Human Resources Management Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Human Resource Management

Answer to question 2:

Businesses today comprehend that human capital adds value to the organisational performance as employees are responsible for the key operations within the workplace boundaries. In today's globalised business world, organisations are looking for the most effective tactics to lure and attract the top talent so as to attain a competitive edge. Organisations attract the pertinent candidates by offering high salary structure. Virtuous pay scale is among the key determinants of the employees why while agreeing upon a job and joining, however, it is not the only eminent factor for their retention. High employee turnover among the organisations remains a global issue which still needs to be addressed (Mikkelsen et al. 2017). This is so because there are many attributes associated with an employee's decisions regarding retaining in a firm.

Workplace behaviour is vital for organisational performance. Managing the same is integral for a firm to ensure that the employees remain enthusiastic about their job role.

According to authors Mikkelsen et al. (2017), many employees decide to quit their jobs as a result of deflated motivation. Motivation is a key necessity for employees to keep performing with optimum quality. An enthusiastic employee is accountable for contributing towards organisational mission and vision in an effectual custom, henceforth, it is not just the pay structure which is responsible for retaining the employees but it is also about the workplace behaviour and work environment. The support that employees receive from the supervisors, leaders and the managerial team is necessary.

Ineffectiveness of Pay Structure in Employee Retention

With the advent of online retailing systems and technological interventions, employees are burdened with numerous job responsibilities. Employers expect the employees to work relentlessly and provide an output in return of a good salary; however, employee motivation is not only dependent upon the monetary incentives but is also reliant upon other psychological, behavioural and emotional factors. Organisations today face many challenges in terms of high employee turnover involving delivering quality service to the customers, increasing the profit margin, reducing the shrinkage in inventory and many more (Mikkelsen et al. 2017). The turnover statistics fluctuate from one firm to another and also depends upon the industry type. Multiple industries today face the issue of employee turnover as a result of diminished levels of motivation among the employees.

Employee retention is basically the capability of a business to retain its employees; it can be represented by a simple statistic. It is also related to the efforts that employers attempt to retain the workforce. It is defined as a phenomenon wherein the employees choose to continue their work in the current company.

Provision of incentives is one of the key strategies that organisations must embed in the organisational culture. The incentives are additional compensatory pays which are provided to the employees as a result of outstanding performance or an extraordinary contribution. It not only helps the organisation to achieve higher productivity but is beneficial in ensuring that employees are motivated to perform in a similar custom.

Employee retention programs are systematic efforts made by the firms to create and foster the atmosphere that supports and encourages the employees to remain employed by using strategies and practices in place for addressing diverse needs of the employees.

Fulfilling the Basic Needs of Employees as A Retention Stratagem

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is one of the vital models employed by businesses to comprehend the basic needs of the employees so as to balloon their motivational levels (Zavei and Jusan 2017). Good salary structure can only be beneficial in attracting the employees but cannot be effective in retaining them for a longer period as the employees require the collaborative and supporting environment to continue. Employee reward programs must involve open communication so that the feeling of being valued is cultivated among the employees.

Involving the employees in the decision-making process causes a positive impact on them and also assists in establishing a continuous feedback system so that the employees can use the constructive feedback to improve themselves and enhance productivity. According to the two-factor theory of motivation, there are certain factors that demotivate the employees; hygiene and safety are the critical factors among the demotivating factors as improper hygiene may reflect a negative image of the organisation on the employees (Alshmemri et al. 2017).

Reward Management Systems

Reward management systems are important components of the human resource management systems (Bratton and Gold 2017). Provision of compensative rewards to the employees helps in driving their performance and influencing the commitment towards organisation and it is subsequently helpful in ensuring that the employees remain in the organisation for a longer duration. Strategic paradigm is a new agenda that stresses on aligning the reward system with the corporate strategy. It is the cornerstone in the regulation of employment relationships.

It can be used by different firms to provide a wide array of rewards to retain and motivate employees apart from attracting them. It is a contingent reward system with the alliance to the organisation and the external contexts. The reward systems involve both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, the key agenda of the reward system must be to ensure that the high performing employees are retained and the performance is maximized by satisfying the legal standards. The model of the strategic reward paradigm is as follows:

Table 1: Model of reward management system

Internal Equity in Employee Retention

Equity is essential for retention of the employees as it cultivates a sense of equal worth or value among the employees which needs to be established in the firms via job evaluation (Bratton and Gold 2017). Job evaluation usually incorporates gathering data, selecting compensable factors, evaluating and assigning pay to the job. It ensures that the external labour market data is incorporated for determining the pay levels and makes a good dispersion of the pay structures. With higher income inequalities on a global scale, employees perceive it as a prejudiced practice and usually get demotivated as a result of biased procedures. The reward system must be free from any such prejudices and must reward all the employees on the basis of their performance. It contributes to their enthusiasm (Bratton and Gold 2017). The pay is crucial for the employees as it is the key motive for which the employees work. It is significant that apart from appreciable pay, the other motivational factors are considered.

Factors Driving Motivation

For retaining the employees, it is crucial that fluent communication is facilitated, better career development programs are launched, performance-based bonuses are provided, recreation facilities are given and gifts are provided at some special occasions to boost their encouragement. Performance-driven rewards boost the organisational performance as well as contribute to the comprehensive development and learning of the employees. Better induction and orientation programmes can also be conducted so as to ensure that the employees are clear about the job roles and are able to deliver the quality work within the specified due time (Mikkelsen et al. 2017). It can be hence, concluded that the reward management systems are preliminary motivational stratagems which must be an aggregate of both financial and nonfinancial rewards. It plays an integral role in attracting and retaining the employees and is also effective in eliciting reciprocal performance of the workforce.

WC: 1251

Answer to question 3:

Human resource managers are responsible for screening, placing the staff, interviewing and recruiting. They are accountable for handling the employee relations, training curriculum and payrolls. They coordinate, administer and direct the overall functions of the employees within the workplace. The role of human resource managers is also associated with the administrative duties which involve performing the paperwork and gathering and filing the documents which are critical for enforcing the company regulations. They contribute ideas and lead the organisation in terms of advancing the corporate objectives. They play a critical role in allowing the organisations to grow and become more consumer-centric (Raeder 2019).

They are held responsible for the implementation of performance appraisals and determining the role design. Human resource managers act as the mediator between the employee and the functional heads and other reviewing authorities. They are accountable for the smooth implementation of the appraisal process. Line managers are responsible for managing the employees and operations and reporting the same to the higher-ranking manager. They ensure that the resources are used effectively in pursuit of accomplishing the pre-defined organisational goal. They participate in the appraisal process as they provide performance-related information about the employees.

Role of Human Resource and Line Managers in Employee Appraisal and Staffing

The line managers administer the operations within the business and the performance of the employees. They play a vital role in the business in terms of supervising and managing the workforce and forming a link between the upper management and the employees. They safeguarded by achieving specific functional goals. They amalgamate with the human resource management to ensure that the right pool of employees is recruited, proper training is provided, new hires are supported and cross-training of employees is done so as to ensure job rotation and minimise the gaps in between.

Its operations also incorporate providing feedback and coaching to all the staff members; comprehending the functional and departmental goals and monitoring the team metrics in comparison with the targets (Raeder 2019). The line managers are actively involved with the team members and ensure that the encouragement is provided to the team along with constructive feedback. The human resource management is directly associated with the consideration of employee satisfaction and engagement, considering appraisal and job evaluation is their preliminary functions.

Sources of Bias

Contrast and leniency in evaluation

When the line manager and the human resource manager evaluate and employees' performance by contrasting it with that of the other employees instead of comparing it with the company’s standards, then the biases usually arise. When employees are ranked against each other, it causes an employee to reach the bottom even if the employee meets the company’s standards. It is a key reason for bias which barricades the performance of the employees (Tagiya et al. 2019). It fumes biases in the workplace which often results in dissatisfaction among the workforce.

Sometimes, the managers do not have sufficient time to evaluate each employee's performance; hence, they end up giving a similar rating and judgements to all the employees for saving time. It becomes a hurdle in the growth of the employees who outperform and are efficient in terms of performance. For example, if the line manager is falling short of time then he may consider avoiding the supporting statements for evaluating each employee's performance, hence, he may provide the similar rating to all the employees. This will result in sluggish growth of those who deserve the opportunity to be promoted or to receive award or appraisal.

It hinders the overall appraisal system and growth plan of the employees which simultaneously is reflected upon the performance of the employees ultimately hindering the organisational productivity (Tagiya et al. 2019). Biases can be reflected by the human resource manager and line manager in terms of being affected by peer pressure while making judgements. Usually, the panel employed for appraisal and evaluation process has to co-ordinate with each other and hence, provides results. Sometimes, they get influenced with each other and do not put their own opinion forward which is often a key reason that the potential candidates get slipped through the net.

Horn bias and ineffective evaluation

The judgements to be made for the employees must be done on the basis of different factors involving attitude, behaviour, performance, coordination with other team members, team leadership, completion of tasks within the deadline and many more. But sometimes, managers may not be looking at all the aspects and while rating, may specifically consider poor performance in any one of the aspects (Adams and Elggren 2016). For example, if an administrative assistant is effective in performing all his tasks, only he is not good enough in the filing process, then he may be looked upon as a person who does pitiable filing and maybe particularly rated for this skill. It is quite common not only in workplaces but in all spheres that mistakes and pitfalls are particularly highlighted and the other aspects are overlooked when a mistake occurs. The similar approach is followed by the human resource manager and the line manager henceforth, giving a prejudiced evaluation.

In the staffing process, the unconscious hiring bias may be incorporated. This is so because human resource managers are quick in passing the judgement so that the recruitment process is completed in less time. They make snap decisions based on the perceived truth and spend rest of the time trying to justify the same (Tagiya et al. 2019). Also, most of the interviewers make decisions regarding the suitability of the candidate within the fifteen minutes and some even do it before actually beginning with the interview. The initial assumptions about the candidate deteriorate the hiring process and make it full of biases.

This type of bias is usually regarded as confirmation bias. Other types of biases involve expectation anchor bias. This occurs when the human resource managers and line managers anchor on to a particular piece of information about the applicant and use it explicitly to make the recruitment related decisions (Bellé et al. 2017). For example, when the recruiter does not believe in the applicants’ viewpoint regarding a particular subject, then he may choose to discount the candidate for not fitting with the unreal expectations.

The biases are reflected in the evaluation of the performance, appraisal as well as the staffing process. It is contingent from the about presented information that hiring bias has penetrated into the organisational practices and is consciously or unconsciously practised in hiring as well as appraisal processes. The decisions made in organisations in employee evaluations are usually made under ambiguity whether the decision is optimistic or pessimistic. Sometimes, the emotional state of the manager also poses an influence on the evaluation process (Bacha and Azouzi 2019).

WC: 1117

References

Adams, R.S. and Elggren, M.W. 2016. Avoiding Halos & Horns: Cognitive Bias in Performance Reports. Reporter, 43, p.2.

Alshmemri, M., Shahwan-Akl, L. and Maude, P. 2017. Herzberg’s two-factor theory. Life Science Journal, 14,5 pp.12-16.

Bacha, S. and Azouzi, M.A. 2019. How gender and emotions bias the credit decision-making in banking firms. Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, 22, pp.183-191.

Bellé, N., Cantarelli, P. and Belardinelli, P. 2017. Cognitive biases in performance appraisal: Experimental evidence on anchoring and halo effects with public sector managers and employees. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 37,3 pp.275-294.

Bratton, J. and Gold, J. 2017. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.

Mikkelsen, M.F., Jacobsen, C.B. and Andersen, L.B. 2017. Managing employee motivation: Exploring the connections between managers’ enforcement actions, employee perceptions, and employee intrinsic motivation. International Public Management Journal, 20,2 pp.183-205.

Raeder, S. 2019. The role of human resource management practices in managing organizational change. Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO), 50,2 pp.169-191.

Tagiya, M., Sinha, S., Pal, S. and Chakrabarty, A. 2019. Transformation from HRM Inadequacy and Bias-Syndrome to Transparent and Integrated Ecosystem Through IoT-Intervention in Career Management. In International Conference on Intelligent Computing and Communication Technologies, pp. 537-544.

Zavei, S.J.A.P. and Jusan, M.B.M. 2017. End-users'perception from housing needs based on maslow's theory of motivation. Open House International, 42,1 p.58.

Remember, at the center of any academic work, lies clarity and evidence. Should you need further assistance, do look up to our Human Resource Management Assignment Help