Factors Influencing Human Resource Management Functions In simple sense, Human Resource Management (now onwards referred as HRM)

means managing people effectively in order to achieve the goals and objectives of any organizations, small or big. More sophistically, HRM involves all management decisions and practices that directly affect or influence the people, or human resources, who work for the organization. Corporations today have increased their attention towards managing human capital effectively. The reason behind this notion is that employees enable an organization to achieve its goals and that managing human capital is critical to an organizations success. Managing human resources is the vital role of managers in all organizations, both private and public. The changing world order has forced organizations to take a hard look at the ways they manage their people to make them more effective and efficient. Research has shown time and again that Human Resource Management practices can make an important, practical difference in terms of three key organizational outcomes: productivity, quality of work life, and profit. The issues of managing human resources are the key roles that managers in every organization in the business world have to pay attention in order to make their companies more productive, effective and efficient and also gain competitive advantages over their competitors. HRM is one of the key fundamentals in coordinating and managing organizations. It is no more than a renaming of personnel functions which does little that is different from traditional practice of personnel management. HRM involves the functions of planning and forecasting the personnel needs of the business, as well as putting in place systems for appraising, rewarding and developing staff. Hiring and training good staff are major tasks during the StartUp Stage that ensures selection of high performance staff that can deal with performance issues and making sure that the firms personnel and management practices conform to various regulations. Business today is becoming more and more about working successfully in a team. Human resource management is integral to developing staff that have the skills to work independently but also as part of a team. An important note to be considered here is that any organization does not exist in vacuum. For this reason, HRM functions and activities cannot be undertaken in vacuum. The external and internal environment within which the firms operate needs to be identified and accordingly HRM functions are to be carried out (Susan J, Randall S, 1995). There are various internal and external factors that influence a firms hiring and training activities. There is an intense need to analyze these factors to effectively carry out the HRM functions. External factors

are those factors over which organizations have no or little control, but the better they understand those factors, the better they can adapt to it and develop appropriate HRM strategies. The external environment refers to conditions that are outside of the organization which includes legal, social and political conditions, customers preferences, competitors, unionization; labor market conditions; industry characteristics; and national cultures (Susan et al, 1995).The internal environment consists of those elements over which an organization has control or which it can use in order to gain information that will better help it in its HRM functions (Da-group, 2004). Now lets understand how few of those external and internal factors affect the HRM functions. Legal and political environments affect almost all aspects of the HRM functions. Different organizations have to follow different set of rules in context of their HRM functions. According to McKinnon & Murphy (2006), certain legislations are to be considered before conducting a recruitment and selection process such as; privacy that includes ethical and other legislative issues. For example, Nokia believes that complying with relevant national laws and collective agreements as well as internationally recognized standards and practices, such as those of United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labor Organization and Global Compact, is fundamental to their employment practices and the way they carry out their business globally (Nokia, 2007). According to Brewster and Hegewisch (1994), as US corporations expand their operations abroad, they face additional legal concerns in terms of HRM policies and practices. For example, in European countries, organizations are obliged to set aside specific sums of money for formal training and development. And for corporations that employ expatriates abroad, immigration and taxation treaties can influence staffing decisions (Dowling PJ, Schuler RS, Welch DE. 1994). In an example of Hewlett-Packard, Julian & Katie (1996) indicates that Australian human resource practices have led the organizations to move their selection criteria away from relying highly on the technical abilities. Major stress is laid on analytical, communication and management skill or behavioral attributes. This has influenced the HRM practices of other organizations within Australia. Firms not only have to consider the legal and political environment, they also have to into consideration the labor market conditions while conducting HRM functions. Labor market conditions can be characterized along several dimensions including unemployment levels, labor diversity, and labor market structure. Unemployment levels and labor market structures have long been recognized as important macroeconomic variables, whereas the importance of labor diversity has been recognized more recently to effectively frame out the HRM policies and practices (Susan et al 1995). According to Rynes & Barber (1990), the recruitment activities regulate organizational inputs and therefore

recruitment researchers have been more sensitive than others to the potential importance of unemployment levels. Recruitment strategies vary with unemployment levels. When the labor supply is tight, organizations use more expensive and intensive recruiting methods, increase the geographic scope of their recruitment activities and appear to forego pre-employment drug screening. Other responses to a tight labor supply include improving wages, benefits, and working conditions in order to attract and retain employees and reducing hiring standards as a means to fill vacant positions. All such responses have a significant impact on the human resource practices, for e.g. lower selection standards may mean that more training is needed (Hanssens & Levien, 1983). On the other hand, the growing pressures on organizations for becoming internationally competitive, has encouraged diversity management which is another dimension of the labor market conditions. It has led to changing labour force composition and developing awareness of human resource management. In 1970, Australian government passed on Federal and State legislation that prohibits discrimination in employment based on sex, race, colour and other grounds (Julian et al, 1996). This implies that firms cannot discriminate any employee during their hiring and training process. At Sony Inc., the management strives to promote diversity among its employees, encouraging the employment of people of various nationalities, minorities, women and individuals with disabilities (Sony, 2007). As stated in Panasonics website, the company is wholly committed to the principles and practice of diversity within their human resource practices (Panasonic, 2007). ...

Factors influencing the personnel Function

by V S RAMA RAO on DECEMBER 3, 2010

There are a numbers of critical trends affecting the employment relationship that further affect how organizations need to manage their employees. Some of these trends pertain to changes taking place in the external environment of the organization; others pertain to some of the ways organizations are responding internally to such trends . The term environment of business refers to the aggregate of conditions, events and influences that surround and affect it. External and internal factors influencing the personnel Function: External factors 1) Technological factors 2) Economic challenges 3) Political factors 4) Social factors 5) Local and Governmental issues. 6) Unions 7) Employers demands 8) Workforce diversity Internal factors 1) Mission 2) Policies 3) Organizational culture 4) HR systems. 5) Organization structure

The external environment consists of those factors which affect an organizations human resources from outside the organization. Each of these external factors separately or in combination can influence the HR functions of any organization. The job of a HR manager is to balance the demands and expectations of the external groups with the integral; requirements and achieve the assigned goals in an efficient and effective manner. Likewise, the internal environment also affects the job of a HR manger The functional areas, structural changes specific cultural issues peculiar to a unit. HR systems, corporate policies and a lot of other factors influence the way the HR functions is carried out. The HR manager has to work closely with these constituent parts, understand the internal dynamics properly and devise ways and means to survive and progress. In addition, to these the personal man has to grapple with the problems of workforce diversity. Let us examine these in detail. Technologies changes An organizations technology is the process by which inputs from an organizations environment are transformed into outputs . Technology includes tools, machinery, equipment, work procedures and employee knowledge and skills. In the present competitive world, technological break through can dramatically influence an organizations service markets, suppliers, distributors, competitors.

Customers manufacturing processes, marketing practices and competitive position: Technological advances can open up new markets, result in a proliferation of new and improved products, change the relative cost position in an industry and render existing products and services obsolete. Technological advancements can create new competitive advantages that are more powerful then existing ones. Recent technological advances as we all known in computers, lasers, robots, satellite networks, fibre optics , biometrics cloning, and other related areas have paved the way for significant operational improvements Impact of Technology on HRM New skills required: As new technologies are developed and implemented there is an urgent nee to upgrade existing employees skills and knowledge if the organization wants to survive and flourish in a competitive world. Additionally, there will be growing demand or workers with more sophisticated training and skills especially in emerging hot sectors like telecommunications, hospitality, retailing, banking, insurance, biotechnology and financial services. For example service sector employees require different skills than those utilized in manufactured. They need strong interpersonal and communications skill as well as the ability to handle customer complaints in a flexible way.

Impact of technology The impact of new technology on the total number of jobs available has been quite devastating. It has placed power in the hands of a small group of elite people in most large scale organizations. This has taken place of because of deskilling of most jobs, where a few individuals tend to control the organizations through the increased availability of information . Lower and middle level positions are the worst hit in this scenario, because computers do the compilation and processing of information now. Work roles have also become more integrated. New technologies generally compel people to learn a new set of skills altogether and also learn to work together in project teams time and again.