Hrm Activities

Introduction

“Organizational effectiveness depends on having the right people in the right jobs at the right time to meet rapidly changing organizational requirements”(Bechet and Walker, 1993). Right people can be obtained by performing the role of Human Resource (HR) function. Below is an outline and explanation of how to assess the HR functions of an organization by using HR activities in an architectural firm as an example.

Content

1. Strategic HRM: Using HR angle to look at an organization’s need “in the light of an organization’s external influences such as environment, mission, goal, objectives, strategies, and internal factors such as strengths and weaknesses, including its structure, culture, technology and leadership. (Bratton, 2007)”. Besides an organization internal HRM objectives should serve its goals.

In an architectural firm, the HR department balances the impacts of ten major infrastructure projects in Hong Kong in the coming years between business opportunities and facing shortage of architectural specialists although there will be a little bit relieve by returning architectural design people from Macau.

2. Motivation: establishment of performance linked reward systems in consideration of interaction between organizational factors namely organization culture and structure, management’s leadership style, job design, performance appraisal, pay, training and development programs, HR practices and employee’s background, personality, skill knowledge, abilities and attitudes.

The architects consider leading or participating in a unique project that can treated as non-financial rewards.

3. Recruitment (Stone J, 2005): attracting and selecting qualified applicants to work in the organization. In relation to HR planning, job analysis includes job description which outlines “duties and responsibilities, relationships, required know-how, accountability, authority and special circumstances”; and job specification which contains person qualifications, experience, skills, abilities and knowledge, personal and special requirements, recruitment policy, recruitment activities and selection.

The firm maximum the expatiate staff as an asset to tender projects and bid competitions. But communication is a barrier between expatiate architects and local medium size consultancy firms and contractors.

4. HR Development (Stone J, 2005): Development of Performance Management to enhance between organizational and individual performance aligning with “job design, recruitment and selection, training and development, career planning, and compensation and benefits, and performance appraisal.” Performance appraisal is a tool to communicate and establish between employees and management to a new reciprocal accepted objectives.

The firm conducts performance appraisal yearly before salary review. On the job training for a non-register architect learning from a mentor say architect director. A clear grading Hierarchy established for promotion.

5. Compensation and Benefits (Stone J, 2005): “Compensation policy and practices should emanate from the organization’s strategic business objectives” and employees expect to be compensated at or above market rates for their high-performance.

The firm sets salary scheme at the bottom margin of market price. They attract job applicants and staff by their unique and challenge building project, flexible environment and management.

6. Employee Health and Safety (stress): A healthy and safe workplace make people perform well. It is the duty for an organization to comply with relative statutory regulations. Besides mental health and work stress has become serious concerns