1. Describe four of the activities that make up human resource management.

These could include but are not limited to

 Learning and development
 Career planning/Talent management
 Employee relations
 Reward and recognition

Each activity should be defined, with key priorities for the human resource professional
considered, and associated activities identified.

Learning and development

In order to improve the performance of individuals and groups, training and development
activities are undertaken. The rapid change in technology has increased the importance of
training and development. In some of the organizations this activity is continuously undertaken.

Learning involves the change of skills, knowledge, attitudes, or behavior of employees. Although
learning is similar to development in the methods used to affect training, they differ in time
frames. Training is more present-day oriented, its focus is on individual' current jobs, enhancing
hose specific skills and abilities to immediately perform their jobs. Training is job specific and is
designed to make employees more effective in their current job. Employee development, on the
other hand, generally focuses organization.

This activity cannot be overlooked because all the employees’ juniors and seniors and new
comers need to be trained and developed. New employees need training in the initial stages of
their employment known as orientation training. 

Employee relations
The definition of employee relations refers to an organization’s efforts to create and maintain a
positive relationship with its employees. By maintaining positive, constructive employee
relations, organizations hope to keep employees loyal and more engaged in their work. 

Employee relationship management is considered to be a specific field of Human Resource

Management. ERM is the process of adopting controlling methods and practices to regulate
employee relations.
2.Explain operational management activities which are interdependent with
the HRM function.
Activities identified and explained as part of this role may include:
 recruitment and selection
 performance management
 learning and development
 diversity and inclusion
 employee engagement

 talent management

Performance Management

Traditionally, performance management has been a forward-looking solution based entirely on

hindsight. But organizational culture is evolving to one of continuous feedback powered by
technology, where managers can foresee problems based on current employee performance and
initiate any form of course correction to bring the employee back on track.

In addition, Performance Management helps track employees' performance and tells whether or
not they need extra support, can handle a higher-level training, or deserve a raise. It is important
to have a structured Performance Management and tracking process to maintain a high standard
for organization.

Talent Management

 Talent management typically embraces various responsibilities of HR. Managers need to have a
talent management strategy in place devised just for organizations to achieve optimal outcomes.
Since talent management capitalizes on employees, it helps maximize the importance of
employees.

 By hiring and developing skilled employees, when the company becomes more robust
and better adapted to handle changes and risks.
 Skilled employees can find means to check innovative technological capabilities and
solve problems or develop original ideas.
 When employees feel appreciated at a company, they know they will have many
possibilities to develop. They are less accountable to look for work elsewhere.
  Talent management brands the organization as an employer. It helps to pull the best
applicants for future hires.
 Producing inspiring talent motivates other employees and helps them improve.

3. Discuss current thinking on information technology’s impact on the

effectiveness of the human resource function.

Human resource information systems would be included in this discussion.

Areas covered could include:
 unlocking potential/learning and development
 social media
 productivity
 flexible and remote working
 data protection and cyber security
 artificial intelligence
 techno stress

Social Media

Social media as a digital platform has had a tremendous impact on how we communicate and
maintain dialogue with friends, family and colleagues. The advent of social media sites like
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others have presented to us a democratic platform where
everyone has an opinion and an equal chance of being heard. Social media, in the way it is
structured, allows people to share their life events, their opinions on matters of political or social
significance and their feelings. 

Social media provides HR an opportunity to create a relationship with every employee in the
organization, irrespective of their location. As employees become aware that there is a window
where they can go for a resolution to any issue, the visibility and credibility of HR as a function
increase. In addition to that, social media can also be used for taking a 360-degree feedback from
employees. It can drive collaboration between different stakeholders of the company and the
employees. It can also aid learning and development through real-time, on-the-go access to
training.
Techno Stress

As predicted, department work stress was less likely to increase when there was HR technology
(HRT) governance involvement and top management support for this class of technologies.
Heightened techno-insecurity had the opposite effect, another anticipated outcome. HR’s IT-
knowledge actually increased technostress, a counterintuitive result. In turn, HRTs were less
likely to improve job satisfaction when technostress and techno-insecurity were high. Top
management HRT support and an HR innovation climate better enabled portfolio to enhance
satisfaction. Moderating influences were detected as well. As hypothesized, techno-insecurity
had a stronger negative effect on job-satisfaction impact for younger portfolios, while innovation
climate had a weaker relationship with techno-insecurity where portfolios were limited in scope.

4. Analyses the contribution of human resource management activities to

organizational success by considering at least two areas of organizational
success.
 high levels of employee morale
 customer satisfaction
 unified workforce
 high calibre/ effective workforce
 successful attainment of organizational objectives

Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction should be the main focus of an organization because customers drive
business. Collecting customer satisfaction data can help company determine what is working
well with products, services and internal processes, and what company need to improve or
change completely.

Also, learners could recognize the relations between customer satisfaction and HRM's role in
developing a well-trained and motivated workforce; the importance of employees recognizing
the impact their performance has on organizational objectives; rewarding positive employee
behavior, etc.
Unified workforce

A unified workforce management system ties together all of the core elements of a talent
management system, including payroll, scheduling, leave management, time and attendance, and
other essential HR services.

 When all of these pieces are pulled together in one centralized platform, company can improve
efficiency, do more with workforce data, and provide a positive employee experience.

5. Analyses the contribution of human resource management activities on

team performance.
 effective recruitment and selection
 focused learning and development
 diversity
 reward and recognition

Rewards and recognition

Anyone working in HR will tell that promoting teamwork is a priority for every organization. In
today’s working environment and with most jobs now involving interaction with people on
different teams or in different locations, the need for teamwork is even more critical for the
success of any business.

Teamwork brings with it many advantages that benefit the business. Employees value
appreciation at work. So, pay them for the job they do, also rewards and recognition should be
given to the employee accordingly.

Diversity

Diversity affects how organizations understand that employing people who hold multiple
perspectives increases the need to mitigate conflict between workers from different identity
groups, enhances creativity and problem solving in teams, and serves as a resource to create a
competitive advantage for the organization.
6. Analyses how human resource management activities impact on the
behavior of employees, by considering at least two areas of behavior.
This question lends itself well to the use of theory, for example — Maslow, Vroom, Porter or
Guest however it is not essential. Activities that underpin the following could be included:
 motivation
 commitment
 psychological contracts
 engagement

Motivation

Employee motivation is the level of energy, commitment, and creativity that a company's
workers bring to their jobs. Whether the economy is growing or shrinking, finding ways to
motivate employees is always a management concern. Competing theories stress either
incentives or employee involvement.

Employee engagement

HR departments are particularly vital for employee engagement approaches to be successful. The
impact of employee engagement on employee retention, as well as wellbeing and productivity, is
something which HR departments must keep at the forefront of their initiatives. 

Also, employee engagement in HR helps to ensure that all employees feel engaged and
empowered to put their best foot forward. Employees who feel engaged are proven to not only be
more productive and content in their job role, but they are also more loyal to the company and
more driven to contribute to overall business success.

7. Describe four barriers to implementing and maintaining an effective human

resource management function.
These four barriers are implementing and maintaining an effective human resources management
function. These could include, but are not limited to under-resourced HRM team; lack of
support; wrong perception about human resource practitioner; incompatibility of information and
approach confliction; barriers between HR and organizational success can be hard to ‘prove’.
8. Explain how barriers to implementing and maintaining an effective human
resource management function can be minimized and overcome. You should
identify two areas that can help in limiting and breaking down barriers.
Lack of support

People think that the human resource planning is unnecessary and time consuming. Workforce
can be arranged anytime at the time of requirement, with attractive benefits and incentives so
why human resource planning. They think it is an easy task to manipulate the workforce in the
organization.

Approach Confliction

While formulating human resource planning the organization must consider that how many
people and how efficient people are needed for the smooth functionality of the organization.
Many human resource practitioners give emphasis on number of employee and many other give
emphases on the quality of the employee.

But both the approaches are equally important for the organization.

Communication barriers

Communication barriers can include anything that prevents or disables communicators to deliver
the right message to the right person at the right time, or a receiver to get the right message at the
right time.