It’s often said that a company’s people are its most important resource. Virtually all modern prosperous and progressive organizations accept this as a fundamental truth and put into place human resource management mechanisms that use it as a foundation stone for everything else.
Sadly though, one can still find examples of the ‘old view’ of human resource management. These views are all too often characterized by feelings that human resource management is all about:
• Paying people and keeping their information up-to-date (data processing)
• Telling people what to do in fine detail so that they don’t make mistakes (command and control)
• Monitoring people’s performance and absences so as to ensure they’re not shirking or slacking (trial and retribution)
• The recruiting and firing of people (the hire-and-fire syndrome).
Nobody would dispute that an organization has to cope with all of the above things and they are a legitimate part of human resource management but they must be kept in perspective.
The key point is that the above functions are largely mechanistic. In other words, they are the easier to achieve parts of human resource management. What’s much harder is the challenge of getting the best out of the people you have.
Today there is far more emphasis upon empowerment of the individual in the workplace. People are, on the whole, more likely to deliver quality output and innovation if they feel they are operating in a culture where their ideas, practices and contributions will be welcomed. Coming up with an idea in a receptive workplace is one thing – offering contributions in an environment where ridicule and “get on with your real job” are likely to be the only result, is very different.
Modern HR practice recognizes that people need not only to be empowered but also developed. That person you’ve just recruited because they possess the latest ‘cutting edge’ skills isn’t going to stay at the cutting edge unless you invest in their ongoing training and development. Making economies by cutting back on training is always an attractive idea, but the short-term gains could be massively overshadowed by the downstream hit of having de-skilled and de-motivated personnel.
It’s also fair to say that in the past, much conventional HR management avoided the subjects of reward and progression like the plague. The old HR management ‘accepted wisdom’ dictated that talk about such things inevitably led to expensive demands for pay increases and promotions – cue shock and horror and the proliferation of reward processes and structures that were primarily designed to constrain and manage expectations downwards!
Today this is recognized as a fallacy that is becoming rapidly reversed in many organizations. People have realized that happy staff are productive staff and that the retention of good people is critically important. Every time you have to go out and recruit someone to replace a person who’s just resigned, you incur large direct and indirect costs plus massive inconvenience and disruption. This is not something that’s desirable, particularly when the costs incurred may be much higher than a modest staff-retaining salary increase would have been.
This doesn’t mean signing bonus and pay increase checks every time one of your employees is feeling ‘down’ and in need of some cheering-up – no company can allow its people to hold it to ransom on things like pay.
It’s important to recognize that reward and motivation can be achieved by means other than throwing dollars and new ego-inflating job titles at people. In fact, many different things can get your personnel firing on all cylinders. The opportunity to travel as part of the job, increased diversification of activity, additional responsibilities, enhanced training and many other such things can all be useful in keeping people motivated, productive and loyal to your team.
Although there are many excellent software products around that can help a company with its HR management, such as Peoplesoft/ORACLE, in the final analysis what’s needed to get the best out of your workforce is leadership recognition of the importance of developing a people-centric culture. Software and tools can’t in themselves drive progress in this area – only you can!
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