Issues Faced by Human Resource Managers

Executive Summary

This research paper aims to adopt a professional approach on various issues faced by human resource managers in an engineering firm. The first research question of this report relates to the appropriate and effective human resource practices that are necessary to improve employee engagement of engineers in a business organisation. Even though it is challenging to find an exact solution to the question using secondary data but the research methodology adopted for this assignment will try to critically analyse the situation. The other research question is about the need and requirement of technical expertise for human resource managers for efficient management of engineers in a business organisation.

The previous literature had covered a number of challenging human resource aspects that are prevailing in a number of engineering firms that increases the overall customer expectations and it had also highlighted the criticality of employee engagement. Data for this research has been collected from secondary sources such as companies’ websites, surveys done by Australian government and advanced Google research. Some job search websites were also analysed in order to see what qualities or expertise engineering firms are looking for a HR manager. Collected data helps and supports the overall objective of this assignment. Data is further analysed with the help of regression analysis and finding shows that there is a direct correlation between employee engagement and organisational performance.

Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction 4

1.1 HRM - an integral part in engineering firm…………………………………………………………………….4

1.2 Statement of Problem 5

1.3 Research Aim and Objectives 5

2.0 Literature review 6

2.1 Human resource management concept in Engineering Organisations 6

2.2 People Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM) 6

2.2.1 Engagement of employees in Entities 8

2.2.2 Essential training requirements of engineers and its effect 9

2.2.3Integration of Human Resource and Engineering Management 9

3. Research Methodology 10

3.1 Data Collection…………………………………….…………………………………………………………………………………10

3.2 Data Analysis and Findings of TOYOTA Company 10

4. Discussion 12

5. Conclusion 12

5.1 Limitations 13

5.2 Recommendations 13

6. References 14

7. Logbook……………………..…………………………………………………………….19

1. Introduction: -

Being an engineer and a student of Master of Management for Engineers, I choose my career path in future as a human resource manager in an engineering firm. The topic is about a myriad of issues faced by human resource manager in an engineering firm. Effective management of human resource practices in an engineering organisation is very important. Thus, there is high need for a HR manager to have some kind of technical knowledge which enables him/her to gain more and more confidence of employees and also design better training & development policies in order to retain talent within organisation (Vardarlıera et al., 2014). The initial section of this report delineates the key concept, background of the project, research aim and objectives and literature review. The other section of this report comprises of the research methodology using secondary data, finding, discussion and conclusion that have been evaluated and explored.

1.1 HRM - an integral part in engineering firms.

Human resource management basically refers to the management of human factors in a business concern. This function was designed in order to maximize the productivity and performance of the employees by emphasising on their strategic objectives. This aspect of management covers various policies and systems that guide the firm and act as a framework for the business organisation (Boulton, et al., 2014). According to Frohman (1984), a human resource manager is responsible for staffing right candidates in an organisation, performance appraisal and designing policies for training and development. HRM also manages the organisational change and industrial relation aspects which have a bearing on the productivity of an engineering or any other kind of business concern (Coleman, Clarkson and Cassim ,2016).

The human resource element of a firm plays a key role in its overall productivity, effectiveness and efficiency in today’s competitive scenario. Therefore, the role of human resource in an engineering firm cannot be negated since its main objective is to bridge the gap between human resources and engineering. According to Dainty & Loosemore (2013), the growth of the human resource profession is vital in current business environment through the application of various standards and creating capability of the function. Since engineering is involved in various sectors such as electricity, mining, roads, railway and harbour projects, telecommunications, etc a thorough integration of the engineering function, so human resource management is very much crucial to manage engineering personnel in an effective manner (Tyson, 2014).

1.2 Statement of Problem: -

There are various human resources management issues (such as employee retention, training and development requirements) in modern engineering companies because of globalisation and their consolidation and these issues made businesses very complex in order to maintain their sustainable performance. Both external and internal policies play an important role to shape the performance graph the entities. The work process in an engineering firm gets further complicated since a number of technical processes are associated with the overall operations of the business organisation (Dries, 2013).

Organisations should have a human resource function that is properly integrated with the