A treasure too valuable to waste

Human resource management

Introduction
Any business is only as good as the people who comprise the organization. Therefore, an
excellent employee is a pearl of great price. However, instead of recognizing the value of
their employees, many companies still squander these precious human resources in a
number of ways. This review explores some of the problems in human resource
management and suggests possible solutions.

Problems with recruitment and promotion

There are various points in a career trajectory where problems can occur, from recruitment,
through training and mentorship, to promotion and retention. Recruitment can be particularly
difficult because a new employee is an unknown factor. Straker (2009) points out that the
evidence that many companies are failing to recruit the right people is the number of people
who are patently in the wrong job! He suggests that one reason for this is that organizations
make job offers based on past performance rather than on a realistic assessment of future
potential. A mis-match between an individual and their position within a company may,
however, be due to factors other than poor recruitment practices. Employees can be
promoted into positions that no longer match their skills; rigidity in organizational structures
may inhibit opportunities for employees, particularly women, who need to balance work and
family responsibilities; and organizational reward structures can encourage people to take
jobs for the wrong reasons.
Promotion is often used as a way to fill job vacancies internally and according to Straker
(2009), about a third of all internal appointments are acquired because of relationship
networks or secondary opinion. Excellent performance in one job does not necessarily
translate into the same level of performance on the next rung of the career ladder. This can
be especially true when a promotion involves managerial responsibilities.
Failing to promote employees with the aptitude and skills to be effective managers can be
just as big a mistake as promoting the wrong people. Recent evidence indicates that
organizations with women in top management positions out perform those with more
traditional, male-dominated leadership structures. However, many women who begin their
careers on an equal footing with their male colleagues fail to reach the highest levels of
management because of rigid organizational structures that inhibit an achievable work-life
balance. Although many companies are beginning to recognize the value of a more flexible
approach to working, employees who take advantage of this are often seen as less
committed or ambitious.

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‘‘ A mis-match between an individual and their position within a
company may, be due to factors other than poor recruitment
practices. Employees can be promoted into positions that no
longer match their skills and organizational reward structures
can encourage people to take jobs for the wrong reasons. ’’

Flexible working practices

However, some organizations have adopted innovative models of flexible working such as
Best Buy’s results only work environment (ROWE) which allows employees complete control
over how, when and where they work as long as they achieve agreed objectives. ROWE has
resulted in greater reported happiness among employees, less attrition and a 35 percent
increase in profits. Another model of flexibility is Deloitte’s mass career customization (MCC)
program that enables employees to alter four different career dimensions. These are: rate of
career progression, workload, location and role. Altering the rate of career progression could
be a big boon to female employees who often have different career patterns from men due to
family responsibilities. In some companies employees who do not progress to senior
management at the anticipated point in their careers (based on a masculine norm) fail to
achieve senior positions at all.

Women’s differing career trajectories

This arc-of-career flexibility is a serious issue for women, according to Cabrera (2009).
Women often take career breaks just as they are becoming well established in their jobs,
which can make it difficult to re-establish a traditional career pathway. Women’s careers may
peak later than those of men due to their preference for more family-friendly working
practices in the child bearing and child rearing years. Businesses that cannot accommodate
non-traditional career patterns risk losing talented women who could make substantial
contributions later in their working lives. Many women choose a so-called protean career
path that involves altering career goals to meet changing personal circumstances or a
kaleidoscope career model (KCM) that emphasizes authenticity and changing needs.
Greater accommodation of women’s fluctuating career requirements could assist in the
retention of talented female employees and provide support for their return to demanding
managerial roles later in their careers.

External versus intrinsic motivation

The fact that money does not appear to be women’s only career motivation may be one of the
attributes that makes them such valuable employees. The recent banking crisis has
demonstrated how destructive the bonus culture, where personal gain was the motivation to
take big risks with other people’s money, can be. This crisis may prove beneficial in the long
term if it causes corporations to consider how they motivate employees. The use of external
motivation, such as large bonuses can be counter productive because such bonuses foster
personal greed rather than corporate conscience and promote competition rather than
collaborative working practices. Straker (2009) compares such external motivation to a
donkey that has a carrot dangled in front of its nose to make it walk faster. The carrot does not
make the donkey want to walk quickly; it just creates a desire for the carrot. Intrinsic rewards,
on the other hand, are more sustainable and help employees to focus on the job rather than
on the reward. Intrinsic motivation can be encouraged by asking employees what motivates
them and allowing them to decide what their own rewards should be. This can be something
as simple as receiving recognition from a line manager for completing a difficult task or
being offered additional training in areas of personal interest or desirable skills.

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 Job internships
One area of intrinsic motivation seems to be an employee’s perception that they are using
their skills effectively and working to their capability. Using highly paid employees to do
routine tasks can be de-motivating and frustrating. A specialist professional library in
Australia recognized that using highly skilled staff to do jobs such as stacking shelves was
not cost effective. Not only were such routine tasks repetitive and boring, they took time away
from more complex and rewarding activities such as research or project work. The solution
was to employ library students on short term contracts to take over the day to day
administrative work such as filing, photocopying, dealing with the post and answering
telephone and email requests. There were some unexpected rewards for both the library
staff and for the student interns. The library staff increased their mentoring skills, while the
students helped them to keep up to date with new information. The students gained the
opportunity to experience the reality of working in a specialist professional library and
acquired skills that they could add to their CVs when applying for initial posts following
graduation. The librarians were able to provide realistic references based on knowledge of
the students’ capabilities in the working environment.
Internships are not only useful for students. They can be used within organizations to allow
employees to try out different roles. Sometimes human resources are wasted because
employees are stereotyped based on current roles or responsibilities. Helping people to
learn new skills and try out different jobs within an organization can be a form of intrinsic
motivation and may aid in retention of staff who might otherwise leave to seek new
challenges elsewhere.

Conclusion
In the twenty-first century the business environment has become extremely competitive and
continuous improvement is no longer an option; it has become a necessity. One area where
organizations of any size can create changes is in their utilization of human resources.
People are a company’s greatest asset. Changing outdated structures and even more
archaic attitudes can help to attract, motivate and retain the employees who have the vision,
skills and determination to adapt to a constantly changing world. Assessing potential when
appointing or promoting staff; creating flexible organizational structures which will help all
employees to achieve a better work-life balance; recognition of women’s different career
trajectories and developing intrinsic motivation in employees are all ways in which
organizations can find and hold onto the treasure of human resources.

Comment:
All three articles listed under references were interesting and informative. The article by
David Straker was the first in a series of three articles about the nine dimensions of human
resource wastage. It explored the first three of these, all which involved waste at the
organizational level. These were: misuse of capability, mis-design of the organization and
mis-motivation of people. The article illustrated the problem and then provided solutions, set
out in little solution boxes. This article would be useful as part of a training course for
managers. Elizabeth Cabrera focused on the career needs of highly educated
businesswomen. In her empirical research, she interviewed women who had taken career

‘‘ Although many companies are beginning to recognize the

value of a more flexible approach to working, employees who
take advantage of this are often seen as less committed and
ambitious. ’’

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 ‘‘ Altering the rate of career progression could be a big boon to
female employees who often have different career patterns
from men due to family responsibilities. In some companies
employees who do not progress to senior management at the
anticipated point in their careers (based on a masculine norm)
fail to achieve senior positions at all.‘‘

breaks due to family responsibilities. This provided some valuable insights about women’s
Keywords: career trajectories and their needs when returning to work after a career break. Alyson
Human resource Dalby’s (2009) article was the odd one out of the three. It was an interesting description of an
management, initiative taken by a specialist library to introduce student internships in order to reduce the
Retention, amount of routine administrative tasks undertaken by the library staff. However, the topic was
Fexible labour, quite different from that of the other two articles as it focused on one very specific initiative
Women and its impact on both staff and the students who were employed as interns.

References
Cabrera, E.F. (2009), ‘‘Protean organizations: reshaping work and careers to retain female talent’’,
Career Development international, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 186-92.
Dalby, A. (2009), ‘‘Nurturing new talent: running a corporate internship programme’’, Library
Management, Vol. 30 Nos 8-9, pp. 583-93.
Straker, D. (2009), ‘‘Waste not want not (waste of people assets)’’, Quality World, May, pp. 40-6.

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