Management Challenge - What is Human Resource Management ...

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Management Challenge - What is Human Resource Management? ... technology, decreasing market share and public opinion to
Management Challenge - What is Human Resource Management? Firstly it’s management which is vital to your success. Secondly, it belongs to us all and thirdly, it is not a department or solely the function of someone in charge of ‘personnel’. There is an attitude amongst managers that HRM belongs to the HR department rather than to line management. To conduct HRM well is a function and responsibility of all from the interpersonal skills exercised in working teams through the first supervisory grades to the Managing Director. It’s how we treat our people. “……our people are our most important asset…….” Is often said but do we practise what we say???????????? Do you really care about your people? Do you know their names? Can you read their signs and know when they are in difficulty?

Does your organisation care for every member’s benefit;

financial, spiritual and psychological. Or is your major concern the bottom line or the efficiency or the trading reputation of your organisation? Management is about managing people not things. The great privilege of being the leader is that you get to manage a number of unique human beings, all of whom have brains, emotions, thoughts and ideas. Modern organisations are about ideas. It’s about harnessing and using the ideas which your people will create for you – given a supportive atmosphere in which to work. HRM is about using people well, to sell your organisation as the place to work, achieving constant improvement through committed change and co-operation. Are you openly dedicated as an organisation to a clear customer focus both for the internal and the external customer?

Are you promoting change through giving your teams the authority,

autonomy and responsibility to make decisions?

Are you investing in the training and

development of your people? In these days, if the only investment you are making in your people is the fear that they will leave you – They surely will!! Are you listening to your people? Are you playing a part in the society in which you live through Corporate Social Responsibility programmes? Retention of staff and the avoidance of the expense of re-recruiting centres on the creation of a high quality of working life (QWL). Certainly we must measure our productivity in terms of labour, capital employed and output. If however we seek to understand our employees’ attitudes we will begin to create high QWL. In turn this will yield a return on investment in people. It is important to

make best use of the skills and attributes of employees. Job descriptions (JD) need to be have some flexibility. No one fits neatly into a pre-determined slot written by some bureaucrat in head office. If your organisation looks at JDs as being made in concrete, you will lose your developing staff quickly. A JD is a basis of operation. Assuming that you have an appraisal system and that it works, ask your staff - “What other talents have you got which you could use at work?” If those skills are employed – everyone benefits. If the assertion that we are looking for ideas in contemporary business holds true, (if you are not an ideas organisation, you are already in decline) – then where are ideas born? You have it - in the brains of your employees. Listening to ideas, structuring schemes for the evaluation of ideas is crucial. Not please a “Suggestions Box” on the wall, a proper structured scheme. Yes, it may be that out of twenty suggestions only a couple progress to fruition. The important bit is the initial listening and the structure of acceptance or polite and encouraging refusal. That is what will keep ideas flowing and maintain your position ahead of your competitors.

Once accepted and

implemented then reward your people, not with a small cash handout and a pat on the back. Reward commensurate with what has been earned or saved – Tough to do - Yes! Not what we usually do – True! Do it – You will motivate and profit financially again and again. Shrink from it and you will get what you deserve – The departure of the ideas person at the first available opportunity, probably to your competitor. They will move to a listening organisation that wants to learn and benefit from their work. There will be staff at low levels in your organisation who should be listened to because one day they may be the senior management. Senior Managers do not arrive on the aircraft.

They are nurtured in your organisation.

Such potential needs early

recognition, outlet for its talent and a clear succession plan leading to the top. Training is a change leader.

Change is triggered in a variety of ways; world competition,

technology, decreasing market share and public opinion to cite but a few. Change can be met any day of the routine working week. Just meeting it as a routine will be reactive and you will only be as good as the rest and behind the change leader. There is only one asset which makes you the revolutionary, putting you ahead of the competition and that is the brainpower of your people. Motivation through focused training will stimulate ideas. Positive HRM (remember – that’s all of us doing it) creates the lifeblood of change. Create a climate for the ready acceptance of change and from that will flow; ideas, new roles, fresh structures, training opportunities, new thinking and fresh people knocking at your door. You may already have your best recruiters in the people who work for you. Recruitment is achieved in the social conversation – “Who do you work for?” “Acme Inc” ………………….. and then follows the important question

“Oh – what’s it like?” The reply either wins you a potential recruit who is seeking an employer of choice or is a severe criticism of your working culture and the climate which you have created for your people. Do you recognise that your best recruiters should be your staff. Conversion to new thinking will not be simple. If you go at it artificially, you will alienate your staff. Motivation is not something you complete at ten o’clock on Tuesday morning. There will be losses of the former ‘traditional’ ways.

Breaking of ‘comfort zones’, strangeness with the unfamiliar,

perhaps a sense of things falling apart. You will have resistance from ‘dinosaurs’. They have a choice – adapt or go and work, outside your organisation! Out of this will emerge new beginnings. You will be building and assembling.

Staff will be persuading themselves to accept change.

Change is now, not some future plan. There will be the generation of a pioneering, start up enthusiasm.

The team will see a new dynamic. You will be practising Human Resource

Development. You will profit. © 2016 Revision: Charles Wilson, - Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development – is a British based Management Developer For further contact: - email [email protected] Tel 0044 1624 629589 The Consultancy, Cleveland House, Kensington Avenue, Douglas, Isle of Man, British Isles IM1 3ET

These are the challenges which I set out on my INFORMA Courses  

Employee Relations 24-26 May in Dubai

Human Resources Masterclass 29May-02June Dubai

Come and exchange ideas. I look forward to welcoming you