Employee Engagement (EE)

Introduction

Today, Employee engagement (EE) is an important topic for HR professionals. Forming an engaged workforce is one of the highest prioritize tasks for many organizations in both private and public sectors (CIPD, 2009).Engaged employees perform better than others, they do not take more leave and        they are less likely to quit (CIPD, 2006).Above all those employees like to recommend their organization to others, at the same time they experience job satisfaction, positive attitudes, and emotions towards their work (CIPD, 2006).

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The Drivers of Employee Engagement

CIPD (2006) has suggested key drivers of employee engagement are:

·        There should be opportunities in the organization to employees to feed views upwards.

·        Employees should feel that they are well informed about what is happening in the organization

·        These should be an environment to think employees that their manager is committed to the organization.

These findings tell that the internal communication is very vital, and the organization needs to change its communication style from a traditional style to consultative or participation style (CIPD, 2009). Some of the major important roles of the managements are treating employees with respect and handling problems in a fair-minded way (CIPD, 2009). The psychological contract outlines the importance for morale of employees feelings that make them to keep faith in the employer and believing they are treated fair-minded way (CIPD, 2004).

The Key Barriers to Successful Employee Engagement

These barriers are according to CIPD (2009):

·        Employee experiences poor work–life balance because of a long-hours working culture.

·        Employee experiences a rigid communication environment or cultural norms when sharing knowledge or in communication.

·        Employee experiences unreliable management style based on the attitudes of individual managers, which may lead employees to think unfairness to them.

·        Employees experiences that the management practices reactive decision-making styles to the problems before it is too late.

·        Employees experiences the quality of downward communication and low awareness of senior management visibility.

·        Employee experiences the low levels of advocacy

Conclusion

If organizations are willing to achieve its objectives, then they have to have a well-organized strategy in employee engagement. There is an important role to play by human resource professionals and management in an organization to recognize the plan to engage employees.

References :

CIPD. (2004). Employee well-being and the psychological contract. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

CIPD. (2006). How engaged are British employees. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

CIPD. (2009). An HR director’s guide to employee engagement. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

CIPD. (2009). Employee engagement in context. CHARTERED INSTITUTE OF PERSONNEL AND DEVELOPMENT : London.

Employee Relations (ER)

Introduction

Today employee relations are a much broader area than ever, which involves keeping good working environment to satisfy the individual employees and the management while focusing on organizational goals. The relationship between employees and employers is not always straightforward; they both have their own set of needs and requirements (Bingham, 2016).

An employment relationship is one which establishes a set of mutual rights and responsibilities between the employer and employees (Bingham, 2016). And further Bingham (2016) writes that the relationship is main path that helps employees to gain access to the rights and benefits which are related with employment in the areas of labor law and social security.

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Union Representation

CIPD (2005) says that the employees’ relations have changed since 1990s.  Many companies prefer to have a good relationship with employees and, with the trade unions if it is important (CIPD, 2005).

CIPD (2005) have categorized the employers based on their interest in making a relationship with the trade unions.

·        Some employers are completely anti-trade union ones.

·        Some employers do not have strong opinion or practical experience of dealing with trade union, if they feel that the trade union can add business value then, of course, they can be persuaded.

·        Some employers are having long-term relationship with trade unions and they like to build new progressive relationship with them.

Management

CIPD (2005) suggests the people those who are responsible for employee relations in an organization should have the following skills: collective understanding of labor law, good knowledge of general employment law, knowing the way how representation structures work, knowing the way how to develop trust and respect, understanding the awareness of employee attitudes, facilitation and communication skills, negotiation skills and business knowledge.

Challenges

The managers must be able manage the gloomy areas of employees relations such as handling people with PSTD (Posttraumatic stress disorder), anxiety and LGBT (Forbes Human Resources Council, 2017).

Managers should be able to take necessary actions quickly with the support of human resources management to communicate laws changes effectively; it can be federal or local levels (Forbes Human Resources Council, 2017).

Dell makes its effort to recruit people those who are open, direct and good fit with its values, and importantly it focuses on the people those who have abilities to get the job done rather engaging in office politics (CIPD, 2005).

Conclusion

Today human resource (HR) professionals will have to work as a bridge to build a good employer-employee relationship while helping to find solutions for the challenges in this regard. At the same time HR professional will have to play a vital role with trade unions in order build a good relationship between them.

References:

Bingham, C. (2016). Employment Relations: Fairness and Trust in the Workplace. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

CIPD. (2005). WHAT IS EMPLOYEE RELATIONS? Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Forbes Human Resources Council. (2017, April 13). 10 Critical Demands Managers Face And How HR Can Help. Retrieved June 30, 2018 : 8 pm, from forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2017/04/13/10-critical-demands-managers-face-and-how-hr-can-help/#630812e35bac

Performance Management (PM)

Introduction

Every organization does their best to reach organizational objectives by getting the support from their workforce. Performance management (PM) is a systematic approach that includes performance appraisal and employee developments to achieve organizational objectives (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).

Dessler (2013) writes that the performance appraisal is a kind of a process that will evaluate an employee’s current or previous performance related to employee’s performance standards. 360-degree feedback is a process in which an employee’s performance is monitored and evaluated (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).  The feedback can be given by various people such as their manager, colleagues, subordinates, and customers (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).

Most of the time, the PM is a basis for an organization to pay and for its human resource (HR) decisions (D.Pulakos, 2004). 

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Aims of Performance Management

Hanson & Pulakos (2015) have identified that PM has to aim to work on three significant areas by enabling employees to perform to their potential.

1.   Goal setting: Organization has to plan that enables employees to contribute their efforts which are aligned to reach the organization’s goal.  

2.   Performance review: Organization has to organize their employees with guideposts that will help them to monitor behavior and result. And further it helps making adjustments which may be needed in real time to maximize the performance.

3.   Performance improvement plans: Organization has to support employees to remove barriers to performance.

Challenges in Performance Management  

Forbes Human Resources Council (2017)  has identified some of the challenges.

Lack of standards in the evaluation process among managers, can bring issues to PM. Sometimes evaluation criterion is not in measurable formats, for example, managers get confused on which basis they are going to rate on employee’s “customer’s-service” or “communication” abilities.

Some employers are using performance appraisal process to weed out the low performers rather than practicing a solid recruiting and screening process to prevent that recruitment. Performance reviews are done only once in year, rather than practicing regularly one-on-one meetings between the manager and employees throughout the year to review goals and the achievements.

It is said that the traditional manager/employee corporate structure makes the performance appraisals more challenging.

Examples

Organization like Microsoft, Adobe, Motorola practice more frequently one-on-one meetings with managers in an effort to provide feedback and keep employees on task (Forbes Human Resources Council, 2017).

Conclusions

PM is important process that helps an organization growing.  It has to be adapted by an organization while finding solution to the challenges that it meets.

References

Hanson, R. A., & Pulakos, E. (2015). Retrieved June 30, 2018 : 6 pm, from https://www.shrm.org: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert-views/Documents/SHRM-SIOP%20Performance%20Management.pdf

Armstrong, M., & Stephen, T. (2014). Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice (13 ed.). London: Koganpage.

D.Pulakos, E. (2004). Performance Management : A roadmap for developing, implementing and evaluating performance management systems. Alexandria: SHRM.

DESSLER, G. (2013). HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (13 ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Forbes Human Resources Council. (2017, December 1). Adapting The Performance Appraisal Process To Meet The Needs Of The Modern Workplace. Retrieved June 30 , 2018 : 6 pm, from https://www.forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2017/12/01/adapting-the-performance-appraisal-process-to-meet-the-needs-of-the-modern-workplace/#63b11bfa5342

The Learning and Development (L&D)

Introduction

L&D is the process of learning or developmental experiences that help an organization to gain and develop knowledge, skills competencies, behaviors and attitudes (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014). The majority has described that the purpose of L&D is improving individual and organizational performance by developing employees’ capability (CIPD, 2015). At the same time,   minority has described the purpose of L&D is providing training to ensuring employees have the skills to carry out their roles involved (CIPD, 2015). Larger percentage defines that the purpose of L&D is to achieve corporate goals and business improvement (CIPD, 2015).

The Role of Learning & Development

CIPD (2015) identifies some of the roles that L&D plays in an organization such as providing the knowledge, behaviors, and skills required for sustainable success, supporting organizational development, identifying current and future skills gaps and embedding organizational values, retaining key staff, and supporting ‘make the company a great place to work’ (CIPD, 2015).

Even though LD has to play leading roles in an organization, a minority see L&D’s role as creating ‘a learning culture’ or ‘learning organization’ (CIPD, 2015).

The  Learning & Development Components

Source :Armstrong & Stephen (2014)

Learning Culture

SHRM (2015) says that learning culture contains of a community of employees inspired with a growth mindset. Armstrong & Stephen (2014) say learning is recognized by top management, line managers and employees in a learning culture. According SHRM (2015), in 2013, US organizations have invested average of USD1208 per employee that aggregates more than $162 billion annually for training and development.

Strategic Learning & Development

Strategic L&D is an approach to help an organization’s employees to learn and develop skills that will help how to achieve its goals with combined L&D strategies, practices and policies (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014). The aim of strategic L&D is to produce clear and complete framework for developing employees by creating a learning culture and formulating organizational and individual learning strategies (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).

Learning and Development Strategies

Learning and development strategies are considered as the active components that help to approach to strategic L&D (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).   Strategic L&D activities will take place in the organization; it provides guidance on how these activities should to be planned and implemented (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014). Organizational learning strategies and individual learning strategies are part of L&D strategies (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).

The aim of organizational learning strategies is to develop an organization’s resource based capacity (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).The aim of individual learning strategies of an organization is to fill up sort of skills and behaviors that will be required to achieve business goals (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014)

Conclusion

According to SHRM (2015) the jobs are vanishing due to the new way of doing tasks using technology and automation. It further states making ability to learn is more vital than ever.

 References

Armstrong, M., & Stephen, T. (2014). Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice (13 ed.). London: Koganpage.

CIPD. (2015). Learning and Development 2015 : ANNUAL SURVEY REPORT. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

SHRM. (2015, May 1). How to Create a Learning Culture. Retrieved May 15, 2018 : 3 pm, from www.shrm.org: https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/0515-learning-culture.aspx

Talent Management

Introduction

The talent management has been practiced almost all the organizations by dealing more practically with employees to achieve strategic business goals with right relationships, abilities, behaviors, skills, and knowledge (Morgan & Jardin, 2010).  Talent is unique to an organization and likely to change over time and further it is influenced by factors such as industry, its nature, individuals, and implication at group level (CIPD, 2007).

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Talent Management 

Even though there are quite a lot of definitions available for Talent Management, some opinions remain that the definitions are unclear and lack of clarity (Lewis and Heckman 2006). Talent Management is a kind of process that supports an organization to retaining of high potential employees those who are considered as a certain value for the organization (CIPD, 2007).

And further CIPD (2007) states that Talent Management includes organized attraction, deployment and development of those employees. Talent Management involves in human resource management (HRM) processes that focus on attracting, developing and retaining of talents (Lewis & Heckman, 2006).

Factors Determining Successful Talent Management:

Most of the organizations are functioning in multicultural environment; its talent is in the form of different nationals from different cultures. Organization needs to be sensitive to the cultural diversity when attracting, developing, deploying and retaining talents.

Attracting Talents:

Employer brand has a direct link with attracting external talents (Poorhosseinzadeh & Subramaniam , 2013).

          Deploying Talents:

An approach called “Quick Screen” helps talent recruiting by matching key aspects of position and application’s competencies to identify high performers (Poorhosseinzadeh & Subramaniam , 2013).

Developing Talents:

Organization has to focus on recognizing their talent’s knowledge gaps, implementing strategies to increase their competencies and confirming their retention (Poorhosseinzadeh & Subramaniam , 2013).

Retaining Talents:

There are factors such as benefits, compensation, career success and intrinsic rewards are the factors that contribute to talent retention (Poorhosseinzadeh & Subramaniam , 2013).

The Challenges in Talent Management:

 Ernest & Young Study (2012) identifies the challenges in the Talent Management are…

1.      Shortage of international experience in top management.

2.      Lack of an internal management channel forces companies to recruit from competitors.

3.      Organizations are unable to retain and reward high performers in different markets.

4.      C-suite leaders (CEO, COO, and CFO) and lower-level managers hold disagreeing views on talent management.

Conclusion

Organizations need to have a well-planned approach to manage talent in order to face the challenges of a rapidly changing workforce and business environment.

References 

 

CIPD. (2007). Talent management: Strategy, Policy, Practice. .

Ernst & Young. (April 2012). Growing pains : Companies in rapid-growth markets face talent challenges as they expand. EYGM Limited.

Lewis, R. E., & Heckman, R. J. (2006). Talent management: A critical review. Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 16, pp.139–154.

Morgan, H., & Jardin, D. (2010). HR + OD = Integrated Talent Managment. Retrieved June 11, 2018 : 6 pm, from http://www.innovationamerica.us: http://www.innovationamerica.us/images/stories/2011/HRODIntegratedTalentManagement-20110217163258-20110217184044.pdf

Poorhosseinzadeh, M., & Subramaniam , I. (2013). Talent Management Literature Review. Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 7(6): 330-338.

Recruitment and Selection

Introduction

Organizations need people to support their customers’ expectations in this rapidly changing business world. At the same time organization should have strategy to attract and retain talented individuals who are capable of responding effectively to the changing environment.

Hiring skilled people is a vital task of an organization and it depends on the effective recruitment and selection procedures (Newell, 2005).The main objective of recruitment and selection process is to pick ‘right’ ones and reject the ‘wrong’ ones (Newell, 2005).

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Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment is a process of finding and attracting potential candidates within or outside an organization that it needs. At the same time, selection is one of the processes of recruitment that helps to identify the right caliber candidate (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014) that an organization is looking for.

When the selection is being done, Newell (2005) says that the attention should be taken to use procedures which are associated to the position and to the business goals of the organization. Further Newell (2005) says the tools which are used in the process should be validated and revised continually in order to make sure that the fairness is maintained.

The Cost for Improper Selection

Selecting the right people can be a difficult task, but the performance of business is related with people those who are working or going to work for the organization (Ikeije, Ekwoaba, & Ufoma, 2015). 

Any mistakes made during this process can pass the cost to the organization and according to Newell (2005) these cost can include: 

Lowering organization’s productivity; Possibility of losing clients; fee spent on training; fee spent on advertising costs; fee spent for recruitment and redundancy packages.

The Law Outlines for Equal Employment

An organization has to highly concern on the issues during this selection process such as individual rights and privacy.The laws of non-discrimination have been introduced by the Equal Employment Law in order to take care of protected groups (DESSLER, 2013)  while processing out the selection procedure. 

Conclusion:

Recruitment and selection is a kind of negotiating contract to be done with care. This process will lead to the recruitment of individuals who are willing join and to give long-term commitment to the organization (Newell, 2005)

The Workforce Planning

Introduction

The workforce planning is a core process of human resource management. It involves in placing the human resource based on the organization’s strategies for the future business (CIPD, 2010).

The workforce planning is seen as a practice which creates a environment to find better business decisions about the future needs of the business in terms of human resource (CIPD, 2010).It is an overall approach to satisfy human requirements which will cover all major employee categories and skills (Armstrong & Stephen, 2014).

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Workforce Planning is…

There are many definitions available on workforce planning.The CIPD (2010) proposes:

It is an organizational strategy that human resource is correctly allocated right number of people with right skills in the right place at the right time in order to deliver benefits with reduced cost.

Drivers of Workforce Planning

There are four main categories of forces which drive the workforce planning (CIPD, 2010) :

1. Organizational strategy (Internal)

o  There can be an impact on workforce planning as a result of a change in business strategy.

2. Operational requirements (Internal)

3. Customers and stakeholders (External)

o   There are possibilities that different stakeholder groups can influence the planning process (CIPD, 2010).

4. Market forces  (External)

o   Skill needed to deliver products and services which are demand in future (CIPD, 2010).

Workforce Analysis Framework

According to (United States of Personnel Management , 2011) , the workforce analysis framework is illustrated in the following process chart:

source : (United States of Personnel Management , 2011)

Challenges in Workforce Planning

1. Impact of change and trying to predict the future are main difficulties (CIPD, 2010).

2.  Always shifting or absence of clearness in the organization strategy (CIPD, 2010).

3. Failure to understand future people needs or failure to develop plans which are good enough to adjust to a changing business atmosphere (CIPD, 2010) .

4. Failure to evaluate plans with respect to new information that passes messages of changes in the environment (CIPD, 2010).

Examples :

According to Vorhauser-Smith (2014):

These countries are highly focused on Multi-National Companies (MNCs)

·        In Philippines the challenge is :

    As Filipinos go abroad for better remuneration, the local  workforce  is shrinking.

·        In Indonesia the challenge is :

  Limited English language skills and below average education  standards are some of the reasons that halt selection to MNCs.

·        In Singapore the challenge is :

   Public policies and organizational strategies focus on reducing the  popularity of U.S. and European expatriates.

Conclusion:

   The workforce planning is a vital part of an organization as it linked with organization strategies. It is a kind of systematic approach that enables to identify future demand of human resource that is needed to carry out organization plan to its success.

References:

Workforce Planning best practices. (2011, october 7). Retrieved May 18, 2018 : 7 pm, from https://www.opm.gov: https://www.opm.gov/services-for-agencies/hr-line-of-business/migration-planning-guidance/workforce-planning-best-practices.pdf

Armstrong, M., & Stephen, T. (2014). Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice (13 ed.). London: Koganpage.

CIPD. (2010). Workforce planning, Right people, right time, right skills.