Introduction
Change management is necessary for the turnaround of any business organisation, thus the human resources management is supposed to initiate flexible changes that can be adopted easily. For instance, relocation issues demand proper workforce planning strategies. The Human resource management (HRM) process addresses matters relating to staffing and retention of the right personnel. In most cases, staff retention is closely interlinked with the employees’ perks, pay, and other remunerations.
In order to achieve the fundamental roles of managing employees, business leaders focus on performance and change management. The contemporary human resource management demands the leaders to execute their roles in a manner that facilitates collective relationships between employees and the management. This approach centres on the outcomes of the objectives that the stakeholders have during the incorporation of the organisation.
The outcomes include employee development, and it is during the employee development practice that the performance is evaluated, for instance, the promotion or dismissal (Blyton & Turnbull 2006, p.102). Basically, HRM is aimed at ensuring that the employees’ relationship with the organisation satisfies all the stakeholders.
Human Resources Management Overview
Human Resources Management is important since it involves the strategic management of the employees so that they can contribute towards the achievement of the organisational goals. The employees may choose to make their contributions either as individuals or as a group.
Since employees happen to be individuals whose perceptions and mental maps drive them into acquiring unique personalities, it becomes difficult for them to be regarded as a unit. As such, human resource management holds that an organisation ought to be in a position to utilise both group and individual psychology while committing employees towards the attainment of organisational objectives (Cole 2003, p.57).
HRM holds that, in order to be successful, a company ought to be aware of the needs that bring its employees together. This awareness facilitates the evaluation, understanding, and implementation of the organisational objectives in a manner that makes the employees regard their engagements as important to them in their personal capacity.
This eliminates the boredom that results from undertaking these obligations, as if they are routine engagements. In this regard, HRM is a crucial activity since it facilitates the functioning of the organisation as a whole. It aids the organisation in creating loyal employees. As a result, they are made ready to perform their best for the good of the company (Cole 2006, p.49).
In the contemporary world, HRM activities are typically accomplished by communicating with the management in a manner that provides diverse views, especially during decision making exercises. In this situation, the process of decision making diverges from the individual perception or the manager’s view on becoming a consequence of the strategic consensus.
In order to achieve the above goals, human resources management facilitates the training and motivation of the employees through the communication of those policies that the organisation considers to be vital for its sustainability. In this regard, human resource management plays an important role in the clarification of the organisational problems (Northouse 2006, p.63). Upon the clarification, the provision of solutions becomes possible since it enables the employees to work in an effective manner.
Although HRM has widely been associated with the responsibilities of selecting, training, and compensating the employees, these responsibilities have been performed with little regard to their interrelationships. Nevertheless, this view has prompted the emergence of the contemporary meaning of human resources management. The basic functions of human resource managers have remained to be aiding the selection, training, and promotion of personnel (Mullins 2006, p. 52).
The contemporary HRM represents an extension of what has been traditionally regarded as the most active management of personnel. At the present, successful organisation emphasises on understanding the human behavior as well as the skills that are required to execute a host of functions as per the objectives of a company. It is also important for the management to familiarise itself with the legal, social, and economic constraints that derail the performance and the execution of essential functions (Hughes 2006, p.41).
The manner in which the contemporary human resource management is exercised recognises dynamism during the interaction between functions designated to the personnel and the goals of the company in question. In essence, several workforce planning initiatives are coordinated through organisational strategic functions.
In this regard, much of the efforts in human resource management get directed towards the provision of an extra level of support, and this aids the achieving of goals, irrespective of whether the organisation happens to be for profit, non-profit making, or governmental in nature (Gill 2011, p.39).
Organisational Change Management Analysis
Human resources/change management can be initiated in an organisation, especially on workforce planning, after reviewing organisational charts, its employee files, customer information, and sales and marketing information systems, it can be evident that a company plans for change and communication management. In this regard, a functional organisational structure would be the most effective for an organisational workforce planning.
This is because the structure makes it possible to classify a company’s departments into different functional areas, such as finance, engineering and marketing. As a result, a company’ employees are grouped according to their special talents, expertise and experience (Houldsworth & Jirasinghe 2006, p.112). For example, a finance team is more effective brainstorming together, especially when testing an accounting reporting system. This can be done by selecting the most effective organisational structure.
The selected functional organisational structure will make the employees of the company to behave differently, for instance, there will be increased communication. This is very healthy for the business operations of a company because more information and knowledge will be shared among the departmental employees.
Moreover, there will be efficient allocation and use of the company’s resources among its employees, and since there will be a more harmonised chain of command; the employee’s morale will be higher. As communication is improved among the employees, there is more knowledge sharing because the staff members tend to form a strong work relationship.
In this regard, decision making processes are made faster since there is a lot of coordination among the employees. This also implies that there is little duplication of the company’s resources since its raw materials and labour operate more efficiently, because every employee concentrates more in his/her role, as outline in the firm’s job description manual (Beardwell & Claydon 2007, p.68).
Managements of various organisations recognise the roles played by the human resources in the workforce planning initiatives. For this reason, the human resources managers are expected to assume the broader role of implementing the overall strategy that is geared towards attaining the most efficient workforce in an organisation. Regarding this, workforce planning should incorporate the right number of employees, who have well defined roles/job descriptions.
This will help in managing issues of understaffing or overstaffing in different departments within an organisation. Human resources investments practices also reduce employees’ turnover, a situation which facilitates stability within the organisation. The department that is tasked with the activities of managing the human resource proves to be influential to the organisation, individuals, as well as the society in general.
Of late, an increasing level of attention has been accorded to the personal and family needs of the members of the workforce. Employees, as well as the members of the public, are demanding an enhancement of the social responsibility, especially when the employÂers engage in the activities of managing human resources (Kew & Stedwick 2005, p.94).
Focusing on the workforce planning initiatives, there has been significant rise in the number of employees’ complaints with regard to how they consider jobs to be ruinous to their lives. Many of them argue that, nowadays, excessive working hours are detrimental to their health. Complaints relating to the discrimination against minorities, women, the aged, as well as the physically disabled have increased. Much of the complaints are raised with respect to such issues such as hiring, grooming, promotion, and compensation.
In this case, issues relating to the corresponding remuneration for comparable tasks, the increasing cost of health and the associated benefits, and alternative work programs must be addressed by the employers (Kew & Stedwick 2005, p.88). Others issues that ought to be addressed include the setting up of day care services for the employees’ children since such programs enable them to settle down and deliver optimally.
In situations where the employees organise themselves into unions, the organisation is likely to encounter pressing collective bargaining proposals. The employees, by virtue of their numbers, may also resolve to issue threats of strikes; or even resolve to file charges aimed at contesting some of the labour practices that they consider to be unfair.
In that case, the contemporary human resource departments endeavor to avoid instances that may prompt collective actions from the employees as this would be detrimental to the future of the organisation (Legge 2005, p.87). In this regard, the human resource managers who assume the reÂsponsibility of enforcing and coordinating policies that relate the engagements of the workforce.
The rest of the supervisors and managers are expected to engage in those activities that support the policies that facilitate the effective delivery of services by the employees. The contemporary setting of HRM has been achieved through an evolutionary development (Robbins & Judge 2009, 96).
As such, it proves to be important for the management to familiarise itself with the forces that contribute to the evolution process. Understanding these factors can enable the stakeholders to be cognizant of the forces that may influence the future of the workforce planning initiative.
Application of Behavioural Sciences in Workforce Planning
The scope of human relation movement has been broadening throughout its evolution. The contributions of traditional disciplines such as anthropology and social-psychology have enhanced the comprehension of the human behaviour, especially in terms of linguistics, social, economics, education, and political science. In fact, it is the interrelationships between these varied disciplines that are currently been referred to as behavioural sciences (Armstrong 2006, p.72).
Studies have indicated that much of the behavioural sciences have been oriented towards the economic objectives. Therefore, they happen to be in agreement with the evolution of the interpersonal competence.
It is evident that this happens to be a humanistic approach where employee participation and groups are encouraged in an endeavor to facilitate the achievement of various organisational objecÂtives. Among the most important organisational objectives is the workforce planning since effective change management is the only way that survival of an enterprise can be assured (Greene & Kirton 2005, p.77).
It has been indicated earlier that human resources management is linked to the hiring, dismissal, and book keeping. These functions are executed by the supervisory and managerial personnel. Currently, most organisations have implemented computer systems that have the capacity to handle the general roles that are associated with record keeping (Antonakis, Cianciolo & Sternberg 2004, p. 49). Moreover, the most effective strategic change management is necessary for workforce planning.
Effective management requires the human resource managers to take over the role of implementing the workforce planning strategy. HRM plays the role of creating and facilitating the sustainability of the competitive advantage that enables the organisation to overcome various types of challenges. Acquiring the relevant competencies enables human resource professionals to succeed in their strategic goals. Some of the most important competencies are outlined below.
Business capabilities
This refers to the situation whereby the professionals are expected to be aware of the business that their organisation engages in, a scenario that necessitates the understanding of organisation’s financial capabilities.
Effective HRM practices
Human resource professionals represent the behavioral scientists within the organisation. In this regard, workforce planning management is necessary.
Change management
Human resource professionals are required to have the ability to manage the processes of change so as to facilitate the merging of various human resource activities with organisational and business needs (Haslam 2010, p.89).
HRM transforms human resource professionals into strategic business leaders who enable the organisation to build a business venture that retains its competitive advantage in spite of the dynamism in the industry (Stallard 2011, p. 1). To this end, it is necessary for a company’s top management team to source for the most competent human resources manager who is capable of handling issues regarding the employed workforce.
Conclusion
Summing up, the HRM’s workforce planning incorporates the fulfillment of management objectives of hiring and deploying personnel through the most effective planning, control, and monitoring. Moreover, it is meant to enhance cooperation among the individuals in an organisation, through the coordination between various teams and departments.
This generates beneficial outcomes for the enterprise in question. In a contemporary organisational setting, effective human resource management necessitates teamwork among various stakeholders. Teamwork facilitates effective communication, coordination of activities, as well as an efficient knowledge management.
Focusing on the workforce planning initiatives, an effective human resource management serves to empower the individual members to work for the good of the organisation. In this regard, everyone subordinates his/her personal opinions and goals to the efficiency and the unity of the organisation, a scenario which facilitates the achievement of an acceptable level success.
Human resource management serves as the most effective link between the organisation and the employees. It is a crucial activity as it enables the organisation to function as a unit. With time, human resource management has evolved to become the fundamental pillar of organisational strength and sustainability.
References
Antonakis, J., Cianciolo, T., & Sternberg, R., 2004, The Nature of Leadership, Sage Publications, London.
Armstrong, M 2006, Strategic HRM: A Guide to Action, Kogan Page, London.
Beardwell, L & Claydon, T 2007, HRM: A Contemporary Perspective, FT/Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River.
Blyton, P & Turnbull, P 2006, The Dynamics of Employee Relations, Palgrave, New York.
Cole, G., 2003, Management Theory and Practice. Cengage Learning, London.
Cole, G 2006, Personnel & HRM, Continuum Publishing, London.
Gill, R., 2011, Theory and Practice of Leadership, Sage Publications, London.
Greene, M & Kirton, G 2005, The Dynamics of Managing Diversity, Elsevier, Oxford.
Haslam, S., 2010, The New Psychology of Leadership, Identity, Influence and Power, Psychology Press, New York.
Houldsworth, E & Jirasinghe, D 2006, Managing & Measuring Employee Performance, Kogan Page, London.
Hughes, M 2006, Change Management, CIPD, London.
Kew, J & Stedwick, J 2005, Business Environment: Managing in a Strategic Context, CIPD, London.
Legge, K 2005, HRM: Rhetorics & Realities, Palgrave, New York.
Mullins, L 2006, Management & Organisational Behaviour, Financial Times/Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River.
Northouse, P., 2006, Leadership: Theory and Practice, Sage Publications, London.
Robbins, S., & Judge, T., 2009, Essentials of Organisational Behavior, Pearson Education, New York.
Stallard, M., 2011, Howard Schultz’s Connection and Leadership,