Human Resource Reflective Essay

Introduction

The most important department in an organization or company is the human resource department. This department deals with the employees in terms of their knowledge, creative abilities, skills, aptitude, and talents (Radhawa, 2007, p.12). Human resources also include other aspects such as employees’ beliefs, approaches, attitudes and values as brought in the organization. With human resource management therefore, this is an inherent part of the organizational management which deals with the workforce of an organization/company. As such, HRM exists to ensure employee productivity by addressing any hindrance occurring on employees' performance. This paper will explore the functions of the human resource department, major concerns in those functions and their relevance to the sum total goal of an organization/company.

EEO and Affirmative action

EEO and affirmative action makes it illegal to discrimination any qualified employee in certain workplaces. A good human resource manager must not risk the organization by not following these laws. If they do, this will result in a law suit or criminal action. In fact, human resource management should put in place programs or procedures to ensure that no form of discrimination occurs to a potential employee during job application, selection, interviews, and recruitment. There are many different types of discrimination. Some forms are sex, age, and color. Today, instances of discrimination have occurred in my organization based on disqualification of potential employees who the organization describes as being aged despite experience.

The EEO should specify the age bracket which the potential employees must fall within instead of not hiring the older person with unreasonable disqualifications. The success of such a procedure will be useful to me as a human resource manager in expanding the human resource procedures. For example, recruitment, selection, development, and compensation, to give room to diversity and inclusion. This would mean that all persons bring forth different talents, abilities, skills and experiences into the organization increasing its productivity.

Human Resources Development

In today’s jobs, human resource must keep up with the increasing demand for skills and level of performance. Human resource development may be defined as the structure designed to assist workers develop their personal as well as organizational skills, abilities and knowledge. Human resource development is more often than not a deliberate organizational effort expressed in terms of performance management, employee career development, employee training and mentoring programs geared towards positioning employees to properly face the dynamism of their duties (Dowling et al, 2008). The focus of human resource development is to develop a superior workforce that will result in accomplishments of individual and organizational goals in serving customers. Formally, human resource development is set up in a classroom to offer a course. Informal human resource development involves a supervisor coaching the employee inside the work place.

Performance management is defined as the process of putting up a work environment requiring the workforce to perform to the maximum level of their capabilities. Performance management system starts with the communication of duties and responsibilities of an individual employee, the actual performance of duties and an evaluation procedure. The whole process is facilitated by a feedback mechanism that serves to ensure adherence to organizational goals. First, there is continued improvement in productivity both in the manner employees' work and the subsequent outcomes. Secondly, effective performance management ensures a commensurate reward to employees' contribution hence improvement in employee morale. Thirdly, top performers are retained when an effective performance management is employed. Retention arises from the employees’ loyalty and low labor turn over achieved when employees experience a sense of achievement (Zügner & Ullrich, 2009). Finally, organization enjoys increased profitability derived from employee loyalty which in turn leads to customer loyalty.

The human resource development office conducts performance appraisals usually on quarterly basis of the performance period. According to Zügner & Ullrich (2009), career development can be enhanced through provision of paid study leaves and partial or full reimbursement of training expenses when employees seek training outside the organization. Human resource development equips the employees with better skills of doing work which boosts their performance levels. High performance levels in return generates better compensation packages. Furthermore, the human resource development raises the self-esteem of employees especially if their skills level were extremely low.

Compensation and benefits

Many employees believe that for the work they do, there should be an equal compensation and/or benefit (McDaniel & Gitman, 2007, p. 282). When an employee has a compensation to meet, there is always the motivation to work even harder and improve on the performance of one’s job. In our organizations today, majority of the compensation and benefit complains arise from the lack of a good compensation and benefits system that is reasonable and applicable to all. In companies/organizations today, employees don’t receive pay for their overtime they work. Additionally, with the increased costs of living, majority still feel that an increment is necessary to cater for the deficits arising from the same. As a human resource manager in the future it is my wish to have an up to date compensation (wages and salaries) and benefits system which compensates employees according to work done (McDaniel & Gitman, 2007, p. 282). Workers that feel like they are overworked with no compensations will start looking at other employers who do compensate for the hard work the employees put in.

When the employees leave, and start working with the competitors, this jeopardizes the market position of the organization/company in terms of its service or product (Sims, 2007, p.390). An effective benefits and compensation system I would recommend is one that identifies the labor relations laws as well as one which classifies workers in different work groups that are explained in detail and in simple language understandable to all. This way, I believe an organization/company is bound to retain its employees and avoid losing them to competitors. Retained employees have great expertise hence greater contribution to organization/company’s goals and objectives (McDaniel & Gitman, 2007, p. 282).