..:: HR Professionals - Under Scanner ::..

HR AS IN THEORIES…
This term Human resource has leastways two significations. The pilot usance descends politically, where it was traditionally called labor , one of three factors of production , man, machine and material. Within corporations HR refers to the individuals within the firm, and to the department that deals with hiring, firing, training, and other personnel issues.
The conventional but extremely constrict context of hiring, firing, and competency profiling is considered a 20 th century mistiming. Most corporate that contend in the modern global economy have adopted a view of human capital that mirrors the modern accord as above. Some of these, in turn, devaluate the term "human resources" as junked.
More abstract discipline is founded primarily on the supposal that employees are individuals with diverging goals and needs, and as such should not be thought of as primary business resources, such as trucks and filing cabinets. The field takes a positive view of workers, assuming that virtually all wish to contribute to the enterprise productively, and that the main obstacles to their endeavors are lack of knowledge, insufficient training, and failures of process.

HRM is seen by practitioners in the field as a more innovative view of workplace management than the traditional approach. Its techniques force the managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity so that they can be understood and undertaken by the workforce , and to provide the resources needed for them to successfully accomplish their assignments. As such, HRM techniques, when properly practiced, are expressive of the goals and operating practices of the enterprise overall.

THE THEN AND NOW OF HR…
By the late 1800s, people troubles were a very real concern in the workplace. For the average wage-earning worker, most jobs were low-paying, monotonous and unsafe. Some industries underwent difficulty recruiting and retaining employees because of the poor working conditions workers were exposed to. As the means of production continued to shift from farmlands and guilds to city factories, concerns grew about wages, safety, and child labor and 12-hour workdays. Workers began to band together in unions to protect their interests and improve living standards.
Positive employers accredited that productiveness was connected to worker satisfaction and involvement and realized they could not meet production schedules with bands of disgruntled employees. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the personnel profession that grew out of concerns about employee absenteeism and high turnover attempted to solve worker problems with such basic personnel management functions as employee selection, training and compensation.

A "new age" in employee benefits has dawned, and employers had better heed the wake-up call or they will fall behind the times. The tie between employer and employee is changing from a "parent-child relationship" to a "partnership" in benefits. This new partnership has evolved from the demands of today's diverse workforce and from the escalating costs of providing benefits. Employers must cater to the wide-ranging needs of their employees, and employees have to share both the burden of cost and the burden of administration of the benefits.

"The name of the game is management flexibility, Employers have to balance employee needs with what the company can afford."…Dave Ulrich
This flexibility should be available to all employees for all types of benefits, whether it's health care, child care, retirement or time off. With flexibility, employees share the responsibility by selecting and paying for benefits. "Freedom to choose also means more responsibility,"

THE HR VALUE PROPOSITION…
First know what value is," includes apprehending the outside business realisms of technology, economic and regulatory issues, and workforce statistics that affect your organization. HR needs to know its external stakeholders–customers and investors--and what they value. HR can get better aligned with investors by engaging "target investors in hiring and promotion decisions" and by offering employee training that focuses on real business issues.
Target the precise

Speaking macro ways, HR tells employees has to catch what the company actually believes; empty rhetoric only breeds discontent. And when it comes to the details of pay and benefits, explain clearly what's being done and why. For example, “When you have a big deductible, do employees understand you're focusing on big costs? Or do they just think HR is being annoying?"

Measure the precise
Topnotch is never concerned in HR works reason being it can't demonstrate its impact on the business. Statistics on hiring, turnover, and training measure activity but not value. So devise measurements that consider impact: When you trained people, did they learn anything that made them better workers? And connect that data to business-performance indicators -- such as customer loyalty, quality, employee-replacement costs, and, ultimately, profitability.

NO EASY WAY FOR HR PROFESSIONALS…
Beware! Speedy technological advancement is transmuting the workplace and wearing away traditional concepts of work schedules, locations and responsibilities. The growth in telecommuting, proliferation of information resources, and pending advances in computer and robotic technologies have led to predictions of a "jobless" future. During the next decade, HR professionals will be asked to lead their companies through those changes.
On IR front, the degeneration of power from the central government to state and local governments will also prove challenging for human resource departments. As power over critical issues such as entitlement spending, safety and health, and affirmative action programs - to name just a few - is passed to the states, organizations will be faced with new state regulations and compliances. HR professionals will have to sort through a myriad of new legislation to ensure their organizations comply with the laws of multiple jurisdictions.
As societal expending declines and eligibility for government assistance is increasingly tied to employment, businesses may incorporate more unskilled or low-skilled workers into their workforces, increasing the need for training, especially in basic skills. This influx of unskilled and low-skilled workers will focus attention on improving the quality of the workforce. Human resource professionals can expect companies to put more emphasis on in-house training and development programs and to show more interest in school-to-work programs and other business-education partnerships.

Human resource professionals also should anticipate changes in the workplace as the workforce ages. The projected increase in the number of older Indian Workforce will have a significant effect on social security reform, elder care benefits, retiree health care benefits and career development programs. Human resource professionals will be asked to help their organizations recruit and retain older workers, anticipate employees' retirement needs, offer retirement planning advice, and set up programs to ease the burdens of eldercare.
HR TO CONFRONT ETHICS ALSO…!

Ethics is not about solutions. Instead, ethics is about asking questions. It's about asking lots of questions and, maybe, if you're lucky, even asking the right questions every now and then. Experience says, ethical organizations don't shy away from asking potentially embarrassing questions, ones that might disturb the status quo.
The need and value of doing so, especially in HR was brought home clearly in the ENRON and Arthur Andersen scandals. Those were two organizations where, apparently, no one dared ask the tough questions that might actually have saved the companies, the questions on HUMAN RESOURCE!! Now, thanks to those and related scandals, the good news is that corporations are routinely asking tough questions only about financial reporting. Later everybody was convinced ENRON mishap was all a result of “whistle blowing”, again a major threat to HR professionals.

If asked there were appropriate methods and analytical programs in place that monitor for age, sex, and gender discrimination; employee attitudes and morale; talent procurement and retention? Ever wondered to what extent potential employees saw the company as a great place to work. They started having to pay attention to health and safety, termination and downsizing policies, demographics about who gets promoted, raises, bonuses, and turnover.
FORCING THE LIMITS OF RISK IN HR – THE EXTREME POINT …
The word "extreme" is well, extremely popular. Extreme sports, like bungee jumping and sky diving, and the trendy extreme makeover shows for people and homes. Many of these are over-the-top radical stunts, but sometimes the pay-off is extreme too. Can this notion fit into the HR realm? Of course!

Many times we think of human resources managers as reining employees in-mainly to manage and reduce risk. It's just as important, though, to welcome risk, because without taking chances, you could be failing your organization.
Companies that embrace risk foster a learning organization-a place where employees are encouraged to discover and create. Risk also can be a powerful recruitment tool. And, if he had said no? Another important part of the risk-mix is failure. Sometimes you will fail, and you and your organization need to accept that. Many company leaders say - Oh, we won't let that happen. - If that's the case, are you really taking risks? In reality, every hire is a risk. No matter how good someone may look on paper or in an interview, there is no guarantee that he or she will work out. Illustrated by a VP, HR who was looking for a second in command. In walked a very pregnant woman who was perfect for the job. Conventional wisdom says this is a risky hire. Other managers in the company told the VP she was nuts to even consider this candidate. -By the time you hire her, she'll take maternity leave - and who knows if she'll come back? - But the VP hired her. It was a risk, and it paid off. For many years they were an outstanding team, and helped grow their organization into an industry leader.

Risk can be advantageous with other HR strategies. Many HR managers are afraid to experiment with creative benefits, like sabbaticals, telecommuting, or pre-retirement services. Risk can be expensive and failure might mean your job. If you are afraid to take risks, start by taking small steps. Develop a pilot program in one department, and see if there is a measurable difference in employee satisfaction and retention. If you make mistakes, make corrections. Demonstrate the rewards of your risks to gain credibility and increase support from leadership.
Risk-taking in human resources doesn't need to be labeled extreme. It should be a central part of the HR function and the organization. By fostering risk-and sometimes failure-you are encouraging your organization and employees to take chances to help the business grow. And if you don't grow, you die.

THE DEFINITION OF A POTENTIAL HR PROFESSIONAL…
Here are the skills HR and OD professionals really should have (or try and build!)
The skills to TRANSLATE HR DELIVERABLES INTO BUSINESS METRICS .

• Too often HR people focus their deliverables in a way that does not make sense to line business. Let's face it. The language of business is money, so if HR is only seen as a black hole for money, it will earn the sobriquet of a ‘cost centre' and get delegated to the back benches. Hence the ability to talk in the language of finance is a critical skill for HR. Relevant people skills are the differentiating factor in most service companies. HR people must understand how to quantify those skills, how to keep track of them, how to measure them and how to upgrade them.

• The HR professional must not just be concerned with her internal customers but also with the external customers. The focus must be on the way they can together add value to the customer who keeps the organization in business. Only when HR professionals understand and demonstrate how they can add value to end customers will they be considered strategic partners of the business.
The Skills TO FACILITATE CHANGE

• All said and done, HR professionals mostly lack the skills to be effective ‘facilitators' of change. Their own inability to not get involved in the content and exercise control on the process ensures that they are not accepted by the various parties as facilitators.

• The focus is very rarely on the human effects of change. As we all know, any change causes heartburn and pain. Most often, either these are unacknowledged or brushed under the carpet by business leads or HR folks either collude with them. One of the foremost ways to deal with change is to bring it out in the open – “the elephant in the room” way. Any attempt to wish it away or to deal with it in a secret/underhand way only makes us appear that way.

The Skills to UNDERSTAND COMMUNICATION AND THE CHANGES in the processes underway.
• HR needs to understand the processes of communication between organizations and how the era of one way communication is over. This has more implications than HR can realize. Newspapers in the west are seeing declining circulations and advertising. People are fed up being passive ‘consumers' of news but are instead using free software and ubiquitous broadband connections to become ‘commentators' on news. HR people have to understand how these generational shifts in how information is consumed impacts their business, both from the outside and from the inside.

SO WHAT HR SHOULD DO…?
Make the employees and the management believes that you add value.
Most HR professionals are good at HR concepts, but lack knowledge of business of the company they are working for. If the HR person is not aware of his company's business, the Management or other departmental heads have no reason to listen to him.
If you cannot measure activities you cannot manage
The qualitative factors need to be quantified. However, in each and every department there will be some activities and tasks that cannot be quantified. Show the departmental heads a way to quantify the qualitative factors through Balanced Scorecard.

Establish separate image for HR
Develop separate mission and value statements for the HR department, from the overall Mission and Vision statements of the company. If possible establish a separate logo for HR that expresses your commitment to delivering promises.

Focus on Organizational Diagnosis
This has to be understood clearly and communicated properly to all the employees. This is done to tap the capabilities of the organization and employees based on the company strategies. Diagnosis is the first step in this process; we should be able to identify people's competencies and the gaps between the existing and required policies or structures. Here, HR has to help the departments as a facilitator; to communicate, explain and manage the change.

Identify competent and committed employees
In every company you will find competent employees. Some are very good at their core competencies; but some are in the eyes of the management, because they are more committed to the organization. It is HR's duty to distinguish between them and help out the management from time to time during contingencies.

Measure the impact of HR activities on Overall Business Objectives
If you cannot measure activities you cannot manage. The qualitative factors need to be quantified. In each and every department there will be some activities, tasks that cannot be quantified. Show the departmental heads a way to quantify the qualitative factors through Balanced Scorecard.

Attracting and retaining highly skilled employees
Remember that there will always be some amount of professional ego. Executives at higher level will always have complaints against one another, directly or indirectly. It is HR's duty to gauge how serious the complaints are. Further, HR should never look into the negative aspects of the employees unless required. HR should motivate employees by offering them career development plans. . To reduce the level of risk, it should prepare succession plan for key positions in the organization.

Focus on internal and external communication
If some HR programmes are developed, communicate the impact of that programme in quantitative terms through organizational announcements, newsletters or special performance reports. Market the company's HR image through publishing articles in magazines.

Training and development
Prepare a training calendar for all the employees fixing the man days and provide them some in-house or external training programmes like Executive Education Programmes or Management Development Programmes. Nearly 9 out of 10 HR professionals ignore evaluation after the employees take the training programme. It helps prepare career development plans for the employees.

Build trust through constant feedback
Feedback should be honest, frank and spontaneous. If a HR manager can give honest and frank feedback, the trust an employee builds in him increases by a factor of 10.