LECTURE 1 –3 : What is HRM?

Let us understand it by dividing the term into its subparts.

• Human – people, us
• Resource – assets/costs for organizations
• Management – co-ordination and control to achieve set goals But humans, unlike other
resources in the context of work and management, cause problems.

The objective is to seek & maximize commitment of people by organising work and
creating attitudes and behaviour, which generate best outcomes. Thus, HRM is basically
a search for “best practices” to generate high levels of employee commitment and
performance. But organisational practices may cause difficulties – down/right sizing or
less secure employment seems to sit uneasily against this rhetoric of HRM.
Storey has identified two broadly contrasting pictures of HRM
• Emphasis on people as costs and resources to be worked to secure maximum efficiency.
It is called the “ Rational or economic view of employment” where the basic approach
is Control and compliance
• Emphasis on people as resources to be invested in to generate high commitment and
involvement. This is the “ Social or psychological view of employment” and it
emphasises on commitment of the people working together as an organisation both -
Hard and Soft.

Bratton and Gold define HRM as:

“… a strategic approach to managing employment relations which emphasises
that leveraging people’s capabilities is critical to achieving sustained competitive
advantage, this being achieved through a distinctive set of integrated employment
policies, programmes and practices”.
From this definition, we can easily deduce certain key words which can give us an idea of
what the features of HRM are. They are:
Strategic i.e. planned, deliberate, seeking to achieve set objectives
Capabilities i.e. people or resources with potential (knowledge, skills, attitudes)
which can be developed to contribute to organisational success.
 Competitive advantage – by tapping into and developing these capabilities organisations
give themselves an edge over their rivals
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. Isn’t 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. Legal – 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. Social – 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. Psychological – 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.
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.
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 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 to their 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 an understanding 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 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-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 labour movements.
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'.
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

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 between authoritarian 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 of Excellence, 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 as important 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.

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 day by 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 that
1.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.
LECTURE 7 – 11 : HR’s 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 HR’s traditional administrative functions. What’s the
strategic vision for HR in today’s 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 corporation’s business goals?

• The human resources (HR) function is at an inflection point: It must reshape itself
to deliver the strategic value that today’s 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 to enable 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 what’s strategic and value-added to
the business and what’s 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 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 doesn’t have national boundaries - it reaches around the world. The rise
of multinational 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 tomorrow’s 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. Today’s 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
organization’s strategic direction. Where diversity flourishes, the potential benefits from
better creativity and decision making and greater innovation can be accrued to help
increase organization’s competitiveness. One means of achieving that is through the
organization’s 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 differences that exist in today’s 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.
Skill deficiencies 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 important role in the implementation of CIP’s. 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 CIP’s 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.
Reengineering 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 it’s 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
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 department’s 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
organization’s 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 organization’s
responsibility to ensure health and safety of the decentralized work force.

10. Employee involvement

By and large for today’s organization’s 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
demonstrated leadership as well as supportive management. Employees need to be
trained and that’s 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.