Human Resource Management Challenges In Next Ten Years

Answer :

Human Resource Management

1. What do you think will be the two most significant challenges facing HR managers in the next ten years? Why explain and expand?

The two most important HRM challenges that would be faced by the managers in the next ten years are the retention and rewarding the workforce and the development of a new generation leadership team. 

A corporate report suggested that HR managers believed retention of talented individuals in the organizations would be a difficult task due to the increase in the intensity of the competition in the market. The authors’ Festing & Schäfer (2014) problem is deep-rooted in the education system who do not embrace and cultivate creativity. The system of rewarding is also close-ended in most of the organizations, and this creates a problem since the organizations are still holding up to the traditional HR practices. On the other hand, a tenured position in one organization is not what the employees want. HR professionals should focus on providing global exposure, administrative responsibilities and compliance with their talent pool in order to retain them for the long run (Festing & Schäfer, 2014). Dissatisfaction in the workplace is increasing the turnover in the rate of the organizations which gives less space for implementing new and improved HRM practices. 

Increase in the performance of the employees in the organization and the immense competition within a particular organization it is difficult to build a certain and solid future that would benefit the company. As mentioned above the dissatisfaction and inadequate reward system within an organization decreases the motivation among the talent pool. This is one aspect of the problem (Rose et al., 2015). The mid-level managers always do not share a good relationship with other employees which affect the employee turnover. There is less scope of training employees and the mid-level managers when there is a high rate of turnover in every organization. This form of practice is mostly seen in the tourism and hospitality industry where there are very few leaders who could lead the organizations to success. 

1. Is there too much emphasis placed on the concept of fit by academics? Should we not simply employ people based on competencies for the position and allow them to fit in the best they can?

Business organizations are the highest grossing recruiters in the professional environment. Therefore the recruiters and HR managers have to be more careful in the selection of the right candidate for their organization. There are different approaches to recruiting procedure and different qualities which reflect the potential of the candidate.  The academic fit approach is the most common form of recruitment procedures adopted by HR manager and recruiters. If the candidate possesses an advanced degree with impressive academic grades, it is usually a reflection of the candidate’s dedication for learning and growth (Wilton, 2014). Also, academic qualification makes sure that the potential candidate is well aware and trained in the particular field for which they are applying. There is no doubt in the matter that analytical and technical skills are obtained from the theoretical knowledge provided by higher education. However, academic qualifications cannot be the indicator of the candidate’s intelligence or decision-making skills. Therefore it is best that the recruiters and HR managers do not get blinded by high ranks in education but judge the temperament, endurance and cognition of the candidates. Some other recruiters and managers prefer to consider the candidates for their organizations based on the cultural fitness of the candidate (Heine, Beaujean & Schmitt, 2016). These candidates are known to be more adaptable and sustain in the organization for a long period of time. It is important to consider whether the candidate has a passion for work and where they are taking pride in their forte. These candidates are usually better team players and accommodating in order to fulfil their passion. The employees being recruited need to have the same vision or mission with the company they are being hired for. A culturally unfit candidate will leave the organization when another company with appropriate alignment of their values provide them with an opportunity. True success can only be achieved if the individual is able to put their complete effort, technical skills can always be developed with training.  

1. In many cases, managers will assume that talented employees can be left alone while underperforming employees require disciplinary action. Is this really a valid assumption?

Considering hospitality sector industry where talented employees have often left along just because they are performing well, which must be done as there have been several pieces of evidence where the high turnover rate has been observed by employees that were higher performer contributing toward the total of 10% turnover who were mostly disengaged (Xu & Payne, 2018). Even though underperforming employees must be given more focus, talented employees must be neglected as well. One of the biggest mistake that company often commits while framing staffs engagement strategies that they leave out higher performing employees assuming that they are already engaged that must be avoided to order to maintain a perfect balance between both the employees giving them equal treatment and job opportunity. Managers need to hire and recruit right employees for right role whether they have talented enough as they must seek passion, consistency and capability rather than infested talent. They must spend time choosing the best out of the sea of application and not be desperate. 

According to the authors’ Dries et al. (2014) sometimes talented employees are the ones who become temperamental and non-cooperative to the organization. It is essential that the managers make the difficult employees aware of the situation in the workplace and how their attitudes affect the culture of the organization. The managers could gain the confidence of his or her employees and support the difficulty that they care to face. This will be effective for both talented and underperforming employees. Challenging the talented employees would keep them working harder and grounded in the workplace. In the case of the underperforming employees, it is necessary to support them and train them for the benefit of the company. The managers should ponder on the reasons behind the underperformance of some employees and guide them through the development. There is a hard possibility that certain employees would be demotivated if their work is being undermined due to the shadows of the talented achievers. 

1. What strategies can be implemented by HR practitioners to reduce bullying in the workplace? Identify the one strategy that would make the most difference in either the public or private sector?

For the organization to be successful and running smoothly without any disruption and hindrance to the workplace environment, elimination of bullying plays an important role to maintain positivity of workplace culture. In reference to the retail sector industry, bullying is most prevalent in the form of verbal bullying, collective bullying tactics, mobbing and in some, adverse cases even physical bullying. Bullying of individuals in the workplace often leads to mental stress, physical assault and harassment and sometimes death, thus it becomes a most important area for HR practitioners to reduce bullying at the workplace to keep organization bullying free preventing employees de-motivation, trust towards the organization and have a productive workforce (Fox & Cowan, 2015).  Towards maintaining this, line managers need to spot harassment or bullying issues that might come up in the workplace. They must have knowledge of bullying and harassment policies where they will be less likely to commit offences themselves. HR management must commit to the bully-free environment and enforce clear written policies about what is not and what is acceptable behaviour in an organization. Signs of stress throughout the organization must be watched at all level along with training, communication and education programs are implemented for managers and supervisors that will allow them to scrutinize illegal employment practice claims. 

One strategy in reference to stopping bullying or harassment that would make all difference whether it is private or public sector industry would be “Be open to a new style of management”. Industries must not be opposed to adopting a new management style that will eventually make the workplace more transparent and open to one another in the workplace. This will help towards reducing harassment or bullying where agile management could focus more on horizontal management structure that will allow a reduction in the hierarchy between workers. Bullying often comes from abuse of power thus creating structured management where workers are much more on similar level induce potential to eliminate incidents of bullying as well as harassment (Ramely & Ahmad, 2017). 

1. What do you think is the future of HRM? Does it have a future? Why or Why not?

Being one of the major part of organization that has important responsibility of in managing workforce within company especially in manufacturing industry, it could be stated that in coming future HRM is going to diversify itself in way of operating, functioning  and opting more effective ways to recruit, retain employees and offer productive workplace (Cleveland, Byrne & Cavanagh, 2015). The demand of day-day to HR has been crowding out focus on HR practitioner that have passion and spirit to take a leading role in helping the company to capitalize on the opportunity offered through rising trends like gamification and big data. In coming to future HRM is going to seek out, reach out and break beyond tradition towards expertise merging trends like globalization, social media, mass customization and personal technology. Talents are infused from other disciplines like logistics, marketing and finance to bear HR issues like option-based development of leadership, employment value proposition, risk optimized management performances and optimized supply chains. 

HRM does have a future only if it embraces globalization and technology. Currently, HR practitioners are not much upgrading themselves fast enough, and automation of HR process and system has been a straggler in many industries (Amman, Carpenter & Neff, 2015). This process will change when HR professional of the new generation who is most aware of technology, its usage and several apps and application, join the workforce. This will ultimately create a standard HRM that is automated, interface friendly and have the potential to drive efficiency in HR. On another side of the story, as full-time employment concept is freelancing and shrinking, retainer agreement and contact employment increasing, the number of full-time professionals will decrease in companies, a lot of HR outsourcing services, and independent agencies will rise.