FREE ESSAY ON HUMAN RESOURCES

HUMAN RESOURCES

With today's workforce becoming increasingly diverse and organizations doing more to
maximize the benefits of the differences in employees, Human Resource managers are
evolving from the old school sideline player to the front-line fighters. Organizations
are relying on managers to get the people who get the job done, and of course, make the
company money.
People have always been central to organizations, but their strategic importance is
growing in today's knowledge-based business world like never before. An organization's
success increasingly depends on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of its employees.
Particularly as they help establish a set of core competencies which distinguish one
organization from its competitors. When employees' talents are valuable, rare, difficult
to imitate and organize, an organization can achieve a sustained competitive advantage.
In order to compete through people, an organization has to be able to do a good job of
managing their human capital: the knowledge, skills, and capabilities that add value to
the organizations. Managers must develop strategies for identifying, recruiting, and
hiring the best talent available. Develop these individuals in ways that are specific to
the needs of their individual firms, encourage them to generate new ideas while
familiarizing them with the company strategies, invite information sharing, and rewarding
collaboration and team work.
The basis on which compensation payments are determined, and the way they are
administered, can significantly affect employee productivity and the achievement of
organizational goals. Establishing compensation programs require both large and small
organizations to consider specific goals. Employee retention, compensation distribution
and adherence to the budget must be carefully weighted against the overall organizational
goals and expectations.
Compensation must reward employees for past performance while serving as a motivation
tool for future performances. Internal and external equity of the pay program will affect
employees' concepts of fairness. Organizations must balance each of the concerns while
still remaining competitive. 
For internal equity an organization can use one of the basic job evaluation techniques to
determine relative worth of job. The most common are the ranking and classification
methods. The job ranking system arranges jobs in numerical order on the basis of the
importance of the job's duties and responsibilities to the organization. Job
classification slots jobs into preestablished grades with higher rated grades requiring
more responsibilities, working conditions, and job duties.
External equity can be determined by a wage survey. Data obtained from the surveys will
facilitate establishing the organization's wage policy while ensuring that the employer
does not pay more, or less, than needed for jobs in the relevant labor market.
Base salary is only one aspect of a retention plan for important employees. Benefits and
incentive plans are valuable perks in recruiting and retaining essential employees. 
Benefits are an established and integral part of the total compensation package. In order
to have a sound benefits package there are certain basic considerations. It is essential
that a program be based on specific objectives that are compatible with the
organizational philosophy and policies as well as affordable to the company. By utilizing
a flexible benefits package, employees are able to choose those benefits that are best
suited to their individual needs.
Incentive pay plans can be advantageous to both the employer as well as the employee. The
success of an incentive pay plan depends on the organizational climate in which it must
operate, employee confidence in it, and its suitability to employee and organizational
needs. Importantly, employees must view the incentive plan to be equitable and related to
their performance. Performance measures should be quantifiable, easily understood, and
bear a demonstrated relationship to organizational performance.
Performance appraisal programs serve many purposes, but in general those purposes can be
clustered into two categories: administrative and developmental. The administrative
purposes include decisions about who will be promoted, transferred, or laid-off. They can
also include compensation decisions and the like. Developmental decisions include those
related to improving and enhancing an individual's capabilities. These include
identifying a person's strength and weaknesses, eliminating external performance
obstacles, and establishing training needs.
Within many organizations, performance appraisals are seen as a necessary evil. Managers
frequently avoid conducting appraisals because they dislike playing the role of judge. As
a result appraisals are conduct annually, for good or evil, and forgot about.
Largely the success of an organization depends on the performance of its human resources.
To determine the contributions of each individual, it is necessary to have a formal
appraisal program with clearly stated objectives. Carefully designed performance
standards that are reliable, strategically relevant, and free from either criterion
deficiencies or contamination are essential foundations for evaluation. 
The use of multiple raters is frequently a good idea because different individuals see
different facets of an employee's performance. The supervisor, for example, has
legitimate authority over an employee and is in a good position to discern whether he or
she is contributing to the goals of the organization. Peers and team members, on the
other hand, often have an unfiltered view of an employee's work activity, particularly
related to cooperation and dependability.
By offering enticing compensation packages, equitable pay, flexible benefits and known
incentives an organization allows itself the luxury of identifying and selecting those
which meet the needs of the organization. This selection process should provide as much
reliable and valid information as possible about applicants so that their qualifications
can be clearly matched with job specifications. The information gathered from
applications and interviews must be reliable and valid, clearly job-related or predictive
of success on the job and free from potential discrimination.
The interview is an important source of information about the job applicant. It can be
unstructured, wherein the interviewer is free to pursue whatever approach and sequence of
topics that might seem appropriate or structured where each applicant receives the same
set of questions, which have preestablished answers. Regardless of the technique chosen,
those who conduct interviews should receive specialized training with interviewing
methods. This gives the Human Resource manager the most relevant information for making a
knowledgeable decision about which applicant will fulfill the needs of the organization.
In filling job openings above the entry level an employer usually finds it advantageous
to use transferring and internal promotions. By recruiting from within, an organization
reward employees for past performances and send a signal to other employees that their
future efforts will payoff, while capitalizing on previous investments made in
recruiting, selecting, developing, and training its current employees. 
Today organizational operations cover broad areas and require continuous training for
effective job performance, evolutions in product areas, and corporate growth. In order to
have effective training programs organizations can utilize a systems approach. Key areas
of this approach include needs assessment, program design, and evaluation.
Needs assessment begins with organizational analysis. Managers must establish a context
for training by deciding where training is needed, how it connects with strategic goals,
and how organizational resources can best be used.
In designing a training program, managers must utilize principles of learning in order to
create an environment that is conducive to learning.
The evaluation of a training program should focus on several criteria: participant
reactions, learning, behavior changes on the job, and bottom line results.
Human Resource Management's front-line fight is to get the organization in order. As Tom
Peters stated in A passion for Excellence  Trust people treat them like adults, enthuse
them by lively and imaginative leadership, develop and demonstrate an obsession for
quality, make them feel they own the business, and your work force will respond with
total commitment.
Evidence points to a more active interest in and careful implementation of human resource
management. Management is, by definition, getting things done through people. If managers
are to increase productivity, reduce costs, and improve their organization's competitive
advantage, they must focus on how to properly manage personnel.
Creating effective motivation and leadership, recruiting and retaining the right
personnel, rewarding and treating employees fairly, establishing an environment that
supports the people and benefits the organization, the Resource Manager looks towards a
future with exciting challenges and opportunities for managing an organization's most
valuable resource - its people.