive exposure of availabilities, has made online recruiting popular especially among small and medium firms. In fact, online recruiting has become one of the primary methods to get the desired candidates for available positions within an organization. Online recruitment is the most common method used by multinational firms and has been found useful in hiring people from different cultural backgrounds. According to Budhwar, et al., 2009, capitalizing on employee talents from diverse cultures and backgrounds can enrich, expand and provide an organisation with competitive advantage. The diverse talents enable firms to tap new markets while increasing effectiveness and productivity.
Induction & Orientation
After getting the right people comes the equally critical part of inducting and orienting the new starters into the job. This is especially important for newly hired employees because the induction process will decide whether they can settle in quickly and happily and look forward to a productive role in the organisation. The quality of the induction and orientation process will also determine if the company can retain the qualified people it has hired (Armstrong, 2006). Induction involves skills training in connection with the basics of employment that many take for granted such as: what the work shifts are, where the bulletin board is, the routine for holiday and sick leaves, where the canteen is, the dress code, and where the toilets is located.
New employees also need to have a clear picture of the organisation’s mission, goals and philosophy, including its personnel practices, health and safety rules, and of course the job they are required to do according to methods, timescales and expectations set by the company (Stone, 2008). For this reason, HR managers are expected to ensure that the induction training is properly planned, with an induction training plan issued to each new employee to serve as their “onboarding” pass (Legge, 2004). A well-planned introduction helps new employees become fully operational in short order such that it is often integrated with the recruitment process. It is believed that there is a great advantage for a firm to waste no time in helping new starters settle in and proceed to do their job as well as in attending to their personal development needs as soon as the induction process is conducted for them. This is standard procedure in the hotel industry, where newly hired employees need to familiarise themselves with all the facilities and services of the hotel and to handle customer relations.
Training & Development
There are many different training and development methods in today’s corporate world, which are labeled variously as on-the-job training, informal training, classroom training, internal training courses, external training courses, on-the-job coaching, mentoring, training assignments and tasking, skills training, product training, technical training, behavioural development training, attitudinal training and development, accredited training and learning, and distance learning. All these are part of the HRM training menu, which are used according to the training requirements of the individual and the organisation (Armstrong, 2006). As indicated, employee training is conducted in and outside the classroom but in whatever setting, such training and learning development invariably includes such values as ethics and morality, attitude and behaviour, leadership and determination, and skills and knowledge (Miles & Snow, 1999). In other words, employee development goes beyond skills training to include activities calculated to help a person grow in terms of confidence, tolerance, initiative, commitment, communication skills, self-control and motivation (McNamara, 2007). Legge (2004) cites the HR manager of a company whose training activity is concerned less with developing work-related kills and knowledge than on personality development and acquiring the right attitudes.
Compensation & Benefits
The pay system is the most crucial factor in employment relations and the well-being of organisations. How the package of compensation and benefits is fixed and distributed can have a considerable impact on the morale and productivity of workers as well as the efficiency of an organisation (Stone, 2008). For a pay system to be acceptable to employees and thus become an instrument for creating harmony and efficiency in the workplace, it should serve to maximise the employees’ level of service, productivity and work quality, which calls for generosity and sense of fairness on the part of employers. The evaluation process for performance-based pay sometimes involve schemes that separate the good performers from the bad performers and those in-between. Ford Motors implemented such a process called forced ranking and distribution scheme by grouping workers into the three categories. The employees ranked as good performers received bonuses and increases while the worst performers were deprived of a bonus for the first year. If the ranking is not improved in the succeeding years, the worst performer faces possible dismissal. The paradox is that if Ford subjects job applicants to a rigid screening process, how come there are poor performers to be found in its employee ranks? Moreover, the scheme provoked perceptions of stature and discrimination such that employees complained that it discriminated against certain types of employees.
Team Management
Effective teams are critical to the improvement of performance in most organisations today and yet work teams are often poorly managed or not even encouraged to develop ((Miles &Snow, 1999). In order to create high performing teams, people must first be given the appropriate tools, skills and knowledge. This is another strategy of people development that helps employees discover and capitalise on their strengths and use those strengths to do great things within their organisation. It is designed to help employees understand how to effectively manage themselves and their working relationships. Team working and management is believed essential in today’s workplace that is becoming increasingly team-oriented, diverse and information-driven. The challenge is to simplify complex people issues to help employees discover and capitalise on their strengths and value differences towards working together effectively (Ghebregiorgis & Karsten, 2006). There is a highly acclaimed model for creating high performing teams called DISC that teaches people how to relate to co-workers more effectively. Basically, it helps explore behavioural issues and then develops the ability to read other people’s styles and relate to them accordingly (Barnett, 2008). Participants in DISC sessions discover that there are three R’s in effective teams: reasons, roles, responsibilities, relationships and results.
Conclusion
As the paper has shown, the role of HR managers has evolved from mere personnel recruitment and handling to a more critical function aligned with the goals of the organisation. Apart from recruitment, hiring and fixing salaries and benefits, today’s HR managers are also assigned with organisational development, training and coaching with emphasis on attitudes instead of work skills, performance management, team building and overall leadership. For each of the new functions of HRM, an industry example of workforce planning is the practice of Qatar National Bank, which has a working arrangement with educational institutions in Doha to recruit capable Islamic graduates.
The reason for this preference for Islamic recruits is that QNB operates mainly for Islamic clients. On recruitment, a novel method is doing it online which appeals to multinationals because of the need to hire culturally diverse employees. As for orientation and training, activities of HR managers in the hotel industry are interesting because of the need to please every customer that the hotel serves. We have shown that a new method of compensation and benefits management is used at Ford Motors, where employees receive benefits and promotion based on performance, which however antagonises other employees categorised as poor performers. On team management, almost all companies perform this new HRM task because of increasing realisation that working together is better individualism.
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