Human Resource Management
Human resource management (HRM) is essential to provide better quality and quantity of employees in the workplace. According to the view of Ahammad (2017), the purpose of HRM is to create opportunities for motivating and for facilitating individual as well as the group of employees to improve their career. Westonwich District Council (WDC) is a local government service in the north of England. The company has included a huge number of employees to operate the work properly. CEO of WDC has provided an expert HRM to improving the working environment. The aim of the study is to discuss the responsibility of HRM of WDC in order to provide a better environment to the employees as well as to provide a solution to the issue faced by the employees.
As mentioned by Shin et al. (2020), HRM is a very essential part of an organisation to enhance a better environment for the employees. He or she has to hire effective employees for the organisation and the organisation must provide a good amount of salary to them. HRM needs to solve any problem of the employees as well as to motivate them so that they can improve their career. He or she has to provide a friendly and cooperative environment to the staffs so that they can mix properly with the changing circumstances and work pressure. As per the survey of WDC, HRM needs to look after a few issue of the employees in order to provide the improved working environment.
Category 1: Importance of diverse work based on employee skill
As stated by Guest (2017), HRM needs to provide a variety of work as per the skills and experience of the employees. The company have to provide skill variety to the employees to reduce their boredom and it would help them to increase job satisfaction as well as motivation. It would help the employees to arrange the work according to their work pattern. However, Luu et al. (2019), has stated that the company need to provide different types of work, it would help them to develop their skills and to increase their experience. Most of the employees are not satisfied with their work so the HRM have to strictly look after this matter to improve the work culture of WDC.
Category 2: Stress- free environment
As mentioned by Pandey and Pestonjee (2017), HRM needs to provide a stress-free environment for the employees. They need to motivate their workers so that they can improve their work and they complete it on time. HRM have to provide a cooperative and friendly environment so that the employees can communicate clearly among each other as well as it would help them to work properly in a team. On the other hand, Jalagat (2017), have added that HRM needs to provide a reward to the employees for their better quality works. It would help the company to regenerate more quality of work from the employees. The workers and staffs would get the strength to do more work before time to achieve rewards.
Category 3: Good amount of Salary
According to Kanwal and Syed (2017), the company must have a better amount of salary strategy for the employees according to their work in order to satisfy them. Some employees do not get the proper amount of salary as per their skills, so it is important for the HRM to look after the salary of the employees. However, if the employees do not get enough salary they can easily change their job where they would get enough salary as per their skills. As mentioned by Darma and Supriyanto (2017), if an organisation pay more than the average salary to their employees, he or she would try to enhance their skills and try to give their best performance. As per the survey, only 21% of the employees of WDC are happy with their salaries, the rest of the employees are not so satisfied with their salaries. As the company is not providing the proper amount of salary to its employees and therefore the company can loss many skilled employees.
Category 4: Employee development and training
As mentioned by Chen (2019), it is important to provide proper training and development of skills to the employees of the company. The organisation need to train properly to their workers and staffs so that they can understand their roles and responsibilities properly. It would help them to carry out their individual work properly. It is essential to develop the skills of the employees so that the company can get effective and positive results from them. However, based on the survey results, 32% of the employees are satisfied with their training and development of WDC and others are not really satisfied with their development and training session. Due to the lack of development and training, the company has poor productivity results,
Category 5: Workforce of the employees
As mentioned by Obamiro et al. (2019), the company need to acknowledge the works of the employees as per their efforts. As per the case study, 83% of the employees of WDC claimed that workload has been increased hugely and 27% of them felt that the organization do not properly recognize their efforts. In order to the proper acknowledgement of the employees' work, the HRM have to provide a reward system and increment in their salary as well as promotion to the employees. Most of the employees are not happy with the work culture of the company. The HRM has to provide increment and promotion as per the skills and work of the employees. As per the view of Darma and Supriyanto (2017), the company need to discuss the mission and vision of the company in order to improve productivity and the best performance from the employees. WDC can loss employees as they are not properly acknowledging the work of the employees, as well as most of the workers and staffs, felt huge pressure of work in the company.
Category 6: The importance of job security
A mentioned by the Bernstrøm et al. (2019), the company need to provide job security to the staffs and workers of an organisation so that the employees stay in their company for a longer period. The company need to ensure security for the workers and staffs as secure employees can give more efforts or their work. They can feel relaxed about their job and therefore it would help them to improve their work as well as to give better results. As per the case study, only 36% of the employees are satisfied with the job security whereas the rest are not really happy with their job in WDC. Due to lack of job security company has less number of employees, as well as most of the existed employees, would search for a better job as per their skill and experience. HRM of WDC needs to look after these issues in order to get more employees and better productivity.
Long working hours
As per the words of Tan et al., (2018), Hans Selye, management at workplace, the induction of each issue has to be deliberately approached in the manner to enhance impact of disparate situations on the employees, in workplace. Selye, also renowned for his research on the stress, has also stated factual noesis of stress being bumping into mental health of employees, thereby create a colossal collision in many aspects of the industry. Reasons for the increasingly stressful predicament are calculated in a wider prospect, such as long working hours, insecurity regarding jobs and evolving lack of autonomy.
Employment in any corporate sector, includes amount of mental health stability, for commending on long working hours. According to one of the mental health organisations of the UK, out of 4 people, 1 employee is suffering from psychological issues especially in the corporate sectors (mind.org.uk, 2019).
Case study on WDC depicts financial challenges in succeeding years. Treatment for any medical issue, inclusion of mental health requires certain lumps of money which WDC is unable to provide to its employees (Afonso et al., 2017). Negative impact that falls in the minds of workers has been emerging with an increase in overtime work of an hour and two minutes, in compared to work on weekday basis. The impact of long working hours has been proving to be greater inspect in WDC thus, 89% of the population of 75,000 has come out to be a surficial statistic of stressful predicament (Cho et al., 2018).
Figure 1: UK Unemployment rate in 2020
(Source: ons.gov.uk, 2020)
Insecurity regarding jobs
Dependency in job, is an important factor for stable health of the employees, along with it, the impact of job insecurities in employees create a severe consequence in workers of any organisation, private or government. Stability and variability in the working sector, creates rift in employment. Perception of job insecurity, put pessimistic influence amongst every member of a given organisation (Ogbonnaya et al., 2017). With the sudden hit of COVID-19, finance and employment has been facing severe consequences. Rate of unemployment has decreased at the highest rate to a huge extent. According to the labour market, 4.9% has been calculated in the year 2020, UK (ons.gov.uk, 2020). People who have been evicted from the respective organisations, has to search for another arena to infer their economic stability in family. This creates a hazardous predicament owing to the wastage of time and also motivation. These factors, create an imbalance in employability in sectors which affects source of motivation, therefore bringing tension and immense depression in the lives of unemployed people.
In order to find an alternative source of income, the people of north England, has been facing issues regarding the competency and their capabilities as required for working. Questioning one’s own capability harms the motivating sense of employees thus increase in mental as well as physical health problems initiate to chance. Deficiency in regards to economic stability makes the entire human stability of get affected and hence, possibilities of threats in regards to physical health, owing to sleep deprivation and tiredness, have become a predominated factor. Long tenure of training in any new organisation demotivates the employees, which causes physical strain and doubts of self-sufficiency and hence performance gets adversely impacted (Yuen et al., 2018).
Stated in the case study, WDC has been featuring major issues, lately, related to the employment stature and fabrication of the salary. Employees, providing their effort even during the weekends, are majorly affected and diagnosed with syndromes of depression, anxiety attacks, and lack of sleep thus comprehending in physical illness in the future. Challenges have unfolded in order to relationship between the work schedule, and employments, concluding in creation of strain in minds of every employee.
Implementing wellness programs
In order to provide job security, WDC can implement different wellness programs in the employment policies. Wellness policies, such as on site-fitness policy and transit-medical services are to being introduced in to the policy of the employment with an intense action that has to be looked after by the HRM. These practices are to be included in order to maintain the well-being of the members of organisation. WDC must be responsible in maintaining paradigm owing to the meditation strategy and yoga training that develops peacefulness amongst the employees.
Autonomy in work sector provides employment sustainability, and hence, the sovereignty of job impacts on motivation of employment stature. Increase in the number of micromanagers makes the whole unit of an organisation suffer with introduction of significant threats. Lesser the number of the managers, more is the productivity of the organisations. Speaking about the employees, a significant notion has been opted out, employees are more engaged in with the organisations they work for, only if the environment has provided optimistic values and vibes towards them. Loss of productivity is highly comprehensive in sector with unmanageable environment from the hierarchy.
Flexible work arrangements
Major issues have been chancing since a long time whenever, building trust in the employees are altered by the organisations, that is the momentum, the employement gets affected with demotivation. A definite paradigm that has been carried on since a long tenure for the past decade states, command and control. Democracy in the fields of the organisational sectors have been emerging at a higher rate in the past decades, in all over Europe (RUIZ?RUFINO et al., 2017). The slogan has been affecting mental stability of employees with development of intense tension and feeling of inferiority. As a strategical structure, the HRM must take initiative to wellness challenges and wellness programs, that helps in relaxation of the entire emplacement force. Strategies are to be implemented in scenarios of alternate work structures that will enhance the employments’ productivities along with disparate keeping a check on the optimising capability of them. This strategy shall be helpful in motivating the employees, thereby increase in their economic fields.
Management of standards
Factually, every person has to be disparate from another, in many aspects, which has been kept blindfolded in spheres of professionalism and a great responsibility for the Human Resource Manager to have to be made cultural changes. Unrequired gossips in the workplace, that have been commonly termed as politics in the workplace, or even targeting a specific person, and humiliating on the grounds of everything but work, has made employment mentalities go in vain, thus demotes them, as an HR, it has been my responsibility to take care of the cultural environment of organisation (Tian et al., 2019). Thus, as the case study has been provided, employees are stressed due to the above factors.
Reviewing irrelevant policies
The HRM is determined to solve any office-related issue occurring especially inside the premises of the office. Thus, certain policies are to be reviewed especially in cases such as, employment assistance programs. Emphasising on transit options, the management can provide strategically approach for motivate the employees, along with providing public transport incentives. Guidance must be provided in order to the financial assistance for betterment of the employees, and thus making enhanced financial programs, thus comforting the employees. The time, relationship between employees and the organisation become stronger, entire of the business procedure, goes in a smooth structure, without any interruption. Policies regarding termination must be kept in proper control under the company’s terms and conditions, that HRM of WDC is responsible to take minimum requirement, of handling the matters in utter professionalism. Priorities must be highlighted in regards to different aspects of the workplace, promoting healthy schemes regarding financial and medical purposes are to be kept in mind with adequate number of strategical approaches.
It can be concluded the HRM is highly effective in an organisation to improve the work culture as well as to provide skilled and experienced employees. They have to provide a good amount of salary as well as need to motivate them so that they can operate their work properly. in the current case study, it has been found that WDC has a poor working environment. Most of the employees are not happy with the working environment of the organisation. Due to improper employee management strategies, they are facing a huge problem to understand their own responsibilities. Human Resource Management of WDC has implemented wellness programs and flexible work environment for the employees to improve the work culture.
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