31370220 Strategic Human Resource Management

8/2/2019 31370220 Strategic Human Resource Management

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Integrated that the range of things under HRM (recruitment, selection of employees, their

training and development, how they are rewarded) is looked at together not as separate things.

For example, if you recruit and select people you should have a clear idea of how you see

them developing and contributing to the performance of the organization. Isnt it ?? This

Employment Relationship has several dimensions to it:

1.Economic

pay in exchange for effort We sell ourselves to survive and prosper

We enter the labour market to be bought

We try to improve our price in various ways. But

there is a supply and demand aspect

We bring potential effort which needs control

2.Lega

l

employment laws, rights and responsibilities on both sides contractual relationship

although formality of the contract can be very freely entered into. But is it that free and equal?

Employment rights may help redress the balance between individual and organizations (as does

collective association or unions)

3. Socia

l

Work is social because it involves various degrees of integration with others:

- Some of this is formally required

- Some is just natural

- Influence of social on individual

- In work, social relations are structured

4

.

Psychologica

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mutual expectations and obligations - beyond the formal contract What do

you expect your employer to provide beyond the wage effort bargain? What is reasonable in

terms of this bargain?

To understand what human resource management more clearly, we should first review what

managers do. Dessler has defined the concept by relating the HRM field with five basic

functions all managers perform: planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. In

total, these functions represent the management process. Some of the specific activities

involved in each function include:

Planning

:

Establishing goals and standards; developing rules and procedures; developing

plans and forecasting- predicting or projecting some future occurrence.


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Organizing

:

Giving each subordinate a specific task; establishing departments; delegating

authority to subordinates; establishing channels of authority and communication;

coordinating the work of subordinates.

Staffing: Deciding what type of people should be hired; recruiting prospective employees;

selecting employees; setting performance standards; compensating employees; evaluating

performance; counseling employees; training and developing employees.Leading

:

Getting others to get the job done; maintaining morale; motivating subordinates.

Controlling: Setting standards such as sales quotas, quality standards, or production levels;

checking to see how actual performance compares with these standards; taking corrective

action as needed.

Thus, Human resource management refers to the practices and policies you need to carry out

the people or personnel aspects of your management job.

Other thinkers like, David. A. Decenzo & Stephen P.Robbins have defined it as A process

consisting four functions- acquisition, development, motivation, and maintenance of human

resources.

Institute of Personnel Management, London, UK : Personnel Management is that part of

management concerned with the people at work and with their relationship into an effective

organisation; the men and women who make up an enterprise and having regard

for the well-being of the individual and of working groups, to enable them to make their best

contribution to its success.

Edward Flippo refers to it as, Personnel management is the planning, organising, directing

and controlling of the procurement, development, compensation, integration, maintenance and

separation of human resources to the objectives are accomplished

The meaning and prevalence of HRM are topics that continue to attract debate and

disagreement. As a consequence, practitioners and textbook authors use a diverse and

sometimes contradictory range of interpretations. We find that HRM has a variety of

definitions but there is general agreement that it has a closer fit with business strategy than

previous models, specifically personnel management.

Paradoxically, attempts to define HRM too precisely seemed to have resulted in confusion and

contradiction rather than clarity. However, and perhaps only for the moment, HRM has the

advantage of appearing to be contemporary and innovative.


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This is particularly the case in comparison with personnel management. Nevertheless,

personnel departments have refused to go away. A casual examination of job advertisements in

the press will reveal that applications are still to be sent to 'Personnel Managers', 'Personnel

Departments', and even 'Staffing Officers'. At the same time, advertisements for 'human

resource' jobs are common - particularly at a senior level - even if applications are to be sent to

the Personnel Office!Schools of thought:

It is evident, therefore, that defining and accepting HRM comes down to a matter of opinion -

or vested interest. Indeed, some interpretations have a strong constituency. It can be seen that

each of these views has a natural audience able to identify their own interests with a particular

interpretation.

If you yourself read a few books and will find accounts stressing one of the following:

HRM is really personnel management Human resource management is a modernized form

of 'personnel', repackaged to enhance the status of personnel managers. It has a hard edge,

entitling HR managers to the same respect as finance professionals. HRM is based on

integrated and coherent recruitment, assessment and development programmes. It is

sophisticated, requiring rigorous training under the auspices of a professional body or

university.

HRM is a strategic model It employs the techniques of strategic management for the

utilization of human resources. It focuses on senior managers' concern with achieving

objectives and containing costs. HRM aims for a seamless link between business policy and

recruitment, performance assessment, reward management, development and dismissal. HRM

is a mechanism for control and the exercise of power by top management. It encourages

employee attitudes and behaviour which are consistent with business goals. HRM is just one

aspect of a senior manager's strategic repertoire. It requires a wide appreciation of the industry

and the organization and fits resource-based theories which are familiar from business strategy

literature.

HRM is people management It covers all aspects of managing employees in its widest sense

and emphasises the role of line managers in overseeing their own staff. From this perspective,

HRM is a new generic label for all the techniques and tactics available to manage people. It

concentrates on translating organizational objectives into operational achievement by winning


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employee commitment and gaining high- quality performance. HRM is practical and pragmatic.

However, there is a considerable risk that this approach can result in a loss of focus.

In fact, the value and popularity of HRM may derive from its openness to varied

interpretations. It is possible to argue that the term is a useful, 'catch-all phrase, reflecting

general intentions but devoid of specific meaning' (Guest, 1989b). This allows it to be applied

in a variety of circumstances. Individual authors and practitioners interpret HRM according totheir own background, interests and intended audiences.

Indeed, Keenoy and Anthony (1992: 238) consider that we should not look too closely:

'...once we seek to explain HRM, to subject it to any analysis or criticism, it ceases to function

as intended. Its purpose is to transform, to inspire, to motivate and, above all, to create a new

'reality' which is freely available to those who choose or are persuaded to believe. To explain it

is to destroy it.'

LECTURE 4 7 : Evolution of Human Resource Management

We all are aware how the development of Human Resource Management took place, through

our subjects in First Semester. The development of HRM has been slow but a steady process.

Arguably, HRM has become the dominant approach to people management in most of the

countries. However, it is important to stress that human resource management has not 'come

out of nowhere'. HRM has absorbed ideas and techniques from a number of areas.

In effect, it is a synthesis of themes and concepts drawn from over a century of management

theory and social science research. There is a long history of attempts to achieve anunderstanding of human behaviour in the workplace.

Throughout the twentieth century, practitioners and academics have searched for theories and

tools to explain and influence human behaviour at work. Managers in different industries

encounter similar experiences: businesses expand or fail; they innovate or stagnate; they may

be exciting or unhappy organizations in which to work; finance has to be obtained and workers

have to be recruited; new equipment is purchased, eliminating old procedures and introducing

new methods; staff must be re-organized, retrained or dismissed. Over and over again,

managers must deal with events that are clearly similar but also different enough to require

fresh thinking.

We can imagine that, one day, there will be a science of management in which these problems

and their solutions are catalogued, classified, standardized and made predictable. Sociologists,

psychologists and management theorists have attempted to build such a science, producing a


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constant stream of new and reworked ideas. They offer theoretical insights and practical

assistance in areas of people management such as recruitment and selection, performance

measurement, team composition and organizational design. Many of their concepts have been

integrated into broader approaches which have contributed to management thinking in various

periods and ultimately the development of HRM.

Let us do a bit of recollection now.The great Industrial Revolution : As you all know brought in an era of Specialization in

techniques. The rest is history. Jobs fragmentation, more stress on work specialization ear-

marked the significance of this era. Development was fast, the rays of management started

rising on the horizon of the economy. F.W.Taylor introduced the Scientific Management. More

emphasis was laid on the increase in efficiency and right person for the right job. Training, task

performance with economic rewards was given much importance.

Taylor believed in a combination of detailed task specifications and selection of the 'best man'

for the job. It was the function of managers to think - workers were expected to do exactly as

they were told. This, he felt, would result in the most efficient method of performing physical

work. Additionally, he advocated premium payments as a means of rewarding the most

effective (compliant) workers.

Taylor's ideas led on to:

- Fordism a philosophy of production based on the continuous assembly line techniques

devised by Henry Ford. This methodology dominated worldwide manufacturing until the

1980s.

- Time and motion - stopwatch methods of measuring work, used to increase efficiency and

minimize wasted time and effort.

- Continuous improvement - fundamental to Japanese production methods: using employee

knowledge and ingenuity to continually refine product manufacture and development.

These practices require management control over the precise detail of work in order to

maximise efficiency and gain competitive advantage. Inevitably, this is achieved at the expense

of employees who sacrifice the freedom to control their own work. 'Scientific management',

under any name, creates an inevitable tension between the rights and expectations of workers

and management's need to gain ever greater quality and cost-effectiveness. Thus, HRM is

identified with attempts to deal constructively with this tension through assertive, but non-


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autocratic, people management. It is also linked to the use of performance- related pay and

other ways of rewarding appropriate behaviour.

Labour : Trends started changing rapidly. Workers started coming together to ask for their

rights. Trade unions slowly emerged. Workers started their Union activities for getting good

benefits; good pay, perks and improved welfare conditions. One of the major ill effects of

Industrial Revolution was the exploitation of labour. This led to unionization of labourmovements.

Human Factor : Slowly the importance of human aspect began to dawn in the minds of the

people. The fact that apart from economic incentives, human beings need satisfaction of social

and psychological needs was realized and stressed upon.

. In Australia, New Zealand and - particularly - the UK, government-sponsored research by

work psychologists during and after the first world war produced significant information on the

relationship between boredom, fatigue and working conditions. They established that fatigue

arose from psychological as well as physical causes. They demonstrated also that working

longer hours did not necessarily increase productivity. Human factors psychologists established

a tradition of performance measurement, job analysis and clarification of skill requirements.

These underlie key HRM techniques such as competence assessment and selection methods.

Human relations. In the 1920s and 30s researchers demonstrated that work performance and

motivation did not depend simply on pay and discipline. People worked for many other

reasons. They wanted to be involved in determining their own work conditions. They

responded to encouragement and the interest shown by management. The Hawthorne

experiments paved way for this thought.

Workers formed informal groups which established their own norms of behaviour, including

acceptable levels of performance. Working groups exercised social pressure on their members

to conform to these unconsciously determined rules. The human relations movement had

considerable influence within US business schools such as Harvard which later developed a

'soft', humanistic interpretation of HRM.

Behavioural science. The human relations and human factors approaches were absorbed into a

broad behavioural science movement in the 1950's and 1960's. This period produced some

influential theories on the motivation of human performance. For example, Maslow's hierarchy

of needs gave an individual focus to the reasons why people work, satisfying an ascending

series of needs from survival, through security to eventual 'self-actualisation'.


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In the same period, concepts of job design such as job enrichment and job enlargement were

investigated. It was felt that people would give more to an organization if they gained

satisfaction from their jobs. Jobs should be designed to be interesting and challenging to gain

the commitment of workers - a central theme of HRM.

Management by Objectives. Based on work by Drucker in the 1950s, and further developed

by McGregor, management by objectives (MBO) linked achievement to competence and job performance. MBO primarily focused on the individual, tying rewards and promotion

opportunities to specific agreed objectives, measured by feedback from performance

assessment. Individual managers were given the opportunity to clarify the purposes of their

jobs and set their own targets. MBO developed into modern performance management schemes

and performance-related pay.

Contingency. Many researchers found difficulty in applying academic theories to real

organizations. The socio-technical school developed models of behaviour and performance

which took into account the contingent variables, or 'it depends' circumstances, attached to

particular work situations (Burns and Stalker, 1961; Woodward, 1980).

They argued that employees were part of a system which also included the equipment and

other resources utilized by an organization. The system could not function optimally unless all

its components - human and non-human - had been considered. The HRM concepts of

coherence and integration derive, in part, from this line of thought.

Organizational development. Also drawn from the long tradition of organizational theory,

organizational development (OD) took a pragmatic approach to change. Theory and practice

were mixed in a tentative process called 'action research'. OD familiarized managers with the

idea that changes in processes, attitudes and behaviour were possible and that organizations

should be thought of as whole entities.

Strategic management. Directing people to achieve strategic objectives so that individual

goals are tied to the business needs of the whole organization. Strategic management has

become a dominant framework for organizational thinking since the second world war. It is

based on concepts first used for large-scale military and space programmes in the USA.

Frequently, it employs project and team-based methods for planning and implementation.

Lately, internal (including human) resources and key competencies have been identified as

crucial elements of long-term competitive success. Strategic management has become the

major unifying theme of functioning of departments of all organizations


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The concern with strategy distinguishes human resource management from personnel

management!!

Leadership. Many writers have concluded that a visionary leader is essential, particularly in

developing and inspiring teams. McGregor's The Human Side of

Enterprise

(1960) linked

leadership and management style to motivation. McGregor expressed the contrast betweenauthoritarian people management ('Theory X') and a modern form based on human relations

ideas ('Theory Y'). His ideas parallel 'hard' and 'soft' HRM. Effective managers do not need to

give orders and discipline staff; they draw the best from their people through encouragement,

support and personal charisma.

Corporate culture. Deal and Kennedy (1982) popularized the belief that organizational

effectiveness depends on a strong, positive corporate culture. They combined ideas from

leadership theory and strategic management thinkers with prevailing beliefs about Japanese

business success. The excellence movement inspired by Peters and Waterman ( In Search

ofExcellence , 1982, and others) has been particularly influential with practising managers.

Thus, the development in the management field after the human relations movement led to the

new term called the human resources approach , which has gained momentum ever since.

What does this approach state? It states that human beings are very valuable assets to the

organization. Uniqueness amongst individuals was recognized . Peoples

involvement,commitment, potential development, good organisational culture were considered asimportant

factors in HRM!!

Importance of Human Resource Management

HRM is very important to us for the following reasons:

1.Development and Growth of the organization:

HRM paves way for development and growth in the organization. By improving the individual

capabilities, acquiring necessary cooperation and developing teamwork HRM makes sure that

the organization develops and grows well. Goals of the organization are met by HRM by

effective motivation and excellent utilization of employees.


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2.Creation of healthy culture in the Organization:

HRM creates and maintains excellent culture in the organization and it makes people develop

and grow.

3.Maintenance of Human Resources:

The development, care of Human Resources is done by the HRM. Human beings are a very

crucial and vital factor of production , and thus HRM is gaining more and more importance dayby day. It also has important implication in societal development also. IT IS THE HEART

AND SOUL OF MODERN

MANAGEMENT.

Core values of HRM:

The core values of HRM states

that1.Human beings are the crucial aspects of every organization. The greater is the commitment

of the human resources the more successful is the organization.2. An individual is a whole person. He brings all aspects of his personality, attitudes, traits and

behavior to the work place.

3. All people represents the organization. The building, equipment and other resources

productive only because they are being handled by the hyper energic force of humans.

4.People are different from each other. They vary in abilities, nature, personality, religion etc.

people are also influenced by social economic and environmental factors.

5. Human resources have to be acquired, developed and motivated to give higher performances

and also must be retained.

6. The success of an organization depends upon the satisfaction of organizational needs and

employees needs. There are various levels of hierarchical levels in an organisation. The people

who manage (i.e., the managers), and people who are at work (subordinates). The effective

coordination and commitment between managers and subordinates is essential for

organizational success. Apart from that healthy relation ships are to be maintained with

consumers, shareholders, entrepreneurs, governments and suppliers.

7. Human relations enable people to work effectively in an organization with other people in

organization.


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LECTURE 7 11 : HRs NEW ROLE ORIENTATION, COMPETITIVE

EDGE AND RELATIONSHIP WITH ORGANIZATIONAL

PERFORMANCE

Introduction

The human resources function is at a crossroads, as new technologies create opportunities for

more strategic leadership in the management of human capital and corporate culture, while

commoditizing some of HRs traditional administrative functions. Whats the strategic vision

for HR in todays large organizations? How can HR proactively help drive business results and

business transformation? What are best practices in global talent management, self service HR

systems, and outsourcing? Who is the customer for HR? How can HR and IT work together to

further the corporations business goals?


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The human resources (HR) function is at an inflection point: It must reshape itself to

deliver the strategic value that todays business environment demands and refocus its

energies to become a change catalyst and leader. HR is in a position to shape corporate

culture, spread best practices, and drive enterprise-wide consistency of important shared values

and messages.

HR and IT must jointly leverage technology and their unique cross-enterprise views toenable companies to become increasingly flexible and adaptable, drive enterprise-wide

transparency, and provide high-touch experiences where and when they are really

needed. Information technology is enabling digitization of routine transactional processes

and event management, at the same time providing all levels of the enterprise more data about

its human capital than ever before.

Talent management and development is a high leverage opportunity for HR.

HR can play a major role in creating a performance and accountability culture via

compensation systems, opt-out programs, recruiting, and continuous learning processes.

Technology offers tools to do this more effectively and efficiently.

Both HR and IT can benefit from sharing embedded talent with each others

organizations and with other business functions. Cross-pollination of managerial talent and

perspectives can help increase understanding, cooperation and goal alignment.

Self-service HR systems, when well designed, can deliver benefits beyond increased

capacity and efficiency. In addition to empowering employees and managers, IT-enabled

systems can also deliver new managerial insight by aggregating and leveraging data that were

previously inaccessible. Self service HR systems should be event-triggered, workflow-driven

and role-based whenever possible.

In making outsourcing and automation decisions, HR must consider both corporate

efficiency goals and the strategic benefit of high-touch customer and employee

experiences. Executives must understand whats strategic and value-added to the business and

whats not, and let those distinctions drive the design of new processes and programs.

The world of work is rapidly changing. As a part of organization, HRM must be prepared to

deal with effects of changing world of work. For the HR people it means understanding the

implications of globalization, work-force diversity, changing skill requirements, corporate


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downsizing, continuous improvement initiatives, reengineering, the contingent work force,

decentralized work sites and employee involvement. Let us consider each of them one by one.

1. Globalization and its implications

Business today doesnt have national boundaries - it reaches around the world. The rise ofmultinational corporations places new requirements on human resource managers. The HR

department needs to ensure that the appropriate mix of employees in terms of knowledge,

skills and cultural adaptability is available to handle global assignments. In order to meet this

goal, the organizations must train individuals to meet the challenges of globalization. The

employees must have working knowledge of the language and culture ( in terms of values,

morals, customs and laws) of the host country.

HRM must also develop mechanisms that will help multicultural individuals work together. As

background, language, custom or age differences become more prevalent, there are indications

that employee conflict will increase. HRM would be required to train management to be more

flexible in its practices. Because tomorrows workers will come in different colors,

nationalities and so on, managers will be required to change their ways. This will necessitate

managers being trained to recognize differences in workers and to appreciate and even

celebrate these differences.

2. Work-force Diversity

In the past HRM was considerably simpler because our work force was strikingly

homogeneous. Todays work force comprises of people of different gender, age, social class

sexual orientation, values, personality characteristics, ethnicity, religion, education, language,

physical appearance, martial status, lifestyle, beliefs, ideologies and background characteristics

such as geographic origin, tenure with the organization, and economic status and the list could

go on. Diversity is critically linked to the organizations strategic direction. Where diversity

flourishes, the potential benefits from better creativity and decision making and greater

innovation can be accrued to help increase organizations competitiveness. One means of

achieving that is through the organizations benefits package. This includes HRM offerings

that fall under the heading of the family friendly organization. A family friendly organization

is one that has flexible work schedules and provides such employee benefits such as child care.

In addition to the diversity brought by gender and nationality, HRM must be aware of the age


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differences that exist in todays work force. HRM must train people of different age groups to

effectively mange and to deal with each other and to respect the diversity of views that each

offers. In situations like these a participative approach seems to work better.

3. Changing skill requirements

Recruiting and developing skilled labour is important for any company concerned about

competitiveness, productivity, quality and managing a diverse work force effectively. Skilldeficiencies translate into significant losses for the organization in terms of poor-quality work

and lower productivity, increase in employee accidents and customer complaints. Since a

growing number of jobs will require more education and higher levels of language than current

ones , HRM practitioners and specialists will have to communicate this to educators and

community leaders etc. Strategic human resource planning will have to carefully weigh the

skill deficiencies and shortages. HRM department will have to devise suitable training and

short term programmes to bridge the skill gaps & deficiencies.

4. Corporate downsizing

Whenever an organization attempts to delayer, it is attempting to create greater efficiency. The

premise of downsizing is to reduce the number of workers employed by the organization. HRM

department has a very important role to play in downsizing. HRM people must ensure that

proper communication must take place during this time. They must minimize the negative

effects of rumors and ensure that individuals are kept informed with factual data. HRM must

also deal with actual layoff. HRM dept is key to the downsizing discussions that have to take

place.

5. Continuous improvement programs

Continuous improvement programs focus on the long term well being of the organization. It is

a process whereby an organization focuses on quality and builds a better foundation to serve its

customers. This often involves a company wide initiative to improve quality and productivity.

The company changes its operations to focus on the customer and to involve workers in

matters affecting them. Companies strive to improve everything that they do, from hiring

quality people, to administrative paper processing, to meeting customer needs.

Unfortunately, such initiatives are not something that can be easily implemented, nor dictated

down through the many levels in an organization. Rather, they are like an organization wide

development process and the process must be accepted and supported by top management and

driven by collaborative efforts, throughout each segment in the organization. HRM plays an


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important role in the implementation of CIPs. Whenever an organization embarks on any

improvement effort, it is introducing change into the organization. At this point Organization

development initiatives dominate. Specifically, HRM must prepare individuals for the change.

This requires clear and extensive communications of why the change will occur, what is to be

expected and what effect it will have on employees.

6. Reengineering work processes for improved productivity

Although continuous improvement initiatives are positive starts in many of our organizations,

they typically focus on ongoing incremental change. Such action is intuitively appealing the

constant and permanent search to make things better. Yet many companies function in an

environment that is dynamic- facing rapid and constant change. As a result CIPs may not be in

the best interest of the organization. The problem with them is that they may provide a false

sense of security. Ongoing incremental change avoids facing up to the possibility that what the

organization may really need is radical or quantum change. Such drastic change results in the

reengineering of the organization.

Reengineering occurs when more than 70% of the work processes in an organization are

evaluated and altered. It requires organizational members to rethink what work should be done,

how it is to be done and how to best implement these decisions. Reengineering changes how

organizations do their business and directly affects the employees. Reengineer ing may leave

certain employees frustrated and angry and unsure of what to expect. Accordingly HRM must

have mechanisms in place for employees to get appropriate direction of what to do and what to

expect as well as assistance in dealing with the conflict that may permeate the organization.

For reengineering to generate its benefits HRM needs to offer skill training to its employees.

Whether its a new process, a technology enhancement, working in teams, having more

decision making authority, or the like , employees would need new skills as a result of the

reengineering process.

8. Contingent workforce


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A very substantial part of the modern day workforce are the contingent workers. Contingent

workers are individuals who are typically hired for shorter periods of time. They

perform specific tasks that often require special job skills and are employed when an

organization is experiencing significant deviations in its workflow. When an

organization makes its strategic decision to employ a sizable portion of its workforce

from the contingency ranks, several HRM issues come to the forefront. These include being able to have these virtual employees available when needed, providing

scheduling options that meet their needs and making decisions about whether or not

benefits will be offered to the contingent work force.

No organization can make the transition to a contingent workforce without sufficient planning.

As such, when these strategic decisions are being made, HRM must be an active partner

in these discussions. After all its HRM departments responsibility to locate and bring

into the organization these temporary workers. As temporary workers are brought in,

HRM will also have the responsibility of quickly adapting them to the organization.

HRM will also have to give some thought to how it will attract quality temporaries.

9. Decentralized work sites

Work sites are getting more and more decentralized. Telecommuting capabilities that exist

today have made it possible for the employees to be located anywhere on the globe. With this

potential, the employers no longer have to consider locating a business near its work force.

Telecommuting also offers an opportunity for a business tin a high cost area to have its work

done in an area where lower wages prevail.

Decentralized work sites also offer opportunities that may meet the needs of the diversified

workforce. Those who have family responsibilities like child care, or those who have

disabilities may prefer to work in their homes rather than travel to the organizations facility.

For HRM, decentralized work sites present a challenge. Much of that challenge revolves

around training managers in how to establish and ensure appropriate work quality and on-time

completion. Work at home may also require HRM to rethink its compensation policy. Will it

pay by the hour, on a salary basis, or by the job performed. Also, because employees in

decentralized work sites are full time employees of the organization as opposed to contingent

workers, it will be organizations responsibility to ensure health and safety of the decentralized

work force.


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10. Employee involvement

By and large for todays organizations to be successful, there are a number of employee

involvement concepts that appear to be accepted. These are delegation, participative

management, work teams, goal setting, employee training and empowering of employees.

HRM has a significant role to play in employee involvement. What is needed is demonstratedleadership as well as supportive management. Employees need to be trained and thats where

human resource management has a significant role to play. Employees expected to delegate, to

have decisions participatively handled, to work in teams, or to set goals cannot do so unless

they know and understand what it is that they are to do. Empowering employees requires

extensive training in all aspects of the job. Workers may need to understand how new job

design processes. They may need training in interpersonal skills to make participative and

work teams function properly.

LECTURE 12 15 : INVESTMENT PERSPECTIVE OF HR : WHY

SHOULDORGANIZATIONS INVEST IN HR ?

The answer lies in the contribution of high performance work practices. Many studies have

shown the substantial economic benefits of adopting high-commitment or high-performance

work practices in contrast to conventional scientific management typical of modernist

organizations. Often described as Japanese management practices, the case for implementing

such approaches is strong. The assembly plants which had adopted flexible or leanmanufacturing methods and associated employment- relation practices far outperformed others

using mass production methods.

These high commitment work practices are characterized by

Suggestion schemes, Quality Circles, Problem-solving groups or other forms of

employee participation in idea generation

Employee participation in decision making

Freedom of expression

Extensive teamwork including self-managing teams

Reformulation of work to make best use of upgraded skills.


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Participation and involvement means that power shifts from middle managers to further down

the organizational hierarchy those closest to the customer or the production process.

Companies operating such approaches include Levi Strauss, Motorola and Honeywell. What is

common about high performing companies in their agenda to create relationships with

employees which support their business objectives. Employee relations are therefore a priority

and to push the execution of employee relations policies down to the lowest level possible,compatible with t he organizations overall values. Corporate values are most clearly visible in

reward policies which are sometimes used to instill specific values. Profit-related pay and share

ownership are obvious manifestations of value statements about the worth of the people to the

organization. Similarly, formal communication transmit values, through usually more is

understood by behavior of the people conveying the message then by the words used.

Despite the evidence from the organizations which practice Total Quality that these practices

work, diffusion seems to be slow. The main barrier appears to be that traditionally the focus of

management has been on the financial and strategic aspects of the business, rather than on

employee relations. Since high-commitment work practices require major up-front

investments, such as in training and higher rates of pay, a willingness to take risk that these

measures will pay off is required; and many management teams are risk averse. Political and

power barriers can get in the way of implementing high-commitment work practices.

How can HR help to implement high performance work practices?

I By creating a culture which is supportive of high performance

High performances does not occur in vacuum. The organizations culture must be conductive

to productivity and the quality improvement.

II By influencing attitudes

HR professionals can be effective in bringing about change through their cross-organizational

influence, ability to design structures and processes which support the business strategy and

helping to create the culture changes through values and communication which supports new


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ways of working. HR can help set up benchmarking visits to organizations which are achieving

outstanding results through people. Skillful use of data can stimulate the need for change

among

III By designing and implementing HR processes which support the business strategy

At a practical level to create the conditions for high performance, HR processes such as reward

systems need to be aligned to the new ways of working. The following HR processes are

typical of vanguard companies described by Otoole:

Highly selective recruitment

Extensive training and skill development

Contingent or performance-related pay , at high rates

Employee share ownership

Benefits tailored to individual needs

Providing some degree of employment security

Sharing information about a firm goals and results.

Performance management

Managing performances is perhaps the key responsibility of the line managers and an area

where a partnership between line and HR can be most beneficial. Hr can help managers to

understand how to define roles in the light of business drivers and how to identify the

capabilities required to do the job. The key performance indicators for each role should derive

from business drivers and are then built into role processes. This makes each job role

responsive to the changing business environment.

The four key elements of performance management are:

A common understanding of the organizations goals

Shared expectations of how individuals can contribute

Employee with the skill and ability to meet expectations


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Individuals who are fully committed to the aims of the organization

In managing performances mangers should ensure that the employees are appropriately

focused into roles, developed and managed.

Job fit and job design what role can HR play?

HR can develop assessment processes to ensure that the right people are selected for roles.

HR can work with the line to develop self-assessment process. The pace of change is so fast

that job description, which create boundaries, are inappropriate. Important responsibilities fall

between the gaps and the most job descriptions are not current for more than few months. What

is needed is a broad role description, with some fuzzy boundaries to allow for growth.

Dealing with poor performance

In some organizations, poor performance is handled by simply passing on the underperformer

to another department. HR needs to be able to support managers in understanding how they can

achieve high standards with slim resources. HR can provide valuable training and other

resources to ensure that managers have the skills to coach and develop other people, as well as

appraise performance.

Designing effective appraisal and development processes

Appraisal requires excellent interview and counseling skills if the process is to be motivating

for those involved. It relies on managers and employees having a relationship in which

discussing performance is not seen as a burden or a threat. Usually appraisal are taken only as

an administrative tool, thus there is no link between personal development and business

strategy. HR can help by designing processes which are user friendly and effective like, 360feedback.

Helping line managers to set appropriate measures


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Success criteria should be such that makes a positive difference to the organization. While

measure undoubtedly send strong symbolic messages about what is valued, the question of

what is being measured and therefore considered important is increasingly be called into

question. Targets need to be set for the deliverables which are required but not at the expense

of how the deliverables are to be achieved. If measures are set around soft targets such as

behavior, care must be taken that they are taken seriously and also understood well.

Reward Strategies

Since 1990s the dynamic link between performance and reward has been a topic of debate.

The need of flexibility and cost effectiveness has lead to organizational restructuring of various

kinds; including flatter structures with their focus on teamwork, broader roles and non-

traditional work arrangements. Implementing a flatter structure is meaningless unless there is a

degree of consistency between what is expected of employees in terms of working practices

and systems, processes and the resources needed to do the job. All human resource systems

especially pay; need to reinforce the forms of skilled performance required of individuals.

However most of the companies believe in following the preferred model of paying market

rates alongside schemes that recognize individual short-term performance but not long term

development.

This is among the most challenging responsibility of human resource specialist, as there are

many factors to be taken into account before revising a compensation system to make it reflect

the diverse aspects of behavior, skills and experience which lead to the sort of performance

organization requires. Many organizations are experimenting with more flexible packages

which include elements of variable pay, linked to job performance, competence skill

development and desired team and leadership behavior.

The symbolic power of reward systems

Reward schemes are required to meet both the organizational need of managing its salary bill,

along side ensuring that it is getting good performance from its employees as well as the

employee is been appropriately recompensed for their efforts. Reward schemes carry enormous


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symbolic significance for employees, as they are the powerful means of teaching employees

what is actually valued in the organization, as well as what is not. As such they have a greater

impact on employee attitudes and behavior than rhetoric or values statements which encourage,

team work.

In theory, reward schemes are designed to be motivating, offering appropriate incentives for,and recognition of, desired performance. Whether schemes which focus exclusively on the

financial aspects of reward achieves this aim is open to debate.

The need to revise reward strategies

In an attempt to move towards the performance culture, many organizations have introduced

pay schemes which have intended to reflected performance in the job more than the job grade

itself. In these changing times, reward schemes quickly becomes sources of discontent. In

flatter structures in particular, there is often considerable pressure for reward system to be

revised. However, in traditional hierarchical structure, being promoted was the only way of

gaining status as well as earning more money or breaking through the ceiling for a grade. In

some organizations, eligibility for promotion was based on age and experience rather than

performance. In flatter structure where promotion is most unlikely, thus pay is obviously

performance based. Theres no perfect pay system, thus a good system should be customized

and tailored as per the need and the objective, rather than adopting any off-the shelf solution.

Performance-related pay

Incentive schemes and performance-related pay continues to provoke debate. However some

researches propagate the ineffectiveness of performance-based reward, recognition and

incentive systems on the following grounds:

There is no data to show long term benefits

They setup internal competition

Reward systems undermine teamwork and cooperation

They often reward those who are lucky and pass by those who are unlucky


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They create cynic and losers

While devising such schemes care should be taken about their responsiveness to the business

drivers, the changing technology, the new skills needed and the fact in a new environment,

people need to perform on different parameters. In response to these business drivers some

basic questions need to be answered:

What, for instance, are t he critical roles, task, skills, which should be rewarded?

What are the new working practices that t he organization wishes to encourage?

Will team working be more critical to achieving business goals than individual

performances?

Is having one system the only way of thinking about the revised system?

Many organizations want people to be keen and willing to take on broader responsibilities,

learn new skills and develop wider competencies. In addition, technology is bringing about a

more fundamental change, switching the nature of the way work is carried out from directive

tasks to process-driven activities.

In some organizations only outputs are assessed for bonus purposes while in others inputs are

also taken into account. Typically, the new areas of providing incentives include soft areas

such as making creative suggestions, receiving positive feedback from customers, team

working and demonstrating leadership. To support this approach there is usually an emphasis

on competencies and various feedback mechanisms are used.

Other trends

I Competence-based pay (CBP)

Many organizations are experimenting with the competence-based pay (CBP), also known as

knowledge- or skill0based pay which takes the notion of performance-related pay in a

particular direction. CBP- works on the basis of rewarding the skills an individual possesses

and actually uses. The downside of such schemes of such schemes


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That they tend to be very complex. The emphasis on individual competence can lead to a

failure to reflect sought after organizational business goals such as team working and quality.

II Team-based pay

It provides financial rewards to individual employees working within a formally established

team. Payments are linked to team performances or the achievement of agreed team objectives.

One of the drawback is that every scheme is unique, its not possible to adopt some broad

recommendations from other organizations, nor are such schemes easy to design or manage.

For effective success of such a scheme it necessary that team stands alone with the agreed

targets and standards, have autonomy, are composed of people whose work is interdependent,

are stable, are well established and make good use of complimentary skills. The three basic

elements of a team-based reward package (assuming that the basic pay is right) are:

1. The individual element, the basic salary but varied in relation to performance or

skills/competence.

2. A team element related to the achievement of team targets.

3. An organization element related to the business performance measured as a profit, or

added value.

According to Danny Chestennan, corporate development advisor at Kent County Council,

individuals should be rewarded for their contribution to teams, and the teams for the way they

develop individuals.

III Flexible benefits

Given the way the work environment is changing, continuing to offer benefits that are based on

the job-for-life assumption is unrealistic. The important thing is to find out how people

perceive their benefits and whether these are valued appropriate to both the company and the

employee needs. Items in this scheme include pensions, healthcare, childcare vouchers, annual


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leave, life cover and dental insurance for employees and their partners. Further emphasize

should be there to ensure proper communication of these schemes by HR team.

How do people want to be rewarded?

The latest rewards techniques followed are as follows:

Profit (gain) sharing

Flexible benefit

Bonuses payable

Bonuses payable in terms of extra leaves rather than pay

Bonuses payable towards prestigious qualification

Long term incentives

Deferred incentives

Extending private health schemes to all employees and their families

Longer holidays

Sponsored holidays

Free family holiday in company owned cottages

Enhanced early retirement

Research suggests that intrinsic motivators such as the chance to do something worthwhile, to

have a development stretch, to increase job satisfaction are all as important as the financial

package and represent psychological rewards.

IV Recognition

In many organizations the scope for modifying the reward system may appear limited.

Recognition schemes take on a special significance since they are a symbolic way of

reinforcing the new behaviors and the performance needed in the organization.


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LECTURE 16 18 : INVESTMENT IN TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Strategies for Training & Developing People

The workplace is being radically reshaped in a number of ways. People are now expected to

have a wide range of skills in areas such as customer relations, business awareness and

leadership. The impact of technology on peoples jobs is becoming ever more apparent, leading

to a growing importance attached to the soft skills as well as the hard. Peter Cochrane, head

of Research for BT and a well-known futurologist, suggests that the future belongs to highly

skilled professionals working long hours on short contracts who wont have time for the daily

life, which will create opportunities for others.

In this period of rapid change, the need for employees to continuously update their skills, and

develop new ones, has never been greater. Paradoxically, the pace of change and the

demanding workloads of most employees act as a deterrent to conscious development.

Development strategies need to take into account the reality of most peoples working lives

and the fact that conventional training is only one way in which people can develop.

Development solutions can take many forms and strategies should ideally be as innovative as

employees are now required to be.

In creating a Development strategies, it is important as ever to start with where the business is

going and what that suggests in terms of the skills which will be needed. The Development

strategies should be guided by a vision and set of values. What is the philosophy which will

underpin development do want people to be self sufficient or do u see development as a

partnership between the individual and th4e organization. Abroad philosophy can be

communicated to employees as it provides the rationale for the choice of elements in the

strategy

The question which Development strategies need to answer is ho

w

do we ensure

that

peopl

eare developed to their full potential and maximum effectiveness?


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Development needs to be focused on areas which are relevant to the individual and the

organization. One employee for instance might need a rapid injection of job related skills due

to a change in technology. Another may have reached the stage in his or her career when a

Development stretch, such as major new responsibility or an MBA programme might provide,

is required. While a Development strategy should be sufficiently flexible that it can adapt to

individual needs, organizational priorities may take precedence. This is where having a guidingframework and criteria for decision making can be helpful.

In any Development strategy there are likely to be three areas of focus:

Organizational level where corporate requirements such as induction, quality

improvements, leadership, customer care and culture change programmes are addressed

Departmental business unit level where job related training and development is likely

to take place

Individual level where people are usually motivated to close the gap between there

current and desired capabilities

It follows then that to ensure an optimum return on the time and other resources in

development that those activities are well targeted. Making a difference can be measured at a

number of levels. Donald Kirkpatricks evaluations framework suggests four levels

1. Reactions - what do participants think about the activity at the time?

2. Learning how have skills, knowledge or attitudes improved as a result of the

activity?

3. Behavior how does participants changed behaviors affect their constituents

example their work group?

4. Results how do these improved behaviors, skills and knowledge translate into

bottom line impact?

NEED ANALYSIS

One way of finding out what is needed to carryout some form of development needs analysis

based on the existing work force there are many ways of doing this. Which includes surveys,

using existing data such as appraisal information, sampling of specific groups, bench marking


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with world class organization to identify obvious gaps. The analysis should provide answers

to the questions:

What is needed and why?

Where is this needed?

By whom?

How will this best be provided?

How m much will this cost?

What will the expected return look like?

EVALUATION

Increasingly hard measures of the impact of development activities are required. Kirkpatrick

suggests the following guidelines to implementation when trying to assess the impact of the

training on business results:

Use a control group

Allow enough time for results to be achieved

Measure both before and after training

Repeat the ,measurement at appropriate time

Consider the cost of evaluation versus the potential benefit

Be satisfied with the evidence if absolute proof isnt possible to attain

Marilyn Mc Dougall and Angela Mulvie carried out a study of how companies measure the

impact of HRM to bottom line. They found that many organizations make access to

management knowledge and skills available on a general basis to employees as a part of a

philosophy of continuous learning participants are therefore not expected to produce improved

bottom line results

PRIORITISING DEVELOPMENT NEEDS USING COMPETENCIES

The need to ensure that training and other forms of development are tailored to the business

requirements as well as to those of individuals evident in the wide spread use of competency

based development process. These should ensure that Development opportunities are targeted


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to meet specific objectives for the relevant individuals. Some organizations are offering

managers 360 degree feedback based on a range of competencies.

Competencies can be used to develop self assessment questionnaires and other feedback

processes to ensure that individual needs are understood. Ensuring that development

opportunities are appropriately targeted may prove more difficult. It is useful to identify shortlist of priority areas of management Development for the short, medium and long term. In the

medium term there may be significant merits in standardizing role description using

competencies to define the skilled component of each role. In the short term, management

Development effort may perhaps produce best effect when applied to specific business

objectives and particular groups or individuals according to relevant criteria such as:

Business needs

The current short to medium term business strategy. If the current main business

priority is maintaining quality standard it may seem inappropriate to put effort into

change management and leadership.

The biggest obstacle in terms of management skills or behavior to achieving the overall

business goals, i.e. does the lack of certain competencies prevent the organization from

maximizing opportunities or actually cause operating problems?

The specific priorities of different business groups

What managers would like to develop

Cultural priorities

Building to strengths

Focusing Development on areas which people consider strengths may seem contradictory.

However there is reasonable amount of research evidence to suggest that people are

motivated to even higher levels of performance when they are working on areas in which

they feel they are effective.

Prioritizing resource allocation according to different development needs

How do the strengths and development needs of managers, high fliers and directors differ?

Roffey Park has carried out research into the effects of the changing workplace or

employees for a number of years. Two surveys carried out in 1998 highlight the needs

employees perceive with regard to the skills required to do their jobs. One survey, the


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Interpersonal

Business

Financial

Political

Influencing

The survey asked both groups what they believed were the skills they needed to develop to

equip them for their current role (i.e. short term). The agenda groups needs were as follows:

Political/influencing skills

Strategic thinking skills

IT skills

Financial

Entrepreneurial

Leadership

Business

Change management

This group appears to be mainly in implementation roles, with an emphasis on raising or

maintaining quality. Ideally, these managers should have opportunities to improve processes

across their organization. Without making this overly complex, senior managers can improve

the efficiency of services while developing themselves at the same time. They may need help

in project management skills, including dealing with third parties s work is increasingly put out

to tender. The art of managing a flexible workforce is somewhat more challenging than

managing a directly managed staff.

Development needs of high flyers

The skills people felt would equip them for future success were diverse. The main areas were

as follows:

Business

Political/influencing

Managing people

Communication

Leadership


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Interpersonal

Interestingly rather at odds with current management trends, this group does not see the ability

to coach and develop others as crucial to future success. This may reflect the pragmatic reality

that in many organizations promotion to senior positions has not depended on a manager being

an effective people person. However as many organizations are attempting to integrate

culture change objectives with succession planning, this may change. A number of the

organizations are now screening candidates for senior roles on the basis of how they

demonstrate leadership behaviors.

Supporting managers development

1. Creating a self-development culture

Development should be seen as primarily the individuals responsibility but encouraged

and supported by the organization. A newsletter which regularly focuses on development

achievements will convey the message that development is taken seriously, especially

when directors contribute. Similarly, where people set themselves development targets they

should be encouraged to identify the organizational benefits (including bottom line) of

what they are planning to do. That way, peoples development can be more clearly

understood and celebrated in terms of its contribution to organizational effectiveness.

In the medium term, reward systems should be enhanced and reflect people development.

Managers should be rewarded on the achievement of people development targets and

individuals should ideally be offered a small bonus or a slightly higher salary if their

improved skills enhance their contribution. The appraisal scheme can be supplemented, if

this has not yet happened, with a development planning process. This again calls upon line

managers to be willing and able to hold development discussions with individuals.

2. Enabling development through competencies

People should be encouraged to move jobs around the organization, acquiring different forms

of experience. Competencies can be helpful in facilitating this process in that job requirements

can be defined in ways which enable people to undertake a realistic self-assessment. Job

profiles can be updated and specific technical competencies defined. This way, a data bank of people requiring specific forms of development can be matched against available options.

There may also be opportunities for job swaps and secondments if resourcing is a problem. The

increased mobility of staff can also be supported by greater awareness of the roles of different


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business groups. This can be encouraged by briefings hosted by different business groups at

their workplace.

Methods of learning on the job

1. On the job

It seems that most senior managers learn best by experience. On the job learning is

therefore likely to be the primary source of development. Given the importance of this form

of learning, it is essential that managers are able to support people with their development

as well as their current performance.

2. Training

Training can be helpful for both awareness raising and skills development. There are clear

benefits, for instance, in raising senior managers awareness of the strategic issues for their

organization through briefings and networks. The majority of managers, however, consider

that most of their development took place on the job, or outside work.

3. Mentoring and coaching

In many organizations, tools are now provided to encourage self development, including

the use of development centers and resource learning centers.

Many organizations such as British-American tobacco, have trained managers in coaching

skills and the trend towards the line manager as developer is well established. In some

companies, managers ability to help others to develop is now taken into account when

bonuses are being allocated. Learning groups are increasingly being used in a number of

organizations such as ICL and the former Glaxo-Wellcome. These can enable individual

needs to be met in work context.

Some organizations are introducing peer mentoring to address both organizational needs

for teamwork and greater collaboration and individual needs for support. Peer mentoring

involves two, three or more individuals agreeing to have development relationship with one

another. This is primarily a development relationship with the clear purpose of supporting

individuals to achieve their job objectives. HR can help such relationships to be establishedthrough creating a mechanism whereby peers can identify likely peer resources. Often

this is through the use of a database on which information is stored about people who have

specific expertise and are willing to act as peer mentors. These can be matched against

people who express specific needs.


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4. Learning opportunities using computers

Many pundits predict a huge growth in on-line learning in next few years. This is driven by

shortage of time to attend training and the increasingly global spread of organizations

which make training solutions costly. Research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and

Development (1999) found that only one quarter of organizations used the internetor

intranet for training and development, but forecast that there would be a 70percentincrease in the early years of the millennium. Similarly, CD-ROM usage is expected

togrow by 60% as per the respondents in the CIPD

survey.Development

Development is a process of enhancing an individuals present and future effectiveness. In

the present case, we are viewing effectiveness in the context of the employees career. And

by career we mean, the individually perceived sequence of attitudes and behaviors

associated with work-related experiences over the space of persons life. Thus development

in the career entails changing both perceptions and behavior (or skills).

More specifically, the targets of development are the four outcomes that measure career

effectiveness: performance, attitudes, identity and adaptability. These outcomes can be

broken down by time-frame and locus of concern, as shown in the following figure:

Performance and attitudes focus on the short term: attainment of present work goals and

present feelings about the career, such as involvement commitment and conflict.

Adaptability is the extent to which the person is preparing to meet future career demands.

Identity is a measure of the congruence of integration of the persons self-perceptionsovertime (i.e., a measure of how the person sees the parts of the career fitting together or

making sense). Any activity that enhances one or more of these four career outcomes

constitutes development. Training, coaching, increased effort and self-improvement to

increase job performance are development. Socialization, job experiences, counseling, peer

interactions and other activities that alter or clarify career attitudes are development. Job

assignments, education and other learning that broadens the persons skills and abilities

enhances adaptability and thus also development. And finally self- examination, self-

assessment, feedback, counseling and other activities that clarify and focus self- identity are

also development. Too often, however, organizations define development as working only

on the top left-hand corner on short-term, task-related skills. Too seldom are attitudes,

adaptability and identity the focus of plans for development.


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In addition to considering the four career outcomes as goals of developmental activities, we

can also examine various strategies for attaining these goals. In their review of

organizational training and development processes, Wexley and Latham propose certain

basic developmental strategies that organizations use. The first strategy is cognitive and is

conceived with altering thoughts and ideas. The second is behavioral, entailing the attempt

to change behavior directly. And the third is environmental and consists of interventionsaimed at immediate work environment of the individual.

If we combine the career goals and these three basic strategies, we obtain a matrix of

possible combinations of development strategies aimed at particular career outcomes, as

shown in the table. (Since the performance category is so important, it has been subdivided

into technical, interpersonal and conceptual skills.) The specific activities listed are not

meant to be exhaustive and some cells may represent somewhat incompatible combinations

(e.g. cognitive approaches to developing interpersonal skills). Furthermore, several

activities are found in more than one cell, as a given activity can produce multiple

outcomes.

Conclusion

The need for employee at all levels to be involved in ongoing development of new skills,

exposure to new experiences and learning to learn - is apparent. HR can work towards

creating a culture in which learning is valued and supported, and where the enhanced skills

of the individual are put to good use. In such a development culture the pressure to measure

a return on every development activity maybe less strong than in a culture which believes

that any offline activity is a cost. Individuals can take responsibility for managing their

development. After all, it is in their interest to do so, but the organization can help kick-

start the process by providing people with the opportunity to understand what to develop

and how.

Ironically, pressure of work in some cases is so strong on the company ethos so macho

that people are always prepared to learn, especially through training. Various innovative

approaches such as just-in-time training, using on-line resources, can help, but sometimesthe best form of development is when individual take themselves to a residential training

programme and make time to reflect. Senior managers in particular are important role

models in both leaning and valuing learning. They set the tone and need to be willing to

exercise some old fashioned command and control with regard to development.


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Encouraging people to prioritize development, whose returns to the business may not be

immediate, over short-term business demands, at least occasionally, may well produce

larger returns in the long run.

LECTURE 19 22 : NON TRADITIONAL INVESTMENT APPROACHES :INVESTMENT IN DISABLED EMPLOYEES

Before we move on to the core of the issue, we must define what disability or being disabled

means

Someone who is disabled has an illness, injury or condition that tends to restrict the way they

live their life, especially by making it difficult for them to move about.

Thus, the employee, who is working for the organization, will be termed disabled if he/she is

suffering from an injury or illness which affects or restricts them from performing their job

effectively. There can be two types of disabled employees

I. Disabled - while employed : i.e. the person was fit and sound during the start of

employment relationship, however, during the tenure of his/her service he turned

disable, which can be either:

a) On-the- job: This is during the work hours while working at premises.

b) Off-the-job: This is not at work premises, but surely after the start of

employment relationship.

II. Disabled - prior to employment: Here the employer is well aware of the disability yet

employ the person for the job.

I Disabled while employed: There can be short- and long-term disability (STD and

LTD).While dealing with such a case the employer must follow the following procedure.


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The Interactive Process, whereby through an informal open discussion with the disabled

employee, the precise job related limitation imposed by the employee's disability are being

realized and how those limitations could be overcome with a reasonable accommodation. Even

if the department's ability to accommodate the employee's disability seems doubtful, the

department must still conduct a good-faith interactive process.

There are four levels of possible accommodation:

1. Job Accommodation: Modification of job duties, job environment and/or work

schedule.

2. Modified Work: Lateral transfer into an existing position for which employee is

qualified.

3. Transferable Skills: Transfer to "demoted" position or position of lesser

terms/conditions ("last resort accommodation.").4. Alternate Work: However, consideration should be given to his present salary

and the distance of the new work place from his residence.

Consider the preference of the individual to be accommodated and select and implement the

accommodation that is most appropriate for both the employee and the employer. The

employer should not accommodate the employee in case:

1. The disabled employee cannot perform the essential functions of the job; and that noreasonable accommodation exists.

2. The person would create an imminent and substantial danger to him/her self or to others

by performing the job; and there is no way to remove or reduce the danger.

In such a scenario employer may use medical separation and also appoint a rehabilitation

counselor for the disabled employee.

II Disabled prior to employment: There could be any form of disability namely

i) Mental health

ii) Physical Disability

iii) Learning Disability


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which the employer is aware of prior to employment. But still considers their employment as a

part of social responsibility, alongside trusting their capability to perform the task fit for them.

The trend of employing disabled as well as keeping provisions for employees disabled after

employment is gaining momentum which can be due to:

i) Realization of social responsibility by employers.

ii) Government intervention

iii) Trade benefit schemes, tax benefits etc.

Reasons for this change

Disability Confident employers will have access to a wider talent pool. Technological

developments and increasing use of flexible working mean that organisations are able to create

enabling environments where more disabled people can contribute to business success.

Engaging with potential employees (disabled)

Attracting talented disabled candidates can be problematic. Experience of leading

employers suggests that multiple (project based) recruitment tends to attract more

disabled candidates than single-post advertising.

Employer needs to build a brand which symbolize welcome and fair treatment.

Consider offering work experience and internship opportunities to disabled people.

Sector based initiatives can help to change people's views of working in a particular

industry.

Take for example, in ITES sector companies like Hero Ites, a part of Munjal group, openly

mentions the special invitation to disabled in its employment advertisement.

Similarly theres a lot of potential to hire these people in the sunrise sectors like banking,

software,etc though companies like Satyam, Infosys have taken initiative yet lot has to be

done. Considering high staff turnover and an acute shortage of skilled workforce, qualified

technical people who are disabled can be good alternative. Unfortunately when it comes to

recruitment, employers tend to look the other way if the job candidate is a person with

disability. Top of the charts in the IT job market include vacancies for software developers,


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programmers, web designers, database and system administrators, graphic artists and system

analysts.

But still the percentage of disabled employees is very low. Most employers are reluctant to

employ the disabled because of concerns regarding safety regulations, the need to modify

premises such as installing ramps, disabled-friendly toilets and extra medical costs.

Even if they are employed, the system that is being followed in the organization does not work

in their favour. There is, however, concern that some management practices, even those

imposed without prejudice on all employees, might have a disparate effect on the health and

performance of some disabled employees.

With the advancement in technology, the potential of these employees can be enhanced to a

higher level. For example, speech device can be used as a tool to support the person who is

verbally impaired. Similarly, visually disabled can convey through special computers. Thus we

need such things along with training for the disabled employees as well as the normal

employees to help them adjust to the changes, and their differently-abled employees. Though,

this may seem as an investment but the benefits are far reached and rewarding. Return on

investment is far greater considering people with disabilities tend to be appreciative and loyal

employees, because they have difficulties finding jobs. Their commitment to work has to do

with their self-esteem. This notion of work, as a prideful activity, is something they definitely

feel.

Cost to keep disabled employee (employed)

Employers experience multiple direct and indirect benefits such as retaining qualified

employees, considering

i) the cost of training the new employee

ii) productivity of retained employee is higheriii) cost of accommodation is lower than inducting new employee

iv) Employers want to retain valued and qualified employees.


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There are lot many industries which have a scope of employing disabled employee. its just the

initiative which is required, considering Titan, Tata group which is one of the world's largest

timepiece manufacturers started introducing disabled employees to its facility since 80s .

"Titan was clear that these people are an intrinsic part of our society and need understanding,

support and opportunities, not charity or misplaced compassion," says Mamatha Bhat. Thus,

the capable candidates of 18 -24 yrs were adopted and proper measures were taken to get theminto main stream, like

i) ergonomically designed workspaces

ii) training to enhance technical competence

iii) non-discriminating policies, effective grievance handling, counseling etc.

With time, Titan has realized that the disabled members of its family are more loyal and far

more focused on the job. Despite the physical shortcomings of these employees, productivityand quality had never been an issue. Titan's children of a lesser god

are no longer classified as disabled, merely 'differently-abled'.

Thus, such an investment is worth not only for its return in terms of loyalty earned. But,

employers should consider their responsibility towards the society and help in making these

people self dependent and getting them into the main stream.

EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMMES (EAPs)

EAPS are used to make professional help available to the employees. Typical EAPS offer

assistance to employees in such areas as alcoholism, drug abuse, emotional stress, family

problems and financial indebtedness.

Although research findings tend to vary, it is believed that EAPs are valuable contributors to

both employees and employers.

First of all, giving employee assistance is simply the right thing to do from the standpoint of

humanity, and there are some cost-benefit arguments in favor of EAPS. Certainly, the

resolution of personal problems tends to make the employee a more effective contributor to


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employer objectives. That is, money spent on abating alcoholism among the workforce is

perceived to be cheaper than money spent on ineffective performance, lost time, illness and

death on the part of employees suffering from the disease of alcoholism.

Characteristics of an effective EAP

The EAP should be staffed with competent professionals who respond to employee

problems with empathy and who know what services are available in the local community.

The EAP should be accessible to all employees 24-hours a day, seven days a week.

The EAP should be advertised to all employees so that all are aware of the program.

The EAP should be available to all employees and their dependents.

The EAP must guarantee complete confidentiality.

The EAP staff members should be willing to meet at any location where the employee or

dependent feels comfortable.

LECTURE 23 24 : IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN RESOURCES TO

STRATEGY

The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has recently seen the human resources that

it selects, trains, and retains move from a supportive to a strategic role in organizations. This

occurred because in Strategic Management sources of competitive advantage were no longer

sought in the external, but in the internal environment of a firm, namely in its resources,

particularly its human ones. Accordingly the field of HRM reconsidered its own role, resulting

in the emergence of a new distinct discipline termed Strategic Human Resource Management

(SHRM). It intended to link HRM with the strategic management process of the organization


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A shift in thinking in Strategic Management about the location of sources of competitive

advantage has put the spot light on human resources as the strategic resource in a firm.

Initially, sources of competitive advantage were sought outside of the firm, i.e. in a superior

positioning of a firm in attractive markets and keeping contenders out. In this view, the role of

the human resources was one of implementation and support. More recently a new school ofthought, called the resource-based view of the firm argued instead that the source of

competitive advantage lies within the firm, in unique resources that cannot be imitated by

competitors. Because these resources, capabilities, and competencies are dependent on people

and in the case of capabili

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31370220 Strategic Human Resource Management

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