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Overview of HR Management

Human resource, popularly known as personnel, employees, staffing among others is an important factor in production because it directly affects an organization’s performance. Human resource management (HRM) has emerged as an effective and efficient approach for creating, facilitating, and maintaining the competitive edge. This paper discusses the various aspects of HR management and labor laws that are core to achieving the organizational goals. 

Managing Employees

Employee management is an effort by the organization to support and help its staff achieve their full potential by becoming more productive. It is a broad scope that does not only aim to achieve professional development, but also satisfy employees’ needs that directly or indirectly affect their work. 

Competence, Training and Development

In HR management, competence, training, and development are often used alike despite their distinct difference. Training is a program designed by an organization to impart specific knowledge and skills needed to improve performance. Training helps employees comprehend job requirements and perform their roles efficiently. Today, companies develop training programs for fresh graduates and recruits that have gone through recruitment processes. This is needed to groom and inform them about the policies, rules, and processes required to work effectively.

Development is a more expansive and continuous process that focuses on employees’ growth for future roles. Typically, this process is performed by the top managers to improve the conceptual and intellectual knowledge and abilities of the junior staff. Unlike training, development is a more holistic process aimed at increasing workers’ efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace. It brings out the overall individual growth that prepares them to face future challenges and serves as replacements for the existing managers.

On the other hand, managing employee competence is bringing together the benefits of training and development. A competent employee has the required portfolio of skills, abilities, knowledge, and behavior to complete a job or suit future positions that may arise within or outside the organization. Besides, employee competencies are required to utilize resources, make sound decisions and develop business strategies. Thus, they are critical drivers of improved business performance (Salman et al., 2020). Therefore, organizations must develop, improve and nurture employees’ competencies through appropriate training and development programs.

Attitudes and Behaviors

            Different companies have different work cultures and environments that require employees to behave in a particular way. Managing attitudes and behaviors constitute managing employers’ and employees’ contributions and expectations (Offorbike et al., 2018). Creating positive attitudes and behaviors entails honoring the psychological contract, the unwritten expectations between the two parties. One way of instilling appropriate attitudes and behaviors is by ensuring fairness, transparency, and equity in managing, compensating, and rewarding employees. Employees’ attitudes and behaviors can impact their productivity and performance, either positively or negatively, and should never be overlooked.

Compensation: Benefits, Incentives and Rewards

            Compensation management is the process of determining salaries, benefits, incentives, and rewards. It is the backbone of an organization and the key determinant factor of employees’ attitudes, behaviors, and performance. Poor compensation schemes mean employees cannot satisfy their needs.  This can result in a high turn-over rate that negatively affects the operation and performance of the company. Compensation managers should aim to attract, recruit, engage and retain skilled workforce by offering broad and market competitive compensation packages (Mabaso, 2016). Good and competitive compensation positively impacts performance. In some cases, training and development programs are part of the benefits for the industrious workers.

Safety Programs

The importance of safety programs is known by many and implemented by a few. An organization’s ability to keep its staff safe depends on its ability to design, develop, implement, and improve appropriate safety programs. Some companies, for instance, practice proactive approaches while others make safety a shared responsibility. Safety should remain a top priority for any industry. The components of successful safety management programs include effective safety policies, communication, creating awareness, and behavior change.

Managing Labor Unions and Laws

In the United States, labor unions are certified organizations representing the interest of workers in various industries. Labor movements started in the eighteenth century to protect the growing number of workers in response to the impact of the industrial revolution and civil war (Sandroff, 2021). Since then, labor unions have continued to promote the conditions of workers in different sectors. Employers must allow their members to join and participate in labor movements.

Government Regulation

The US labor laws set the rights and obligations of unions, employers, and employees. The operations of the trade movements and unions are governed by an independent federal agency, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), that seeks to remedy the inequality of bargaining power between workers and employers.

Types of Unions

There are four main types of labor unions: craft, industrial, general, and federations.  Craft unions represent workers with particular skills; industrial unions seek to represent all workers from a particular industry; general unions represent different workers with various skills, while federations seek to represent particular professions (Chand, n.d.). 

The Process of Organizing a Union

Unionization, a process of organizing employees into a labor union or movement that will protect their interest as an exclusive bargaining representative, entails five key steps: preparation, knowing your rights, campaigning, election, and negotiation (Diamond, 2020). Preparation involves obtaining support from co-workers who feel they are unfairly treated and may result in the formation of a committee to streamline their objectives. After certification by the NLRB, the union elects its leaders to lobby on behalf of the members. A union can be decertified due to various reasons. This may include members voting against the union and unconstitutional acts. However, there are restrictions on decertification. For example, NLRB does not accept decertification petitions within one year of a union’s formulation or after reaching a collective bargaining agreement. 

Collective Bargaining

Unions enable workers to fight for their rights through collective bargaining, which involves negotiations from the representative of workers, employers and union officials. Additionally, collective bargaining allows for grievance process, a formal way of presenting complaints or problems to employers. The process entails five steps: informal action, investigation, grievance meeting, decision making, and appeal, if any (Sayed, 2017). Employers should always corporate with unions and honor the collective bargaining agreements, which may include a pay rise or a better working environment. NLRB has a role to play in cases of unfair labor practices. These refer to certain actions taken by unions or employers that violate the labor laws and NLRB’s standards. NLRB has the authority to investigate such actions and take appropriate measures. 

Corporate Campaign

The corporate campaign is one major anchor of labor unions. It helps develop strategies, tactics, and structures in ways that strengthen solidarity and maximize membership involvement. Doing so helps create a conducive collective bargaining environment that effectively motivates the union officials to represent their members at the bargaining table. Pressure from the corporate campaign can compel employers to treat their staff fairly.

Public Sector Labor Relations

Public sector unions are always under threat from political forces. Public labor relations aim to combat such potential threats by exclusively representing workers from public and private sectors. Labor relations built on trust and transparency create lasting and meaningful partnerships that focus on mutual benefits. It fosters effective communication and engagement of employees in understanding management affairs and dynamic changes in the industry. According to Pazdra (2017), HR managers and union officials can easily find common ground for solving problems by engaging employees. 

Labor relations have continued to change in response to the changing industrial needs. As such, HR professionals will need greater knowledge of strategies, processes, and procedures to understand the current trends.  The trends include the effects of globalization and international trade on labor laws, flexible work arrangements that are increasingly becoming inevitable for most employers, demographic and workforce shifts due to union pressure, and the impact of capitalized labor unions. 

Managing HR Systems

HR systems allow HR professionals to perform their primary functions such as payroll and employee data management.  While some organizations have adopted current advanced human resources management systems, some still depend on conventional methods. Creating high-performing HR systems marks the fundamental practices of shaping, developing, and nurturing the employees’ attitudes, behaviors, and skills by discovering and utilizing knowledge (Zhu et al., 2018). These practices that positively impact performance should be a top priority.  

The fundamental principle of high-performing HR systems is information sharing and management, knowledge development and performance management. These core principles ensure selective hiring, effective decision-making processes, result-oriented based compensation, employee training and development, information sharing, and performance improvement. Due to technological advancement, sophisticated HR systems are available to assist HR managers in performing these roles. Notably, most systems allow the selection of key features as desired by the organization.

Employment portfolio describes documentation of educational and professional achievements over a period of time and can be used as evidence when applying for jobs. Effective HR systems allow organizations to manage the employment portfolio of their staff. Portfolios have numerous advantages like helping in determining compensation plans, replacements, and promotions.

HR systems need to be evaluated to establish whether they meet the desired goals and expectations. One critical and widely used method to evaluate HR systems is the scorecard. This is a strategic system that is used to measure, manage, plan and improve the strategic plans of the human resource department. Generally, it focuses on measuring the leading indicators and success factors to predict future trends and business growth. A balanced HR scorecard may be different from that of the organization because it majorly focuses on the HR department’s productivity and achievements. However, it has to align with the overall company strategic goals.

Building a high-performing organization means outdoing one’s competitors and is often associated with achieving long-term success. The first step is self-reflection that helps an organization understand its mission, vision, and capabilities. It provides a clear road map for developing strategic goals and planning. It is essential to align the organization’s structure, processes, policies, and people with the strategy to obtain the necessary support. The final step is anticipating and preparing for change and challenges, identifying key performance indicators and success factors, and investing in the people responsible for achieving the plan.

Conclusion

HRM is a critical function in every organization. Without HR department, companies will not hire and retain qualified talents, improve the organizations and maintain a healthy and conducive working environment. Therefore, companies must consider all the key aspects of HR management to achieve organizational goals.