The constantly shifting business environment has presented today's human resource managers with innumerable challenges that have in some way been influencing their day-to-day operations. The environment in which businesses work has undergone significant change as a result of globalization, which has caused the collapse of national borders and an urgent need for multinational corporations. The human resource faces some difficulties as a result of the fact that it must now fight on a global scale rather than just within national borders. They needed to find a pool of experienced employees, which has proven difficult because it's not only expensive but also challenging to integrate individuals with completely different cultural backgrounds into forging a conducive working environment. As this would require that you have a standard business language. A fact that will cost more in regards to recruitment and training of new employees or the current one as they need to upgrade their skills to meet new demands in the job market. When I was working at a home healthcare agency called tender loving care for instance, I was laid off as the company lost a competitive edge as it was unable to extent its service into the global market and was therefore overtaken by companies that had put in place better strategies in relation to adapting to changing market place.
Continued changes in regulations of employment and labor laws, means that labor unions and governments regulations often gives priorities to the employees and in the process giving new responsibilities to the employer. For example, directives on meeting gender rules on employment, minimum wages payable, and compliance to tax among other regulations have always paused challenges to human resource managers, as they must always consider such policies in their daily operations and decision making. (Bower, Joseph L & Jay Dial, 1994)
The challenges of the new technology are yet another dynamic factor affecting human resources. Technological advancement could mean a reduction in the work force as work that was initially done by five people can now be completed by a single person with the help of machines. This could also mean that the employees retained would require training so as to acquire necessary skills required by the new technology. Human resources are therefore tasked to ensuring that they stay up to date with the new technologies so as to stay in competition with other companies that are more likely to gain advantage of the market by efficiently employing and utilizing the newest technology in their operations.
The aforementioned issues coupled with social-political events have meant that human resource experiences endless challenges. My experience at Victoria Secrets proves that for a company to survive this dynamic nature of external environments, it must keep strategizing and redefine its scope so as to cope up with new technologies, government regulations as well changing demography.
Through their functions, human resource plays a major role in leadership and strategy implementation in an organization. By acquiring employees, human resource should also extent to matching jobs and people. That is, in assembling talent for future and current needs, human resource must show leadership and responsibility by finding people whose strengths are in line with the requirements of a specific position. To achieve this, the selection process must be systematic and ensuring that you only attract high performers to your organization. (Johnny C. Taylor Jr. Gary M. Stern, 2011)
Furthermore, when it comes to dealing with poor performance, the human resource management shouldn’t negotiable in in their disciplining role. They must act quickly and decisively so as to keep the organization on course to achieving the best practice possible. The human resource is also tasked with the function of influencing other leaders. That is, they have a responsibility to mold people with different energy, power and ego into a functional team. This will go a long way in achieving the company’s strategy of getting a formidable team that will work together in harmony to realize organizational set objectives.
Maintaining a good working environment, in which employees work is a fundamental role of the human resource department. It has to come up with motivation tools which could financial or non-financial, taking care of employees’ welfare among others will go a long way in encouraging employees to give their all and thus helping the organization achieve its goals of retaining top performing employees.
Through capacity building, the human resource department can come up with strategies that can help the business gain competitive advantage. This could involve coming up with innovative ideas on how they can offer unique services and products to their customers. This goes a long way in helping the organization in realizing its objective of offering high quality products and services to the market.
Human resource policies in acquiring, developing and retaining employees
When it comes to attracting new employees to the organization, it’s the role of the human resource department to come up with ways of selling out the company to potential employees. It has to outline organizational values, how flexible their work force is, their compensation policies among other features they will deem relevant in attracting the best candidates possible to working with them. If done correctly and consistently the recruitment policy can play a key role in getting high performing employees to working for the company. However, when the acquisition policies are not clear, for instance on what each specific role involves and career path for its employees, may be negatively impacted in its quest to hiring and retaining the best performing employees. (Michael, Armstrong, 2001)
Development policies on the other hand are simply ways through which the company intent to nurture the acquired talents. They are intended to helping new employees get into company’s culture, to provide employees with the basics required to perform their duties and functions as per the set organizational standards. This may be through on the job training or getting them to acquire new skills meant for future or advancement at the work place. These development policies can be important as they give employees a clear career path within the organization and this keeps them motivated and with the desire to remain in the organization so as to realize their career goals through it.
With this in mind, organizations can therefore tailor their development programs to meet specific goals of their employees. For instance, executive coaching can be helpful in building competencies among leaders in the organization. Lack of clear and consistent development policies could make it difficult for a company to acquire and retain high performing employees.
Human resource policies on employee retention will also play an integral role in organizations performance and productivity. Such policies should be geared towards ensuring a high retention rate. To achieve this, a company should clearly define its culture and identify individuals who would thrive within the set environment. The set culture should include the following strategies to ensure that employees are kept happy and feel part of the organization:
Training and mentorship: This will reinforce employees’ sense of value and belonging. They will develop a better understanding of their job’s requirement and will develop a strong bond with the organization, hence creating a basic foundation for retention.
Instilling a culture that shows appreciation through compensation and benefits either by offering competitive salary, sharing profits or giving bonuses make employees feel that they are valued by the organization. The impact is that they will maintain a positive perception of the organization, thus increasing chances of retaining them. This is an important and beneficial strategy to the employer as retaining employees help the organization in reducing costs incurred in acquiring and training new employees as well as cautioning it against loses in the event the company will stop its operation due to lack of crucial man power.
To successfully install a culture of employee retention an engagement, company leadership must put in place the following strategies.
Employee survey: This basically requires the organization to research on employees so as to gain a deeper understanding of what motivates them. Once they have an understanding of the employees’ perspective, the company can now create programs that are in line with their employees’ ways of doing things and this may have a positive impact on employee retention.
Exit interviews: This can be organized in the event an employee decides to leave the company and can be valuable to the organization as it will gain an insight on aspects enjoyed by the employee, what they didn’t like and would recommend wish changed. This information can then be used in making necessary changes to retain top talents.
Employee retention consultancy: This is a strategy where leaders in an organization decide to seek professional assistance on how to retain top employees. Such consultants can be helpful in providing expertise in identifying issues in the organization that are associated with high turnover rates. They can then offer suggestions on how such issues can be addressed and install a culture of employee retention.
Socialization: where leaders can come up with a strategic onboarding program, where new employees are assimilated and embedded into the organization. This could be through sharing individual learning experiences; get together and such activities may create new role models and mentors that would keep workers together for a longer period of time.
Compensation and rewarding: How well a company compensates its employees, will play a key role in retaining them. Leaders therefore need to come up with a clear compensation plan to ensure that their employees are not underpaid as compared to what others in similar roles are being paid. It is therefore imperative that they research on what their competitors are offering.
Effective leadership: this strategy involves maintaining a good relationship between employees and their immediate leaders, reducing the gap between employees and management thus making employees feeling embedded and valued by the organization. Through open communication, the leaders should get their employees opinion and use them as an integral part in motivating and building their loyalty to the company. (Jack Welch, 2005)
Employee engagement: will also make them feel contented with their job, enjoy working with the organization and feel less likely to quit. This gives a competitive advantage to an organization in regards to productivity as employees are highly motivated to work. There will also be low turnover as employees take pride in the company and are motivated to working for it.
When it comes to acquiring human capital, it’s to the interest of every human resource department that they stay abreast in getting the best talent possible. However, this does not come by on a silver plate, as recruiters are experiencing numerous issues, a fact that has made human resource professionals to adopt measures and strategies in overcoming the obstacles in getting the best talent available for their organization. Such challenges and strategies include:
Insufficient resources: where in many companies, the human resource department has often been underfunded, yet expected to get the best possible in terms of recruitment. This gives them undue disadvantage as they have to compete with others a have a huge budget allocation to advertise their position in the hottest recruitment sites where they are more likely to get the best out of the market place. But since not all companies can boost of a large budget allocation for recruitment, it’s therefore important that human resource managers with low budget come up with ways of beating this challenge and remain relevant in their quest to getting the best candidate for the position. Such strategies can include; taking advantage of their LinkedIn profiles in selling out their company and connecting with potentially highly qualified candidates.
Not being able to find a perfect candidate: this often happens when a company advertises for a position and fail to get resumes that match the set skills for that particular position. This has been a common problem to most recruiters, but the situation has been worsened due to increasing competition for key performers. At times, such candidates may not be available and therefore the recruiter should be in a position to strike a balance on whether to hire for a position or hire someone great despite of the position. That is human resource professionals must be in a position to hire a highly talented who is open for training to acquire needed skills for that particular position. They should also be willing to adjust job descriptions of certain positions, as at times the wording used doesn’t correctly point out the position needs, yet they have often been used in assessing candidates’ suitability for the position.
Need for speedy hiring: traditionally, recruiters had time during recession to discuss candidates and hold multiple interviews. But with limited resources and stiff competition for available talent, companies can no longer afford the laxity to thoroughly vet and acquire the best talent possible. They hurriedly hire fearing cost and losing potentially high performers to their competitors. This could however be to the company’s disadvantage as they may not get the best candidate since they didn’t have enough time to assess all the qualifications required for the position. (Robert Gatewood, Hebert S.Feiled, Murray Barrick, 2015)
To avoid this human resource managers need to re-examine their recruitment tools, come up with software and implement strategies where all candidates’ information is documented and easily accessible so as to cut down on recruitment time and at the same time being in a position to comprehensively vet candidates competencies.
Getting workers who fit in the company’s culture: this has proved to be challenging especially when new recruits fail to integrate into the company’s culture. Such great talents could be lost since they don’t gel with the team. HR managers should therefore ensure that in describing the company’s culture, they should do it in a manner that job seekers will understand and for only fit candidates to apply.
Works Cited
Bower, Joseph L & Jay Dial. (1994). General Electric's Revolution. Case Sudy, 9-36.
Jack Welch, S. w. (2005). Winning . Haepers Business.
Johnny C. Taylor Jr. Gary M. Stern. (2011). Finding and keeping the best people. Haevard Business Review, 12- 57.
Michael, Armstrong. (2001). A Handbook of Human Resource Management. London: kogan page limited.
Robert Gatewood, Hebert S.Feiled, Murray Barrick. (2015). Human Resource Selection. United states : amazon .com.
