Toolkit Design for HR Management and the Future of Work

Organizational effectiveness and ability to successfully deliver on its mission is dependent on its ability to attract, develop, retrain as well as engage the right talent (Holbeche, 2015). The human resource department has the responsibility of vetting, hiring, and maintaining labor needed to run an organization. To properly support and enable the employees to deliver on the organizational mission, there has to be a formalized and systemized framework for management practices. HR Toolkit will provide human resource officers with guidance for the development and enhancement of HR policies. In addition, it will provide a series of questions for accessing the current HR framework as well as identifying the required changes and actions to strengthen it. The toolkit will also suggest resources that can help fill potential gaps. Ideally, it leverages an array of existing resources as well as good practice principles hence helps improve the HR system. In it are sign-postings to resources for HR officers, suggested activities, tools, and tips, for enhancing people management practices, embedding good HR practices and encouraging sharing as well as learning. Generally, the HR Toolkit supports an organization in strengthening HR processes and formalizes the framework of people management in the company.

Developmental History of HR Leadership 

Human Resources Management sprout in the late years of the 19 th century when welfare officers, also known as welfare secretaries, came into being. At first, HRM began with the specific purpose of protecting women and children in workplaces. The welfare secretaries were women who sought better treatment for their fellow women and girls in different workplaces. The early years of the 20 th century saw many women into job positions as men were occupied with fighting the First World War (Hughes & Gosney, 2016). During that time, the welfare secretaries became more active in fighting for better working conditions for women and girls. The work of the secretaries was quite impressive and therefore they inspired the creation of positions such as “employment manager” and “labor manager” in the 1920s. The role of those offices included hiring and firing, dealing with absenteeism, and determining salaries and bonuses. As the economy began to pick up in the 1930s and big corporations came to being, the welfare of employees became a major area of consideration (Hughes & Gosney, 2016). The corporation's understood the need for a well-maintained team of employees in increasing productivity. The world recession, however, hit and it was only until after the Second World War that welfare and personnel work was created on a full-time basis. In 1945, employment management and welfare work became integrated under the term “personnel management” (Hughes & Gosney, 2016). The war experience taught the people that specialized personnel management is a key driver for the efficiency of human resources.

In the 1980s, “personnel management” changed by both name and scope. It was now referred to as “Human Resource Management.” Although the term seemed to imply that employees were assets, it emphasized on employee motivation and the recognition of the significance of their commitment (Hughes & Gosney, 2016). In the contemporary world, human beings are recognized as the most important business resource or rather assets. The issues handled by the HRM have also gone beyond hiring and maintaining enough and efficient labor. Emerging issues in the field include diversity and employee relations. People are now more conscious about human freedoms and equality more than ever. Discrimination of any kind in a workplace can cause severe damage to a company’s name. The HR department is therefore responsible for ensuring that a company’s employee team is diversified in terms of race, gender, and even sexual orientation. Moreover, it is the duty of the HR officers to manage the relations of employees among themselves to ensure no one is abusing the other or going against any of their human rights and freedoms.

Activities that Define Appropriate HR Practice 

Human resource practices differ from one organization to another and even from one department to another. The practices are influenced by factors such as local labor laws, the culture of an organization, leadership and size or organization among other factors. There are however some activities that occur across the board. The following list of activities is primary in formalizing a Human Resource framework:

• Open and fair recruitment processes
• Onboarding of new employees
• The holding of Regular Staff Meetings
• Creation of Employment Contacts
• Conducting monthly or annual performance reviews
• Compensating grids
• Having clear ad accessible HR policies and manuals
• Securing HR Records

Why HR Leadership is Fundamental to an Ethical Environment 

Human beings are the most significant resource in a company. Unlike machines which unquestionably obey commands, human resource needs to be managed in a different way. An ethical workplace entails good relations among employees, between the company and the outside world including their customers, the surrounding community as well as the authorities. It is also characterized by the absence of abuse as well as exploitation. The human resource department ensures that a workplace has all those characteristics. An ethical work environment is vital for sustainability (Schroeder, 2012). Employees who enjoy an ethical work environment are most likely to stay longer in the workplace. A company that observes ethics in its operations is also likely to stay in business for a long time.

The Role of HR in Ensuring an Ethical Workplace Environment 

Every role assigned to the human resource department is centered on ensuring an ethical workplace environment . The human resource officers manage the interactions of the employees with each other as well as with outside parties and make sure that they are appropriate. They also take care of the employees’ welfare; process their salaries, leaves, off days, and pensions. HRM is also responsible for the motivation of employees.

In summary, the roles of HRM are:

• To Envision
• To Hire
• To Manage
• To Motivate
• To Care
• To Retire

Envisioning 

HRM in a company plays a key role in ensuring that employee activities support the overall mission of the organization. It analyzes work strategies and ensures that they value staff contribution; consider employee feedback, embrace inclusiveness and diversity as well as allocates enough human and financial resources. The HRM is also concerned with the organizational structure. The department ensures that there is a clear hierarchy and good relations in the workplace. This is done by ensuring the existence of an organizational chart that is easily available to all employees whenever they need to reference it. HRM ensures that the chart is up to date and makes amendments in case of any hierarchical changes. Human resource officers also evaluate the organizational structure to ensure their suitability to the implementation of the company’s work strategy. If the structure is not enabling the achievement of organizational goals; it is the role of the HRM to amend it. The department also ensures that the organizational structure offers clarity on the management and communication lines.

HRM also has the role of ensuring a good culture within an organization. Culture entails the values, beliefs, norms and habitual ways of doing things in the organization. Such aspects impact every aspect of HRM. The organizational culture should be aligned with the people’s management so that they support each other in creating the right environment for the thriving of the staff and the achievement of the mission of the organization. Organizational culture is often linked to its ethical or unethical operation. The HRM oversees appropriate relations among employees; compliance with laws, rules, and regulations. It is also responsible for earning the trust of employees to the organization as well as ensuring their comfort so that they can be free to raise issues that they view as pressing. or of concern.

Hiring 

Traditionally hiring was considered the primary role of HRM. Although there are other equally important roles of HRM in contemporary work, acquiring and maintaining an efficient team of employees is still a major HRM role (Anosh et al, 2014). It is important for the HRM to be keen on factors that will enable it to assemble the right team, in an appropriate manner and be able to enable its efficient functioning. Such factors include having an appropriate recruitment policy, recruitment procedures, job descriptions, and onboarding processes for new employees. The hiring process begins with workforce planning. The HRM has to first determine the human resource needs of the organization; ensure that the company creates enough number of job positions to enable the achievements of organizational goals. Secondly is the job design stage which entails creating specific jobs and identifying the skills needed for each job. Thirdly is coming up with job descriptions, which define the role and accountability of each job position. Each job position created should have a description delineating at least the job title, classification, salary grade, a summary of overall roles, required qualifications, as well as competencies.

HRM should have recruitment policies that act as a guide and should be followed by the HROs in the hiring process. The policies are primarily statements of purpose, value, and principles by which the HROs must abide by during the recruitment process. Such policies include equality, fairness, transparency, and professionalism in the recruitment process. The recruitment process itself is an official statement of practices and detailed steps that should be followed in the process of acquiring new staff. The steps begin with advertising the job positions right to the onboarding of new staff. Job positions should be advertised in a way that attracts a diversified group of interviewees. The advert should also be specific in terms of qualifications to attract the right applicants for the job. An appropriate criterion for shortlisting is crucial to minimize the number of applicants who will be interviewed. Those shortlisted should be informed in time (Anosh et al, 2014). An interview committee, date, and questions are then set. While informing the chosen candidates, the unsuccessful ones should also be informed so that they do not keep waiting and maybe miss opportunities in other places. The acclimatization of new employees is a crucial step in the hiring role of HRM. The process, which is also referred to as onboarding or induction, is primarily the introduction of new staff to the organization. It entails the equipping of the employees with the necessary knowledge about how things are done at their new workplace. HRM is also responsible for ensuring that the new staff gets the right support to drive their productivity quickly.

Managing 

The managing role of HRM is to enable the organization to achieve effectiveness in its programs. Additionally, it also provides a supportive environment for employees. The department creates policies and practices related to staff control and puts them in writing as well as makes them easily accessible for reference when the need arises. The types of management roles include:

Performance Management

The HR department makes periodic assessments of each employee's job performance. Such evaluations enable the company to take note of improvements and changes that need to be done. Additionally, it enables the planning for learning and development programs. The HRM has to come up with the criteria for evaluation and make it staff-friendly. The evaluation process should not make the employees feel like they are being put into the test but rather being led towards growth opportunities. 

Compensation & Benefits Management

The effective implementation of a reward structure is a critical role of the HRM of an organization. An appropriate compensation scheme attracts quality labor and keeps employees motivated. The HRM should put in place a set of reward principles, which link back to the organizational culture. There should also be a reward Philosophy, which will guide the compensation design in terms of marketing position, adaptation to different labor markets, as well as pay progression mechanism. Salary administration should be robust and there should also be non-monetary benefits like flexible working hours. 

Employee Relations Management

HRM is responsible for establishing disciplinary and grievance policy processes as it manages employee formal relations including conflict and complains. The department is responsible for ensuring employee relationships that are suitable for growth. Ideally, it can organize team-building activities to strengthen such relationships. 

The Role of Inspiring 

HRM has the role of ensuring that employees are motivated and well enabled to perform their duties. In essence, it analyzes and determines the training needs of the staff, chooses the appropriate and cost-effective training methods, and ensures fairness in training opportunities for the employees (Muhhammed & Nevelda, 2014). The department is also responsible for ensuring employee engagement. Indeed, engagement is a result of job satisfaction. The right conditioning of employees drives them to be committed to the organizational goals and values upon which the company’s success is greatly dependent. HRM has to come up with ways of measuring employee engagement some of which include observation, regular meetings where employees are made to feel free to speak, suggestion boxes, and even checking the performance of the employees. The ways that can be used to maintain and improve employee engagement include involving them in decision making, recognizing their efforts, for example, by offering bonuses and rewards to best performers, providing equal opportunities, ensuring both physically and emotionally safe working environment, having an open-door policy, and providing a role model, among other ways.

The Care Role 

HRM puts in place health and safety policies thus ensuring that the wellbeing of employees is catered for. The department establishes procedures for reporting problems such as harassment, sickness, or accidents. Moreover, it handles risk management practices by evaluating the activities of the company to ensure that none poses an immediate risk to employees’ wellbeing. HRM ensures that the employees have health insurance, off days, and enough vacations to rejuvenate their energy (Muhhammed & Nevelda, 2014). The department also manages stress at work by identifying stressed employees and finding the cause and solution of the stress.

Retiring 

Similarly to the onboarding of new staff, the HRM has the role of retiring employees. Notably, it is responsible for handling pensions as well as adjustment programs for employees who are leaving their careers due to old age (Muhhammed & Nevelda, 2014). The department also ensures the return of company properties such as laptops, key cards, and even employee badges that enable one to access the company premises.

Conclusion 

Human Resource Management plays a key role in company success. To maximize their effectiveness in the workplace, people need to be managed. Unlike machines that come with manuals, human resources have to manage day by day as people’s behaviors cannot be programmed.

References

Anosh, M., Hamad, N., Batool, A. (2014). Impact of recruitment and selection of hr department practices. European Journal of Business and Management , vol.6 (31) p.200-205

Gosney, M., Hughes, C. (2016). The history of human resource development understanding the unexplored philosophies, theories and methodologies. New York: Hampshire

Holbeche, L. (2015). Aligning human resources and business strategy. New York: Routledge.

Muhhammed. O., & Nevelda, H. (2014). The role of human resource management in employee motivation. European Researcher , Vol 75(5) p970-979.

Schroeder, H. (2012). "The Importance of human resource management in strategic sustainability: An art and science perspective," Journal of Environmental Sustainability : Vol. 2: Iss. 2, Article 4. DOI: 10.14448/jes.02.0004