Managing Human Resources Hnd In Business Commerce Essay

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This report provides an understanding of the subject of Human resource
management. In this report we explain the Guests model of hard and soft and loose
and tight dimensions of HRM with relevant to the organisational context. Describe
the need of flexibility developed by the Audit commission and finally describe the
forms of discrimination that take place in the organisation.
Methods of analysis include Storey's definition of HRM and personal HR practices,
types of flexibility could be seen in the organisation, equal opportunities practices
and initiatives in the workplace, different HR practices related to global and
organisational context.
In the second part of the report it has been clearly identified the flexible working
practices at the audit commission referring to the case study , which cover the model
of flexibility, types of flexibility, and advantages and disadvantages of flexible
working practices from both of the employer and employees perspectives.
In the final part of the report it has been identified discrimination that take place in
the organisation , and how legislative framework applied by the organisation to
prevent discrimination , concluded with how equal opportunities within the
workplace could help to manage diverse environment.

Introduction
Manangement of people involves a wide range of activities. These begins with
identifying the workforce requirements of trhe organisation in the future so that the
appropriate plans could be developed. Managing employees must be done in such as
way that should add value to the organisation at the same time develop their
personal skills and knowledge.HR practices of the organisation must encourage the
employees to take a solution oriented approach and must be team focused .
This report aims to build upon the knowledge and understanding developed related
to human resource practices. And its promotes the need for the organisation to adopt

to a more inclusive approach of HR practices for the use of induction training

programme which is going to be held on following month , for newly recruited HR
assistants. This is simply include the Practical application on the Guest' Model of
HRM perspectives, IR/HRM practices with compared to 27 dimensions of Storey's
definitions, and the role of line managers in the organisation,
This report demonstrate the need of flexibility in the organisation and benefits of
home working practices of Audit commission and finally forms of discrimination
take place in the organisations and changes that could be implemented to prevent
discrimination in the work place with the support o f legislative framework with
relevant to discrimination practices in the organisation

Task 01
Company's strategic HR practices based on

1.1 Practical application on the Guest's Model of

Hard-Soft, Loose- Tight dimensions of HRM.
Guest draws on the Harvard model, associated with soft HRM and the Michigan
model, which proposes the hard HRM approach. The hard HRM emphasis the
significant of the integration of the strategic objectives of the HR functions which
comprise the HR policies, activities and systems.
Undertake the various activities involved in managing human resources, the
attitudes and approach of managers towards employees can differ significantly. At
one extent we have what is called Hard HRM. This basically regards employees as a
necessary if unwelcome cost; people are an input that is required to get the job done,
but it is believed that they add little to the overall value created by the business. With
this approach managers see themselves as the "thinkers" they develop the best way of
doing things and employees are expected to get on with it. This fits with the approach
of F. W. Taylor.
In our organization the Hard HRM usually adopts a top-down management style in
which employees are directed and controlled. Employees are expected to fit in with
the design of the firm, simply it follows a TIGHT HR policy where employees
perform according to the set rules and standards , according to what they are
expected and asked to do. Managers and supervisors instruct them and then monitor
their actions. Jobs tend to be broken down into relatively small units so that one

person does not have much control over the process and a replacement can easily be
recruited and selected and trained. A danger that the firm as a whole is at risk
because it relies so heavily on the senior managers; if they make mistakes the
business as a whole could fail because there is no input from lower levels.
By comparison, the SOFT HRM approach takes the view that employees can add a
great deal of value to an organization, and the business should develop, enhance and
build on their interest , skills and abilities. Under a soft approach managers see
themselves more as facilitators. They are there to coach and help employees to do
their job properly perhaps by ensuring sufficient training is provided and that the
employee can develop in his or her career this approach fits with the Loose HR policy
because employees willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the
organization. This approach fits with McGregor's Theory Y style of Leadership.
our organization is building on the skills and experiences of the employees, this may
enable the firm to be more creative, more innovative and differentiated from the
competition and able to keep and develop highly skilled employees with expectations
of a career of a business and individuals throughout the business are encouraged to
contribute, which may make the organization more flexible and adaptable to
changing market conditions. This is the soft side of HRM that we could see in our
firm

1.2 HRM and personnel/ IR practices with

compared to 27 dimensions of Story's
definitions
Storey put forward a theoretical "ideal type" description of what a fully implemented
model of HRM might look like, in contrast to a similarly abstracted description of the
traditional personal/ industrial relations model. When we apply this model to this
our organizational context.
Strategic approach: when the organization decided to merge with another firm , it
takes into account how the workforce needs to change, whether staff needed training
and assess how may be affected. This is simply an HRM approach that the
organization used to practice nowadays. The business has an organizational culture
that sees the employee as an important part of the company. managers who are
unprepared to listen to employees view on improvements will prevent the policy

from working effectively, when it comes to implementation of rules and regulation,

the major disciplinary rules decided by the top management without any concern of
the employees but still other working needs and flexible hours schedules might given
to the employees concern. Motivation, training and support is given to the staff to
encourage in the workplace. And it makes use of the incentives such as bonuses, or
non monetary benefits such as job redesign. Company has adopted flexible practices
and thinking have been encouraged by the employees, and workers have given the
authority to change their jobs, accept new working methods and conditions.
Employees has made to feel part of the business and be committed to its objectives,
this has contributed towards the improvements in quality and productivity.
Finally when we look at the organizational context it is more over to the HRM
approach which is developed by the Storey

1.3 Role of the line manager and employees in

the organization
Line managers and supervisors have lot of direct responsibilities towards the HR
functions. The responsibilities for HRM may well lie with line mangers. this means
that the marketing manager may be responsible for managing her marketing team
and dealing with all the 'people issues" that comes with this. In our organization we
have a specialist HR department. People working with this department act as
advisers to the line managers, keeping them informed of the legal requirement s
affecting employing people, advising them on best practice and supporting them in
HR issues. The final decisions are usually made by the line managers ( after all , it is
their team of staff) but the systems, procedures and approaches they use may well be
developed by HR specialist. In our organizations workers are trained, managed and
appraised by their supervisors,. Similarly , most executives deal with their line
managers, not their HR managers. In the accountancy department, then , it may be
that the manager has little or no skill in the people management. Yet s/he may make
all the most important decisions about the future of junior staff. HR department can
be little more than administration functions; all the key decisions about people are
made elsewhere.

Task 02
performance management system

" there are potential benefits for both the

individual and the organization from using a
proper performance management system"
Yes, I agree a generally a better performance management system helps to improve
the overall performance by organizing the individuals team efforts and make certain
that the organizational goals have been met according to the standards.
An efficient performance appraisal plays a major role in evaluating the willingness of
the staff for the bearing up of organizational task. Simply this practice not only
benefit the individuals but also the organization as well.
performance management make sure that the employee recognize the need of their
part to the firms goals and objectives, and give a clear definition of what is expected
from the employees and see whether the staff has required skill to perform the job
and if not provide adequate training to them. Based on confidence and
empowerment it assist to have a cordial relationship between the employee and the
line manager . it is a assured fact that performance management practices have a
great impact on the job satisfaction and staff trustworthiness by appraise their
performance on equal basis and reward them based on their performance.
An efficient performance appraisal system would be an advantages factor for the firm
, managers as well as the employees as well. Through a better performance
management system organization's performance would increase, employee will
become more loyal to firm and can expect staff retention as well as this helps to
overcome the communication barriers in between the management and the staffs.
Finally organization could enjoy cost benefits as well. When it comes to managers it
save time and number of conflicts which arise between the individuals could be
reduced. For employees performance management clearly define the expectations
and career developments in the organization and job satisfaction will be promoted
through this system.

2.2 Human resource practices

" As a HR manager , you need to manage
different human resource practices in the
workplace"

Yes I agree, employees are the human capital which describe in terms of their skills,
knowledge, intelligence, experience and the main resource that any organization
required to carry out their functions. Simply HRM practices should support the
firm's business strategy, so as a HR manager it is necessary to manage different such
practices in the work place, in our organization as the Hr manager I am responsible
for analyzing work and designing jobs, determining how many employees with
specific knowledge and skills needed , recruiting thje potential candidates. Selecting
the best out of the pool by conducting interviews, provide training and development
for the career growth, appraising their performance, providing financial and non
financial benefits to them and maintaining a proper industrial relationship with the
employees may all the activities managed by him. All these practiced must be
managed well for a better performance. All these activities simply fall under the
administrative tasks that to be perform, with the expertise in the field of I could
managed to do it efficiently and with a commitment to quality. And also in order to
meet the organizational goals implementing an effective HR system which attract ,
and retain the staffs as well as developing their skills according to the organizational
requirements and Developing strategies and HR practices which contribute to the
overall strategy of the company is one of my responsibility in order to achieve a
competitive advantage over the competitors. My duty does not stop here more over I
have to ensure that the organization meet the required labour laws which is
implemented by the government in various situation for example compliance with
employment legislation, providing equal opportunities , managing the diversity and
so on.

Globalization issues on HR planning

" there is a greater impact of globalization on
issues such as human resource planning"
Yes I agree
Globalization is the process of combining people together from all the countries of
the world into a single society . this fact simply have a greater impact over the HR
practices in the business world today. when it comes to forecasting the demand and
supply of labor the organization must focus on the globalization issue .
The geographical diversity of business organization and the significant influence of
emerging markets have created powerful competition in the global market place.

Various countries are struggle to recruit employees with the innovative and creative
multi skilled for their product and service oriented organizations.
Nowadays Hr personal need not to limit them self within a boundary to recruit and
select people for their organizational functions. most organizations need to tap the
external labour market at regular intervals in order to make up for shortfalls of
labour in the existing workforce. At its simplest it is that particular group of potential
employees, locally, regionally or nationally, who possess the skills and knowledge
required by an organization at a particular point of time. And also globalization have
a direct influence over the following issues related to HRM, according to this
implications, the HR personal need to make changes in their human resource
planning, to forecast and determine the required and correct type of employees to be
recruited. and also when selecting a global business the HR personal must decide on
their Hr planning process to select the country which has a positive track records in
terms of their economic , political and legal considerations. And another aspect is
that that selecting countries with lower cost lab our cost must be more preferred.

2.4 Managing culturally diverse workforce

Different national and cultural and practices
make an influence for managing a culturally
diverse workforce.
Yes I agree
Culture helps to account for variations among organizations and managers , both
nationally and internationally. it helps to explain why different groups of people
perceive things in their own way and perform things differently from other groups.
Simply the organizations are consist of human resource since their activities which
deals with this people factor . so the main responsibility of the Human resource
department is to ensure that the right mixture of employees with adequate
knowledge and skills must be recruited and employed in their organizational context.
Schneider and Barsoux suggest that cultural belief and values influence the meaning
of management and also show up differences in conceptions of organizations.
National differences, and cultural reasons raise concern about the transferability of
organizational structures, systems, and processes and question the logic of universal
"best practice"

The successful future of any business depend on the ability to administer a diverse
body of talent that result in innovative ideas, new creativity and different viewpoints
to their work. if the organization can get the maximum utilization from the diverse
talents of the employees , it can overcome the problems exertion of the workplace
diversity by turning into a strategic organizational assets . an organization can
respond creatively and innovatively by having a right mixture of recruits with diverse
cultural backgrounds, genders, ages and lifestyles.
If the organization doesn't cope up with the diverse environment it is obvious that it
will lose it employees to its competitor organization. This is simply applicable to
multinational companies which are operating in global scale need to consider the
people who employed in different countries, ethical and cultural backgrounds.

Task 03
Case study answers

3.1 audit firm's model of flexibility

The flexible firm is able to change its own structure in response to changing needs. In
order to achieve this , firms have tended to identify a "core" which forms the basis for
all its operations, and a "periphery" which consists of all the other tasks needed to
run the firm but that are not central to the business. In his book of The Age of
Unreason, Professor Charless Handy suggested that instead of firms comprising two
elements, the core and periphery, ther were actually three parts to modern firms; he
called this idea the "Shamrock Organisation"

Put the photograph

When we apply this model to the audit firm
The first leaf of the shamrock represents the professional core made up of the audit
family, performance audit family, functional family and full time employees. These
employees do tasks central to the business and job security as well as committed to
the firm's goals.
The second leaf called the contractual fringe is for the work that has been contracted
out to someone else because it is not central to the firm in this case study we can
found that the use of temporary and contractors from agencies .

The third and final leaf is the flexible workforce, made up of temporary and part time
workers. A particular type of flexible worker that we could find in this case study is
the home worker, this is where the employee may work sometimes from home, but is
normally present at an audit commission office or working on the site of a client for
the majority of their working time. And also the employee who works from home for
the majority of the time.
3.2 Briefly explain the need for flexibility; according to the firm do you believe that
they are implementing the correct types of flexibility? Explain your answer.

Need for flexibility

Today's. Businesses need a more flexible approach within their operations . the need
has arisen for a number of reasons.
Increasing competition means that the market place is subject to frequent and often
rapid change. Firms need to be able to anticipate these changes and respond to them
quickly in order to maintain a competitive edge.
Increasing competition , especially firms from overseas firms, has forced businesses
faced with fluctuating or seasonal demand to introduce greater operational
flexibility ., in order to eliminate any unnecessary costs.
Audit commission uses place of work flexibility which means that the home working
practice. This helped to meet more closely the need of its staff and to improve their
work life balance. According to the nature of the job the audit commission undertake
formal examination of the set of accounts of the local government, the criminal
justice system and health service and checking the quality and efficiency of work and
identity areas of concern and issue reports. since the commission faced with
fluctuations in the workload, numerical workforce flexibility cannot be an
appropriate way although the labours who involved in contract basis , when the
commission faces any crisis , by the time if they reduce the number of employees
there quality of work will be reduced. Since there are chances that the qualified
employees might be lay off from the workforce. The audit family consists of
professional accounting team members who visit clients to carry out the financial
audit. Functional flexibility would be a correct type of flexible workforce, since the
job family consist of different administrative duties and supervisory posts and people
who look after the core business. So it is essential for the team members who belong
to different job family to know the different job roles performed by each and every

department. But if there is a fluctuation in demand for particular skills, the other
core related family staffs can perform the jobs, so through functional flexibility multi
skills could be developed by the employees to deal with a wider variety of work.

3.3 Advantages and disadvantages of flexible

workforce
Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of
flexible working practices from both of the
employees and the employer perspective relate
with this firm.
Referring to the case study
Advantages to the employee
Improve work life balance which motivate the employee to contribute more to the
firm
Reduces cost of travelling which saves lot of time taken to travel and spend on roads
Day care expenses could be reduced since the mother s could look after their children
Disadvantages
Employees may lose the office culture , too much flexibility may lead to laziness.
Employees become dependent upon the technologies. So if there is a power cut , then
this could affect the work
Peripheral workers and temporary contracts may experience a loss of job security
Advantages and disadvantages to the firm.
The adoption of a more flexible workforce can, in principle , be an attractive prospect
for any modern business, offering a number of benefits , including reduced cost,
specially frees up desk space, and an increased ability to respond to changing
customer needs. The separation of employees into a highly valued core and an easily
dispensable periphery may allow a business to pick and mix and obtain the exact
combination required within the market at that particular moment in time.

However , it can also lead to a number of problems in the long term, especially if it
creates insecurity among peripheral workers that leads to high levels of staff
turnover. The ability to cut labour cost quickly and easily in the face of a downturn in
the market has obvious attraction. However in the long term, the establishment of a
multi skilled and loyal workforce able tom adopt and diversify into new markets, may
lead to even greater success

Task 04
Equal opportunities within the work place
To safeguard the employee from the discriminatory issues, equal opportunities
polices are implemented within the workplace. This is simply means that every
individual who work in an organization should be given an equal chance of being
applied and selected for the job applied , and must have a chance of promoted to the
next hierarchical levels and must be terminated equally and fairly. And also equal
opportunity does not limit it boundaries, it simply state how to reduce the imbalance
of work environment, reduce the discrimination occur in the work place and legal
actions could be taken to prevent the employees being discriminated. Discrimination
is twofold - direct and indirect. Not promoting an employee due to his / her race,
religion or gender constitutes direct discrimination. If a prospective employee fails to
secure work but if it does not necessarily appear to look discriminatory at face value
is the indirect type.
It is a common practice which could be seen in most of the organization is employee
is discriminated on the grounds of disability, age, marriage status, ethnicity,
pregnancy, political belief, race, religion and sex. This could be simply defined as the
main forms of discrimination that take place in the employment.
According to the Race and Religion Amendment Act 2000 job advertisements which
are created by the organizations should not request the race or religion from the
candidates. for example in srilanka Certain banks when they recruit candidates for
their organizational vacancies, in the job advertisement it self they used to publish
that certain religion is preferred. This is simply discriminate the candidate on the
grounds of race and religion which should not followed in near futures, they should
only be discriminated on the grounds of their knowledge, potential and experience
but not based on their race or religion, and treating an interested group less
favorably just because they denied employment because of gender, sexual orientation
are considered how directly employees are discriminated on the ground of race. In

srilanka it is a practice that most of the organization they made a request in their job
advertisements , to state their age, and the firm also give priority to the candidate
who belongs to that age, this is simply a direct decimation, organizations should
consider the working capacity and ability of the potential candidate not that person
who belongs to 20-25 will work better and 40-50 might have good experience in their
job. That is not the case age does not reveal the capacity of the potential candidate.
So elder people should not dismissed or given early retirement based on their age,
until they leave the organization.
In the early stages of trade women were not given equal opportunities to enroll in
job, though they have given a chance to work, the pay rates were far more differ from
men, this particular situation still continues in the business world. In order to
prevent women from pay discrimination Equal Pay Act 1970 was intended by the UK
government. A very good example for this situation is that , a major number of
women in srilanka employing at apparel ( Mass, Brandix, etc) in these companies
women are paid less than the men, since this companies discriminate women based
on their sex as well as pay rates. To prevent employees being discriminated in the
organizations there is a legislative frame work which is called the Sex Discrimination
Act 1975 amended by the UK parliament. This simply includes the way employees are
being recruited, training provided, promotion and dismissal of people. Treating
women unfavorably on the basis pregnancy or maternity leaves counts an illegitimate
sex discrimination. It consist of insensate jokes, displays of sexually explicit material
innuendos or lewd comments or gestures.
A woman cannot discriminated because of her pregnancy, childbirth or a medical
condition related to pregnancy or childbirth, she cannot be discriminated when it
comes to her employment, recruitment, dismissal, promotions, layoffs, training and
development and financial and non financial benefits that an organisation offers. In
order to prevent women's being discriminated the UK parliament has implemented
Work and family Act 2006 which sets out the latest array of family friendly policies
from the government where it removal or qualifying period for additional maternity
leave. If the women is unable to perform her job temporarily due to a medical
condition related to pregnancy or child birth , the organisation must treat her the
same way how they will treat a temporarily disabled person. Since her work could be
modified and provide unpaid leave etc
But now the way of treating a disable persons have changed , persons with
disabilities as "subjects" with rights, who are capable of claiming those rights and
making decisions for their lives based on their free and informed consent as well as

being active members of society. Due to a physical impairment an employee cannot

be asked to leave the job. Not only that discrimination should not take place in terms
of his salary or monetary benefits. Employer must take needed adjustments to help
the disabled employees to have a good working conditions, and friendly
environment. Under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995& 2005, the employer
cannot denied to interview and recruit , provide training and promote a disable
person, because of their disability. He must make needed adjustments to help the
disabled person to provide a comfortable workplace and equal opportunities to take
part in all the managerial activities , for example providing wheelchair access to
work.
To maintain a cordial relationship among the employer and the employee equal
opportunity practices should be followed in the work place. Offering flexible and
good working conditions, offering jobs to women partially, provide equal
opportunities to men and women, try to avoid unwanted or questions which relevant
sexual orientation must be avoidable.
Dismissing an employee because of her pregnancy, offering overtime works in an
unreasonable manner without pay systems, not giving the previous job who has come
back from the maternity leave , and in equalities in promotional and training
methods also must be prevented , and all the employees who work under the same
roof should be treated equally and must be provided equal opportunities in their
work place.
In addition to respond to this legislative provisions, providing flexi hours of work,
and career breaks and specially for pregnant mothers and who has come back from
maternity leaves a come back schemes to women could be introduced by the
organization which ensure the job security and less discriminations occur in the work
place.
Managing diversity is where having the right person for the job regardless of sex, race
and disability. It combats prejudice, stereotyping, harassment and other undignified
behaviour and creates an environment in which people from all backgrounds can
work together harmoniously. whereas equal opportunities talk about the preventing
employees from discrimination, equal pay, equal participation of women in the work
place. and good working conditions.
The main aim of equal opportunities in work place is to increase the quality of
women participation in the job roles and ensuring there are treated very well on the

grounds of the their talent, skills , knowledge, experience and potential , not in the
grounds of their sex, age, gender, religion, disability and so on.

,
Conclusion
In the first part of the assignment it has been discussed how the organization has
planed to carry out the Induction training program for newly recruited HR Assistants
focusing on the practical application of Guest's model and Story's HRM and IR
practices which fit with the organizational context. From that we have identified
Question 01
1.explain the audit firm's model of flexibility
The flexible firm is able to change its own structure in response to changing needs. In
order to achieve this , firms have tended to identify a "core" which forms the basis for
all its operations, and a "periphery" which consists of all the other tasks needed to
run the firm but that are not central to the business. In his book of The Age of
Unreason, Professor Charless Handy suggested that instead of firms comprising two
elements, the core and periphery, ther were actually three parts to modern firms; he
called this idea the "Shamrock Organisation"

Put the photograph

When we apply this model to the audit firm
The first leaf of the shamrock represents the professional core made up of the audit
family, performance audit family, functional family and full time employees. These
employees do tasks central to the business and job security as well as committed to
the firm's goals.
The second leaf called the contractual fringe is for the work that has been contracted
out to someone else because it is not central to the firm in this case study we can
found that the use of temporary and contractors from agencies .
The third and final leaf is the flexible workforce, made up of temporary and part time
workers. A particular type of flexible worker that we could find in this case study is
the home worker, this is where the employee may work sometimes from home, but is

normally present at an audit commission office or working on the site of a client for
the majority of their working time. And also the employee who works from home for
the majority of the time.

Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of

flexible working practices from both of the
employees and the employer perspective relate
with this firm.
Referring to the case study
Advantages to the employee
Improve work life balance which motivate the employee to contribute more to the
firm
Reduces cost of travelling which saves lot of time taken to travel and spend on roads
Day care expenses could be reduced since the mother s could look after their children
Disadvantages
Employees may lose the office culture , too much flexibility may lead to laziness.
Employees become dependent upon the technologies. So if there is a power cut , then
this could affect the work
Peripheral workers and temporary contracts may experience a loss of job security
Advantages and disadvantages to the firm.
The adoption of a more flexible workforce can, in principle , be an attractive prospect
for any modern business, offering a number of benefits , including reduced cost,
specially frees up desk space,and an increased ability to respond to changing
customer needs. The separation of employees into a highly valued core and an easily
dispensable periphery may allow a business to pick and mix and obtain the exact
combination required within the market at that particular moment in time.
However , it can also lead to a number of problems in the long term, especially if it
creates insecurity among peripheral workers that leads to high levels of staff

turnover. The ability to cut labour cost quickly and easily in the face of a downturn in
the market has obvious attraction. However in the long term, the establishment of a
multi skilled and loyal workforcem able tom adopt and diversify into new markets,
may lead to even greater success