• Human resources strategy for competitive advantage: human resources, job

design, and work management

Goal: To manage labour and develop jobs in such a way that workers are used
effectively and efficiently. We want to make sure that, as we focus on human
resource strategy,
People Within the restrictions of other operations management decisions, they
are efficiently exploited.
Maintain a fair level of job quality in an environment of mutual commitment
and trust.
Competitive advantage in HR refers to the quality of the employees who can not
be copied, unlike company's systems and processes. It comes down to the fact
that companies with better employees have the competitive advantage.
HR is important as it helps in creating strong competitive advantage through
their personnel management policies – productivity and employee happiness is
an advantage that often results in superior customer service, which helps drive
sales.
Constraints on human resource strategy:
The combination of products can determine the seasonality and stability of
employment.
Technology, equipment and processes can have an impact on safety and
content of work.
The location decision can have an impact on the environment in which
employees work.
Design decisions, such as assembly line versus work cell, affect job content.
HR should have the support of top level management. The change in attitude at
the top can bring good results while implementing HRM. Owing to passive
attitude at the top, this work is handled by personnel management people.
Unless there is a change in approach and attitude of top management nothing
remarkable will happen.
the three distinct decision areas of human resource strategy are labour planning,
job design and labour standards.
Labour Planning: It is determining staffing policies that deal with employment
stability, work schedules and work rules. Employment Stability policies: Deals
with a number of employees maintained by an organization at any given time.
Employees may not be utilized fully when the demand is low, and the firm may
not have the human resources it need when the demand is high. Flextime allows
employees, within limits, to determine their own schedules.
This policy allows more autonomy and independence on the part of the
employees. This plan often moves employees to part-time status. They restrict
employee flexibility on the job, which in turn reduces the flexibility of
operations function. The more flexibility a firm has when staffing and
establishing work schedules, the more efficient and responsive it can be.
• Job Design: They specify the tasks that constitute a job for an individual or a
group. Job Specialization also known as labour specialization, which would
assist in reducing labour costs of multi skilled artisans.
Less loss of time because the employee would not be changing jobs or tools.
Job expansion means varied job design which improves the quality of work life.
The first approach is job enlargement, which occurs when we add tasks
requiring similar skill to an existing job. Job rotation occurs when the employee
is allowed to move from one specialized job to another. Job enrichment adds
planning and control to the job.
• Ergonomics and work environment ,Ergonomics: The operation manager is
interested in building a good interference between humans, the environment,
and machines. Illumination, noise and vibration, temperature, humidity and air
quality are work environment factors under the control of the organization and
operation manager.