Advantages Of Temporary And Casual Employees, Terms And Conditions Of Employment, Industrial Relations, Mergers And Acquisitions, Work-Life Flexibility, Recruitment Strategies, And Manager Training Essay.

Advantages of Temporary and Casual Employees

• Human resource management or HRM is the process of conducting activities such as recruitment, selection and training for managing the human resources. The human resource strategies are concerned with improving performance of the employees. The HRM desires to have skilled employees to enhance organizational performance and overall productivity. The HRM is responsible for tracking the systems that are best suited for organizational needs.
• The HRM is important as it contributes to the achievement of organizational objectives. Not just organizational significance, but HRM is also significant socially as it multiplies employment opportunities. HRM promotes team work and team-spirit that helps deliver excellent result. The organizational costs can be reduced as the rate of turnover can be reduced. HRM resolves the increased legal complexities. The human resources provide safe working conditions to the employees that make the organization competitive.
• The HRM is significant as it helps in developing the skills and right attitude among the employees’ through various approaches and strategies. HR provides support to the workforce and enhances their performance. The HRM plays a crucial role in motivating employees through training and appraisal processes. The HR develops compensation plans that satisfy the employees (Bratton and Gold 2017).

References

Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Pros and cons of increasing casual and contract employees versus permanent employees

There are a number of advantages of having more temporary and casual employees in a company. The company pays these contractual employees less than what they pay to their permanent employees. It also doesn’t need to pay benefits, unemployment insurance, vacation pay etc. Also these employees can be recruited as per the need of the company and are suitable for jobs which do not need to be done every day of the week. In times of economic recession, many companies prefer to have employees on contract basis so that they can meet fluctuating demands without incurring permanent expenses. This kind of employment also helps people with varied interests to work in different areas and realize their true potential (Dawson, Veliziotis & Hopkins 2017). However, casual and contract employees have a lesser chances of getting salary and positional hikes. Also there might be times, when such people do not get employment at all depending on the employee market situations. These employees do not have the sense of belonging to give their hundred percent to the company and can also lead to wastage of time and money due to in competencies in certain cases (Berglund et al. 2017).

References

Berglund, T., Håkansson, K., Isidorsson, T. and Alfonsson, J., 2017. Temporary Employment and the Future Labor Market Status. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 7(2).

Dawson, C., Veliziotis, M. and Hopkins, B., 2017. Temporary employment, job satisfaction and subjective well-being. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 38(1), pp.69-98.

Advice to the CEO

The terms and conditions of employment shall always be stated according to the law of the country. The term of employment shall include aspects such as the working hours and the place of the job. The term shall state that the employer can change the job assigned to the employee as per his requirement which shall be related to the job he has applied for. Also the contract shall include the details if holidays, sick leaves, paid and unpaid leaves in the year etc. Any term not stated in the contract shall be applicable as per the law practised in the country as whole (Commission 2017).    

Consequences of the various options for industrial relations and human resource management within the company          

Industrial relations are the relations between the employers and the employees. In an industry there can be various industrial relations such as that of union leader and the labours, management and union leader, and between two union leaders etc. The task of IR and HRM can conflict or overlap at places like handling individual grievances, team building and management, communication and ensuring effective working of employees. They both also aim at maintain harmony between the employees (Bartram et al. 2015).

Terms and Conditions of Employment

References

Bartram, T., Boyle, B., Stanton, P., Burgess, J. and McDonnell, A., 2015. Multinational enterprises and industrial relations: A research agenda for the 21st century. Journal of Industrial Relations, 57(2), pp.127-145.

Commision, H., 2017. Workplace terms and conditions for employees. [online] Humanrightscommission.vic.gov.au. Available at: <https://www.humanrightscommission.vic.gov.au/the.../workplace-terms-a-conditions> [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017].

Failure to develop HR plans

In recent times, mergers and acquisition of two companies has become a regular strategy adopted by businesses to expand their operations and acquire greater market space in the same industry. Usually the companies only focus on top objectives such as increasing operations, market dominance, fighting competition, growing the market by economies of scale and better management etc. like in the case of many companies stated in the case study. However, the management overlooks the HR requirement while aiming for other business dynamics (Tarba and Cooper 2016).          

Roles of HR professionals in mergers and acquisition

The HRM of both the companies shall identify responsible and capable leaders in each company and assign them the task of effectively implement and communicate the change to the employees. The HRM shall conduct various training sessions for middle and lower level managers to educate them about the new policies and procedures which shall be implemented. With mergers, there are changes in role of all the employees whose degree may depend upon the nature of job and merger. The same shall be communicated to all the employees so that they can be prepared and not fail at doing their new jobs (Aklamanu, Degbey and Tarba 2015). 

References

Aklamanu, A., Degbey, W. and Tarba, S., 2015. The role of HRM and social capital configuration for knowledge sharing in post-M&A integration: a framework for future empirical investigation. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(22), pp.2790-2822.

Tarba, S. and Cooper, C., 2016. HRM practices in strategic partnerships. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(20), pp.2305-2309.

Barriers to men taking more time away for families

One of the major barriers to men taking time away for their family is the lack of paid leaves and flexible job timings. Due to lack of paid leaves, the employees need to come to the office even on the days when their kids might need them more. The male are tagged as main bread-earners of the family. Also due to lack of flexi time the employees need to be in office for the major duration of the day. They can’t adjust their work schedule as per their family requirements (Todd and Binns 2013).       

Industrial Relations

Job design strategies

To facilitate better work-life balance, the HRM shall adopt work-life flexibility strategy. Work-life flexibility involves providing flexibility or ease to the employees for how, when and where they work. By implementing this strategy the organization can enable the employee to make decisions regarding managing his priorities and fulfilling his role in personal life as well as professional life. It shall give the employees time to attend personal matters at home without having the need to jeopardize work. By doing so the company would not have to give more paid leaves to the employees and thus it would be win-win for both parties (Zheng et al. 2015).

References

Todd, P. and Binns, J., 2013. Work-life Balance: Is it Now a Problem for Management?. Gender, Work & Organization, 20(3), pp.219-231.

Zheng, C., Kashi, K., Fan, D., Molineux, J. and Ee, M., 2015. Impact of individual coping strategies and organisational work–life balance programmes on Australian employee well-being. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(5), pp.501-526.

Review of two recruitment strategies

When a company recruits through external agencies and recruitment firms, they enjoy the benefit of their specialization in recruitment. These agencies have a wide pool of candidates to choose an appropriate candidate from. However in some cases there might be some casualness and unprofessionalism in their approach. The advantages of recruiting through job portals like LinkedIn are the number of applications coming in for the job and the employer can screen the candidate’s profile and conduct reference check on the portal itself. However, same can lead to wastage of time and efforts of company’s HRM while short listing all the application (Headworth 2016).

Privacy Issues

While recruiting employees from external sources such as job portals and recruitment agencies, the company gives away important data relating to its job requirements, specifications, salary terms etc. This can be used by competitors to recruit similar talent and may get an upper hand and recruit better talent. The job description usually describes what the job requires off the candidate. The competitor may lure away the better talent by offering more relaxed job or just sugar coat the same job in better words.    

References

Headworth, A., 2016. Social media recruitment. UK: Kogan Page Stylus.

I agree that the opposite of the quote holds true. Companies might fear that without structure, employees will be distracted and be less productive and engaged in the organization. But with the latest generation replacing the older workforce, this might not hold true. This generation prefers staying connected with their friends, families and colleagues but at the same time they treat their work as their passion. To them it is not just the matter of earning their bread but also that of realizing their personal goals in life. They appreciate if the organization recognizes their needs and adapt strategies to fulfil them. Also with flexible time and workplace, an employee is reachable for the organization at any time of the day as they are connected through technology (Schawbel and Schawbel 2017). The employee can also carry their work to home as per the requirement. With better understanding and sense of belongingness with the organization, the employees are out to be more productive towards their job. Also, the employees are less likely to switch organization because of lack of their commitment towards it. To manage such a policy, the organization would have to adopt appropriate technology and management tools to manage different timing and co-ordinating the work of all the employees (Christensen. 2015).

Mergers and Acquisitions

References

Christensen., 2015. Workplace Flexibility : Realigning 20th-Century Jobs for a 21st-Century Workforce. 2nd ed. London: Cornell University Press.

Schawbel, D. and Schawbel, D., 2017. The Beginning of the End of the 9-to-5 Workday? | TIME.com. [online] TIME.com. Available at: <https://business.time.com/2011/12/21/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-9-to-5-workday/> [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017].

Induction program for new managers

This initiative of training frontline managers and set certain standards of performance for the managers to adhere by. The learning material of this training is designed in a way that it is customized for this particular task. Whenever there are new managers joining the organizations, this program can be used to orient them with the strategies followed by the company and give them clear knowledge of what is expected out of them.  The learning delivered to manager’s help them in performing their daily tasks better (Doyle 2012).  

Learning and development

Frontline operational staff- to train the frontline operational staff, the training sessions can be conducted wherein they can be trained about the way they have to conduct them professionally and effectively to reach destinations in time and carrying out required job more efficiently. This training shall be done off the job. 

 Customer service staff- they shall be trained about the immediate medical help that can be given to the patient in the ambulance. For this kind of training they need to be trained by special medical trainers who can educate them about the maximum help they can extend to the patients (NSW 2017).   

References

NSW, A., 2017. Teaching and Training Initiatives - NSW Ambulance. [online] Ambulance.nsw.gov.au. Available at: <https://www.ambulance.nsw.gov.au/Our-performance/Teaching-and-Training-Initiatives.html> [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017].

Reviewing Sandy’s Motivation

It is evident from her gestures that she was very scared of her manager as she was not able to put forward her point of view confidently. She must have felt very disappointed and demotivated as despite her improved services she was demeaned by the manager for one of the services she was improving at. Sandy might not feel motivated to perform better as the manager did not appreciate her for her current improvements and was ignorant towards her achievements. Also comparing the employees with other may have a negative impact of their motivation (Bratton and Gold 2017). 

Reviewing Manager’s Behaviour  

The mistakes made by the manager started with him calling Sandy by wrong name i.e. Sally. Further he did not go through her evaluation form in advance and asked her to read it on her own and focused only on average remarks and not the good ones. Further he compared one employee to another and didn’t care to pay attention to what Sandy had to say to the manager. He also brought back the previous incident into the discussion. The manager should have rather gone through the evaluation form well in advance and should have appreciated and been more attentive towards Sandy.  

Reference

Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2017. Human resource management. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

The human resource department has evolved significantly in the last decade. The three greatest challenges faced by the human resource department is to retain and reward its employees, developing corporate leaders and creating a sustainable culture for attracting the talented employees. The HRM shall have a future as the employees need flexible work arrangements to be creative and excel in their performance. However, the future of HR shall be challenging to adapt to an ever-changing work profile.

Due to the technology enhancement, the HR functions are more likely to create risk management strategies to protect the interests of employees and the entire organization. The human resources shall be mobile and not desktop based. The human resources have to find ways and deliver strategic value to the business. The human resources need to understand that technology shall continue to transform the global economy and train the workforce. Further, with the changing trend and increasing demand of freelancers, the human resources need to focus on employee skill sets. The companies seeking a flat management structure are frequently taking aim at the HR department. The HR industry makes it easier to automate the personnel functions that do not cease the future of HRM (Weber and Feintzeig 2014).

References

Weber, L. and Feintzeig, R., 2014. Companies Say No to Having an HR Department. [online] WSJ. Available at: <https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-say-no-to-having-an-hr-department-1396994461> [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017].