Human Resources: Improper Workforce Management

Introduction

Human resources managers faces critical challenges in the present contemporary world, which in turn is responsible for discontinuity of work, improper workforce management, difficulty in maintaining market competitiveness, and also affect the organizational culture (Epstein and Buhovac, 2014). The key reason associated with these concern include diverse workforce, lack of competency in conjunction with cross-cultural management, and rapid frequency of change within organizational context. According to a report by Epstein and Buhovac et al. (2014), these challenges are common across all the organizations, and thus their success in terms of objective achievement is heavily determined by the performance of human resource managers. In particular, the managers who are encountering such situation are using their leadership, experiences, and communication skills to mitigate the critical challenges and thus maintaining the smooth conduct of work practices.

Overview of Human Resource Management

In particular, the functionality of human resource management team is linked with processes like (i) recruitment and selection; (ii) training and development process; (iii) performance appraisal; (iv) organizational behaviour; and (v) miscellaneous activities such as pay roll system, compensation and benefits, and cross cultural management. It is noteworthy to mention that the role of HR managers is mainly linked with objective to bring people and organization together such that the firm’s goals can be achieved (Chadwick, Super and Kwon, 2015). Thus, the responsibility of managers are linked with art of procuring, maintaining competent workforce, and developing the work practice standards. Particularly, in Australia, the HR managers’ performance is reviewed in conjunction with issues like hiring, performance management, development of organization, compensation, wellness and benefits of employees, motivation and benefits, training and education, and related administrative process.

According to the report by Muenjohn and Armstrong et al. (2015), the authors have further dictated that the HR managers in Australia are accomplished for job responsibilities like (i) analyzing and designing jobs; (ii) ensuring legal compliances; (iii) forecasting supply and demand of workers; (iv) implementing, affirmation, and monitoring the sustainability for action plans and changes; and (v) recruiting, selecting, training, and developing employees to meet the current as well as future job demand of the firm. 

Issues and Challenges Identified

Of note the issues and challenges are also critical within the HR responsibility scope, which must be addressed in order to overcome issues like employee turnover, discontinuity in work flow, and negative workplace environment. The common issues that has been identified to be persisting within the HR management plans include (Muenjohn and Armstrong, 2015):

• Lack of competent candidates – It is a common problem, where HR managers are facing difficulty in identifying competition for designed jobs. The reason is linked with lack of requisite competency, experience, and unwillingness of available candidates on the prescribed pay structures.
• Poor cross-cultural management – This is another issues, mainly persisting in the multinational companies. The issue is linked with hiring candidates from diverse background, language, and culture, and thereby it often becomes difficult to manage the workplace environment into positive and productive environment.
• Reluctant to implement change – Often the employees are reluctant to implement change, as it bring difficulty in terms of learning newer things, require time to implement, and need to maintain the productivity besides learning of newer traits.

Proposed Solutions

The above section described three key issues (not limited to) which are mainly faced by HR managers. The rationale for identifying robust mitigation strategies and management plan is linked with the intention to maintain the work continuity as well as to maintain progressive environment in routine workplace. The solutions that are possible to implement within the scope of Australian business workplace thus includes:

• Offering internship and projects for college students – With the opportunity to offer project and internship to students, the companies can avail the scope of developing optimal candidates for their job requirement. According to a report by Schaper et al. (2016), it was dictated by the authors that for any company, hiring the candidates, especially who are trained in industry, ultimately reduces the chances of failure in selection procedure.
• Offering training to HR managers regarding cultural diversity – The increased flow of overseas employees also generate the requirement of training and knowledge development sessions regarding the cross-cultural management (Liao, Rice and Lu, 2015). Thus, the variance of employees in terms of language, background, ethnicity, and perspectives can be minimized and personnel can be directed towards their responsibilities.
• Using suitable models for change management – Theories of change implementation such as Kotter’s 8-step process, Deming cycle of Plan-Do-Check-Act, and Lewins’s change management models are critical for bringing successful change into the working practice. Thus, such practice for the HR managers is critical to bring effective development of organization as well as for achieving effectiveness (Liao, Rice and Lu, 2015).

Recommendations

Based on the discussed solution, it is reflective that the managers need to adopt suitable strategies such that the challenges can be minimized in their concerned firms. Of note the HR managers are require to develop themselves suitably for the communication and networking related competencies. This is not only require to manage the people accurately, but is also critical to manage the issues related to responsibility delegations or negotiations can be handled effectively. In addition to this, it is also critical for the HR managers to keep themselves updated regarding the market changes, improvement in the technological perspectives, opportunity to develop leadership skills among employees, and maintain a positive workplace environment (Chadwick, Super and Kwon, 2015). Overall, the managerial responsibility is linked with bringing effective work practice and to motivate the employees such that they can bring innovative and cost effective solutions. 

Conclusions

In summary, the present report is based on HR management and strategies, in which the context is made relevant to Australia. The present solution not only gives an overview of the current HR practices, but also discussed the existing challenges and problems such as high turnover, lack of adequate competencies, and difficulty in managing the change implementation. The later section of this report also include solution to the concerned problems as well as recommendation for the HR managers, such that the work practice within organization can be managed effectively. 

References

Chadwick, C., Super, J.F. and Kwon, K., 2015. Resource orchestration in practice: CEO emphasis on SHRM, commitment?based HR systems, and firm performance. Strategic Management Journal, 36(3), pp.360-376.

Epstein, M.J. and Buhovac, A.R., 2014. Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental, and economic impacts. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Liao, T.S., Rice, J. and Lu, J.C., 2015. The vicissitudes of competitive advantage: Empirical evidence from Australian manufacturing SMEs. Journal of Small Business Management, 53(2), pp.469-481.

Muenjohn, N. and Armstrong, A., 2015. Transformational leadership: The influence of culture on the leadership behaviours of expatriate managers. international Journal of Business and information, 2(2).

Schaper, M. ed., 2016. Making ecopreneurs: developing sustainable entrepreneurship. CRC Press.