HRM Functions

HRM Functions

BUS303:

Human Resources Management

HRM Functions

Introduction

           When employees think of human resources, they think of people who are responsible for hiring, firing and applying for employee benefits. Human resource management (HRM) is much more than that. HRM is “the managing of human skills and talents to make sure they are used effectively and in alignment with an organization’s goals.” (Youssef, 2015). Yes, HRM is responsible for hiring and firing employees as well as managing employee benefits. HRM is a significant contribution to the profitability, efficiency, and effectiveness of an organization’s goals and objectives. They advocate for employees and assist them with their needs, concerns, and issues. Human resource responsibilities consist of many essential aspects of the organization. HRM can be considered to be the frontline of businesses due to how involved they are with all areas of an organization. In the next few pages, I will go over how HRM is responsible for performance appraisals, HR planning, recruiting, and selection, HR development, compensation and benefits, employment and labor laws and regulations.

Performance Appraisal/Management

           Arthur (2008) stated that “Performance appraisals are a critical tool for aligning employee performance with the goals of the organization.” Performance appraisal is a tool that can be used to create relationships between HRM, management, and the employee. Performance appraisals can be conducted through variations of approaches and methods. Such as employees evaluating themselves, supervisors evaluating their employees, employees evaluating their supervisor, team members evaluating each other, and outside consultants evaluating employees. No matter the approach, the goal is simple, to have the ability to measure and improve the performance of employees and increase their potential and value to the organization.

           In a performance review, usually, your manager or direct report communicates expectations, objectives, goals, as well as provide feedback and review results of a current or upcoming work year. These performance appraisals can be used to manage salaries, wages, and pay adjustments. It can provide employee feedback on strengths and weaknesses. They can also assist when it comes to job placements, promotions, demotions, and transfers. Performance appraisals can also be used to justify employee disciplinary actions like termination or dismissal. (Youssef, 2015). Lastly, performance appraisals can provide both HRM and management information about employees about what their training needs and development plans should be for both employer and employee success. 

Human resources planning, recruitment, and selection 

           “HR planning is the process of managing an organization’s most valuable asset—its people—so that there are no shortages or surpluses of employees in the organization.” (Youssef, 2015). Employee deployment within an organization is essential for reaching organizational goals, objectives, and success. There are six factors to HR planning: 

Environmental scanning

Labor market analysis and forecasting

Internal analysis and forecasting

Gap analysis

Developing HR plans and strategies

HR strategy implementation and assessment

Environmental scanning is part of the HR planning process that refers to looking at the external organizational environment to identify positive or negative factors that may influence the organization. It is vital that HR accurately comprehend external factors so that they can make proper adjustments to HR planning. Some important things that should be examined are government laws and regulations, economic conditions, geographic characteristics, and differences in workforce patterns. The second factor in HR planning is labor market analysis and forecasting. This second step has two vital elements to forecasting and identifies the organization’s labor needs. Next is internal analysis and forecasting what an organization may need to perform regarding job skills for future objectives. Then we have gap analysis, which is to determine the discrepancy between the current status of an organization and its desired future status. (Youssef, 2015). The fifth step is the development of HR plans and strategies. This step produces results based on the gap analysis from step four. The key goals of this step are to close labor supply gaps based on employee demand and the work that is available within the organization. Lastly, HR strategy implantation and assessment. 

           Finding talent is the bread and butter to a successful and thriving organization. HRM finds candidates by utilizes tools to find talent externally and internally so that roles are being filled. There are various sources externally that allows HR to find applicants such as advertising, employment agencies, the web, college job fairs, temp agencies, unsolicited applications, and resumes. Types of internal applicants consist of promoted within, lateral transfers, and employee referrals. The importance of integrating supervisors and management in the hiring process assists in unifying goals, which in turn creates better recruitment. 

           HR selection is not always perfect, nor do they ever find the ideal candidate. Since the ideal candidate can sometimes be hard to find, it is essential that HR determines what fundamental factors are critically based on jobs and then recruit accordingly. The goals of employee selection are to find a qualified candidate to fill a specific position. (Youssef, 2012). “The goal of the selection process is to identify the best candidates who possess the most influential qualities a job requires and who fit the organizational culture well.” (Youssef, 2012, Section 5.1). A few characteristics that are looked at when looking for potential applicants are experience, education, skills, and abilities. These characteristics assist employers in searching for candidates that will help their company achieve goals and objectives.

           A company’s goal is to hire the best candidate. To do that, they have to weed out the ones who do not fit the criteria. Organizations use resumes, application forms, testing interviews, reference checks, honesty tests, medical exams, and drug screenings to gain information about the candidates, which is used to find their candidates. Two selection methods that are universally used by many organizations are resumes and application forms and interviews. “Job applications and resumes are the organization’s initial method of collecting information about potential recruits.” (Youssef, 2012, Section 5.3). Job applications typically contain necessary information such as a home address, work history, and education. Resumes contain similar information but are controlled by the applicant versus the employer.

Resumes usually are changeable based on what you are applying to and can be revised to make your resume seem better qualified, which can “introduces a source of bias and inaccuracy” (Youssef, 2012, Section 5.3). Interviews allow a company to have face to face meetings with future employees. These meetings allow for a more accurate evaluation of skills such as communication, interpersonal, and technical and knowledge. (Youssef, 2012). Within the interview, there are also styles of interviews like structured, situational, behavior description, and panel interviews. Both selection methods, job applications and resumes, and interviews provide information about a candidate that an organization can use for hiring purposes.

HR training and development 

           HRM help contributes to practical training and development by providing training programs to strengthen employee skills where improvement is needed. Practical training and development enhance the performance of individual employees and help increase performance within groups. There are many points as to why effective training and development is essential for an organization. It was said that “knowledge is a key to organizational success” (Youssef, 2015). Employee training is sort of an investment for an organization. When organizations invest in their employees, they create value for their company. Training needs and designs will vary based on the organization. Take the telecom industry as an example. Technology is continually changing, and because of this, it is imperative to train employees so that they are on top of every new technology, creating for a more competitive organization. 

           Training development helps the organization with training objectives, learning styles, and readiness, and knowledge transfer. There are many things that must be considered within the training development stage. Does the organization have the resources? Will training be outsourced due to certifications? How can we make it cost-effective? What kind of employee training should there be? These are just some of the question’s organizations take into consideration when developing a training plan. 

           There are many forms of training and development. One of the most common types is what all new employees endure when starting a new job, orientation. Orientation is an introduction to the employees’ new job, their managers, co-workers, and organization’s structure, culture, and processes. Next is technical and nontechnical training. Technical focus on job-specific skills and nontechnical training is not job-related. Then we have ongoing professional development. I find that professional development is the most important to me as an employee. As previously stated, when organizations develop knowledge and skills, job performance is increased, and employee retention rises.  

Compensation and benefits

           The importance of compensation plans is to strategically place design within an organization that allows them to achieve success. When it comes to job performance, compensation, and benefits go a long way. HRM helps organizations look for ways that they can help motivate their employees in the workplace. (Youssef, 2015). As they focus on what triggers motivation within people, it is also critical that they find the balance between organizational goals and employee needs. The success of a company relies on employees, so to have an attractive compensation and benefits plan will attract, develop, and retain talented employees.

           Effective performance management systems make sure that individual and team goals are aligned with organizational goals. HRM must develop a compensation plan that looks to offer benefits that appeal to prospective employees. For this reason, the HRM needs to establish a compensation plan with a solid foundation, understanding of the organizational capabilities, and aligning compensation with human capital management initiatives. (Towler, 2019). Having a solid foundation is essential to understand the strategy and financial objectives of an organization. Short-term along with long-term goals give HRM a view of where the organizations current and future standing which assist in creating a plan. Organizational capabilities are also crucial so that HRM can understand what jobs and types of employees it needs to gain advantages over its competitors. Lastly, when developing a compensation plan, aligning compensations with human capital initiatives will create strategies that allow for successful recruiting and retaining employees. 

           Benefits will always be a way that attracts talent for an organization. Compensation and benefits always assist employees in their decisions of where they work, where they want to work, and even retire. There are two types of benefits an organization provides, mandatory benefits and voluntary benefits. Worker’s compensation, social security, and unemployment insurance are a few of the important benefits. It is the optional benefit that attracts future employees. Benefits such as severance pay, pension plans, 401k, paid time off, health, dental, and vision are among the essential benefits that play a pivotal role in attracting new hires. Some companies can even go above and beyond those and provide pet insurance, identity theft, legal services, childcare, and Aflac for a fraction of the cost. Health care, dental, and vision are the most common and influential of all benefits. With high health costs, these three benefits have been the number one benefit employees seek when searching for jobs. These benefits are also things that help retain longevity with employees. 

Employment and labor laws and regulations

           Employment labor laws and regulations impact all areas of HRM, such as job design, recruitment, selection, performance appraisal, training and development, compensation, and benefits. There are laws like the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967. The ADEA protects employees over the age of 40 and prohibits employers from terminating employment, denying bonuses or pay raise, refuse to hire or promote someone because of age. Then you have the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990, which prohibits discrimination against disabled qualified employees. Other laws like the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, also protect and prevent pay differentials for equal jobs across gender, and dismissal of an employee due to pregnancy, respectively. In addition to these laws is the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes it illegal to discriminate based on race, sex, color, religion, or national origin. 

           With so many laws in place the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), takes responsibility to enforce “federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability, or genetic information and investigate these federal laws against any and all discrimination” (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2019). When filing claims with the EEOC, it is important also to understand that within these laws, there are clauses. These clauses prohibit retaliation against those who report discrimination with the EEOC. 

Conclusion

           It was not until I took this course that I was made aware of just how much work and how important to an organization HRM is. Aside from employees, HRM can be seen as the backbone of a company’s success. They are responsible for a company’s success because they must learn and implement an organization’s goals and objectives. This type of success, HRM is responsible for creating the environment the organization is seeking and following the steps to get there. From HR planning and development to recruitment and selection. To compensation, benefits, and making certain employment labor laws are followed. HRM is there every step of the way to assure for the success of employers and employees.  

References

Arthur, D. (2008). Performance appraisals. [electronic resource] : strategies for success. American Management Association. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat02191a&AN=aul.EBC1043668&site=eds-live&scope=site

Human Resource Services. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2019, from https://hrs.uni.edu/pd/perf-appraisal-supervisor-feedback.

Juneja, P. (n.d.). MSG Management  Study  Guide. Retrieved November 11, 2019, from https://www.managementstudyguide.com/hr-performance-management.htm.

O’Connell, K. (2007). The Importance of Strategically Designed Compensation Plans. Benefits & Compensation Digest, 44(9), 20. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.proxy-library.ashford.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=f5h&AN=26525085&site=eds-live&scope=site

Summary of the Major Laws of the Department of Labor. (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2019, from https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/majorlaws.

What Laws Does EEOC Enforce? (n.d.). Retrieved November 11, 2019, from https://www.eeoc.gov/youth/laws.html.

Youssef, C. (2015). Human resource management (2nd ed.). Retrieved from https://ashford.content.edu