REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

MEM 210 – Human Resource Management in Education

Stephanie B. Abis

• PERIOD IN THE PHILLIPINE HISTORY AND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Reporter

• FACTORS AFFECTING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

This topic includes the following subtopics: acquisition of human resource (job
analysis), importance of job analysis, and definition of different terms. The reporter
clearly discussed external factors affecting human resource management as follows:
economic, socio-cultural, technological, political-legal and professional association;
internal factors such as: organization’s strategy, organizational culture, trade unions
and organization’s financial position.

It was discussed that economic factors are those which give shape and form to
the development of economic activities and include factors like nature of economic
system, general economic conditions, various economic policies, and various factors
of production including human resources. The socio-cultural factors as well was
discussed and it entails comprehensiveness that affect various aspects of
organizational operations, including human resource management. From human
resource management point of view, attitudes, beliefs, desires, expectations, and
customs of the society at a given point of time are important. Third, technological
factors were discussed solely and it consis9t of sum total knowledge providing ways
to do things. These include inventions and techniques which affect the ways of doing
things, that is, designing, producing and distributing products and services. In addition,
technology affects an organization in two ways: defining nature of jobs and affecting
human resource management practices. Fourth, the political-legal factors that include
political system, role of government in business various government policies related to
business operations, laws formulated by governments, both central and state level.
Lastly, professional association that entails an organizations and individuals whose
membership is based on common professional, scientific, or technical aims. It was
discussed as well that the representative body of professionals is needed to regulate
and develop the professional activities.

In human resource management, the acquisition duties consist of human

resource planning for employees, which includes activities related to analyzing
employment needs, determining the necessary skills for positions, identifying job and
industry trends, and forecasting future employment levels and skill requirements.
These tasks may be accomplished using such tools and techniques as questionnaires,
interviews, statistical analysis, building skill inventories, and designing career path
charts.

Job analysis is important for job recruitment and selection for it gives a lot of
benefits such as recognize necessary skills and tasks, create evaluation methods,
determine salaries and promotion criteria, guide employee and training, and update
hiring process. A job analysis can benefit both the employer and employee by creating
a clearer picture of what a job involves. After a job analysis, an employer may use this
 guidance to update or create new ways to evaluate job performance. Employers rank
competencies used in a job. It can determine that a certain role has a higher skill set
than a previously noted and employers could decide to adjust the pay scale for that
position. A job analysis can help employers understand how to best train new and
existing employees. If the job analysis shows an important skill set that was previously
overlooked as a big part of the job, they may decide additional training is needed. A
job analysis may show employers they need to update job descriptions used for hiring
and evaluations. New job descriptions can be used to improve language from the hiring
process.

• HUMAN RESOURCE DEPARTMENT IN THE ORGANIZATION

It was discussed about how HR interact with marketing, sales and customer support
departments; accounting and finance departments; research and development
department; administrative or management department; and legal department. In the
interaction of HR and marketing, sales and customer support departments, the HR must
hire the appropriate people with skills that the marketing, sales, and customer support
departments will be able to utilize to answer the clients’ questions and requests while
improving the company’s image.

With HR ensuring that each employee gets the compensation and benefits they
deserve, any costs-such as any training expenses or recruitment or hiring fees-must be
coordinated with the accounting and finance department for proper accounting and
reporting. When new positions are created for a new department or new responsibilities
that stem from the R & D team, the HR personnel must know the specific requirements
and objectives, so they can search and hire fitting candidates. Perhaps the closest
department to HR, the administrative department, takes care of the decision making,
planning, and financial review of the business. The HR must work closely with the
company’s administration to disseminate correct information and implement policies to
create the best work environment for the employees. The legal department oversees any
legal; issues that affect the company and its departments. It closely works with the HR’s
regarding employee assistance and training manuals. Thus, the alliance of these two
departments ensures that everyone in the company is aware and updated of the laws
inside and outside the workplace.

To sum up all, the HR department is crucial for any organization, from small
business to large-scale corporations. In one way or another, HR is involved in every
department in the company. This is because all employees are always connected to HR
from the day they were hired. As long as the department uses manpower, the HR needs
to be linked to that department to take care of the workers. As defined by HR, people
became the most significant asset in an organization that’s the reason why in HR can only
be executed by a person or human.

• HOW TO CONDUCT A JOB ANALYSIS, WRITING A JOB DESCRIPTION, STEPS IN

CONDUCTING JOB ANALYSIS

The systematic ways of conducting a job analysis include gathering information about
a position, evaluate the importance of each task and competency, research industry
standards, revise job descriptions and use data to make changes. It was discussed that
observing and interviewing employees currently in the job position should be maintained.
Ask employees to describe the tasks they perform and encourage them to be as specific
 as possible when defining their responsibilities. Second, once a certain HR gain and
understand which competencies are needed to perform each job, one can rank the
difficulty of each task and skill set. Third is finding data about the positions on your job
analysis in order to make sure that you are in lined with the current workforce. Once the
most important competencies needed to perform the job had been observed and figured
out, setting up a list of every task and skill set would then follow. Creating a set of standards
for each position that matches your employee input and your own observations of the job
is important. Lastly, look at the organization as a whole. It is very important to decide if the
right tasks are assigned to the right jobs based on your analysis. If you find work from one
department would better fit in a different team, try to shift those tasks to another job.

It was discussed as well the methods that can be used in job analysis namely:
interviews, observations, surveys, and work logs. There could be a lot of job analysis
benefits, one of those are: it recognizes necessary skills and tasks, creates evaluation
methods, determines salaries and promotion criteria, guide employee and training, and
update hiring processes.

The latter discussion was also about job description. It was discussed that job
description should include important company details-company mission, culture, and any
benefits it provides to employees. It may also specify to whom the position reports and
salary range. An effective job description will provide enough detail for candidates to
determine if they’re qualified for the position. Job description is important for it attracts
prospective candidates, set expectations, prepare for interviews, make a stellar first
impression, simplify the search, and establish a baseline. The discussion also laid down
teachers’ skills and qualifications such as: ability to develop plans and successfully instruct
students in theories, methods and tasks; ability to effectively communicate with others and
clearly express complex ideas; proficient active listening skills to understand and adapt to
students’ various learning needs; knowledge of appropriate learning psychology, stylex
and strategies; strong public speaking and oral presentation skills; and excellent
organization and time management skills.

• STEPS IN HR AND RECRUITMENT PROCEDURE AND PLACEMENT OF NEW

EMPLOYEES

It was discussed that recruitment is a core function of the Human Resource

Department. It is a process that involves everything from identifying, attracting, screening,
shortlisting, interviewing, selecting, hiring and onboarding employees. It was enumerated
that there are steps in recruitment process in HRM such as: identifying hiring needs,
preparing job description, talent search, screening and shortlisting, interviewing,
evaluation and offer of employment, introduction and induction of the new employee.

What goes into a perfect recruitment process? It was clearly elaborated that an
efficient recruitment process is an organization-specific sourcing model that aims to find
the right fit for the right job at the right time. It is a step by step approach to bringing I
talented people who can help the company grow. An all-inclusive recruitment process has
5 key phases but it may vary from company to company depending on the business
vertical, organizational structure, size of the company, nature of operations, existing
recruitment workflow and selection process.

The importance of a strong recruitment process entails that any foolproof

recruitment process is typically targeted towards attracting qualified candidates and
encouraging maximum possible job seekers to apply. This makes it possible to build a big
 pool of talented players in a tight job market minimizes the time involved in finding
candidates and filling roles for the present and future requirements of the company. A well
planned and thoughtfully crafted recruitment process helps the hiring team filter the right
candidates faster while staying focused on engaging the eligible candidates for maximum
conversions.

The employee placement as well was discussed clearly and it laid ideas that the
placement is a process that starts after an applicant is selected, the offer is made to him
and it is accepted. Just hiring an employee to an organization is not enough. It is very
important to place the employee in a suitable job. Putting the right man at the tight job
would be equally important. Correct placement is in no way less important that accurate
selection. Even a competent employee may be inefficient and dissatisfied if put on a wrong
job.

• SCOPE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, GENERAL MANAGEMENT AND

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, MANAGEMENT OPERATIVE, FUNCTIONS

This topic laid vivid objective in the beginning of the discussion. As such these
objectives were met after a thorough elaboration on the scope of human resource
management. It was discussed that human resources are undoubtly the key resources in
an organization, the easiest and the most difficult to manage. It includes all activities
starting from manpower planning until employees leaves the organization. The objectives
of the HRM span right from the manpower needs assessment to management and
retention of the same.

Human resource management (HRM), the management of work and people towards
desired ends, is a fundamental activity in any organization in which human beings are
employed. It is not something whose existence needs to be elaborately justified: HRM is
an inevitable consequence of starting and growing an organization. While there is a myriad
of variations in the ideologies, styles, and managerial resources engaged, HRM happens
in some form or other. It is one thing to question the relative performance of particular
models of HRM in particular contexts or their contribution to enhanced organizational
performance relative to other organizational investments, such as new production
technologies, advertising campaigns, and property acquisitions. These are important lines
of analysis. It is quite another thing, however, to question the necessity of the HRM process
itself, as if organizations could somehow survive or grow without making a reasonable
attempt at organizing work and managing people (Boxall and Steeneveld 1999). To wish
HRM away is to wish away all but the very smallest of firms.

Judging by the literature, HRM refuses to be any one thing. Not only does the field
cover a vast array of styles but there are three major subdomains of knowledge, each
bursting its banks.

HRM covers the subfunctions of HR policy and practice (Mahoney and Deckop 1986).
These can be further grouped into two main categories. The largest group of subfunctions
is concerned with managing individuals and small groups, including such areas as
recruitment, selection, induction, training and development, performance management,
and remuneration. These topics each cover a vast array of practices, underpinned by an
extensive body of research, much of it informed by personnel or industrial-organizational
psychology and, to some extent, by personnel and institutional economics. A smaller group
of subfunctions concerned with work organization and employee voice systems (including
management–union relations) is less driven by psychological concepts and is more
associated with industrial sociology and industrial relations.

The operative functions are those tasks or duties or functions which a company entrusts
to the human resource or personnel department. These include employment, development,
compensation, integration, and maintenance of personnel of the organization.

1. Employment

Human resource is the most important resource for any enterprise since it is the
resource that converts other resources into the final product. But that does not mean that
the organization starts keeping thousands of workers without proper requirement
estimation. So, under this first operative function of the HR manager, he estimates the
manpower requirement in the organization. He does so by using workforce and workload
analysis. Hence, in this function, he gets the right number of people and assigns them
the right job for the fulfillment of the objectives of the organization. It involves recruitment,
selection, placement, etc. of the human resource.

2. Development

Undoubtedly, the acquisition of human resource in any organization is very

important. But we should not forget the fact that the world is changing at a rapid pace
demanding the companies to change along with it. In order to cope up with the changing
world, the company needs upgraded employees. Each time a company cannot just
retrench the old staff and hire a new one because of a lot of disadvantages in doing so.
So, the company should upgrade or develop their existing employees through the means
of Training and Development. By this, they will be able to develop their workers and cope
with the rapidly changing environment.

3. Compensation

Everyone works for some benefit or the other. Mostly, people work in exchange
for some monetary benefits. Compensation is nothing but the payment for the work done
by the workers in the company. HR manager should consider the fact of equitable
compensation for the same level and quality of work for different workers. This function
focuses on the determination of adequate and equitable remuneration of the employees.

4. Working Conditions and Welfare

Training and Development just upgrade the workers to work effectively and
efficiently but that does not ensure good productivity or fulfillment of the objectives. It is
because there are factors too which are equally important. These include the working
environment, conditions, etc. This function focuses on the good maintenance of the
workplace and providing an atmosphere for the workers for effective and efficient working.

5. Motivation

People generally work to a certain level with full efficiency. After some time, they
need to be provided with some new incentives to work. Here comes the concept of
motivation. This function states that the HR manager should motivate the workers with
both financial and non-financial incentives.
 6. Personnel Record Keeping

This function states that an HR manager keeps records of the personnel working
in different departments under different heads. Moreover, he keeps the record of their
work and the level of improvement. This record keeping helps them to build motivational
techniques, staffing function, etc.

7. Industrial Relations

The relation of all the workers in the industry is an important aspect for any
organization. This function is nowadays fulfilled by the HR managers in the organization.
He helps in collective bargaining, joint consultation, and settlement of disputes. It is
because he has a working knowledge of various labor enactments.

• TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

Employee training and development programs are essential to the success of

businesses worldwide. Not only do these programs offer opportunities for staff to improve
their skills, but also for employers to enhance employee productivity and improve company
culture. Employee development is the continuous effort to strengthen work performance
through approaches like coaching, training sessions, and leadership mentoring. Training
is a specific event that teaches new information or skills, often provided to new or newly
promoted employees. Both are key functions of corporate human resources staff, who
typically are responsible for planning and implementing these efforts.

Employee productivity is another area where the importance of training and

development can be seen. Employees who take part in effective training and development
programs work more efficiently. To evaluate the effectiveness of their employee
development and training programs, organizations can perform these measures,
according to HR Technologist:

o Measuring performance results — Evaluating work outcomes to determine

levels of improvement.
o Giving pre- and post-training assessments — Asking employees to share what
they expect from training and development programs and whether the company’s
efforts met those expectations.
o Mining data — Studying data such as time spent on a course or dropout rates to
glean insights about how employees are engaging with the content
o Conducting polls and tests — Polls and competitions within the training can
measure employees’ knowledge and engagement

Employee productivity can be an indicator of a training’s effectiveness. Below are some

examples of ways that training and development programs boost employee productivity.
Training and development programs help employees manage tasks individually or in
teams, relying on a greater understanding of processes and clearly defined goals.
Because employees are well-versed in the skills required for their job, they will require less
time to find ways to perform tasks. Providing training and development to employees
allows employers to pinpoint the knowledge and skills they want their employees to have.
Training and development programs can educate employees about new skills or provide
updates on existing skills to enhance productivity. Today’s ever-changing technologies call
for upskilling on a regular basis, and training and development programs provide that
opportunity. These efforts encourage innovation and a willingness to take risks to improve
 processes — with less need for supervision. Not only will employees who have participated
in training and development programs be more confident in their knowledge and abilities,
but so will their managers. This confidence fosters a sense of enthusiasm and
accountability for work results. Training and development programs can help organizations
clarify for staff the expectations they have of them. This effort promotes a performance-
based culture in which employees set attainable goals based on well-defined
organizational principles. When employees know they have a supportive employer, they
are more engaged and enthusiastic about performing at a high level. Providing employees
with training and development opportunities shows an employer is willing to support its
employees throughout their careers.

• EMPLOYEES PERFORMANCE RATING A CHANGE IN EMPLOYEE STATUS

Conducting performance reviews is a cornerstone for employee engagement. When

employees take part in regular conversations with managers about their performance, they
become more invested in their job, and they start to see it as an opportunity for personal
development. Helping workers see that getting better at their job is a way of improving on
a personal level is one of the best ways to get the most out of them. Furthermore,
managers are often super busy, and performance reviews are one of the key tasks that
can fall by the wayside. Using a performance rating scale can take time and effort out of
the performance rating process. Making appraisals as simple and minimal as possible
helps to ensure they get done at least every quarter.

In an organization or company, Human resource personnel should look up on rating

performances of employees as basis for growth and promotional designation. For
instance, in DepEd, every school implements annual RPMS portfolio in assessing
performance of the teacher through accumulation of achievements, outputs, projects and
interventions done for the whole year. The RPMS portfolio includes variety of categories
that measures attendance and active participation of teachers to the community especially
in times of pandemic, their sole monitoring through home visitation.

The best rating scale for your organization is the one that delivers enough accuracy
without overloading the managers who are conducting the appraisals. For example, when
it comes to contact center agents, spending time and resources creating a custom rating
scale might be counterproductive in such a high turnover role. An efficient, numerical
system can usually offer enough value to you and the employee, helping them improve
and giving you a benchmark for where they’re at. On the other side of the coin, if you’ve
invested a lot in hiring and retaining an executive, a custom rating scale would be more
detailed and useful.