Human Resources Articles

Times are a-changing in the HR landscape. Gone are the days when employees would spend all their lives bound loyally to one organisation. This decade is all about the here and now - and job hopping is becoming more and more common. Employees do not hesitate to move from one company to another, looking out for the best benefits, the biggest value add they can get - the most personal learning that their role will incorporate.

In the times of globalization, organizations require that people who are from diverse backgrounds should interact in an efficient manner. People have stopped living in an insular environment as they are working in a global economy which constantly competes within a global fabric. In order to remain competitive, both non-profit and profit organizations should be more diversified. But the management has an important issue at hand, that is capitalizing and maximizing the workplace diversity. Workplace diversity, in essence, is the focus on the similarities and differences which people from diverse backgrounds bring to a firm. As the societies are becoming increasingly multicultural, the success of organizations depends on how well it recognizes the demand for an immediate step for managing the workplace diversity, along with the willingness to allocate resources to it in the workplace.

David Ulrich made waves when he published the above paper delineating the importance of the Human Resources regarding mandates for HR managers in a company. In a time where HR could not have been thought to be more redundant, David Ulrich successfully identified four spheres or mandates where its need was in fact imminent. Very simply put, David Ulrich believed that the basic purpose of HR was to achieve organizational efficiency. This was a different concept not thought of even by veteran management pundits who believed that the HR existed only for washing senior management’s laundry. The HR was supposed to be limited to the mundane job of filing papers and being a regulatory watchdog.

Can we imagine an organization without a human resource department? Can we imagine once most sought after course MBA - HR, not finding any/few contenders to apply for? Can we imagine no/very little human interaction before you actually join a new job?

Technology has constantly been changing and its impact is visible not only in business but also how human resources as a function operates. People management, skill development, trainings etc are all guided by technology. This helps employees iron out any flaws in their personality and helps build a superior workforce for maximizing business and productivity.

About an year back according to a statement given by SHRM India CEO Anchal Khanna “ The present and the future of any company depends on the employees of the company if a wrong candidate is hired the company have to bear high cost which can be 5 times the annual salary of the wrong(bad) hire. In a research of Harvard Business school review it was found that companies’ takes time to decide the candidates for hiring because the cost of wrong hires which a company will pay is 80% of the employees’ turnover, which can cost thousand or million dollar to a company.

It is the dream of not only the students, but also the parents to see their kids studying at prestigious IIMs. Some people are able to make it, some give it another chance and the rest change their dreams thinking for some other plans. Earning a seat at an IIM is itself a great achievement. And great achievements are not achieved easily. It requires a lot of hard work and persistence.