Unit 22 Managing Human resource Guest HRM Assignment

Unit 22 Managing Human resource Guest HRM Assignment

Introduction

One can describe managing human resource as an integral process within organizations which aims in identifying and motivating the employees in order to maintain the smooth executions of the everyday operational activities. HR department designated within organizations are making the best use of this process for retaining and enhancing the employees’ productiveness at work.

Employees are liable of carrying out various function and activities at work hence, it is the most important job for Managers and HR professionals in keeping the employee organized for effective execution of all business activities. Employees should be considered as assets and not costs for an organization which is an essential part of contemporary HRM and human capital management. For developing an understanding about the entire concept, McDonalds has been considered as the case study.

TASK 3

3.1 Explain the forms of discrimination that can take place in the workplace using examples of recent discrimination cases which has made the news.

Discrimination at workplace is subjected to biased treatment based on race, country of origin, language, religion, sex orientation, disability etc. There can be various forms of discrimination such as unfair treatment of gays, lesbians, transgender at work due to their sexual orientation, discrimination of HIV AIDS employees, old employees based on their age, disable workers etc which are prohibited under law. (Van and Janssens, 2011)

Forms of discrimination

• Racial discrimination: can be practised in workplaces where employee belonging from minority or different country of origin or different skin colour is treated unfairly. 
• Gender discrimination:can occur when employees working at same level are subjected to different payment structure based on their gender like low pay for women employees over their male counterparts, preference given to male employees for top managerial position due to glass ceiling.
• Age discrimination: can occur where mid aged and old employees are biased over young employees during promotion, training, job benefits etc.
•  Religious discrimination: can occur where employees are treated unfairly due to their religious beliefs such as ban of using turban for Sikh employees, use of hijab for Muslims etc.
• Disability discrimination: occurs where either disabled employees are left out during hiring or even if hired are given low profile jobs or not given proper access to different facilities like toilets, staircases, sitting etc. (Van and Janssens, 2011)

Example, in 2015 one of the outlets of McDonald’s in Virginia faced legal actions from federal court when employees registered complaint against the franchisor stating that they had to face racial discrimination at work where the supervisor made racial comments and slurs as they belonged to Hispanic and African American origin. Later when services of employees were terminated they moved to federal court for justice. The court penalised franchisor on harassment and racial discrimination finding McDonalds marketing management guilty of charges.  (BBC News, 2015)

Another example of gender discrimination can be seen in case of Harrods where a female employee named Ms Lokhova dragged Harrods to court when she discovered that she was discriminated on pay for similar level of job. She found that her male colleague who worked as floor manager got higher salary since 3 years while she was deprived over same period. She registered complaint in employee tribunal and Harrods had to compensate 160,000 GBP and pay her 50% of legal charges. (Van and Janssens, 2011)

3.2 Discuss the practical implications of equal opportunities legislation for an organisation

In UK significant legislative regulations are maintained to provide equality at workplace through enforcement of Equality ACT 2010, Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 etc. These laws ensure that equal opportunities are provided to all irrespective of gender, national origin, language, religion, disability and age, failure to which can lead to judicial actions like penalty, prison etc depending upon degree of offence.  These laws also protect employment rights of all employees during recruitment, training, promotions, work targets and benefits and protect them against bias treatment based on prejudice. These equal opportunities have both positive and negative implication on organizations. (Kossek, Baltes and Matthews, 2011)

Positive implications: include fair and transparent working environment which promotes talent and merit on performance and related benefits equally resulting into higher employee motivation and productiveness. It also helps to maintain harmonious workplace and effective conflict management due to code of conduct and best practices maintained for equality of opportunities. While negative implications include damage of brand reputation and good will image based on allegations claimed by employees which becomes even worse if company is found guilty.  Another is compensation or penalty imposed by judiciary if found accused.  (Kossek, Baltes and Matthews, 2011)

Example, in McDonald’s all employees are communicated with their responsibility, targets, salary and benefits during terms and conditions signed prior to employment. Also during employment various communication and contracts are revised based on mutual agreement between McDonald’s management and employees over training, salary hike etc. However, if employees have any conflict issues they can report these to trade union or move to tribunals to seek judicial help who act as mediators.

3.3 Compare the approaches to managing equal opportunities and managing diversity. Discuss the similarities and differences in their approaches to managing equal opportunities and diversity

Managing equal opportunities refer to ensuring that no form of biased treatment or unfairness is subjected to employees at workplace during recruitment, training, promotions, transfers, incentives etc. Whereas managing diversity at workplace means to support working process and structure of organization with factors like diverse background, religion, culture etc. (Tatli, 2011)

Example, at McDonald’s to promote management of equal opportunity various details like employee responsibility, targets, salary and work location are discussed with candidates before they agree to accept employment terms. This integrates transparency in recruitment process. Recently to promote gender equality McDonald’s have also started Women Leadership Program where female employees are encouraged to join the team. Further discriminatory practices on race, nationality, colour etc are strictly controlled and monitored to maintain fair and disciplinary working environment. Even schemes like car insurance, loans are given equally.  Other than these employees at McDonald’s are encouraged to participate in decision making process and share their ideas openly to encourage innovativeness and effectiveness majorly in customers service improvement and operations. (Tatli, 2011)

Whereas, to manage diversity at McDonald’s approaches like cross functional rotation is practised. The employees are rotated within various process and functional roles to expand their knowledge diversity, team diversity and innovations. These help to increase employee’s competency and knowledge of international practises and customer preferences. Also, employees from one location are transferred or sent for offshore projects on work permit to maintain diversity. (Tatli, 2011)

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TASK 4

4.1 Select an organisation you work or have worked for, identify and compare the performance management methods used.

Humans are considered to be the most important factor for any business in the current scenario. It is for this reason that the best firms are trying to hire the best human resource so as to maintain their goodwill in times to come. However, it is not an easy task to have on board human resource that is capable. In order for a large firm to achieve its objective, it is required to have a separate human resource department (Qureshi and Hassan, 2013). It is seen that the main objectives that are served by the function of human resource development are training and development, performance appraisal, recruitment and selection and Reward management.  There are different systems of performance appraisals that are used by different companies. In MacDonald’s that method of performance appraisal that is used by the company to appraise the performance of the employees working with the company is based on the performance review that is conducted based on the competencies that is defined as important for their particular job role. The review takes place twice a year and gives an opportunity to measure the performance of the employees, helps in setting objectives and at the same time discussing the needs of training and development from the employee (McDonald’s, 2015a). The sections that are part of the job review of the employee are aligned with the overall strategy of the company and the job description of the employee. The reviewer can rate the performance of the employee in each section by giving a rating on the scale of 1 to 4 and at the same time writing comment about the performance of the employee. It is also possible for the employees to rate themselves and give comments about the rations that they give to their performance in each section.

4.2 Assess the approaches used to managing employee welfare in your organisation

McDonald’s is a company that provides food and as a company that works in this direction, the success of the company lies in the assurance it provides in terms of safety and quality of the items that it sells. In this regards, the company understands it is impossible for the company to build trusts without support from the employees of the company. This includes the crews who are required to support the restaurants of the company. Thus at McDonald’s people are put at the centre of the business. The company drives initiatives for the development of people under the philosophy that development of people results in development of business.  This in turn should result in great restaurant experience for the customers of the business (McDonald’s, 2015). At McDonald’s the welfare initiatives are build on the promise that rewarding lives can be led by the people only if it is ensured that the lives led by the employees are fulfilling. In this regards the company strives to ensure a good work-life experience for the employees. Some of the welfare initiatives undertaken by the company are as follows:

Flexibility in working hours: The Company gives consideration to the importance of work-life balance and thus takes initiatives so as to ensure the productivity of the employees is increased. This results in the fact that employees do not need to work for long (McDonald’s, 2015).  The company has also introduced a flexible time system and a system that the employees can use to work at home in view to promote work-life balance.

Having support program for certain activities like bearing and rearing of child- In addition to providing paid leaves during the child birth and child rearing sessions, the company also provides opportunity to work for shorter hours during child rearing activities. The company also aims to improve the environment so that it is possible for the employees to give birth and rear their child with a sense of safety.

Some of the other employee welfare activities undertaken by the company are presented in following figure.

Figure 1 Employee welfare programs at McDonald's (McDonald’s, 2015)

4.3 Discuss the implications of health and safety legislation on human resources practices

Standards that govern the safety and health of the employees at the work place are regulated by the legislation of occupational health and safety. The legislation aims to prevent the occurrence of accidents, diseases and injuries at the workplace and also outlines the consequences that are to be faced by the organization on the occasion of breaking the standards laid down by the legislation. The responsibilities of employees, employers and supervisors are laid down in the legislation. It is required by the legislation that employers should do everything they can so that health and safety of the employees at the workplace can be protected (Hrcouncil, 2016). Under the direction of the health and safety legislation, the employers are required to ensure that proper training is provided to the employees so that they can safely handle the dangerous equipments at the workplace. It also required that the employees should be informed about the dangers in the workplace and the employer is also required to set up practices related to safe employment. The legislation also gives right to the employees to refuse to work on an area that they consider as unsafe. In order to help the organization plan and follow through the legislation, it is required that there should be committee related to health and safety or a representative in this regards. This legislation has great implication for the human resource department as they are the ones who are responsible for the welfare and wellbeing of the employees. On occurrence of the safety breach they would be the first to be questioned and implicated.

4.4 Evaluate the impact of another topical issue on human resources practices.

There are several legislations which have an impact on human resource practices. In this regards one of the legislations that are human rights legislation has been put so that employees might be protected from discrimination. The aim of this legislation is to guarantee equal treatment to the employees regardless of several certain characteristics that are identified. These characteristics are referred to as prohibited grounds of discrimination (Hrcouncil, 2016a). The prohibited grounds of discrimination identified by the legislation have been used by the employers for stereotyping or bias in employment. It is required for the employers including those that are not for profit as the legislation applies to all the different practices related to employment. In this regards there are two federal legislations in Canada and these are related to

Employment equity act- This aims to improve the opportunities of job for the women, aboriginals, people with disability and member of visible minority.

Canadian Human rights act- Under this act all people are granted equal employment opportunity irrespective of their background.

Conclusion

At the end it can be concluded that efficient managing of human resources is fundamental for stable execution of operational activities. The various approaches adopted by McDonalds will empower the global brand to establish a healthy work culture where employees are encouraged in participating into decision making.

References

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BBC News. (2015). McDonald’s sued for racial discrimination in Virginia. (Online) Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30944202  (Accessed on 19/11/2016)
Carlos, C. (2012). 5 Types of Work Flex and Flexible Work Schedules. (Online)Available at: http://www.okhr.org/blog/2012/10/work-flex-schedules-flexible/  (Accessed on 18/11/2016)
Cheese, P. (2016). Flexible working is here to stay: it’s time to start designing jobs and workplaces that truly embrace it. (Online)Available at: http://www2.cipd.co.uk/community/blogs/b/peter_cheese/archive/2016/05/25/flexible-working-is-here-to-stay-it-s-time-to-start-designing-jobs-and-workplaces-that-truly-embrace-it  (Accessed on 18/11/2016)
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Hrcouncil, 2016. HR Policies & Employment Legislation. [Online]. Available at < http://hrcouncil.ca/hr-toolkit/policies-health-safety.cfm> [Accessed on 19 November 2016].
Hrcouncil, 2016a. HR Policies & Employment Legislation. [Online]. Available at < http://hrcouncil.ca/hr-toolkit/policies-human-rights.cfm> [Accessed on 19 November 2016].
Kossek, E.E., Baltes, B.B. and Matthews, R.A., 2011.Howwork–family research can finally have an impact in organizations. Industrial and organizational psychology, 4(3), pp.352-369.