Significance Of Old Employees In An Organization's Success

Question:

Discuss about the Value of Hiring Old Employees.

Human resources contribute to the day-to-day running of all sectors of organizations. It is, therefore, a task to the CEO of every organization to ensure that he employs people who are qualified through the Human Resource Manager. Numerous problems are arising currently in the human resource sector. This tasks the CEO of an organization with making decisions that may affect the functioning of the organization. Human resource plays a key in securing the future of every business. The success of every organization is ensured if there exists a good partnership between the management and the employees (Varma, 2013). In a situation where the organization creates an environment can thrive, the employees are likely to deliver quality services, and this ensures a sustainable organizational performance.

Human resource has become an important sector as it determines the economy of a region. Studies have shown that CEO’s hire or retain old employees in their organizations improve theirs companies bottom line. This brings a lot of controversies in modern organizations. Old employees are associated with low productivities as they are not active compared to young employees (Gooderham and Nordhaug, 2011). Old employees are slow in carrying out their activities and upgrading to upcoming technology in the fast changing world. For instance, the CEO of the World Bank is not aware if hiring old employees in the organization could be of any value. This report investigates the significance and contribution of old workers in an organization.

Ann Jenkins in her report pointed out that CEO’s across all industries which have embraced some employees aged 50+ years operate successful businesses. In her study, she focuses on the value of experience which is said to be improving as an employee grows old. Researchers in the AARP report say that experienced workers contributed a lot in improving America’s economy (Katou, 2008). The old workforce can influence and facilitate improved organization outcomes. Human resources in an organization are key, and the senior manager should be keen in ensuring that suitable and qualified personnel is the one that is absorbed by the organization for him to oversee smooth running and coordination of the firm's activities. This report uses data from Rhode Island’s economy that covered the value of old employees in the region’s economy.

Many organizations view old employees as a liability to them. The human resources have developed an attitude and mentality that hiring old employees could be brought about low productivity in their organizations as they are slow in their operations (Hallberg, 2011). However, the fact behind old employees is that they have turned out to be reliable and of help in organizations that have employed them. Old employees have a comparative advantage to an organization as they are well equipped with experience in the field were they are deployed (Ilmakunnas, 2011). This is because they have spent plenty of time carrying out activities in that field for a long time.

The CEO of World Bank should consider hiring old employees to be part of the human resource of the organization as they have the required relevant knowledge that may propel the organization towards achieving its set objectives (Budhwar and Varma, 2010). Though old employees are said to be slow, this can be substituted with the fact that they perform their duties with a lot of accuracies hence covering for the time that could have been used in making changes in the case where mistakes occur.  Through their experience, old employees can influence the young human resources within an organization positively thus leading to improved productivity of the organization. Research in Rhode was conducted with the view of reinforcing the value of hiring old employees as they turned out to be key assets in the human resource (Bratton and Gold, 2012). It showed that older worker played a major role in the organizations that they worked in and hence there was a need to consider them as part of the important workforce for an organization's success.

Value of Experience

To a CEO who is not aware if he should consider hiring old employees in the organization where he heads, this report is of great assistance as it outlines the fitness of the old employees and the part they play in an organization's success. Old employees also come in with an advantage of professionalism and strong work ethics within an organization (Pilbeam and Corbridge, 2010). They are crucial as they know they value and knowledge they should bring into an organization. Old employees are also cost effective than the young employees who demand high payment and in return result into low productivity.

The Havard model: the Havard model concentrates on the soft aspect of the human resource management. It outlines that the employees should be committed to carrying out his duties. The model also needs employees to be cost effective and highly competent in their fields.

Guest comparative model: this theory was formulated by Guest, (1997). He suggested that good human resources management practices will result in high personal and organizational performance. The concept outlines human resource management strategies such as innovation, differentiation, the high focus quality and lowering cost, involvement, commitment, security, performance appraisal and flexibility by training (Guest, 2011). Through observing this model, an organization's performance would turn out to be positive, innovative, lower the number of employees, reduce customer complaints and reduce conflicts within an organization.

The matching model of Human Resource manager: this model was proposed by Forerum, (1984). He indicated that human resource systems and the organization's structure should be managed in a way that is in line with the organization's goals. The model requires human resource employed in an organization to toil with the view of achieving the set targets of the institution.

Boxal and Purcell (2008) model: this model is based on another model formulated by Wright and Nishii in 2004. It studies the mediating procedure in human resource management performance through examining the human resource practices, the real practices, perceived practices and human resource reactions and how they perform.  

Agency theory: this theory puts across that the work of managers and CEO’s of a firm is to take action on behalf of the business owners as their representatives. This theory requires managers to make decisions regarding the human resources that they recruit in the organization (Golding, 2010). However, the theory puts a line between the owners of the organization and the managers in a way that the managers have boundaries on the action they take in the firm.            

 Human capital theory: this theory is concerned with the way people within an organization contribute their knowledge, skills, and potentials to facilitate organizational capability and the significance of that contribution (Pynes, 2008). It states that employee’s knowledge and skills will hike the organizational, economic value as comprising above the human resource will ensure efficiency and effectiveness in attaining the organization’s objectives (Ployhart and Moliterno, 2011).

The people- performance framework: this framework is built on the assumptions that describe unlocking the black box and the critical role of line managers that they use the human resource and the way they behave towards the workforce. The theory says that’s managers reaction towards employees is vital and should ensure that the employees feel free and safe so that they perform their duties to the later.  

AMO framework: Bailey, Berg, Appelbaum and Kalleberg, 2000 proposed that organizational interests are served better by human resource management systems that address employees’ interests such as their skills requirements, quality of their job, and motivations.

After thorough research of the literature detailing the value of hiring old employees, it is evident that old employees are of great use to organizations. The following are the recommendations I would give to organizations;

1. They should consider employing/ hiring old employees as part of their workforce as they have great experience in their fields of the specification.
2. Organizations should bring in old employees so that they can motivate and influence young workers positively towards the organization's goals.
3. Old employees are of great value to organizations according to the research conducted in Rhode, and therefore organization should consider hiring them as they ensure improved productivity.

Conclusion

There have been controversies that people should retire at the age of 50 years because their contribution to organizations is not significant. However, research has shown that old employees are much experienced and already know what is expected of them and the organization. It is therefore with an ease that an organization achieves its goals when it hires old employees as they carry out quality practices and influence the young workforce positively.

References

Bratton, J. and Gold, J., 2012. Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave Macmillan. 

Budhwar, P. and Varma, A., 2010. Guest editors' introduction: Emerging patterns of HRM in the new Indian economic environment. Human Resource Management, 49(3), pp.345-351. 

Golding, N., 2010. Strategic human resource management. Beardwell, J. and Claydon. 

Gooderham, P. and Nordhaug, O., 2011. One European model of HRM? Cranet empirical contributions. Human Resource Management Review, 21(1), pp.27-36. 

Guest, D.E., 2011. Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers. Human resource management journal, 21(1), pp.3-13. 

Hallberg, D., 2011. Economic fluctuations and retirement of older employees. Labour, 25(3), pp.287-307. 

Joos, J.G., 2008. Social media: New frontiers in hiring and recruiting. Employment relations today, 35(1), pp.51-59. 

Katou, A.A., 2008. Measuring the impact of HRM on organizational performance. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management, 1(2), pp.119-142. 

Ilmakunnas, P. and Ilmakunnas, S., 2011. Hiring older employees: Do incentives of early retirement channels matter?. 

Ployhart, R.E. and Moliterno, T.P., 2011. Emergence of the human capital resource: A multilevel model. Academy of Management Review, 36(1), pp.127-150. 

Pilbeam, S. and Corbridge, M., 2010. People resourcing and talent planning: HRM in practice. Prentice Hall. 

Pynes, J.E., 2008. Human resources management for public and nonprofit organizations: A strategic approach (Vol. 30). John Wiley & Sons. 

Varma, A. and Budhwar, P.S., 2013. Managing human resources in Asia-Pacific (Vol. 20). Routledge.