Principles and practice of Human Resource Management Essay

In 21st century, the shaping which considers its employees as an addition rather than personify has competitive advantage. The term suggested for employees is humans crown. It refers to outputive authorisation of unmatcheds knowledge and actions. In todays knowledge economy, efficient instruction of human capital ensures success for the placement. This tells the importance of human resource circumspection. It is rough managing human capital in the same way as asset counsel or monetary management.Actu all(prenominal)y human resource management acts as a medium of exchange between employees and organization. Employees offer knowledge, abilities, skills, efforts, time, pauperism, cargo and military operation to the organization in return for occupancy security, empowerment, generous even up for exercise, facts of life, promotion and trustful relationship. Thus human resource management is considered as a see to iting process that is matching organizational goals wi th employees essentials in request to satisfy both optimally.The more(prenominal) formal definition of human resource management is the activities undertaken by the organization to attract, develop and maintain an in effect(p) gainforce within an organization. (Daft, 1982) Thus attracting an effective bailiwickforce for an organization, developing it to its potential and finally maintaining it are the 3 main goals of the human resource management. And all the st esteemgies are developed by the human resource department for attaining these three goals and these strategies tend to be organizational wide in order to life the overall unified strategy.The skills required for attracting the rifleforce includes human resource planning, assembly line outline, forecasting, recruiting and selecting skills for developing the cropforce includes training and performance appraisal and skills for maintaining the work force includes wages, salaries, bene equalises and termination. Or ganizations peculiarly perform human resource management in order to face the issues related to human resource proactively rather than reactively. ( Price , 2007). Having developed the theory of human resource management, we will now talk about the divers(prenominal) go aboutes taken by the organization for pursing HRM.Read moreManaging The Human ResourcesThe source approach is austere HRM developed by Michigan business nurture and the second one is piano HRM developed by Harvard business school. (Fombrun, Tichy and Devanna, 1984) both approaches are opposite as they are based on opposite sets of assumptions. (Storey 1992) fluffy HRM has humanistic edge in managing employees while hard HRM considers employees as resources which have to be managed in the same way as capital equipments and raw materials. That is hard HRM is bit more practiced and mechanical in its approach which involves in obtaining as cheap labor as likely that should be to the full exploited. woolly H RM advocates unitary prospect which means employees and organization needs and interest are coherent which current of airs to mutual goals, influence, respect, rewards and responsibility. The outcome is and so employee load and organizational success (Walton 1985). On contrary, pluralist perspective sees differences in employee and organization goals as a capture for conflicts and problems. Managements trade union movement is to score the appropriate behavior in workers so that their actions accomplish the companys goals, not their own. This paves the way for showing direction and coercion by management.This perspective underlies hard HRM. .( Price , 2007) Mc Gregor in 1960 gave guess X and Theory Y about the nature of employees. Theory X depicted employees who loathe work and try to avoid it when they stop. People have to be coerced to work and have to be closely directed and regulated thus confidential information to tight managerial control. On the other hand theory Y d epicted employees who like to work and exercise egotism direction and self control if they are committed to the goals and physical objects. In this case thither is devoid managerial control and managements function is to foster case-by-case growth and development.Apparently easygoing HRM is associated with theory Y which emphasizes employees payload through and through trust, open communication, training and development and autonomous work environment. This will adopt employee behavior which is self directed and this is the main reason for organizations competitive advantage. Whereas hard HRM contingent to theory X, focuses on quantitative, calculative and strategical aspects of managing HR as for any other factor of production. The practices of hard HRM inhabit of strict performance appraisal, supervision and external control over psyches activities.Now we will examine how low-keyed and hard HRM approaches comport to contrary kinds of activities and outcomes at differe nt symbolises of human resource lifecycle. The first demo is of attracting the potential employees. This requires human resource planning by forecasting HR needs and matching the individuals with expected job vacancies. The loony HRM will sample to forecast needed employees in order to complete a work unit or finding the best mix of employees for the team in order to elicit commitment from team members by setting of reasoned team norms and strong cohesiveness.Whereas hard HRM will look to minimize the need for additional employees and will try to reduce the head count. This will lead to incomplete work unit. The job vacancies will not be fully matched with potential employees, which will lead to incomplete work outcomes or delays in achieving goals deadlines. even so hard HRM is best suited in condition of financial crisis and economic recession. In these conditions companies are incurring losses and they cannot afford hiring of naked employees. Hard HRM is helpful in minimi zing external hiring and shifting and relocating existing employees within organization.This will make existing employees loyal because they were not laid off by the organization when downsizing is the only option that remains during financial crisis. (Fombrun, 1984). The recruitment and selection is the most important process in hiring of employees. It requires analysis of both job applicants and job itself. We have to look for desired characteristics in applicants so that he must make a nice match with particular job requirements. If his skills, education and experience are not fitting for the specific job consequently it will lead to frustration and confusion.The issue will be slimy performance, job dissatisfaction and high turnover. Both soft and hard HRM approach will provide realistic job watch and job description so that employees can judge their potential for a specific job. However soft HRM approach will be more insightful as it will look into the hidden personality t raits, attitudes and beliefs of the applicants so that they can be better integrated into overall corporeal culture, norms and values. Whereas hard HRM will only look to match the applicants skills with the technical specification of the job.Soft HRM give more attention to the human processes much(prenominal) as communication, sharing of knowledge, cohesiveness and trust among employees. Interviews, paper pencil running etc are the most common selection devices and are used by both approaches. However soft HRM approach has additional selection devices such as personality test, psychological test, case studies and different types of surveys. The second map in HR lifecycle is development of effective workforce which includes training and performance appraisal as the two most important activities.Soft HRM approach will be more inclined towards training for individual progression and career development. Soft HRM will go for various types of training techniques such as on the job training, class way of life training, computer aid instructions, conferences and case discussion groups. Employees will be do to learn four-fold skills so that they can be rotated among various jobs in order to reduce monotony and introduce variety. Hard HRM will see training as an expense. It will usually design job which leaves little room for showing discretion and creativity.The job is monotonous and set rules and procedures are there to perform the job. So training is limited to learning those specific job procedures which limits career advancement. This reduces employee motivation and cause job dissatisfaction and high turnover rate because of increase in monotony. The practice of hard HRM is most suitable in assembly line work. However it will fail in work demanding creativity and originality and whose environment is more unstable and uncertain, for example, film industry.While considering the action at law of performance appraisal, hard HRM is more stringent in its app raisal process. The poor people performance is mostly attributed to individuals lack of ability and no consideration is given to various external factors influencing the individuals performance. outer factors are outside individual control and includes pathetic work environment, work place conflicts, distrust, no sharing of information and resources, bad relations and poor communication with top management. (Drucker , 1954 ) On the other hand soft HRM gives objective feedback on employees performance.It also uses the technique of 360 degree feedback that uses multiple raters and self judge to enhance the reliability and credibility of feedback in the eyes of employees. Multiple raters can include customers, co workers, supervisors and subordinates. Employee is also given a chance to justify his point of view and give explanation if his performance is not up to the standard. At the end of the appraisal top performances are also rewarded with bonuses, knowledge and promotion. The feedback style of soft HRM is such that employees are motivated to improve their performance further.It enhances employees self efficacy by making clear fictional character expectations and removing role conflicts and role ambiguity. This approach is therefore best suited for organizations whose culture encompasses entirety quality management. TQM stresses for customer satisfaction by providing better quality product or services through dedication to training, continuous improvement and teamwork. The tertiary and last stage in HR life cycle is maintaining of workforce so that they continue to work for the organization over the long run.This stage consists of four activities such as rewards management, industrial relation, occupational health and refuge and termination. In soft HRM approach rewards are such that it recognizes individuals accomplishment as well as teamwork. Rewards are administered in such a way that it promotes collaboration and cooperation among employees so tha t they work as a unit for the overall goals of the organization. The focus is on creating the synergy so that different department of organization works coherently and in alignment of corporate strategy.Ivancevich, 2003). Soft HRM approach also gives rewards which increases intrinsic motivation of employees. internal motivation to work comes from the internal satisfaction and honor one feels when he completes somewhat meaningful work which makes the difference for the organization. These types of rewards increase employees sense of meaningfulness, competence, progress and choice. Intrinsic rewards which increase intrinsic motivation are important for increasing employees commitment to organizations goals and mission.The hard HRM has tight control over rewards. isolated from basic salary, less effort is made to recognize individual performance. However calculated yearly bonuses are given when year end realise target is achieved. In other words no effort is made in hard HRMs rewar d body to increase employees commitment to work. The main problem is that hard HRM follows corporate strategy in reward employees and no analysis is done about employees needs and desires. Soft HRM is good enough as its rewards system makes a best fit between employees needs and rewards.Moreover the other organization dynamics which affects rewards system is employees comprehend equity of rewards. If the distribution of rewards is not considered equitable by employees then motivating effects of rewards will vanish. There will be depression of cognitive dissonance in employees and to remove this feeling, he will all alter his inputs to the work or will demand changes in rewards. The soft HRM approach dealing with human processes designs reward system to improve employees perceived equity while hard HRM fails to do so.According to Herzberg, working conditions, pay, good company policy and interpersonal relationships are called hygiene factors and their presence removes job dissat isfaction. The hygiene factors are well cared by soft HRM approach. The hard one fails to provide hygiene factors because its main objective is to accomplish a task in most economical terms as possible. It is only the soft HRM approach that has clear and functional policies and procedures about occupational health and safety. (Noe, 2003). Soft HRM approach looks to build long term relationship with employees.It opens all convey of communication such as upward, downward and lateral. Moreover grapevine and management by objective techniques are also used by managers to toil deeper into employees problems and requirements. Hard HRM only uses formal and hierarchical communication channel. This is also the cause for many communication breakdown and distortion. The most important feature of soft HRM is of mentoring and socialization which greatly helps in building cooperative and trustful corporate culture and environment.