Human Resource management and Personnel management

Human resource management is one of the modern methods, which is improved from personnel management with the inclusion of modern strategic techniques. HRM is a traditional system for management and it can be widely used in many organizations, HRM treats human resource as an intellectual capital or human capital for an organization and it is mainly focused and give to the human resource whereas personnel management treats human resources as same as the other resources of organization such as machine, money and material, etc. personnel management is mainly task oriented. Some of the characteristics difference lies among the personnel management and HRM is given in below tabular format.

Personnel management is inflexible and it follows the top down approach whereas HRM is flexible and use bottom up approach.

In HRM, the organization structure should be organic and it has long term perspectives whereas, in PM the organization should be mechanic and concentrated on short term perspective.

HRM provide greater flexibility with employees, whereas PM are very strict and inflexible with the human resource and they follows the strict rules and regulation of an organization.

HRM is reactive but personnel management was proactive in nature.

Therefore for any Successful organization, HRM is very essential strategic method than the PM to manage and utilize the manpower in an optimum level (Bratton and Gold, 1999). HRM is one of the parts in an organization task, which describes how much manpower is needed and how should they be engaged with the activities, how they effectively used and managed. Human resource management is mainly integrated with all other company management process.HRM process can be illustrated below:

As a Vodafone company manager, I will suggest the Head of the Department to recruit Human resource manager/specialist to manage the valuable human manpower in an effective and efficient way, which wills helps to improve our organization performance and productivity.

1 (b) HR Manager Roles & Activities

Vodafone HR Manager Role

Vodafone main goal is to add the more value to the company compare to their competitors and to improve employee performance. The HR manager role is a function of four variables: motivation, ability, situational contingencies and role perception (McShane, 1995). The responsibilities of HR Manager are to manage the human capital/manpower and assess their performance and rewarding their workers. As a Manager, I suggest some of the roles of HR manager and it can be illustrated in below figure.

Strategic Role

Administrative Role

Operational and employee advocate

Administrative Role:

This role mainly concentrates on employee data processing and record keeping, maintaining employee database and retrieving process. With the help of modern technology and outsourcing method, Vodafone human resource process has been computerized. This is reduce the cost, workforce and improve the efficiency, time and number of employees. (Robert & John, 2008).

Operational and employee advocate role:

Human Resource manager can also be called as “Morale Officer” as they mainly concern with “crisis management”, even though HR main role is to solve the human resource problems. Human resource manger should be assisting with operating manager in order to perform his/her operating role in tactical nature. This role is mainly to identify the business policies and program to be implemented (Robert & John, 2008, P10-14).

Strategic Role: HR mangers are mainly concentrating on the organization realities and dealing with the future needs which include performance, rewarding and workforce planning strategic. This role can also known as “contributing at the table” (Robert & John, 2008, P10-14), because HR are contributing to the strategic decision that is very much useful for organization success.

Some of the characteristic difference between Strategic role and Operating role are given in the below tabular format.

HR Activities:

The main HR activities is to gain best contribution from the manpower of the company, this can be attained by the way of treating the human resource or manpower. Their activities can be affected by the external environment factor (i.e. PESTEL – Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal) and HR managers should have capability to handle these environmental changes. As I manager, I have consider that the below mentioned activities are the major activities of HR Manager.

Recruitment & Selection: It is one of the HR managers main activities to analyze and identify the human resource requirement for an organization, this analyze will helps to fulfill the job vacancy by placing the right person at the right time and at the right place.

HR Development: One of the activities of HR manager is mainly helps to improve the employee performance, productivity and ability by providing effective training.

Performance Management: This will gather the detailed information of the employee’s behaviour while working with superior/coworkers, his/her performance, punctuality, and contribution to organization goals. This monitoring process will helps the managers in order to motivate or improve the employees by giving effective training and awareness.

Rewarding: It is mainly based on the employees performance and they are compensated by announcing their promotion, rising the incentives and pay, etc.

Employee relationship: The main objective of these activities is to ensure and maintain the strong and effective relationship among the high level and low level employees. This is very essential in order to update, communicate and develop the organization HR policies, rules, procedures.

As a manger, they mentioned roles and activities are very important and should be carried out effectively in order to improve the organization as well as employee productivity to achieve the overall organization goal.

1 (c) HR Models

There are different types of HR model available for Human resource management and are listed below:

Harvard Framework

Matching Model

Linear Strategy Model

Ten C Model

Triarchic Model

Competitive advantage Model

Narrow Broad Perspective

Business Process Model

Guest Model

The above mentioned Model are basically categorized into two HARD and SOFT Model. As a Vodafone Manager, I preferred two models namely Harvard Framework Model and Guest Model. This can evaluated below:

Harvard Framework Model: This model is developed by Beer et al (1984) and this model can also be referred as Soft HRM Model. Te traditional framework of Harvard model mainly consists of six major components and it can be illustrated in below figure:

(Michael, 2006, p4-7)

Harvard framework model details description is given in below tabular format (Michael, 2006, p4-7)

In this Harvard Framework model, HRM policies, rules, practices and procedures are mainly based on the organization vision, mission, objectives, strategic and goals (Srinivas, 2005, P2-6). Human resource policies and practices are affected by business internal and external factors. This mainly rely on employer-employee relationship and it mainly considers the interest of their stakeholders and analyzing how the stakeholders interest is associated with the Vodafone’s Objectives and this can mainly inclined by two important factors like stakeholders interest and situational factors.

Harvard model helps Vodafone HR manager in plan their business strategy and propose two important approaches which are given below:

HRM policies are defined by considering the stake holder’s interest and environmental factors (i.e. good fit between HR Policies and organization environment).

Objectives of HRM policies are to achieve 4Cs: Competence, Commitment, Congruence and Cost effectiveness technique.

Guest’s model:

Guest Model is developed by David Guest for Human Resource Management, which includes some articles and exercise that can be used by the organization context. This consists of six components and it can be listed below:

HRM strategy

Set of HRM policies

Set of HRM outcomes

Organization Behavioural outcomes

Performance outcomes

Financial outcomes

This model has granted close links between business strategies (such as Differentiation, Focus and Cost) and HRM strategy. The main objectives of this HRM practices should be planned to lead to Human Resource Management Outcomes of High manpower commitment, high quality, highly flexible employees. Employee’s commitment is mainly considered as a very important HRM Outcomes. This model helps to improve the behavioural outcomes such as increased effort, involvement, and cooperation and organization citizenship. According to this HRM Model, Superior performance and behavioural outcomes can be achieved only after the achievement of three major HRM Outcomes Quality, Flexibility and Commitment. Guest Models Suggests that: “Only when a coherent strategy, directed towards these four policy goals, fully integrated into business strategy and fully sponsored by line management at all levels is applied, will the high productivity and related outcomes sought by industry be achieved” (Guest, 1990, p.378). And also he added that, HRM policies are not only concentrating with selection and providing training, it can also anticipated achieving HRM policy goals. This model is mainly concentrating on individual needs than the collective workforce. Some of the HRM practices of this Guest HRM model are selection rewards, job design, involvement and appraisals.

Task2

(a) Human resource planning is the main process of reviewing requirement of the human resources in the organization. The need of employees in the organization are the important factors of human resource planning , in which areas we need them ,what are the skills do we need from them, how long and when does the employees are needed. Recruiting right number of people in the right time and at the right place is the very important factor of human resource planning.

A framework that helps to develop organizational skills as well as employees personal, knowledge and the abilities are said to be the Human Resource Development. Vodafone Recruitment in Vodafone takes place in two ways external recruitment and internal recruitment. Internal recruitment is nothing but promoting the skilled people to the important posts in the Company or assigning project those are on bench. External recruiting is recruiting people from outside externally by giving advertisements.

In this stage initially they will identify the necessity of the people and what are the positions that are to be filled. While giving the adverts along with the job title they describe the position of the job, responsibilities and its role in the company, details of benefits and salary given to them, whether job is on a contract or permanent. The advertisement has to be given in a very attractive way to attract the applicants to apply for the job that should also contain the application receiving final date.

Vodafone Company after receiving the applications conducts a written exam for them. Written exam may have reasoning, verbal, aptitude and also technical questions. These are the questions to check the basic skills and knowledge of the applicant. This exam time is around one hour. This is one of the best way to select the skilled people among the numerous numbers of people.

After the completion of written exam the candidates will be short listed and called for an interview. In Vodafone Company sometimes there may be two kinds of interviews conducted i.e., personal interview and technical interview. Technical interview will be conducted to know the technical skills of the candidate. This is one of the important round if the candidate applied for a post belongs to technical background. He will be posed the questions which are related to the job and asked if they have any relevent experience.

Personal interview is the last stage. Apart from this sometimes telephonic interview is also conducted. This interview is held to know why he is applying for this particular position, why he has chosen particularly this company, what all the things he knows about the Vodafone Company. Also to test whether he suits for that particular position he have applied for and he will be able to fulfil all the responsibilities of that postion.

(b)

The same recruitment process the Vodafone is still following but with some changes. Now the company is going to recruit the people from university campuses. It is one of the best procedures for them to recruit the fresher’s and they can shape them into areas they are looking for or required. Earlier in the written test there were no negative marks for the wrong answers because applicant sometimes may just try the luck and selects one of the options to answer the question so it will become difficult to understand the skills of them. So, if there are negative marks for wrong answers then they only try to answer the questions if they know the answers exactly.

Now the Vodafone company conducting group discussions as well. This will take around 30minutes. A particular topic is given to the members and they will be asked to discuss about the topic for certain specific time period. To test the candidate leadership qualities group discussions are conducted . Also once they come into into the company they will have to work in a team. So, to examine how good they are performing in a team the group discussions are very important. In today’s world the job is not constant and the members around us may change. Candidate has to work and get along with different types of the people and in the different kind of environment. So Group discussions are most important in this way. There are not many changes in the process of recruitment but only a little change gives very good results.

(c)

Vodafone Company follows some of the selection practices and procedures. In these panel members, Hr managers, Company managers have some responsibilities in the selection and the recruitment process. In selecting a member , the company manager is responsible. He should make sure that all the members are involved in the process of recruitment. He should be up to date with the selection framework and the policies of council. He has to inform to the Hr managers that there is a vacancy to be filled. The legal frame work which means while selecting a member into the company there should not be any discrimination. Discrimination in grounds of caste, religion, gender, disability, or race is unlawful. There is direct discrimination as well as indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination which means when a particular person is favoured less than all the others. Indirect discrimination which means it occurs when the particular group may cause disadvantage to the position. There is a positive discrimination as well such as guarantee jobs only for disabled employees, taking interviews only for the people those who are not short listed etc.

(d)

Selection is a very important process in any organization because if the process of selection is not good and the proper skilled people are not recruited which will affect the profits of the company. Hiring process of Vodafone is very good because of which it is one of the leading mobile company in the world. The selection procedure has to be in such a way that the member selected should be suitable for the position. They spend lot of money by the company during selection process. So, there must not be any kind of delays while conducting them and they must be organized in a well planned manner. Hr department is the responsible for filling a job in any organization. They will inform to their supervisors and the line managers to fill the position stating the rules and regulations for that particular position.

Task3

(a) Reward Management and Performance appraisals are very important for Vodafone employees to improve their performance, which is the key for company performance. It will help them to identify their faults and area for improvement, and to take necessary action to achieve them. As the company performance is depends on the employee performance, it is very important to monitor the employees performance and reward to motivate them to perform better.

360 degree feedback is the method, which provides an opportunity for every employee to receive their performance feedback, which collected from co-workers, supervisors, customers, manager and also from other discipline staffs. It is very famous now a day, as it is one of the accurate assessment method than others. Because the feedback received from one person is less effective than feedback received from many people and areas. Ratings are much more accurate as it taken from various people and it is purely depends on the employee performance. This 360 degree feedback helps the employees to measure themselves and helps to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and also areas for improvement. Normally employee gives feedback by filling the questionnaire model. It is a motivational element and which has been accepted by many organization and its participants. This feedback also helps both the employees as well the organization depending on the feedback received. Rewards are awarded to employees according to their performance rating and it was awarded on regular basis in Vodafone Company. This system also helps Vodafone to express their views in achieving company’s success. Employment feedback and customer feedback both are the very important things in any organization.

Employee performance can be assessed from co-employees, supervisors, managers, customers feedback that, how the candidate performed during the period of time. These may include his/her achievements, career plan, skills, problems, areas for improvement, etc. Some employees are directly talk and interact with the clients, so the clients feedback are also sometime important to reward the employee. Not only them, all other employees are also important to discuss with their future plans and the strategies. The organization must provide solutions for negative feedback, which raised from employees. This strategy also helps the organization to provide best service for their customers. Well performed employees are rewarded annual appraisal with next level promotion, pay rise or instant prizes, etc., which will encourage the employee as well as motivate others to perform enthusiastically. Also appraisal system enables the employee to see in which area he/she needs to improve in order to step up his/her career which also simultaneously improve organization performance. Therefore, the organization is also able to identify and provide necessary training for their employees for their career development.

(b) Exit procedure will take place when an employee is resigned or layoff his job. Once the employee decides to leave the organization, he/she must provide written resignation letter his/her department manager for approval and also it facilitates department manager to plan for the future workload or new recruitment well in advance. Then it is department managers responsibility to forward that resignation letter to HR department. HR looks every option to avoid resignation as the new recruitment is not cost effective. If no way, then HR confirms and sends a letter to candidate with last employment date according to accepted notice period. During the notice period the candidate must work or handover the remaining task to someone as directed by his/her supervisor.

When an employee leaves the organization, he/she must be treated equally. Different exit methods are followed my different companies, but these are mainly to know the reason why he/she wants to leave the company whether is it a personal reason or due to non-satisfaction such as company rules, salary or any other reasons. The main important reason for exit interview is to update or correct the internal management errors within the organization. HR is responsible for arranging exit interview for that employee. HR department is got some responsibilities as well in exit procedure. To gather the information of the employee they will send a questionnaire to employee that includes what is the reason the employee is leaving the organization and get feedback from him/her. Exit interview will be conducted to collect the information from the candidate who may be useful to improve the organization growth by rectifying management problems, if any.

While recruiting, majority of the organization has the contract with its employees. The employee needs to sign on bond paper mentioning that he/she will work for that organization for certain duration without taking any other job outside the organization. In this case, the exit procedure may be totally differs, as the employee breaching his conditions he/she may be liable to pay for notice period or compensation if he/she decides to leave the organization during contract tenure.

(c)

Redundancy takes place when the taskforce is reduced or reorganized due to the changes in business environment such as recession, relocation, downturn workload etc. The selection criteria for redundancy are mainly helpful for an organization, when it needs to dismiss number of employees from the pool of employees. In this case, the criteria of selection had been clearly set and defined in the organization policy, which applicable to every employee of the organization. The representatives of the employee’s also must have to agree with these criteria. Redundancy must be approved by the employer and HR must inform to their all group of employees with reason for redundancy. Management must look every option to avoid redundancy, as the recruitment is very expensive now days. If any group of the employees were performing the same work then, there will a chance for inter changeability of the work. The selection criteria for redundancy must follow the combinations of individual Performance, Qualifications, skills, time records and attendance, flexibility, capability, special skills, disciplinary record, length of service, etc and every employee of the organization must be treated equally. Selection of employee must be as fair selection. Some of the criteria’s might raise some problems like disability grounds, sex, religion, maternity grounds, race, trade unions and other legal issues. Therefore the organization must have the clear policies and making procedures for fair redundancy selection.